Feedback Thread: GUI Changes

[Lumifly]

Need to be able to shift click skills in minimized view Or something to be able to see the more info about a skill while minimized.

[Vlain]

Need to be able to shift click skills in minimized view Or something to be able to see the more info about a skill while minimized.

bump for that idea...that's definitely a feature I missed having too when in minimized view

and bump for the devs for the fixes we got today!

<3 the optional scroll zoom (pretty please still consider putting in ctrl+wheel zoom option)

<3 window size now saving in minmized view

[Minge]

I like the new skill window, if it hadn't been for the 10 seconds it takes to open it every time. Yesterday when I tried to open my inventory (with the i button which is right next to u on qwerty keyboards) everything froze for 10 seconds meaning no heals and it pretty much killed me. Pleeeease optimize whatever code you have reading that xml file, or just load it into memory at start-up (if there's any space that is!) so we won't have to deal with this every time.

[varrus]

The result is almost a complete rewrite of the XML but to summarise:
These are all functional screenshots of how the skills menu now works on my PC

Very nice work on editing XML, well done, really . I tried editing mine a bit, but with much more modest results so far.

It is a shame that the new interface is inconsistent as far as as parameter sources are concerned. Some values are read from xml files that can be edited on the fly, while others seem to be hard-coded in binary files.

If they made the interface in general more customizable (i.e. added an ability to change background color of all windows and added more fonts to chose from AND kept all these values in directly editable files, there would be no ground to complain at all, except for the lag (which will be fixed soon, hopefully). And I think the lag could be at least partially fixed by having the client read the data from the xml file once during AO launch, instread of re-reading them each time you hit U.

[Proportions]

The Skill Menu opens really fast since today ! Good work , now i only would like to be able to see the left reset Points and have menu sounds

[Ziggy]

What is so difficult to understand about what everyone is saying of the new skill window. It's the worst upgrade to date. The design is not user friendly,,it's too big,,even in minimize form it just not easy to work with. The old GUI perhaps needed added features cause it was working fine. Maybe thats the reason it was changed cause it was the only thing in the game was working right and with no LAG. The least they should do is make it optional for the players to use either or. After all it is the players/customers that have to use it, why not give us what we want and not force to use something we don't like. Please bring back the old GUI and apply the restrictions to it.

[glitterdust]

My personal feedback list is:

1. Skill menu is intermittently fast to laggy to open. (I hit 'U' it's up, or I hit 'U' and the screen freezes for 5-8 seconds...and then it's up)


2. Mouse Scroll control options in the F10 menu under GUI...great! I can even tell it to stop scrolling the roll up menu if I want to! This is a major plus.

3. From previous patch..it's nice we can get 20 missions, but can we have a small/large icon toggle now? List is the closest I get to small icons for NCU and Missions and it's not quite what I wanted.

[Varija]

Planet Map was never broken to begin with.... Now the gui for the planet map has issues. If you move the map around weird stuff happens to the gui which can only be corrected by closing the gui and reopening. Also the buttons are too large, that has made the minimum size of the gui larger, if you want to have the buttons there.

The popup button for leveling needs to be made an option. What I dont like is that it popsup over my perks and as far as I know cannot move it or turn the thing off. I dont want to see that thing, and I dont even want to think about trying to open that when I level because the menu creates an immediate lag attack.

The skills menu while supposed to be the pride of the patch, I can barely see what I am doing in that menu because everything is so small. I dont see how it is an improvement...

Thought the idea of the patch was gui enhancements, but seems didnt really change much and what it did change is not an improvement.

Look if its not broke...... dont fix it.....

[Healyhatman]

GUI -> Misc

Uncheck " Show button when receiving new IP/Perk"


You didn't look very hard did you? ^^

[DragonShade]

The map resetting the the top left corner of the map when ever you open it while inside, or in pande, needs to be fixed.........

[Cyberleet]

Skill-view:

It's good-
- but the Sub-menus (the skills, points, +- buttons) should have bigger letters/buttons.

I change of colors to submenus too so it stands out more would be nice too

btw, everytime i close window my gui-prefernces won't save?

[mechanuf]

Suggestions :

- Add a "Transparent mode" which removes alot of the unneeded "stuff". Keep the category buttons, then list all skills in a single list as a colloumn. Bump the font size, the bars and the numbers a bit. That way we can still play the game, while having the skill window open. Think of it as the current minimized view, but when you select a tab, the skills extend in a second colloumn. Sort of a mix of how the old interface looked and the new.

- Bump the size of the skill bars, the text and buttons. Now, I find it hard to find the right skill from the doble colloumn setup used ... espeically with the tiny font.

- Colorize the bars according to the skills IP cost and make them bigger.

- Make the description of each skill smaller in size and use the extra space for the previous suggestion. Let those that want to read about the skill do that, but after 200 levels, you kind of dont need the whole lesson of what "Bow skill" do. Better to divert space to what is really important

- Make the bar represent title level max and not the max for your level as it is now.

- Move BodyDev and NanoPool back to the Abilities tab. They are more core skills than Adventuring or SMG are (Being good at shooting with a rifle dont represent the same as having lots of HP). Everyone needs HP / Nano and the way they are "hidden away" now, they can easily be forgotten. ... besides people are used to having them there for 5 years. Rename the Abilities and BodyDev/NanoPool tab to Attributes to better descripe the content of that tab.

- When selected detailed view, the "Base skill" and "Buffed skill" are abit confusing. How about making it 3 fields, Base (+) Buffed (=) Current? Easier to check how much is my skill is buffed. Having to substract those two numbers is inconvinient. Again combine this suggestion with a rearrange the different skills. Make two colloumns, one with the skills in a list, the second shows the stats for the selected skill, with the description below.

- Sort the skills a bit. This is just a mess. Two unsorted list in two colloums makes it abit hard to find a spesific skill. Especially the two colloums make it harder.

- Show remaining IPR in main skill view ... along with current remaining IP


Suggestion for map:

- When using the mouse to "drag" the map to a side and release the mouse button, the cursor pops back to where it was when you pressed it down. Its a very un-natural way of having the cursor behave, which I've never seen i any other game / program.

You moved the mouse physicly to "drag" the map, but the cursor stayed at the same place... kind of make you have to move the mouse, while not having to. Better to have the cursor move down (move cursor possision, but dont show the cursor as long as you hold down the mouse buttons) when you drag the map down, so when you release the button, you can just move the mouse up again, not physicly LIFT it from the mouse pad. If you dont lift it, the cursor ends up off screen...

- Remove the scroll bars from the map. They take up a large part of the map window, if you resize it. I think everyone understand that map is actually bigger than what fits into the window... and thus have to "drag it"

- Make the buttons smaller. They too ptake up more space than needed. Instead of having a button say "Zoom inn", simply make a button with a + sign or magnifying glass with a + sign in it. Perhaps make the buttons share a single row to save space

- When double click the map / use the zoom buttons, make the map auto center on your selected target ( Char, mission, shop). No need to have to zoom in, if out you are now seeing how nice it is in middle of Nowhere (aka DAV ). You probably zoomed in to get a better view if your target... and make your own possision default, if no target is selected.

- Add posibility to add a marker on your map. Combined with the previous suggestion, you can very fast navigate to any place on the map. Currently in OA, but wanna check a spot in PW? No problem! Zoom out, place a marker on a spot in PW (near your intended target), zoom in ... (placing a marker makes it your current zoom target)

[DragonShade]

When double click the map / use the zoom buttons, make the map auto center on your selected target ( Char, mission, shop). No need to have to zoom in, if out you are now seeing how nice it is in middle of Nowhere (aka DAV ). You probably zoomed in to get a better view if your target... and make your own possision default, if no target is selected.

They have this right now. It's a pain in the butt. You want to look somewhere else, but you have a mission uploaded, it auto zooms in on the mission marker when you zoom in. You don't have one uploaded, it auto zooms in on you. If your in the grid when you do this, it zooms in on the top left corner of the map.

What if I have a mission uploaded, in BS home, and I'm standing in the middle of OA, and I want to go look at PW? I can't just move the map over PW, and then zoom in. IT doesn't work that way. And forget about zooming in while in the grid, you then have to drag the zoomed in map all the way across the map to where your trying to get to.

Make it zoom in on the center of the view, when you hit the zoom button, like every other web map used anywhere world wide and zoom in on where you double click, should you use that way of zooming in, also like all other maps out there.

[Gamma]

I like the new GUI. Specially for new Players it is way better. Sure it needed a few days to get used to it, but it is definitly better then the old. The only thing i dislike is the immense loading time of the skillwindow / maps, but as you alrdy mentioned sirillion, the coders are on it - and i hope they find a way, because I'd like to have it instant open like the old one So regarding on that - thumps up from me


With best regards,
Miss 'Fujiiko' Fumble - 220|19 Eternalist on RK1

[Gerlinde]

/rant

oh yes its wonderful that now 30 % of my map window are taken up by buttons. great! oh and I know I can disable them, but I want them. I want to switch between character / mission / shop without having to go through a stupid menu

*disables buttons*

oh yes its wonderful that I now have to click through a menu to change my map view from "character" to "mission" because the new buttons are so huge I can't have them enabled all the time. great! 5 clicks instead of one, what a tremendous improvement!

did you follow the guide "how to make something that works perfectly fine and simple into something that is just a pain to use" ?

/rant off

honestly, I understand that the old gui has to be replaced, but can't you keep the functionality it had instead of "improving" it ? top left corner menus are nice for things you need rarely, but not for things you need every 5 minutes.

[Cyriann]

i don't like the skills GUI. i hate how it takes up so much space on the screen, and even with it made smaller, it is still a pain to use. i liked the old one, and i agree that if nothing was wrong with the other GUI, why change it?
i also don't like the way the map is now. once again, why change/fix things if they aren't broken...

[Ms_Idoru]

Because FC have a few staff hired specifically to break things and just as many hired to fix those bugs. That way they bolster their country's economy and provide much-needed employment.
Conspiracy, I tell you!

[Haloer]

Well, sorry if this has been posted here before, but the thread is so long... The skill view. All others things aside, they have been discussed widely. But the one thing I missed when I actually leveled a few days ago(!) was that before it showed in detail view the IP cost to up the skill by one point, now I couldn't see that anywhere. Doesn't mean it isn't there, but I couldn't find it. That would be nice, as I'm working with limited IP...

[Vlain]

Well, sorry if this has been posted here before, but the thread is so long... The skill view. All others things aside, they have been discussed widely. But the one thing I missed when I actually leveled a few days ago(!) was that before it showed in detail view the IP cost to up the skill by one point, now I couldn't see that anywhere. Doesn't mean it isn't there, but I couldn't find it. That would be nice, as I'm working with limited IP...

click the little 'i' button in upper left hand corner of window for options

[Rahelq]

pretty cool how people already manage to edit the skill-view
what remains on the wishlist, and think that's what you can't 'skin'
is 2 major points:

the bars of each section should be in one vertical column (at least abilities)
the SIZE of the Bars as well as the + - buttons as well as the skill-names
should be like 5 times of what it is now

oh and a little fix for the wrong feedback on raising/maxing skills in the Shadowlevels
would be nice