Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Class/damage specific colors?

    • 11 posts
    October 14, 2018 5:55 PM PDT
    Any plans to assign a color to each class? I think it could be a cool way to help out with scrolling combat text(the damage numbers popping up). Let me explain.

    Right now when you watch a fight in pantheon as a player or a stream viewer all you see is a string of numbers over the mobs head. To see who is doing what you are forced to watch that mess of spam chat box. If your character has a set color, let’s keep the red, that you see floating up that no one else uses. Then each group member has a different color that you see when they do damage. It would allow you to see when that wizard or rogue lands a big hit or when your monk drops a quad hit, all without having to look at that horrible mess of combat spam.

    If you don’t want to assign classes their own damage colors then you could rather allow players to customize their own colors by group position.

    This would still be a mess in a raid environment but you could easily pick out your hits without staring at text.
    • 646 posts
    October 14, 2018 9:09 PM PDT

    Good suggestion. At the very least, your own damage/healing should be easily distinguishable from the rest. (I would also like to be able to turn off scrolling combat text - with options for toggling off all text or just other players not myself.)


    This post was edited by Naunet at October 14, 2018 9:10 PM PDT
    • 1921 posts
    October 15, 2018 8:11 AM PDT

    In addition to each players UI, I'd prefer the ability to customize or personalize all the particle effects & colors, within a range, for all spells and skills.  Would be a great way to visually show that a player has done a particular quest or in some other way distinguished themselves.
    For example, if I customized my basic direct heal, and normally it's blue, there are the following possible shades of blue: (and of course, many more)

    From https://htmlcolorcodes.com/color-chart/material-design-color-chart/ , 14 under Indigo, 14 under Blue, 14 under Light Blue, and 14 under Cyan.  If, after complete a particularly challenging, difficult, long, or fun series of quests, I was able to choose to alter my Heal particle effect to be one of those 55 other shades of "Blue", that would be pretty cool, imo.  Similarly for particle effects.  I mean really, you could even ask players to vote on particle effects or describe or submit them as possible effects, given how the Unity assets/store works.

    But to your point, Gwhorg, personal customization of particle effects and colors is trivial, it's just whether or not Visionary Realms wants to do it.
    And to be clear, what I'm describing is not just your personal view.  I'm talking about changing it so that it's what -everyone- sees, yourself included.
    If you just wanted personal customization, where only you see the different colors of markers, other players spells, all UI elements, indicators, target reticles, glows, outlines, and so on? That's even easier, and there's no reason why such a thing wouln't be an expected basic feature of the game.

    • 11 posts
    October 15, 2018 9:47 AM PDT
    Mostly I just want damage/healing numbers specific colors so I can see who is doing what. To make sure I am hitting the same target as the tank. Can also see who is hitting the wrong target, or which heals are going where. Gives me the information while playing and watching the fight while not having to stare at the combat text wizzing by.

    Plus it’s a fun way to see the damage your wizard does after he learns ice comet then says “hold my beer” as he proceeds to cast it before the tank can get aggro.

    I just want to watch the action not the text boxes yet still see who is doing what to whom.
    • 2419 posts
    October 15, 2018 10:08 AM PDT

    Gwhorg said: Mostly I just want damage/healing numbers specific colors so I can see who is doing what. To make sure I am hitting the same target as the tank. Can also see who is hitting the wrong target, or which heals are going where. Gives me the information while playing and watching the fight while not having to stare at the combat text wizzing by. Plus it’s a fun way to see the damage your wizard does after he learns ice comet then says “hold my beer” as he proceeds to cast it before the tank can get aggro. I just want to watch the action not the text boxes yet still see who is doing what to whom.

    What I appreciated most about the change EQ1 made from its original interface to one that uses XML was specifically because players could modify not only how information was presented but where it was presented.  That is something I really hope that VR brings forward:  A UI where I can dictate where and in what format information is displayed.

    • 1019 posts
    October 15, 2018 5:09 PM PDT

    This is something that could and possibly should only be a UI adjustable feature.

    • 9115 posts
    October 15, 2018 5:23 PM PDT

    This is a pretty good suggestion, Gwhorg, and something we can look at further down the testing path. Feel free to submit this as an idea when you get into Alpha, mate. :)

    • 11 posts
    October 15, 2018 5:34 PM PDT
    You bet I shall! Will attempt to refine and clarify it as well.
    • 612 posts
    October 15, 2018 11:37 PM PDT

    Might be worth noting that in pretty much every single game that has floating combat text above a targets head... those numbers are ONLY your damage (including your pet). You don't see other peoples damage in the floating combat text. So you'd just be reminding yourself what class you are. I could see having a difference between you and your pet though. Or colours for different damage types. And/or colours for DoT damage vs instant damage.

    Only your combat log should show you 'other' players damage. Which of course could use some colour too so I'm not busting on the idea itself. Just pointing out that the Floating combat text will always be your Own damage and not combined damage from all sources. :-)

    • 2752 posts
    October 16, 2018 11:04 AM PDT

    GoofyWarriorGuy said:

    Might be worth noting that in pretty much every single game that has floating combat text above a targets head... those numbers are ONLY your damage (including your pet). You don't see other peoples damage in the floating combat text. So you'd just be reminding yourself what class you are. I could see having a difference between you and your pet though. Or colours for different damage types. And/or colours for DoT damage vs instant damage.

    Only your combat log should show you 'other' players damage. Which of course could use some colour too so I'm not busting on the idea itself. Just pointing out that the Floating combat text will always be your Own damage and not combined damage from all sources. :-)

    Well, currently that is not the case as you see other player damage in floating combat text...I think FFXIV also shows group damage in floating text. 

    • 1921 posts
    October 16, 2018 12:07 PM PDT

    GoofyWarriorGuy said: Only your combat log should show you 'other' players damage. Which of course could use some colour too so I'm not busting on the idea itself. Just pointing out that the Floating combat text will always be your Own damage and not combined damage from all sources. :-)

    Personally, I would like the option to see either or both live and/or in the log.  No reason not to have more options, even if group/raid damage is off by default, i still would prefer the option to enable it, if I want.
    in EQ1 & EQ2 and at least Rift, I could see everyone elses damage if I wanted to.

    • 206 posts
    October 16, 2018 5:01 PM PDT

    This is a pretty nice idea, kinda would bring balance to the UI plus, its just a QoL feature. 

    • 1019 posts
    October 16, 2018 5:10 PM PDT

    This is already something EQ2 has been doing since launch.  You can display, add, hide, change font, size color of not only yours but other, group, raid, enemy, pets, hits, misses, crits, heals, dots anything.

    • 612 posts
    October 17, 2018 7:25 PM PDT

    Iksar said: Well, currently that is not the case as you see other player damage in floating combat text...I think FFXIV also shows group damage in floating text.

    If this is correct, then it totally defeats the entire purpose of having the floating combat text at all. The whole point of it is to let you actually 'see' how much damage you are doing. Of course the first way it does this is by putting it in a location your eyes are already looking, instead of needing to look down at the combat log. The second way it does this is to make sure that you only see the numbers for your own damage. Add other damage from other sources, and it becomes very hard to see the numbers (even if your own damage was a specific colour or named so you could tell the difference).

    You may argue that in the streams, you can watch the combat log and can keep up fine, so what's the problem? But this is Low level, and slow damage output. Once these characters start gaining multi-attacks and/or the ability to stack DoT's and we start seeing mulitple Pet's in a group and it will change drastically.

    Even your own personal damage may be very difficult to keep up with. Maybe at low level with slow attacks it seems easy to keep up, but I remember with my Monk in EQ1 with dual wield, double attack, Double Flying Kick, a very fast attack speed due to haste buffs, with very fast weapons that could proc yet another extra damage source; it would be very hard to read the damage numbers as they sped past. In WoW it was the same... if you included your Pet damage in the same 'stream' of floating combat text it was very hard to read it as it scrolled past. Most people used addons to 'split' their pets damage into a second stream off to the side so they could actually read the numbers of their own damage as it appeared. Some addons even let you split your own damage types (DoT, Fire, Cold, etc.) into seperate streams to help you read it easier.

    Now imagine a 6 man group with all with multi-attacks, DoT's, Pets, and weapon Proc's... so many damage sources. What's the point of having floating combat text if your damage hit numbers scrolls off the screen miliseconds after it appears. And what about in multi-group content? If it showed damage from a raid full of people it would just be a blur of coloured text streaming by and you'd be lucky to even read any numbers. If Floating combat text includes ALL damage from other players (even just your own group), then it wouldn't be useful for anything and just adds clutter to your screen, and you may as well just turn it off.

    Now as for the Combat Log... of course you want to be able to record all the damage from all sources. So it makes sense that all the numbers from every player shows up there. But in the floating text above the enemies head, it is counter-productive to have it all there. As I said at the beginning, the whole point of it is to help you see your own numbers so you can judge how much damage you are contributing. It's even why the Dev's added the 'split' combat log window the Cohh was so excited about where the Top pane of the window only shows you your own damage, while the lower window shows all the rest of the players damage. So even people who turn off the Floating combat text, can still look down at the combat log and see their own personal damage contribution without all the clutter of 'other' players damage.

    Why do you think you guys are suggesting a way to use colour to tell the difference between the classes. So you can notice the damage that you want to see among the spam. Which is why I said that this colour coding of things is most useful in the combat log itself, since that's where you should need to notice the damage sources in amongst the spam.

    Vjek said: No reason not to have more options, even if group/raid damage is off by default, i still would prefer the option to enable it, if I want.

    This does make sense and it's a valid arguement. I would agree with this kind of arguement since having options is normally a great thing. And if they did have this as an option, I wouldn't complain since I could just turn it off for myself. Who am I to say another player can't spam themselves if they want too.

    But I would suggest that having all the damage in the same stream of floating text makes it not useful at all and is pointless. It's like it would have these options. | Self On | Self Off | Unreadable Spam On | Unreadable Spam off |. If you turn Everything on, its the same result as turning the entire thing off. You won't be able to read it. In fact it's just noise on your screen. So if you just want to have a wall of text scrolling across your screen that you can't read very well while you fight. I guess turn it all on.

    Of course, if you want to go the road of 'More options are good' there are ways to make it viable. You could go the same road as those addons from WoW I mentioned earlier and add the options to have multiple floating combat streams that you can move around, and could even have it configurable to the point where you could have each group members damage in a seperate stream. You could then have it so you can split up your 'group' window so each group members health bar is movable seperately, so you could put them where you want them on your screen and then have a floating combat stream above or below it showing only that players damage.

    This would actually be useful for those who wanted all the numbers in floating combat text and the ability to read them at the same time. Now is this something that VR wants to spend the time on in the built in UI, or is this something that they will leave to 3rd party UI mods. That's a different question.

    • 96 posts
    October 18, 2018 7:48 AM PDT

    Iksar said:

    Well, currently that is not the case as you see other player damage in floating combat text...I think FFXIV also shows group damage in floating text. 

     

    You are correct. FFXIV has floating damager for everyone. Your text is slightly larger than your groupmates. Even FFXI has always had floating damage for the entire group, you just had to turn it on in settings.