should they show shields on top of HP?

[VanilleFang]

That said, what they could do is color the HP meter with the amount of HP left on the shield, eg a green fill for the Aldoquium and a grey/brown fill for stoneskin that is shown at the end of the HP bar as a % "on top" of the remaining HP.

I thought that's what they were asking for. o_o At least, that's how I would think it should be done anyway.

[pandabearcat]

The reason it makes sense for addons to do this, is, everyone has a different preference for how they want the shields shown.

Some might want it to extend past the end.

Some might want a gray bar. Some might want a colored bar for each type of shield, as mentioned in several posts.

Some might want it to simply be a text based thing.

Some might not want it at all, because it may be confusing to read/nonintuitive.

This is why this doesn't make sense as a "baseline game function". I don't disagree with anyone here that it would be a good idea, but the above are reasons why it makes so much more sense for it to be in an addon. One of the biggest reasons why we need addons, actually, is because everyone has different preferences.

And before someone says "well why doesn't SE just do all the above, and set options" well the reason is 1, if they do it it must be well supported and 2, if they do it it really should be something a majority of people want, and we have no indication of that and 3, its much better for it to be an addon (begging the question, I know).

Also, another mechanics reason: polling for shield strength, for each possible shield, from each possible player, etc, is very expensive. As evidenced by the fact it took 10 years for addons in WoW to track shields effectively as correct healing numbers, this isn't trivial.

[Ghishlain]

@OP - I like this QoL idea - signed. I also liked how you described it and would probably like to see the modified HP as a bolded purple of sorts so it's easy to tell that someone is "shielded" at a glance.

So a 9,500 HP tank gets Adlo for 1,200; their HP becomes a bolded Purple and they display 10,700.

Though this might cause confusion if a tank has 4,000 / 9,500, gets a 1,200 Adlo and their HP becomes 6,400 in a bolded purple, I think healers will get the idea what's going on.

I can see how this might be a bit difficult to tell "how much of Adlo is left" if say a target has both Stoneskin and Adlo on, but I like what's suggested since multiple colours for multiple "buffs" would probably just make people barf rainbows in frustration at that point, lol.

[spelley]

"well why doesn't SE just do all the above, and set options"

The term I've heard for this is "gutless design."

[Roxas_Andrade]

I imagine this feature like this:
____ ___ ___________________ _____________
|____|___|___________________|_____________| 7000/8000 <- (6000 hp plus 1000 shield)
..^............................^........................^
Brown/Glowish..........Blue..................Gray/Black
green Bar...............standard bar...............bar

This would help us to maintain shields, specially if we know the fight and know that a tank buster is coming... Liked the idea, OP.

[KisaiTenshi]

I imagine this feature like this:
____ ___ ___________________ _____________
|____|___|___________________|_____________| 7000/8000 <- (6000 hp plus 1000 shield)
..^............................^........................^
Brown/Glowish..........Blue..................Gray/Black
green Bar...............standard bar...............bar

This would help us to maintain shields, specially if we know the fight and know that a tank buster is coming... Liked the idea, OP.

This is one way



This is another way


Ignore the numbers on both, as I wasn't about to change them in photoshop.

But going back to the original statement I made earlier, I don't see Square-Enix making this change. If the information is available (eg the game client actually knows there's 1000 points of shield) then showing it is within reason, but I don't think that's what it does. I think it's just sending something like:

X player has 5000HP, BUFF(ticks remaining), BUFF(ticks remaining), DEBUFF(ticks remaining), DEBUFF(ticks remaining)
X player has been hit for 0HP damage. BUFF 0 secs remaining.
X player has 5000HP, BUFF(ticks remaining), DEBUFF(ticks remaining), DEBUFF(ticks remaining)

Which is why we see the shield buff, and not any shielded damage numbers.

[pandabearcat]

Yep, same way wow worked for a while.

Client typically has to "guess" shield numbers.

We may be exposed to the info in addons but really, SE's combat log is a joke and almost everything combat related is obfuscated to the point of uselessness.

[Aurelinaus]

Nothing fancy I'd rather just have an easy-to-read 1-99% overlaid on the SS/Adlo icons. Simple, tells me exactly what I want to know.

[elemental10]

This people.

This is a good idea.

SE please hear this out.

Anyways, I once posted a Feedback/comment form through the client and come next patch, it was implemented. I suggest you do that and anyone else that wants to see this happen.

Posting on forum wouldn't get much attention.

[Roxas_Andrade]

This is one way



This is another way

I liked the second way best. Good job!