Hoping for the return of colored player names / icons

[ADropInTheOcean]

Do you remember how in the multiplayer for IV and episodes every player in the room is assigned a different color that is represented on their nickname and in the radar icons? That was, in my opinion, pretty useful, since it makes distinction between players much easier. And with that said, I have no idea why it was taken away in V, where all players are now white dots on the radar.

 

It has happened to me multiple times to be simply minding my own business when some asshole caps me and drives away - And, since he isn't already in my radar range when I respawn, all I see is a bunch of white dots stacked around the radar, having no idea of who to follow. Sure, I might as well press down to expand my radar - Which doesn't really help much, since the other player might have already gotten out of the "larger radar" range, or other players may also be in the vicinity, and since they are all white dots, there is no way to distinguish them from the one I'm looking for. The only way is to open the pause menu map and hover around the icons to see which one is my killer - Which will only give me a slight notion about the area of the map where we ran to (Since he will eventually drive away later) and will once again leave me in the dark when I close the menu map.

 

In the end, I can always assign numbers to player icons, which are not just extremely small and far from being as distinguishable as colors, but also are assigned to the position of players in the lobby list instead of the actual players themselves, which means the numbers are always changing from player to player when someone enters or leaves the room.

 

In my opinion, it should work the following way:

• Each player has a color assigned to their name and radar icon, just like in IV
• Each player is able to change his color to any other that isn't taken. To stop "hit and runners" from doing this constantly, a few minutes period to change colors would make sense.
• People with bounties appear with a larger radar icon and a "X" over their dot, and people on pacifist mode appear with the prohibition sign, as normally.

 

So, with all of that said, am I the only one who thinks that the return of colored player names and player icons would be a decent improvement?

[SLUGFly]

Agreed... It seems they ignored the "keep what works and toss what doesn't" ethos, instead going for the "add a bunch of stuff and toss a bunch of stuff" strategy.

Edited November 1, 2013 by SLUGFly

[ADropInTheOcean]

Agreed... It seems they ignored the "keep what works and toss what doesn't" ethos, instead going for the "add a bunch of stuff and toss a bunch of stuff" strategy.

 

I know, right? I feel the same way about crouching, for example.

[ADropInTheOcean]

Bumping

[MrYoungGun]

What youre suggesting would be an improvement but the rdr system was better. A color dot that never changes like white would be suitable for friends, the colored halo around the dot for crew members and all other players in the room various other color dots. Without the posse system in rdr, its impossible to initially tell which other players in the room may be of another crew or friends working together and in turn likely working against you. This wouldn't really be a tough thing to fix, but it's just another item on the list of suggestions that rockstar is moving at a snails pace to look into.

[Ren Fujin]

Yup, I'm with you 100% on this. It can't believe they scrapped color coded dots.
If it isn't broken, please, don't fix it, Rockstar !

 

... even the Highlight Player mechanic doesn't work too well in my opinion, since any player currently shooting at something will also show as a blinking dot on the map. Good luck identifying the one you highlighted in the middle of a bunch of blinking dots.

I sometimes wonder how could Rockstar make such balant design mistakes. Especially since they got it so right in IV.

[infiniteammo]

Agreed, definitely a step backwards in terms of minimap usefulness in online vs. IV's multiplayer. I like the ideas here about choosing unclaimed colors, also having a "color preference" in settings would be good.

[Mugetsu]

Yes bring back colored dots i liked being blue and green and pink and yelliw and tan and orange etc

[iSkreenLooker]

Do you remember how in the multiplayer for IV and episodes every player in the room is assigned a different color that is represented on their nickname and in the radar icons? That was, in my opinion, pretty useful, since it makes distinction between players much easier. And with that said, I have no idea why it was taken away in V, where all players are now white dots on the radar.

 

It has happened to me multiple times to be simply minding my own business when some asshole caps me and drives away - And, since he isn't already in my radar range when I respawn, all I see is a bunch of white dots stacked around the radar, having no idea of who to follow. Sure, I might as well press down to expand my radar - Which doesn't really help much, since the other player might have already gotten out of the "larger radar" range, or other players may also be in the vicinity, and since they are all white dots, there is no way to distinguish them from the one I'm looking for. The only way is to open the pause menu map and hover around the icons to see which one is my killer - Which will only give me a slight notion about the area of the map where we ran to (Since he will eventually drive away later) and will once again leave me in the dark when I close the menu map.

 

In the end, I can always assign numbers to player icons, which are not just extremely small and far from being as distinguishable as colors, but also are assigned to the position of players in the lobby list instead of the actual players themselves, which means the numbers are always changing from player to player when someone enters or leaves the room.

 

In my opinion, it should work the following way:

• Each player has a color assigned to their name and radar icon, just like in IV
• Each player is able to change his color to any other that isn't taken. To stop "hit and runners" from doing this constantly, a few minutes period to change colors would make sense.
• People with bounties appear with a larger radar icon and a "X" over their dot, and people on pacifist mode appear with the prohibition sign, as normally.

 

So, with all of that said, am I the only one who thinks that the return of colored player names and player icons would be a decent improvement?

They really need to put this in!