For far to long I have personaly felt that this issue has been left unattended and has stirred up some quite heated debates on the forums, the issue of course is the Minimap and to some extent the HUD too.
It is becoming very repetitive from both sides of the "conflict" if you will, as to why it should stay or leave, obviously either way will leave a huge proportion of the community very unhappy and displeased, so, what is (in my oppinion) becoming very clear what to do on how to resolve this issue is possibly a compromise.
A compromise must be met that takes under cosideration arguments from both sides of the debate, those arguments are many and have been stated several times over and over again.
To recap, here are the most used arguments for both sides of the debate.
Pro Minimap removal arguments:
#Imersion.
#Cleaner HUD giving you a bigger field of view.
#Realism, plain and simple.
#No real world equivalent.
#Taking away a tool from lonewolfs which will then force teamwork.
#Forces gameplay speed down to a more desiered level.
Contra Minimap removal arguments:
#Loss of situational awareness is decreased to unrealistic levels.
#Teamkilling will increase.
#The Minimap compansates for real world military pre-planned strategies.
#Learning curve becomes too steep.
#Squad cohesion will become hard to keep.
#Similar future military HUD systems are planned for infantry.
It is in no doubt that agruments on both sides are quite valid and should be taken deeply into consideration if a compromise solution is to be met.
So instead of bickering over who has the most valid argument and never reaching a conclution, I think it's time we start searching for the best solution for that will benefit the best of both sides.
Before I go on to my suggestion I would like to say that on a subjective level I would have no problem at all with almost complete HUD removal as I have personal expirience with playing over a longer period of time (on low graphics too might I add) at settings where I have no Minimap, Icons and 3D map (five or so months to be exact), to me I view these tools as obstacles and a big realism/imersion killer, to others they are the exact oposite.
The only issues for me with these settings is that as an active VOIP user, I do not have the ability to name things such as CP's etc. also I am put at a hadicapped level of awareness compared to that of what the enemy has, therefore it is absolutely imperative that I think, act and move tactically.
I can not stress enough how important this is if I wish to survive, kill enemies, succesfully complete objectives and of course avoid friendly fire.
No longer can I run and gun carelessly around the map with no fear of killing friendlies because I have an all knowing super radar stitched on to my retinas, now I must take into consideration where friendlies are moving, where they will be within the next minute or so, where enemies might flank, uniforms and even behavior to identify friend or foo.
Taking activly cover, orienting myself, relying on verbal communication and thinking before I shoot becomes a lot more maditory rutine too, which is of course at some times a very demading procedure to follow, but the reward in gameplay quality is priceless.
Now that I've stated that, I would like come on to the subject of a possible solution, the best way for me to describe a suggestion is often in pictures, so after some after some reflecting on how and what might a good compromise, I started to fiddle about in Photoshop to see what kind of illustration I might come up with.
Below is a suggestion in picture from me on how a (to some extent) Minimapless HUD could be implemented.
As usuall it is not a pretty thing as I am not skilled at all in Photo editing, but it does add a reasonably good description on what I personaly think could be a compromise between the yes and no factions.
As you can see my suggestion has three fundamental changes to the HUD which gives you quite a good field of view while maintaining a good sense of oriantation and squad cohesion.
The three changes are:
1#: No more Minimap, instead you are issued with a more discreet, less all knowing orientation squad map, the primary purpose of it's fuction is basically to give you a compansation for the lack of peripheral vision, keep in formation with your squad and to not lose track of them.
I don't know what to really call it so I'll refer to it as the Squad Map untill I can come up with a more fitting name.
The Squad Map can be though of as a drastically striped down and altered version version of the minimap with it's main purpose is to keep you oriented on where your squad is and remain as anonymous and discreet as possible, leaving you with a nice clean HUD.
No more can you see land topography, building placement and enemy positions with an exact reading if their placement, direction and movement.
Also you will notice that I've drawn the squad mates that appear out of your peripheral view (your 3 to 9 O' clock) as gray, meaning that you will not be able to identify their exact identity, I.E. if the squad leader (marked as yellow) falls out of your peripheral view, you will be only able to "sense" him a gray marker because you have no visual on him, I don't know if this is possible though.
The radius should IMO be no bigger than that of 30 meters ( that's a 100 feet for you anti-metric people..), anything else should be read by the big "M" map, or visually if it's infront of you.
No zoom should also be featured.
2#: Feature number two is the text, this is quite self explanatory, unless I've overlooked something I see no reason as to why not move the text down to the lower left corner.
3#: At number three, hopefully you have understood that I atempted to draw a compass, a feature like a toggable compass would be practical to have for locating where you are without looking on the "M" map, bearing indicator and grid location would also be a practical tool to add to the compass, however if this is possible or not I have no knowledge of.
The compass should be replaced with the only other HUD feature which I despise more than the minimap, the 3D map, this feature has no use at all in a game that want's to promote realism, it's real killer for the need to navigate using a map. Waypoints and enemy positions can and ARE beeing placed by squad leaders using the 3D map which is really ruining the whole point of using map navigation, this feature should be ridden of ASAP.
Luckily this feature (the 3D map) has nowhere as much impact of removing and it can be toggled, however it is still there and I view almost as a cheat (call me extreme).
On an aditional side note, I would like to draw the attention of the dev's to THIS topic, where exchanging the satellite photo maps with more realistic looking maps is dicussed that describe topography, building and vegitation better.
Adding such maps would IMO greatly enhance the ability to navigate across them since all things drawn are more distinguishable.
More detailed grids should also be added.
Please understand that is only a suggestion and not a demand, if somebody else can suggest a better solution to end this debate, I will happily agree with that as I'm sure there are flaws in my idea.
The main purpose of this post is try and reach a compromise which we can all or most of us accept.
Personaly I wouldn't go with my own suggestion, but I'm trying to find a middle ground which will please the majority, help contribute to find that middle ground.
EDIT: Me or anyone else referring to "Minimap" means the little map that is placed on your HUD, this has nothing to do with the big maps that you pull up when pressing M or Caps Lock.
PS: I know this post longer than my average one so please forgive all grammatical and spelling errors as I am not a native english speaker, also I'm very tierd, GOOD NIGHT and happy constructive discussion!
- and far more effective at encouraging a squad of faceless strangers to move, work and fight as a unit). Something like this - green and steady for full health, yellow and fast for bruising caused by body armour absorbed impacts, orange and erratic for bleeding, red and wild for near death.
