Hello everyone. First of all, I want to thank Snapshot Games for all the work you’re putting into this game.
Secondly, I want to talk about how different values are displayed in game UI.
Specifically about all those pips. While I understand that they all look nice and appropriate I feel that with all that information on the screen we’re gonna need a better solution to Value Display or at least alternative one.
From what I’ve seen in Backer Build 1 playthrough by Unstable Voltage there are at least 7 different pip-type value displays(Will, Health, Armor, Burst Count, Bullet Damage, Enemy Health, Enemy Armor).
As the game progresses this values would become bigger therefore we will need more time to count all those pips. And this is not a fun part of the game. This is one thing that botheres people about modern Xcoms(especially when we have boss enemies such as Julian with 100+ hp). And this is why we have mods for modern Xcoms like Numeric Health Display.
I would like to see more clear numeric display for all values or an option to enable it.
P.S. Do you mind some additional tag-like features ([UI];[QoL]) I used in thread title?
I’m think pips work really well in cases like in HP and armor because you can bust them, so having a graphical representation of how many pips you have busted and how many are left to go is good. Some people make the argument of “100 HP enemies”, but that is the reason why pips are in groups of 10. To make it a lot easier to count. You have to literally count there are 10 groups of 10 to know it has 100 HP. In the case of bullet damage, though… they need to change that to a numerical value.
There is literally no reason for having “* * * * * x 3” instead of “5x3”, and having to count how many POWs of damage a weapon does is a waste of time.
I always have to spend a few seconds deciphering 5x3, is it 5 magazines of 3 bullets each or 5 bullets each in 3 magazines… May be trivial for some languages, but I say 5x3 in my head as 5 magazines with 3 bullets each, which is probably the wrong answer.
You just add DMG after it for making it more understandable. 5x3 DMG. That makes it obvious it’s not magazines. Also, usually magazines in games are placed with a “/” and not an “x”. 5/3 for example.
You can have damage popups for the immediate representation of damage dealt and combat log for the long term info. And overall representation of enemy HP like X/Y (X = HP remaining, Y = Starting HP).
My biggest beef with the pip system is not being able to tell whether my AR’s have 2 bursts of 6 or 1 1/2 bursts of 3. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been down to my last 3 bullets in a magazine but, seeing the pip, expected 6.
OH, hilarious. This post is like the exact opposite of this one:
I have to say that I’m against your idea of showing numeric values, as it would make the game too tabletop-gameish, like Firaxcom, where you know a lot of precise information that realistically one wouldn’t know irl in situations like those in-game. This has been discussed further in the thread I linked, with both people for and against the idea of having less information available for the players, feel free to take a look at the points of view of that other people shared there and share yours too!.
Not exactly. If we know the HP/Armor/etc. from research/scanner/etc., then showing that information in the right form is still important. (If that’s numerical or pips is another question.)
I believe most of the players would opt for various degrees of visibility, be that from the start or after certain conditions were fulfilled, “full blind mode” is more hardcore so suitable for less.
I think that you are missing that my proposition wasn’t about showing or not showing health or other values. It was simply about numeric display of said values. Wheather will they be displayed or not it’s a decision for a dev team and in my opinion it should be made from a lore perspective.
Those need at least grouping.