My personal suggestions for the worldmap: 1. Show travel times even for icons without labels or add text to the remaining unlabeled icons to enable display of travel times. I'm aware that it has been coded that way to hide invisible map icons.
2. Don't unselect map icons when dragging the worldmap around with the mouse. That's currently a major annoyance for me.
3. Reintroduce the nice glowing effect for selected worldmap icons. It adds to the aesthetics of the UI which currently feels rather functional and cold.
4. Use better placement for map icon labels. They are currently covering big parts of the icons.
I just want to add very quickly, hovering doesn't work with touch screen devices.
So if there is a "hover function," there needs to be a way to communicate that information to the player on touch devices.
That's actually what the default "Travel button" feature is for; on a touch-screen, you'd turn on One-Click Travel only if you don't care about knowing exactly what the travel times are. Otherwise, you select your destination and then you can see the travel time.
I'd say this is one of those areas that didn't really need to be altered as much as it was. Double-clicking and the travel button is fine, to make things easier on tablets. Otherwise the functionality that was removed should be reinstated. This includes:
- The mouseover coloration of area icons - The area tooltips showing travel time
Additionally, the permanent travel time notes under named areas should be removed, as it's been stated many times these crowd the screen and are unappealing from a visual design perspective.
There should be one place (in addition to tooltips) on the panel that prints out travel time when an area is selected. My suggestion is either fixed above the travel button, or dynamically positioned under the area icon/name (but only when the area is selected).
An added checkbox to toggle One-Click Travel (which is how it worked in v1.3)
Hovering over a destination causes it to pulse from black to blue (or to white, if it's somewhere you've already been)
The travel time is displayed in the text field below the screen title, along with the name of the destination.
The "Travel" button is located above the map instead of in the bottom right corner, and is disabled (but visible) if "One-Click Travel" is enabled.
Ignore my box art for the moment; is that what people were envisioning?
Looks nice, but there's no reason to have the toggle on the World Map. It can be in a settings screen or an option in the LUA file. Just pick a default behavior and let people change it in the settings or LUA file.
Addendum: Possibly different behavior for PC vs tablet versions. I could see making one-click travel default on the PC, but the Travel button default on tablets.
I'm going to second the map scrolling via mouse wheel. And having the travel click options in options rather than on the map screen. I doubt people would change it that often so it shouldn't need to be as accessible.
Can something be done to tighten up how the map moves into position with the new patch?
Instead of snapping smartly to an overhead view of your current map as it did in ver. 1.3 it now kind of drags into position.
I used to love flipping back and forth to see where my party was on the map and where I wanted to go next. Now I dread it as I get this vertigo kind of feeling when I go to map view.
@Ravenslight: I think you're talking about the Area map, not the World map. While you may very well be right that it could use improvement, for clarity's sake, it probably works better as a separate discussion.
@Ravenslight: I think you're talking about the Area map, not the World map. While you may very well be right that it could use improvement, for clarity's sake, it probably works better as a separate discussion.
I wasn’t sure how to approach this. As I thought about it, it didn’t seem to make sense to start an entirely new thread for just this one issue. I’m still not sure that it does.
Are there other issues concerning the area maps that need addressing? Or perhaps a more appropriate type thread where this would fit better?
Dee previously suggested to put it in the general thread - then when there are a few specifically for that screen (the 'Area Map') then they can be consolidated in a thread to start the discussion.
Personally, I think the zoom function you describe is cute, but not essential and I can fully appreciate why it may annoy or distract people.... the 'vertigo' description is very apt.
I have to agree with @Ravenslight I'm not fond of the new area map either so maybe it will need it's own section at some point. Personally I don't like it because the zoom sometimes lags for me, the weird gray fog makes it more difficult to find what I'm looking for on other parts of the map, and the title info cuts off the top part. To name only a few of the issues.
I've created a feature request for the world map redesign on Redmine, and I've incorporated some of the suggestions from this thread: https://support.baldursgate.com/issues/32793
Comments
1. Show travel times even for icons without labels or add text to the remaining unlabeled icons to enable display of travel times. I'm aware that it has been coded that way to hide invisible map icons.
2. Don't unselect map icons when dragging the worldmap around with the mouse. That's currently a major annoyance for me.
3. Reintroduce the nice glowing effect for selected worldmap icons. It adds to the aesthetics of the UI which currently feels rather functional and cold.
4. Use better placement for map icon labels. They are currently covering big parts of the icons.
Desired:
So if there is a "hover function," there needs to be a way to communicate that information to the player on touch devices.
- The mouseover coloration of area icons
- The area tooltips showing travel time
Additionally, the permanent travel time notes under named areas should be removed, as it's been stated many times these crowd the screen and are unappealing from a visual design perspective.
There should be one place (in addition to tooltips) on the panel that prints out travel time when an area is selected. My suggestion is either fixed above the travel button, or dynamically positioned under the area icon/name (but only when the area is selected).
Addendum: Possibly different behavior for PC vs tablet versions. I could see making one-click travel default on the PC, but the Travel button default on tablets.
Instead of snapping smartly to an overhead view of your current map as it did in ver. 1.3 it now kind of drags into position.
I used to love flipping back and forth to see where my party was on the map and where I wanted to go next. Now I dread it as I get this vertigo kind of feeling when I go to map view.
Are there other issues concerning the area maps that need addressing? Or perhaps a more appropriate type thread where this would fit better?
Personally, I think the zoom function you describe is cute, but not essential and I can fully appreciate why it may annoy or distract people.... the 'vertigo' description is very apt.
https://support.baldursgate.com/issues/32793
I've also used @argent77's great visual aids.