i'm really glad thankful for all sorts of new functionality in the latest version of empires but i think something that could really make the game pop without a major UI overhall would be simple augmented reality tooltips. these kinds of tooltips would help infantry visualize the action on the ground and maybe even encourage them to act in a way that makes the game more engaging or dynamic. it'd give empires kind of a more game-y look for infantry that fits with the rts blend for example: 1) when an enemy vehicle dies is visible by an engineer, a giant wrench with an arrow pointing down to the vehicle appears to show the player they can salvage the vehicle 2) when a player builds a ref, they can see pretty large numbers showing the amount of resflow as it comes in. kind of like the damage counters in tf2 but larger 3) possibly some visualization of the range of friendly auras (cameras/turrets/squad aura/etc) as a radius around the item not necessarily pushing this as an immediate thing but it's an aesthetic goal for the longer run
It would be fine, I don't think that mechanic is so important that it needs extra assistance. I would rather new players learn other mechanics before they learn to recycle carcasses.
Agreed. Perhaps: 1) Rather than a giant wrench and arrow maybe the recycling icon above the vehicle carcass, not massive but noticeable from a fair distance 2) Probably not worth it for players as actual resource flow doesn't really concern them, more the commander, but useful for maps with 2x res points to give players familiarity of what to go for when they play the map again 3) Definitely for turrets (some kind of style like the Sentry in TF2), squad aura would be nice, but I think it should be subtle, say small green markers on the ground only at the maximum aura radius to indicate the minimum distance needed to actually be affected.
Everything that really needs a "tooltip" already has something like one. Reviveable bodies, ammo requests, camera/radar targets, com/squad move/guard/attack requests, all covered. I suppose automated repair requests might be nice for key resources. However, "key" resource is a moving target. Sometimes a lvl3MG is a damn important thing to keep alive. Other times, a com with lvl3 research will spew tons of them everywhere. Sometimes a single rax is important to keep up. Other times, a com will drop 2-3 rax in hot territory so a team can concentrate on building only one and the others need to die. It would be cool if a com could drop a phantom wall (semi-transparent, maybe some particles to distinguish) to guide engineers to put their free engy walls in the right places. But that's kind of stretching.
We need a little picture of HSM in it too, like him doing a thumbs up, or expressing rage when you die.
and like if an enemy building is taking a lot of damage maybe something like an arrow pointing down to it sayin IT'S NOT DOWN YET like without the commander having to make an actual target, the info would just kinda be there. i feel like some subtle stuff like raxes being on fire doesn't read to all players to well ANYWAY driving player action through real time locational tips is probably better than any sit-down tutorial
As long as I'd be able to disable them, because honestly those sound both distracting and intrusive as fuck.
Attack orders are small, wireframe objects that point to the ground. When I read "giant wrench with an arrow" and "large pretty numbers", I imagine something fairly intrusive Especially say on Slaughtered when you'll have a lot of carcasses in a small area.
When we expand the commander's ability to direct troops then I doubt this would be difficult to start adding, if it uses the same GUI system. Nuclear Dawn had a pretty nice Augmented Reality feel to it.
