Mor

Fixed that for you. 888 the number of the order. 888 the one for you and me...

I had exactly the opposite reaction Skyrim troll looks nice in the picture, but from isometric view it would look exactly like PE troll minus the horns and with less distinctive greyish blend on the skin(i.e. far far worse). While warcraft trolls concept has enough distinguishable features to look interesting and unique from isometric view.(it would only need a less cartoonish style) I am not certain about why all the lamps are there, but that is a great concept, and from top it will look very much like the PE troll, just in a different outfit.

If they choose to go with additional resource bars, it would be easy to add with their current design. But since Cipher/Monk special resource suppose to be used only in combat, and only effect how soon can you use their special abilities. I suspect there might not be any additional resources bars, instead "charging" ability buttons like one of these(its just my crappy editing, it can be done much better): Btw in the Obsidian concept there is a very limited amount of slots. So probably everything that has several options, where only the selected slot matters(Formation, Modes, equipped weapon etc) will be represented by a single slot that will double up allowing us to selected a different options.(so those have to stay glued to the top). Same goes for selecting a spells to cast. No idea how they plan to fit to rest, which is why I am very much in favor of optional quick slot bar. Yes hotkeys are a must once once they fininilize the UI. Also the inventory bit, shouldn't be a problem, because we are going to have a personal\shared inventory. Obviously did not read the thread properly - I did indeed make a few mockups, the best one I posted in this thread earlier, if you actually read the thread properly then you wouldn't have to make these type of posts. Just like you failed to notice I had a link in my Attribute theory thread and then complained about the lack of a link for consolidation. If your best is the one with pretty big portraits, then it has the same problem I mentioned in the previous post.. as for Karkarovs mockup, his style aside, he at least passed on the design. Other than that you tend to veer between what you don't like, who you don't like, arguing about hypothetical which you agree are irrelevant here.. so its hard to follow, If I missed an actual suggestion on how to improve the current bottom UI, then i apologize, lets focus on it from now and on. As for the Attributes, i'll say it once. Assume that not everything is about you..

My discussion is about turn-based vs Real-time WITH PAUSE. Not about real-time. Are you saying that a pause is any different from the magical time stop that you describe? Ofcourse it is different. Pausing or slowing the game gives you better control of the situation, however, it doesn't change the nature of the game, everyone orders are still going to be processed simultaneously.. unlike TURN base, where every player get a TURN during which only he can act.(minus reaction fire)

Yes, yes... But do you have any actual suggestion on how to improve the current UI or just arguing for the sake of argument against the current ? Btw as I noted before your UI in the OP fails to meet the requirements i.e. if you look closer at the concept, there indicators on the portraits and bellow. I suspect that the large indicator on the portrait is the character mode and small flags are the buffs/effect on the character. Which you removed in favor of making larger portraits. Also what do you think about this: Because its almost identical in size to what we had in the concept, only with pretty paint over and familiar faces.

Overall we seem to agree about most things. Just a little note about this. I'd bet that at least three of those: 1280×720, 1366×768, 1600×900(1680×1050?), 1920×1080 resolutions will be supported and anyone (wide or whatever) in between will get the UI the closet from bellow. (Which i believe to be the standard practice for games with painted UI for years)

Damn, I hoped that JS will confirm or spill some light on how some of the other attributes are being used in our game.

I find it amusing that among the two you choose to describe real time as unbelievable The main difference between turns and RT, is that with turns instead of everyone actions being processed simultaneously, everyone has a magical time stop during which they have a freedom to act as they wish. So instead of tactical planing, where you have to react/counter your opponents move/actions(e.g. cause Mage who started to cast a spell to miscast) Turn base replace tactics with much more easily quantifiable problem of counting actions points, where its much much easier to game the system with couple of standard moves. In TB it's perfectly acceptable to have one guy open the door and draw the fire, another run through run toward the enemy and dance around him, another to draw a troll face in front of him, while the last go and taser his balls. Turns adds a sense of control, make combat seem more orderly and blur AI lack of strategic awareness. It adds a (fake) tactical layer to games where combat is important but you don't have a good combat system, and works well for games with crazy setups where you need to go anal. It also tend to annoy people who don't care for combat and see it as filler between plot and dialogue an prefer to play on very easy.

You mean a new mock up since update 54

True, but for that matter this thread isn't about Pillars of Eternity Gameplay & Mechanics, OP question was asked and answered, so at best we are driving in neutral, since the combat mechanic for PE is a done deal. At worst its a rehash of good old argument, which was recently discussed in thread here and was kicked to obsidian general gaming and something forum. So what is on/off topic is very loosely defined

1. Here are couple of examples of hardware related maters that I was able to think of: Post 1,second part of Post 2. 2. I haven't made any claims about the best UI for any given game, I explained why I think that the U style design doesn't work and I expressed my opinion that UI isn't made from nostalgic sentiments, but from practical suggestions. 3. BTW today the vast majority has widescreen monitors, they are probably not those which are going to get scaled. I do, for example this post is nothing but an talk of nostalgia, rather than something practical that can be used. You presume wrong. I think that U shaped UI like in BG won't work here(and that a bottom design is very likely is a done deal) other than that all those assumptions about me preferring "minimalist", "drifting", non "solid UIs" or whatever, is nothing but your black and white view. Just because its bottom UI it doesn't have to be any of that and as far as I seen in Obsidian early non painted mockup, it wasn't. EDIT: @Rostere. Constructive not constitutive, auto checker misclick.

Of course not. Sure you could shot the guy in the nuts, but lets be honest other than that fallout combat system was as basic as it gets. Compared to RTwP BG combat it was a joke, which is why it needed turns to add a tactical component to it.

Indeed, but this is as far as I wanted to stretch the American\Canada colonization analog that we were given

So far you are. Like many post here, your pool is nothing but an appeal to sense of nostalgia, with no constitutive component. We all like the UI in BG, but there is a huge gap between then and now in terms of hardware and this design just don't cut it.

The UI is more than one screen and likely to share some elements with others(like inventory in BG2). So while their UI is not yet finalized, I'd be surprised if at this stage their overall design decision togo with bottom UI isn't.

I have no problem with your word, but a link works better then 'Sensuki said so', at least as far as reference go This tidbit makes your speculation very likely, but unless you have a link that confirms that strength governs damage, we back where we tarted...

Did you even read the thread? Strength, mentioned about 6 times. I must have missed it because other than speculation(OP included), I haven't seen anything official about healing(I assumed that Constitution is the more likely attribute to govern our vitality) and it is kind of early to rationalize something that may not be true..

yeah, but Dyrwood is like former English colonies and Eir Glanfath is like the inland indian land. I'd really like to know the name of the region as whole i.e. Dyrwood,Eir Glanfath, Vailians(Spanish? colonies) bellow and everything else seen in that stretch of land seen on the "world" map.

I am not familiar with many people played more than causally in both types, that will make ridicules claim the above. In my experience those who do, are either associating the more casual design of "modern" games with RT or simply can't handle RT and go for TB because of the sense of control it offers.

I'm not sure if you read the Update 54 thread before you posted here, but you should because there are several mock-ups that meet this criteria. I'm including one of mine as an example, but look for others. I said before I like the idea of placing the portraits on the right, because IMO today we have far more horizontal space then vertical and we should use it. With that being said, I am not an expert and most developers go for a bottom UI.. As for your deign, here are a couple of notes caught with my untrained eye: 1. You will have the same "gap issues" I outlined in the previous post. 2. You ignored the presumably new mechanic to indicate status(the flags under the portraits) which has more space in obsidian bottom design. 3. That bar on the left and bottom are complete waste of space, which would only grow the higher res you go.(btw what many people here refer to as high-res is actually today common res). Other than that its just the same design only moving almost everything to the right, using already painted over elements and solving the actions issue with WOW like floating elements, which many said they dislike. Also IMO the veritcal health\stamina bars make more sense when they outlined horizontally as in obsidian version, which gives you a better tactical indication of where you party stands. p.s. Please use spoiler tags, I hate image spam thread

Sorry for being late to the party but what attribute you guys referring to? I don't recall seeing anything official about which attribute governs healing.

So Perception is a measure of a character's awareness to their surroundings? any chance for a hint what it will modify/effect in our game?

I agree. I'll take the BG UI over IWD 2 any day. This would be more helpful if you can show a modern game with your idea of UI. Because most here loved BG UI, it worked well for a fixed 800x600, but as I pointed out before its not 1999, there many different resolution\aspect ratio to consider and BG UI design don't work for most of us. Personally, I would love to see the portraits\status moved to the side bar and some elements made bigger. But in either case I don't see continued bars framing my screen. You are going to have some empty spaces. Expanding on my previous comment, because of various resolutions and aspect ratios are always going to have a problem with this. I am familiar with two ways to approach this: 1. Creating vector based UI, or just stretch existing one, but I it wont be as detailed and pretty (same issues as 3D vs 2D with paint overs). I don't recall anyone pulling this off with good looking stylized graphics and since UI is single most visible element we don't want this. 2. Create several custom ui paintovers for most common resolutions(lowest\highest and 1? in between) which everyone will use, and those who doesn't have one of the "supported" common res, will use a similar one with small gaps of dead space. Sure you can fill those gaps, but if the question is between stretching the UI (creating dead space, possibly ruining the design) for the sake of it touching the sides vs ending it in artistic fashion like this: I vote artistic over stupid every time. p.s. Also its always possible that their design might have gaps, simply because it don't make sense to use that space, I have yet to see a better thought out design then Obsidian concept (that included all elements)

I hope it does.

What is Resolve? It suppose to be closest we have to Charisma, but to me it seems more along the lines of wisdom