This screenshot has us fighting for our lives and Honey rates
During our fight Phè was getting acquianted with the finer points of aggro-management in Vanguard.
Which, as many things in Vanguard, is a bit different and more complex than in other games.
Your best way of getting aggro of an attention whoring healer like me is to have them as your defensive target and, when some nasty attacks me, intercept that attack with a Rescue Reaction. It also helps to hit on the mob hitting me (the healer).
That's where the CoreUI I like so much comes in and shines.
This HUD (Heads Up Display) allows me not only to see my own health/energy/mana bars along with my target's, but also who he-she-it is attacking, and even whoever my target's target is attacking.
Ok, back up :-)
- I'm attacking the Azebaj Drone, his healthbar is the one at 57%
- He's attacking Suhaya (shown in white) this happens to be me but it doesn't have to be me.
- Below the name Suhaya it says Azebaj Drone again, that's because my Target's target (me) is attacking that drone.
It probably would have made more sense if I caught a screen with the Drone attacking Taqe.
Taqe is my Defensive Target as you can see.
Below all that is another health bar, with the name Azebaj Drone in it and in white below it Taqe's name.
This is the encounter pane. While the HUD isn't part of the regular interface, this pane is. It's been skinned to match the HUD though.
This shows additional foes mixed up in the fight, but not targetted by me. 'Off Targets' so to speak. I can quickly see that something's attacking Taqe and it's not my target. That's handy because going by the animations doesn't always go so well :-)
And yes, if we get a 20 foe train on us, the middle of my screen is red.
Oh, the little blue bit, with 2/12 in it is my Jin.
My hardcoreness might be pushing it now. Not having to turn around is indeed much smarter. And big red bars in the middle of the screen would improve my efficiency and your survivability. But everything in those pictures makes my me feel unhappy. To me it is changing the way Vanguard is meant to be experienced to a hardcore xp-grind add-on efficiency thing. All that info is in the traditional layout too. I just have be learn to be better at looking what is there already in front of me. I do need to move a few things around on my screen. I know I am being unreasonable petty, but your pictures only make me less want to use CoreUI. I am afraid I am just that hardcore old-fashioned. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteHe he, well you're not obligated to use the Mod, just obligated to keep me alive :-)
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with you on the whole 'hardcore' thing.
In my reader's list is an article about design by choice and by accident and turning around the latter option into a win. The Vanguard UI was designed not by deliberate choice but largely by accident. As evidenced by all the little bits and pieces without much in the way of coherency or consistency beyond the theming.
So to me the CoreUI in this use compensates for game design flaws rather than turn it from hardcore into cookie-cutter. I could wish it looked a little less Star Trekky and a bit more Telony, I'll admit to that.
But it's as I said before. MMO combat should be about fighting the mobs, not the interface.
And that's a design statement that is completely irrelevant to hardcoreness or lack thereof.
With the CoreUI, after I did some tweaking I am mostly unaware of its existence while it provides me with the information I need, and some things I don't need as well. The default Vanguard UI on the other hand is like a loose tooth To me. I just can't stop poking at it even though I know it's never going to be 'right'.
The default UI is Telon themed, thereby more immersive, but to me, in this case at least, function is more important than form. And the default UI simply doesn't function very well.
But I can appreciate someone preferring the default UI for the immersion factor, provided it's accepted that one accept the handicapped position compared to the other players, most particularly those of the hardcore variety. :-)
Yes, I think you're using the term hardcore where it's not entirely appropriate this time.
But you are not being petty.