Fatigue Feedback (dev branch)

[machineabuse 11]

Hey now, it's already been demonstrated when you try to build the game the way that you think it's "supposed" to be played instead of how people actually play it, you end up with DayZ standalone...

Harsh but lol :D

I do think a native stamina bar would go a long way to having players understand the systems better. I'm a big fan of diegetic systems of displaying information but the way I see it if I can bring a new player into my gaming group and get him through the basics of the core systems faster then that's more time he can spend refining higher level play and doing tactically interesting things.

Which is way more worthy of everyone's than any amount of time spent "adapting" to the minutia fetishism of darkening corners of the screen and listening to belabored gasping over gunfire and explosions while trying to make sense of what FTL is trying to say over ACRE.

Simply put the player having to make a decision what to do over the fact that his stamina is half gone is more important than him coming to the realization his stamina is half gone. Just give him that feedback and let everybody get on with more intelligent stuff.

That said, subjectively to myself the values for everything seem pretty much spot on since the last stable.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Machineabuse

[vegeta897 13]

I don't see how having to actively glance at a bar every now and again is supposed to be more intuitive and letting me focus on the game than the way the vignette effect warns you without actually diverting your attention away from anything. A stamina bar slowly diminishing does not grab my attention, and requires me to actively check it. In addition, the sway of your weapon is another native and constant reminder of roughly how fatigued you are, without requiring your attention. The vignette and weapon sway practically work on a subconscious level when you get used to them. You intuitively know when you're fatigued in the game without even diverting any real attention to them, because your brain notices them and they don't require you to do something out of the ordinary (look at a bar) and make a judgement (how full is it).

[miketim 20]

Yeah and you also get used to the "timeframe" at which you get fatigued.

Like mentally you get an idea of when your fatigue is gonna start to kick in and screw you over

[SilentSpike 84]

I don't see how having to actively glance at a bar every now and again is supposed to be more intuitive and letting me focus on the game than the way the vignette effect warns you without actually diverting your attention away from anything. A stamina bar slowly diminishing does not grab my attention, and requires me to actively check it. In addition, the sway of your weapon is another native and constant reminder of roughly how fatigued you are, without requiring your attention. The vignette and weapon sway practically work on a subconscious level when you get used to them. You intuitively know when you're fatigued in the game without even diverting any real attention to them, because your brain notices them and they don't require you to do something out of the ordinary (look at a bar) and make a judgement (how full is it).

Because those things are not easily quantifiable. Which means it's very unintuitive to learn to manage your stamina. In real life you have a general sense of how fatigued you are based on all of your perceptions. In A3 you have a vignette and weapon sway which are handy to signal that you are fatigued, but entirely unhelpful to figure out how fatigued you are.

[vegeta897 13]

I agree that they are not as obvious as how well you can assess yourself in real life, but I think for the purposes of the game, they're enough. I can learn to manage my stamina through experience playing and the warning signs. Speaking for myself, I've never had a problem with not knowing exactly how fatigued I am. I'm no genius, so if I can do it, I think anyone can. Maybe everyone should try harder to adapt?

[pettka 694]

I have been crossing mountain ranges during winter with heavy equipment, doing the same in hot summer, but I have never got a feeling that I am 53.48 % fatigued and walking to another point would take me to 67.29 %. The inputs my body gave me were roughly similar on both points, with some heavy breathing and hand shaking. Having a stamina bar feels somehow like gaming the game - "needing" some precise information to improve in-game performance, not for the feeling itself :icon_twisted:

[machineabuse 11]

Pettka; I agree, but in reality you'd *feel* tired. In the game you'd need to see and hear it; which doesn't always apply when you are being shot at in the dark for example :)

You could say that at that point I have more pressing matters to worry about and I agree. But had I more reliable feedback on what my avatar's (key word) physical disposition is our group's players and I probably wouldn't be in that situation as often as we are in ArmA 3.

I get it; a HUD bar is inelegant and non-immersive. That's a given. But the current feedback that A3 is giving players isn't good enough to stop them thinking about fatigue all the time and put their mind on what the rest of the game demands of them.

That's why mods like the ShackTac Stamina Bar came into existence; get players minds off minutia and back into the game. Same with the mod grown HUD element for stance adjustment back in Alpha.

[St. Jimmy 272]

Audio is a very good way to give feedback of your fatigue. Too bad that many people complain how loud they're. If you are tired your breathing is very loud IRL... Breathing could be bit louder than now IMO.

[John Kozak 14]

I have been crossing mountain ranges during winter with heavy equipment, doing the same in hot summer, but I have never got a feeling that I am 53.48 % fatigued and walking to another point would take me to 67.29 %. The inputs my body gave me were roughly similar on both points, with some heavy breathing and hand shaking. Having a stamina bar feels somehow like gaming the game - "needing" some precise information to improve in-game performance, not for the feeling itself :icon_twisted:

Well, if we take that argument as valid - you must also delete ammo counter, stance indicator mentioned above, vehicle indicators and vehicle radar. Because you also don't get a feeling "my hull is 53.48% destroyed" or "my ammo belt has 134 rounds left". But I doubt you'll do that.

And no, you can't apply a view to one part of something but not the other - that would be called "double standards".

P.S. And why are exact percentages brought up again? It's entirely possible to have non-precise indicators, as discussed several pages earlier. Just like "dead tired" vs. "Somewhat tired" vs "well rested" feeling - I'm sure no one would argue that is a valid feeling.

Edited September 2, 2014 by DarkWanderer

[Bouben 3]

Well, if we take that argument as valid - you must also delete ammo counter, vehicle indicators and vehicle radar. Because you also don't get a feeling "my hull is 53.48% destroyed" or "my ammo belt has 134 rounds left". But I doubt you'll do that.

You can't apply a view to one part of something but not the other - that would be called "double standards".

Absolutely agreed.

Stamina bar is needed. In real life, you very precisely feel how much you can bear yet. You don't have to feel it in exact numbers - you just know it. You don't get this info in the game and therefore you need an indicator. Simple as that. ShackTac did it right and I would like to have it in the vanilla officially.

[John Kozak 14]

I agree that they are not as obvious as how well you can assess yourself in real life, but I think for the purposes of the game, they're enough. I can learn to manage my stamina through experience playing and the warning signs. Speaking for myself, I've never had a problem with not knowing exactly how fatigued I am. I'm no genius, so if I can do it, I think anyone can. Maybe everyone should try harder to adapt?

Or maybe, your play style just does not involve much movement? Everyone can learn that, but I'd prefer to pay attention to those nasty street corners rather than sitting for several seconds trying to spot obscure vignette.

And keep in mind that vignette and sway also appear when you're wounded, which turns a supposedly easy spot into an equation with two variables.

Edited September 2, 2014 by DarkWanderer

[DancZer 65]

I real life you can estimate how long you are able to run, sprint. When you start sprinting, you feel that "uhh, this is heavy, i should slow down to get there without fatigue".

Currently in the game you notice fatigue when it is too late. That's why we use stanimabar.

Make it optional like the stance indicator.

[John Kozak 14]

Created a poll on the question - just to see the numbers.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

I have been crossing mountain ranges during winter with heavy equipment, doing the same in hot summer, but I have never got a feeling that I am 53.48 % fatigued and walking to another point would take me to 67.29 %. The inputs my body gave me were roughly similar on both points, with some heavy breathing and hand shaking. Having a stamina bar feels somehow like gaming the game - "needing" some precise information to improve in-game performance, not for the feeling itself :icon_twisted:

This is not a good argument pettka due to the fact that there is a stance indicator in the game, and it's there for a very good reason for it, which you guys rationalised yourself in a SITREP/SPOTREP after community feedback. Same reasoning can be applied to this.

The data the stance indicator gives can be seen much more easily (compared to fatigue) by looking, it does not require "estimating" or "feeling". Yet the stance indicator is there because it's overly cumbersome to look at your own body to know what stance you are in. It's information you are aware of inherently by being a human (aka "feeling").

Following that logic, a fatigue indicator of sorts would make even more sense following that logic, as that's the information you can only receive by "feeling" and not by looking. As a human, by "feeling", you have a decent gauge on it, but you can't "feel" the avatar you are controlling.

The indicator itself does not need to be in the realm of precision such as "53.5005005% stamina left", which as you say is not something you can accurately quantify even by "feeling". But there should be an indicator that lets you estimate if you can make a run for the next building and still be effective versus waiting just a few more seconds.

Currently you can measure the frequency of your weapon sway (what if you are not carrying a weapon?) and the frequency/loudness of your breathing (is the sound playing at 50db or 55db? I remember when I was 50% tired, this sounded much louder, have i turned my volume down?), which in no way come close to the precision of estimation of tiredness you can get by just being a human being and "feeling". Vignetting/color alteration is also another too coarse of an indicator (Is this pixel #BADA55 or #BADBAD? Maybe it's dark so I can't see that the edges of my screen are dark, etc.).

Edited September 2, 2014 by Sniperwolf572

[Tonci87 163]

I have been crossing mountain ranges during winter with heavy equipment, doing the same in hot summer, but I have never got a feeling that I am 53.48 % fatigued and walking to another point would take me to 67.29 %. The inputs my body gave me were roughly similar on both points, with some heavy breathing and hand shaking. Having a stamina bar feels somehow like gaming the game - "needing" some precise information to improve in-game performance, not for the feeling itself :icon_twisted:

Yeah I understand what you are saying. On this years summer vacation I was in Omis Croatia. That little pirate town has two fortresses, one directly above the town, and one on top of the mountain directly above the town. This summer I decided to climb to the upper fortress.

http://www.tripadvisor.de/Attraction_Review-g644074-d3330304-Reviews-or20-Fortress_Starigrad_Fortica-Omis_Split_Dalmatia_County_Dalmatia.html#REVIEWS

Those crazy ass Pirates decided to build that thing on the freaking top of a really steep mountain so that they can spot ships far out on the sea.

After climbing (yes you have to climb rocks to get up there, pirates don´t need no stairs apparently) half the way up I was really heavy breathing, hands and legs shaking and generally thought that I´m almost out of stamina. After a short rest I could go the rest of the way.

How would that have looked with a Stamina bar?

Walk until the bar reaches a certain level, stop until it drops to a certain level, continue walking. BORING

How it should be-> You go on until audible breathing tells you that you are getting exhausted (the heavy breathing must not kick in too early, wich it currently does in my opinion). The next step should be instability of limbs. Your weapon sway becomes gradually more serious. The next "escalation" telling you how fatigued you are should be side cramps.

How can you simulate side cramps in a game? It is pain, pain that makes it hard to breathe. So now the really heavy breathing should kick in. If you don´t stop for a rest then the sway should get extremely serious and all the other effects like slow movement and stuff should kick in.

[sqb-sma 66]

I feel like I could objectively measure my stamina (a la stamina bar).

It would be a bar in two chunks. The first chunk would be for aerobic excercise, walking, slow jog etc. It fills up fairly slowly and comes down fairly slowly. It's that "day's hard hike" feeling. If you really push you go anaerobic, your muscles scream murder and your heartrate and breathing skyrocket, this is the second segment. It fills up fairly fast, you really can't push any harder. That's the one that *really* fucks your aim. It comes down fairly fast though, the burn goes away in less than a minute and breathing and heartrate ease down after that. I can quite clearly tell when my muscles are sore but still have explosive energy left in them to throw myself up the rockface to the next hand hold, even though I could barely walk with the pack on any more.

[SilentSpike 84]

I actually think coloring of the stance indicator is a good idea after seeing that poll. A lot less accurate than an actual bar, but still gives you that interoception that you have in real life.

[-Coulum- 35]

I actually think coloring of the stance indicator is a good idea after seeing that poll. A lot less accurate than an actual bar, but still gives you that interoception that you have in real life.

Agreed. Stamina bar might be a bit too precise, but just "judging by sway and breathing" is not good enough.

However, I do think there should be a bootcamp mission with a stamina bar so that players can more easily learn how to manage stamina. It is actually really quite easy, but without clearer indication of the rate of fatigue/recovery, it will be hard to realize that.

[Bouben 3]

Currently in the game you notice fatigue when it is too late. That's why we use stanimabar.

Absolutely correct.

---------- Post added at 17:58 ---------- Previous post was at 17:51 ----------

Agreed. Stamina bar might be a bit too precise, but just "judging by sway and breathing" is not good enough.

However, I do think there should be a bootcamp mission with a stamina bar so that players can more easily learn how to manage stamina. It is actually really quite easy, but without clearer indication of the rate of fatigue/recovery, it will be hard to realize that.

Unfortunately, anything less precise than a stamina bar (without numbers) will be as "useless" as the current audio-visual system we have now.

Any indicator based on colour is absolutely unacceptable for colour-blind people (such as myself). I have a big trouble to recognize slowly changing shades of colours. Moreover, when the colour is changed, it is already too late. You need a linear indicator that is predictable. A stamina bar without numbers is predictable because you see two extremes - the minimum and maximum values (without numbers, of course). A colour-based indicator has more or less exactly same effect as the current audio-visual cue you get from the game. Absolutely useless, because it shows the state when it is too late.

EDIT:

The stamina bar is telling you what you get IRL - that is: "this value (a position on the bar) is my current state/feeling and this other part of the bar is where my current limit is".

Edited September 2, 2014 by Bouben

[froggyluv 2136]

I real life you can estimate how long you are able to run, sprint. When you start sprinting, you feel that "uhh, this is heavy, i should slow down to get there without fatigue".

Currently in the game you notice fatigue when it is too late. That's why we use stanimabar.

Make it optional like the stance indicator.

No in real life we don't ALWAYS know when entering the threshold of fatigue when engaged in high intensity anaerobic movements -thats why we are often surprised that we need to stop and lean on a wall, or lean over hands on knees to catch breathe. It's a fallacy to believe we have pinpoint knowledge during these activities whereby one could always just keep himself out of any sort of fatigue by merely looking at a bar.

And what do you mean by "noticing fatigue when it's too late"? Ive spent quite a bit of time sprinting with gear in the VR and really heavy, audible breathe while sprinting doesn't really set in till 40-45% range. Upon that I stop, aim and shoot with very little penalty shooting targets with relative ease. Better yet, lower weapon for a few seconds and fatigue drops rapidly. Thats a nice touch of realism in that I'm sure real soldiers would love to always have rifles up but thats just not reality.

[St. Jimmy 272]

Could we get smooth transition for the raise weapon just like in DayZ? In A3 when you lower your weapon you can't move and raise it which is in DayZ possible. That would be just one little step towards smoother and good experience. Those who have both games know what I mean. I put this in the fatigue thread because keeping your gun low has big impact and that would eliminate some frusturation.

[chortles 263]

@ St. Jimmy: It's completely off-topic (nothing to do with fatigue), but it sounds like what you want is for "combat pace (3 sec.)" to work with a "fully lowered weapon" and not just the "not-quite-low ready" of the default jog/run, as well as switching from the "fully lowered weapon" version of 'combat pace' (the infamous hop) to the regular version thereof?

[machineabuse 11]

Could we get smooth transition for the raise weapon just like in DayZ? In A3 when you lower your weapon you can't move and raise it which is in DayZ possible. That would be just one little step towards smoother and good experience. Those who have both games know what I mean. I put this in the fatigue thread because keeping your gun low has big impact and that would eliminate some frusturation.

That would be as they say; "the tits" :) To be able to smoothly go from weapon down all the way to ADS while moving would make all the difference. Ticket that on the tracker bro.

The main issue with the current fatigue feedback is as a few members have pointed out already that fatigue has a lot of variables attached to it such as how much you are carrying (which in itself is pretty abstract) and whether or not you are wounded. With that in mind the expectations to the performance degradation of the player avatar is going to become a problem is highly variable.

Also relevant; AI need to be able to communicate their fatigue state(s).

[DancZer 65]

No in real life we don't ALWAYS know when entering the threshold of fatigue when engaged in high intensity anaerobic movements -thats why we are often surprised that we need to stop and lean on a wall, or lean over hands on knees to catch breathe. It's a fallacy to believe we have pinpoint knowledge during these activities whereby one could always just keep himself out of any sort of fatigue by merely looking at a bar.

And what do you mean by "noticing fatigue when it's too late"? Ive spent quite a bit of time sprinting with gear in the VR and really heavy, audible breathe while sprinting doesn't really set in till 40-45% range. Upon that I stop, aim and shoot with very little penalty shooting targets with relative ease. Better yet, lower weapon for a few seconds and fatigue drops rapidly. Thats a nice touch of realism in that I'm sure real soldiers would love to always have rifles up but thats just not reality.

I agree with you at some points. I tested it in the VR, where is no background noise(shooting, blow up and other player chat). I can hear the different sound at different fatigue level. How can you estimate your fatigue level without the breathing sounds if you are running? In real life you feel your fatigue even if you are deaf.

If you get hurt yourself you know where the pain came from. You don't have to find where the blood came from.

Edited September 2, 2014 by danczer

[chortles 263]

@Machineabuse: I like the idea, but to some extent it sounds like it'd make the default jog/run feel redundant? Namely since we could jog/run with the weapon fully lowered for lesser Fatigue gain but then still 'immediately' bring up with the weapon, whereas right now the default jog/run has greater fatigue gain but enables the latter via combat pace.

@danczer: I'm also reminded of the fact that the Inventory menu includes a "weight" (mass) bar for both total encumbrance and per container (uniforms, vests, backpacks), as well as "red-out when you can't fit anymore", and these were featured as selling points at conventions... the lack of a Fatigue bar is quite inconsistent with BI's decisions for the default (non-minimal) UI to be chock full of visual indicators, one of which was specifically at player request.