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Dev blog: Stay on Target!

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Jing Xin
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#121 - 2012-10-10 21:16:42 UTC
Probably was said already:

Quote:
When they start aggressing, the 'yellow box' will turn red (but it will still be pretty subtle).

Please don't make targets applying EWar look too subtle.

Hitpoint indicators as three sectors of a circle as depicted are not intuitive. It will not be obvious where is shield and where is armor. Currently indicators follow layered logic (shield on top, structure at bottom). This has served quite well so far.
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#122 - 2012-10-10 21:17:07 UTC
Saede Riordan wrote:
CCP karkur wrote:
HxChippiewill wrote:
The hit icon opacity thing sounds very cool and is a very nice visual indicator. However my concern is that it'll effectively display individual shots rather than the rate of incoming damage from a target. What I would suggest is that you have a value for opacity that diminishes at a certain rate (Whether it's linear, exponential or whatever isn't exactly important) and on each hit the value is topped up a little bit depending on the damage of the hit (Still the ratio of damage to HP) so that you can still see each individual shot come in as the opacity suddenly increases. So now a missile volley (Massive value) and turret shots (loads of little values) are now visibly comparable as you now have in a way a display of average incoming damage rather than what the last shot was like which isn't very helpful when you're trying to decide whether a missile boat or a turret boat is dealing more damage.

We did actually try that first... but then the big shots got completely lost.


I'd argue big individual shots don't matter that much in relation to incoming DPS

That's a good point, actually. The opacity should be determined by rate of incoming damage, not the actual individual volley damage.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Ugleb
Jotunn Risi
#123 - 2012-10-10 21:18:53 UTC
I like the damage notification stuff, it should be a much better way of providing visual feedback. Good stuff. Cool

But my first glance at the targetting UI changes resulted in a "URGH!" response. :(

Many moons ago, before we had the three status bars, of shield/armor/structure we had a circular targetting UI more like this one. It was horrible because it was not clear if you were hitting shield armor or structure at a quick glance. I think this new look display has a similar problem - which third is which without mousing over?

It does look more 'sci-fi' and cool but it is lacking clarity. And goes in what I think is a counter intuitive order. I would expect the shield to be top left, going to armor top right then finally structure on the bottom. As it is I'm not sure if structure is the bottom or on the top left bar...

Possible solutions:

1) Stick with the current 3 rectangles. (visually boring maybe but they do the job)
2) Colour code it.
3) Add small icons next to the bars denoting which is which.
4) Think carefully about the order they go in!

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Saede Riordan
Alexylva Paradox
#124 - 2012-10-10 21:19:23 UTC
Dersen Lowery wrote:

It would be even more intuitive if the ship's own HUD worked that way, so that the presentation of information was absolutely consistent, right down to the HUD pulsing brightly when you land a wrecking strike, and dimly when you just graze your target.





agreed.

Fear and Loathing in Internet Spaceships
Snus Mumriken
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#125 - 2012-10-10 21:19:57 UTC
CCP Prism X wrote:
So.. Which one is shield?


Very easy, the blue one of cause. Mana is always blue. Smile


First of all kudos to Karkur for writing the dev blog and to the team for the (proposed) changes. Switching from rectangles/squares to circles is a very good idea, since you can much easier include information in them.

My first thought was also: Which one is shield? And I would say finding colors for all three is not just a small task. Let me explain why:
To streamline the user experience I would suggest that the selection of colors will be reflected throughout the game. In detail this would mean:

  • Colorize the HUD accordingly instead of white / red bars as you have them currently
  • Colorize the effects (just a little touch of the selected color is fine) of (Remote) Shield Repair Modules, (Remote) Armor Repair Modules, (Remote) Hull Repair Modules
  • Colorize the effects when you take damage accordingly, so Shield damage has a touch of the Shield color, Armor damage has a touch of the Armor color, Hull damage has a touch of the Hull color. When damage mixes the colors can be mixed too, but it could also be that only the major part of the damage is highlighted in the appropriate color


What I mean is, if 3 colors are selected, place them everywhere where appropriate. The human brain is quite clever in recognizing things even if it doesn't tell us about it. Smile Like a company slogan or a logo.

Oh, and please think about the color blind and color deficiency. Cool So, please don't mix red and green P

My suggestion for colors:

  • Shield - Blue
  • Armor - Red (I know that will be confusing first because red currently means "missing")
  • Hull - Yellow (a real yellow, not the nearly orange/red one used in the devblog for targeting Ugh) or wait ... I heard some devs like Pink. Roll


Looking forward to Retribution. It is looking great so far!

(on a side note: All praise [CCP]PrismX Lol)

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Cade Windstalker
#126 - 2012-10-10 21:20:04 UTC
Just wondering how this is going to work with disabled brackets, may MANY players with machines on the lower end of the performance spectrum disable brackets during fleet fights. Are we still going to have the list of active targets and will disabling brackets turn off the "in-range" bracket? (I would hope yes on that second one, and I'm on the fence on the first personally)

Have you considered color coding the circle bars slightly so people have a clear visual indication for what is what? (possibly letting people choose their own colors through menu options? :3

BTW if we do keep the UI targets list can we get some more customization options for it? It's really hard to position as things stand right now, especially with dual monitors.
Nalha Saldana
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#127 - 2012-10-10 21:20:57 UTC
CCP whatever you do, do NOT remove the seconds remaining on targeting like you have in that screenshot!
Midnight Hope
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#128 - 2012-10-10 21:22:11 UTC
Since we are at it, how about showing how good MY shots are hitting the target? Something like a hit icon but for my damage?

One idea would be to display this as an icon on my gun/launchers icon on the HUD and NOT over the targeted ship (which may not be in the middle of the screen at all times).

Not sure how to display drone damage though...
Imigo Montoya
BreadFleet
Triglavian Outlaws and Sobornost Troika
#129 - 2012-10-10 21:24:15 UTC
Having looked at this a little closer, I have some criticism for the new locked ships UI.

I'm a big fan of the concept of UIs being "immediately apparent", and the changes fail one test here. With the hit points of the shield/armour/structure it is not immediately apparent which one is which.

The old way has shields on top, armour below that, and structure below that. The HUD has shields on the outside, armour inside that, and structure inside that.

Both of these are clear because they adhere to the concept that you take damage to shields first as the outer layer, then armour, then structure.

The new design does not make it clear which one is which because there is no relationship between which layer they are and which angle they are at around the target. I like Two Steps suggestion with the shields and armour above (with armour inside shields) and structure below, but the main thing to get right is where something is placed visually maps to what they represent conceptually.
CCP karkur
C C P
C C P Alliance
#130 - 2012-10-10 21:26:22 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Just wondering how this is going to work with disabled brackets, may MANY players with machines on the lower end of the performance spectrum disable brackets during fleet fights. Are we still going to have the list of active targets and will disabling brackets turn off the "in-range" bracket? (I would hope yes on that second one, and I'm on the fence on the first personally).

These things all belong to the brackets (except the big targeting circle thingie), so if you have the brackets off, you won't see the "in target range" and "hit" icons

CCP karkur | Programmer | Team Five 0 | @CCP_karkur
Callic Veratar
#131 - 2012-10-10 21:27:31 UTC
Vincent Athena wrote:
Hmm, I note that module timers go around clockwise, but start at the 6 o'clock location. The damage circle also goes around clockwise, but starts at the 12 o'clock position.

Everything goes clockwise, nice and consistent. But they start at inconsistent locations.

Edit: Except the HUD. It goes counterclockwise with damage.


Counterclockwise is bad. Things must never go counterclockwise.
Trebor Daehdoow
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#132 - 2012-10-10 21:29:57 UTC
First of all, this is a big step forward. The only question is how big of a step can it be.

I agree with Two step (and others) that disambiguation is the route to improvement. But I would go further.

I would suggest that you consider making the s/a/h arcs cover the top hemisphere, just as they do in the current HUD. This would free up the bottom hemisphere for traffic light status icons.

These would be red octagon, yellow triangle, green circle (so you have both color and shape to help out the color-blind players) and could tell you things like:

* You (can / are close to being able to / cannot) target this guy.

* You can go (faster / about as fast / not nearly as fast) as this guy.

* Your (last activated on / being hovered over) weapon can (shoot for full damage / is in falloff / can't hit for crap).

* Your (last activated on / being hovered over) weapon can (fully track / sort of track / they're too fast for our turbolasers).

* And so on

Hovering over a targeted ship might give you a popup that gives more detailed information than the traffic lights.

You could also save space on the top arcs by dynamically changing their thickness, making the arc that has been taking damage recently but has the highest # of hp remaining thicker, and the other two thinner.

So, no damage would be thin (s) thin (a) thin (h)

Starting to take shield damage means thick / thin / thin

Into armor means thin / thick / thin

But if he gets shield reps, it might go back to thick / thin / thin

The point is, things should be as intuitively obvious as possible -- building on people's current familiarity and real-world intuition ("damage penetrates from outside to inside", "red is bad"). I shouldn't have to remember that shields are at the top, armor from 2 to 6-oclock, etc.

Or, if you really want to wow everyone, give us several alternatives, including the gee-wiz sci-fi movie mode, and let people choose which to use.

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Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#133 - 2012-10-10 21:30:24 UTC
Callic Veratar wrote:
Vincent Athena wrote:
Hmm, I note that module timers go around clockwise, but start at the 6 o'clock location. The damage circle also goes around clockwise, but starts at the 12 o'clock position.

Everything goes clockwise, nice and consistent. But they start at inconsistent locations.

Edit: Except the HUD. It goes counterclockwise with damage.


Counterclockwise is bad. Things must never go counterclockwise.

See the issue?

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Isbariya
State War Academy
Caldari State
#134 - 2012-10-10 21:30:37 UTC
Honestly, don't you have anything else to do ? Why would you chaneg something that is working perfectly fine ?
Yes, we don't see how much dmg we get by whom, but that does not matter. if I can't tank the incoming dmg I#ll notice and fly away if possible, if not, well then I don't need to know who is hitting me the hardest ...

The in space UI does look a bit better then before, i admit that, but the round icons of my targets and the round shield/armor/structure indicators are one one the worst ideas I have encountered so far in your attampt to make things "better".

another thing is, how does that flashy thing affect large fleet fights ? I guess these will put some stress to some computers out there when a few hundret players start attacking you. We can switch off effects, but can we switch this one off ?

There are some more pressing matters out there then this, i know that you wont e able to help out in the graphics department, but there must be something else that is worth inproving ? Like adding a better overview to the assets menu for example.
Kerono Thalmor
Band of Buggered
#135 - 2012-10-10 21:32:04 UTC
Okay, cool... But are you gonna fix the capitals and their weapons? I don't mean nerf the balls outta them (no pun intended), I mean make them better. Because I know quite a few Caldari capital pilots who are shedding tears because the Phoenix (for instance) sucks.

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CCP karkur
C C P
C C P Alliance
#136 - 2012-10-10 21:32:34 UTC
Many of you are worried that you will not know which bar is which.
I personally think that people will just know once the they start playing with it, and I look forward to seeing how you feel about it when you have tested it yourself.
We are going to be looking into what we can do to make it clearer, especially if we find out that people just don't get it.
That being said, we are still so deep in development of this that it might completely change, who knows :P

CCP karkur | Programmer | Team Five 0 | @CCP_karkur
Callic Veratar
#137 - 2012-10-10 21:33:25 UTC
Vincent Athena wrote:
Callic Veratar wrote:
Vincent Athena wrote:
Hmm, I note that module timers go around clockwise, but start at the 6 o'clock location. The damage circle also goes around clockwise, but starts at the 12 o'clock position.

Everything goes clockwise, nice and consistent. But they start at inconsistent locations.

Edit: Except the HUD. It goes counterclockwise with damage.


Counterclockwise is bad. Things must never go counterclockwise.

See the issue?


Yup, the target circle is someone else. Their dials are going clockwise, which is good.
Warde Guildencrantz
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#138 - 2012-10-10 21:34:12 UTC
CCP Sisyphus wrote:
Warde Guildencrantz wrote:
CCP Sisyphus wrote:
Salpun wrote:
When will the damage notification be movableTwisted
And the log be easeier to read?


Give us time...


Please make the yellow box and red box icons still flash, its a lot easier to notice them that way :)

other than that, awesome


They do still pulse. The yellow lock, and red aggro isn't so changed (shape a bit)
This is still under work, so it is NOT going to be exactly this when it comes out. We want to get your feedback and try it out on public Test servers so we can make it better.


Might want to reflect the flash animation on lock and aggro in the GIF picture, it sort of is misleading otherwise :P

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Metal Icarus
Star Frontiers
Brotherhood of Spacers
#139 - 2012-10-10 21:34:18 UTC
As far as targeting range is concerned, why not have the bracket go semi transparent when it is on grid and solid when it is within targeting range.
Bagrat Skalski
Koinuun Kotei
#140 - 2012-10-10 21:35:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Bagrat Skalski
Quote:
Counterclockwise is bad. Things must never go counterclockwise.


Counterclokwise, clockwise, from left to right, from right to left... Why can't we have it all in one direction. Roll


We haven't tried up/down yet. Lol

Custom ship skins, character creator style "repaint". Bring it!