Please help make finding teammates easier.

[MeToo]

In an unfamiliar raid, with 11 identical blue dots moving around the map, it can be very difficult to figure out who is where.

Here are some suggestions for making this process easier:

1) Give each player in a 6 person party a distinct color (i.e. blue, red, yellow, purple, orange, green) instead of just blue for all. Use that on the minimap and put it next to their name in the party list as a key. For 12 person raids, the second 6 characters could reuse the same colors as the corresponding from the first 6, but add a black dot or something to the center for differentiation.

2) Highlight the dot of currently selected player on the minimap and map so it is highly visible and noticeably contrasts with the others.

3) Positional voice chat. Please create an option where we can get positional audio queues (delay left/right channel appropriately - simulate pinna occlusion for voices behind you etc.) to apply for incoming voice chat to better figure out the direction of talking teammates relative to my camera. I don't think you'd need to scale volume down for distance since you'd want to hear all incoming chat equally well but maybe add an acoustic quality like subtly increasing reverberation the farther they are away. You could couple this with showing a "talking" symbol or animation around the character's head.

4) Rotatable 3D map. A simple 3D wireframe automap (like Descent's from 15 years ago) would help to determine elevation of teammates as well as the lateral position we get from the current overhead view.

[Adrian99]

Great idea, this one is constantly gnawing on my mind. As far as having different colored dots on the radar, how about a unique color for each class? Then at least you know where your healers are, where your casters are, and where your melees are. Also on the radar, how about highlighting a dot or making it blink if that person is talking?

[Lorz]

im thinking you miss the point of why the radar system is as poor as it is.

Because in DnD there is no auto mapping. Usually you had to map yourself.

Just sayin. This is not decent. And in some quests it is purposefully used to make it hard....Necro has a great one for this...3x3x3 cube of rooms and randomized (instance only) teleporting doorways

[MeToo]

in DnD there is no auto mapping.

in some quests it is purposefully used to make it hard

I'm trying to limit my suggestions to those that would help immerse the player by experiencing the world through what their character can see and hear without giving them an omniscient advantage that DDO doesn't already provide.

I originally was going to just ask for the positional audio since it just makes sense if someone immediately to your left is talking, you'd know where they are.

As far as the colored dots... Does it make sense that a character would know that there is a teammate over there at the far end of the map but can't tell which one it is without pausing to hover over them and hope they don't move too much before their name pops up? That's the current implementation.

[katana_one]

Add this to your list of ideas?

Instead of different colored dots (or in addition to) when you press f1, f2, etc. to select a party member, have their dot automatically highlight on the mini-map (as if you had manually selected the dot).

Edit: reading comprehension fail on my part. This was point #2 in OP's original suggestion. :/

[Ghoste]

Player: so where are the other players?

DM: you don't know, you can't see them.

Player: ya, but what about my radar? Shouldn't I be able to know exactly where they are?

DM: I'm booting you from my campaign - I specifically posted for adults only.

[Rumbaar]

Player: so where are the other players?

DM: you don't know, you can't see them.

Player: ya, but what about my radar? Shouldn't I be able to know exactly where they are?

DM: I'm booting you from my campaign - I specifically posted for adults only.

DDO != P&P

How many spells did you get today?!

[Rav'n]

/sigh.... can we make it ANY easier to play this game...?

Hey Ghoste.... I touched your Greenis, even if it is in Ghoste Mode!

[Requiro]

1) Give each player in a 6 person party a distinct color(...) No if this will be automatic. Yes if you can decide if you what it, what color you want ect. ect.

2) Highlight the dot of currently selected player on the minimap and map (...) Yes. This will be nice

3) Positional voice chat (...) Yes, but only audio. No for icons over head

4) Rotatable 3D map. (...) No at all. Map should always be 2D (for climate purpose)

Comments in green

[katana_one]

/sigh.... can we make it ANY easier to play this game...?

Meh. Come on, it's not that bad. Is it?

Personally, I don't need the different colored dots for each party member. But we can already select party members with f1, f2, etc. And we can already select party members' dots on the mini-map by right-clicking them. What's the harm in letting us do both with one function?

Gotta admit, it would help with immersion in the game if I could tell if the person speaking in chat was standing on my left or right. Not sure if the game can support it, or if it would be worth the effort to implement it.

3D map? Meh. I could go either way on this one. Maybe a method where the maps are "layered" with a different floor on each layer of the map (much like old school graph paper dungeons from PnP). Unfortunately, the way I understand it is that all maps are currently one flat graphic file, so all the multi-floor maps would have to be re-done, so this is unlikely to happen.

[Ghoste]

DDO != P&P

How many spells did you get today?!

You've never played with house rules? I'm playing a P&P campaign right now that uses a spell points system.

DDO = P&P + many house rules

[KillEveryone]

I'm all for the color coding the dots and teammates.

Maybe outline the player with their color insted of haveing it right next to their name.

Map I don't care so much about. I would like to see some compass indicators because people can't seem to understand north, south, east, and west.

Don't care about the voice part. I just don't feel this is needed.

I would like to see a better set up for the DDO voice system volume control. Some players have theirs set so low that you can't hear them. Some players have theirs set really high so it seem they are screaming in your ear when you have your volume turned up to be able to hear those that have theirs set low. There is no happy medium. I'd like to set the volume on each person individually.

So....

Clicking on their name would highlight their color coded dot on the map like you said and right clicking on their name would bring up a volume control for their voice.

[katana_one]

… and right clicking on their name would bring up a volume control for their voice.

I would love this feature.

[Shyver]

I just want to be able to re-order the names in 6 man parties and raids. That way if I'm responsible for healing/buffing/whatever someone over on F9 I can move him/her to F1-F6.

The individual voice controls would be very very welcome too.

Not a big fan of further turning our mini-map into an even more detailed GPS. Starts to look too much like Halo or Call of Duty at that point.

[Cauthey]

As far as the colored dots... Does it make sense that a character would know that there is a teammate over there at the far end of the map but can't tell which one it is without pausing to hover over them and hope they don't move too much before their name pops up? That's the current implementation.

I've seen this suggestion a number of times. Either color coded dots for each party member as you suggested. Or, color coded dots by character type. While not nearly as differential, this would still be helpful. Melees red, divines yellow, arcanes blue, and specialists green (or something like that).

Or, even better: add some UI that allows each player to color code other toons in his party. Maybe you only care about where the healers are. Or, where the other meleers are. It would be cool if Turbine could add some way to click on each person in the party and assign them a custom color. Of course, this assignment would be specific for your DDO client, so other players could also individually assign colors to teammates that they want to keep track of.

The positional audio is a nice idea. Not sure if something like that is feasible or not. But, this is the Suggestions forum, so we might as well ask for it. I think that voice as it is is probably simpled down as much as possible for bandwidth reasons. Though - there's no reason why your DDO client couldn't "do the math" for you, and play back the voice communications through the speaker that corresponds to where that person speaking is.

[KillEveryone]

I just want to be able to re-order the names in 6 man parties and raids. That way if I'm responsible for healing/buffing/whatever someone over on F9 I can move him/her to F1-F6.

Yes, yes, this too.

I hate having to have the people I'm responsible for being on a big reach on of the function keys.

[Rav'n]

I just want to be able to re-order the names in 6 man parties and raids. That way if I'm responsible for healing/buffing/whatever someone over on F9 I can move him/her to F1-F6.

I agree SOOOO much with this comment that I just had to touch his greenis!!

[MeToo]

The positional audio is a nice idea. Not sure if something like that is feasible or not.

All of these are cheaply implemented client side. They take information the client already has such as character class and position and they present them to the player more clearly than is currently done. The player colors could all default to the current drab blue for those who don't want the change and be customizable under UI options for those that do.

The voice chat could simply pass the relative location information into DirectX PlaySound for positional audio. The only complication there might be if the voice chat isn't tightly integrated with the main DDO client. It does seem that voice chat is currently independent of the main server since I can often still use and hear that when the main game server is not responding.

[MeToo]

And in some quests it is purposefully used to make it hard....Necro has a great one for this...3x3x3 cube of rooms and randomized (instance only) teleporting doorways

The challenge of Shadow Crypt is to figure out which of the 4x5 rooms the portals take you to. You can currently see where you are on the map.

Player: so where are the other players?
DM: you don't know, you can't see them.
Player: ya, but what about my radar? Shouldn't I be able to know exactly where they are?

I don't know of any quests that disable the radar/map but this should work the same way those do now.

/sigh.... can we make it ANY easier to play this game...?

I sure hope so! I always enjoy experiencing the novel content and intended challenges rather than fighting with the user interface.

[Ghoste]

I don't know of any quests that disable the radar/map but this should work the same way those do now.

Oh my...I was making a reference, a very obvious one at that, to pen and paper, wherein ALL QUESTS disable the "radar".