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Dev blog: Stay on Target!

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Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#541 - 2012-10-11 18:00:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Dersen Lowery
Ranger 1 wrote:

I'm very happy with things over all, but I must make one point very clear in reference to the above post.

The most intuitive starting point for shields is the upper left quadrant, then armor in the upper right, then structure on the bottom... with damage progressing around the circle clockwise as it is now.


To whom? The very first thing I thought of was a circle being filled, whether clockwise or counter-clockwise. That way, the red is a seamless line of damage done, and the next category of defense follows directly by following the progress of the red fill.

You want there to be a clear visual relation between shield, armor and hull, because the damage progression is shield->armor->hull->splody. If you break up the progress of the red damage indicator, you cease to reflect that association in the UI.

I'd argue that this way is more intuitive than the current three-stacked-bars UI, because in just about every other game you can think of, stacked bars refer to separate pools that are grouped so that they're all associated with, e.g., your character, or your target. Someone coming from World of Warcraft would look at the current UI and see three different pools--hit points, mana, and something else, perhaps.

If the red damage line is essentially seamless in its progress, you reinforce the idea that shields, armor and hull are three aspects of the same essential stat, which is defense, or "hit points," that absorb damage taken in a fixed order.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
Tsukinosuke
Id Est
RAZOR Alliance
#542 - 2012-10-11 18:00:08 UTC
i like it, and if more customizable, i may like it more :)

i cant see any damage lines on log when i uncheck "show damage notifications". sometimes i dont like fast changing labels in the middle of my screen..

anti-antagonist "not a friend of enemy of antagonist"
Cerulean Ice
Royal Amarr Reclamation
#543 - 2012-10-11 18:01:09 UTC
IDEA! Why not change the full circle hp bars into a 3/4 circle hp bar, with the bottom quarter empty. It could then mirror the capacitor HUD and have shields right, slowly decreasing up and around to the left as it transitions into armor then hull. It would match the current HUD in concept, still retain the cool circle, and nobody would be confused anymore.

I'd draw a picture to help, but making you all gouge out your eyes isn't going to improve this feature much.

CCP Prism X wrote:
Cerulean Ice wrote:
CCP Prism X gets it.

Dude I'm trolling.

Roll

We really need a [sarcasm] tag for the forums. It would prevent so many misunderstandings.

Cerulean Ice, Professor, E-UNI
Bantara
Dolmite Cornerstone
#544 - 2012-10-11 18:34:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Bantara
Bienator II wrote:
shield, armor, hull clockwise. kinda intuitive IMO

Yes, I completely agree, it's just that rather than using a clockface for the order, I would have used reading.
Eh?
What I mean is they arranged the three using a clockface--starting at midnight and going clockwise. So with it divided into thirds, we have shields on the upper-right, armour in the bottom, and hull in the upper-left.
I would have preferred reading order: Being an English-speaker, that would be shield in upper-left, armour in upper-right, and hull on bottom. I think that also makes sense as hull is the bottom/last layer; it seems more intuitive to me that my target is in trouble when the top-half of his circle is red, rather than the right side and most of the bottom.

EDIT: And in hindsight, I realize this has been discussed a lot in 20-some pages. Just consider it my single vote on the issue.
Za'kerak
#545 - 2012-10-11 18:42:23 UTC
I dont like it. Counterintuitive. Complex.
BEFORE: you exactly know that you will lock 12.79s
...AFTER?
BEFORE: you clearly see what you shooting shield/armor/hull
...AFTER?
Xenuchrist
The Scope
#546 - 2012-10-11 19:14:35 UTC
Hi, it's about time this gets some love.

A quick suggestion (w/o checking the previous 28 pages) : If you keep the round targeting, please let the shield/armor/structure-portions of the circle vary in size according to points. (e.g. in a Raven the Shield-portion would be much larger than for armor etc.)

Only the start of the shield-portion would be common, but with some clever visual cue (colours?) and a fixed minimum size of each portion it should be quite readable.

This alone would more than make up for the slight loss of readability when loosing the old targeting icons.

--  "In human stupidity, when it is not malicious, there is something very touching, even beautiful... There always is." /Tolstoy
CCP karkur
C C P
C C P Alliance
#547 - 2012-10-11 19:17:04 UTC
Cerulean Ice wrote:
CCP Prism X wrote:
Cerulean Ice wrote:
CCP Prism X gets it.

Dude I'm trolling.

Roll

We really need a [sarcasm] tag for the forums. It would prevent so many misunderstandings.

The rule of thumb is CCP PrismX is always trolling Big smile

CCP karkur | Programmer | Team Five 0 | @CCP_karkur
Ager Agemo
Rainbow Ponies Incorporated
#548 - 2012-10-11 19:26:31 UTC
Two step wrote:
As I said elsewhere, maybe something like this:

Pic

Blue = Shields
Green = Armor
Orange = Hull
Black tick = speed (or something else?)


love that idea, reminds me of star wars shield indicators!
Lin Fatale
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#549 - 2012-10-11 19:33:56 UTC
please just tell me what is wrong with the current icons?

if you are honest you would make a pro / cons list

and the only pro for the new icons are imho they look more shiny but the usability and readability are really really bad

its like the inventory on a first look it looks better, but after xxx months its still worse then the old one
Bantara
Dolmite Cornerstone
#550 - 2012-10-11 19:41:34 UTC
Lin Fatale wrote:
and the only pro for the new icons are imho they look more shiny but the usability and readability are really really bad

Do not confuse the effort needed to adapt to a new UI for a UI with less usability and 'readability'. UI experts have to explain this all the time.
Mere Gorgon
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#551 - 2012-10-11 19:43:33 UTC
How about something like this?
http://oi48.tinypic.com/i74lsl.jpg

colors:
blue = shield
green = armor
orange/yellow = structure


The targeting thing would look like cooldown timer, as you can see. And of course there is "seconds left"-timer, so no need to guess how much time is left Smile

Btw. this is my first forum post Big smile
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#552 - 2012-10-11 19:58:52 UTC
Dersen Lowery wrote:
Ranger 1 wrote:

I'm very happy with things over all, but I must make one point very clear in reference to the above post.

The most intuitive starting point for shields is the upper left quadrant, then armor in the upper right, then structure on the bottom... with damage progressing around the circle clockwise as it is now.


To whom? The very first thing I thought of was a circle being filled, whether clockwise or counter-clockwise. That way, the red is a seamless line of damage done, and the next category of defense follows directly by following the progress of the red fill.

2nd'ing this. The way it is now seems very intuitive to me with damage flowing in a single clockwise circle around the icon. Starting at 12'oclock only reinforces this. The flow of damage was readily apparent to me just looking at the screenshot.
Dex Tera
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#553 - 2012-10-11 20:21:58 UTC
GeeShizzle MacCloud wrote:
CCP Prism X wrote:


Constructive feedback, such as making the triangles spin wildly out of control if your tracking is too **** for the traversal velocity, gets lost. Everybody loses and goes home a bit angrier than they had to.

That being said, I'm no saint. That should be obvious by the fact that I troll my own coworkers. But I cant do that if I start creating problems by doing that. Which is why I'm now making a long winded attempt to re-rail the discussion that I feel I may have de-railed somewhat.


well also allow me to help re-rail the discussion by offering an idea with a few mock up pictures....

http://i.imgur.com/8h0e9.jpg - red
http://i.imgur.com/CoehQ.jpg - orange
http://i.imgur.com/oTOEx.gif - green

Introduce a traffic light system for giving pilots indications of gun/ missile range and tracking. How it would work is as follows and is listed in order of priority, where a higher priority colour overrides a lesser one:

  • Red: out of falloff range and/or out of tracking speed
  • Orange: In falloff range and/or within +/- 10% of tracking speed
  • Green: In optimal range and/or within tracking speed

This traffic light system would only appear on the selected object and only when either a pilot has moused over a weapon group or has a weapon group activated on a target.



This may seem a bit of a big helping hand for noobs but when you consider how people fight within weapon systems this could serve as a guide but not a full proof way of knowing you're going to hit a target effectively in a given situation. for example...

Autocannon PvP ships generally fight at half falloff so being in a AC cynabal for example you'd not want to get within 10km of a target typically so you wouldnt fight when your reticle hits green flashy.

Missiles use an explosion radius vs sig radius calculations that shouldnt be used to indicate tracking on this system, adding some requirement of further study and knowledge of ur target and your weapon system.

FYI the green flashy is so that the 3 colours are easily distinguishable by all forms of colour blindness.

hey bro i like dis good post and the fact that you added a lock timer is cool too its very clear to read and the fact that i can know at a glance if im with in range is great +1
MIrple
Black Sheep Down
Tactical Narcotics Team
#554 - 2012-10-11 20:31:49 UTC
Mere Gorgon wrote:
How about something like this?
http://oi48.tinypic.com/i74lsl.jpg

colors:
blue = shield
green = armor
orange/yellow = structure


The targeting thing would look like cooldown timer, as you can see. And of course there is "seconds left"-timer, so no need to guess how much time is left Smile

Btw. this is my first forum post Big smile


That looks great. If you could fit in speed and transversel at the bottom I would vote yours in.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#555 - 2012-10-11 20:38:08 UTC
Mere Gorgon wrote:
How about something like this?
http://oi48.tinypic.com/i74lsl.jpg

colors:
blue = shield
green = armor
orange/yellow = structure
I like it for obvious reasons. P
Maarl Junis
Double Eagles
#556 - 2012-10-11 20:40:08 UTC
I love the idea of freshening the targeting system.
The idea of having the bracket surrounded by a round HP display for the ship is awesome.
Like several others here, I don't like the round targeting icons.
Personally, what I would rather see is an option to see targeted ships in a view similar to the drones window where I would have a list of ships/objects that I have targeted with little bars for the Shield/Armor/Structure.
This would allow a small column to be added that would tell me how much damage the ships dealt the last time they hit me.

Keep up the good work on the client, I've seen alot of great improvements and as presented by you, this targeting change would be a good improvement.
Palovana
Inner Fire Inc.
#557 - 2012-10-11 20:52:06 UTC
Keras Authion wrote:
This looks good and useful. Can't wait to try these things out.

While you are working on the icons, could you squeeze some more information out of the brackets. As we know the player ships have broken boxes to identify themselves from other objects. However these do not give much information if it's a frigate or a battlecruiser unless you can distinguish a few pixel difference out of memory.

This could be improved by adding a geometric symbol in the box. Let's say a frigate would have a triangle in the box and a cruiser a square. Now we can see what is going on around us much easier, especially in the overview. Taking it further the icons could be separated by colour or adding lines or symbols to mark different tech levels or roles. For example a merlin has a gray triangle and a hawk golden triangle with a black stripe while a buzzard has a golden triangle with a blue stripe. This would make it easier for people to identify ship classes at a glance and speed up the identification so you could assess the situation better.

I recall an earlier (test) build a couple years ago, where the brackets and overview icons were changed and while there wasn't as much detail (colour stripes, etc) as you requested, it was quickly reverted due to negative feedback.

Please support: export of settings in editable format

Your stuff goes here.
Angeliq
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#558 - 2012-10-11 21:16:51 UTC
Why are we still debating the direction from-to which the damage should flow in those circles and what colors those should be, since the majority of people already concluded that while this is indeed nice looking bendy shiny thingy, it is less functional and counter-intuitive. While the brackets MIGHT prove to be useful to new player experience, the new targeting UI is just shiny. It adds no new usability, it is actually worse than the current UI.

wow much space very ship such pvp many pew
Oreb Wing
Last Rites.
#559 - 2012-10-11 21:20:35 UTC
Two step wrote:
As I said elsewhere, maybe something like this:

Pic

Blue = Shields
Green = Armor
Orange = Hull
Black tick = speed (or something else?)


I think there might be some unintended confusion for some to find armor damage on a ship that had its shield recharged. I would prefer the 3 separated as a ring, as I could train my eye to glance over these much faster.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#560 - 2012-10-11 21:22:03 UTC
Angeliq wrote:
Why are we still debating the direction from-to which the damage should flow in those circles and what colors those should be, since the majority of people already concluded that while this is indeed nice looking bendy shiny thingy, it is less functional and counter-intuitive.
Really? Could we get a vote count on that one? Roll

The reason we're still debating it is because answering those makes it just as functional and more intuitive.