Living Dead: Tooltip Errors and UI Design Considerations

[Lyth]

I don't really follow. You say that there aren't any errors in the tooltip, but then immediately proceed to concede that there are problems with the wording. The problem is the wording.

It's not relevant if you've figured out how the ability works from prior experience and testing. Some people have done this. There are a surprising number of people who haven't. It's as clear as mud, especially if you're just starting out. Tooltips are important for newer players.

The first two points were relatively simple text fixes. They don't create a significant amount of confusion, but they're still incorrect, and might as well be fixed while we're on the subject:

1. If your HP visually reads 0, then you have been KO'd. Your HP never actually reads "0" at any point if the ability executes correctly. I know what the wording is trying to say. The common parlance for this is "cannot reduce your HP to less than 1". That's what Holmgang states. That's also what other parts of the same tooltip state (it's not even consistent across the text). It's just the one part of the ability on the tooltip and buff text that uses this misleading wording. I suspect that this is a localisation issue.

2. The phrase "most attacks" is another commonly used phrase. It shows up in Hallowed Ground's text. It shows up in Holmgang's text. It shows up in both the tooltip and the buff text for Walking Dead. It even shows up in the buff text for Living Dead, but, oddly, doesn't show up in the tooltip for the Living Dead section. This is another case of the tooltip not being consistent with itself.

It's an important caveat because there are some attacks that will ignore an invuln and KO you even if the ability is correctly executed.

The third point is the important one, because that's the part that a lot of players don't understand. Interestingly enough, I'm not even certain that you understand how the ability works based on your description.

The issue with Living Dead prior to the hotfix in early Heavensward was actually the fact that it ignored overhealing. I'll use the double prey cheese in Ravana Ex as an example. Let's say that you took double prey with Living Dead. The first hit gives you vuln, and the second does lethal damage, bringing you down to 1 HP and activating Walking Dead. Your healer uses Benediction to bring you back to full. The problem is that because you were at 1 HP originally, you received 1 HP of overhealing. So your total healing received is Max HP - 1. So you still need 1 HP worth of healing to cleanse the effect.

The catch was that there was no outgoing damage for the next 10 seconds. Ravana does an outer fire circle and an inner slash as a follow-up. So you were stuck at max HP but couldn't be healed for that last HP. So even if you threw out plenty of additional heals, your DRK would die because it was all counted as overhealing. But there was a work around, even prior to the hotfix.

The solution was to deliberately eat one of the avoidable AoEs after being healed up (i.e. the outer fire circle). This dropped your HP below max (and gave you a vuln stack), but it also allowed your healers to heal the remaining 1 HP that you needed without it being counted as overhealing. Once again, the effect was removed without you needing to be at max HP. We tested this back in the day to figure out what was bugged.

Likewise, Vit pots used to create some funky effects with Walking Dead if they fell off mid-buff, because your max HP value changed.

Living Dead doesn't work like most "Doom" debuffs. You don't have to get to maximum HP. You just need to provide an amount of healing (overhealing included) that is equal to your maximum HP, while the buff is active. The effect can be cleansed with you at max HP, but it can also be cleansed with you at half HP. It just depends on whether you've received damage in the interim.

As for newer players, well, just look at this:


and this:


This is exactly what you ideally want in an ability like this. Simple. Succinct. "You are impervious to most attacks." "Most attacks cannot reduce your HP to less than 1." Not only that, even if you didn't read the text as a healer, you'd still understand what's going on.

It's interesting how these two very important abilities have some of the shortest tooltips in the game, while Living Dead has one of the single longest.

Don't get me wrong, there is still room to improve on both these abilities as far as UI design goes. Depending on how the new shielding resource is displayed, you could have Hallowed change your HP bar to visually show the player that they aren't taking damage.

In the case of Living Dead, however, your healer's understanding is essential to the functioning of the ability. Tooltips are part of the picture, but I also think it needs to be supported with intuitive UI design.