I like your ideas, and I do agree with this game's UI being a bit outdated and, often times, clunky.
However, as I have a degree in design with a specialization in User Interface and User Interaction, I can say that the UI in CoX, for what it's worth, is extremely functional and does it's job better than most other MMO UI's I've seen (with the exception of the respec process; that's one ugly mother if you ask me). I'd personally like to see some touch-ups done to the trays/target/nav/status windows, with options to allow merging elements (I want my target window to show the buffs/debuffs of my enemy).
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
Quote:
It is very functional and does indeed get the job done, but I think that only happens if you happen to be able to keep it in your head all at once, something that returning players or players who play more than one game regularly tend to miss out on.| However, as I have a degree in design with a specialization in User Interface and User Interaction, I can say that the UI in CoX, for what it's worth, is extremely functional and does it's job better than most other MMO UI's I've seen |
For example, I was speaking to Mrs. Moo about the subject earlier and she mentioned 'I read everything the mender told me about Incarnates, but I still had trouble finding the window for it.'
I replied, "If I told you could monitor your exact defense statistics, would you know how to get there?"
The answer was, 'I think I could. Maybe.'
Mrs. Moo is a 52 month vet, but she doesn't play as regularly as some, so she tends to lose out on parts of the interface.
As the City of Heroes game world grows more complex and new systems are added to the game, the user interface has grown to compensate. There has been a continual effort by the development staff to clean up the more problematic areas of the client, but the fact remains that there is a LOT of cruft in the UI, some of it dating back to beta or before. There's a lot of crap simply in the wrong place. As much as I hate the fact that it would take away from development of content, there needs to be a revision and a replacement of some of the window elements. As evidenced by the release of i19, the interface itself is starting to confuse players, and that's not a good thing.
Most of the main windows 'Branch' off the Health/Level Bar and open up sub-windows of their own. Some, but not all of these windows are available from the 'Menu' menu. This is pretty counter-intuitive and leaves some players trying to figure out to navigate their way to the window they want. It was somewhat manageable when the interface was new. Now that we've added to it a bit, it's a maze.
The chat window can have up to 5 open windows, all of which can be subdivided into topper and lower halves, and can be given many tabs containing chat channels. However, only the first chat window can attach to the team window.
Enhancement items get a bar to themselves. Inspirations get a box to themselves. Every other kind of drop goes into the recipe or salvage window, which is a tabbed interface.
Enhancement management, Costume Editing, Supergroup Settings, and Bio Registration all get their own subscreens. Everything else comes up windowed-- including the Base Editor and the Architect editor.
Global Chat management happens in TWO places. The moderator interface is under 'friends', but channel search happens by right-clicking the chat window and selecting it from the context menu there. Neither of these is in the main 'Menu' menu.
Pet Controls, Recipes, Salvage, Combat Attributes, and Incarnate Abilities are also not accessible from the main menu. Pets branch off the Team window, for some reason.
The three 'starting' macro bars in the Tray window cannot be reshaped or torn apart like the additional floating macro bars. Some players deal with this by closing the tray entirely and stacking three or more floating bars there. However, you lose the ability to see when your various inventories are full without having them open.
The Powers window itself is a mess within a mess. You can't actually activate powers from within the powers window. Clicking on a power slots it in a tray slot if one is available. Most Primary and Secondary power sets have nine powers in them. They each get their own column. Day Job Powers, Accolades, Temporary Powers, Incarnate Powers, Inherent Powers, Inherent Fitness, Pool Powers, and Ancillary Powers all get crammed into the third column. Scrolling through this column can easily cause the two 'main' power sets to scroll out of the window-- which is not resizeable at all. Even if you regularly use Temps, they tend to stack up. A few of them are semi-permanent, like the alignment powers. Inherents also tend to stack up thanks to booster packs and vet rewards. It's entirely possible to have more than two dozen inherents.
The visual queues given by the various 'Branch Points' are pretty inconsistent. The branch points for the Inspiration and Enhancements bars turn green if they're open and red if they're full. The branch point for 'Powers' works similarly, but the other two branch points, Salvage, and Recipes do not. They'll turn red if they're full, but never green. The branch points on the chat window work similarly, but not quite the same. 'Team', 'Friends', 'Super', and 'Email' turn green if those windows are open. Email turns red if you have ANY email, read or not.
The new interface for incarnate abilities looks superficially like it's going to continue the 'craft a button and drop it into a slot' metaphor that the rest of the game uses. However it doesn't really do that. It gives you a 'create' button, but doesn't have any kind of drag and drop capability.
I have a few suggestions for cleaning this all up.
The first thing I'd do is move the various subscreens into windows. Not only does it make the design more consistent, but it allows the player to use the rest of the client while accessing the features in that subscreen. Players don't lose the ability to see NPCs or their chat windows while combining or slotting enhancements.
The place where this may prove the most difficult is the costume editor. There's a metric ton going on in the costume editor and as City of Heroes' 'Hook' feature, it really does *deserve* to be a full-screen thing. However, give players the option of bringing up at least the 2D UI over the top of it, as they can with the base editor. This will allow players who enjoy editing their costumes to spend more time in the costume editor without missing chat from friends, super groups, or global channels.
Second, I'd do a bit to rationalize the way the various windows are accessed. Even if the branch points are retained, all windows should all be accessible from a main menu. Rather than retaining the various branch points, I suggest re-working the menu system altogether so that it groups the various windows thematically. For example, a 'Chat' menu could bring up 'Main Chat', 'New Chat Window', *'Email', 'Channel Search', 'Channel Management' and 'Friends'.
Keeping or adding options to open these windows in right-click context menus is not a bad idea either.
The Powers Window is the place where the most work needs to be done, in my opinion. First, it should really be moved into a tabbed interface, like the other windows with a myriad of options. The 'All' tab would certainly still be useful, but having tabs for 'Primary', 'Secondary', 'Temporary', etc... would make it a lot easier to manage. When shown in the 'All' tab, I'd personally like to see a tree view similar to the recipe interface that shows the Power Button, a brief description of what the power does, and then buttons to activate, slot it, or get detailed information on it. Information about when you took the power or how many slots it had would make respeccing easier as well, something players have been asking for.
Something like:
The place where that 'Activate' button would be most important and useful is on rare-use temps like those you get on taskforces. Power of the Thorn, I'm looking at you.
This is a pretty darn huge request, and I realize it would take a TON of development time. As the UI continues to grow, however, it's becoming more and more important. It probably should have been done before the Incarnate Abilities interface was added, because we're running out of places to put new menus.