Would I be at a disadvantage if I played Quake Live with an HUD that displayed damage to death “instead of” health and armour numbers?

Question

There are many custom HUDs available for Quake Live; most make all numbers larger because, hey, everything is important right?

Obviously, this can't be the case. Something has to give.

I believe that damage to death is more important information than health and armor counts. Maybe the health and armour count would be handy to have around to know what item should pick up first, but I believe a far more common scenario is questions like "can I be oneshotted by a railgun this very moment"?

All of the points made in this quickly closed question do not apply to Quake 3 — damage is distributed between armor and health independently from the source¹. There are no side effects to having low health.

In my opinion, this would also help understand what these numbers really mean. Say, for example, you have 25 health and 0 armour, then picked a red armour. Now you have 25 health and 100 armour. Quick: will a railgun (110 damage) oneshot you?

[Answer: yes. Indeed, 75 damage are enough to kill you (-25 to health, -50 to armour). Good luck calculating that during the game…]

The only real downside would be not knowing what I should be looking for: health or armor. However, I believe this is a question separate armour and health bars would answer more than adequately. (more on this below)

Is there something I'm missing from the big picture? Why is there no mod that tries to do this? Is keeping different counters this important in Quake Live?

_{¹The only difference would be for the lightning gun, which due to rounding deals 5 armor damage and only 2 health damage.}

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EDIT:

To make myself crystal clear here, I'll post a picture of what I had in mind:

Separate bars would answer the "what I should be looking for: health or armor" question, but the actual numbers (the "count") wouldn't be displayed. Why would you want it? This is my whole question.

Hope this helps.

Answer 1

This is something of an expanded comment, more than an answer in itself.

There are two effects that your choice of compound HUD has in comparison to a default display of two numbers.

• Instead of displaying the numbers of each value, you have a bar displayed. The effect is advantageous to those who work better on visual differences and relative changes, but disadvantageous to those who rely on values and absolute changes.
• There is a compound display for the post-calculated "damage limit". This is advantageous to those who cannot do a quick calculation immediately, and disadvantageous to anyone who relies on seeing the separate counts.

This is a matter of information substitution, not addition or subtraction. You are given exactly the same information as everyone else, the only difference is how it is rendered, and how well you interpret that information. The HUD itself provides no advantage or disadvantage.

Answer 2

The only real downside would be not knowing what I should be looking for: health or armor.

I think this is a giant strategic downside. You could have a high number in your (to death) and you run over a ya and nothing changes (or very little) and you start wondering why and you are using your precious time in trying to figure out how much health you need and where it is instead of knowing that before you touched the ya.

Answer 3

The only real downside would be not knowing what I should be looking for: health or armor.

For this, you either need to have the two numbers again, or, well... Shiny bars.

Don't be distracted by shiny bars.

Consider that in Quake Live, your importance should lie in the game itself and staying alive.

You should thus make any UI components the least distracting; really, a line that jumps up and down?

You shouldn't care whether your health is 10% instead of 20%; but, you should rather care when your health is Red instead of Green. Green means that you can take a hit and go aggressive, Red means that you need to stay back/hidden in a defensive manner and fetch some more Health.

The not that small bar could mean that you can take another shot, don't introduce that risk.

In other words... Don't focus on being nearly dead, focus on being alive.

Consider this:

• Change your route/timing so that you pass more health/armor at the right moments.

• Focus on how to deny your opponent from taking the health/armor, so that he dies instead.