Hi all,

I've been thinking lately about a particular aspect of VO that troubles me. The fact that, with a simple targetting of ANY ship, you automagically know 1) Who it is, and 2) How much damage they've taken.

Perhaps this is part of the fun aspect... it seems to work alright, sure. However, what would some alternatives be? These are my suggestions.

Remove in-flight pilot information for hostile players. I don't know if this will be a kindly received, it just seems a bit more logical. You could still obtain this pilot's information, of course. Just hail the pilot, and when they respond, you'll know who they are. Of course once you hail them, they'll know who you are too. Even after this, I don't think you should be able to see a percentage damage of the pilot's ship. But if it was displayed too after a hail, I wouldn't be upset.

Now, provided you have a decent faction standing with a particular pilot's nation/faction, you'll be able to view his name and ship information. Unless of course he has restricted broadcast of this information. You'd be able to restrict broadcast to only your nation/faction, everyone, or no one at all. This would be done in the configuration options.

I'm not sure what should happen when you get fired at by a player. It still seems reasonable to have their playername show up with a red flash, but, that kind of diminishes my suggestion. If anyone has any ideas on this I'm open to those thoughts.

Thanks,
-kihjin

I've always thought that the info we get is due to, first the ability to see what it is we are fighting, pretty easy to tell which is a vult and which is a centaur, second, we have on-board computers which should have sensors, and we have a radar, and those all can help to draw in all that info that you want to take away. Personally I think the idea of taking that info away is rediculous. In EVERY video game you can tell the damage of your opponent, as for seeing nation info, you can only see that on the website or when your in sector so it's not that big a deal anyway.

[rejected]

The information I'm specifically targetting is the pilot name and ship damage percentage. The remainder of the information you hold so preciously would stay in tact.

Personally, I think having certain information available is "rediculous". Imagine if we knew what kind of weapons pilots had too? Now that would be rediculous too, but wait! When they use them, we can clearly see that they are using sunflares and a gattling turret! Why not display that information too? Since our sensors are advanced enough to determine a pilot's name (in an opposing faction, no less) and even calculate an exact (?) ship health percentage, it should also be able to show what kind of arsenal this ship has as well.

But since I don't think that idea would be too kindly received (and NO, I don't want any part in the above) for the same reason I don't think you should be able to see the pilot name and the ship's damage percentage.

And you're wrong. Not every game tells the damage of your opponent.. Example: Enemy Territory.

[rejects your rejection]

Enemy ship damage is something I would not like to see disappear. I would even like to see a more detailed damage display for enemy ships, just like the one we have of our own ship, you know, on the right hand side.

Leaving player names out is something else. I was thinking about this too and it would be more realistic and I think it would make a lot more fights be fought out to the death, cause now, a lot of people just run when they see a particular name. The problem this brings with it though is that at this moment your ship is your avatar, and your name is attached to it. It would make establishing contacts in game a lot more difficult, but still, I would like the added mystery.

Maybe someone else who's got more time to think this over may wish to post some comments on this matter. Me personally, don't like your damage display idea but want to like your name idea.

I don't like the idea since I'm stuck up in my way.

Thanks ArAsh, you've brought up a valid point.

However, establishing contacts would be as simple as hailing the other person. If they wanted to reveal who they are, they could respond. But in terms of new players wanting to gain friends in game, it seems more likely that they'll want to first become friends with pilots of their own nation (or at least have good faction with them...). Since those names would show up automatically (friendlies), the only difficulty comes with hailing a hostile player, which seems reasonable.

Of course this is "harder", but as you pointed out, it introduces a sort of mystery. Now when you get killed, or kill someone else, it should probably reveal that pilot's name.

As for the ship damage reporting... well, you're right. I don't know which would be better. I'm just suggesting an alternative. And certainly, displaying more information is yet another alternative. I would miss not knowing how much health a particular ship has, but I would also enjoy knowing that they too, don't know my health.

Then again, it could be proportional to the distance between the two ships. The closer they approached each other, the more precise the calculation became.

I'd prefer not to lose the info on who I'm targetting & how damaged they are, but I think having a small delay while my sensors "scan" my target before I get the info might be good. Say, 1 second before I can see who it is, and 3 seconds to see how damaged they are.

@Beolach:

Understandable... but, what I want to know (and what no one has mentioned yet) is why? Why is the pilot name important?

[edit]
I suppose important could be misinterpretted here. Rather, what about the pilot name improves upon the Fun factor of the game?
And what explanation exists for being able to retrieve this information (not particularly registered... this is war, remember) without the (potentially hostile) pilot's consent?
[/edit]

What about the pilot name improves upon the Fun factor of the game? Here is a hint:

"OMG I just can't believe it! I pwnd a guy in a vulture with my flares!"

"OMG I just can't believe it! I pwnd Shape with my flares!"

Try both, say it loud, with a joyful intonation, and see which one is more fun :D

what if you dont care about pwning someone at all, and just want to have fun? :p

anyway, you could allways show the name after the fight, I just feel like it's time to slowly start introducing more and more RPG features into the game, and i deffenately think this is a good suggestion to enhance rp'ing.

simple enough, you saying you want to take away content to the game, via info the user gets to know who he's playing against. BAD IDEA.

[still rejected]

I'll extrapolate on the reason why I don't like it.

First of all it is an rpg and the ship is there as an avatar. Taking that away would make it feel as if I was just fighting bots in stead of people. Since really the identificationprocess is one of the most fun ones. Actually I have more fun talking with people and occasionally fighting them then just blasting whoever is in front of me. And seeing as this is an MMORPG, interaction between people is of primordial importance.

Not to mention that it would completely nullify all the interaction with people. Example and me wanna fight, but we ar ein a sector with 5 people, and I ask him hey alamar you wanna fight. He says sure. Now who of the 5 is it going to be, is it th eperson moving to the left, the person moving right or one of the other 3 that are just hanging there having a chat.

In my opinion it will introduce more problems then it is worth. Besides even in a war intelligence is that good that you know who is who on the opposite side of the war.

cheers

PS: but like I said, I am stuck in my own ways, and like the present condition to much to not resist to change.

johnhawl218: The same argument could be used towards other "features" provided by the game that have since been removed. For instance, sector coordinates. These were removed (yes, that's content being removed) because their presence offered an easy way to create auto-pilot bots.

Renegade: It's fine being stuck up :-P So long as you have some reasons, which, after reading your comment, I feel are justified.

Sun Tzu: Good point. However, as ArAsH points out it could easily tell you the pilot's name after he/she dies or you are killed by him/her.

--

My argument isn't for "totally and completely annihiliating" the pilot name. So, it would not completely nullify all the interaction with people unless a pilot specifically configured his game that way. Initially, your pilot name would show up only to friendlies. If the said pilot wanted to go rogue, it would be possible to not "broadcast" the information. The pilot could also choose to broadcast to everyone, even hostiles. However this would not be a default action.

In order to receive clearance to see a hostile pilot's name, or, just simply the name of a pilot who is not publicly broadcasting his identity, you would need to Hail that pilot.

How simple would this be?
/hail Alamar Hey, whats up
(Alamar reponds)
/target Alamar

And wow, there's Alamar. He's in that ship with the Railguns, look out! Of course the process could probably be simplified so battling specific players (because this can be fun) isn't as difficult. But, keep in mind that in order to duel, you have to /duel, etc. So, I don't see how this would be any different.

Perhaps it would introduce problems. I'm sure anything the devs try to implement, or remove, has some consequences. I didn't say it would be easy, or hard. I don't think it's not worth it however.

In any war, you don't know who is who. The pilot name in the target information is not intelligence, it's merely information given to you on a silver platter without any work at all. You only have to be within 3000m and suddenly you know a pilot's name.

In a war, all you need to know is that your enemy wants you dead, and if they don't, then, it's not a very good war.

But of course as Patton said, “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

But of course, this is a game, and not a real war. The object is to make it fun for as most people as possible.

Oh, just wanted to mention that, generally, if you really want to fight a specific player without interruption, it's best to jump to an empty sector without other pilots. Although this certainly isn't necessary, if you want a fair fight that isn't subjected to intrusions then you need to make sure that there's no one else around. A month or so ago I was fighting Alamar, and, the fight was interrupted from a VPR (I think) member.

So, If you wanted to battle Alamar, it would probably be a good idea (even without this idea) to move the battle to a sector without other pilots, so you can be assured that it wont be interrupted. As this relates to the lack of pilot name, well, it would be easy to communicate with Alamar about the specific coordinates you would like to hold the fight in. Problem solved?

This sounds rather a lot like this topic: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/1006
Specifically, this post: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/1006#10385
and this post: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/1006#10489

I simply don't think we are thinking of this realistically. Now, I have would have no beef with removing damage indicators, except that Lag sometimes changes damage dealt, which would make the entire thing likely more frustrating.

[[ Quote by kihjin ]]
But of course as Patton said, “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

Patton really said "I want you to remember that no [garbled] ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb [garbled] die for his country."

Hehe...I love that quote. Rock on.

A waste of time, knowing a players name gives you no disadvantage or advantage at all. As for player damage, lets roll with this rpg thing and consider the fact that since the ship is in radar range, you can probe the hell out of it with your various sensors and get a good approximation of the ships total damage. Considering the bar already rounds, it makes perfect sense. And once again, not knowing their damage doesnt really give you an advantage or disadvantage either.

me points at harry seldon and stated I didn't post that quote :D

Hehe...I've got a mp3 recording of "him" saying that in the movie "Patton" too...I could post it, but I don't think the parents of the younger players would appreciate me corrupting their youth. :D

Hehe.

Actually, I disagree tram, I think that knowing a player's name tells you a lot.

It tells you their preferred wep layouts, their style of fighting, likelihood of running, and whether or not they will bring backup. In a multi fight, knowing which player is the stronger one lets you adjust to gang up on them.

I kind've like this idea, it makes grey space a much scarier place (you never know if the pilot in your sector IS a pirate).

And, for people with levels/ an extra electronics slot, you could get levels of identifying scanners (meanwhile the pirates can get masking devices, to keep their identity from being known, useful, especially when traveling through nation space :D)

There's nothing quite as terrifying as the unknown.

> I kind've like this idea

Argh! You did that just to annoy me, didn't you?! Admit it!

You kind have like this idea? Bah!

[edit] Further clarification: Kind of, kind of, not kind've... [/edit]