Weekly Discussion 74: UI Suggestions

[Frostbiter]

Everyone's already made most of mine so I'll just leave the one that still bugs me. When you target a player or mob and go to click in the target window, it takes a few seconds of hovering over the window before the UI gives it the active window focus and allows you to click on any of the options.

[Greycat]

10 hours ago, carroto said:

When using enhancement boosters / catalysts don't make me wait many seconds after applying one before the UI resets and I can do another.  Better yet, maybe rethink this UI altogether, although just speeding up the current one would be a huge improvement.  It seems like the original devs expected that using these would be a rare event and wanted to make applying them impactful.  However it's not unusual for me to boost quite a few IOs after a respec, not to mention catalyzing an entire set of ATOs at once.  It's one of the aspects of putting together a build I like the least.

Mm. Definitely.

 

Though I don't think they really expected it to be "rare," after all we've been using the same mechanic to update enhancements ... pretty much since the beginning. And combining *then* was as annoying as the boosting you're doing *now.*  So it's not a new problem.

 

For boosting (and for that matter catalyzing,) I'd love to be able to click a button and say "boost all" and/or "catalyze all" and just have it done.

[Heraclea]

I would GREATLY appreciate it if a setting could be added that locked power trays in place and disabled tray swapping.  Many is the time that I thought I was attacking, only to discover that I was clicking toggles on and off.  I've learned to bind anything else to the - key.  The little arrows by the 1 and 0 powers in the trays are also treacherous and often being clicked by mistake.

[tidge]

Disordered thoughts:

 

1) Saving power tray configurations would be nice. I would be satisfied if there was simply a way to dump to a text file a configuration. Loading them is less important (because powers may not be available upon an attempted reload).

 

2) The non-saveable non-scalability of the missions from the Ouroboros pillar. I dislike that I have to manually expand it each time to actually see the options to pick the mission.

 

3) The Incarnate power-select window that doesn't allow for 'collapsing' a choice; it only allows you to select another choice. For example, if I'm looking at the Lore options, I can't just collapse the Lore but must select a different category.

 

4) Finding Badges. I go looking for badges to monitor progress and to pick new badge names to display. For the former I am annoyed when I've missed a specific exploration badge and try to scroll to figure out which one is missed. For the latter I hate accidentally picking a 'new' badge name and I have to go looking for the one I wanted.

[Troo]

7 hours ago, Lines said:

I don't know if you mean anything more specific, but options > window > save windows right down the bottom does this. It saves it into wdw.txt. You can then load them to other characters, and new characters will automatically adopt this.

 

Edit: i may have read this as a suggestion but now I see you might just be making a statement.

I was trying to point out a good thing.

 

It's great that you expanded it and gave the "how to do it, if it's not working for someone'. -kudos!

[Magairlín]

Could we please please please get an option to make the League window look more like the team window? Or at least have the same font size as it. The text is so small on modern screens.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Black Orchid II
Clarity

[Eldyem]

The email menus are currently awful to navigate; the email menu itself is so small and trying to expand it just expands the wrong side.

[TalonBlue]

For enhancement boosters it would be nice to have the option to apply them in either +1 amounts and in +5.

[Lost Deep]

My biggest complaint is that it can be hard to tell what effects are active on the enemy specifically. I fully respect that some of that is supposed to be secret information, but I mainly mean it in regards to debuffs the player themselves can throw out. When playing poison, traps, or other sets big on debuffs it's important to be able to see whether your debuffs are active on a target: a lot of powers have either effects that can be hard to see or visual effects that don't last as long as the mechanical ones (near as I can tell). The current setup is better than nothing, by all means, but there's a lot of overlap and if the screen is busy it's hard to determine the debuff status at a glance.

[Xeres]

OK.  I'm sure I'll repeat other people's suggestions, but here goes.

 

• Adjustable UI snap grid.  Not many levels, maybe 2x2 5x5 10x10.
• Window docks.  Allow windows to be docked to and undocked from each other and that whole window dock cluster moveable as a group.
• Windowed netgraph (moveable, scalable).
• Target of target.  If this is actually in the game, I haven't found it.
• Assist window.  This can either be another player, a player's target or a target set by the RL.
• Threat meter.  This is the only meter I'll be all right with unless you count the netgraph which I suppose is a meter also.
• Raid announcement notification on screen and in chat.
• A temporary powers tray.  Basically this is another toolbar that temp powers go to.  It is always on if the active mission you are on requires it and that power goes into slot 1 on the first bar with other powers going into subsequent bar pages.

That's all  😉  Well, you asked.

[GM ColdSpark]

Hi folks, 

if I may just interrupt for a moment, I'm going to be picking up the Weekly Discussion reins going forward so Miss can focus on being even more amazing than she already is at the dozens of other things she does for us all (we don't know if it's possible but equally we don't doubt her ability!!)

 

So... you've pulled the very very short straw and gotten me! I want to start us off with a poll next week, get some new topics onto the "to-do" list alongside the half-dozen or so "Top Sets" and the couple of T9 discussions... what else do you want to discuss? Send me a message directly through here or on Discord (rather than replying in here and muddling this weeks discussion) and I'll pop them on the list to be voted on. Submissions ready for me to post the poll on Sunday 1st Nov please!

 

If you suggest a topic which then wins the vote next week, you get a title in game on a character of your choice

[Luminara]

Those stupid little pop-ups that were added for events in specific areas, like the prisoners breaking out in front of the Zig.  That's obtrusive.  They can't be minimized enough to remove from visual presence, they can't be closed, they can't even be permanently moved to an out of the way location because they change size with different events and work their way across the screen.  I've only been playing again for a few months and I'm already at the point of deliberately avoiding any area with an event just so I don't have to stop and futz with that annoying window.  I want it gone.  G O N E gone.  If I want it, I should be able to pull it up from one of the menu options littering the windows, and if I don't want it, I shouldn't have to deal with it.

[@Ghost]

My personal “my brain is melting and I hate this” moment with the UI is how the chat’s font scales.

 

By default? Relatively tiny. “Turn up the font slider” you say! Well, for reasons unbeknownst to any human alive, this game thinks a 13 point font is much closer to 18-20 point.

 

My hacked together solution is scaling the overall UI up, while scaling the window sizes down to actually get at an in-between font size that’s not normally accessible through any option. The fact that this size does exist but requires so much obscure tinkering is pretty insane, and I’d love some kind of standardization pass on this stuff.

[ShardWarrior]

Please please please make it work and scale nicely at UHD resolution.

[Hardship]

So one thing that I like is having the hit points and end bars right up next to my character. I know that many don't like, this an option to have something like this:

 

    

 

I to often don't even LOOK at my health/end bars until my toggles drop or I face plant.  I think this shows character bars on the left and target bars on the right, but I'd also be ok with ONLY character bars around my hero. Health on the left and End on right or something like that.

 

 

 

[Lines]

3 minutes ago, Hardship said:

So one thing that I like is having the hit points and end bars right up next to my character. I know that many don't like, this an option to have something like this:

 

 

 

I to often don't even LOOK at my health/end bars until my toggles drop or I face plant.  I think this shows character bars on the left and target bars on the right, but I'd also be ok with ONLY character bars around my hero. Health on the left and End on right or something like that.

 

 

 

There is an option to have a health and end bar above the character's head. Can't remember exactly where in the options, but I can't live with without it. Literally.

[Zepp]

4 hours ago, Lines said:

There is an option to have a health and end bar above the character's head. Can't remember exactly where in the options, but I can't live with without it. Literally.

[Greycat]

On 10/27/2020 at 1:36 PM, Black Orchid II said:

Could we please please please get an option to make the League window look more like the team window? Or at least have the same font size as it. The text is so small on modern screens.

The font should increase in size as you stretch the window to a larger size. But yeah, that can shrink to be pretty tiny.

[Zepp]

What I would like to see:

 

• Set global default (as has been mentioned here, being able to set a default position for UI items. I would also extend that to shop windows, Salvage, Recipes, Auction House)
• Set default position for dialogue boxes. It seems that the position for dialogue boxes with NPCs is attached to the NPC rather than your settings. It would be nice to have a default position that you control.
• Alter the color of the circles used in sliders, etc. so that 000000 displays can more easily be manipulated.
• A new screen to display your binds
• An easier way to set key map items to Not Set (I like having certain functions "Not Set", like Next Tray and Previous Tray, and while it is easy to add a new key, it is difficult to remove a key)
• Being able to change the font
• Being able to change font size for windows

Edited October 29, 2020 by Zepp

[Greycat]

3 minutes ago, Zepp said:

A new screen to display your binds

 

 

... which reminds me of something else.

 

You can create macros. You can delete the button. If you do a respec (or a second build,) though... the buttons are back. Being able to have a screen to "find" them again and/or permanently delete them would be nice.

[Zepp]

6 minutes ago, Greycat said:

The font should increase in size as you stretch the window to a larger size. But yeah, that can shrink to be pretty tiny.

I disagree, you should be able to change font size without having it bound to window size.

[BurtHutt]

On 10/27/2020 at 6:47 AM, Heraclea said:

I would GREATLY appreciate it if a setting could be added that locked power trays in place and disabled tray swapping.  Many is the time that I thought I was attacking, only to discover that I was clicking toggles on and off.  I've learned to bind anything else to the - key.  The little arrows by the 1 and 0 powers in the trays are also treacherous and often being clicked by mistake.

Yes, I am tired of accidentally hitting the arrow key on a tray and losing my primary attacks in the middle of a fight. This is a minor issue but you asked 🙂 

 

Also, the arrows are awfully close to slot 1 in a tray so sometimes I hit the arrow instead of the intended power (when using my mouse). 

[torquenator]

I would LOVE for COH to come up at the last page of characters I used.  I have altitis and 3 pages of characters.

[Snarky]

Having keybinds Cntrl+f1 etc linkable to certain bars Bar 1 button 1 etc.  The current UI allows you to do this only to the bar currently in the 1 / 2 / 3 position no matter what number, change the bar and the entire power tray is gone.

 

I use floating bars in the center of my screen in a custom shape, so being able to lock a hotkey to these powers would be great

 

 

[Greycat]

On 10/28/2020 at 9:18 PM, Zepp said:

I disagree, you should be able to change font size without having it bound to window size.

No, no, I mean currently, not as a suggestion.