If the scroll bar is going to remain horizontal, it should be underneath the ground boxes rather then on top. It feels like your reaching over what you’re trying to see when it’s on top.
Though I think it belongs on the right end, as it was done in 1.3 Worked great.
They might be so big because of touchscreens. I remember Beamdog said somewhere (a long time ago) that they wanted to keep the UI same for all platforms. I would prefer some elements to be platform specific and that would be the case of ground scrollbar for PC and ground arrow icons for touchscreens. I think it would be much easier to do with 2.0 interface.
1.3 on mobile has scrollbars and they are next to impossible to use. So they will need buttons... so a dual approach Buttons for touchscreen and scrollbars for pc/mac would be good.
I'm still wary about the scrollbars for the ground slots given the bug with them.
Thinking about the box area, it could be used for other information too. I'm thinking tabs similar to the record screen. One with status effects or with skills might be useful. The tricky part would be placing buttons that wouldn't take much space though.
I could see having information about what your items do - i.e. this one gives +20% HiS, that one gives Immunity to Charm, etc. but I could also see that getting really complicated really fast.
Depends on a person really. Extra combat stat information may be unneeded for a lot of people, yet they would be stucked with it. This would be just another option. Anyway, it's all just ideas we're brainstorming here really. We're not designing a final product.
True. Although, I have to admit I'll probably be disappointed if whatever we end up with isn't at least as nice as @Adul 's latest mock up I might change the ground box border slightly (it's a little bright) but other than that it's pretty much exactly what I'd want.
And a toggle for extra item effects at the bottom could be a potential compromise. People who don't care would just never click the arrow.
Well, to be fair, some time into BG2, the current box with combat stats will inevitably be a huge mess of information dumped into a scrolling text field.
Bottom line as I see it is, what is the goal here? If it is to come up with something that might be cool for the few people who are in this discussion, then the sky is the limit.
If the goal is to come up with a compromise that might hopefully feel familiar and work functionally for people who liked the games they are accustomed to before the patch, that’s a different goal.
I don’t see how it is going to be helpful to come up with something new if it ends up still ticking people off to the point that they are back here again, starting new threads begging to be able to go back to ver. 1.3
I am not an UI designer. All that I can do is give input as one of the people who were very disappointed with the direction that was taken in the last patch. I believe that the more you try to make things different, the more you risk having the whole new UI being rejected again by many people.
Of course you could hit a home run and have everyone love it, but at this point I think that is a risky approach to take.
I don’t know how many toggles or alternate types of screens the developers are willing to make. But if it’s not much, then it seems to me that we should come up with something a little less ambitious.
If they want to give us many options, then great! I just think that one of those options should be something familiar.
Having said that, I’m going to take a break and play the game for a couple hours. Have fun brainstorming. I look forward to seeing what new things you have come up with.
The purpose of the original UI suggestion thread I started (which this one derived from) was for anyone to give any suggestions they want to share. That's the bottom line. We've seen the discussion going certain direction, but that doesn't mean anybody should be discouraged from contributing something from completely different direction. All contribution serves as a feedback to developers. We are not designing a new inventory screen. We are not making compromises on the final look of the inventory screen. All we do is to provide feedback to the developers.
Well, if we're throwing out crazy ideas, I'd still like a faster way to move items between characters. Using a whole new screen for it seems a bit excessive but maybe some kind of keyboard shortcut?
You know like, since pressing 2 selects character 2, make pressing shift+2 move selected item to character 2. Although, the fact that you can't really select an item without picking it up does make that kind of difficult. Shift+2+left click instead?
Honestly, I'm a bit confused as to what the next step is... or if there's even a next step.
@Cerevant said that the dev team is watching and listening, which implies that what @Pecca suggested above is correct - this is basically a "throw your own ideas out there" thread for the developers to get inspiration from.
@JuliusBorisov suggested that once we have some sort of consensus, we should write up a report and submit it as a feature request to Redmine, linking back to this thread - implying we should work towards a "final design" that everyone is happy with.
These seem to be two mutually exclusive goals to me. Aren't they?
@Thels correctly pointed out that you can single click an item, then press 1 to 6 to choose a new character and literally drop the item into the inventory without any dragging. I never knew that...
But yeah - it would be nice to see a better way to manage cross-party inventories however it is done.
Honestly, I'm a bit confused as to what the next step is... or if there's even a next step.
@Cerevant said that the dev team is watching and listening, which implies that what @Pecca suggested above is correct - this is basically a "throw your own ideas out there" thread for the developers to get inspiration from.
@JuliusBorisov suggested that once we have some sort of consensus, we should write up a report and submit it as a feature request to Redmine, linking back to this thread - implying we should work towards a "final design" that everyone is happy with.
These seem to be two mutually exclusive goals to me. Aren't they?
I don't think so.
Any feature request on Redmine is really just a suggestion. The fact we have had a huge debate and looked at different options, considering obscure and traditional ways of doing it gives the devs extra feedback and/or justifications for changing or not changing the current product v2.3 and guides them for future products too.
So, I think the journey here is as important as the end product.
We are discussing and debating the possibilities - we may find a solution we really like and it could motivate a 'change of thinking' if we can justify and discuss the positives and negatives of it. The devs then take that feedback on board and could use our version, create their own version based on our discussions, do something completely different, ignore us.
But the discussions can provide as many insights as a final product would... things like annoyances, preferences, ways of playing, styles etc...
For example, we've discussed and debated at length, and the general consensus with respect to icons and text is that IF there is text we want to be able to read it. That's positive feedback and regardless of where the text is placed, the feedback is quite strong - We want to be able to read it clearly.
Oh and it also gives us users a good insight into the creative process - it's not easy to make a UI and everyone has a different opinion/need/goal/vision.
"Be aware that any mock-ups or designs posted in this thread are advisory only; nothing is promised or guaranteed for future implementation. All we're doing is discussing and honing ideas."
Be aware that any mock-ups or designs posted in this thread are advisory only; nothing is promised or guaranteed for future implementation. All we're doing is discussing and honing ideas. - Dee
At the risk of taking us back to prose, what's the point of submitting to Redmine then, when the developers already know about this thread and are already watching?
- 2.x makes UI a lot more customizable. That does mean that if there's desire from a small amount of people for a real fancy UI interface that veers quite a bit from the norm, it should be left to mods.
- UI settings for vanilla shouldn't go overboard. If there's a list of hundreds of different options, end users get lost, and there may as well be no custom options. Item comparison seems like one of those functions that is deserving as a custom flag, as there are clearly people that love the information this provides, as well as people that find it not fitting inside an IE game. Having extra text at the bottom of the inventory stats much less so, especially if you want people to be able to choose which texts. That really feels like option bloat to me.
- Even if something is not a good fit in the standard UI, it could be interesting in some kind of mod. If currently it's impossible to mod a certain aspect of the UI, it would be good to inform the devs about that as well. Even if it's not put to use in the standard UI, it would be nice to have the features needed for those custom UIs.
Also, we should still discuss what item comparison will look like.
I think most people agree the big numbers should not be updated, only the text window.
For the text window, what I personally think would be nice is something along the lines of:
[Header: Name of item] A list of the item's stats. (For weapon, this could be attack modifier, damage, speed, and any special stuff it may have. For armor, this could be armor value, and modifiers to specific damage types, etc...)
[Name of item slot] A list of all the stats that change when this item is equipped. (Improvements in green, others in red.)
[Name of secondary item slot] A list of all the stats that change when this item is equipped in a secondary slot (offhand weapon, second ring slot). (Again, improvements in green, others in red.)
For example, you have a regular longsword and a medium shield equipped, and you pick up a longsword +1 from your backpack. Let's assume that with those two equipped, there is an AC of 5, a THAC0 of 18 and a damage of 1d8+5.
The icons at the top don't change, still displaying the information of the regular longsword.
It forces us to consolidate all the ideas. We have looked at alternatives and discussed the merits, the annoyances, the frustrations and come up with things we can say 'yeah, I like that...' to.
But nobody said we can't submit five inventory screens to Redmine with all the relevant justifications for each one etc...
Comments
Though I think it belongs on the right end, as it was done in 1.3 Worked great.
I'm still wary about the scrollbars for the ground slots given the bug with them.
That said, here's another crack at the ground box:
Switched to vertical scrolling, and made the positioning of the ground slots more in line with the inventory slots. New background.
And a toggle for extra item effects at the bottom could be a potential compromise. People who don't care would just never click the arrow.
Settings> Extra Info: On / Off
If 'On' then in settings, you could pick 3 things from a set list. Things like:
Stats
Status Effects
Thief Skills
Calculated numbers (things like average damage / round etc)
...
Reasoning: Equipping some items impact these numbers directly so it's useful to be able to check them.
If you don't want to use it - toggle it off completely, and if you do, then select exactly what you want to see.
That said, if it's an optional thing, I'm fine with it of course.
If the goal is to come up with a compromise that might hopefully feel familiar and work functionally for people who liked the games they are accustomed to before the patch, that’s a different goal.
I don’t see how it is going to be helpful to come up with something new if it ends up still ticking people off to the point that they are back here again, starting new threads begging to be able to go back to ver. 1.3
I am not an UI designer. All that I can do is give input as one of the people who were very disappointed with the direction that was taken in the last patch. I believe that the more you try to make things different, the more you risk having the whole new UI being rejected again by many people.
Of course you could hit a home run and have everyone love it, but at this point I think that is a risky approach to take.
I don’t know how many toggles or alternate types of screens the developers are willing to make. But if it’s not much, then it seems to me that we should come up with something a little less ambitious.
If they want to give us many options, then great! I just think that one of those options should be something familiar.
Having said that, I’m going to take a break and play the game for a couple hours. Have fun brainstorming. I look forward to seeing what new things you have come up with.
We are not designing a new inventory screen.
We are not making compromises on the final look of the inventory screen.
All we do is to provide feedback to the developers.
Using a whole new screen for it seems a bit excessive but maybe some kind of keyboard shortcut?
You know like, since pressing 2 selects character 2, make pressing shift+2 move selected item to character 2. Although, the fact that you can't really select an item without picking it up does make that kind of difficult. Shift+2+left click instead?
@Cerevant said that the dev team is watching and listening, which implies that what @Pecca suggested above is correct - this is basically a "throw your own ideas out there" thread for the developers to get inspiration from.
@JuliusBorisov suggested that once we have some sort of consensus, we should write up a report and submit it as a feature request to Redmine, linking back to this thread - implying we should work towards a "final design" that everyone is happy with.
These seem to be two mutually exclusive goals to me. Aren't they?
But yeah - it would be nice to see a better way to manage cross-party inventories however it is done.
Any feature request on Redmine is really just a suggestion. The fact we have had a huge debate and looked at different options, considering obscure and traditional ways of doing it gives the devs extra feedback and/or justifications for changing or not changing the current product v2.3 and guides them for future products too.
Remember - @Dee called it a workshop...
So, I think the journey here is as important as the end product.
We are discussing and debating the possibilities - we may find a solution we really like and it could motivate a 'change of thinking' if we can justify and discuss the positives and negatives of it. The devs then take that feedback on board and could use our version, create their own version based on our discussions, do something completely different, ignore us.
But the discussions can provide as many insights as a final product would... things like annoyances, preferences, ways of playing, styles etc...
For example, we've discussed and debated at length, and the general consensus with respect to icons and text is that IF there is text we want to be able to read it. That's positive feedback and regardless of where the text is placed, the feedback is quite strong - We want to be able to read it clearly.
Oh and it also gives us users a good insight into the creative process - it's not easy to make a UI and everyone has a different opinion/need/goal/vision.
Strength before weakness
Journey before destination
- Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
Not all those who wander are lost.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
― Heraclitus
You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.
― Joss Whedon
Be aware that any mock-ups or designs posted in this thread are advisory only; nothing is promised or guaranteed for future implementation. All we're doing is discussing and honing ideas.
- Dee
- 2.x makes UI a lot more customizable. That does mean that if there's desire from a small amount of people for a real fancy UI interface that veers quite a bit from the norm, it should be left to mods.
- UI settings for vanilla shouldn't go overboard. If there's a list of hundreds of different options, end users get lost, and there may as well be no custom options. Item comparison seems like one of those functions that is deserving as a custom flag, as there are clearly people that love the information this provides, as well as people that find it not fitting inside an IE game. Having extra text at the bottom of the inventory stats much less so, especially if you want people to be able to choose which texts. That really feels like option bloat to me.
- Even if something is not a good fit in the standard UI, it could be interesting in some kind of mod. If currently it's impossible to mod a certain aspect of the UI, it would be good to inform the devs about that as well. Even if it's not put to use in the standard UI, it would be nice to have the features needed for those custom UIs.
Also, we should still discuss what item comparison will look like.
I think most people agree the big numbers should not be updated, only the text window.
For the text window, what I personally think would be nice is something along the lines of:
[Header: Name of item]
A list of the item's stats. (For weapon, this could be attack modifier, damage, speed, and any special stuff it may have. For armor, this could be armor value, and modifiers to specific damage types, etc...)
[Name of item slot]
A list of all the stats that change when this item is equipped.
(Improvements in green, others in red.)
[Name of secondary item slot]
A list of all the stats that change when this item is equipped in a secondary slot (offhand weapon, second ring slot).
(Again, improvements in green, others in red.)
For example, you have a regular longsword and a medium shield equipped, and you pick up a longsword +1 from your backpack. Let's assume that with those two equipped, there is an AC of 5, a THAC0 of 18 and a damage of 1d8+5.
The icons at the top don't change, still displaying the information of the regular longsword.
The text field changes to:
[Header: Longsword +1]
THAC0: +1
Damage: 1d8+1
Speed Factor: 4
Proficiency Type: Long Sword
Type: One-handed
[Header: Mainhand]
THAC0: 17 (green)
Damage: 1d8+6 (green)
Speed Factor: 4 (green)
[Header: Offhand]
Armor: 6 (red)
Mainhand THAC0: 22 (red)
Offhand THAC0: 25
Offhand Damage: 1d8+6
Offhand Speed Factor: 4
It forces us to consolidate all the ideas. We have looked at alternatives and discussed the merits, the annoyances, the frustrations and come up with things we can say 'yeah, I like that...' to.
But nobody said we can't submit five inventory screens to Redmine with all the relevant justifications for each one etc...
I'd have the Item Comparison set to ON by default for new users, and more familiar users can then turn it OFF if they want to.
Your proposed format works for me.
Pretty much everything else can be modded.
And come to think of it, I've already submitted a feature request for that back when 2.0 was in beta, so I don't even need to write up a report.