I wrote:The subject of HUD is closely related to "numbers and names floating around unnaturally inside the scene", which goes in the Mise-en-jeu thread, but they are close to menus too. There's no strict policy here, you can bring them up wherever appropriate, but in this thread there's direct focus on them.
Main menu -> options menu -> inventory and stats menus -> HUD -> floaty names and numbers -> gameworld
Basically the further to the left the more "application/process/game program" we are, and the further to the right the more "gameworld" we are. I was sitting around last night writing a draft for this thread etc., but now I'll mull it over some more, and probably finish up the BioShock review before I come back to this thread (which is the natural order anyway: starting with an example and then take steps towards the general level). But where I'm positioned at this moment of writing, is that menus will go the way of the dodo, HUD will be needed until neural plugging, and that I fucking hate floaty names and numbers.
I wrote:While stat screens usually have numbers etc., in inventory screens it is easy to get around that by representing each item with graphics that you move around inside a grid or something. But, then again, we want to spend as little time inside menus as possible, so a straight up list is better from that perspective. Also, floaty text and numbers would be OK if represented in a to the gameworld natural way, e.g. a sci-fi visor showing the health of enemies; the effects must be clearly linked to the world, with some sort of targeting system or something, and not be text and numbers inexplicably floating around.
Numbers vs. Graphics (or sound) should perhaps go in an Aspie thread, and I don't want to broaden the scope of this thread too much, but yeah, if it's related it's related, so again no strict policy.
I wrote:3D world, 2D menus. You can see how I kinda want to merge this with the Mise-en-jeu thread, but for the sake of limiting the scope I'll keep the threads separate. Though I guess I'll have to meld them if the overlap becomes too big.
I wrote:"In stats-focused FPSes the most meaningful decisions are made inside of menus, which might even pause the whole world lol, rather than inside the gameworld, which is always in real-time."
Something like that.
I wrote:Though I'll have to add "the most meaningful decisions combat-wise", i.e. this has little to no bearing on exploration etc., so maybe it's good to tone down the combat to leave more focus for those — but I don't want anything toned down: I want everything at max.
I wrote:Always everything at max? Sounds like I'm really saying "I care more about the intensity of the combat than everything else", but yeah, I'll stop this, mull a bit, eat a bit, and then get back to it later.
I wrote:(This is a rewrite and summary of what's said in http://videospel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=254#p254)
When you climb walls as an alien in AvP2 you get arrows displayed as HUD showing you which way the ground is. This essentially works as your sense of gravity, without which it'd be hard to navigate after having stayed upside-down for extended periods of time, and your avatar's sense of well-being is represented through the health bar at the bottom of the screen. Neither of these are hax: they merely represent the avatar's senses graphically to the player so that he may better connect to his virtual body, i.e. feel like he is the avatar. While our subconscious will keep track of such things when we've played a game extensively, and we even start to physically feel pain when we get shot, these HUD elements are still welcome, as the faster we can connect with our avatar the better.
Everything must be natural inside the game, so anything beyond the avatar's natural senses needs some explanation to it, e.g. that a human avatar is wearing a high-tech helmet which scans the field of vision and coats hostile targets in red and friendly targets in green. If the avatar isn't wearing a special helmet or has cybernetic eyes, then the player shouldn't see the world as if he was; the player seeing the world through different eyes than the avatar's is anti-immersive.
Our avatar's senses can also be translated into audio (e.g. the beeping in the Zelda games) and rumbling, or any other type of output available. To keep in mind when designing HUD is that it should steal as little focus as possible from the scene. For example, the worst type of representation of health in HUD is the health counter, i.e. to represent health in numbers. These are very hard, if not impossible, to even assess when one is looking into the gameworld, and should as such at the very least be color-coded: say, dark green (100), fading to light green (80), yellow (60), orange (40), red (20), and finally black (0). This way one can feel one's health without having to look directly at it (the avatar never looks at the health counter). The alien's health bar in AvP2 is good, being positioned in the bottom middle of the screen, shrinking and growing as one loses and gains health.
I wrote:http://videospel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=288#p288I wrote:I miss the extra info on the inventory screen as seen in BG:EE, which gave you a really good summary of your stats, showing your damage range, THAC0, AC, etc. Now that I'm playing vanilla BG2 I have to: 1) Reread item info, 2) Go to the character sheet page, 3) Scroll down to see "to hit", 4) Scroll further down to see weapon proficiency, 5) Scroll even more to see stat bonuses, 6) etc. etc, which is pretty damn boring.
The "extra info" I'm talking about are calculations added to the inventory screen, summarizing most relevant stats for you, meaning you'll rarely have to use any other screen. (The inventory screen was really good already in the original, showing a picture of your avatar and having the item slots placed around him, matching as far as possible where the items are placed on his body. And you don't have to puzzle items in your inventory as they all come in one size, though of different weight, etc.) They've also increased the stack size of arrows etc., to further save you from spending time in menus.
http://videospel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=851#p851I wrote:I think I'll return to System Shock 2 and perhaps finish it (last time I started doing that I got a bit sick of being in menus so much so I quit [...])
No real comment on this one: I just don't like being in menus — but on the other hand the one used in Fallout 3 is really good, since you access it by looking down at your arm-thingy, and it doesn't give you any supernatural powers either, but stays within what you'd expect from the technology. I think I did start to get sick of using it at some point though, probably being irritated at how slow it was to access and quit.
I wrote:But does it really matter so much? What if in BioShock you could clearly see through the glass window in each vending machine, had to look at the coin-insertion slot and press E a couple of times to see the "currently inserted money" tick up, then press the button for the item you wanted, to have the item drop down the output hole? (Items actually drop down like that if you buy more than you can carry, so the function is already in place, and getting all items like this would be much cooler.) And what if you could smack their sides, which would usually make them malfunction for a while, but sometimes it'd make them go "jackpot" and items poured out? And how about you'd have to insert four fivers to buy something that cost $19, forcing you to press the "return" button to get your change back?
Maybe that last part about getting your change back would just be annoying lol, but still, if there were different items in each vending machine it'd be fucking cool when you reached one and be like "yes! this one has got first aid kits!" or whatever, and none of the interaction with it would pause the game, so you'd always be looking over your shoulder while fumbling around. Maybe some would say that this is a waste of the developers' time, but I'd say it would be a huge improvement.
I wrote:When it comes to "health bars are good since they help us connect faster", it must be said that when there ISN'T any health bar your subconscious will MUCH faster start keeping track of your health, so that might be the preferable method. Putting a red border around one's screen as one's health starts to reach critical levels is a pretty good middle-ground solution, as is forcing heavy breathing out of the avatar's mouth. (The latter has bigger consequences mechanically though, as any sound made should be heard by anyone close enough, etc.)
I wrote:http://videospel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=239#p239On Natural Selection 2, I wrote:Another thing that's kind of shitty is how you'll use the map A LOT. Like, A LOT. Early on I found myself often running around the level with the map open (you always have mini-map/radar combo, but can hold a key to get a big fat map over the whole level) without even looking ahead of me, especially as alien.
http://videospel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=332#p332On Dota 2, I wrote:It's the same here as in Natural Selection 2: you spend way too much time looking at some map, in this case the minimap, instead of "the scene", i.e. the actual stuff taking place.On Dota 2, I wrote:I mean, what's the point of models, animations and effects etc. — if you're just staring at some fucking dots in a small corner of the screen?
The above posts were written from 25th to 27th October, 2013 (I've made some minor edits to make them more readable), following this post: http://culture.vg/forum/topic?f=3&t=4666
