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01-23-15, 05:06 PM   #1
sirann
A Flamescale Wyrmkin
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 142
My UI Feedback

Good afternoon all,

After quite a few revisions, breaking the code to the point of having to start over again for several addons, I'm near completion on my UI. This UI is meant for endgame PvE rogue raiding, with the possibility that I occasionally have to raid lead.

Things that still need to be done, but I don't believe directly impact DPS/Survivability:

Minimap,
Replacing skins/textures/maybe entire addon (TinyDPS)
Getting a chat AddOn
Finishing the rest of my scrolling combat text AddOn
Skinning BigWigs/Moving the bars, warnings etc
ToolTip addon
Finding other quality of life addons to gut and combine.

I am, however, looking for feedback on the entire UI as is, particularly the boss frames and associated aura tracking. As a rogue, surprisingly, its useful to track certain dots/poisons to maximize dps on off-target units, something as simple as an off-target @mouseover rupture macro can give you an extra 3k dps if done well.

So please, any criticism is welcome!

http://files.enjin.com.s3.amazonaws....ull/499196.jpg
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01-23-15, 06:56 PM   #2
Tonyleila
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So basicly we can only say something about the Unitframes/Raid/deBuffs.
The debuffs and your DPS meter are both missing a 1px black border.
And well pixel fonts are awfull.
Grushing wounds bar is to close to your buttons same for buff debuffs needs 1px spacing.
Raidicons on raidframes are too big.
And if its an "endgame PvE rogue raiding" UI I don't even see why you need to see the raidframes so big?
How woud the layout for mystic be with 20 man? 1 row more left or right woud look odd.
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01-23-15, 09:02 PM   #3
sirann
A Flamescale Wyrmkin
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 142
You can say anything about anything, I was just forewarning that there are still things on my todo list to hopefully alleviate things like 'your minimap is stock' or 'your chat frame isn't skinned.'

The buffs and debuffs bars were left without pixel borders due to the nature of their stacking, I suppose I could just offset the stacks by a y of -1 to ensure they stack on top of each other and don't have two pixel borders. I will try this to see how it looks.

The debuff bar below my character will receive said 1 pixel background and move 1 pixel down to see how it looks.

Agreed I need to resize raidframes.

Raidframes are that size because I do need to know who's alive for various jobs.

Additionally, the raidframe anchor moves dynamically to always be centered on the screen despite the raid size.
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01-23-15, 09:45 PM   #4
Phanx
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Yes, raid frames are way too big for DPS. You can't heal, you can't apply absorbs, you can't dispel any debuffs, etc. All you need from raid frames is a rough gauge of who's alive and who's dead, raid icons, and maybe a few encounter-specific boss debuffs. My DPS profile in Grid just has tiny boxes with the first two letters of each player's name, and the frames are certainly not front and center. I'd suggest putting them where your combat log is, and get rid of the combat log. There's no point in having your combat log displayed at all times -- do you ever even look at it? If you need some numeric feedback your abilities, turn on the game's floating damage numbers, or get a scrolling combat text addon.

I'd also suggest getting rid of the buff bars for your poisons -- that's a lot of space to waste on buffs with a 30-minute duration. If you need a reminder to re-cast them when they expire, a better solution would be to show something when they're not on you.

Also agreed that even just a few pixels of spacing would help a lot. Squashing everything together like that really hurts readability. So does having those health/power numbers outside of the unit frames -- I know some of them being unreadable comes from the overdone JPEG compression in your image, but if you feel the numbers are important enough to show, they're also important enough to make sure they're readable regardless of the background scenery.

Spindly pixel font is also horrible and unreadable, but I'm aware some people inexplicably love them. The outlined all-caps pixel font on the damage (?) meter is especially bad.
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01-23-15, 10:27 PM   #5
sirann
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Fantastic suggestion on the raid frames. The only reason I had combatlog is to balance the chat frame in terms of symmetry, and largely I just use it for snap checking deaths, which has its own window in 6.1.

Any suggestions on boss frames? Make them less wide and switch to stock blizzard style square timers with swirl?

The poisons are interesting. I'll code them to only show up if they're less than 15 minutes or something.

The font outside of my UF's are necessary as they are visual ques for various things, they are comfortably legible at a glance on my monitor.

The font on the damage meters is going when I get time to either change the code, or find a damage meter I like better, just don't like the skada cpu whoring.
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01-24-15, 12:57 AM   #6
Phanx
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Originally Posted by sirann View Post
Any suggestions on boss frames? Make them less wide and switch to stock blizzard style square timers with swirl?
I don't see any boss frames in your screenshot?
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01-24-15, 02:51 AM   #7
10leej
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Originally Posted by Phanx View Post
I don't see any boss frames in your screenshot?
Likely thats the frame under the target frame.

If thats the case make that the focus frame instead and put the boss frame on middle of the left side of the screen. Maybe go about 3/4 size on it too while you're at it. Doesn't have to be that big only thing you really need to see is the health power and aura bars for the boss.

Why do you need your debuffs on the boss frame? I'd show only boss auras not player auras myself.

Change the DBM colors to match the grey colors you're using for unitframes.

Place the DPS meter next to the raid frames on the bottom right.

Nitpickings:
  • Find a skin for the RaidManager
  • Change the minimap
  • Move the Objective tracker all the way to the right side
  • skin the chat frames so the default borders don't show
  • place the nameplate text inside the nameplate itself
  • stop using pixel fonts
  • swear to whatever deity (if any) you worship you will never EVER use pixel fonts on purpose again
  • get 10leej a cookie (cause he really needs one right now)
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01-24-15, 04:09 AM   #8
Phanx
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Originally Posted by 10leej View Post
Nitpickings:
  • stop using pixel fonts
  • swear to whatever deity (if any) you worship you will never EVER use pixel fonts on purpose again
  • get 10leej a cookie (cause he really needs one right now)
Here, have an imaginary internet cookie:
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01-24-15, 06:11 AM   #9
syncrow
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Originally Posted by sirann View Post
The only reason I had combatlog is to balance the chat frame in terms of symmetry
Dock the Combatlog back to the default Chat and for symmetry, you maybe make use of ChatHider

As my previous speakers sayed:

- Raid Frames are way to big -> make it smaller and anchor it not in the center of the screen. A good place would be right at the bottom of your dmg meter.

imo:
- add some comboBar - EnergyBar right under or above your DBM? (maybe for "highend")
- disable the error scroll messages (ugly and disturbing as hell^^)
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01-24-15, 10:56 AM   #10
sirann
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10leej is right, it's the frame below my target, this isn't a very good example of where they are placed in most encounters, they castcade down from the place you see there.

The reason I want to see debuffs I put up is for multidot tracking as stated in the op. Rolling ruptures and dp is a substantial dps increase now that CP's arent tied to the target. So essentially, I need to see Health, Power, Health Percent (for execute range), castbars (for @boss1-5 interrupts), buffs for various reasons including @boss1-5 shiv to deenrage, and the debuffs I put up.

The pixel font thing is a common topic. I know people have this hatred for them, although I'm unsure as to why? They only appear to be illegible after jpg compression, which, I suppose is how most of you guys see them.

However, if you guys have suggestions as to a non-pixel font that you think would match the theme, I'd be down to see it.
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01-24-15, 11:06 AM   #11
10leej
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Originally Posted by sirann View Post
10leej is right, it's the frame below my target, this isn't a very good example of where they are placed in most encounters, they castcade down from the place you see there.
Still not a great place for them, it's in the way of that fire on the floor.

However, if you guys have suggestions as to a non-pixel font that you think would match the theme, I'd be down to see it.
I use arial thugh because of my eye sight going bad I find myself using Open-Dyslexic moradays for the readability (even if it looks like crap at times).

But does font really have to fit theme? I think font is really something that should be more usable than lookable

Here, have an imaginary internet cookie:
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01-25-15, 09:17 PM   #12
Miralen
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UI clout wise, I probably have little but alas, for a font I really like and I find easy on the eyes as well as just a solid good looking font, I really have grown quite attached to Neuropol X, it is one of my favorites.
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04-09-15, 10:27 PM   #13
Thubz
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Originally Posted by sirann View Post
Things that still need to be done, but I don't believe directly impact DPS/Survivability:

Minimap,
Replacing skins/textures/maybe entire addon (TinyDPS)
Getting a chat AddOn
Finishing the rest of my scrolling combat text AddOn
Skinning BigWigs/Moving the bars, warnings etc
ToolTip addon
Finding other quality of life addons to gut and combine.
Ok so here are my suggestions

For minimap i like to use sexymap cuz of the easy config window
Chat i would go for prat i like it personaly and to safe cpu just turn the high-cpu addon off
Tooltip i love tiptac alot easy to customize and option to show who casted a aura good to know what hunter to curse on right
and know its not in the list but for buffs raven is nice

gl with modding
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