Adjust / Visualization Options For The Shielded HP Bar + Shield Timer Display
I know this is quite a bit preemptive and the info works as is.. but I just wanted to say that it looks a bit.. "could we adjust that a little bit"? I appreciate the info on screen though. I just am not crazy for how it appears to be moving from end of bar to top of bar and especially covering people's number/level/names. So I was hoping to adjust that.
https://i.imgur.com/JtMhaaC.png
I get that I'm preemptive and so it may not even be an issue or how it even works anymore in the build that will be released to us (like it could be a mock up image even), but in anticipation/"before it's released to everyone" I was hoping to share a few kickstarter ideas that might help beautify the shield bar (and give it a bit more info, if it's not already there).
(1st Option/idea):
Slightly expanded rounded HP bar that "envelopes" the HP bar. Like you might imagine a shield, like those space/energy shields, even shield UI in some games, or some of our magic shields in this game (except fit to the hp bar, so quite elongated lol and slightly larger but enveloping shape of the HP bar).
This is your shield bar, it vanishes when there are no shields, when there are shields it gently appears and starts growing/filling up from one side (left I imagine) of the bar and slowly grows to the other side (proportionate to that player's hp like the normal hp bar).
In this you can image it being a bit transparent, like energy shields are in most games, and perhaps orange or something (might need color blind options, depending on color).
Now the HP bar is visually literally shielded, you can see both bars at once, it doesn't cover the name and even if it did in some small way it's partly transparent. May also consider the line that represents where the shield is currently at is a bit more emphasized for extra clarity (as you imagine where your bar fill stops at represents where your mp or hp is currently at).
There can be options in menu to change transparency/color of the shielded HP effect (to make it more or less subtle, shouldn't be fully transparent or opaque though).
May add a light shatter effect if you wanted to really keep shield healers notified of info (must not be too flashy of an animation to avoid being distracting). Just means "shields just left the building" lol.
Visually I imagine it having a slight 3d appearance (as if literally encompassing the hp bar), it won't be 3d of course though (just use of transparency and shape to have that feeling).
(2nd Option/idea):
Shield is always tacked on to the end of your HP fill in the bar (where your HP bar currently notates your status, similar to party member two in the above image example). Then you may consider to either compress the hp and shield bar proportionally when at / near max health or have the shield bar just sit a bit on top of the hp bar until it can start to slide down with the hp (as the hp gets lower the shield follows it down towards the left side).
The down arrow letting healers know they're not max health would help because the shield will be a little misleading feeling that they're max when it's just "lots of shields and pretty high in health". So a bit of a CON to this idea of covering the HP bar in fixed % of max health. If you use compression of the HP bar when the shields vanish there would be a bit of a sudden yoyo effect, a bit of a con to that idea.
(2nd.B Option/idea):
Alternatively, when the HP bar is full/filling out instead of compressing them (and messing with proportions) slide the shield bar to the beginning. With large cures it'll just sort of snap to the other side but when you're very near full health you'll have some shield bar on the right and some being pushed into the left end (as it gets closer to cap). This does go back to some of the jumping around I wasn't crazy for but I feel this would look better than covering people's info (level/number/name). Basically just shifting the shield bar where it is now in the above image into the HP (when full/as it fills past max). It would also be pretty easy to read, which is pretty good thing to have lol.
Edit: See Rongway's example image posted below for a nice presentation of the alternative (2nd.B) point.
https://i.imgur.com/27SSGcT.png
(3rd option/idea):
Use a shorter (height, not width) growing bar inside the HP bar (shield bar overlaps HP, but you can see HP status above shield), of a different color, this represent shields. This bar is proportionate to your max HP (is filling the same space).
So it would appear like double lines when both bars are quite high, or a shorter bar covering only part of the hp bar when low health and higher shields (could see the "nothingness" behind the shield letting you know the player is lower health). Benefit here being you could see the lack of HP behind the shield. Con being your eyes might deceive you if you're not lasering in that info (for most people should be fine, but I imagine some people going "I thought you had hp too sorry").
Edit: SadNessy posted an example that fits what I was describing, here.
https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers...ernative-2.png
(3rd.B Option/idea):
Instead of sharing the same bar with a shorter height growing column (shield bar) you could use some of the open space and move the number on hp a little bit down to show the shield bar in it's own proportional to your max hp bar space, since there is a tiny bit of room below.
Edit: Another good image SadNessy made that matches what I meant, from their thread.
https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers...ernative-1.png
Or with some fiddling of the HP Number's Scale you might also be able to fit a bar about half or more of the HP just below the HP bar (and butts up against the numbers). Here the shield fill % would be similar to HP just that the bar doesn't represent the higher side of your maximum HP (for example the shield bar when full might appear to be half of your hp bar and is actually representing you have half of your maximum hp in shields when the shield bar is full). If you wanted could have a node nearby or a new bar color like Kingdom Heart bosses to represent the bar filling up against past 50% maximum shielded hp.
(Now the timer display part of the thread.)
Here I just hope there is a visual notification to show you that a chunk of the shielded bar is going to vanish soon (as shields do on their buff timers). Could be something like once it gets under 10 seconds a notch made further down the shield bar appears to show that chunk of soon to be vanishing shield, then it starts to flicker or perhaps change shades (or both) at an increasing rate until it just vanishes (or shatters if you want to be gratuitous lol). Please make the flashing not like a strobe light though, just enough to give players a sense of "soon, sooner, 2 seconds from now, IS GONE".
This is just to help give some context to how long you'll have that shield. So its not like "oh he has plenty of-- OH MY GAWD WHERE DID IT GO, MAYDAY MAYDAY".
Thanks for reading :)
