[Bug] 'Staring' issue with the 'look' indicator when viewing profiles

Bugs & Features
#1

I’m not sure if this is actually a bug, or just the way the feature was designed, but the little yellow ‘look’ indicator seems to remain on when you collapse a character’s profile (But not close it using the X).

The issue with this, in my opinion, is that people can get stuck in a state where they are effectively ‘staring’ at you. They intend to close away the profile by collapsing it, but then forget the profile is still technically open because they didn’t click the X. This makes the indicator remain on when they really aren’t looking.

I consider the look indicator to be a very cool feature, and gives an actual indication of someone intently looking at your character.

I’m not sure if this is a bug, or the way it was designed to work, but just wanted to point that out.

#2

Hi Alderon! And welcome to the forum :smiley:

That is a good suggestion to consider.

First some info about the “looking at” feature:

  • The server (not only the client) keeps track on what character you are looking at
  • A character can only look at one other character at any moment, or none at all
  • Looking at someone gives the client access to additional info for as long as they are inte same room. This info (such as description) is otherwise unavailable

It wouldn’t be difficult to update the client to send a signal to stop looking when you hide the Character Info panel. The client could presumably remember the last looked at character, and then start looking at them again once you unhide the panel.

But we have a few things to consider:

  • Some might want current behavior. Like if you are on a mobile device where you need to hide the panel to get more room for the chat. But you still want them to know you are looking at them and giving your attention to them.
  • If you are running the game on multiple devices (eg. desktop + mobile), hiding the panel on one device would make you stop looking on the other device as well, even if you have the panel open there.

Maybe such a feature to auto-stop looking should be added as a client side feature you can toggle on/off?

Another option would maybe be to show the avatar of the one you are looking at, up in the top-left corner while the panel is hidden? This way you would still know if you are looking at someone.

Anyone has other thoughts about this?

#3

I like the avatar option as a subtle reminder that the panel’s still open best of all, really.

As a half-step, sort of, perhaps it would be possible to distinguish between active attention and, for lack of a better term, “stale” attention, and present the latter in a darker shade of yellow or something, but that might be overdoing things just a little bit.

#4

Having the avatar of the person you’re looking at (Only visible when the panel is collapsed) does sound like a good idea to me.

It might also be a good idea to make a quick way to close the profile of the person you’re looking at through the icon. Like put a little X on it - which will make the avatar go away and also close their profile. If you click on the avatar icon, it will expand the profile view again.

Or… maybe just close their profile after a timeout that only happens when the panel is collapsed. Or both could work, actually.