#Hiding Names and Future Party Finder Mechanic

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magic oasis
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(I realize this picture isn't the greatest to show what I mean, but I was thinking about this in the moment and forgot to get a better screenshot of me playing the actual game vs this screen here)

Mostly as someone who has been streaming the game here and there, I turned on the "hide names" option to be careful about potentially uncomfy names being shown.

I know there has been some talk of a party finder mechanic in future updates/full release but there is no way to hide your party member's names. Which you can create an overlay to hide the names above your health bar and stuff but the icons showing where your party members are on the map in relation to you shows an icon AND their names.

Not a big deal for the "right now" with only being able to make parties based on sharing a code with people, but if there will be a random party finder mechanic in the future, having these names up could be a problem for people who stream, where we could otherwise just have the little icon on the screen to point out the direction members are in.

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grim grail
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You're absolutely right — it's not a big issue with the current system, but if random matchmaking is introduced in the future, there's definitely a chance that inappropriate or uncomfortable names could show up on stream.

In another game I play regularly, they have a couple of features that address this kind of concern:

  • A "name anonymizer" option that replaces all players' names (including your own) with randomly generated names from the game, instead of showing platform usernames. This is especially helpful for streamers.

  • An option to anonymize just your own name, so other players only see your randomly assigned alias. This one is more for privacy-conscious users.

Of course, one simple solution would be to hide all player names entirely (including party members), but I think name anonymization could also be a good alternative that still allows you to track who's who.

That said, one challenge with fake names is that it can make reporting bad behavior more difficult, since you can't see a user's actual account name. I haven't seen any problematic behavior so far in this game, but as the player base grows, more unexpected issues might arise — so it might be worth thinking about how to balance anonymity and moderation tools.

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Just to add a quick clarification: while I’ve heard many players express interest in a future party finder system, I don’t believe it’s something that has been officially confirmed. At least, I haven’t seen any announcements about it myself. If anyone does have an official source or confirmation, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it.

magic oasis
magic oasis
# grim grail You're absolutely right — it's not a big issue with the current system, but if r...

I think depending on how the system would work moving forwards for name stuff would be the back end would still have your name tied to stuff, so it would show "Lucille" was the player you were having issues with, but in the background data "Lucille" is actually MomsMeatloaf68 so when we went to put a report in against "Lucille" it actually told admin that MomsMeatloaf68 was problematic

(I have absolutely zero understanding of how computer programming let alone video game programming works, so this may be something that is absolutely 100000% impossible without needing way more eyes and fingers on the programming side of stuff)