Sensuki's Suggestions #008: A Feedback in Combat Comparison: PE vs IE

[Matt516]

Sensuki, I'll be surprised if Obsidian doesn't just hire you as a consultant/backer feedback manager before all this is done.

[Helm]

The suggestions make sense of course, i'm just wondering why Obsidian couldn't figure this out themselves. It isn't complicated or anything.

[Waywocket]

The suggestions make sense of course, i'm just wondering why Obsidian couldn't figure this out themselves. It isn't complicated or anything.

It's not like this has never occurred to them - there are a vast number of things that need to be done and only a finite time in which to do them. They've already mentioned that they've been with experimenting with ways to indicate engagement, so combat indicators is clearly a topic that's currently being worked on.

 

I'd be happy if it ended up being almost a direct clone, but maybe they'll work out ways to make it even better/integrate more with the changes to combat mechanics.

[Frusciante]

The suggestions make sense of course, i'm just wondering why Obsidian couldn't figure this out themselves. It isn't complicated or anything.

 

Please read my post on the previous page. Obsidian is already working on this.

[mistermannindy]

Great post, Sunsuki!  I did have to chuckle to myself listening to your ancient keyboard springs.  Anyone else think we need to take up a collection when this is over to buy Sensuki a new keyboard?!?!  

[Leferd]

Great post, Sunsuki! I did have to chuckle to myself listening to your ancient keyboard springs. Anyone else think we need to take up a collection when this is over to buy Sensuki a new keyboard?!?!

Mechanical buckling spring keyboards are to be treasured. It's the equivalent of a +2 longsword in an iron crisis setting.

 

Model M?

[Mayama]

Just noticed your party has a male main character and 5 girls, well played

[Shevek]

Great feedback

[Sensuki]

Mechanical buckling spring keyboards are to be treasured. It's the equivalent of a +2 longsword in an iron crisis setting.

 

Model M?

Damn straight. IBM Model M

 

Great feedback

Me or my keyboard?

[xsubtownerx]

+1 for being really technical. +1 again for making me want to play Icewind Dale.

[Leferd]

 

Mechanical buckling spring keyboards are to be treasured. It's the equivalent of a +2 longsword in an iron crisis setting.Model M?

Damn straight. IBM Model M

Brother from another mother!

[Darvon]

Not to be rude, but it does make me wonder how often the developers open up an Infinity Engine game when noting down necessary functions. Improvements have been made since this time but videos like this really highlight how many things the Infinity Engine got so right. Lots and lots of modern games don't even have this kind of combat feedback.

[Sensuki]

I think one thing the developers could do to improve the amount of superfluous bug reporting and feedback is provide a full list of bugs, and a list of features that are in the works. That way instead of focusing our efforts on stuff which is a bit "well duh", We could focus on things that have not been mentioned yet.

 

So for my next video, I'm going to do something that maybe has not been considered yet - for the inventory screen.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Sensuki

[Answermancer]

You can issue a command while your character is in recovery time though, you don't have to wait for it.

 

In my opinion it is not nearly obvious enough at present when you've given an order to someone and it's just waiting for the recovery to finish.

 

I'd like to see something like (someone's suggestion from another thread) showing the next queued action on the character's portrait (ideally up to the actual spell, like put the icon for Magic Missile on my Wizard's portrait when he is in the process of casting Magic Missile). Something like that would make it much easier to see when a character is actually waiting to do something vs. just standing there doing nothing (which can be an issue currently in the beta due to bugs).

[Sensuki]

They do have a UI HUD for recovery timer, but I disable it.

 

Instead of overlapping the portrait (which I would hate), it could be displayed on the combat HUD instead?

 

The animation for recovery time is pretty terrible atm. I made a video on the RPGCodex comparing it to the Baldur's Gate 1 combat idle. Most of the weapon stances are off, and there is not enough fidgeting.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Sensuki

[Answermancer]

They do have a UI HUD for recovery timer, but I disable it.

 

Instead of overlapping the portrait (which I would hate), it could be displayed on the combat HUD instead?

 

The animation for recovery time is pretty terrible atm. I made a video on the RPGCodex comparing it to the Baldur's Gate 1 combat idle. Most of the weapon stances are off, and there is not enough fidgeting.

 

Sure, although there's something like that on the combat HUD above characters already but IMO it is too small and characters are too close together for it to be readable and useful.

 

What I would really like is this:

 

The bar would fill up to when the action is actually performed instead of showing recovery time. So if I start casting a spell mid-recovery I can clearly see:

A. That it was queued as the next action

B. How long until it will actually occur

C. If it is interrupted, the bar would reset to zero and it could flash red or something

 

I assume you would also hate this, but I don't really understand why you and others hate certain types of UI and feedback. Regardless though, they could make it so that you can disable it with Expert mode and the like and it would be okay.

 

Personally I'm about as much feedback as possible, I don't care at all about skeumorphic UI or immersion when it comes to UI functionality to I'd like as much useful, readable, clear feedback as they can fit as long as it makes sense.

 

And allow it to be disabled for those who hate it.

 

Edited August 22, 2014 by Answermancer

[evilmiera]

Came to the forums hoping to provide valuable feedback, then it turns out Sensuki already provided it all

[Sensuki]

What I would really like is this:

It's hard to implement UI changes like that without it being on for everybody all the time, so anything that only half the people will use won't be put there.

 

Came to the forums hoping to provide valuable feedback, then it turns out Sensuki already provided it all

Not even close, There's a boatload of stuff that hasn't been addressed yet. I'm just making notes as I go and eventually going through them. There's also a lot more people than me doing a good job with bug reporting and suggestions, even if I don't agree with a lot of the suggestions.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Sensuki

[Answermancer]

 

What I would really like is this:

It's hard to implement UI changes like that without it being on for everybody all the time, so anything that only half the people will use won't be put there

 

I mean, for the last 3 years I primarily built UI as my job. So unless their UI system is really terrible I can confidently say that this would be very easy to do.

 

Also, like I say there's something similar currently in the over-head HUD, just less explicit (it doesn't show the exact spell, I think). I just think it's largely useless there and would be more useful near the character portraits so you can see at a glance what exactly people are doing.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Answermancer

[Sensuki]

I mean, for the last 3 years I primarily built UI as my job. So unless their UI system is really terrible I can confidently say that this would be very easy to do.

I'm not a UI Designer but if they implemented your change it would make the UI look uneven. The portrait area would be taller than the centre menu and the combat log default size, so the art for the center menu would have to be altered to be uniform (combat log size is an easy fix).

 

Also, is there anything that occupies the bottom UI space, such as summons or animal companions? Because that functionality would also have to be moved/removed.

 

Also if it was a toggle, they would need to jigger it so that it changed the entire UI back to it's current size from your proposed new size.

 

That to me seems like a lot of work that could be spent elsewhere, YMMV.

[Answermancer]

 

I mean, for the last 3 years I primarily built UI as my job. So unless their UI system is really terrible I can confidently say that this would be very easy to do.

I'm not a UI Designer but if they implemented your change it would make the UI look uneven. The portrait area would be taller than the centre menu and the combat log default size, so the art for the center menu would have to be altered to be uniform (combat log size is an easy fix).

 

Also, is there anything that occupies the bottom UI space, such as summons or animal companions? Because that functionality would also have to be moved/removed.

 

Also if it was a toggle, they would need to jigger it so that it changed the entire UI back to it's current size from your proposed new size.

 

That to me seems like a lot of work that could be spent elsewhere, YMMV.

 

You'd probably just raise the whole UI by that amount, wherether it's showing or not, or alternately raise it when it's showing and lower when it's not. Both should be pretty easy. It also wouldn't have to be that tall, as long as the icon is legible. It's just a quick mockup and I'm not a designer, more of an implementer.

[Falendor]

Rangers get there animal companion in a little circle that would be obscured by or obscure the load bar. though right now the little circle for ACs disappears a lot.

 

i would defiantly say more iconography fro whats going on to and by characters and less info being run through the combat log (its really hard to find a particular event even after just a couple secs right now)

[Sensuki]

Yeah well raising the UI is an issue because one of the things they wanted to do was reduce the amount of vertical screen space that the UI is taking up. I don't know if you were here for the "UI Wars" last year but I don't think we can expect to see much change to the main HUD at all.

 

I personally do not really like their design after getting to use it. The combat log being on the far right is in the most useless position to read the text on the fly and I don't even use the middle part of the HUD at all really. The action bar probably could have gone there instead (like my mockup from art update 54 thread).

Edited August 22, 2014 by Sensuki

[Answermancer]

Yeah well raising the UI is an issue because one of the things they wanted to do was reduce the amount of vertical screen space that the UI is taking up. I don't know if you were here for the "UI Wars" last year but I don't think we can expect to see much change to the main HUD at all.

 

I personally do not really like their design after getting to use it. The combat log being on the far right is in the most useless position to read the text on the fly and I don't even use the middle part of the HUD at all really. The action bar probably could have gone there instead (like my mockup from art update 54 thread).

 

No I think I missed most of the UI stuff, I mostly paid attention to the threads about game mechanics. Plus it became clear to me pretty early that most backers prefer skeuomorphic UI while I really dislike it, so I kind of stopped paying attention once I figured that out.

 

But anyway, that's fine, I just would really like better feedback for who is doing what and what is queued up and how long until it happens. Currently you can see some of that in the HUDs but it's mostly useless, and I agree that the center area is mostly useless at least if you use shortcuts to open the various screens.

[NeV3rKilL]

I really like the new TAB information of all the enemies. And I don't think that it's excesive. The only thing is that the popup's too big. Little font and more information like damage, buffs/debuffs, spells avalaibles, etc. and most of the critics would gone.

 

Then of course the target per heroe is a must, and the same apply to the enemies, we have to know who the enemies are targeting!!

Edited August 24, 2014 by NeV3rKilL