Combat GUI Update (feedback please)

[anotherdevil]

Grenades w/One Hand, Two Hand

why would anyone want their soldiers to DROP their weapon? I realise that AP wise it might be cheaper, but how is that for an immersion breaker?! Oh my soldier drops his weapon every time he throws his grenade, not stows it in his backpack or holds it in one hand like a real soldier might, no instead, the elite of the worlds military decide to drop their weapons in a combat zone...

Soldier Scroll

I've discussed it previously, but I really need some way to organize the soldiers on the fly. With the introduction of small portraits, you can have a web browser style tab system, where you drag soldiers' portraits into position to change their order! You could also have the name pop up above the portrait when pointing at a portrait.

Dead soldiers should automatically move all the way to the right, lose their number, and should drop by the height of the three miniature statistics bars. That little drop could say it all. Passed out soldiers need something else, or a variation.

The scroll wheel should not change from soldier selection to weapon firing increments. Instead, it should be controlled by right clicking.

Pulling the wheel toward me should progress through the numbers upward.

I agree with the ones that I've left up here. Also for certain conditions (passed out, dead, paniced, etc.) perhaps some sort of symbol could also appear over the top of the appropriate soldiers portrait?

Soldiers, Paths, Selection

Those three things really need to appear through solid objects somehow. Either wall and objects need to ghost, or the three things need to be transparent through walls and objects.

agreed fully. Another option would be to sort of have a 'shadow' of the object over the object that is blocking LOS. See some of the designs from the Krater forums (http://www.kratergame.com/) for more ideas on this. Those guys have some good ideas

Walk Path

The walk path should always show, and cause walking with one click, unless pointing at an alien directly, or when the reticule has been activated. Or, we need a walk distance grid, which shows all the in-range squares, and works for multiple soldiers at once.

It should NEVER cause walking in one click. Always 2, so that you have the chance to plan out your move, see if it will work, see how much AP it requires etc. Especially if you wish it to work with your next suggestion...

AP

You might want to show a darkened portion on the AP bar to show by how much the bar will reduce before actions are taken. On the path end, you might want to show not only the cost, but the total current AP/cost. Same when firing AP/cost.

Agree with this fully. Though don't see the need for the totals being there, they're already by the bars on the GUI

Edited January 9, 2012 by anotherdevil

[TheTuninator]

Agreed on no walking with one click, too much potential for horrifying mistakes there. Far too much possibility for terrible, terrible misclick errors with only one click required to move a soldier; a single accidental click and your whole battle plan is out of whack. Two clicks at least provides a minor umbrella of security against such errors.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the idea of the walk path constantly showing as you move your mouse cursor, but I think it might get a bit irritating. For example, if you're scrolling across the map to check enemy positions and your walk path is tied to your mouse cursor, it's going to be needlessly cluttering up your screen.

Agreed on the comment that a proposed action should darken a portion of the AP bar; if this would be feasible to implement, that's definitely a feature to add.

Edited January 9, 2012 by TheTuninator

[IceVamp]

I wouldn't mind rearranging my soldier tabs, or the ap cost displayed on the bar. I've done that math wrong a lot of times. "Aw, shit I forgot he spent one point turning!"

[anotherdevil]

oh right is that what the walk path thing meant! I'm opposed to that too then

[epmode]

I just installed this for the first time. Since I'm running at a high resolution (2560x1600), I'm always concerned that 2D games are going to be far too small unless the developer accounts for this with UI scaling. At first glance, this game handles it pretty well. Lots of text appears to scale appropriately.

..but the combat section doesn't appear to scale at all. While it's nice to be able to see so much of the combat zone, I'd also like to get a closer look at the scenery without having to relaunch the game in a lower resolution.

The UI help section lists "zoom" as a function but pressing it doesn't seem to do anything. I suppose it could be zoom levels when aiming at a target but I figured right mouse already accounted for that.

Are there any plans to account for UI scaling in the battle scenes by the time the final version rolls around? It's not a dealbreaker by any means (not that it matters, seeing as how I already paid for the game) but it sure would be nice!

edit: Maybe this isn't the thread for this comment.

Edited January 10, 2012 by epmode

[IceVamp]

You could make a post in the suggestion & feature request section. ^^

[valente]

looks awesome, but since we (i do hope so) have wide screens on our machines i think the soldiers list should be on the left or right side, by this the bottom side of the screen will not be full. Further, if the soldiers will be on the left, then the aliens can be added on the right side...... just an idea i had in mind playing the other titles versus the original XCOM versus this more than awesome title.

[valente]

and here is the image as i was telling you.... sorry for .jpg, i am in an airport, not too much time to do it....

[anotherdevil]

I disagree with using the entire side of the screen to display things. Keep all the menu and informative images (the entire GUI) together, making players look all over the screen just seems odd, and inefficient, especially since we have the space to keep it all together

[Bibidibop]

why would anyone want their soldiers to DROP their weapon? I realise that AP wise it might be cheaper, but how is that for an immersion breaker?! Oh my soldier drops his weapon every time he throws his grenade, not stows it in his backpack or holds it in one hand like a real soldier might, no instead, the elite of the worlds military decide to drop their weapons in a combat zone...

The drop only happens to one of two items if you hold two separate items. If you wanted, you cold leave one slot open at all times, only putting a secondary item into it, such as med pack, once needed.

If you have a two handed weapon, the weapon stays put, but costs more, because two handed weapons can be temporarily held with one hand, or by strap.

Otherwise, two items in two hands, if one item is automatically stowed and retrieved, it should cost more than throwing with a two handed weapon. Either way it involves manually leaving an empty hand for the cheapest throw, but not you lack the option of a drop-throw. Imagine that if you are 1 point short.

I rather have the drop throw available either by defaulting it, or by having it as a selectable throw option. If the style of stow and throw are selectable, with a slider that works like buttons, then it's a moot point.

I agree with the ones that I've left up here. Also for certain conditions (passed out, dead, paniced, etc.) perhaps some sort of symbol could also appear over the top of the appropriate soldiers portrait?

Those would be useful, too, especially for determining panic.

It should NEVER cause walking in one click. Always 2, so that you have the chance to plan out your move, see if it will work, see how much AP it requires etc. Especially if you wish it to work with your next suggestion...

You're right, I was thinking over another style of turn based play. However, I still think the path should always show without clicking. Instead, it would be click to lock, click again to walk. If you don't like the placement, either click elsewhere to replace, or right click to go back to constant pathing?

Agree with this fully. Though don't see the need for the totals being there, they're already by the bars on the GUI

The totals at the pointer are just so you don't have to look back and forth so much, so the arithmetic is slightly easier. One option is to show what will remain at the pointer, instead of what will be taken, since I find the former more important.

[anotherdevil]

as for dropping weapons that was in reference to Chris' comment ages ago

[clever id]

Late comment but I wanted to throw my vote in.

Personally, I dislike the portraits and preferred the numbers from the previous UI, but I do think it would be nice to indicate soldier status (dead, wounded, etc) in some form.

I did I quick mockup, maybe something like that and the numbers could change color to indicate dead etc.

I also prefer NOT having a active minimap on the screen and like the simple map button.

[Gorlom]

Late comment but I wanted to throw my vote in.

Personally, I dislike the portraits and preferred the numbers from the previous UI, but I do think it would be nice to indicate soldier status (dead, wounded, etc) in some form.

I did I quick mockup, maybe something like that and the numbers could change color to indicate dead etc.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]324[/ATTACH]

I also prefer NOT having a active minimap on the screen and like the simple map button.

Pretty nice. although id probably want to combine yours and Jean-lucs from the first page. no portraits and the indicators on the bottom left instead of a centralized location.

To me it feels less like the gui is obstructing my view if it takes up the whole bottom area of the screen and the ground isn't visible behind it.

[Nolux]

Hi.

I am new here, but i had to join to shere my thoughts. Played the game for about a week now, and I desided to do a quick mockup of my optimal UI.

I changed the location of the squad to a different location to take less screen space. Most of the UI in my opinion is to big, i removed some and shortend alot. Hope you guys like it.

Sorry for my bad english.

[anotherdevil]

Not quite to my liking, but good on you for putting the effort in. Other's thoughts?

[Sathra]

Not sure about having the unit portraits and end turn button at the top of the screen, makes it seem to have less screen space (might be RTS player bias though).

Not particularly concern if its a mini-map or pop-up though. Pop-up is nice and nostalgic (and takes up less UI room), but a mini-map allows for on-the-fly battlefield checks, helping with map awareness.

[IceVamp]

The end turn button alone in one corner does look a bit messy.

I kinda want the pop up map to be honest. I loved that.

[Gorlom]

Id rather have everything in the same place below a "view window" of the battlefield. Spreading it out makes it look messy. Only things that really needs to stand out (like spotted alien) needs to be somewhere else.

[Gauddlike]

I also prefer to keep all of the buttons and controls together in some way.

I feel the portraits are a little pointless though.

It is nice to have something to check status at a glance but they don't really achieve anything else.

If they don't show the current armour they are misleading but if they do then they are probably going to be very repetitive.

Maybe this could be somewhere to add in some kind of insignia?

I am thinking along the lines of a weapon type icon over a background that reflects the armour type.

Examples off the top of my head are a crosshair for sniper weapons, a row of 5 bullets for machine gun etc.

The background could be a simple shield that is transparent for no armour, silver for basic or scout armour and gold for heavy armour.

I would only take into account the main hand for this icon, the background could have another layer added if a combat shield was equipped though.

*edit* Oh and I would also prefer to toggle a semi transparent map window over the play area to help with navigation.

Single keypress to turn the map on if you are looking for some specific area then either click on it to centre or scroll using the normal methods.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Gauddlike

[xracer]

Hello all,

Well i am not against the portrait as long as it provides some information, for example if ti show how many aliens the units see, or if its wounded or not or its health, or if it has a critical wound, i did a little mock up long ago for a mod, it was done for UFO: ET

http://ufo-scene.com/files/public/1264603821_476_FT10191_main-gui.jpg

i did other version but my site went down long ago and never repaired it. in any case as long as the portraits provide functionality the they are good.

Disclaimer: I am not an artist or pretend to be one i am just a fan with sometime in my hands "sometimes"

Edited January 18, 2012 by xracer

[Gauddlike]

The portraits are a little small to be adding anything much on to them.

There are also limited faces available at this time so it would be obvious when they start to repeat.

All of the armour looks identical once it is equipped as well.

Generally this could lead to banks of almost identical images which wouldn't help much with identifying specific troopers.

My weapon/armour icon suggestion would at least help you identify different roles.

Adding little boxes for aliens spotted would be a nice bonus though.

It would be better if you could then order the list by armour type, weapon type, aliens spotted, AP's remaining, and custom order for example but Chris may shoot me for suggesting making the little troop box that complicated

[Gauddlike]

Just had a look at the AP reserve slider and decided I don't really like it.

My reasons are:

The names snap, normal, and aimed aren't used anywhere else in the game.

They take up a lot of space and don't really mean much.

The icons are a little vague to me.

The lowest reserve is a single solid crosshair while the higher reserve appear to be moving or blurred.

That looks more like worse accuracy for higher AP's.

It may also represent more shots for higher reserve but that is not how the system works.

I am pretty sure it is supposed to mean more crosshairs = more accuracy but that isn't what springs straight to mind without that prior knowledge.

The AP slider also works differently to the way AP is represented everywhere else.

Through all of the other screens AP is shown left (lowest) to right (highest).

The AP reserve works top (lowest) to bottom (highest), well discounting burst which is tagged on afterwards.

My suggestion to resolve these would be to remove the soldier stats and put the AP reserve underneath the AP bar.

It would follow the direction of the AP bar and line up with how many AP are actually reserved as a visual cue.

The names and icons could be replaced with the aiming reticle used when aiming shots.

Reserving more AP's would give the same indication as using more AP's to aim.

Pretty sure I suggested something similar before but might have been on the old forum so figured it was worth mentioning again.

Edited January 18, 2012 by Gauddlike

[anotherdevil]

yeah removing the names and having a visual tie in with the actual shooting cursor is a really good idea Gauddlike!

[TheTuninator]

That looks great! I like your placement of the AP slider.

My only suggestion would be that there be "quick buttons" for toggling single and burst fire reserve, kind of like this but not awful-looking and actually in the right place relative to the bar:

Dragging a small bar like that repeatedly could get kind of tedious, so it'd be important to have some kind of larger "quick select" button.

We need to fit the crouch button in somewhere as well; looks like it'd be possible to bump the left edge of the GUI to the edge of the screen and squeeze in a crouch bar somewhere, no? Here's a terribly made attempt at it in Paint. Now that I look at it again, it'd probably flow better to have the crouch button to the right of the inventory column.

Edited January 18, 2012 by TheTuninator

[anotherdevil]

still don't think the portraits are necessary though