A Brief Guide/FAQ on the i12 UI/Chat improvements
By
Anijo,
Posted on: 2008-05-06 11:55 in Player Guides
Hmm, no chance we can change the font size separately for individual tabs is there?
Guides: Dark Armor and IOs | SS/DA | Crabbing | Fortunata
Can't change the font size but we do now have the ability to change the color of ANY channel. Check Pohsyb's thread (link at the bottom of OP) for a more complete list.
Added Insp combining and the extra trays.
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What exactly is linking for?
I'm not getting that from the FAQ, sorry.
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When you click a link, it's the exact same thing as right-clicking on that object and selecting Info. I updated the OP to express that. Thanks for the comment 
The link is so that you can "show" another player what you are looking at. Basically anything the /info of anything and everything via links.
Do wish you could link to your current chat channel by ctrl+click or something like that on an item you do posses, instead of having to do a command line.
Furio--Lvl 50+3 Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster, Virtue
Megadeth--Lvl 50+3 Necro/DM/Soul MM, Virtue
Veriandros--Lvl 50+3 Crab Soldier, Virtue
"So come and get me! I'll be waiting for ye, with a whiff of the old brimstone. I'm a grim bloody fable, with an unhappy bloody end!" Demoman, TF2
Put it this way: It's an active hyperlink in a chat window. Clicking it pulls up an info box.
Just like player names and global channel names in chat windows are also active links and clicking on them will pull up an options window.
Our chat window is now like a mini web-page.
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
The recipe format puzzles me.
Nothing is working.
[invention:accuracy.damage (thunderstrike).40] ???
Repeat Offenders
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The recipe format puzzles me.
Nothing is working.
[invention:accuracy.damage (thunderstrike).40] ???
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Should be: [ThunderStrike: Accuracy/Damage.40] For the Enhancement itself and [ThunderStrike: Accuracy/Damage (Recipe).40] for the Recipe. It's the exact name of the Recipe itself that you're going for.
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What exactly is linking for?
I'm not getting that from the FAQ, sorry.
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When you click a link, it's the exact same thing as right-clicking on that object and selecting Info. I updated the OP to express that. Thanks for the comment
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This makes me wonder - can we invoke the same /info for NPCs and their powers, or for effects applied on us?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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The recipe format puzzles me.
Nothing is working.
[invention:accuracy.damage (thunderstrike).40] ???
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Should be: [ThunderStrike: Accuracy/Damage.40] For the Enhancement itself and [ThunderStrike: Accuracy/Damage (Recipe).40] for the Recipe. It's the exact name of the Recipe itself that you're going for.
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Thanks again, LiNkMaStEr!!! 
Repeat Offenders
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What exactly is linking for?
I'm not getting that from the FAQ, sorry.
[/ QUOTE ]
When you click a link, it's the exact same thing as right-clicking on that object and selecting Info. I updated the OP to express that. Thanks for the comment
[/ QUOTE ]
This makes me wonder - can we invoke the same /info for NPCs and their powers, or for effects applied on us?
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Yes. In fact, if you type just [Brawl], you get the Brawl for some 5th Column NPC. You need to know the "pool" name for a lot of the NPC powers and without it you can't be sure what version of a power you'll get. Even when you do link an NPC power though, you get the #'s for it scaled to your player AT and can't see them as used by an NPC. During Closed Beta, someone figured out the name of BAB's in game AV/Hero's pool and was able to link his attacks.
[Projectile Vomit] is a zombie power though.
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Even when you do link an NPC power though, you get the #'s for it scaled to your player AT and can't see them as used by an NPC.
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Hmm... This brings up an interesting point - Red Tomax's City of Data has several tabs for each power - a tab for each AT and then an "unspecified" tab that gives a power's BASE attributes before level and AT modifiers are taken into account. Perhaps we should have one of those in our own power listings?
Of course, that won't solve the problem with the same power from the same powerset belonging to two different ATs having different base parameters, but it would give us at least a LITTLE bit more objectivity for cross-AT comparison.
Especially now with Powerset Proliferation, base numbsers are rather very important. For instance, Scrapper melee powersets are substantially weaker than Tanker melee ATs in terms of raw damage and damage distribution, but you couldn't see that off the final values, because the Scrapper melee damage modifier is so much higher than the Tanker one.
Just thinking out loud
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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You CAN link to specific AT versions of a power without tooooo much trouble, especially if you check for the pool names off of CoD. Check my Thunder Strike example in the OP to see what I mean.
I do think that an extra entry on the AT list for Base Values would be nice though.
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Do wish you could link to your current chat channel by ctrl+click or something like that on an item you do posses, instead of having to do a command line.
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You Can drag and drop the item in to chat. Editing the Op to reflect this as well.
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You CAN link to specific AT versions of a power without tooooo much trouble, especially if you check for the pool names off of CoD. Check my Thunder Strike example in the OP to see what I mean.
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It would be nice if it told you which powerset from with AT the power you're looking at was from, though. Right now if I'm looking at, let's go with Thunderstrike, all the Info window tells me is that I'm looking at Thunderstrike. It doesn't tell me where that's from.
Or, for a more practical example, people were throwing [links] around on Test last night, and one of them was for [pummel]. I would never have figured out that was a Wolf Spider power if someone hadn't explained in Broadcast, because it just doesn't say.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
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This makes me wonder - can we invoke the same /info for NPCs and their powers, or for effects applied on us?
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Purely brainstorming here.
Wouldn't it be neat if clicking on an NPCs name in the NPC channel opened up an appropriate Info window, if such existed? That is,
[NPC] Blood Brother Chopper: Let's get this party started.
Would display as
[NPC] [Blood Brother Chopper]: Let's get this party started.
Of course, for NPCs that don't have info windows, nothing should happen.
Sound cool to everyone else, too? Or am I the only one that plays with the NPC channel on? 
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Newton: I observed Mercury's perihelion moving 43 arc-seconds per century more than it should. Is this WAI? --Einstein |
Oh, most definitely. That would be a VERY good idea. That, and adding a power list to their Info window would be incredibly cool. I STILL can't figure out if Gunslinger attacks are Ranged or Cone.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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It was suggested once during Closed Beta. No idea how practical it is but it'd be cool.
As for the linking ambiguity, it is an issue but only for identically named sets, at least. When you drag and drop a power into chat though you get the full path to that power. My favorite one is still [Brawl] though and the fact that we get the 5th Column version first.
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My favorite one is still [Brawl] though and the fact that we get the 5th Column version first.
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I would assume that's because, alphabetically, 5th Column comes first :O
The feedback I would like to give is to fix the "add as global friend" feature.
For instance, I will find when I'm about to quit a PuG, I will get a global friend request from someone. But it doesn't show the local player name, so I have no clue which player is adding me as a friend and if I want to accept or not. Some player might be great fun, while another might be an absolute pain.
So... instead of this message:
"@SomeGlobalPlayer wants to add you as a global friend. Do you accept?"
it should say "@SomeGlobalPlayer [LocalName: Level] wants to add you as a global friend. Do you accept?"
Probably best to post that in the QOL thread or the UI feedback thread.
What's new?
A lot, but I'm gonna post the ones I found we used in Closed Beta most frequently along with those that seemed to be least discoverable amongst the Beta Testers.
Linking
You can now link any in game item or power to another player or yourself in chat with or without possessing the item/power. If you have the item, you simply drag it and drop it into the chat input area. And if you don't have the item? Well, in simple terms, you put the item name inside of [ ] brackets. When your link has worked, it appears in Bold in the chat window and you can just click it to get the info window for it.
So what does a link do? It shows you the info dialog for that thing. Click on the link does the same thing as right-clicking on that object and selecting Info.
Linking to specific powers
Since many powers belong to multiple AT's, often with very different purposes or numbers, you're able to link to a specific one with prefacing it with the pool it's in. A great example is Thunder Strike. As of i12, every AT and their Mom has access to it. Here's how to differentiate the Stalker, Brute and Blaster versions:
Stalker: [Stalker_Melee.Electrical Melee.Thunder Strike]
Brute: [Brute_Melee.Electrical Melee.Thunder Strike]
Blaster: [Electricity Manipulation.Thunder Strike]
To find out base pool names like Stalker_Melee, they're usually the same as the pool names on City of Data with _ for spaces.
Item Linking
For linking an Enhancement, Salvage or Recipe, you put the item name in brackets. For Enhancements, it's a little bit more complicated since level matters. For those, you add a .# to the end where # is the level you want. Here's an example on how to link an Invention Damage IO vs. linking its recipe:
[Invention: Damage] - Links to an ENHANCEMENT of your CURRENT LEVEL
[Invention: Damage.40] - Links to an ENHANCEMENT that's lvl 40
[Invention: Damage (Recipe).40] - Links to a RECIPE for a lvl 40 Enhancement.
Some Closed Beta Linking Favorites
[The I Win Button]
[Projectile Vomit]
[Toy Bat]
Common Mistakes
<ul type="square">[*] Using { instead of [ - The in game font displays both as the same, but { doesn't work.[*] Spelling - Turns out those Ninjitsu Powers are a pain in the [censored] to spell[*] Pool Names - Some of the pool names are a bit Obscure if you're not staring at the power list for that AT, like Electrical Melee instead of Electric Melee or Electricity Melee or Night Widow Training as opposed to Night Widow Melee[/list]
Clicking Names in Chat
You can now click people's name in chat to do anything you could do normally when right-clicking on their character. There's a couple caveats to this. New options include Player Notes, Ignore as Spammer, and special options for Global names.
Inviting people from global chat channels
This was one of the least discoverable improvements in Beta for some reason. You can now click someone's global handle in the chat window from a Global Channel and invite them to team. You'll see a command get run and output to System that gets their character name from their Global Handle. There are new commands to do this back and forth. They obey Hide settings, which have also been greatly expanded upon. Another post with the patch notes has the commands for finding char names from global etc.
Chat/Window/Game settings Saved to file
You can now save and load all your chat and window settings to and from file! There are commands to do that (again, more on that later) and a section at the bottom of the General tab on the Options screen. Pohsyb's QOL Thread has a list of the Commands used to do this as well.
Scrolling in the chat window
As of i12, when you scroll up in the chat window, it no longer moves when new messages come in! Pretty awesome feature, takes a bit to notice.
In addition, the scroll wheel on Mice now works on the sliders. Click in the tab you want to be scrolling first then begin using the wheel. The sensitivity defaults to extremely low, so low as to almost be unnoticeable. To change it, there's now a Slider in the Mouse section of the Controls tab on the Options window.
Inspiration Combining
As of i12, any 3 Inspirations of the same type can be combined into a single one of any other Inspiration. This is HUGE. It means when you're deep in Perez Park and someone dies, all you need is 3 of any one Inspiration to get them an Awaken. When you're on your Regen Scrapper and it feels like all you ever get is Blue insp drops, you can combine them into Reds or Yellows. Here's a general FAQ on them:<ul type="square">[*] Different Tier Insp. can't be combined, all 3 must be from the same tier[*] The resulting Insp. is always the same tier as the source[*] You DON'T need a free space to make the combination, your tray can be full and the new Insp appears in a space cleared by one of the 3 used to create it.[*] Unknown how this works with Presents. Got a lot of them on a toon? Test it out![/list]
More Trays!
You now can have a whopping 10 power Trays. To see the extra ones, use /show tray1-10 (so show tray4 shows the 4th tray etc.). They're fully deformable but have no drag bar around them. Click any empty spot on the tray or between icons to move them. To close or reshape them, right-click on them in one of these open areas. Pohsyb has a bit more info on them in his QOL thread as well.
Edit: Pohsyb's QOL Thread has a listing of the new commands and more information on other changes not mentioned here.