What We are up to - Refinements Part 3

[Yoshiro]

Welcome back to the third and final installment of "What we are up to - Refinements edition". Today we are going to cover additional refinements coming to RO 2. These include: Squad and Tank UI, Peripheral Indicators, and Enemy spotted systems. Once again we would like to remind everybody that this list is a Work in Progress, something you will see in today's post.

Starting off this week is the Squad and Tank UI system. We are adding a new feature to the tactical view that will show players, commanders and tankers who is most important to them. For players, that will be their squad. For tankers, those in their tank with them. And for commanders it will show your squad leaders. This should help facilitate team work between squads, allow tankers to berate their drivers for driving them backwards into the enemy, and provide an easier method for commanders to identify who to request artillery targets from.

Another tweak to gameplay is coming from the Peripheral Action Indicator system. Currently the indicators disappear right at the edge of the players screen, making it easy to pinpoint a general location if the players moves his view about. After the update there will be a buffer zone off the edge of the screen where the PAI will fade out in before it comes into the players view. This will overall enhance the system while keeping it useful and less prone to being exploited.

The last topic we are discussing today is the Enemy Spotted system. There are major visual changes to help the player understand what is happening. Spotted enemies will now be "marked" with a red indicator placed semi-randomly around their location (as to not pinpoint their exact location). It will also include text indicating what type of enemy was spotted in that location. Other players on the team will see this in two different ways.

1) If they are able to see the marked enemies location from their current view, they will see the same marking and indications as the spotter.
2) If the player can not currently see the marked enemy from his current view, he will receive an indicator at the edge of his screen that an enemy was spotted in the direction the enemy was marked.

These new markings will only show up when marked by players and not from the aerial recon.

That ends the major list of refinements coming in the first content update to Red Orchestra 2. We look forward to begin testing these with you and getting feedback in the RO 2 beta. We are looking at this happening as soon as NEXT WEEK (if all goes well, see definition: WIP)!

[Yoshiro]

Now there are two final things to discuss. First, we had planned to talk about changes coming to spawning on Squad Leader. This however is one of those cases where the refinements are still a Work In Progress. The design for this is still being actively worked on and is constantly being tweaked. So we hope to bring this back up at a later date. Second, we also plan to talk about tanking, and more information will be posted on that topic in the coming days. It will cover how the system works and what we will be doing to make it more clear to the player as well as potential tweaks.

[ElPresidente]

Originally Posted by Yoshiro

We are looking at this happening as soon as NEXT WEEK (if all goes well, see definition: WIP)!

Read; Next sunday evening

Can't wait for the new update!

[Proud_God]

What happens if you press the spot button on a place where there is no enemy? Ie, can this feature be abused to find enemies by getting a positive feedback only when there is an enemy, like in BF:BC2?

[UsF]

The spotting icons with descriptive text in the versions I played took up a lot of space on the interface, when there was a lot of spotted units. This happened if you didn't enable the tactical HUD for a while and the spots accumulated in the hidden HUD.

I think that maybe descriptive icons could work well without text, too. Or the spots should fade away in the HUD, even when you do not activate it, since it would be useless by the time you enable it anyway, depending on how much time has passed.

[_Dariuszek_]

Great news, thanks!

[Filo90]

two questions:

1) these refinements are part of realism or relaxed mode right?

2) the start of the beta will include RO classic mode too right?

[Nikita]

Any chance of the peripheral indicators showing at least some friendlies as well as enemies, as initially advertised? (I'm guessing this was changed to avoid screen spam, but there must be a clever way to implement this...)

I know people have suggested a LOT of changes to this system, myself included, but one more thing: it was also initially said that these indicators would only trigger in response to MOVING enemies/friendlies... afaik, they show up for stationary enemies at the moment. A distance cap of, say, 100m would be a nice change as well.

I understand that these above changes might require too much effort for too little gain given what other changes the game could use...

Then again, they're disabled in Classic Mode, which I will probably be playing almost exclusively. If properly implemented, however, they might end up being acceptable.

Really can't wait for this beta!

[=GG= Mr Moe]

All promising info! Like the bit about Enemy spotted, I try to use it often but don't know if anyone pays any attention.

[Yoshiro]

What we are thinking for the spotted marker when "targeting nothing", is that the marker will still be placed. This will stop people from just hunting for enemies, as well as allow them to mark locations where they saw somebody but did not mark til after they had passed.

[Faneca]

Here is a good idea : Remove the AI Crew completly in the Classic mode with the exception of the turret loader.

And in the other realism settings when the loader dies make the AI MG Gunner switch seats to the loaders position so the tank can still fire its main gun.

I suggest adding the wheel mounted Maxim with the gun shield. Could be a selectable loadout for Hero Soviet (ONLY, no Enemy Loadout unlock crap here) MGers.
And fix the damn bug with the Squad Leaders not spawning with all their gear the first few times. Spawning only with your rifle and grenades basicly means there is imidietly one less SL in the field until you respawn for the bug to autocorrect itself temporarly.

[echutter]

I just +1'd both of your posts. Why? Cause this is good ****en information.

[Sensemann]

Originally Posted by Yoshiro

We are looking at this happening as soon as NEXT WEEK (if all goes well, see definition: WIP)!

+1

Now let's hope we can change this for the better.

[Comrade Kaizer]

Good news all around but I was hoping I would hear an adjustment to the Peripheral Action Indicator showing up on the HUD for all movement as opposed to just enemies.

Was that considered at one point or no? Can it in the future?

Also improving in game text chat, can we color the chat per faction like in Ostfront to better distinguish immediate teammate chat? Also adding location to voice commands to better determine the urgency to such commands.

Both would greatly improve/enhance team coordination along with the Squad UI improvements you proposed here in the thread.

[Golf33]

Originally Posted by Yoshiro

What we are thinking for the spotted marker when "targeting nothing", is that the marker will still be placed. This will stop people from just hunting for enemies, as well as allow them to mark locations where they saw somebody but did not mark til after they had passed.

Good thinking.

Have the mark fade out over a few seconds would reduce screen clutter.

Any chance we could see a marker appear over the head of teammates when they use the chat/command radial or VOIP?

[BBRodriquez]

Sounds great.

Will the Indicators still only show enemies or also friendly players?

One thing that bothers me with tanks is that when you switch seats the tank stops.
Plans to change this or am I the only one who has a problem with it?

[Kerc Kasha]

Regarding the spotting, I'm assuming you guys are already doing this but just to be sure but while you're messing with it can you make clear how you 'point' to what you're spotting?

I'm guessing it's wherever you're aiming your gun but at times i've aimed my gun right at a tank and instead of shouting "Panzer!" or 'Tank!' i hear 'infantry!' and other times I hear it just fine and it marks it as a tank spotted properly. It seems to be totally random if it spots the target properly or not

[defektive]

Good stuff.

Echoing that PVIs should also pick up friendly movements.

Also, they should be more noticeable for hi-res widescreen players; they don't move, the don’t change contrast based on background and they don't blink – all being the worst possible characteristics if they're meant to be noticeable when they lie just outside of one's cone of detailed visual acuity, i.e., when you’re looking at the centre of the screen. By contrast, on 4:3 aspect ratio screens PVIs are easy to notice whilst still focusing on the aimpoint.

I realise that PVIs are out of the Classic mode (the promise of which keeps me here if I'm being honest) but IMO, like most of the things cut from Classic mode, all that is needed is a slight tweak to make them work. Abandonning them all entirely strikes me as being somewhat rash - unless the idea is to cut right back to basics and start to reintroduce features one by one after they've been tweaked and tested in the other modes.

[tofupunk]

Great stuff!

Could you consider turning up the volume on the supersonic cracks though? I don't know if it's a bug or not, but they are so damn quiet right now.

This is what it sounds like to be the receiving end of a rifle bullet:

http://youtu.be/JwZPJgkF6G8?t=12m10s

[MacX]

Great info, thank you!

Glad to hear about the rework of Squad UI. The best solution imo would be to show off the names of your squad mates on the T screen so that it's simple to find them whereever you are.
I hope you had something like this in mind.

Also glad to hear about the spawn on Squad Leader being redone.

You guys are the best!