Also it could be only used when you’re on a healer class, no need for every class to see it
Sadly, there is a reason for everyone to see it. That’s why I said you should be able to toggle it on/off.
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Icons frequently appear/disappear would be worse than permanent on-screen.
+1
Considering this game (to some degree) carries over the “holy trinity” from rpg games, a UI element to display party health would be more than appropriate!
In fact the information and feedback for the player is severly lacking in other aspects too … no UI element informing about buffs or stacks of items, skills … etc. I hope they will start adding some of those things in the future …
A better way to track buffs would be nice to. Like Boldur’s Rage is so annoying because it takes up so much around the screen. I would honestly rather have a little icon around my health or skills, same for items to.
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In most games, if given the option, I play healer/support.
From my experience and personal preferences, I feel that adding the health bars would be a bad decision.
I say this because when you have a list of health bars, you take away extra resources out of an “attention budget.” I use that term to describe the primary places you focus your attention on while playing a game. Your OWN health bar, shield, etc are always in the same location and always pertain to you, and are what I classify as secondary/informational because you can quick-glance these and automatically know who is affected (me) and where they are (me!).
When you add a party frame, I’m immediately going to pay more direct attention to it. Because it WOULD help me move/heal more quickly, it would also take my attention away from the game. I don’t want to do that, but I would because its a more effective way of playing. On top of that, since your team composition and their positions in that UI will change every game, there’s an additional amount of focus/attention to realize (“player two needs help, which is Montana, ok look for Montana”). And even if I do know that someone is taking heavy damage, I still have to locate them and target them.
To compromise, I would add another “help me! waypoint” (the circle that guides you to fallen comrades), which would show the character’s portrait (maybe even HP bar or %HP) and guide you to them if they are under 50% HP. Add in some signature Battleborn animation to this icon (a little red flash and shake when they take damage, so you can feel the rate the damage is incoming). This gives me a tool to locate injured comrades without having to directly focus on any part of the interface. (“someone needs help over there! GO!”)
I hope I’ve adequately explained why I enjoy our current setup, and understand that while I have years of experience playing support/heals, it is ultimately just my opinion.
edit - wanted to clarify that in Battleborn, I only play PvE (since OP clarified PvP issues).
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Well a good player will be able to pay attention to both the UI and what’s going on in the game. Battleborn already has you keeping track of a lot of things. This is just ment to help show some information that needs to be known. To heal them you will still need to find them. All this does for support/healers is causes them to not have to look for there allies little health bars in crowds.
I have also said this is not just ment for support/healers, this information will help a team(Even Pugs) coordinate a little better. It will say if they can push after a team fight or need to fall back.
No one has honestly made a decent reason why it should Not be in the game.
All it really does for support/healers is they can see when there teammates are in trouble, they still have to move around and find the teammate and target the teammate.
My point of view has nothing to do with the capabilities of a good or bad player.
To put a TL;DR version down: This game is far too active and action-oriented to have a cluster of stagnant health bars cluttering up a portion of the screen. The current method of requiring me to understand my teammates locations and literally look to see if they’re okay, is very enjoyable/fun for me when healing. The quality of gameplay and my own immersion feels greater in that regard.
2 Likes
Agreed. I sorely miss the team health bars as well, especially since I’m primarily a support player.
No promises, but I can say that I’m doing everything I can to convince others to bring these back as an option for those who want to use them.
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@Rado Like I said, I hope there will be a toggle on/off and even when you see there health start dipping, you still have to find them.
@scottv That is awesome to hear, thank you mate. Do you mind if I ask you something else?
This is the only argument in this thread to have swayed my opinion of having health bars. I play healers a lot, too and you’re absolutely right. When there are health bars, I find myself missing most of the intended gameplay and stuck playing in a “who’s next?” mentality.
There is also the potential for your teammates to blame you for going down. Instead of being able to say, “I didn’t know”, or “you should’ve said something”, you feel like you weren’t paying close enough attention to those health bars.
While I still don’t think the screen would be too busy, that it would be an unfair buff, or that the option shouldn’t be there, I think I would probably not play healers as much if my teammates expected me to use it.
That’s great @scottv! But please give @rado 's argument some thought, too.
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For me I think the main thing that team health bars on-screen would do is change the way people play the game based on the reasons outlined by Rado and Elaura. Ever-present health bars have a tendency to lead to prioritising heals based on respective values, and tend to work against situational heals (e.g. do you heal the teammate at 20% health who is running away from the front line, or the guy at 50% who is about to be focussed by two enemies? If your eyes are locked on the health bars, you might not even know what is happening until it’s too late)
The counterpoint to this argument is that they could be toggled on and off based on player preference, and I think that’s fine. What bothers me is that in a PVP setting team health bars actually help non-support characters just as much as supports. If the team has an obvious on-screen alert that their healer is under attack this will work against the opposition as it will make isolating and killing a healer that much harder. It is still possible, of course, but the change would put some players at a disadvantage.
TL;DR: I say add them for PVE but let people switch them off, but consider carefully what it could mean in a PVP setting
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I’ve played support/healer in any game I get my hands on and I’m shocked it was removed from this game after I saw the UI in the pre-alpha demonstration video. Do you know how awkward it is to heal someone now having to spin your character 360 degrees just to check everyones health and then having to re-lock on your healing target?
Good thing I don’t stream. Everyone watching would need barf bags.
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I have to agree with that! A bird’s eye view of BB is the only way I could watch it and not get sick. Fortunately, playing doesn’t make me nauseous, but it does give me that “WTF just happened?!?” feeling a lot. 
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Yeah, third-person mode would make it more bearable. Reference Battlefront and Division camera positions.
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That would help soooo much for melee.
awesome if this is legit
Sorry, but you must be some kind of masochist to like that. The screen not ONLY gets so cluttered with all types of special effects all the time, but you also have to deal with the erratic movements of your team-mates, camera shaking, disorienting CCs and your own erratic turning so you can use your built-in X-ray vision to see where everyone is and how their health bar is doing across eight layers of wall. The health bars would work the same as the rest of the fixed UI in the screen: an anchor to give you information that is ALWAYS available there (assuming you don’t turn it off, I mean).
It’s not fun; it’s confusing. It doesn’t let people do their intended role effectively. Plus, even if you DID have the health bars ‘cluttering’ your UI, this isn’t an MMO: you will STILL need to turn around and see where the heck they are. As long as it’s an option nobody will be harmed by this and anyone accusing you of not paying attention to the health bars will be as silly as the people who accuse you of not healing effectively because they were eight rooms away.