Combat GUI Update (feedback please)

[Gorlom]

I think that was a response to:

Next Soldier Buttons:I would like to see a next soldier button that removes the current soldier from the list like the original had. Maybe replace the go left button if you are going to be able to click on any portait anyway? Actually, having the portraits with the AP bars visible would probably eliminate the need for this.

Not an acctuall suggestion to remove them, just stateing that he doesn't use them. Although I could be missinterperating him.

PS. hmm could have sworn there was more mentions of still needing the next soldiers buttons, that's why I wondered who had suggested to remove them... I must have had a dejavu moment or something. DS.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Gorlom

[anotherdevil]

Oh well, either way I put my vote for them staying. It could be made smaller with the picture of the soldier and then an arrow either side. And next to that could be a picture of building, with an arrow above and below, to change the viewing height

[Straker]

I could do without the Next Soldier buttons.

Using a standard red/green colour for status bars would be better and less confusing although other colours would be fun.

[BlackObsidian]

I could live without the Next Soldier buttons as long as the mouse wheel still scrolled through them - I find this a much easier way of flicking through the troops to see which have AP left.

[anotherdevil]

I think if the option is available by another method, then it should also appear in the GUI.

[Jean-Luc]

I think if the option is available by another method, then it should also appear in the GUI.

How about the "next soldier wheel"? It should look like a valve wheel handle and you'd have to l-click to grab it and then pull the mouse left or right to skip between your guys. There could be bits of rust falling off as you strain to turn it.

On a more serious note, what about the mouse wheel? I doubt it has any other function in the game (camera levels?) but it could be a great way to quickly move between troops (shouldn't be too sensitive).

[anotherdevil]

that's what it is used for at the moment.

What I meant before though is that we could attribute all of the actions possible to mouse and keyboard shortcuts, and that would make the new GUI real minimal, but it's nice to have the option of it there, for those of us that like to use them. Else you might not realise there is an easy way to switch through soldiers, or that your men have the ability to kneel...

[Jean-Luc]

Oh sorry, haven't actually played any of the builds yet.

[Belmakor]

that's what it is used for at the moment.

What I meant before though is that we could attribute all of the actions possible to mouse and keyboard shortcuts, and that would make the new GUI real minimal, but it's nice to have the option of it there, for those of us that like to use them. Else you might not realise there is an easy way to switch through soldiers, or that your men have the ability to kneel...

The more options the better imho.

Personally, I don't feel the need for portraits anywhere on my GUI and would much prefer small numbered tabs along the top. I tend to manually select soldiers anyway but sometimes use the numbered keys to go between soldiers - it sure would be nice to know what number I was currently on.

Of course, I might warm to portraits as long as it was unlikely that a case of more than 2 identical portraits occurred?

In this case, my preference is to have them on the left.

Regarding grenades, why not just have the quick action slots the 2 (single slot) points on the belt (as opposed to the 3? double slots). Soldiers should definately NOT drop their weapon. I like the solution of having the weapon icon greyed out and it taking X AP to recover it. In reality, rifles/snipers/launchers are slung, pistols holstered so there is never a case of a weapon leaving the soldiers person in a battlefield situation. Having it appear in your pack is needless I would suggest.

Also, I like the idea of the quick reload icon. However, this should only be active providing you have clips in your belt. Ammo in backpacks should be deliberately high in the AP stakes to access as it is only for use in lengthy engagements. This would also mean that belt real-estate has more utility and strategic use. Anyone else agree?

AP reservations look fine the way they are. Not sure there is a requirement for additional notches to account for kneeling/turning. It is likely that some of the time you will end up with 2 or 3 AP spare anyway.

Prefer a click-able map icon as opposed to a minimap.

[Sathra]

For the quick grenade and reload buttons, I'd rather it didn't actally matter where they were on the soldier for concerns of if the button worked. The buttons are just to save the player time. The actual cost to do the actions should depend on the item's location of course.

Hmm, there was that previous discussion about what should happen to the weapon with quickslots (basically, it wasn't just grenades, it was a dropdown/scrolling list of everything applicable like medikits, shock batons, basically anything that wasn't ammo or a corpse). I have no idea what it ended up with. I liked the sling idea though, mostly so there wouldn't be any problems with inventory space.

[Gorlom]

The more options the better imho.

Personally, I don't feel the need for portraits anywhere on my GUI and would much prefer small numbered tabs along the top. I tend to manually select soldiers anyway but sometimes use the numbered keys to go between soldiers - it sure would be nice to know what number I was currently on.

Of course, I might warm to portraits as long as it was unlikely that a case of more than 2 identical portraits occurred?

In this case, my preference is to have them on the left.

...

Prefer a click-able map icon as opposed to a minimap.

^ What he said =)

[Belmakor]

For the quick grenade and reload buttons, I'd rather it didn't actally matter where they were on the soldier for concerns of if the button worked. The buttons are just to save the player time. The actual cost to do the actions should depend on the item's location of course.

I'd be happy with that. It would need to tell you the AP cost on mouse-over though.

[Sathra]

Or on the button like the Reserve slider. Faster that way.

[Parax]

Next Soldier Buttons:I would like to see a next soldier button that removes the current soldier from the list like the original had. Maybe replace the go left button if you are going to be able to click on any portait anyway?

^ yes this would be really good! perhaps it could grey out (or change borders on) the soldier portraits also.

Maybe instead of left & right selection buttons, Have [finished with] and [go to the next unused soldier] buttons..

AP Reserve: Something I would really like to see on your ap reserve slider is an extra notch just below each level that reserved 2 extra aps for turning up to 90 degrees. I do like being able to see how much each fire mode will cost.

^I'm not so sure about turning but I do like to reduce my target size by kneeling, having a reserve for kneel (4ap?) would be very useful! Maybe there is some scope in the user config settings for how complex the slider could be..

One more thing..

How do you control the ascent descent of flying armour? iirc the original xcoms had move up & down buttons along with kneel/stand (I am assuming that flying will be possible..)

P.

[Sathra]

There is no flying armour. It's more like a jump-pack, you have to end the turn standing on something (that isn't air or another unit).

[Parax]

There is no flying armour...

That sounds very much like a "it's never going to happen." is it totally ruled out? it'd be a shame not to have something that was in the originals.

[Sathra]

The main effect is that you can't fly across the map to get to a building rooftop (as easily). You have to go close to the building to do that, which adds risk. It also makes more military sense than floating around in mid-air.

Will it change? No idea, it hasn't been discussed much.

There will also be no blaster bombs, because they were incredibly unbalanced (same with human-side psionics).

[Straker]

I never thought of human psionics as unbalanced. Its just that the aliens (or alien AI) did not use it as well as I did.

I don't mind seeing the blaster bombs go away. I over-used them to lay down barrages to clear the way, particularily in alien base and large UFO missions. (and it was never good to be hit by them...)

[Sathra]

The big part of how Psi was unbalanced was Psi-chaining (use a MC-slave to scout for new prospective MC-slaves). That and it is really not hard to get Psi-troopers better than any alien .

[Straker]

I always thought the aliens used psi-chaining wherever possible. It seemed that way in TFTD.

[Silverhks]

I also prefer the portraits on the left as opposed to on top of the gui. But, what does that do to scalability for different resolutions?

I feel there does need to be at.least one button for moving to next soldier, I like the mouse wheel but it needs to be visible for new ppl/ forgetful [see me ]

I am ambivalent on whether you should use portraits or just the numbers. If you can make the portraits more useful, with sighted aliens/ what armour their wearing etc, I would prefer them...

[IceVamp]

I like the portraits, especially if you have the stats on there. Then there isn't really a need for the next guy button.

Concerning grenades; Real soldiers carry their weapons in a sling, so they can, you know, throw a grenade for example, and then put their hands back on their weapon. So weapons should definitely not drop to the ground imo. However rpg's are usually not slung while in combat in my experience, but then again, if you have an rpg, why throw a grenade?

[Sathra]

@Straker: Nah, they just knew where everyone was if they saw any of your units. If it was psi-chaining you'd end up with up to half your team MC'd.

TFTD just had heaps of MC capable aliens, and you met them earlier (Tasoth )

Edited January 6, 2012 by Sathra

[Akavit]

My opinion on grenades:

They should be quick use buttons as suggested by a few others, not quick slots for equipping grenades. One slot with toggle arrows that jump between grenade types. There should also be a number showing how many of the currently selected grenade type the soldier has.

The rational behind quick use slots instead of quick-equip slots is simplicity. When the player uses the slot it is assumed that the soldier is using one hand to grab the grenade, throw it then take his weapon back in hand. Thus using the quick grenade button should cost a few more AP than using a grenade already in hand but perhaps not quite as much as juggling stuff around in inventory.

In regards to soldier portraits perhaps they could have the soldier's initials at the bottom of the portrait?

Edited January 6, 2012 by Akavit

[Bibidibop]

Grenades w/One Hand, Two Hand

With two hands filled by separate items, can you have two throwing modes, one where the item drops, and one where the item is placed away before the grenade is thrown? This would be similar to how the firearms have fire modes. Perhaps, right click either throw weapon to set Drop or Stow mode. You could use a little open downward hand, or backpack as symbols, or just the letters D and S. Actually, those symbols could appear on the right side object, to show that the action will happen to it. So, maybe the symbols need a little grenade above them.

When holding a two handed weapon, one hand can be dropped while still holding the weapon non-functionally. Two handed weapons should incur a lower AP cost than the previous stow-retrieve-throw, but more than the drop-throw. A more complex, system would take into account the weapon weight, and have the AP cost go up for heavier two handed weapons held in one hand, while a throw is made. This wouldn't apply to naturally one handed weapons.

The cheapest throw should be with one naturally empty hand. The grenade should also default to whichever hand is empty, regardless of side, with no handedness penalty, just to keep things simple. Who wants to miss a throw just because they didn't keep their left and right in order? Bleh.

On the topic of the weapons, clicking them the first time should give the reticule, but left clicking again should remove the reticule. Pointing at aliens should also automatically bring up the reticule.

For feeding new grenades into the two slots in from the other six slots in the belt, why not just slide everything over from right to left? Everything feeds from the bottom right most column and row, moving left, and ending up on the right most column, one row higher. It keeps moving left, until it is in the accessible slot for throwing items. Anything that can't throw from the belt stays in position and is jumped over by throwable items.

Soldier Info

The current colors are good. They're all bright without being painful, they're in order of importance, and I think in color of importance. Although, you might want them in order of which declines fastest, AP, HP, morale. I know it's a weird consideration, but that way, the end of each turn avoids a jagged pattern in an outward flowing hill.

Also, clicking the big soldier image should center the camera on that soldier.

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. These wouldn't be tooltips, but little tags integrated into the image frame, and which cross over the tops of adjacent frames. The furthest left would have the tag hang into empty space to the left while also overhanging image 2 by an equal amount, and the right would do the reverse. 2 would overlap 1 and 3, or empty space and 4 if the name were large enough.

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.

Perhaps double clicking a soldier on the main map should move a soldier image left by one notch, and all subsequent single clicks, with an unbroken focus on that soldier, should move him left by one notch each time.

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 hope Testname becomes a final name. I know it's a joke, but it sounds kind of real, and it is funny.

Camera Levels

These are far far far too small. They should take the placement of the soldier scroll buttons, which is more practically taken by the mouse scroll wheel, and clicking tabs on the top row.

Still on the camera, holding the middle mouse button should allow rapid panning. Edge movement should default to a faster rate, and should work at the bottom of the screen through the interface tray.

Map

If you narrow the AP Reserve slightly, make the main portrait the inventory, and shrink the stats to move them left, and alter the turn button into a vertical strip of the same amount of area, and cut the camera buttons, there should be more than enough space for a mini-map. It would be even better if clicking the minimap expands it to full size.

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.

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.

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.