Feature Request: Better Stat Display

[arkteryx]

I wish there were a better way to display buffs and debuffs during combat. They too easily stack up to the point where you can't see all of them, the UI blocks them or they're simply off the screen, see screenshot. Now here I could go into the character screen to see them all, but that doesn't work when you're trying to inspect an enemy. There are plenty of times where I can't tell if an enemy is debuffed and if so for how long so I can plan my next attack. Maybe let us "freeze" the UI so that the stat window stays up and we can scroll through it.

 

And then there's the fact that many enemy effects don't have any description. What exactly is Apex Predator on the Porokoa? Who knows. During the battle, which you only fight once, you have no idea what it or its other abilities do. And even afterwards in the bestiary, you can look it up and see a list of its abilities but you can't hover over them or right click to get more information so even in your next playthrough you don't know any more. Maybe I'm beating a dead horse here, but why is "Weakness: Electricity" listed as a "Weakness" while "Weakness: Frost" is listed as an "Ability", is there a difference, if so what? Which is more important to interrupt, Imperious Roar or Ancient Bellow? RPGs like POE are games of information and planning not reflexes like a shooter, withholding information from the player seems counter to that.

 

Also it would be nice if we could see enemy stats before entering combat, make it easier to plan our attack, who's strong, who's weak, what to, etc. If it's too much visual clutter to have it always up, put it on a modifier key, hold shift to see stats or something. This at least seems like a fairly easy thing to do, while admittedly revamping the UI is a more serious endeavour. I do think it would be worthwhile however.

Edited February 11, 2019 by arkteryx

[thelee]

I wish there were a better way to display buffs and debuffs during combat. They too easily stack up to the point where you can't see all of them, the UI blocks them or they're simply off the screen, see screenshot. Now here I could go into the character screen to see them all, but that doesn't work when you're trying to inspect an enemy. There are plenty of times where I can't tell if an enemy is debuffed and if so for how long so I can plan my next attack. Maybe let us "freeze" the UI so that the stat window stays up and we can scroll through it.

 

And then there's the fact that many enemy effects don't have any description. What exactly is Apex Predator on the Porokoa? Who knows. During the battle, which you only fight once, you have no idea what it or its other abilities do. And even afterwards in the bestiary, you can look it up and see a list of its abilities but you can't hover over them or right click to get more information so even in your next playthrough you don't know any more. Maybe I'm beating a dead horse here, but why is "Weakness: Electricity" listed as a "Weakness" while "Weakness: Frost" is listed as an "Ability", is there a difference, if so what? Which is more important to interrupt, Imperious Roar or Ancient Bellow? RPGs like POE are games of information and planning not reflexes like a shooter, withholding information from the player seems counter to that.

 

Also it would be nice if we could see enemy stats before entering combat, make it easier to plan our attack, who's strong, who's weak, what to, etc. If it's too much visual clutter to have it always up, put it on a modifier key, hold shift to see stats or something. This at least seems like a fairly easy thing to do, while admittedly revamping the UI is a more serious endeavour. I do think it would be worthwhile however.

 

the inability to look up from the bestiary what an ability actually does is probably one of my few big gripes about the game. from what i understand, the actual ability mechanics itself are auto-generated, so it'd be nice to just get that, even if the designers don't want to write up the actual flavor text that goes with most abilities.

 

re: weakness frost vs weakness electricity, if i had to guess there are two different types of "weaknesses." There's the weakness I see on fire giants which gives them a penalty to defenses against frost-keyworded attacks. Then there's the weakness I see on fire oozes, which actually cause frost-keyworded attacks to enfeeble the frost ooze. If I had to guess, I would say that "weakness; weakness: whatever" is the simple one where you just have reduced defenses, but "ability; weakness: whatever" is the more complicated one where the attack of the given keyword actually triggers something special. Pure speculation of course, I've never actually noticed or tried to take advantage of porokoa's weaknesses.

Edited February 11, 2019 by thelee

[arkteryx]

I don't particularly care about the specifics, the weaknesses and apex predator were just an example. Especially with turn based mode, we have more time to stop and think; I just wish we could make better informed decisions.

[SChin]

Hey everyone!

 

Thanks for the feedback about the use of the Journal and its contents during combat.  I put in report for the team to consider this.  If you have anything else to say on the topic, please continue to post about it here so they see it as I linked this thread to the report.

 

Thanks again for the help!

[arkteryx]

Thanks for looking into it. I know it's kind of late in the game to be messing with the UI but it just feels like it could be so much more informative. I'd also add in an easier way to see what enemies are casting, maybe put it in their info box under their defenses, trying to watch the tiny little circles over everyone's heads makes my eyes cross. It's much better in turn based since we can see spells in the action list.

[arkteryx]

Not a true solution, but I realized you can use the unity console to look up enemy abilities (you can also use it to give them to yourself, but that's not the point here). And sure enough they have pop up descriptions, probably procedurally generated like thelee mentioned, but still quite informative. These should really be available in the bestiary and ideally viewable in combat somehow as well. Some of them do seem to have some bugs, probably why they're not, see the second screenshot where the text and effects don't match up. The fact that it has descriptor text at all though shows that it was intended we could see these but I don't know of any other way currently.

Edited February 16, 2019 by arkteryx