The ancient nametag system is an eyesore even more now than before

[ZeroAce]

It's been with us for so long I don't think many consider that it not necessarily have to be this way, nor even should it be this way.

It's not until you have the distraction of the blue billboards and red circles gone that the true beauty of the game's graphics is allowed to shine fully.

Instead of eyes fixating on tags over friendlies heads, you are looking at their avatar for identification of friend or foe.

With the circles gone over planes, you stop focusing on the circle and start looking at the model itself.

It was an awesome sight when I heard a plane diving at the AB, then it broke through the clouds and rain and tracers started flying at the AB.

That kind of visual impression is impossible when you've got red rings spoiling the skyline and making camo irrelevant.

Try a beta test with tags disabled. I think most people will find it opens up their eyes to the game world more, and it's playable in terms of flying; It is a disadvantage, but if everyone has the same handicap then it evens out.

Friendly tags could be replaced with a system where the units close to where your view is looking, near the center, have their names appear in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

You can also use your map and mouse over their icons already to get names.

Edited May 29, 2010 by ZeroAce

[romzburg]

There are lots of situations where I turn them off so I can see downrange better, and you're right, it looks waaaay better.

Also, when there's a big air-to-air battle going, sometimes i turn tags off and just look up at the furball for a while. They look REALLY cool in 1.31!

____________________

motormouth:

Much as Romzy's posting style can give me headaches (and the fact that he's "NEVAR WRONG!!"), that post pretty much nails it on the head.

sgtchief:

romz you['re] my damn hero

sydney:

Ya know, at first Romsburg, you rubbed me the wrong way and I wasn't a fan. But over the past 12 months, you have really grown on me. You're precise, well spoken and although you are sometimes a little harsh, you are most often correct and in proper context with your responses.

irelandeb:

indeed he's one of the few voices of common sense on these forums

pete, linc & julie:

I can't say [any]thing else [than] that the ban was justified considering that you have an 'impressive' TOS history....

owilde:

The only thing worse than being talked about is *not* being talked about.

[Jizzyjaz]

Not so fun finding people with them off though.

[ZeroAce]

We can use the map to find them these days, and then point our screen at them to get a name if they rework the name tag system.

I think any loss of instant name recognition is a small price to pay for the massive boost to visual immersion that results. Not to mention from a realism standpoint it's actually better that you not know instantly if that movement in a bush is friend and foe unless you either check it on the map or mouse over it directly.

It's a particularly egregious eyesore when you look at a distant town and it's awash in giant blue names.

I know it will probably be a hard sell to change the icons for fighters, but at the very least we could disable the circles to ground troops.

I have tried flying without the icons on in some huge furballs and it was truly wonderous in terms of increasing the immersion. For the first time you're actually identifying planes by sight (size of the plane matters for spotting now!) and focusing on what they look like, rather than fixated on a bunch of circles mashed together.

I'd be happy to do it all the time if only everyone else was operating with the same handicap.

Edited May 30, 2010 by ZeroAce

[AHWULF]

I've always thought the tags font should be smaller and less intrusive. The plane circles are there because you can see much better in real life than on a computer monitor. Maybe get rid of the plane type, but without the circle you'd never find a plane.

[ZeroAce]

You could replace the circle with a single dot that disappears once the plane gets within sufficient visual range.

[JAMMYMAN]

i guess i'd have to ask ......

how many players would be shoting thier own side because they do not know the difference in the Vehicles? even with Infantry, they would shoot at everything they saw even if it was someone on thier own side.

It would be extremely frustrating to be out a 1000 meters or so and have a friendly tank shooting you non stop because he thought you were an enemy tank because he doesn't know the difference between an allied or axis tank, or even an atg in a bush hiding and he starts shelling you and gives away your psoition to someone who knows the difference of the side specific models and gets you killed. the Forums and playerbase would erupt like Mt St Helens against players on your own side getting you killed by shooting at you and giving away your position.

another point is, if the Tags were disabled, you'd never know who the player was you need to warn that a Sapper was behind his tank, or an SMG was near his atg, or a Enemy Aircraft was behing his plane. How would you ever be able to warn those members on your TEAM that they are in trouble from an ENEMY thats threatening to kill them??????????????????????

Sure, No Tags looks nice, but imho, it would be more harmfull to your side in being able to warn them of Dangers that are about to kill them than not having the Tags above them to help players identify Friendly from Foe. Just My Opinion on this.

Edited May 30, 2010 by JAMMYMAN

[ZeroAce]

That's why I said replace it with a less intrusive system: When a friendly is generally pointed on the center of your view their name shows up in the lower right (or if you really want, right over them, like most FPS games).

If that's not enough you pull up the map and mouse over them after juding their position.

Giant blue tags washing over the landscape is simply not the answer. It drowns out what is otherwise now an incredible landscape and kills the immersion.

Even if a minor amount of convienence is lost by ditching the total 100% tags on al the time system, it is worth the tremendous boost to graphics immersion gained.

Edited May 30, 2010 by ZeroAce

[romzburg]

How about tags off until you press and hold a specific key, and the tags disappear when you let go of the key?

Probably never happen, but anyway.

____________________

motormouth:

Much as Romzy's posting style can give me headaches (and the fact that he's "NEVAR WRONG!!"), that post pretty much nails it on the head.

sgtchief:

romz you['re] my damn hero

sydney:

Ya know, at first Romsburg, you rubbed me the wrong way and I wasn't a fan. But over the past 12 months, you have really grown on me. You're precise, well spoken and although you are sometimes a little harsh, you are most often correct and in proper context with your responses.

irelandeb:

indeed he's one of the few voices of common sense on these forums

pete, linc & julie:

I can't say [any]thing else [than] that the ban was justified considering that you have an 'impressive' TOS history....

owilde:

The only thing worse than being talked about is *not* being talked about.

[uberian]

i guess i'd have to ask ......

how many players would be shoting thier own side because they do not know the difference in the Vehicles? even with Infantry, they would shoot at everything they saw even if it was someone on thier own side.

It would be extremely frustrating to be out a 1000 meters or so and have a friendly tank shooting you non stop because he thought you were an enemy tank because he doesn't know the difference between an allied or axis tank, or even an atg in a bush hiding and he starts shelling you and gives away your psoition to someone who knows the difference of the side specific models and gets you killed. the Forums and playerbase would erupt like Mt St Helens against players on your own side getting you killed by shooting at you and giving away your position.

another point is, if the Tags were disabled, you'd never know who the player was you need to warn that a Sapper was behind his tank, or an SMG was near his atg, or a Enemy Aircraft was behing his plane. How would you ever be able to warn those members on your TEAM that they are in trouble from an ENEMY thats threatening to kill them??????????????????????

Sure, No Tags looks nice, but imho, it would be more harmfull to your side in being able to warn them of Dangers that are about to kill them than not having the Tags above them to help players identify Friendly from Foe. Just My Opinion on this.

If the halos were removed you'll see me firing at friendlys more than anything haha.. I cant tell the dif for most planes.

[Linnon]

Scaling down the range at which the friendly tags draw would probably help. Having a mass of blue tags appear 300ft above a town is not really ideal.

What if the friendlies had a noticable halo effect around the unit? Not like a ring like the aircraft have, but a subtle but noticable glow as a visual indicator.

You could use the same effect for aircraft. Red-ish glow for enemy air, and blu-ish or green or something for friendly? Obviously no glow for any other enemy units.

It sounds a little gamey at first but in contrast its not any worse than the giant tags floating in the air or bright red rings around the enemy air we see today.

I also like the idea of a button-push to show the name tags temporarily.

[ZeroAce]

I suspect that anything we do to improve it is going to lower the power of the current tag system, but I think it is worth the cost, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing from a realism standpoint that it becomes a little more difficult to instantly know where everyone is for miles without first looking at the map.

Having been playing beta exclusively as infantry without tags, I haven't found it to be a problem, especially with the map and minimap to guide me.

If the halos were removed you'll see me firing at friendlys more than anything haha.. I cant tell the dif for most planes.

I've tried it in the past and it's a lot of fun because suddenly you're looking for the outline of planes, color schemes, and symbols on them.

There's a reason they used distinctive paintschemes and symbols in real life, so you'd spot friendlies from further off.

I'd love to fly like that all the time, but only if everyone else were on the same playing field in terms of visuals.

Edited May 30, 2010 by ZeroAce

[Jizzyjaz]

They should just design a feature, where if you want to play with them off you can, and if you like them on, you can just leave them on.

....ohh wait....

[ZeroAce]

The default system is what players will see first coming into the game, and it's not good. There has to be a better way that can fill identification needs.

Most players end up just leaving it on having grown use to it, not realizing all they are missing out on graphically.

[leparc]

How about tags off until you press and hold a specific key, and the tags disappear when you let go of the key?

Probably never happen, but anyway.

____________________

That would work

or it stays on for a preset time once key is pressed

[ZeroAce]

You could make the tags a lot smaller on top of that.

[subset]

i guess i'd have to ask ......

how many players would be shoting thier own side because they do not know the difference in the Vehicles? even with Infantry, they would shoot at everything they saw even if it was someone on thier own side.

It would be extremely frustrating to be out a 1000 meters or so and have a friendly tank shooting you non stop because he thought you were an enemy tank because he doesn't know the difference between an allied or axis tank, or even an atg in a bush hiding and he starts shelling you and gives away your psoition to someone who knows the difference of the side specific models and gets you killed. the Forums and playerbase would erupt like Mt St Helens against players on your own side getting you killed by shooting at you and giving away your position.

another point is, if the Tags were disabled, you'd never know who the player was you need to warn that a Sapper was behind his tank, or an SMG was near his atg, or a Enemy Aircraft was behing his plane. How would you ever be able to warn those members on your TEAM that they are in trouble from an ENEMY thats threatening to kill them??????????????????????

Sure, No Tags looks nice, but imho, it would be more harmfull to your side in being able to warn them of Dangers that are about to kill them than not having the Tags above them to help players identify Friendly from Foe. Just My Opinion on this.

Be nice to have option for tags just to be colored dots. less obtrusive and also would prevent friendly fire as you suggest.

[Bacon55]

Aye I think a nametag level that is just a coloured dot would be a good idea.

Switch to full names if you need to communicate.

Default should remain as it is.

Communication is massively important, and default names off would without question hurt the game.

[ZeroAce]

I believe you will run into the same fundamental problem of the tags being a flagrant distraction even if you reduced their size.

As a tactical simulator there should not be floating orbs or names over every horizon. It's not just ugly but breaks the immersion.

What is needed is some kind of system that frees us from the burden of having these things infest the screen without taking away communication.

For this reason I favor the traditional FPS approach where pointing near the target makes their name appear over them, or appear somewhere else on the screen.

Although I'd be perfectly happy with a system that kept the tags off by default but then made us press a key to pull up everyone's names (And even then the tags should be reduced in size).

However, the tag system we have now is still severely flawed when it comes to picking up tags around buildings at close range, or picking out tags against the background of other tags at a distance.

This therefor supports the idea that we'd be better of rethinking the approach to the tag system from the ground up.

A screen center system where the tag appears on the UI is one way that we solve that issue.

[Damixu]

This could be tested on some campaign, RATs could turn off all friendly nametags and we see how it impacts on gameplay.