Confusing visual cues in mirrored matchups (ALSO AN EPIC COSMETIC SUGGESTION/FIX)

[method man]

I've been noticing that certain mirror matchups are very visually confusing. Troops tend to wear equipment which lacks colour coding, or both sides will have similar colours. Some good examples of this are Aserai, Sturgia, and Battania. This makes it very difficult to tell friend from foe, and it makes fighting more confusing and unpleasant. I will acknowledge that I'm colourblind and this could be a me problem; however, Varyags and Oathsworn, for example, are only meaningfully differentiated by their shield. When the fighting gets chaotic you don't always see someone's shield, and that leads to unwanted hesitation.

I hope that Taleworlds can look for some solutions to this issue. My suggestion would be to create several army designs for each faction. Each sub-army would have unique looks for its soldiers. I think this would allow players to clearly identify enemies AND hopefully break up the monotony of seeing the same troops constantly. As an example, one Sturgian army could have a more Nordic flavour, and their varyags would look like vikings. They could wear furs, a helmet like the one in my profile pic, and heavy mail. Then, the other Sturgian party would be more Vaegir oriented, so their infantry might wear lamellar gear, pointed hats and no fur. I think this would be a nice way to keep the class system but provide new, useful visuals to players.

 

[EbdanianAdmiral]

Aserai and Sturgia are AWFUL about this.

Its a simple fix. Instead of just inverting the faction colors, give team 2 a completely different set of colors.

 

[matamor]

+1 signed

 

[WOLFGEIST]

No. I think this is realistic and lends to the chaos and confusion of battle. In fact I think it should be harder to tell enemies apart from friends. You'll have to identify friends by their faces and clear communication or risk tragedy on the battlefield.

/s

 

[Sigaretovic]

Aserai and Sturgia are AWFUL about this.

Its a simple fix. Instead of just inverting the faction colors, give team 2 a completely different set of colors.

i think this would be the easiest solution.

 

[[VK] Shoomama]

+1 this needs to be fixed. I think the main issue is for lots of the bad cases only the shields change colors not the armor.

 

[method man]

give team 2 a completely different set of colors.

Troops tend to wear equipment which lacks colour coding

 

[Doctor_Noob]

No. I think this is realistic and lends to the chaos and confusion of battle. In fact I think it should be harder to tell enemies apart from friends. You'll have to identify friends by their faces and clear communication or risk tragedy on the battlefield.

/s

there is other games out there if you want realism M&B has never been to "realistic" in mutiplayer

 

[KSHMR]

+1. @MArdA TaleWorlds Do you know if this is already aware amongst devs?

 

[Khödölshgüi]

Great idea, this Canton guy is really onto something folks.

 

[MArdA TaleWorlds]

This is something we have discussed internally. Will forward it to developers once again.

 

[WOLFGEIST]

This is something we have discussed internally. Will forward it to developers once again.

Semi on topic here: The aserai logo above your teammates heads, as one example, can really blend into the background on certain maps, sometimes you can barely see it when target switching, particularly on teammates at longer ranges.


In addition, if you're next to teammates (on a flag for example) their icons can often take up the majority of your screen, completely blocking your view.

Thanks.

 

[AxiosXiphos]

This is something we have discussed internally. Will forward it to developers once again.

Thanks Canton has hit the nail here. Aserai I find the worst - they literally look identical. It's just an odd decision given how Vlandia look so visually distinct.

Cosmetic changes would be cool but I imagine that wouldn't work with the skins system you guys are planning at some point. So adding coloured clothing is probably the most logical conclusion.

 

[Younes]

Thanks Canton has hit the nail here. Aserai I find the worst - they literally look identical. It's just an odd decision given how Vlandia look so visually distinct.

Cosmetic changes would be cool but I imagine that wouldn't work with the skins system you guys are planning at some point. So adding coloured clothing is probably the most logical conclusion.

U can't make difference between brown robes and brown robes, wow

 

[AxiosXiphos]

U can't make difference between brown robes and brown robes, wow

My secret weakness... which has been responsible for all my greatest failures in life.

 

[rektasaurus]

Would be nice if everyone got a tabard or shirt with highly contrasting colors as a temporary solution until the perfectionists get it precisely right. Say dark red and light blue. I play with banners off and for some matchups I have to turn banners on and even then is still difficult. One team is light brown and the other is lighter brown. I have a hard time with some capture flags even.

 

[CarefulDeath]

As mentioned numerous times in this thread, certain factions it can be hard to tell who is who in mirror matchups. Vlandia is a good example to make it more visually distinct but in some instances for factions that don't have much coloration to their armor, like Sturgian Varyags or Empire Legionnaires, the only distinct feature to tell them apart is the shield. It might be worth giving those factions a slight different look as OP suggests, something as simple as different helms, maybe different armorstyles purely for visual cue perposes.

 

[rektasaurus]

Small point, Vlandia’s voulguir class is hard to tell apart except for the tiny sliver of upper arm clothing. I believe we shouldn’t have to rely on floating banners to distinguish teammates.

 

[Younes]

It isn't really big of an issue tbh, u could see who was a teammates in warband because of either the big ass banner or the big ass name displaying the name in green

 

[rektasaurus]

Pressing alt solves the issue. But still is a good issue to be brought up because there is room for improvement.