Feed Back Response
As I have said this before, the game is all about feed back response. This should be combined with Blizzard's desire to make the game as fun and as playable as possible.
I think the best way to do this is a separate UI for each class. Yup, I said it. If Blizzard wants to stay out in front of the MMO curve this is where they have to go next. There are basic elements that are the same for all, but then different classes need to "focus" on different things to make the classes play style different. I really do not have enough time to do this concept justice at this time at (work on lunch). So, I just want to throw it out half baked so the crowd can run with it. If we think about the old 2D fighting games as more processing power became available, they tried to build on the games. But, they were limited by the UI. A simple Joystick. So, they advanced the controller. But, even that was quickly over run and it became 1/2 pull triger 2, while clicking the yellow and red buttons while licking the white one. If a new player sits down to play wow and is left with the responsibility of dragging spells from the spell book and dropping them in arbitrary squares they will drive away many players who might become loyal fans if the learning curve was lowered. Rhamses |
Three things nUI 6.0 will do to address this...
Big goals... but that's pretty much what nUI 6.0 is about (besides adding the missing features and fixing the FPS bug) |
Sounds interesting. I will have to reread what you wrote and translate it into my brain's way of thinking
Any button can respond differently to any one of 5 mouse buttons, not to mention the alts, ctrol, shift and all the combos. In addition, their is logic built right into the button to handle "Friend" and "Foe". It can do a simple spell cast or a complex macro. People get confused and frightened by macros. But, what I think would help them out if there was an artificial layout. Still rolling it over in my mind. Say the addon opened up a design sandbox linked to "1" four boxes appear. One for Null-1. One for Alt-1, one for CTRL-1 and one Shift-1. One button "1" can handle four spells depending on the extra key. Another example and how I have been playing is click based I have a single button window and I have it mapped to left button. Right button. Alt Left Button and Alt Right button. and this one "window" is also tied, to "Helpable" and "Harmable" When we start to parse all the things that a button can resolve on its own, it significantly reduces the number of buttons required for game play. This saves screen realestate and I can make put off the need for bifocals for another year :p . The trick here is it requires much more thought in advance. A lot of planning has to go into UIs like this. But, then it goes up even higher when I start using buff textures to modify the appearance of the button without changing its actual function to avoid taint. Rhamses |
One of the designs I'm working over in my head is how to deal with button configuration. I want to replicate what WoW does now in the action bars, but I also want to be able to extend it. On the one hand, I want power users to be able to take advantage of everything an action button can do while still allowing the novice user to just drop an action on the button and go.
I'm going to end up with something that's a basic "drag and drop a spell here for the click action" and "drag and drop a spell here for the right-click action" and such with an "advanced" button which will allow you to extend these abilities to include modifiers, help and harm, script snippets, macros, etc. I'm hoping I can do this in a way that most of the buttons abilities can be set up with GUI options and drag/drop while still allowing the true scripters and power users unfettered access. We'll see how it turns out. |
I think you are on the right track and we can get feed back from people here before you start the hard code.
Going back to different class play style. Unfortunetly, I never had the time to level up and play alts, so this is a step of imagination at my part. When I look at a warrior play. The name of the game is rage. It is about building up rage, using it and trying to get to some sort of an equilibrium. Rogues? it is about combo points and energy right? Like the assasin from Diablo ii? Lock is watch the debuffs and respond to the occasional proc. etc. Then, we can also start to think about what is the best way to display the measure of xyz? There is the classic "bar". Now, we use some insights from TRIS (I will go into it this evening) and think how have others solved the problem. CLassic Ruler. Thermometer? Speedometer? digital display? etc Am I making any sense here? Rhamses |
That's more a personal preference and muscle memory thing. Some people like bars, some like gauges, others prefer just a digital display. There's no one "right" solution which is the difficulty in designing an interface like nUI for the mass market. In the end, you have to throw away the idea of telling people "this is how you do it" and making it possible for them to do it their way.
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Ok,, yes and no. Let's not get hung up on a bar vs speedometer. What has to be micromanaged for the best outcome in a boss fight?
What makes a warlock play different from a mage? I believe that this is the type of stuff that will become more pronounced. I have never played a mage. Let me hazard a guess. Lots of cooldowns. Locks have dots. Maintain the dots, but the cooldown on the spells is less important. If this is the case, watching the Debuffs is more important. It is possible to recast the dot (no cool down), and waste a GCD, mana and clip the dot. Now, if I am right about the mage, if the spell is on cool down, it can not be cast. If you click it, it is not triggered, but neither is the GCD triggered. I can see something similar in resto druid. The player does not want to clip the hots. Great for trying to keep HP at an equilibrium. But, a few non-hots are going to be needed in case the tank gets crit on two successive attacks. Rhamses |
Fair enough -- but here we're migrating from design and modeling of the system into implementation details. The model has to allow for the design which has to allow for the implementation... however, neither you nor I are experts at playing all of the classes... so the trick is to provide the framework that the experts can then employ to create the right information display for the classes they are expert in.
There will be no shortage of fails and epic fails, but there will be the cream that floats to the top providing the capability to display the critical data in the best way is present. This is true both in the presentation of the data as well as the input interface the player uses to initiate actions. |
Talk to you later. I have the joy of a 65 mile commute to do next.
rhamses |
This is all very, very intriguing. I cannot wait to see nUI 6.0 and start messing around with it and see what some of the 'experts' here in this community come up with. All in all, seems like there is pretty much nowhere to go but up from here.
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As an example of what I am talking about for my lock
I have Improved shadow bolt. So, I want to tag the target with that for the DPS boost. In a boss fight, I have to watch to renew this. This is as good a time as any, to regain some of the mana with a lifetap to activate that buff. I also want to trigger metamorphasis (I do nto remember where exactly I trigger this) As well as the petbuff that I do nto want to actually trigger until the pet is actually attacking, not in transit. If Immolate is on the target, incincerate does slightly more DPS than Shadow Bolt. So, when the debuff is still there, I want to cast incinerate. But, this resoves at impact, not cast. So, the debuff can fall off as the incinerate is on the way. But, I also have Decimation in my build. So, once the mob's health drops to below 25% (? it has been a while since I have played) I want to alternate Shadow Bolt and soulfire. In order for this to work best, I have to toggle my felguard to passive so he still gets beat on, but does not attack and kill the mob before my shadow bolt gets there. When the shadow bolt kills the mob, I can run to the next mob, and lead off with the soufire-ball thingamajig and then hit the mob with shadow bolt. So, I would like to have my UI so I can see the debuffs that I have cast on the mob as well as a select few of my buffs as well as a couple of cooldowns. Rhamses |
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