Since there is a community manager that claims to gather information about idea's I'll revive one of my old idea's. It should fit perfectly in the design idea's of increasing teamwork that the developers seem to have been chasing, only it approaches it from a different angle by offering information to all players regardless of their affiliation with squads/platoons/outfits and let them make more informed decisions. Additionally those same squads/platoons/outfits would have an easier time communicating information and would be able to give more contextual commands. So I'm at Andvari Biolab, and I want to go to Mani Biolab. So I see this: All this tells me is that the TR are capturing it, and the hotspots show me how hard the fight there is. The hotspots indicate how much weapons are fired in the region (or that's what I understand of them), and update once in a while. But they don't tell you if it's a 4 Prowlers with Gatekeepers or a single guy on an AI MANA turret. So basically all I know after looking at this is that something is happening at the southeast and the TR have the point. Not visible on the screenshot atm is that on the southwest just across the road there's another hotspot. And the problem here is that I can't know if it's allies or enemies who are stationed there. So in effect it barely tells me anything! So I made a mock-up of what I would like to see (you can click the map to enlarge it and see text and more detail): The Hotspot system is upgraded. Instead of showing weapons discharge, it shows the general whereabouts of friendlies and enemies that have been detected somehow (detected by Q-spot, proxy/scout radar, recon equipment or simple auto-detect of firing a weapon in close proximity of an enemy). This only has to update once a minute or so, and doesn't need to be very accurate. Vehicles are shown with a special border, infantry are shown without a border (overlap gets stripes or something), and aircraft only get a general facing so players can see an average approach/escape the aircraft use and know there's aircraft around. The overall facing (or firing direction(s)) is also indicated, so players know that is being focused on and what not. As optional additions, special markers could be present to indicated deployed Sunderers, AV/G2A weapons and PMB buildings. Preferably the player who spotted it can add this marker. Again, this is just a mock-up, so the colors and borders are just to give you an idea what it looks like. Who would this help? In general players would be able to see how a fight is progressing. This is especially handy on the map after death, as players would be capable of gauging what unit they need to pick and where help is needed. Aircraft would be capable of seeing where enemies are before they reach a base, and can plan their attack. Scouting would be useful. Spotting an advancing vehicle column 500m away from a base is currently useless, but with this system people would be able to see the armor column on the map (although delayed) and react accordingly. For anyone giving orders to anyone else. It allows players to see what their leader sees and knows. For example if the leader says "destroy those vehicles" while you are all the way on the other end of an AMP station, you can spot what vehicles he means (and waypoints and other such visuals have a much better meaning when dumped on top of an enemy vehicle/infantry concentration). Better planning your route. If you know where enemy concentrations are you can know which one's you want to avoid and which one's you can engage. Q&A: Q: This should be a job for scout radar Valkyries! A: Valkyries will help. Anything their radar spots will be added to the map. This system allows you to even see where scouting might still be needed and where not. Q: Shouldn't you just use smoke signals? A: Smoke is meaningless without the context. Like the hotspots they only indicate something is there, not what is happening. But with an upgraded map if you place smoke on an enemy vehicle group then players have an idea what to expect (vehicles) and what to bring (AV). Q: This defeats the point of stealth modules on vehicles! A: This makes stealth even more important than before. Since only players and vehicles that have been spotted somehow show up a stealth module will prevent you from being spotted for longer. Additionally since the map takes a minute to update itself you try to create outdated information by simply moving away from the area where the map would place you, which would be standard for stealth-equipped vehicles anyway. Q: This nightmare will cause any BR10 pulling a Lightning to instantly be visible on the map and get wrecked! A: Since they are only visible when they've been spotted somehow and only their general location would be shown this isn't a concern. Q: You just want to get information handed to you automatically and not scout for yourself? A: Currently the spotting system already pinpoints friendlies and enemies up to a certain distance. This system would reveal anything beyond that distance but only if it's been spotted already. It only reveals information that is already available to all players in the region currently.
An example of what these units could look like on the map already exists in another game. An RTS I tried to love because I love history, but this game, omg, you know what I'm not getting into it here. Jump to 5:30 if you don't want to watch the whole thing, and within 10 seconds of that time stamp his scout helo gets some vision on something in enemy territory, but not detailed. So he gets a red box with --- in it, indicating this partial information. Boxes like what units look like in this game when zoomed out could be on the map, and visually fade over a minute to indicate how hold the info is. By 60 seconds it's faded out entirely, because...old news. *edited to fix typo.
I would also like to add that as someone whom is partially colorblind (red/green), some things in the game can be somewhat hard to distinguish. I have a lot of custom color settings to try to make up for this but some items like the map can still be rough. But as to the OP, I do love the idea of the main map communicating more detailed info. I understand the mini-map need to be compact and light but the main map is all we have for details.
Seems like more work and stuff to process for not much. Currently there's a max of 5 hotspots on a continent showing where the most fighting has occurred. Adding more details to show enemy positions just makes it much easier for people to flank. A random pl can just look at the map, see where armor columns are and pull a flank from another base to kill the fight without having been there. Just facilitating the redeployside. To counter his points: Players already in the fight should have a general idea of how the fight is progressing. It's really not hard to tell whether it's a fair/fun fight, or if one side has overrun the other. It also shouldn't be too hard to judge what you switch to after death. Besides having a map that tells you there's 12 prowlers on a hill means little to nothing for the actual fight itself. The enemy could have a billion tanks if no one's going to get out of them to cap A then the fight's still in defenders favor. Aircraft are already stupidly powerful, the last thing we want is them to know exactly what to bombard before they get there. It's all about prioritizing. Scouting is extremely powerful - fight winning - to be exact. What's great about scouting is it reveals targets in your vicinity, so there's generally not an overload of information and instead you can engage the targets you want based on where they are. There is 0 need to scout for vehicles or whatever nonsense that's far outside the vicinity of the fight. We don't need people chasing that random harasser doing his mission/campaign just because he drove 500m from a base and appeared on map. If something far away is impacting the fight, people at the fight will take action eventually. No. This is where good leading comes into play. Placing smoke, waypoints and calling them out will always be more effective than showing pubies a bunch of enemy concentrations and letting them extrapolate what the pl was referring to. And no, they don't need to see what the pl sees to be a good platoon. The pl's job is to spot, plan and organize the platoon based on the information he can share with them. The platoon just has to follow orders. Adding more distractions on the map would probably do more to dissolve platoon coordination than solidify it. Exactly the issue. Information is the key. Giving it to everyone means you're practically turning everyone into an infil. They get to chose who, what, when and where to engage. Ridiculous. The whole excitement of this game is how it's quite good at replicating the chaos of war. The last thing we want is people picking their fights and route based on accurate data the map's telling them.
Yeah the game has a lot of promise but for every bit of realism and tactics they give you some bullcrap in return. Fun for a few playthroughs but without the option to mod... I actually thought of using the NATO unit designation symbols (https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/NATO_Military_Map_Symbols). However using such tags over a colored area could help tremendously. A few stylized images of armored vehicles, light vehicles, infantry and aircraft could go a long way. I drew those figures using the in-game system, it's a bit limited. The colors are supposed to be the faction colors with a small shift to make them visible on the map against other faction colors. Rabid's addition of floating tags with symbols and additional information could easily have faction-symbols added at the beginning for clarity. Hell you could place factio-symbols all through an area occupied by forces of that faction.
And where do you get this information? The screenshot already shows 4 seperate hotspot indicators with another one across on the ridge. Larger fights can cover entire bases with such hotspots. Could you give some information on where you got this idea or is your entire post just hate against the idea for the sake of hating it?
check the wiki regardless how many hotspots appear doesn't matter. You're zoning in on a detail of 0 importance. And really, playing the victim card instead of trying to refute valid, logical points doesn't do your idea any good.
https://planetside.fandom.com/wiki/Map Just did. No mention of the maximum amount, the example picture already shows 7 seperate one's and you know that if you zoomed out several other battles would have their own hotspots. So your opening "argument" and your defense now are lies. It is of importance as it shows the quality of the entire post. For example your point one is just "people should know and lwt's not make it easier for reasons". Again: you open with a pointless, extremely easy to check lie and then double down on the lie. Then proclaim that you hold valid, logical points instead of lies. Edit: I realize now that there is another option. If you look up "hotspots" there are several things player call hotspots. A place with lots of cortium spawns is called by players a cortium hotspot, and another mislabled "hotspot" system is the one keeping track of the last 5 places where fights happened in order for players to spawn there faster. Ofcourse just that description should tip anyone off that it has nothing to do with the hotspots shown in the map in the screenshots I showed. Regardless, it shows your colored opinion and your willingness to twist things in your favor in order to hate on the idea.
woah. Interesting turn of events. https://wiki.planetside-universe.com/ps/Hotspot In any case, I'll shoot some shots of my own since it seems you're unable to refute even basic points because of how overly idiotic this idea is. The picture shows 7? Both your screenshots show one and in the wiki it shows 5. Unless you've put an invisible image or are including the ones you've drawn, it seems you're a liar here. And since I don't see the entirety of the map, I'll assume you're lying and that was the only fight occurring at the time. So you've lied in your opening, I should dismiss everything else you've said. Even if the thing was wrong information, or something you've just interpreted poorly, going in guns blazing calling everything a lie shows the quality of your post and character more than mine. Lol did you even read what you said? What could anyone possibly gain by lying about easily verifiable map features? - you've admitted yourself it's easily verifiable. Have you ever failed a test because you got the first question wrong so the professor decided everything else was a lie as well? Whether the number is 5, 5.5 or whatever, point is there's a limit. You didn't even prove that the limit wasn't 5 lmao. So lol, your argument doesn't hold water, unless you're trying to say I've constructed my entire post over an obvious lie. Ridiculous. Yeah, my point one is players in the fight already know what the general outcome of the fight is. I've rarely been in a fight where I couldn't predict a choke point, clusters of enemies, etc. It's really not that hard to do. Showing enemy concentrations by type to everyone on the map as I already explained kills the whole gist of the game. Oh yeah, let me picture how amusing it would be to nuke an armor column at a fight where I'm not even there just because I can see their clear outlines on my huge map. Very neat. My bad didn't notice how silly I was being to address this. And someone has to explain to me how I ensued the rest of my points from the first. Because really saying there's a limitation of hotspots when you're asking to outline them at every fight doesn't correlate with the fact hotspots as you're suggesting can easily be abused. So yeah in conclusion you started with a poorly reflected idea. The attempted refute to actual concerns was pathetically petty at best, not even worthy of being replied to if we're going to be honest. 'you lie about number of hotspots I can easily check, so everything you said is a lie'. Absurd. Yeah that's perhaps THE dumbest thing I've read on here, and I have sadly read quite a bit. Congrats.
I'm guessing you already know but it might be easier to just try to use windows filters and mods instead of trying custom game settings. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/colorblind-windows-trick-distinguish-colors/ Hope this helps.
You are talking about reinforcements needed, a spawn feature. I'm talking about those yellow blobs that appear on the map to signal how much fighting is going on. Can you understand the difference? The idea is sound. Your "refuting" could just as easily be used to remove most information on the map screen, and much of the information isn't even about my idea. For example you keep mentioning that "players know how the fight will go". That is about how players might view the situation, not about the information delivered to them. With the extra information it would be much easier to gain a full picture. For example right now often people do not know the situation of the entrance on the other side of a biolab, but with this system they would get a better idea of what is happening, if the entrance is even guarded or breached. At other facilities it's useful to know what is happening on the other side without having to move to the other side and check. Similarly it allows players to see the buildup of a friendly or enemy vehicle force outside of their radar range. All this information can change the way players will see a battle going and allows them to make a better prediction of how the battle will go. What they would consider a loss in the current system can be turned into a win as they have the information to see where their actions could turn the tide, or what is considered a win can be held because they have the information to deal with an upcoming counter. This would all increase the value of scouting, rather than detract from it. Since the information would actually reach more players in a format that allows players to pick and choose what information they deem valuable. You calling this the dumbest idea is again a sign that your intention is not to create a discussion but to simply hate on the idea for the sake of hating on it.
I appreciate the info! I honestly did not know about that. Obviously I have been this way my whole life and prior to Win10 there was no such tool so I have always either used the mode in the game or created custom settings. It would be handy if PS2 had a mode for this like some games but I understand why it does not. Either way I will give this a try and see if it helps at all. Thanks. EDIT - OK so that mode is yuck for windows. Might just be because I am not used to it. HOWEVER, it can easily be hotkeyed off and on. So I wll try it in PS2. Again, I appreciate the info about this tool.
where on earth did I talk about spawn feature???? I quite literally said hotspots. Hotspots occur in the top 5 hexes with "the most fighting". The instant action is a totally different icon and occurs in the hex with the most friendlies. I think you may be the one misunderstanding, but I'll just assume you're lying. No, it isn't. I quite literally explained why it's not, to which you could only reply 'you're lying'. Lol, very informative. Even here, you just can't seem to offer anything to counter. You're basically just explaining why information is useful. Yes, I know very well it is, which is why I don't want it visible to everyone across the map. It just reinforces the nuking of fights from people/factions who aren't even there, facilitates flanks, takes out the surprise/chaos of war and reinforces the redeployside. Again. Hypocrisy and stupidity. Had I been hating on the idea, I would've just said one short post along the lines of 'datz dum" and left, ignoring the rest of the thread. No, here I opened up with a proper reply, actually countering points with valid arguments. Don't deny the fact that showing everyone armor positions and such does not facilitate the point and click war asset or even the a2g spam you mention. No, I quite reasonably explained why it was a bad idea. You are lying right now. I never called it the stupidest idea. What I did say however, in response to your absurd reply which did nothing to refute my concerns, was that your reply is the dumbest thing I've ever read. And I'll stand by that lol. You're definitely not in your right mind. The idea is bad yes, I kindly explained that. You going off about how I'm lying and just a hater and whatever other stuff you're in denial about just demonstrate YOU'RE the one not prepared for proper discussion, and that you and your replies are lame, petty, and irrelevant garbage.
Regarding colour blindness, there are things which can be done about that. A family member of mine is partially colour blind, and he gave an example that the control points in bases are either squares or diamonds depending on if they are friendly or enemy. I had never noticed, but it was very helpful to him. With the symbols I suggested, friendly stuff could have rounded corners, while enemy has sharp corners, just as one example.
Or take the existing method: friendly tags are displayed in squares and hostile one's in diamonds. You could increase the difference by using squares versus circles. You could also use faction shapes. NC's is more circular with "ribbed" edges, TR a triangle with a point sticking out the top and the VS a circle with 3 spikes sticking out. This could help not only identify friend from foe but also potential fights amongst the two enemy factions.
You're arguing with TRSpy, that's basically his MO. Anyways, I don't really see any big reasons not to make the map more readable. Yes over time players can and will learn to judge the flow of a fight near a given facility before spawning in, but is that something that really needs to be ambiguous for new players? Not really. It also may help to prevent players from deploying into hopeless fights. There are plenty of situations where the pop balance on the map looks even but the reality on the ground is that one side is getting curbed. Seeing the fight tightly focused around the spawn room might make people cancel that instant-action and look for a fight someplace else.
