Feedback on Hotspots for Higby

[Tatwi]

Originally Posted by Dreamcast

Do you mean the dots that come out meaning their is a lot of action?


Their is one thing I don't understand about these dots.

If the dots are your empires color, does this mean each dot is somebody from your empire dying,shooting,getting kills?

OOOOOHHHHHH!

Yeah, I made my empire, TR, green and the VS/NC red (good green, bad red) and I do find that the blinking green/red dots on the map are quite accurate in indicating where people are actively fighting. I'm looking at it right now and seeing a bunch of little green dots at Hvar (Enemy Platoon Detected) and one large red dot at Vanu Archives (Enemy Platoons Detected). To be honest, it's not immediately obvious to me what the color is supposed to be indicating to me. Do I want to go to the big red dot or that that a lost cause? I'm not really sure what it means.

So for me the points to take away are,

1. Works great at showing activity accurately.
2. Does not really help me understand if I should or should not go there.
3. Blinking dots look purdy.

[DirtyBird]

I've gotta add that although they can be slow to update they've been a good addition.
Would it be possible for you to tell us a little bit more about how they are generated, without giving away the formula behind them.

[KaskaMatej]

They don't update fast enough.

Sometimes there are Platoons Detected and a vicious fight happening for the last half hour in a hex, but only get few blimps on the map. You then get a full blown spots all over the hex after the fight is over.

Sometimes it also doesn't show both coloured spots, only the defending one so it's hard to tell if your faction is fighting there, or just the other two.

[Gatekeeper]

I'd say they're currently useful for getting an idea that something is happening in the area - but not very useful for working out exactly what, or whether it's a good idea to go there.

Like others here, I'm not clear what the different coloured dots actually indicate. Is that your side firing? Getting kills? Being killed? If I see a lot of dots of my faction's colour, does that mean we're winning or losing?

[typhaon]

Other than the seizures they induce... they're fine.

I don't know what makes them happen - but if I can get to the area where I see blinking blue (NC), there is usually some combat.


But first... I think you need to consider the process most players go through to find the fight.

1) They look where the Instant Action spots are.

2) They click the box to check the amount of enemy activity.

3) They then look to see who owns the territory - and what state of capture it's in.

4) Then, we'll make a best-guess decision and either Instant Action in... or maybe do what I do, redeploy/spawn/redeploy/spawn, until I'm where I want to be.

* What we're all trying to do is not only figure out where the enemies are... but figure out where OUR FORCES are.

The hotspots help in this regard, because I believe they flash OUR color when we are getting kills (???)... but sometimes during lower population hours... they don't seem to flash much at all... so even though there are some fights - it becomes much more of a guessing game.


I think it's an interesting quandry. On the one hand - I think a lot of people would love to see an overlay of where our forces are... On the other - that would immediately give that info to the enemy... as they would surely have an alt sitting online watching the map.

On the third hand... since moving around is so easy... entire armies can hotdrop anywhere on the map at almost any time and the redeploy/spawn-method I mentioned works, too... the actual transport of large forces isn't THAT big a part of the game - maybe it wouldn't hurt to give that info out, because it's virtually impossible to flank the enemy army without them knowing... or in such a way it takes them a long time to refocus their forces.

* and of course... there is that odd inconsistency - how do we have perfect intel about the size of enemy forces at any moment in any location.... but almost no information about our own forces???

[Emperor Newt]

Well, I really don't know if thats so important right now. I wish the hotdrop stuff would not give me territory my empire doesn't have any adjacent territory to. That would be a good start.

[Figment]

With regards to the hot spots, I think we get too much information on enemy fights. In itself I think the hot spots provide a lot, lot better feedback than before. However, the contrast with the background (particularly since most everyone will have territory control on by default) is a tad lacking. Personally I'd opt for implementing some yellow in them, since that contrasts well.

Perhaps the fading in and out could be slightly slower, some people refered to them as epilepsy inducing.

The faction specific colours do help communicate who is being fought and where they're
coming from and how far they've advanced approximately. The size of the hot spots also helps determine the size of the fight. So that's good. Not sure if I like the circle shape, compared to the shape of tiny explosions.

I also think you should tutor new players on the map's symbols prior to them playing the game even once - IMO this should be obligatory for new accounts and such tutorials and tutorial videos accessible in game. Map reading and not finding a fight or understanding where a fight will move as time progresses and they move there (!) is probably the main complaint for new players in both PlanetSide and PlanetSide 2. Mapreading and waypoint usage is a skill that needs to be taught to new players with the utmost priority.

Btw, speaking of contrast and the map, the Bravo and Delta platoon members currently show as white on the map and can hardly be found (especially when they're in vehicles). And with the lack of zooming in levels on the minimap, they often obscure extremely important information. It's also very hard to see the status of the outposts currently. More contrast would help a lot there as well - and having them be visible in the first place. Same goes for gen and facility status and all. SOIs might help a lot for pinpointing the bases in the background of the map and "connect the dots" may make it easier to read where a battle will flow next.

Again, I think yellow on black shading text and symbols or very hard empire specific colours on black shading would help a lot. White simply mixes too easily with the light blue and purple/pink in my experience.

[Empra]

Some people are just never satisfied, the man gives you hotspots! At least analyse them critically with pros and cons.

Hotspots are awesome but slightly innaccurate, the more accurate they get the better, I have no idea how you would do it or if it as possible but that's what I think.

I find them useful for building a picture of where the enemy forces are coming from or where the frontline is. It does help show where the action is too, so if theres an IA button and you can see lots of dots around it you know there is actually action there which serves it's purpose.

The conditions for the appearance of friendly hotspots are unclear and I personally think that hot spots should be an enemy only thing and that the information about friendlies should be displayed another way. At least I would put up a legend or something for people who don't want to go into help, explain why friendly ones pop up etc as I'm not sure myself.

I think they are a little flashy sometimes, they could use a little adjustment to make the visual more precise and a little more contrasting.

Other than that they do what they are there for. I'm glad they are there, I tried to think as many cons as I could but overall I think they work well.

Thanks for the game

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Emperor Newt

Well, I really don't know if thats so important right now. I wish the hotdrop stuff would not give me territory my empire doesn't have any adjacent territory to. That would be a good start.

Or isn't even fighting over. The amount of times I was allowed to hot drop onto a VS-TR fight as NC are staggering.

These could best be tied to hot spot locations. Some thought may have to be put in on where you drop the person too: nearer to or in the middle of the own hot spots or on top of the enemy's or in between: can be quite painful to land on the wrong side. Might be an idea to allow people to select their own landing point within a region around the deploy zone too.


Oh btw, Matt: if you ever do multi-empire events (like say the PS1 rabbit or monolith events), spawn stuff to fight over in outdoor areas where both sides are fighting outdoors and it's pretty evenly matched in troop composition (otherwise boring quick victory for one side). You can probably use the hot spot codes outside of base facilities for finding these areas, though I'd say if you do that you should distinguish in the event code between ground and air warfare too.

You could have airborne dogfight events and ground based events then too.

[psijaka]

I'm liking the hotspots a lot, although, as others have pointed out, they are slow to update; seemingly persisting when the fight is over. Fix this and they would be very useful indeed!

They add to the huge amount of information that can be gleaned from the map, and are useful in identifying where the action is. I'll click on a hotspot and get more info on influence, enemy strength, capture progress bars etc before committing myself.

[HiroshiChugi]

Originally Posted by Emperor Newt

Well, I really don't know if thats so important right now. I wish the hotdrop stuff would not give me territory my empire doesn't have any adjacent territory to. That would be a good start.

What server do you play on? I've been dying for Esamir combat for sooooo long! D: D'x

[CraazyCanuck]

Anything that adds more information to improve a player's choices for combat is always a good thing.

Hotspot indicators are great for the most part. Accuracy of forces and visual map clarity like the others have indicated already.

Keep it up, I have noticed an increase in the number of large scale battles since their implementation. Whether happenstance or specifically the hot spot indicators I don't know, but I'm happy for the increase in large scale combat frequency at places other then the crown. Now if we could get those battles over to the more defensible bases on Amerish, I'd be happier then a pig in shit. C'mon merger!

[Bocheezu]

First off, this is more a UI comment than anything: seperate out the ally/enemy indicators for troops from terminals/cap points/hotspots etc. I play with ally/enemy because I like enemy troops to show up red, but I don't like every enemy entity being red, including the hotspots on the map.

As for the hotspots themselves: they look neat, but I don't really use them for anything. I'm going to click on the base and look at the cap timer to see if I want to go there. As TR, it basically just gives me a laugh to look at the map and see no bubbles whatsoever in NC/VS territory (I think I've seen one Crimson Watch fight that was above one bubble), while we have

Hvar -- massive bubbles
Crossroads -- massive bubbles
Allatum -- BUBBLE EXPLOSION
Crown -- BUBBLE VOLCANO

Yeah, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that there's going to be people fighting there.

[Rahabib]

Originally Posted by Higby

I'm seeing a lot of feedback about Instant Action. While it's appreciated, I'm asking for feedback on the new Hotspots filter.

Since hotspots and IA are intertwined so much, its hard to separate.

However, and this may answer your question... what filter? The UI isn't really explained anywhere. I just look where the most bubbles are and IA there.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Rahabib

what filter?

Hot Spots on/off on map = hot spot filter.