Names of Friendlies Should be GREEN!

[Dart]

After watching the stream last night I think the reason we've seen so much TKing so far is because of the inaccurate IFF interface (Identify Friend or Foe). I was struggling to tell which Empire people were, at a glance, and judging by the amount of TKing we've seen at E3 and again last night I don't think I'm the only one. Part of this, I believe, is because friendlies currently show up in WHITE. That's the same colour that you get for lots of other things in game.

Now I understand that the devs wanted to keep GREEN for squadmates but right now I just don't think it's worth the trade-off. I'd far rather see all the guys on MY Empire highlighted green and hopefully not get TK'd by every 'friendly' who happens to see me and can't figure out which Empire I belong to. Any thoughts?

[Karrade]

After watching the stream last night I think the reason we've seen so much TKing so far is because of the inaccurate IFF interface (Identify Friend or Foe). I was struggling to tell which Empire people were, at a glance, and judging by the amount of TKing we've seen at E3 and again last night I don't think I'm the only one. Part of this, I believe, is because friendlies currently show up in WHITE. That's the same colour that you get for lots of other things in game.

Now I understand that the devs wanted to keep GREEN for squadmates but right now I just don't think it's worth the trade-off. I'd far rather see all the guys on MY Empire highlighted green and hopefully not get TK'd by every 'friendly' who happens to see me and can't figure out which Empire I belong to. Any thoughts?

Maybe swap green with white? So the squad still gets it own highlight, but the common unit is green?

Blue would work too, if green was squadmates, unless platoons or something is blue already, though I suppose you have the sky/ocean to deal with there, even if white you have the sun glare.

I don't think it'll be an issue as much when people can recognise units, as they will be able to, though at first I believe you are right.

-edit

Another option, different shades of green for squad members. Regular green = Regular troops, lighter = squad/platoon, even lighter perhaps if you wanted to have platoon and squad green.

[Reizod]

Maybe a darker shade like grey? I think white is the best suitable color for friendlies. I just think players are too trigger-happy IMHO.

[CJMBC]

I thought squad mates were Orange? I do however agree that sometimes it looked as if an enemy was in front of him that just turned out to be a team mate.. It also looks like its range triggered, when he got close the names appeared. I'm pretty sure it also looked that he could see the amount of people in enemy vehicles, but maybe that was just me cracking up....:doh:

[Dart]

Blue would work too, if green was squadmates, unless platoons or something is blue already.

Yeah, I'd settle for (insert another neutral colour here) but Green is just more intuitive for new players. Basically anything but white.

It also looks like its range triggered, when he got close the names appeared. I'm pretty sure it also looked that he could see the amount of people in enemy vehicles, but maybe that was just me cracking up....:doh:

That is the second part of the issue. The IFF system needs to be reworked imo. Right now it looks pretty poor IMO. And yeah, you could see the number of occupants inside vehicles with a little '1/2' or '2/2' indicator. I'm not sure whether that's necessary or balanced on enemy vehicles tbh. I'd rather see the names of the driver (as in PS1) - possibly with the help of an implant and NOT know how many people were in enemy vehicles.

[Canaris]

yeah it should be Green for own faction this is an industry norm and it could be another colour for squad mates, the rainbow is our oyster for choice.

[zomg]

I think there should be an option to define the colors yourself.

Remember that thread about color blind options? I'm a bit bad with shades of green and such, so while I agree that having a unified color for things like foes is good, I'm a bit worried about them being easy to see. BF3 for instance had some bad choices with that regard.

I believe someone actually commented that it took a couple of hours for a developer to add options for that in some other game :)

[Kran De Loy]

I find I write too much when I post. :(
Anyway, 2 points I'm gonna make here.

First:
Yeah I see what you mean, but I don't think it's a problem of the white names, I mean at long distances you could see a symbol representing the faction next to the name and at close ranges you should be able to make out the colors/shape of the ally.

Also THERE IS A GIANT FLOATING NAME THERE. It doesn't matter what color it is if it is there, if someone is shooting at it, it is because they're stupid. No real reason other than then.

Second:
Personally I hated seeing the names at long distances like over 100 feet away. That really bothered me. I would want to be sure that names for infantry and whoever is inside of a vehicle only show up within a very close range, like 30-40 feet. Feet mind you. That's super close.

Also the option to turn off names entirely.

Also enable binoculars to be able to show names on allies, like something that shows up off to the side near the edge of the binocs. Of course not on enemies though.

[CJMBC]

That is the second part of the issue. The IFF system needs to be reworked imo. Right now it looks pretty poor IMO. And yeah, you could see the number of occupants inside vehicles with a little '1/2' or '2/2' indicator. I'm not sure whether that's necessary or balanced on enemy vehicles tbh. I'd rather see the names of the driver (as in PS1) - possibly with the help of an implant and NOT know how many people were in enemy vehicles.


I think seeing the number of occupants would be pretty detrimental to using decoy transports and such... Why target a 1/12 when you could kill a full transport.. And it's as simple as targeting...

This might be temp though, so I won't jump to conclusions just yet!

[Karrade]

I think there should be an option to define the colors yourself.

Remember that thread about color blind options? I'm a bit bad with shades of green and such, so while I agree that having a unified color for things like foes is good, I'm a bit worried about them being easy to see. BF3 for instance had some bad choices with that regard.

I believe someone actually commented that it took a couple of hours for a developer to add options for that in some other game :)

Brilliant suggestion

Also the icons suggestion was nice, a few posts above.

All options perhaps?

[Dart]

Yep yep, I agree about defining colours yourself. But as has been noted, the industry norm is Green and since we're trying to make sure as many people get into PS2 as possible, why not have it as Green by default?

I agree showing how many people are in each enemy vehicle effectively removes 'decoy' vehicles as an option and while I can completely understand it's use for friendly vehicles (saves you trying to jump in a full Galaxy) it should not be an option for enemy ones! As I said, I'd far rather just know the name of the pilot/driver and leave it at that.

[Zicamox]

Yep yep, I agree about defining colours yourself. But as has been noted, the industry norm is Green and since we're trying to make sure as many people get into PS2 as possible, why not have it as Green by default?

I agree showing how many people are in each enemy vehicle effectively removes 'decoy' vehicles as an option and while I can completely understand it's use for friendly vehicles (saves you trying to jump in a full Galaxy) it should not be an option for enemy ones! As I said, I'd far rather just know the name of the pilot/driver and leave it at that.

Knowing the amount of people in the enemy vehicle could help a lot though. Say you're a Heavy assault with an AV rocket launcher, and you see an enemy tank. The name tag says it has 2 people in it, so that way the top turret (machine gun) could easily spin around and shoot you, before you get a couple shots off.

Then again, that could be too much information as well.

[SnipeGrzywa]

I think color schemes aren't that important. Play the game for a week and you will be use to it. They spent all that time to make each empire look unique that the names are more for situational awareness and you can trash talk ppl.

[MrBloodworth]

Looked like squad is green, faction is white. Enemy is red.

[Dart]

I think color schemes aren't that important. Play the game for a week and you will be use to it. They spent all that time to make each empire look unique that the names are more for situational awareness and you can trash talk ppl.

But it is important if you can't tell who is what faction before you can shoot them. THAT is my point. Last night you could clearly see Higby was able to fire on people before he/we could tell what faction they were. That is an issue within the IFF system and needs to be fixed imo.

Btw if anyone wants to watch the stream the link is in my sig.

[Carnage]

Selectable IFF Colours? would not be hard to implement it is only a hex code in settings file somewhere... would give you the choice of making ALL friendly green or squad white/yellow/orange... and Enemy PINK!! or RED

[Dart]

Knowing the amount of people in the enemy vehicle could help a lot though. Say you're a Heavy assault with an AV rocket launcher, and you see an enemy tank. The name tag says it has 2 people in it, so that way the top turret (machine gun) could easily spin around and shoot you, before you get a couple shots off.

Then again, that could be too much information as well.

Oh it would definitely be useful... But imo it's not fair. If you want to know whether there is someone in the top turret you should have to watch it. Also, as has been outlined, it removes the idea of decoy vehicles. I simply don't think it's balanced or necessary but that's just my opinion.

It's definitely not as important as clearing up the IFF system.

[julfo]

I think there should be an option to define the colors yourself.


^ This. Then everyone can have what they find to be easiest.

[Canaris]

more than likely the vehicle occupancy is a bug showing up on enemies, It would make most sense that only your own faction is supposed to see for quick assessment, is that Sunderer or Gal over there full or not.

[DirtyBird]

Usually so long as the enemy is red the other colours dont bother me too much.
I do like my team to be green and wouldn't be against a small slider for shades of green as a UI option, like Karrade described.
That way you can pick your own different shade of green for friends, squads, platoons, outfits.

But you cant forget the people that are colour blind so what ever the basic colours you use it has to suit them as well.
Just not sure they want to give a range of different colours, aka the RYB Colour wheel, to be used in case one is more advantageous than the other.

Blue vs Yellow (with sliders)might work and is along the same opponent colour theory as Red v Green or Black v White for that matter which their design team will be well aware of.

[SnipeGrzywa]

But it is important if you can't tell who is what faction before you can shoot them. THAT is my point. Last night you could clearly see Higby was able to fire on people before he/we could tell what faction they were. That is an issue within the IFF system and needs to be fixed imo.

Btw if anyone wants to watch the stream the link is in my sig.

Mid range to close targets I could already identify friend from foe just by character models. That's just streams, not actually playing, and probably 90% of the time. At long ranges you theoretically have more time to establish positive identification. Infils you are just effed. LOL

But again, color schemes you will get use to. What I think we need to discuss is the mechanics of the IFF system. What you all are suggesting is friendly names should appear instantaneously when you target over. But, is that fair? It would allow players to not have to think about positively identifying targets since game does it for you.

I really don't know what would be best for this game.

[Jeepo]

Green for friendly. No name tags at all for enemy. That's my preference.

[thegreekboy]

Green for Squad, Green for team. Close enough while being distinguishable.

no names for enemies unless moused over then for more than 3 seconds, if a name was to pop up, red

[LightningDriver]

I agree with the idea of customizing the UI to whatever works for you.

[Zalmoxis]

I hope that they will implement a colorblind mode for those of us that can't see colors too well.

[Canaris]

I hope that they will implement a colorblind mode for those of us that can't see colors too well.

they already said they would :)

[Nefarion]

What's wrong with looking at the shape of the armor and/or the color scheme before you go trigger happy? Personally, I like the game how it is.

[Doxy]

Agree! Your empire player names should always be ON. Cause atm it is pretty damn confusing.

[Absentis]

I think faction based colors (NC = blue, VS = purple, TR = red) would be best for identification then green could still be used for squads. The only downside would be that TR would end up shooting friendlies... come to think of it, that wouldn't be such a bad thing. :p

It would just be a matter of of learning what color to look for for friendlies.

[Gammit10]

Definitely Green for regular friendlies, as there are usually more of them than squadmates. Red should always be enemies.

Why not stick with the colors from PS 1? Yellow were your squadmates, and then if you joined a platoon, the purple squad was purple and the orange squad was orange.

[Fab]

I don t get why every faction wouldn t keep her own color, whatever you are playing :
all NC be blue, TR red, VS violet. Easy to get, easy to read. You obviously know which faction you are playing, so no mistakes. Same goes for base capture points.

For the squad, green seems a good idea.

[Anderz]

Blue = Team
Green = Squad
Red = Enemy

I don t get why every faction wouldn t keep her own color, whatever you are playing :
all NC be blue, TR red, VS violet. Easy to get, easy to read. You obviously know which faction you are playing, so no mistakes. Same goes for base capture points.

For the squad, green seems a good idea.

They said this caused confusion in testing, since seeing red capture icons caused TR players to think it was an enemy-controlled point.

That said, I'm not against your suggestion. If you play the game long enough as your faction, I can't imagine it being difficult to remember who's who.

As others have said, it should be an in-game HUD option to select the colour scheme manually.

[CJMBC]

I don t get why every faction wouldn t keep her own color, whatever you are playing :
all NC be blue, TR red, VS violet. Easy to get, easy to read. You obviously know which faction you are playing, so no mistakes. Same goes for base capture points.

For the squad, green seems a good idea.

I think mainly for new players this would be Confusing as most would associate Red with Bad.... (wouldnt be far wrong anyway :rofl:)

[Dart]

Blue = Team
Green = Squad
Red = Enemy



They said this caused confusion in testing, since seeing red capture icons caused TR players to think it was an enemy-controlled point.

That said, I'm not against your suggestion. If you play the game long enough as your faction, I can't imagine it being difficult to remember who's who.

As others have said, it should be an in-game HUD option to select the colour scheme manually.

There is more to this than the colour of names tho. Watch the stream (in my sig) on numerous occasions Matt was very close to other characters and their name was not appearing. The whole IFF system needs adjustment.

[MrBloodworth]

There is more to this than the colour of names tho. Watch the stream (in my sig) on numerous occasions Matt was very close to other characters and their name was not appearing. The whole IFF system needs adjustment.

You have to target another user for a set amount of time before IFF kicks in. This is how it should be.

[Dart]

You have to target another user for a set amount of time before IFF kicks in. This is how it should be.

The amount of tking we're seeing suggests you're wrong. And remember these guys are soe devs, they're not noobs. Imo friendlies with a certain radius should show green immediately otherwise a lot of ppl are going to get tkd.

[Juturna]

You could always do blue for the majority of friendlies and keep the green for squads like battlefield :)

[MrBloodworth]

That would be why Visual identification in the faction designs are key. You should not be leaning on colored text. Hell, in PS1 it was an implant.

[Dart]

That would be why Visual identification in the faction designs are key. You should not be leaning on colored text. Hell, in PS1 it was an implant.

Not for friendlies. What I'm saying is the current system isn't working.

[Fab]

They said this caused confusion in testing, since seeing red capture icons caused TR players to think it was an enemy-controlled point.


OK thx i didn t catch that. I can imagine how red can be misinterpreted as "bad". But really, I have no problem seeing TR shooting each other..

[Stanis]

Perhaps an element inherited from the fact Forgelight is also an MMO engine ..
White names in your standard MMORPG until you pull aggro... or are in a PvP zone.

They could be green. We'll get used to white.
A lack of name should be a strong indicator they are an enemy.

The biggest clue being the targetting reticule turning red.

[MrBloodworth]

Quite sure all this will be customizable.

[infected]

they should just give in and make friendlies permanently tagged. you shouldnt have to cursor over friendlies for an ignorant period of time if that time is longer than the time it would take to ID them yourself w/o even having to cursor over them (ID them out of the corner of your eye, etc). i certainly think the state of the friendly IFF is lazy/slow right now. the problem is the gui isn't updating as fast as the human brain.

for example, i look left and see a guy. i notice he is friendly but the gui doesn't display it just yet. so i turn away from the friendly, making him no longer in my fov, but now if i turn to him again, i should not be questioning friend or foe AGAIN, as i already have him on my minimap and spacial awareness.

i'm not going to stop what im doing, point my cursor at him and hold it there until the gui recognizes it is friendly... to manually get the gui to catch up with my brain. rinse and repeat for every person on the battlefield? no. just set all friendlies as tagged by default as soon as they are on your screen, not on your cursor for x amount of stupid time.

[Red Beard]

If there is a grief system implemented similar to PS1, then TR shooting each other for having red letters after the first shot, or shortly thereafter. Not a problem.

[Pancake]

I personally like the BF3 system best. Easy to find your party and know who is friend and foe.

[wraithverge]

if you watch the stream, names are all white, however they have a green glow if friendly. I think this will be fine, and there was not much tk, the red names and red names were often second and third faction killing each other. All enemy names appeared in red at the upper right, they had a faction symbol with them however.

I think we just need to wait till beta.

[Neurotoxin]

Let players define UI colors as they see fit, even adding differentiation for different types of targets (NC or TR, Vehicle or Infantry, etc) to further improve visibility and info communication.

[Roidster]

just make it the same as planetside,problem fixed,gold orange and purple for platoon,just keep it simple

[Ruwyn]

just make it the same as planetside,problem fixed,gold orange and purple for platoon,just keep it simple

This^^^^


different shades of green? no.

However maybe we should throw a wrench into the industry and use red = stop, don't fire and green = fire away!

red light, green light, red light, green light

[infected]

red=dead

[Ertwin]

Having the IFF take a second to recognize friendlies isn`t a problem. It encourages people to hold their fire until they confirm friend or foe, rather than shooting everything that moves.

[Airanuva]

Well, It's a good thing I'll be trying to main an infiltrator. Careful aiming to get headshots, more time to actually recognize people on my team, and the ability to turn invisible to avoid the idiots as well.




"... What do you mean I'm supposed to use the cloak to avoid the enemy? That's just silly..."

[Trafalgar]

The first thing I did when I started playing Tribes Ascend was join a random team, look down to see what color armor I was wearing (red), and then start trying to shoot people whose names were blue.

My shots were ineffective, and as I got closer I found that blue names actually were people with red armor, and red names were people with blue armor.

This is counter-intuitive.

[Nemeses]

Surprised that its not green TBH, pretty fundamental.

[MrKWalmsley]

Personally I think friendlies should be blue, as it is an actual military designation and it seems to fit more for my own personal opinion. Blue on blue, not green on green! BlueFor not GreenFor!

[kertvon]

While team colors are important, it still doesn't really replaced recognizing team members by sight. I can think a few times in a few other titles that the overhead indicator was all I could look for and missed kills and or picked up a team kill because I could not recognize friendlise/hosies without the indicators. Hopefully the devs are focusing on making team members and enemies easier to spot.

This game is going to have huge terrain distance and it will be really easy to screw up and kill friendlies. Hopefully it forces some solid recon/scouting team play to properly spot targets.

[Shinjorai]

I believe the customization for whatever colors you want is best. That way if somebodys colorblind they dont have to enable some certain mode, they just pick the colors and shades that work for them. As far as the default colors if they had these options it really wouldnt matter and everybody could set it up however they wanted. I think this is the only way theyre going to please everybody. Because peoples opinions are bound to be different.

[Gandhi]

Even with very defined silhouettes or armor colors it still takes a lot of conditioning to get down to the same reaction time as you get with red/green names. The red/green system has been used for so long that distinguishing friend or foe with it is almost instant. It takes a lot longer to process armor type and color, which means either you're going to hesitate every time or (more likely) you'll just shoot first and ask questions later, because hesitating will always put you at a disadvantage against someone who does the latter.

Just use red/green names. It's the simplest and most effective way, everybody's used to it already.

And a friend of mine would want me to mention: don't forget different color options for colorblind players!

[Nemeses]

I believe the customization for whatever colors you want is best. That way if somebodys colorblind they dont have to enable some certain mode, they just pick the colors and shades that work for them. As far as the default colors if they had these options it really wouldnt matter and everybody could set it up however they wanted. I think this is the only way theyre going to please everybody. Because peoples opinions are bound to be different.

This would be the perfect fix, the reason most people say green is thats the color it is in most FPS games, and it is what people are used to.

[Pancake]

Personally I think friendlies should be blue, as it is an actual military designation and it seems to fit more for my own personal opinion. Blue on blue, not green on green! BlueFor not GreenFor!

BlueFor = Friendly
GreenFor = Squad

[GreatMazinkaise]

Yes to customizable name colors... it's very in keeping with everything else in the game.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

give it about 3 hours and you'll be able to tell by silhouette who's friendly and who's not.

[CaptainRon]

I'm all for allowing us to customize how we can see what.

[SixShooter]

I would prefer to have like PS1
green for friendly
red for enemy
yellow for squad
orange for platoon
so on and so forth

I would also like the kill spam to have the PS1 look as well with the faction colors instead of red and green. It was good to be able to see if there was a 3rd faction sneaking in on the action.

The best way would of course be full customization of these types of things.

[Vexus]

I agree the IFF isn't noticable enough. Personally, I'd like each faction's color to show up clearly and distinctly. I'd argue that your squad could be a brighter or more distinctive shade of that color ... but why not just keep each empire it's own color?

I also wholeheartedly support any solution that helps those who have trouble distinguishing those colors (e.g. red/green). While I can distinguish them easily, I still recall that humorous day that my father unknowingly wore one burgundy and one dark green sock ... much to my and my mother's dismay. Fortunately, my mother stopped him before he made it out the front door, heh. Although, I'm still unsure why he even owned pairs of socks in either color frankly. :)

[FPClark]

I think friendly names should be purple and enemy names should be red/black/blue/gold. (Im just sayin')

[vVRedOctoberVv]

Realistically, any TKing is probably because the devs switch teams all the time. In game, if your faction's members are colored according to faction (red for TR, blue for NC, purple for Vanu) it should be fine once people get accustomed to it. Or however they settle on it.

Personally, I don't see why squad members particularly need to be a different color. PS1 I've noticed friendlies are green, enemies are red. Pretty straight forward. I didn't like how the squads are different colors at first, tended to cause confusion, but once you get used to "KILL THE REDS" it doesn't matter either.

-edit


Configurable UI for the win.

[Eyeklops]

After watching the stream last night I think the reason we've seen so much TKing so far is because of the inaccurate IFF interface (Identify Friend or Foe). I was struggling to tell which Empire people were, at a glance, and judging by the amount of TKing we've seen at E3 and again last night I don't think I'm the only one. Part of this, I believe, is because friendlies currently show up in WHITE. That's the same colour that you get for lots of other things in game.

Now I understand that the devs wanted to keep GREEN for squadmates but right now I just don't think it's worth the trade-off. I'd far rather see all the guys on MY Empire highlighted green and hopefully not get TK'd by every 'friendly' who happens to see me and can't figure out which Empire I belong to. Any thoughts?

I would be ok if only spotted enemies and squad/platoon get any 3D markers. IFF should be hard at range. People should not shoot at shit in the distance until they can properly IFF it. Doritos make people lazy.

[Tsunami]

After watching the stream last night I think the reason we've seen so much TKing so far is because of the inaccurate IFF interface (Identify Friend or Foe). I was struggling to tell which Empire people were, at a glance, and judging by the amount of TKing we've seen at E3 and again last night I don't think I'm the only one. Part of this, I believe, is because friendlies currently show up in WHITE. That's the same colour that you get for lots of other things in game.

Now I understand that the devs wanted to keep GREEN for squadmates but right now I just don't think it's worth the trade-off. I'd far rather see all the guys on MY Empire highlighted green and hopefully not get TK'd by every 'friendly' who happens to see me and can't figure out which Empire I belong to. Any thoughts?

or your crosshair could turn colors like red for enemy and green for team mate. CoD stuff right their....

[Azarga]

Names of Friendlies Should be CUSTOMIZABLE

[Bruttal]

Yeah i prefer Green for friendlys but also think we should be able to select what colors we want for all names friendly and enemy mostly because i think it could help the color blind

[Dart]

give it about 3 hours and you'll be able to tell by silhouette who's friendly and who's not.

The guys playing in Higby's stream were Devs... Ie. most have logged a lot more than 3 hours of game play. I think it's harder than you're anticipating.

Also, given the size and scale of PS2 there are going to be A LOT of players who're in the 3 hour window for the first 6 months. How many times do you need to get TK'd by some guy who's just picked up the game before we ask SOE to make the IFF system a little more intuitive?

I'm fine with enemies taking longer to identify (like in PS1) but all friendlies close to you should be identified (with their name above their heads) constantly.

[Erendil]

I would prefer to have like PS1
green for friendly
red for enemy
yellow for squad
orange for platoon
so on and so forth

I would also like the kill spam to have the PS1 look as well with the faction colors instead of red and green. It was good to be able to see if there was a 3rd faction sneaking in on the action.

The best way would of course be full customization of these types of things.

Yes to PS1 colors, YESYESYES to PS1 empire-colored skillspam. The Green/red killspam in PS2 footage really annoyed me, esp since it's inconsistent with the empire-specific coloration of the capture pts on the UI. Current Green/REd should still be available for vision impaired folks tho.

And yeah, full color customization would be best.


Personally, I don't see why squad members particularly need to be a different color. PS1 I've noticed friendlies are green, enemies are red. Pretty straight forward. I didn't like how the squads are different colors at first, tended to cause confusion, but once you get used to "KILL THE REDS" it doesn't matter either.

Squad colors are important for squad coordination and spatial awareness during busy firefights. It's much easier keep track of the movements/position of your squadmates by their color via peripheral vision than it is to have to constantly stop, look directly at, and read the tags of all the friendlies nearby to pick out your squadmates.

I would be ok if only spotted enemies and squad/platoon get any 3D markers. IFF should be hard at range. People should not shoot at shit in the distance until they can properly IFF it. Doritos make people lazy.

Agreed. Tags/Markers shouldn't be visible through walls or other cover/concealment either. If you don't have LoS you shouldn't get any 3D spotting, IMO. The only exception I'd want that I can think of offhand are the base capture points and static waypoints laid down by squad/platoon/outfit members.

or your crosshair could turn colors like red for enemy and green for team mate. CoD stuff right their....

PS1 does this too.

I'm fine with enemies taking longer to identify (like in PS1) but all friendlies close to you should be identified (with their name above their heads) constantly.

Yep. I would say all friendlies in a 40-50m radius or so. Basically anyone who might be the victim of instinctive fire (i.e., non-ADS) if not ID'd immediately. :cool:

[Dart]

Yep. I would say all friendlies in a 40-50m radius or so. Basically anyone who might be the victim of instinctive fire (i.e., non-ADS) if not ID'd immediately. :cool:

Yeah, this is my main contention where the IFF is concern. The IFF for friendlies is far too slow. Simply watch the start of the stream and see when Higby comes across the first NC how long it takes a name to pop up. I'm sorry but 99% of new players will shoot something if they're uncertain for that long. In fact, I'd go so far as to say 50% of us would probably shoot him too just to be on the safe side! Compounding that is the fact that once a friendly who have identified goes off your screen, the next time you see him again you have to wait an age to identify him all over again! I don't know if I'm the only one here but I can see this causing absolute carnage when we get more people playing.

Now I know some of you are probably thinking "Meh, this'll just be part of the learning curve. However given the size of the likely PS2 playerbase during the first year of the game there will be A LOT of people experiencing their first 5 hours of gameplay.

In my opinion it'd get awfully annoying to keep getting TK'd because the IFF system had a learning curve on it!

[Flaropri]

After watching the stream last night I think the reason we've seen so much TKing so far is because of the inaccurate IFF interface (Identify Friend or Foe).

Seemed to me more that people were trigger-happy.

In any event, as far as color assignments:

Names of Friendlies should be something you can pick for yourself. Among other things, it's good to avoid having only just one color option for those that are colorblind. I do also think that there should be a distinction between squadmates and general friendlies, and personally didn't have a problem with white names.

Some people might, so being able to change it to a given color is only a good thing.

[Karrade]

I would also like the kill spam to have the PS1 look as well with the faction colors instead of red and green. It was good to be able to see if there was a 3rd faction sneaking in on the action.

The best way would of course be full customization of these types of things.


I hadn't even thought of that, excellent catch :) - Very much want this.

[Accuser]

Now I know some of you are probably thinking "Meh, this'll just be part of the learning curve. However given the size of the likely PS2 playerbase during the first year of the game there will be A LOT of people experiencing their first 5 hours of gameplay.

In my opinion it'd get awfully annoying to keep getting TK'd because the IFF system had a learning curve on it!

More importantly, we'll have a lot more "transient" players in PS2 than we did in PS1. People will come try the free game and choose to continue or quit based on their first experience... We don't want that constant stream of new players Tking everything in sight, and we don't want new people to be turned off by constantly being TKed either.

Generally I'm for a more "hardcore" approach where you have to hold your fire till you ID your target, but I don't think that's practical for PS2...

[Dart]

More importantly, we'll have a lot more "transient" players in PS2 than we did in PS1. People will come try the free game and choose to continue or quit based on their first experience... We don't want that constant stream of new players Tking everything in sight, and we don't want new people to be turned off by constantly being TKed either.

Generally I'm for a more "hardcore" approach where you have to hold your fire till you ID your target, but I don't think that's practical for PS2...

Another good point. It's those first few hours where PS2 will either win or lose potential players.

[robocpf1]

Posting in support of green names for friendlies. Green is good, red is bad, we're trained on this as little children and we've been tempered by traffic signals, television, and other video games.

Plus, having white names as "good" is possibly subconsciously racist. :D

(You see, now that I've made it a race argument, we'll win for sure).

[Espion]

I agree and think that player identifiability in general is lacking atm.

[redback911]

How about making a cert or a module (especially if gun customization is big feature of PS2) that provides FoF (Friend of Foe) functionality for infantry and vehicles? You could also have an EMP-type AoE grenade that blocks the FoF for defined period of time.

[TheDAWinz]

No iff tags, adds to immersive realism.

[Bags]

No iff tags, adds to immersive realism.

:rolleyes: And people being TKed and rage quitting within a few minutes of playing adds to quitting.

[Papscal]

After watching the stream last night I think the reason we've seen so much TKing so far is because of the inaccurate IFF interface (Identify Friend or Foe). I was struggling to tell which Empire people were, at a glance, and judging by the amount of TKing we've seen at E3 and again last night I don't think I'm the only one. Part of this, I believe, is because friendlies currently show up in WHITE. That's the same colour that you get for lots of other things in game.

Now I understand that the devs wanted to keep GREEN for squadmates but right now I just don't think it's worth the trade-off. I'd far rather see all the guys on MY Empire highlighted green and hopefully not get TK'd by every 'friendly' who happens to see me and can't figure out which Empire I belong to. Any thoughts?


Oh for fuck sakes just get rid of enemy names being red or visible in any way man. Fucking think about it. Its a major advantage to be able to see your own sides names from so damn far away. Now you need training wheels to spot the enemy????????? Being able to see enemy's with glowing fucking names above their heads, no matter what the damn color removes tactics and skill away from all sides. Please get a clue developers and players alike.

[Aerothorn]

Posting in support of green names for friendlies. Green is good, red is bad, we're trained on this as little children and we've been tempered by traffic signals, television, and other video games.

Except that the 8% of males with red-green colorblindness will be TKing like crazy. Bad plan.

[robocpf1]

Except that the 8% of males with red-green colorblindness will be TKing like crazy. Bad plan.

With support for those that are color-blind. League of Legends implemented that a few months back, I would hope that the PS2 devs have considered it.

[Dart]

Oh for fuck sakes just get rid of enemy names being red or visible in any way man. Fucking think about it. Its a major advantage to be able to see your own sides names from so damn far away. Now you need training wheels to spot the enemy????????? Being able to see enemy's with glowing fucking names above their heads, no matter what the damn color removes tactics and skill away from all sides. Please get a clue developers and players alike.

Erm, might wanna read the thread before shooting your mouth off there ace...

We're talking about FRIENDLIES! Methods for identify your fellow soliders (and for them identifying you) so you'd don't get shot in the back. Please cert reading comprehension.