Totally new Team Overlay approach

[majkifajki]

Okay, I will be honest - I can't read team overlay for shit. So I have designed my own.

Before showing pretty pictures, funcionality first.

Definition:

Team Overaly - stuff I barely look on, and even if I do, I look very quickly, I have no team to read tons of info. I expect from it giving me most important info about my team - who's doing what, where he/she is and if they are dead or still alive.

I don't need to know what weapons or gear they have, because I don't need to know that - that's detail that changes all the time.

Currently location is text based - target_location/trigger_location based obviously. Since I don't know those HUGE maps by the numbers, specially their locations - I don't need that text based info.

I think, that there are 3 main positions that player can have:
Defense in base
Attacking enemy base
wondering between both bases

That's all I need to know about positioning of my team mates imho. I want to quickly learn how many guys we have on def, how many are pushing and who's supporting in the midfield.

If I see my guy storming the alien base and I'm nearby - I know I can rush, since there is my guy there already. If I don't see anyone on defense, I can type on team chat "def pl0x nubz" or do the job by myself.

I need to know who is dead, who is alive. That tells me what's the overall situation on the battlefield. If list of dead guys is long, I prolly will get interested about spawn points not built.

So... To deal with this, I have created my own team overlay design :D

Bear in mind that's just a sketch.

SWORDS mean "nearby enemy's base or inside it"
SHIELD means "nearby allied based or inside it"
ARROWS mean "not in any base, not nearby of any one"
SKULL and faded out means "dead"
GEAR means "builder"

And that's it!

Nothing to read except nickname, only 1 icon at the time. Delivering info that's for me in Unvanquished is essential and nothing more.

[Ishq]

Including "at enemy base" or near "enemy base" is troublesome as discovering the location of the enemy base is an integral part of the gameplay. However, I do like this design due to the conciseness. We could replace "near enemybase" with "under attack" which would basically be an indicator for "check this area out, enemy base may be nearby." I certainly thing it's worthwhile to offer this as an option.

[majkifajki]

as discovering the location of the enemy base is an integral part of the gameplay.

If I use TeamSpeak or any other VOIP - I know that. So let's cut to the chase and don't afraid of that. It's not big arrow pointing location. VOIP users will share info about enemy building instantly. What about those who don't use VOIP?

[Ishq]

So, what you're saying is that players should know where their teammates are at all times. The current team overlay already tells you the current location of your teammates. What it doesn't say is how to get there. Perhaps a distance relative to you and a direction would be better rather than the nearest locent.

[majkifajki]

Current team overlay tells me this.

I really don't want to know, where exactly my team mate is, since:

levels are huge
have many locations names which are very theoretical
player move all the time

I have no time to read 10xlocations names on team overlay.

My idea is totally different - limits location of team mate to only 3 locations - which are most important - my base, enemy base or between. That tells me a lot:
no shields - no def
no swords - no attack

That fits imo Unvanquiahed gametype very nicely.

[Viech]

I agree that the current team overlay is a mess and I'm in favor of making it more compact and pictorial. However, I believe the future of navigation as well map and teammate awareness is the 2D minimap, potentially backed by 3D pointers/locators that lead to relevant locations. The team overlay will not help you group up with or support your teammates if you didn't memorize both map layout and room names, which is unrealistic even for experienced players.

I'm fine with excluding enemy activity from the minimap as a default, but I don't think that finding the enemy base should be an individual task. If one player of a team found an enemy structure, it should be possible to give teammates a hint. Generic beacons are a nice thing to have but we could very well allow players to "spot" stuff for their teammates, which will be visible on everyone's radar for a brief period.

Look at it that way Ishq: If finding the enemy base is a team wide task and the minimap helps players to navigate the map (and with navigate I mean GPS style path drawing to a known/important location, as the navmeshes I want to use for minimap generation are capable to do), we can have increasingly complex maps that give teams tons of potential (hidden) bases. Thunder would be well playable, newbes could take part in action on any map, players would request support and actually get it. I think that's worth giving up that kind of stealth where only a few players found the enemy base while the others roam around, not being at a relevant place when the match comes to a turning point.

Also mind that stealth becomes less important to the rebuilding or expanding team when teammates know where to defend from the start – no more unanswered "OM rebuilding at <roomname>, defend!" messages but more skirmish instead.

Back to topic, if it's most interesting how many teammates attack, roam, defend or build, we could also display those four numbers next to the relevant icons in the HUD, without any player names. I'm not sure how useful that really is but it would certainly help to realize that there is no builder, the base is undefended or that your team is camping hard.

[ViruS]

I recently started playing World of Tanks and their map and detection system is quit unique.
In World of Tanks you can designate targets for the enemy and you can refer pressure points to attack for your team on the map.

Currently the best we can do is say in chat things like "Rush Window room, it's the best place to build in this map, if we get it we win!" or something like that.

As for the detection system, you would have to get close to an enemy and if you're close to your allies, those allies will also know that enemy's position. To actually detect the enemy initially, they have to be in your line of site, and not in "camouflaged" mode where they could be hiding in a bush, which gives "camo points" of some sort and reduces their chance of getting found out. If they are found out, they'll stay lit up on the map for 5 seconds even when completely out of sight which gives the chance for the enemy to rush them (in this case is hard, because you'll expose yourself too) but one of the main tactics introduced pretty much follows what scouts did. They run around the place, find the locations of everyone (at the cost of their own lives usually) and the team knows their rough position, even if it's for just 5 seconds, giving them a major advantage, and the scout also gains quite a share of points themselves.

Considering that they say this detection system takes up 30% of their processes, I don't think we should do the same thing but we could try a similar approach.

Going back on-topic, Instead of a team overlay like most of you said, they have the teams on the map (well at least the ones close to you but we don't care for this project) and the enemies will be also on the map, given that they were in combat with an ally, or were on screen (preferably 45 degree error from the crosshair of the person) for a few seconds.

Buildables could work the same, but we could say they stay on the map for a minute rather than just a few seconds since they're stationary stuff that doesn't move around.