I agree you can keep the middle beacon in overview and check it every 10 sec or so.
However I believe it is still a good idea to have a visual aid.
Any well organized sports (if we consider AT as a kind of sport) that involves such a critical penalty when you reach over a boundary, will mark that boundary clearly. It is like the field line in most of the ball sports.
We do not have such a clearly marked line and I did not ask for that because that requires engine support, and CCP probably won’t have any budget for just develop it for AT.
However now we already have a similar thing, the Abyssal boundary. It worked pretty well.
Yes, boundary violation is always a thing in AT, and it has been entertaining through out the past years. to be honest I enjoyed looking at other people boundary violate XD but as a game designer myself I do not think this is a good cognitive load for player. The more challenging way of letting player play with the boundary is not to ask them to keep in mind there is a boundary, but to allow them see it clearly, and utilize it against their opponents.
If CCP says no, then fine we won’t have it. I do not see a reason why we should not add this visual aid.
For the record, no one on my team has boundaried at all in any practice so far this year. Hard to believe, but true. Now if I could just get them to stop burning out their launchers/guns.
We’re taking a close look at how to apply what we’ve learned from the visual and gameplay experience of Abyssal Deadspace to tournaments. I don’t have any specifics to share, though.
Edit: Just to be clear, I’m speaking of visually enhancing the existing tournament experience rather than creating something qualitatively new.
On Thunderdome they’ve added a ring (kinda like what Citadels have). I’m pretty sure that’s to mark the boundary, and if it is, I hope it’s gonna be on TQ for the actual AT.