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Dev blog: Stay on Target!

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Bagrat Skalski
Koinuun Kotei
#161 - 2012-10-10 21:45:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Bagrat Skalski
My idea is that all target ships should have 4 bars (shield, armor, hull, speed) allocated around thumbnail, player too. But for player there should be capacitor inside circle like it is now. Lol

Custom ship skins, character creator style "repaint". Bring it!
Lucius Exitius
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#162 - 2012-10-10 21:48:14 UTC
I am really looking forward to this new system! Keep up the good work CCP!
Isbariya
State War Academy
Caldari State
#163 - 2012-10-10 21:48:42 UTC
A video of a smal fight would have been nice, then we would have seen it live and in action. Maybe that would help us understand your point of view better.
PinkKnife
The Cuddlefish
Ethereal Dawn
#164 - 2012-10-10 21:48:47 UTC
Bagrat Skalski wrote:
My idea is that all target ships should have 4 bars (shield, armor, hull, speed) allocated around thumbnail, player too. But for player there should be capacitor inside circle like it is now. Lol


Speed is already in the overview, cap would be interesting to put in there though.

I want to reiterate again though that the current system is no more intuitive at a glance unless you already know how it works.
CCP Masheen
C C P
C C P Alliance
#165 - 2012-10-10 21:50:13 UTC
Dersen Lowery wrote:
Imigo Montoya wrote:
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.


Just FYI, I've had to explain to new players which one is which, with the existing system. Shield/armor/hull is a bit more elaborate than "hit points." The stacking only becomes obvious once you learn that hierarchy. Wrapping the three around a circle is essentially putting them in a straight line, which is also obvious once you learn the way defenses work, because nothing affects hull without punching through armor first, and nothing affects armor without punching through shields first[1].

[1] Not necessarily all the way through, of course.



This is also my view. I trust that once you get your hands on the new targeting brackets when we publicly test on Duality later this month people will 'get' it.

P.S. there are several small advantages to the concentric circular arrangement which you may have missed, for example:

- We are able to make the target icons larger and therefore more recognizable, did you notice that?
- The length of the bar that indicates time-to-lock is approximately three times longer than before because it now wraps completely around the targeting bracket. This makes it easier to discern the speed at which your locking attempt is progressing.
- The spinning arrows around your selected target no longer cross over the shield/armor health bars
- Ship brackets are square, targeting brackets are rounded, this distinction should help new players especially

- EVE Online Quality Assurance -
Myrkala
Royal Robot Ponies
#166 - 2012-10-10 21:51:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Myrkala
CCP Prism X wrote:
So.. Which one is shield?


The left one.

So..


  • Left: Shield
  • Right: Armor
  • Bottom: Structure


Not totally sure why but I think it may have something to do with reading order (left to right) and that I (and probably most other players) visualize the three stats as layers that sit on top of each other. I know the images in the devblog have it the other way around but if you want to do that I would rotate the arcs by 45° counterclockwise as I feel that arrangement/layout makes more sense. Anyways, you should probably keep the "flow" of the eyes in a reading direction, which is not what it is currently...

Edit:

Should also probably make sure that the arcs deplete in the direction they are meant to be read, not the other way around. So shield should deplete towards armor, armor should deplete towards structure, and structure should deplete towards... well your explosion. Lol
War Porcika
Hamster Holding Corp
#167 - 2012-10-10 21:52:26 UTC
Isbariya wrote:

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 attempt to make things "better".

Changing the UI to a circle looks good in the first 10-15 second, you think it's awesome. But when you try to use that in the real game for hours, they you just notice that something what was working fine, and was logical, have been removed for something what looks good, but it's illogical, in a heat of the combat it will just annoy you.

Isbariya wrote:

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 improving ? Like adding a better overview to the assets menu for example.

I had to agree to this. How about to fix the "new" inventory system? It's a fact that there have been doing some improvement, but it's a halfway fixed product. It shill have many glitches, which are irritating.

Not sure how is this development going on, but just look around in the game, there are soooo many thing what is just halfway finished. You start a big change, then you fix some of the big issues, but many small ones remain, and you completely ignoring them for years. How about if you FINISH once an expansion properly.

As someone mentioned before, don't fix something what is not broken.
just my 2 cent
Ugleb
Jotunn Risi
#168 - 2012-10-10 21:53:26 UTC
PinkKnife wrote:
CCP karkur wrote:
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


QFT

Just keep in mind change is scary and people are resistant to it.

The three bar things isn't intuitive, it is just what people know, A brand new player has no indication that shield is on top anymore than they do that structure is on bottom.

People need to stop confusing intuition with familiarity. Just because YOU know top is shields, doesn’t mean it is intuitive.


The order of the three bars is consistent with the HUD, whereas the circular display is not. The two don't match up, you should be able to visually compare your own ship's status to your target.

They can ofc fix this by redesigning the HUD to match the targeting UI, but I'm not sure I want to see that atm. ;)

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Saede Riordan
Alexylva Paradox
#169 - 2012-10-10 21:53:41 UTC
I'd definitely like to see as much information incorporated into these icons as possible. Damage, speed, targetting, weapons range, etcs

Fear and Loathing in Internet Spaceships
Evei Shard
Shard Industries
#170 - 2012-10-10 21:54:34 UTC
Looks like good changes, though I agree with others that having some options on turning the display pieces on/off is good.

Just curious. Any chance of having the damage indicator be slightly less red when the given defense layer is not completely wiped out?
Example: Your ASB finally got reloaded and your shields are pumping back up, so at their greater than 0% status, they display as yellow/orange, while your armor, which you completely lost during the ASB reload, is full red, as you have none.

Also, +1 to the idea of displaying damage you are dealing as a number directly above the module icon. This would separate the incoming damage from the outgoing damage really well.

Profit favors the prepared
Bagrat Skalski
Koinuun Kotei
#171 - 2012-10-10 21:55:20 UTC
Quote:
Speed is already in the overview, cap would be interesting to put in there though.



Bah, my missiles would like to see who's sitting in place. Other players guns would like too i think. And NPC have unlimited capacitor, so its not that important, and for PVP there is tactical feel to hidden capacitor.

Custom ship skins, character creator style "repaint". Bring it!
John Nucleus
24th Imperial Crusade
Amarr Empire
#172 - 2012-10-10 21:56:53 UTC
CCP karkur wrote:
Karl Planck wrote:
Going to repost this as I do not think the devs are looking at the first couple of posts.

I like the idea behind this, as reading things can be difficult. However, can we make it more useful by having the opacity be a reflection as to how well they are hitting us instead of their damage/our HP? For instance: damage inflicted by enemy/maximum possible damage possible? Damage relative to HP isn’t all too helpful because your ship’s health is a very VERY easy stat to keep track of. However, having a visual que to knowing that you are under the guns of your opponent or that you have flown out of somone’s optimal would be VERY helpful (as opposed to having those numbers memorized Oops).


Also, can we get the damage UI on every ship we have locked, not just the one we have selected? This would help out on logis as well as keeping track of primaries.

Last, with this being a really nice UI option, can we disable the stacked bar of ships we have locked? As it is already on our screen :) (would free up that vital screen space)

We want to display who is seriously hurting you and threatening your life... and if I'm shooting at you with my Civilian gun and getting some AMAZING hits in (for me), it wouldn't make much sense that I was flashing bright red, while the guy that is dealing 20x my damage is just blinking faintly because he can do a lot better, would it?
(the current damage messages actually categorize the hits based on the ability of the module)



Still, knowing how well someone hits you is an important information and would help people get a better feeling of the mechanics at work. You just need to find a way to show both information. For example, opacity could be how well you get hit and the animation radius would be for the amount of damage.

This gives:
small circle with low opacity = low dmg and weak hit
small circle with high opacity = low dmg and excellent hit
big circle with low opacity = high dmg and weak hit
big circle with high opacity = high dmg and excellent hit

You could also change the color of the circle based on the damage type. This would give you a lot of information with a very simple and intuitive system.
krickettt
The Kronos Ritual
#173 - 2012-10-10 21:57:15 UTC  |  Edited by: krickettt
CCP Masheen wrote:

P.S. there are several small advantages to the concentric circular arrangement which you may have missed, for example:

- The length of the bar that indicates time-to-lock is approximately three times longer than before because it now wraps completely around the targeting bracket. This makes it easier to discern the speed at which your locking attempt is progressing.


I hope we're not losing the actual text of time-to-lock. I would much rather see the time displayed in text rather than guestimate using a circular loading bar. These changes should not take anything away from what we currently have.
Ugleb
Jotunn Risi
#174 - 2012-10-10 21:58:08 UTC
CCP Masheen wrote:
- The length of the bar that indicates time-to-lock is approximately three times longer than before because it now wraps completely around the targeting bracket. This makes it easier to discern the speed at which your locking attempt is progressing.


I would prefer it if there was still a numerical countdown to go with the 'locking' bar I think.

Can we still see this with a tooltip?

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RAGE QU1T
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#175 - 2012-10-10 22:01:16 UTC
New UI looks awesome! +10, Retro is in! look forward for this finshed product.
Raster Fain
Thunderwaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#176 - 2012-10-10 22:05:55 UTC
Just to say this is ****!!!! Should be banned and flamed to death!!

http://content.eveonline.com/www/newssystem/media/63449/1/targets3.png
War Porcika
Hamster Holding Corp
#177 - 2012-10-10 22:06:15 UTC
CCP Masheen wrote:

- We are able to make the target icons larger and therefore more recognizable, did you notice that?

You mean this? http://content.eveonline.com/www/newssystem/media/63449/1/targets3.png
They are not bigger. You just cut the picture edge. If you want to have more recognized pictures, then make them bigger in the picture. Less background. More zoom.

CCP Masheen wrote:

- The length of the bar that indicates time-to-lock is approximately three times longer than before because it now wraps completely around the targeting
bracket. This makes it easier to discern the speed at which your locking attempt is progressing.

The current numeric system is easy to use. You look there once, and you know it will take XX second, that's it.
With the circular progress bar you can only GUESS how long it will take to target.

CCP Masheen wrote:

- The spinning arrows around your selected target no longer cross over the shield/armor health bars

And why is that a problem?

CCP Masheen wrote:

- Ship brackets are square, targeting brackets are rounded, this distinction should help new players especially

I agree on this.
Kethry Avenger
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#178 - 2012-10-10 22:09:44 UTC
Make the health bars colored.

Shield = Blue

Armor = Green

Structure = Yellow

When Yellow turns Red your in trouble, unless you structure tanked your new Gallente ship

And other than Structure, the blue is the color of shields, and green is the color of active armor repairers.
Andski
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#179 - 2012-10-10 22:10:00 UTC
Brackets should flash distinctly when the other ship is using an assistance module on you. This would be pretty useful in situations i.e. cap chaining where the only indications that they're transferring capacitor to you are the effect (which is usually turned off) and the fact that your capacitor is increasing.

Twitter: @EVEAndski

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Tahnil
Gunboat Commando
#180 - 2012-10-10 22:10:29 UTC
CCP karkur wrote:
Resilan Bearcat wrote:
I like the concept shown for the additional information shown on the brackets. The dev blog shows a targeting icon based on targeting range. This is mostly useless information for me. I live and fight in wormholes where most encounters occur at very close range. What I care about is the weapon range for my weapons and selected ammo. From a personal perspective, I would prefer to see the targeting icon when a target is inside my optimal + falloff instead of the targeting range of my ship.

We are actually working on something like that... but we haven't started implementing it so I can't comment much more than that we are looking into that P


That would be nice, but not enough. The indicator should also consider transversal speed/tracking and explosion velocity.