I have played a countless amount of hours in a countless amount of MMOs and believe I have a reasonable understanding of what makes UIs pleasant to have in front of you. I think it can be summarized in three main pillars:
1. Customization. Whatever is put on the screen; players should be allowed to move the UI around and change sizes & individual elements of each respective UI element. Having this executed well will make even mediocre UIs quite usable.
2. Minimal. Although there is something to be said for visual treats (think of the eagles around your action bar in wow classic): a minimalistic approach really helps here to make sure the player can focus on the relevant elements. I believe that the core UI of Archeage, ignoring the payslip icon's etc., does a decent job at this. The transparent map, similar to the one in the AoC alpha, is not intrusive, but provides with the relevant information. Things like health bar, mana bar, target bar, action bar, chat box and small UI icon bar (inventory, social etc.) are a given in this. Quest box should provide you to track quests in a non-intrusice manner - something done fairly well by WoW. However, allowing for customization is key.
3. Stylized. Although the two elements above are important, they need to be forged whole by a consistent stylization that fits with the game's theme. Classic WoW does this reasonably well (having the old ruin vibe going on), contrasted by FFXIV where the UI in some places looks like it would fit a starwars MMO (health bar, target of target) and other elements look like a sword & sorcery mmo (minimap border). Although FFXIV has both those elements; it helps yo have a consistent feel toroughouy your UI that matches your game's theme. GW2 does this exceptionally well, also shifting the UI's style (to some degree) based on whether you are on land or on water.
What UI information is absolutely essential to you?
As a healer i always liked the wow addons for raid.
I would very much recommend som way to see incoming heals, to avoid double or even triple heals. This is a very good tool to not have over healing as a problem.
Like to have every raid member in a grid, where i can see:
L.O.S
Whos got aggro.
Class they are.
Incoming heals.
regarding in game cosmetics looking as good as cash shop cosmetics i personally would appreciate a UI menu with world drops and the ability to preview them on your character (something similar to what atlas loot provided in WOW)
generally speaking i think UI should start minimal and be highly customizable. Including additional hot bars an d an option to hide the UI completely with a hotkey.
I think the dream is always to have full control in customizability:
To pick what you want visible at any given time, link specific info/cues to certain events or effects, and also to choose size as well as orientation of said display on screen. Perhaps even options pertaining to a variety of methods that certain information/cues can be received..? Seems like too much but I'm certainly hopeful.
I often find materials like plant seeds, drops from NPCs, materials... and I have no idea what they are used for.
The number of recipes might be high and maybe accessible only in craft stations.
Should we go to wiki or should the game provide such information in it's UI?
Then, even if I am a crafter, it can be that those materials are not for my profession.
I might have no idea who needs them and how much they cost, if I should drop them or not.
Inventory is limited so I will have to drop something...
I prefer less on the screen. As minimal hotbars, cooldowns, buffs, etc. What I would prefer to see is graphics taking place visually on the character and/or their health bar to show what types of damage is incoming or what buffs are on me. Do I have a shield? Shield my health bar with a grey part that is the shield. Am I mitigating damage? Show a translucent glowing bubble. Am I taking bleeding damage? Show blood spouting out of my character. Is my character poisoned? Put a green bar below their healthbar with tick DoT. Is my character receiving burning damage? Light them on fire. Is my character frozen? Add a blue bar below their healthbar with cooldown DoT or show frozen feet. Make them have a shivering sound affect. Give audio/visual effects instead of a square with a cooldown on it.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Current Member of the Gray Sentinels.
Allow it to be customisable to the fullest.
- Size of buttons, visibility of hotkey for the ability, map, chatbox, chat text and font (like the combat stuff)
- Positioning of everything on screen (or at least several UI layouts to choose from) as I like to have player and target information in the bottom centre above my ability buttons.
- Number of quests that can be shown (e.g. 3-15)
- Whether a cooldown for an ability is a number over it, a (how to describe it?) shaded countdown or both. I'm sure you've seen that kind of thing before.
- Toggle xp bar on / off and keep it in the character menu if you want to. Also decide if you want it horizontal on the top / bottom of screen or vertical on the left / right-hand side of the screen.
- Turn it on / off of the message that you spell isn't ready and if your character actually says something about it. Sometimes i just want to spam that button and I know it's not ready I just want it to go off asap!
- Visibility of player names, guilds and if you can see this on your own character. Also a marker next to someone's name if it's someone on your chat block list. Like an Asterisk before their name or something.
I could go look at all the different layouts I had in WoW and other MMO's but it's not even 7am here and I'm sure most of what I suggested has already been mentioned. I'll just leave it with most of my thoughts and see what A2 is like.
Comments
I have played a countless amount of hours in a countless amount of MMOs and believe I have a reasonable understanding of what makes UIs pleasant to have in front of you. I think it can be summarized in three main pillars:
1. Customization. Whatever is put on the screen; players should be allowed to move the UI around and change sizes & individual elements of each respective UI element. Having this executed well will make even mediocre UIs quite usable.
2. Minimal. Although there is something to be said for visual treats (think of the eagles around your action bar in wow classic): a minimalistic approach really helps here to make sure the player can focus on the relevant elements. I believe that the core UI of Archeage, ignoring the payslip icon's etc., does a decent job at this. The transparent map, similar to the one in the AoC alpha, is not intrusive, but provides with the relevant information. Things like health bar, mana bar, target bar, action bar, chat box and small UI icon bar (inventory, social etc.) are a given in this. Quest box should provide you to track quests in a non-intrusice manner - something done fairly well by WoW. However, allowing for customization is key.
3. Stylized. Although the two elements above are important, they need to be forged whole by a consistent stylization that fits with the game's theme. Classic WoW does this reasonably well (having the old ruin vibe going on), contrasted by FFXIV where the UI in some places looks like it would fit a starwars MMO (health bar, target of target) and other elements look like a sword & sorcery mmo (minimap border). Although FFXIV has both those elements; it helps yo have a consistent feel toroughouy your UI that matches your game's theme. GW2 does this exceptionally well, also shifting the UI's style (to some degree) based on whether you are on land or on water.
As a healer i always liked the wow addons for raid.
I would very much recommend som way to see incoming heals, to avoid double or even triple heals. This is a very good tool to not have over healing as a problem.
Like to have every raid member in a grid, where i can see:
L.O.S
Whos got aggro.
Class they are.
Incoming heals.
generally speaking i think UI should start minimal and be highly customizable. Including additional hot bars an d an option to hide the UI completely with a hotkey.
To pick what you want visible at any given time, link specific info/cues to certain events or effects, and also to choose size as well as orientation of said display on screen. Perhaps even options pertaining to a variety of methods that certain information/cues can be received..?
The number of recipes might be high and maybe accessible only in craft stations.
Should we go to wiki or should the game provide such information in it's UI?
Then, even if I am a crafter, it can be that those materials are not for my profession.
I might have no idea who needs them and how much they cost, if I should drop them or not.
Inventory is limited so I will have to drop something...
Good post
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/53073/complete-list-of-dev-discussions
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Current Member of the Gray Sentinels.
- Size of buttons, visibility of hotkey for the ability, map, chatbox, chat text and font (like the combat stuff)
- Positioning of everything on screen (or at least several UI layouts to choose from) as I like to have player and target information in the bottom centre above my ability buttons.
- Number of quests that can be shown (e.g. 3-15)
- Whether a cooldown for an ability is a number over it, a (how to describe it?) shaded countdown or both. I'm sure you've seen that kind of thing before.
- Toggle xp bar on / off and keep it in the character menu if you want to. Also decide if you want it horizontal on the top / bottom of screen or vertical on the left / right-hand side of the screen.
- Turn it on / off of the message that you spell isn't ready and if your character actually says something about it. Sometimes i just want to spam that button and I know it's not ready I just want it to go off asap!
- Visibility of player names, guilds and if you can see this on your own character. Also a marker next to someone's name if it's someone on your chat block list. Like an Asterisk before their name or something.
I could go look at all the different layouts I had in WoW and other MMO's but it's not even 7am here and I'm sure most of what I suggested has already been mentioned. I'll just leave it with most of my thoughts and see what A2 is like.