FreeGameDev

If you have played ROTC, you might have noticed that TOL currently lacks the damper mechanic (players take less damage the more energy they have) and has a lot less falling damage compared to ROTC. I had planned to move these things into a separate "1337"-mode to reduce the learning curve of the game and to not scare away new players, but after the play session this evening I agree with mray that they should remain part of the base game.
Reasons:
- The lack of the damper mechanic can make the weapons feel underpowered.
- The lack of falling damage removes the ability to severly damage or destroy enemies that overuse the etherboard/jumpboosters by pushing them into walls/the ground.
- And the main reason: Even if the absence of these mechanics reduces the learning curve, it actually leads to players learning how to play the game wrong.

The problem with the damper mechanic remains that it is a virtually "invisible" mechanic. Lots of casual ROTC players didn't even know it was there and were confused why they died so quickly sometimes. So my main question is how to make sure players know about this unusual mechanic and how important it is. Could use some ideas.

Hmm, players are used to regenerating health and armor/shields these days. So if TOL was to kind of mimick this recharge (hud graphics and sound effect) to make people aware the more energy they have the better protected they are, it could make intuitive sense.
At low energy levels the "shield bar" should probably blink and show some sort of emergency flash... (I know it it isn't just a shield-bar in TOL, but if that is what it looks like people will understand easier).

I fully agree with fr1tz. Put this mechanic into the main game mode. Another game mode might be even more confusing. Don’t try to “fix” things which aren’t broken.

I think if you wanna make Terminal Overload just like ROTC:E minus all the proprietary components, that would be fine. The gameplay is a bit unusual, I agree, but I think this is what makes this game so interesting. So any changes to gameplay compared to ROTC:E should be made with care, I guess.

I found the old in-game help system quite useful already. Terminal Overload should definitely have an in-game help, too. Yes, I am someone who actually reads stuff!

Maybe if Terminal Overload becomes more popular a “newbie” server could be opened do the newbies don’t get frustrated because they get crushed by the pros.

The Problem of visibility can be solved by having a semi-transparent white layer around the player.
It could indicating through intensity the degree of the protective force.
From the first person perspective that could be indicated through the very effect on the gun.

Sidenote: some people would refer to protective mechanisms around players as "shield"

mray {l Wrote}:The Problem of visibility can be solved by having a semi-transparent white layer around the player.
It could indicating through intensity the degree of the protective force.
From the first person perspective that could be indicated through the very effect on the gun.

In my humble experience with ROTC that creates constant unnecessary visual noise, plus that kind of effect
is already potentially reserved for representing damage buffer.

The difficulty in telling a player's ImpShield (formerly known as anchoring) last play session confirmed my theory that
as far as constantly visible things, each of the following areas can/should only really communicate one thing to the player:
- Body (including tight fitting shield effect): Currently nothing / overlapping with ImpShield, potentially damage buffer
- "Bubble" around player: Currently unused
- HUD marker (the four arrows): Currently nothing, used in ROTC to indicate health
- ROTC-style anchoring beams: Need to come back to represent ImpShield b/c size/shape of ImpShield shape is not enough

So as far as I see it, we have these four stylistic elements available to communicate four properties. Even if more elements
were available, having to visually process four properties per CAT is already very demanding on the player, so I'd hesitate
overstepping that number

fr1tz {l Wrote}:

mray {l Wrote}:The Problem of visibility can be solved by having a semi-transparent white layer around the player.
It could indicating through intensity the degree of the protective force.
From the first person perspective that could be indicated through the very effect on the gun.

In my humble experience with ROTC that creates constant unnecessary visual noise, plus that kind of effect
is already potentially reserved for representing damage buffer.

Too much visual noise is a problem that needs to be resolved anyway.
Unnecessary things need to be removed but I doubt that the said protection-mechanism-indicator is one of them.

fr1tz {l Wrote}:The difficulty in telling a player's ImpShield (formerly known as anchoring) last play session confirmed my theory that
as far as constantly visible things, each of the following areas can/should only really communicate one thing to the player:
- Body (including tight fitting shield effect): Currently nothing / overlapping with ImpShield, potentially damage buffer
- "Bubble" around player: Currently unused
- HUD marker (the four arrows): Currently nothing, used in ROTC to indicate health
- ROTC-style anchoring beams: Need to come back to represent ImpShield b/c size/shape of ImpShield shape is not enough

So as far as I see it, we have these four stylistic elements available to communicate four properties. Even if more elements
were available, having to visually process four properties per CAT is already very demanding on the player, so I'd hesitate
overstepping that number

To me this sounds like an interesting usability problem and a great design challange I'm willing to face.
So to summarize: can you list the things that in your eyes need to be "readable" on enemy players?

IMHO...

Necessary:
- Health
- ImpShield

- Useful:
- Damage Buffer (if it's either under or over its nominal state)

At least that's the three properties that are readable on a CAT in ROTC and it works great there, IMO.

The enemy "phasing" look (the fast blinking in and out of existence) that I think indicates health seems very intuitive and maybe the speed of it or the transparency could be used to embed additional information?

Nah, the blinking indicates that a CAT is in "stealth" mode. It's almost the same as ROTC's "barrier" mechanic except that instead of nullifying certain damage it simply makes the CAT "transparent" to it. For example sniper shots will go straight through a blinking CAT. It's not just blinking, the CAT becomes actually visibly transparent, the blinking just had to be added because at a distance a transparent CAT can't really be told apart from a "solid" one.

I guess such info needs to be given in the loading screens I never the less think it would be a good way of displaying low health or something like that too, i.e. as if the CAT is "loosing connection".