AfterWorld Survival Forum

Reading this post made me think that it would be good to have a completely different shape for players on the radar. In AWA we saw how corporations could set other groups as friendly, neutral, or hostile and we can still see how other players are shown in different colors - green for a player not in the same society or corporation, purple for a player in the same society, and light blue for a player in the same corp. The problem with showing the corporation relationship is that everything that shows up on the radar is the same shape and size - a circle a few pixels wide.


So here are some suggestion to improve the radar's functionality.
1. Make players show up as something other than circles on the radar, maybe squares or diamonds. This would allow for a lot of differentiation by using distinct colors for friendly, neutral, and hostile members of other corporations along with members of your own society, corporation, team, and other groups in the future.
2. Use different colors for different mob hostility or difficulty levels. It would be a lot more work to make them show up with different colors by difficulty because that would require taking skill levels into account, but I've seen it done in other games. Less useful but still very helpful would be colors based on mob hostility/aggression distance.
3. Use a different shape for extractors and other tools that can be placed on the ground.
4. Allow customization of the colors for all radar indicators. I might prefer green, yellow, and red for corp. relationship types while someone else might prefer white, purple, and gray.




With everything going on, this is intended to be a long-term "I know I'm going to wait a long time before seeing this happen even if it's approved today" kind of suggestions. But I tend to forget many of my ideas if I don't get them written down somewhere right away. Besides, waiting a while gives us time to discuss other variations of the same idea.

Bigger mobs appear on the radar from the larger distance.
Whenever a solitary red dot appears on your radar's edge you know this guy means business. If u don't, keep away.
When u move closer other red dots start filling up the radar, later although they actually closer. Small mobs.

This code seems to come from a very basic module/object. Radars in many different games using several different engines share the exact same functionality.



Might seem to be a good idea making radar more informative at the 1st sight. When u look closer, u might realize it's enough if u learn to use the existing features of the radar. And it's somehow, what's the word?... cooler? if u get my drift.

Last but not least. It's a tradeoff: the more interface, the less actual game world.


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Edit: Realized i can do better than just saying "if u get my drift"


Lets look at the big picture, the game theory.


In DarkFall Online (heavily PvP-oriented full lootable MMO) you can't see who's sneaking up on you unless you actually see him. It's even worse, you can't scroll out in the 3rd person view either (like in EU or AW). At best, all you could see is just 2 steps behind your back. If someone is standing right behind you 3 steps away, you can't see him unless u turn around and look. Alternatively you can sit down on the ground - then you can freely rotate the camera 360 degrees all around you. Would you like to sit down when u not sure if somebody stands right behind you, someone who can kill you and take everything you have?


This is an extreme example ofc. My point is - it's not actually about making it better/more informative. It's a balance point on the scale, carefully set to where this specific game requires it. Change this balance and you will change the whole gameplay logic.


In our 1st example, where the Big Mean One appeared on your radar 1st. As you move closer, all the other red dots are filling up the radar. Visually they all appear the same, just a red dot. The whole radar picture changes as you move, and the mobs keep moving around... this means you have to remember the whole situation. It becomes an art, something that takes a long time to learn and perfect. If you make a mistake there, it could easily mean death.


If we take this into PvP environment, we'll see the same principle - either there is no radar at all, or if there is, you can get some information from the radar, but it's never definite. This is realistic, copies the situation in the real world battles: always a big mess, situation changing too fast and u never have enough information. That's what it is all about, the one that manages to make the right decisions based on insufficient data, wins.

Or to take from another game, Call of Duty, the radar there is a refreshing type. A "scan" you could call it, where it shows you the dots, but then only refreshes a second later and in that second they could have moved. I think no radar in the high pvp zones would be fair to all.
It would make it more difficult to hunt someone, and less difficult to run through, if you're not planning to stay. The ones who would be in most danger would be the ones who are mining, or collecting resources or skilling. Ie. whoever is staying still. Those who are moving are more likely to be safe
 

My suggestions were in response to the fact that there doesn't seem to be any system involved in the way the AWS radar works except for the color of the dots. I'm not sure if Fifth is talking about the way he'd like the radar to work or if that's what he's seen it do, but I know that I haven't seen the radar work as he describes. In my experience, the only thing that determines whether a dot appears on the radar is whether it is within radar range. Whether a slugot weak or a werewolf man-hunter, they all appear at the edge of my radar when they are close enough to show up and more dots only appear when there are more mobs - including when the bug(s) that cause a bunch of mobs to suddenly appear out of nowhere.

However, I like the suggestions that make the radar less straightforward and something that takes more thought to properly interpret. In a game with so much vegetation, it makes sense to me that you wouldn't always know what mobs and players are around you at all times, while at the same time I don't like the idea of the new player walking out of NU and being slaughtered by a mob that he had no idea was there and no way of knowing ahead of time. It's a difficult balance (like every other aspect of a well-crafted game!) that I think could be handled well by removing player dots or making them only appear when very close in the highest PL areas.

I also like the idea of radar skills or, more specifically, Fauna Awareness and Player Awareness skills. They could be set up so that no skill in gained in PL0, a little is gained in PL1 and PL2, and more and more gained the higher the PL. This creates greater incentive to inhabit the high PLs, without requiring it in the least. Maybe Z.A.V.'s idea of radar waves could be integrated too with an Awareness Speed skill or similar - the higher the stage in this skill the faster it refreshes.

The thing is, I'm an unusually attentive person. However, if it's very subtle I'll admit that I could have easily missed it since I only use the radar as a reference most of the time. But I'll pay closer attention from now on since even a subtle difference in radar can make a significant difference while mining!

When you are taking about the radar difference - it is bigger because the actual creature is bigger (i.e Level 1 FR-12 is a lot smaller in actual size than a PB FR-12) so a PB FR-12 literal takes up more land volume resulting in the dot being slightly bigger? Or that a PB FR-12 appears on the radar before it is 200m away (the radar having a 200m radius)? Or both?

I suppose if it's fairly inconsistent it would make recognizing the pattern much harder. Then again, maybe the whole effect is unintended?

Good points. Like with most of the game, we have little direct knowledge of how things work and have to base what we "know" on our own experiences.

Regarding radar visibility vs. direct in-game visibility, I've definitely noticed that dots frequently show up on my radar that are not yet directly visible in the game world and I've got my graphics options at Ultimate most of the time. So there may be a simple (if not just low complexity) system that tells the game whether or not to show a mob to each player based on the location of both, but there's certainly different logic and/or thresholds for radar and game world visibility. If the radar really uses a polar coordinate system I'm sure that's the source and it could also cause the variability in when mobs pop up on the radar in general.