Player blips hidden on radar by default? What if they were?

[LeAristocrat]

I think R* should hide all player blips on radar by default. It would immerse the players into the game more by causing them to live in their scene (the player in their immediate environment) and not “live off the radar” so to speak. This would also make the game more realistic and interesting as well.

 

Consider this for a second. The game, as it is, causes you to rely heavily on radar. It’s so informative, how can you avoid relying on it? It shows you where everyone is and even which direction they are facing. Hiding player blips on the radar would do several things:

 

• Give less skilled players a chance against griefers (to evade, stealthily attack, etc.)
• Make the game more realistic and interesting all around.
• Immerse players into the sublime world, that R* spent so much time to create, by taking away the all-revealing information on the radar and encouraging them to use their surroundings.
• Make bounty hunting more of a challenge.

 

This suggestion may be counter intuitive at first, but if you think about how the game would transform I think it makes sense. When you have all the player blips on the radar in front of you it gives you a certain sense of comfort; you know where everyone is (besides the players who’ve hidden off the map for 1 min of course; for my smart alecs) and your attention around your immediate surroundings wanes somewhat.

 

Turning the radar off for all players would add a numerous array of possibilities to the game, especially the ones that I’ve failed to mention.

 

Additional thoughts: Friend and crew member blips would stay up on the radar. Players with bounties and those who fire a firearm without a suppressor would show up on the radar. Players with bounties would have a 10 second blip delay/beacon which would mark their “last known location.” Players could actually go to the hunted players’ “last known location,” and search the area for them.

 

If you think this is a good idea vote it up here at its official Rockstar support thread:

http://support.rockstargames.com/hc/communities/public/questions/200413347-Player-blips-hidden-on-radar-by-default-What-if-they-were-

 

If you're against the idea, feel free to post your thoughts here or there as well. I think the discussion is valuable.

 

Thoughts, to my friends here at GTA Forums?

Edited November 2, 2013 by LeAristocrat

[Musician020]

I hate the blips!

[tazzy4u2]

Link didn't work.

Totally agree remove blips. Like the delay bounty blip idea as well.

[NombreDeLaBeast]

been saying this from day 1 lol...well actually day 2 but still.

[damian001]

It should be like Red Dead Redemption's settings for Hardcore mode. You would only show up as a blip if you fired a weapon. It would even be more cool to start taking people out using silenced weapons.

[Noeks]

totally agree. thats why i have black limousines in my garage for sneaking up on mothef*ckers. i like the lester service where youre invisible on the radar but only for one minute.

 

Edit; the link doesnt work for me

Edited November 2, 2013 by Noeks

[VN Lambo 01]

If they made it where you only show up when you shoot or when the cops are on you then it would make this game a lot more fun as far as having to track down who you are looking for. Would also make it slightly more fun having to find where the fun. I can see it now. Wondering whether someone is a NPC or a live character, but thats assuming the names were taken off too.

 

 

I hope they atleast implement a mode to make this work. Hardcore modes in COD and other games prove to be fun to those who see it as fun. I don't see why it would be any different here.

[LeAristocrat]

Link didn't work.

Totally agree remove blips. Like the delay bounty blip idea as well.

 

 

totally agree. thats why i have black limousines in my garage for sneaking up on mothef*ckers. i like the lester service where youre invisible on the radar but only for one minute.

 

Edit; the link doesnt work for me

Updated link.

 

http://support.rockstargames.com/hc/communities/public/questions/200413347-Player-blips-hidden-on-radar-by-default-What-if-they-were-

 

Thank you.

Edited November 2, 2013 by LeAristocrat

[pr0n-]

I believe it would be as easy as creating Friendly, Normal and Hard Roams... unless what your suggesting is just to have only one setting and have radar off then no... that would be stupid.

[LeAristocrat]

I believe it would be as easy as creating Friendly, Normal and Hard Roams... unless what your suggesting is just to have only one setting and have radar off then no... that would be stupid.

Yeah, that sounds feasible. Something like that, having different options, would fit other players' playing styles.

[xlightscreen]

Sure, if you just want to call it world deathmatch. Which is the only reason you would want something like this.

[stocksyuto]

Only show on the map if you shoot, crash a car? And wanted

 

Lester could have the option to show all players on the map for 1 minute

[obsidian_eclipse]

On GTA iv there was the option to create lobbies with player blips on 'distant only', so you could see generally where people were on the map but when you got in within a few city blocks they'd disappear.. it really leveled the playing field and made players think about what they were doing rather than just homing in on a target and blasting away, particularly when you had buzzard fanatics carpet bombing your location.. on a few occasions I could sneak round the back of the buzzard whilst they were looking for me, come around the side and take out the pilot with a solitary pistol shot. the omnipotents in games can be quite annoying, we have stealth stats and in single player we have a noise cone which gives away our location, it would be good in incorporate this into GTA online.

[Blasterman4EVER]

It would be terrifying... but fun... but it would make you feel alone.

[reform]

Only show on the map if you shoot, crash a car? And wanted

 

Lester could have the option to show all players on the map for 1 minute

Shouldn't even be all players, should just be one player. Then that ability would be useful when hunting a bounty for example.

 

 

TBH i wouldn't mind if on the pannel where it lists players in the session, it would also list their last known location, which could be wherever they were 30 seconds ago by default, but update automatically if they're doing loud things.like shooting.

 

 

Also, assuming OP's idea happened, you should have the option to turn your blip off to friends and/or crew members if you want to.

 

 

 

One other simple fix is to have a wide zone like the gang attack or pre-crate drop treanslucent circles on the map that show roughly where each player was 30 seconds ago. It would be a nice compromise.

Edited November 2, 2013 by reform

[Ren Fujin]

100% agreed with you, OP.
Hidden blips is a mechanic I put forward in a topic I created a while ago, about suggestions to improve Freemode :

http://gtaforums.com/topic/619432-suggestions-to-improve-freemode/

A lot of interesting ideas, including hidden blips, were suggested. Have a look when you get the chance

[riksterinto]

I think this might be neat for an option but unless there were more people in a free roam lobby then it would be boring. It would also lead to extreme camping outside apartments, LS Ciustoms, etc. The camping is bad enough with blips.

 

Showing up on the map when you have the cops after you is stupid. Bad enough you have cops trying to shoot you, let alone every other player in the lobby. You'd never be able to hide from the cops to loose your wanted level.

 

Also what is the value of only showing the blip when a weapon is fired? You die very quickly in this game and people can drive away from the scene too fast.

 

This sounds too much like COD to be honest. It works on games with smaller maps but not something this big.

[Goneinfiveseconds]

You can only see other peoples blip if there on your line of sight or if they are making a noise

[Candira]

sounds fun getting killed by people camping LSC behind a dumpster every time

[Zonegamer]

Imo San Andreas is too big and there's not enough players to fill up the entire map alone (16 max.) Free roam would feel empty and I want the feeling that I'm playing with other people or what's the point in online.

If this game was heavily focused around stealth (say like metal gear solid meets GTA) then this could work.

[[email protected]]

I also want this but in my opinion there just is not enough players on the map...16 players + big map + no blips = hardly finding each other.

[echocrack]

People cry and cry about getting killed in freemode.

 

This would make it worse, you'd have to take a look at every extra ped just to make sure they're not someone trying to shank you.

[Verodox]

Bounties should appear... But as for normal randoms, invisible is cool... But if they engage you in combat, they should stay revealed on your map for revenge purposes. If this' implemented, people are going to start driving regular looking cars, following traffic rules and whatnot to stalk their prey... I like it!

[DrGreenThumb_NZ]

That what off the rader is for

[SkullFace616]

I think this is an excellent idea and would really enhance gameplay. It would give people a chance against griefers, I had one chasing me for ages yesterday, wherever I went, at first a bit of fun, then it becomes annoying and it was quite obvious that they were looking for my marker and just turning up wherever I went.

 

Perhaps the disappearing in close vicinity would be best due to the size of the map.

[WinterEdit]

Reveal Players would get a real reason for it's existence then.

 

Yeah, I agree with this suggestion... you should be able to see Friend/Crew blips though. If you mentioned that, I didn't notice because I didn't read it completely.

[LeAristocrat]

I also want this but in my opinion there just is not enough players on the map...16 players + big map + no blips = hardly finding each other.

 

 

Imo San Andreas is too big and there's not enough players to fill up the entire map alone (16 max.) Free roam would feel empty and I want the feeling that I'm playing with other people or what's the point in online.

 

If this game was heavily focused around stealth (say like metal gear solid meets GTA) then this could work.

Zonegamer, [email protected] - I think you make a great point. The map is huge which introduces this challenge. Maybe something like player blips:far would work better. Where they show the blips of players who are far away from you but hide the ones who are in a certain radius of yours.

 

 

sounds fun getting killed by people camping LSC behind a dumpster every time

LOL

 

100% agreed with you, OP.

Hidden blips is a mechanic I put forward in a topic I created a while ago, about suggestions to improve Freemode :

http://gtaforums.com/topic/619432-suggestions-to-improve-freemode/

A lot of interesting ideas, including hidden blips, were suggested. Have a look when you get the chance

Fujin - What a comprehensive post! I read through the entire blip portion. It's rewarding to see that other people are making the same suggestion. So far most people agree with the some portion of idea in this thread which is a good sign in my opinion. Hopefully player blips land somewhere in this direction in the future.

 

 

Thank you all for the feedback, even the feedback against the idea is valuable.

Edited November 2, 2013 by LeAristocrat

[Suppa K]

I agree, it would be pretty awesome and keep you on the edge all the time, in a good way. Plus as you said it would make it harder for players to actively grief.

 

Instead they could make you show up only if you had a bounty, but still being able to use Lester's abilities.

 

It would also force you to actually look at your surroundings to tail players.

[Batallions]

This sounds like a great idea. More people would be familiar with the map and less spawn camping.

[Tantrix]

Agreed.

 

 

Blips on the radar are straight-up n00b mode. When someone can pinpoint exactly where you are standing from across the entire city, that's f*cking stupid. One of Rockstars biggest mistakes IMO.

Edited November 2, 2013 by Tantrix