granite token
background: feedback/problem
match storytelling and ui clutter are things that can be improved on. Right now there is too much dependence on the health bars, i found myself looking too much at the health bars instead of the beautiful illuvials. if you try watching a match with the health bars turned off, you would find that its hard to follow all the action that is happening on the board (telling your illuvial apart from the enemy without health bars is a challenge). We need to find a way to reduce the clutter of the health bars but still have a way to track these important stats and have a way to follow the back and forth drama of the match. by adding the following 3 suggestions/elements, the player/spectator can easily answer the important questions (who is winning, who was the MVP illuvial, some post fight analysis, etc.). These additions will reduce ui clutter and remove the dependence on the health bar as a story telling element.
#1 activate friend (green) / foe (red) auras
in illuvium, health bars are the main indicators of whether a unit is friendly or not (red = enemy, green = friend). All other games however use a green outline for friend and red outline for enemy turned on by default and it should be the same for this game. We already have this in illuvium. Try hovering on an illuvial you will see the red / green outline. We need to make this default so that there is no confusion which illuvial is ally or foe. Auras can be made thicker, pulse, glow or change color to indicate if the illuvial is building hyper or omega status. they can be made to blink if low on health or to represent various buffs/debuffs. id also like to propose to remove the glowing pulsing hexes below the illuvial to reduce clutter and maybe just show the hexes as an on mouse over effect.
#2 improved combat stats page
i noticed that the combat stats currently don't animate when they move in the sort order. I believe this should be improved as TFT has smooth animations in their combat stats page. I think KILLS should be tracked in the combat page as it is more meaningful/interesting to know that scoriox killed 5 illuvials rather than knowing that it dealt 5000 damage. sort order should be kills, then damage (to allow for interesting scenarios where a lower damage unit gets more kills than the carry. I also vote that the current health,omega and hyper bars be moved here at the bottom of each illuvial profile pic. (i have attached a sample as a pic). Advanced players can turn off the default health bars on the board to have a more cinematic experience but still enjoy all the same information presented more cleanly and less obstructive at the combat stats page.
#3 announcer voice soundboard / arlen voicelines
Imagine an announcer saying 'VICTORY'. 'DEFEAT'. 'TRIPLE KILL'. 'DOMINATING'. Every other game has an announcer and illuvium should as well. voicelines could be played during a match (e.g. TRIPLE KILL) or post match (e.g. VICTORY) by an announcer or arlen (arlen could say "precision beats power" if for example you beat someone with significantly less mastery points).
here are a few ideas (THRIFTY = beating someone with significantly less mastery points; CLUTCH = 3v1 or greater endgame; ACE = one illuvial gets all the kills; FLAWLESS = no deaths in your team; COMEBACK = one side was losing the round badly but then managed to comeback with heals and hyper; BACKDOOR = winning mainly with rogues; HYPERDRIVE = winning with 3+ illuvials in hyper)
adds a lot of personality to the game and adds an auditory dimension to the match story telling.
conclusion:
by implementing these 3 suggestions along with my other proposal (chess live analysis/evaluation bar), players and spectators can understand better what is happening in the match even with the health bars turned off. This will be a more cleaner and memorable experience for the streamer and spectator.
bronze ember
lyric oracle
rapid raven