The game should look differently based on what kinds of character you are playing. A tech character should see computer read outs that show him how much power he has left. A sorcerer should see auras that are color coded to explain what objects he can interact with. A street hero would have a Dick Tracyesque UI that would make the player feel like a hard boiled detective. A cosmic character would be able to see thing that mere mortals could only dream of perceiving when she looks to the sky. This would create a sense of wonder and fun as each new character that a hero plays would have it's own learning curve and sense of newness.
Let me explain specifically what I mean. In virtually all mmo's there are objects that you interact with. In Neverwinter they are denoted with swirling white light above them. DCUO and Guild Wars 2 have an icon above these things telling you to come and press it. In City of Titans a power armor character would have a thin circle around the object that may rotate in some ways to make it appear the player is looking through something like Iron Man's UI. An angelic character may see a ray of light shinning on the object as if god was telling the player to click it. A witch may see some ravens sitting on the object and squawking. A shadow warlock may see swirling shadows that some times coalesce into a laughing child (so much for sleeping tonight). A silver age themed PC could chose to see really corny over-sized exclamation marks complete with print circles that slowly turn in space.
What do you think? Would this be a helpful addition or would time be better used making more enemies to punish.
I'd like to see some thought put into player-made mods in general, of which this could be one. Obviously we on this forum have created a very high bar for our dev team, by pointing to the excellence of CoH and making further suggested improvements. It's worth figuring out what kind of modding capability CoT/UE4 can provide, so that many of our ideas can start to be placed into the appropriate development bucket to keep the main development path on schedule, while allowing sanctioned player side projects that don't interfere with combat standards or allow cheating/griefing.
I do like the option to reconfigure the UI on a per-character basis. Obviously CoH allowed it in a purely mechanical sense as far as window scaling and positions, going far beyond most other games of its time. The cosmetic alteration of both the UI and the character's perception of interactive objects/NPCs is a neat feature to consider, but might be best left to creative players to mod, as long as the dev team gives us the necessary modding folders, code hooks, and config options. I know there's been prior discussion of how to make the game friendly to people who have difficulty distinguishing certain colors or sounds... so if this idea can make use of the customization options built to support that system, we may get themed UI at a reduced development cost.
[i](Groans)[/i] This is a pretty sensitive topic for me.
Please, no. Just no.
If there is one thing I wish developers would stop doing, it's channeling way too much effort into the UI. Create a simple default UI, give players the tools to create or modify their UI to their own custom desires.
When playing a game, you shouldn’t be staring at the UI – rather the game’s content itself.
When you are driving a car, you don’t stare at your dashboard and accessory buttons the entire drive. You may at the start for awhile just to become familiar with controls, however it becomes second nature to know where everything is without looking. New MMOs nowadays seem to encourage “staring at your dashboard” gameplay with their flashy, over-informative UIs – which comes at the cost of ignoring the world environment.
I. Indicators
II. Icons
III. Maps & Radar
IV. Too much Information
V. TL:DR
[i]How much information is too much?[/i]
[b]I. Indicators[/b]
Over excessive use of indicators, in my opinion, have dumbed down MMOs to the point where you don’t even have to read and(or) think anymore! Just follow arrows, click-click-click, complete! This is most common in the “quest” systems nowadays.
“Click on me!”
“These are my possible reward choices!”
“Now go to this location, I marked the location both on map and you will have a visual path (or arrow) showing you the most effective way to get there! Oh, and I wrote in a short text that will appear on the side of your screen, telling you exactly what to click on, just so you don’t have to read through any of my problems and the hint on how to amend them.”
(Arrow changes colors from Yellow to Red to let you know when you’re close!)
“(Exclamation Point and Sound-Indicator) “Kill me! I aggro’d you”
(Goofy icon appears over an object across the field) “Click me!”
“You have no idea why you are clicking on this object, here is a progress bar just to distract you.”
“Go back to, eh, did the NPC even have a name? I’ll just follow this arrow until I find a ‘Click Me’.”
“Click me, I’ll take your item!”
Now what have you learned? The indicators are your masters, they tell you who to click on and where to go.
In the end, it taxes the experience. Clearly the World-builders wasted their time typing their beautiful stories only to be ignored because of the over-excessive use of indicators. The players also burn through content a lot faster, they don’t explore, and the content is not engaging.
Also I believe the indicators in MMOs nowadays appear cornier the more “embellished” they are, and it appears to conflict with other things such as graphic animations.
Examples:
Take the rising or falling numbers that appear when a target receives damage or heals. Remove them, or imagine they are not there. Notice how lousy the graphic animations of your abilities are? City of Heros had them; however it was not a focal point. It didn’t have extravagant font, nor did it have multiple colors. It was simple, not too distracting, and your spell effects still looked pretty awesome. The displaying of those numbers also have other adverse effects, but I’ll get to that later.
Targetting, as in selecting an object, player, or monster, whatever. Some MMOs make the target “light up”, as in they appear to be glowing. What the hell? City of Heros had those brackets appear around selected targets. Simple, effective, not distracting, not much time spent upon implementation.
[b]II. Icons[/b]
What happened to simplicity? Now days every ability has unique, beautiful, and bright backgrounds. Sometimes it even (gasps) flashes as an indicator, telling you to use it! Rarely does the icon itself tell you anything other than the icon is pretty. When you have over 30 icons on your quickbars, it’s difficult to adjust to. There is no sense of familiarity! If you stop playing for a while and return, you will end up having to refamilizarize yourself with the quickbar setups.
Only two games I played have offered simple icons: City of Heroes and Dark Age of Camelot (Unfortunately when EA captured DAoC, the simple icons were trashed and replaced with newer systems as described above). Without delving, the icon itself would usually instantly tell you it’s properties. There was also not much dedication to the icon-making process, there were cookie-cutter patterns used to automate most of the work.
• I’ll stick to City of Heros examples since we all seem familiar with them.
1. [b]Color[/b]: All abilities under a line are painted with the same background color. This helps determine what damage-type the ability falls under and what line the ability belongs to. “Cold” lines usually have light-blue backgrounds, “Fire” lines usually have orange backgrounds, “Earth” usually has brown backgrounds. If you invest into a primary, secondary, tertiary, and a travel-power skill line, you should be able to pick out what spell you are looking for at a quick glance.
2. [b]Symbol[/b]: Represents the abilities effect. A “Cross” usually represents healing properties, an “Arrow” usually represents a projectile, and a “Foot” usually represents movement speed.
3. [b]Boarders[/b]: Represents the targets of the effect. If the entire boarder is highlighted, it usually represents a Point-Blank Area-Effect. If just the top boarder is highlighted, it would represent a frontal Cone effect. If just the bottom boarder is highlighted, it would usually represent a Ground-Target effect.
There was science behind simple icons, to know their properties without overwhelming you with hundreds of different unique icons. While also relieving the developers of what could be a massive amount of work.
[b]III. Maps & Radar[/b]
Maps used to just label significant structures: streets, towns, buildings, states, countries. Sometimes, you could even write on them. Now days, they overload you with information. Not only do they include the above, but they automatically give you quest-pointers of where to go, NPCs labeled, and worst of all – the locations of enemies. Why even have a game environment? You don’t even have to be watchful of your surroundings! It’s impossible to flank unsuspecting players with that feature. Although City of Heros labeled NPCs, I wish their whereabouts were not instantly revealed with an indicator. Rather, I wish Maps worked in this manner:
- Only significant structures labeled at the start.
- Contacts are not automatically labeled prior to first-meeting. Rather the player should rely on directions on where to find them at first. “Titan City, First District, Phoenix Courthouse, 2nd Floor.” This will elongate content as the player must explore to find game-objects. After the player first interacts with the NPC THEN place an indicator on the map of that NPC’s location. Or better yet, allow players to mark it on the map themselves.
- Enemies and Monsters whereabouts are not labeled on the map at all. The moment they are introduced onto the map, it ruins the essence of surprise, and lowers the sense of danger lurking about.
- A Map “Blacked-Out” feature that revealed as you explore the zone you were in was another way to encourage exploration.
- A Map "Drawing" feature - Since maps should be simple, you should be allowed to customize it yourself to make it more complex. When you find information, it could be up to you on how to use it. Automatically giving locations takes away the sense of "finding" and "exploring"
- Distance Meter Indicator: Click on your map, a meter is displayed on your screen to your destination. I liked this feature from City of Hero's, however I disliked it when it was automatically placed for a mission/contact find location.
[b]IV. Too Much Information[/b]
Anything that reveals information about your enemy within your UI is too much information. Why? Because you can counter and adjust to things before they even happen. Such as:
1. Target’s Target: Knowing who your enemy has selected. You know who to heal, or when you should back-out, or who to pull aggression fromt.
2. Target’s Location: Knowing when your enemies are around. Ruins the essence of “surprise” and discourages people to be cautious of the game environment. You also cannot hide from enemies you stand no chance against.
3. Target’s Power Bar: Knowing when your enemy has consumed all of their power is a huge tactical advantage. You know when they are most vulnerable instantly.
4. Enemy Status Effects (Buffs and Debuffs): Knowing when to apply and reapply certain effects. How would you feel if your “Stun Immunity” just expired and your enemy knew exactly when to reapply it?
5. Enemy Stats & Equipment: Enables you to find holes and weaknesses against these foes.
6. Enemy “Build-Up” Gauge: A progress bar that informs you when an enemy is performing a powerful attack. (Seen in Champion’s Online) You know to adjust defensively before the action has even occurred. Rather, you should learn to read your opponents “body-language” when they are performing powerful blows. Such as crouching for a few seconds.
7. Enemy Level: Knowing exactly what level your enemy is allows you to pick out weaker targets and avoid stronger targets. Some games use naming “color” systems to give a hint of your opponent’s level. Some games don’t reveal the level at all. I would prefer seeing no levels revealed in the PvP scenario.
8. Enemy “Countdowns”: Similar to the “Build-Up” Guage scenario, knowing when to reapply or avoid attacks. Such as an enemy is mesmerized and they have a countdown above their head so you know when the mesmerize effect will expire.
9. Map Position Indicators: If any should appear, they should [u]only[/u] be you, and the players in your group. Danger threat sense drops to almost zero once enemy and monster locations are revealed on maps, and it’s a huge tactical advantage that at the same time eliminates tactical gameplay. Players outside of your group, that are friendly, should not be displayed. As that can be an exploited feature (Such as pointing to villains where a hero on your side resides.)
10. Enemy Group Composition & Health/Power-Bars: Such as, in the case of being in an Arena fight, knowing who is playing what class, when they are lower on power, and when to strike those at the least amount of health. You should only be able to see Health targets of players selected, maybe those close to you, however they should not be permanently displayed.
11. Class Indicators & “Branding”: Knowing exactly what a class is without acknowledging their body-language and effects. Healer classes should not have crosses floating above their heads, enemies know who to go for – and you don’t want your support dying every start. Branding should also be not allowed, at least, not on enemy targets. Branding is basically labeling people with icons, so you could put a cross over your healer on your screen, it wouldn’t appear on others however.
12. Rising and Falling “Numbers”: Those that indicate heal and damage delivered to a target. Players are aware of the kind of damage others are capable. It can even be embarrassing if you do significantly weaker damage in comparison to your other group members. Also gets in the way of graphic animations. I personally, would prefer to see this removed. If it shall exist, please make it an optional toggle.
13. Reward Previews: Knowing what rewards are before you even accept a quest. This automatically gets players to pass judgement onto a quest without ever actually running it. "Crap Reward, move along." The quest may offer really engaging content, however the poor fella just can't pay up to reward you well for completing the quest.
None of the above mentioned should be information freely available in everyone UI’s.
One thread caught my attention related to this, “Super Senses”. Basically, you could acquire an ability that may do one of the above mentioned functions. That way, you could still have access to such knowledge, incorporated into gameplay, without ruining exactly ruining the game experience.
Here: [url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/wish-list-3-super-senses]Wish List 3: Super Senses[/url]
[b]V. TL:DR[/b]
- Simple UI’s are visually more appealing, not too revealing, easily customizable, easily readable, easily implemented, and doesn't damage game-play too heavily.
- Complex UI's with flashy, moving, unique icons, indicators for everything between what to do, where to go, what to click on, and loaded with easy-access enemy information (As in, too revealing), are difficult to customize, difficult to familiarize, difficult to implement and heavily damages game-play.
- Please give players the tools to customize (or create) their UI to their own personal preference.
It's not easy coding UI to respond to incoming data. The amount of work to represent this in themed ways is too great.
Beyond that it creates confusion in the player base as to like-terms.
Finally I don't see the tangible benefit of the suggestion on its own merit.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
While I don't have a problem with a basic UI that coordinates its theme with some aspect of your character (a la Star Trek: Birth of the Federation, which did a nice job of this for its time), I can't figure out to what the appearance would be linked. It sounds like the idea is to link it to character concept, but that will be determined more by the player than the game, and I don't see how the devs can make an appropriate UI for all our ideas.
Aside from that, I agree that simple is better -- so, Folly, I am completely with you on your points I - III (and LOL at the dialogue in point I) and somewhat with you on IV, though I do prefer the amount of info CoX gave us on enemies.
Spurn all ye kindle.
+1
I did like the fact that we could color the UI in CoH. As Jay said coding multiple UI's is probably not worth it in the short term, but just giving color choices like CoH shouldn't be a problem and is a nice touch.
One day having a choice of themed UI's--Magic, Science, Mutation, Tech etc.--when there is plenty of content and they are down to just polishing the game would be a really nice touch, but a clean UI first is key and should always be a choice.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I feel like it would be good if the UI mechanics and controls were the same for everyone, but the "skin" could be changed. They could start you with the basic "regular" skin, then later roll out more different types of skins over time.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
We're asking for hours of development and those hours come at a cost. So how is that cost recoverable?
Will it be sellable? Is it attractive enough as a sales item?
Will it bring in new customers? IF you put a fantasy UI skin on CoT will it attract WoW players?
I'm just not seeing the value.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
A possibility is to build a moddable UI and let the Community develop the variations. Let the EQInterface, WoWInterface, LotROInterface, crew do it.
Be Well!
Fireheart
To give people a better idea of what I am talking about, Starcraft is a game that was able to successfully do this.
Oh yeah, I somehow forgot about that -- even though I used it all the time to give the screen just a bit of the feel of the current character.
But isn't StarCraft like my Star Trek example: limited to a small number of predefined factions rather than myriad character concepts?
Spurn all ye kindle.
I don't believe that you, JayBezz, can personally predict what 100,000 other people will or will not pay for in the cash shop to the point that I would let you dictate to me that the UI should not be skinnable because there's no money in it. I personally would pay a few bucks for a cool UI skin, if I found one I liked. If your argument is that this could never, ever, under any circumstances be a viable cash shop item, I have to take the SAT test position on that and respond with "any statement that has 'never', 'always', 'none' or 'all' in it is usually false, because a single counterexample can disprove it". I personally believe they could probably make the UI skinnable, heck they could probably make the skins user-friendly enough for people to homebrew them. Freedom Force (which is a superhero game from like 20 years ago) was SO heavily modded that websites had skins you could use to make Bullet look like Nova, or later they even had keyframes you could use to make practically anything, including Captain America with working "throw shield" attack animations. Compared to that I think modding the UI should be easy. And if you allow users to do it, it's not costing the company any money, right?
I'm not saying that I can tell you for a fact that people will pay for this, or even how much they'd pay. I know I, for one, would be interested in exploring it though. If you don't think you'd pay for a UI skin, that's ok, but don't try to deny everyone something that some of us might want by dismissing it offhand without giving it so much as a trial run.
And I disagree that this is some kind of huge time sink to pull off, even if they don't open it up to user-side modding.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Good and practical point.
Since it is purely cosmetic, and not even ingame-cosmetic but only for the player himself to see, why not put it in the cash or ingame currency shop down the road and give it to subs?
Create a nice, clean, clear and effective UI with simple color-customization to start the game with.
One day when there's the Dev time, take the same UI but skinned differently for each origin (if we're having origin, if not then they're just themes)--Magic, Science, Mutation, Tech, etc.--still with color-customization. And you can buy whichever you want no matter what your actual orgin (again, if we have origins).
Then if they're popular start releasing random ones with different themes--animal, reptilian, lazer, neon, flaming, ice, electrical etc.
Or... don't do it at all. It's definitely on the polish/bells and whistles list and would need to make money. Could be a neat idea for down the road if the game can make money off of it.
We are the kind of crazy player base that would pay for that kind of thing, though. We're all about the customization. If it could make money in any game, this would be the one.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)