Time for a better way to manage powers, perhaps?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-11-01 24:46 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Quote:
Actually, my monitor is only a 26". I do play with 80% scaling of the UI, though.|
Originally Posted by houtex
To be honest, I'm not so interested in the changing of how you deal with powers... although, I imagine a sub 'folder' of powers could be made to work... maybe...
I'm more interested in the width of Arcana's screen, because, man that's gotta be something like Frank's 2000 Inch TV:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBF5bewa0ts /..and I'm highly jealous about it.  |
I actually have a dual monitor set up, but playing City of Heroes on a dual monitor setup is like trying to drive a car while only staring out the driver's side window.
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I am willing to accept the old, current scheme, with two changes.
- Move temp powers to the bottom. They are the thing I least likely need to dig around in, except...
- Do something different with the temp powers you give us in trials nowadays. Make them their own category and put them up top. Make them add charges instead of becoming 10 copies of one-use powers. Put a button that will use them on the trial info window. Anything but what you do with them now.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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I like your suggestion about adding the trial temps to the trial UI window, with a number of how many you have received, make it easy to click and keybindable. Then get rid of having them added to your power tray and temp power lists.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
I am willing to accept the old, current scheme, with two changes.
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Wouldn't it be perfectly viable to set each category as a roll down/up sub-window, with the roll up option being the default position? Could even make the sub-windows scrollable.
Or maybe have an option to hide each category
http://www.scene-and-heard.com/cov/covsig.jpg
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I didn't use /cleartray for a long time because I thought it would delete my macros. It doesn't |
Originally Posted by MajorTractor
OMG! Does that do what I hope it does?
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I can't imagine a respec without it now
I love /cleartray, but I really wish there was a /traysavefile and /trayloadfile.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
God, yes.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
I love /cleartray, but I really wish there was a /traysavefile and /trayloadfile.
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If you leave your email tab alone without mousing over it for a while it will fade and stop blinking. I noticed that a while back while I was playing. |
Originally Posted by Agent White
The costume powers at least will be disappearing tomorrow, but yeah, the temp powers and some of the others it's a bit ridiculous, especially with things like the 'Prestige' sprints, that I now have to take on every character since I hit the appropriate tier and there's no way to delete or otherwise remove the powers from your list without just leaving them in the mail unclaimed, which just blinks at you repeatedly until you do.
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Then if you mouse over it again the word will turn red again. I don't know how long it takes to fade, because I wasn't timing it, due to the bad guys trying to kill me.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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On my Exalted character this happens, but not on any of my Defiant characters it seems - guessing its toggable in options?
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
If you leave your email tab alone without mousing over it for a while it will fade and stop blinking. I noticed that a while back while I was playing.
Then if you mouse over it again the word will turn red again. I don't know how long it takes to fade, because I wasn't timing it, due to the bad guys trying to kill me. |
http://www.scene-and-heard.com/cov/covsig.jpg
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Thanks. That made me laugh harder than I should have.
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Originally Posted by MrHassenpheffer
I did. I found out the hard way in the middle of a mob that said command does not fire off all your powers at once.
Candy you are evil. |
Wait...what's wrong with what you have shown?
They seem to be placed in a neat and organized list for you to pick and choose from.
What do you propose as a better way?
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Looking at, say the temp powers, the fact that it's like 150 lines long is a problem for finding anything. For temp and inherent powers, this is exacerbated by the fact that it's not sorted in any sensible or consistent way. "Neat" I can accept as accurate. Outside of the primary, secondary pool powers, "organized" I can't accept as accurate. Moreover, I don't understand why the groups for pool powers are beneath the temp powers.|
Originally Posted by Vitality
Wait...what's wrong with what you have shown?
They seem to be placed in a neat and organized list for you to pick and choose from. What do you propose as a better way? |
Oh, and it's fairly ridiculous that every Incarnate "pool" has its own section, given that each pool can only ever have one power in it. (Only your currently slotted power appears.) Having a whole section for "Judgement", "Interface", etc. is just cluttering.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Scooped.... ( 
)
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
I was just thinking about this myself. In the two images below, the first is what the Powerlist window would look like if the window could be expanded (which it can't). The second is my suggested reorganization to put it all in one window. Or, maybe a tabbed window would work better.
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No Gloom? wat
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Let's face it, the UI of this game is getting long in the tooth and is covered with a bunch of band aids applied by those with no medical experience.
God bless the engineers who have to do UI work on CoH... they're not trained to do UI work. I've never seen CoH advertise for a UI expert.. and it unfortunately shows.
As programmers who have training to create applications to be used by others, they obviously know how to make user interfaces. But they don't have the chops to create elegant and easy-to-use interfaces.
I'm having a hard time thinking of any element of the UI that I would give an 'A' grade to. It's mostly 'serviceable'. But it's not very pretty or easy to use or gets fixed in a timely manner when buggy. This includes:
- the new overlay to the character creator
- the organizational mess of the costume tailor
- the inability to move UI windows out of the 3D box (for wide or multi-screens)
- lack of an in-game macro/bind editor
- the universally non-liked league UI
- the switch from tabs to drop down categories in the Collect menu in Beta
- lack of consistency (radio buttons v. list select v. click through list of options)
It looks outdated. We need and Ultra Mode initiative for the UI.
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Quote:
<pst... spamming Nightfall and Tentacles does 5x the damage of Gloom v. the full league spawns my toon is almost exclusively running across... but if this makes you feel any better...|
Originally Posted by Silas
No Gloom? wat
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Maybe I'm too easy to please but I love the new character creation UI. If that dev is still here, I would love to see him tackle the in game UI (starting by the power manager.)
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Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Let's face it, the UI of this game is getting long in the tooth and is covered with a bunch of band aids applied by those with no medical experience.
God bless the engineers who have to do UI work on CoH... they're not trained to do UI work. I've never seen CoH advertise for a UI expert.. and it unfortunately shows. ... This includes:
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Ya know...
using a few of those temp powers might help clear that up a bit.
Still, there might be a better way to organize things. There might not, but its worth a look.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
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No, please no. Mister "Washed-out-dim-transparencies" guy annoyed me to distraction in the I-21 beta. And his repeated disinterest in putting WORDS on the interface just added to the frustration.
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Originally Posted by Starsman
[/LIST]Maybe I'm too easy to please but I love the new character creation UI. If that dev is still here, I would love to see him tackle the in game UI (starting by the power manager.)
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Originally Posted by Silas
Yes, please.
God bless /cleartray after a respec. |
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Originally Posted by MajorTractor
OMG! Does that do what I hope it does?
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Originally Posted by Dark_Impact
And Gods bless you for letting me know this exists after all these years...
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Originally Posted by Scene_EU
Wouldn't it be perfectly viable to set each category as a roll down/up sub-window, with the roll up option being the default position? Could even make the sub-windows scrollable.
Or maybe have an option to hide each category |
Fix that, and the way powers are managed in the Powers tray, and I'd be a happy man. Perhaps tabs could be used (similar to the Options menu) to separate various powers:
- Primary / Secondary Powers
- Pool Powers
- Inherent Powers
- Incarnate Powers
- Accolades
- Temp Powers
- Ally Summon Powers (new category)
- Transformation Powers (new category)
- Paragon Rewards Powers (new category)
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You mean the one where the first major tab doesn't make it clear you have two major choices to make and the second tab doesn't make it clear that this step is optional and the third tab which has blurry and nearly non-sensible pics of the ATs and the fourth tab has an easy-to-miss sub-tab and then when you leave the character creator you have a tutorial screen with 'enter' and 'next' and aren't sure which is supposed to do what?
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Originally Posted by Starsman
Maybe I'm too easy to please but I love the new character creation UI. If that dev is still here, I would love to see him tackle the in game UI (starting by the power manager.)
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Well, when you put it that way....|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
You mean the one where the first major tab doesn't make it clear you have two major choices to make and the second tab doesn't make it clear that this step is optional and the third tab which has blurry and nearly non-sensible pics of the ATs and the fourth tab has an easy-to-miss sub-tab and then when you leave the character creator you have a tutorial screen with 'enter' and 'next' and aren't sure which is supposed to do what?
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But its pretty!!!
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Just reading that run-on sentence made me short of breath |
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
You mean the one where the first major tab doesn't make it clear you have two major choices to make and the second tab doesn't make it clear that this step is optional and the third tab which has blurry and nearly non-sensible pics of the ATs and the fourth tab has an easy-to-miss sub-tab and then when you leave the character creator you have a tutorial screen with 'enter' and 'next' and aren't sure which is supposed to do what?
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You, ah, do know you can actually delete most temp powers, right?
Without needing to use them?
Now why, oh why, can't that be one power with a number of charges instead of a whole bunch of individual powers?
What's really ludicrous is that I did not make any attempt to farm the temp powers to take that picture. That's what I'm dragging around normally. I literally ran every story arc from launch, and I never used the temps. And then I became a badge hunter, and I continued to run arcs, and I do all the task forces and trials, and I bought all the boosters, and of course I did my share of ToT this time around, and then I noticed that the list was kinda long. Actually I've been thinking about this (this time) ever since the trials came out, and I would have to scroll to the bottom of the list to find trial temps. Yes, they are at the bottom so they are easy to find in that sense. But actually scrolling to the bottom is not the trivial task it sounds like for some of us. In my case, scrolling to the bottom of the temp powers today would be scrolling through about the equivalent of two thousand pixels of display. or to put it another way, about fifteen scrolls of that dinky impossible to resize power window. Also amusingly, you can't actually tell which version of the power analyzer power I have crafted.
Mind you, I don't want the devs to get rid of the temps: I just want a better way to manage them. You take away my stupid three story high rubble pile of temp powers at your own risk devs.
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