Yesterday, 06:55 PM
The trade-off to such a feature is that it adds in visual noise, and that in many situations it is difficult to spare the attention to properly make use of the extra information (this is especially true for less experienced players), so it isn't all positives.
But of course, it can be an extremely helpful feature.
I would frankly argue that everyone that is about to spend time playing a new game should take a few minutes to check the menu options, as it often contains things that have a major effect on the entire game experience. It's true, of course, that most people will just use the defaults.
Removing this option is out of question. It raises the skill involved in playing STK (even if you have the information, making the right choice with it isn't always easy), but the local clients already have information on which powerups other karts have (the taken powerup can be predicted based on conditions when the kart touched the gift box, which is important so that the player's own powerup is correctly predicted), so hiding it would only give an unfair advantage to people using a previous version or to cheaters.
However, good news for you, we were already planning on turning this option on by default for 1.5.1, precisely because too many people just stick with the default, and we think the average player would benefit more from having it activated. It would also help players understand what is going on when they are attacked by a cake, for example.
But of course, it can be an extremely helpful feature.
(Yesterday, 03:02 PM)M4r5 Wrote: But, any player who hasn't opened the interface settings probably isn't aware of this feature, so the game is unfair by default when playing against someone who has it enabled.
I would frankly argue that everyone that is about to spend time playing a new game should take a few minutes to check the menu options, as it often contains things that have a major effect on the entire game experience. It's true, of course, that most people will just use the defaults.
(Yesterday, 03:02 PM)M4r5 Wrote: Furthermore, not knowing what powerups another player is holding makes the game less predictable and more fun. Could this feature either be removed or turned on by default?
Removing this option is out of question. It raises the skill involved in playing STK (even if you have the information, making the right choice with it isn't always easy), but the local clients already have information on which powerups other karts have (the taken powerup can be predicted based on conditions when the kart touched the gift box, which is important so that the player's own powerup is correctly predicted), so hiding it would only give an unfair advantage to people using a previous version or to cheaters.
However, good news for you, we were already planning on turning this option on by default for 1.5.1, precisely because too many people just stick with the default, and we think the average player would benefit more from having it activated. It would also help players understand what is going on when they are attacked by a cake, for example.