Vornotron

Actually I'm not talking about modifying the code for the game - this sort of thing would not be in code but in (probably textual) data: it would look for answers as to which art to composite together in the equivalent of a spreadsheet. If we were to look up those two enhancements you picked in the spreadsheet, it'd look like

Sci-Tech / Accuracy / Blueprint
Sci-Tech / Confusion / Blueprint

All we'd have to do is change Blueprint to something else in each of them.

(technically it probably gets a little more complicated than this: the icons and stuff probably don't have very nice names when the thing's boiled down for storage and use by the game.)

If this is in fact the case then there should be a data file that describes what's composited together for what. If we can find that and decode it, we may be able to convince it to use the already existing overlay images in a different way...

I've got the icons already made as PNGs, used to create the mosaic earlier in the thread. If you know how to make it so, PM me your email and I'll throw you a (2.5MB) zip.

Actually I'm ignoring the "update the store" suggestion because it's for one thing tangential and for another thing doesn't have any fully coherent solutions yet, at least in this thread (nor do I expect this thread to be a source of such things). Certainly the store could use updating. Certainly, as well, the names of objects could use updating - I suggest putting the enhanced aspect after a colon, and shortening some names, particularly the Tech SOs. But there's one thing that we see all the time for enhancements, and that's the icon, and most dropped and sold enhancements have pretty poor icons: they only really contain two of the three pieces of information required to make decisions about the enhancement, because the colors don't contrast quite well enough even for non-colorblind people. (in order for them to contrast well enough, you'd have to be able to tell in isolation the color with no ambiguities; this isn't true of some of the enhancement colors, but I couldn't tell you which for people with fully trichromatic vision.

All this said. I'm all for flavor, if the flavor doesn't get too much in the way. If I were really doing this, as the head of a team of four or five artists with a week or two of time, instead of a programmer banging something together in two hours while deciding what's for dinner, I'd go for the gusto. Enhancements are one of the Big Things in the City, and I'd want to make them really pretty. So here goes:

• Make the enhancement aspect icons a bit bigger, and give them color in themselves. Probably replace a few to increase their shape contrast.
• Replace the "borders" with full-on backings, again with better shape contrast (mutant and magic can sometimes confuse me a bit because they're both a bit bumpy).
• Make the level numbers bigger (at least on small form enhancements) - at high resolutions, the small numbers can be hard to read.
• If I'm feeling really crazy, change the icons of origin-specific enhancements again, with the original aspect icon as inspiration.

And I haven't even called the programmers yet, this is (except perhaps the level numbers thing, and even that's not too bad) entirely a data-side change.

Now let's call the programmers.

• Reduce contrast by some amount on enhancements I can't use - towards grey on foreign ones, towards white on high level ones, towards pale red on low level ones.
• Give enhancements some Shiny Aura or possibly just some Glossy (easier on the graphics card, but you'd need to add another layer to your arts) if they are usable right now to replace or combine with a same-aspect enhancement or slot into an empty space in my grid.
• Add symbols to the level numbers of non-IO enhancements to tell how good they are for your level... suggestions for -4 to +4: minus, half-circle, circle, down-pointing triangle, square, up-pointing triangle, diamond, star, plus.

I could probably think of more, but you get the idea. I don't hate flavor. I hate stuff that gets in the way.

You appear to assume that an arbitrary name that is completely unique and has nothing to do with the object's effect is part of a "system", and also that an arbitrary icon that is completely /mundane/ and has nothing to do with the object's effect is also part of a system. Neither is the case. Systematic names and images use consistent vocabulary and symbology to convey the information of interest. As it is, the icons and names for DOs and SOs are /not/ consistent with regards to aspect enhanced.

Flavor is bad if it obstructs usage. There is a reason Microsoft Bob doesn't rule the world.

Yeah, if I were actually making art I'd make them have similar but not quite identical shapes - the challenge there though is to come up with 11 similar symbols that are distinct in a particular way to make them clearly a particular origin. Paragon clearly did not do this, as is evidenced by the 25 enhancements with the same icon for no good reason in sci/tech DOs.

Doubtless, but I used the tools I had available to target the intended audience. There is no question though that Paragon has tools with which they can generate enhancement icons for use with the game, and package them appropriately They're probably even easier to use than the method I did, because they also have the original art available to them, and have already made many, many enhancement icons with it (26 * 12 = 312 TOs, DOs, SOs and Common IOs, 147 set IOs, and 33 Specials, for a total of 492 enhancements)

I'm not saying I shouldn't have to learn in general - I am saying that learning a large amount of non-systematic information is silly when a small amount of systematic information could suffice.

Interface complexity is not the same as game complexity. I suspect that your primary resistance to this idea stems from your failure to differentiate between them. The issue at hand is gratuitous interface complexity; resolving this issue would not simplify actual gameplay at all, but would vastly reduce frustration among new players.

You say repeatedly that these things are part of a system. Describe this system. How do I tell what this item is?
Hyperbaric Matrix
Origin is obvious: the border says "technology" on the left and "science" on the right.
So, tell me what marks identify it as a sleep duration enhancement, other than color, that are not unique specifically to this one enhancement. In addition, tell me what marks, again other than color, identify it as not a slow, or disorient duration, or the other 22 Sci/Tech DOs with the same central icon. (yes, every single sci/tech DO has the same central icon except for Resist Damage)

Aside from you? Nobody. The borders were explicitly designed for use in identifying origins, and are mentioned as such.

Two of those are non-systematic, and one is useless to me.

How many times does this have to be said before you accept it?

Every time I look at an enhancement and want to decide whether I can use it, quickly. Instead, I have to either (in most places) mouse over it and wait for the tooltip to come up, or (at the store) right click it and choose "info", and then read.

This is, ironically enough, the precise difficulty we've been trying to get you to admit exists! I can tell at a glance what a stop sign is. It doesn't even have to be exactly the right color, as long as it's somewhere between orange and brown. I don't have to stare at it, I know in half a second that it's a stop sign.

Except the DO and SO icon centers and names do not give any information, and are not -- except for their relationship to the origin, which we can already detect from the border -- systematic. And as for alphabetization in stores, this fact is not mentioned anywhere in-game (I didn't notice it for rather a while, either, and I'm usually good at noticing patterns like that), and is not useful when you can't tell where in the alphabetization you are.

Except that that portion of the system doesn't help all that much even when you're not colorblind: the colors are too close together, and even if they were properly chosen, you really can't get more than about 15 colors that are easy to identify quickly.

I'd be willing to bet that the art fix is actually very easy, since all the components - borders, center icons, and backgrounds - are already made and are made to work with each other. At this point it's hardly even art time any more: with the components made, the rest can be done with some file movement and a short script for an image manipulation library of your choice.

This isn't really about you, you know. It's about me, and people like me. I've been playing for a month. The only reason I use stores at all is because it's too painful not to - and even then, it took several weeks to stop looking into specialist stores and going "screw this, this is more trouble than it's actually worth". I still need tools - a spreadsheet with enhancement names, and their locations in the list - to get through a single enhancement shopping trip in less than ten minutes. It's unreasonably difficult, especially for new players that haven't memorized the 286 non-io enhancement names.

That's not a tooltip.

If I had to do that with every enhancement in the store to find it, it would take me ten minutes to pick a single one. The only reason the store is bearable at all is that I noticed the things are in the same order no matter the origin, so I can use bisection to find the right place. Still a lot more trouble than it needs to be though.

To get level 25 SOs, I spent nearly 1M. I got lucky, something I picked up was worth 2 million inf at Wentworth's. In order to get level 25 IOs for enhancements I want -- which, by the way, are still somewhat less powerful than SOs at this point, 33.3 to 38.3, I need to either use Wentworth's and pay the ridiculously inflated prices there (never mind that I would be buying out Wentworth's entire stock in level 25 io damage and still not manage to get even half as many damage enhancements as I need), or find lots of very specific kinds of invention salvage and still pay the crafting prices, which are higher than the SO store prices: 33000 to craft a 25 damage IO, never mind the price of the recipe itself, vs 30000 to pick up a 25 damage SO from the store. ANd there aren't any level 25 tech damage SOs at all for sale at wentworth's.

I'm standing at the store looking at it right now. There's no tooltip.

And while the manage screen isn't all that horrible, it still often covers the power name and icon, and the other enhancements on that power.

And I'm (red/green) colorblind. Even without the interference of the icon, and compared directly, I have difficulty telling the difference between the colors for, for instance, Taunt, Recharge Time, Defense Debuff, and Fear Duration. For TOs and Common IOs I can tell at a glance what I'm getting because the central symbol is clear.

Note that the poster does not suggest replacing the borders, nor the color - only the central icon.

Having the info certainly helps, but searching a list of 104 items (a tech store in steel canyon sells 15 and 20 TOs and the two tech-origin DOs) for the one that qualifies for what you want takes several minutes of boring, repetitive work. At least TOs I can tell what they are without two clicks on small objects and several seconds of reading.

Not at the store, and in the manage screen the window gets in the way.