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Improving the graphical representation of Soldier Stats


Beagle

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Good points are brought up here, though there are other issues. I enjoy the new direction of the interface, as a folder with layers of notes; however, the inventory windows need the same level of refinement.

XenoFace01.jpg

Spacing is inconsistent. Only the top and bottom spacing on the left set of items are the same. They also need to keep with the theme.

For spacing, I would look better if, of the left group, the top item were moved up to match the left spacing, and the bottom down to match the left spacing distance. The right side should all move up, with the second item on the right closing the gap, so it matches the gap between the two weapon hand windows.

Another break from the theme is In the upper left, orange rectangle, where it says the information is downloading. I found that amusing.

Rather than free floating inventory windows, what if they were easel supported boards or tables... in the image. The idea is your manipulations are out of context, but that the final image is in context. Instead of having med packs and ammo floating in mid-air in mysterious black boxes, those med packs and magazines are sitting on shelves and tables, while the two adjustable stats are either in the image, standing on that easel, or it's yet another stapled note.

The weapons table to the right can be a literal table of weapons, or, a mini folder, or brochure held on with the paper clip.

Lastly, in the bottom left I added an All button to ASSIGNMENT. I have actually found it annoying I couldn't just have everyone available at once. On several occasions I have reconfigured combat loads for the wrong personnel, because I missed their assignment.

I almost forgot, I used a blur, and very minimal oil paint brush filter on the color stat bars. It makes it look more like someone used a highlighter to make the marks. I also tried making them a bit darker, to show some age to the marks, also because I imagine old highlighters not being so intense as modern ones.

XenoFace02.jpg

In Personnel, if the individual stats were stuck at the top, then the player doesn't have to click the name to go to the soldier load out window. One click, and you have the concise individual stats, while maintaining the extreme utility of the spreadsheet.

Don't get me wrong, the ability to go straight to a soldier in the Soldiers window through the soldier's name in Personnel is extremely useful. It's just about critical for my comfort with the interface, but that one little repetition adds a whole new layer of utility. If you could figure out a way to jump back to Personnel from Soldiers that is just as easy, without hitting the top tab, it would be amazing.

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Edited by Bibidibop
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What about something different? Try to forget the ugly icons, the hand drawn chart and imagine the whole thing remade by someone with skills.

moche.jpg

I like this kind of spider chart. It gives a good visual image of a soldier's skill at a glance. A nice touch would be a progressive adjustment of the chart when you switch soldiers. It's a good way to see which soldier is better.

Pros:

_ gets rid of the numbers. It looks more like a drawing than a table.

_ a good way to visualize the overall performance of a soldier.

_ makes comparing soldier fun (Bob's chart is totally within Nuts' one!)

cons:

_ tables lovers will hate it.

_ less precise than bars.

_ Requires good icons to work.

moche.jpg

moche.jpg.c2d209bf850a13b1b889547937d2fb

Edited by Nemeo
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I don't like spider charts, they make the information more confusing. Instead of looking one dimensionally and seeing which stat highest without thinking, you have to look five different directions, hold each point in mind, and compare.

You can scrap the numbers with the linear arrangement, too, so it's not an advantage of the spider chart. Either way, removing the numbers is bad, because you do need precision when the deviations can be as minor as 1 point out of 100.

Ace Combat uses the spider chart and does not use icons, but words. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lof7eTZKG0&feature=player_embedded

It's only advantage is when used with items which have strong biases across multiple very different statistics, or to fit a very large grouping of data in a smaller space. Otherwise it is style over substance.

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On the contrary, I find it less confusing. Instead of staring at one bar in order not to mix it with the others, you just have to look at the one which point at the right direction. Of course, coloring those bars would give the same results so it's not a decisive advantage.

In a spider chart, it's hard to have numbers fit in, though. It would not be advisable to remove numbers. The audience you aim at is the kind that NEEDS to know when there is a variance of 1 out of 100.

In the the end, I still think a bit of style wouldn't hurt, and you wouldn't lose some essential substance from my point of view.

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Bibdibop - I agree with some of your points. The horiztonal placement of the various elements could be improved but because there are different numbers of them on either side of the soldier I think the vertical ones are fine as is.

The colours for the bars are quite nice, and I think I'll add a slight background colour to the bars and reduce the darkness of the black border around them so it's a but more grey and blends a bit better. However the actual colours are drawn in-game rather than from set graphics so I'm not sure how hand-painted we can make the colours look (or even if I want them to look like highlighters really).

Regarding the Personnel screen, this will probably be reshuffled a little when we do the new UI. I'm not sure there'll be space for that little window you want to add, but we'll see. Perhaps an alternative would be better colour coding of the stat numbers on the spreadsheet. Against a white background you can afford to be a bit more colourful with them.

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Bars would definitely be great to have!

I'll echo the suggestions of those that really bright colors such as neon green and purple should be avoided; they fit the aesthetic of the original X-COM but clash a bit with the really fantastic dark, slightly retro atmosphere you guys have created here. Slightly subdued colors would be better if it's possible.

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The colours for the bars are quite nice, and I think I'll add a slight background colour to the bars and reduce the darkness of the black border around them so it's a but more grey and blends a bit better. However the actual colours are drawn in-game rather than from set graphics so I'm not sure how hand-painted we can make the colours look (or even if I want them to look like highlighters really).

I would rather not have anything blurred on the character sheet, I like my screens and text sharp.

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  • 7 months later...
OK I've attached a quick preview of how the updated Soldier Equip screen could look with the bars. It's probably an improvement, I think. I imagine we'll add a photo outline around the soldier portait in the top left and display it a bit bigger too.

Err is that max 100 for all? plz make the bars match the numbers?

Look at the red bar compared to the blue bar

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Wow, I'd totally forgotten how easy to read the original XCOM stat bars were! Once glance, and you knew whether you had a heavy weapon or sniper in the making.

I do struggle with a straight text list. I like how it was also very obvious when their stat was 'diminished' due to injury.

I like this below, just needs a few subtle grey vertical tick marks across the bars to 'cue-in' the 20/40/60/80 percentage locations.

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=259&d=1324128457

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  • 9 months later...

Let me prepend this: We are talking about the stat overview screen for all soldiers, right?

Not sure if it was suggested already but the system as it is already constitutes a good foundation. Just make it so that you can sort by multiple criteria. Say you want to first sort by accuracy as a primary skill within a certain range and then by TUS. So you click on accuracy specify a range (say 2) and then on TUS. It would show all the soldiers DESC by accuracy and whenever the TUS of a soldier exceeds the TUS of the previous one he would shown above him (provided he is in the specified range of 2). You could maybe extend this to have it work with up to 3 skills. Hopefully its clear what I mean and I don't have to construct an example.

For me a lot of the time it is really just about 2 or 3 skills in particular when looking for a soldier to fill a role.

Or another approach might possibly be to work with cumulative numbers where you calculate an average for a number of user-specificed stats.

Edited by Munchma Quchi
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Let me prepend this: We are talking about the stat overview screen for all soldiers, right?

Y4iZl.png

Not sure if we are but for THIS display I would suggest:

  • Easily adjustable colour-coding of numbers.

    • Green/yellow/red numbers - always.

    • LMB click on a strength number to set it as the average for this stat. (Like 54 = yellow)

    • RMB click on another strength number to set the interval.

      Like 50. Now the interval is 4.

      50 and below are displayed in red, 58 and higher in green. 51-57 are yellow.

    [*] Ability to sort by columns. (already implemented - just saying =)

    [*] Ability to rearrange the columns.

    RMB click a column header and it is moved to directly right of the name column.

    If looking for specific stats, you could put them side-by-side...

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