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Small improvements for healthbars (clarity)

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 9:49 pm
by Syrchalis
What I really hate about the current health bars is that a single point of damage makes the first square completely grey. It looks like the unit took quite a bit of damage when it might just be at 399/400 health.

I take Starcraft here as example - what if you make the squares gradually grey out?

Gun Turret @ 399/400 Health
Current implementation:
Image

Suggestion:
Image

Of course, if the turret is at 350/400 then the square should be completely grey, as in the first picture. But at 399/400 it should be just slightly darker and gradually get closer to the grey color as the health decreases.

Also - just as a question, what about health bars like the player one for other units (one without squares)? The squares don't seem to be related to a certain number (e.g. they are each 50 health on gun turrets, but 10 health on belts).

This is by no means a huge deal, but I would love to see this optimized, especially since this shouldn't take longer than a few minutes to implement and it would make reading them a lot easier.

Edit: What about giving an option to turn health bars for enemies on all the time? I for one have trouble seeing enemies at certain moments until they take damage, due to the lack of health bars.

Re: Small improvements for healthbars (clarity)

Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 6:45 pm
by ssilk
I would really like these ideas to be implemented.
The squares don't seem to be related to a certain number (e.g. they are each 50 health on gun turrets, but 10 health on belts).
Yes, indeed the size of health bar should be comparable to the health. Either by length or by number of quadrates with some log(health) in the formula.

Re: Small improvements for healthbars (clarity)

Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 10:32 pm
by Syrchalis
Yeah it's a really small thing, but it does quite a bit for clarity. Effort/effect ratio is definitely good.

Re: Small improvements for healthbars (clarity)

Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 11:10 pm
by StoneLegion
yeah would love this too. It's too inaccurate for me visually normally and annoying.