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Alrighty, I started just outlining where I thought a game timer could go but man did it snowball. 2 hours later it's turned it into a whole mockup and detailed breakdown.
1.(Dark purple) If the top left is unused, then the rally flags would be better else where. Age of empires 3 sets them top left, while Starcraft 2 sets them in the bottom center.
2. (Cyan) As others have mentioned this should be shrinkable. For campaign mode it's important that players see their objectives as they will probably vary while in multiplayer it's almost always going to be static. Changing it to be a player info screen also makes sense in multiplayer.
3. (Orange) I think the veins of evil or any other screen taking up most of the play area should be partly transparent. Seeing your dungeon in the background would give the feel of a staying in the game rather then navigating to a research page.
4. (Red) An in game timer showing the current match time. Almost every RTS game has this and is useful for timing attacks in multiplayer
5. (Light Purple) Spells are often split second game changers. Control group rally flags will probably be hot-keyed to 1,2,3,etc. so having the letter keys map to spells makes sense. Using Shit + (letter) avoids accidentally moving units it and holding shift could bring up a small menu reminding the player which letter selects each spell.
6(Yellow) This is the most important change for me. The minimap should be twice as large as well as the buttons and into panels. I've added a screenshot from SC2 for comparison. Look how their panels take up around 2/5ths of the screen compared to WFTO taking up about 1/5th. Checking other games like Company of Heroes or Age of Empires shows the same ratios and for good reason. Try to quickly move your mouse from the center of the game to a button and you'll notice how easy it is misclick if you try to go fast. The same for the minimap, the larger it is, the quicker you can zoom around your dungeon.
7(Black) Most RTS games have a ping button on the minimap, The library button could be added to the menu or moved over next to the objectives.
8(no color). Just to make the game more aesthetically pleasing I think it would be cool to add some decorative border to the UI. Things like chains,skulls and stone like the way the SC2 UI has tentacle looking borders for the zerg player. Of course the WFTO mockup wouldn't have shown this but I thought I'd mention it anyway. .
9.(no color) This last one is not really UI but a quick pickup/drop with the alt key would greatly add to player control. Individually picking up units takes quite some time. This could be fixed If I were able to hold the alt key then drag the mouse over several units. Each one that I touch while holding alt will send it into my hand. Dropping a unit while holding alt releases all held units. Pressing Alt + (control group number) would send that control group into my hand. If the control group is too large it would fail and give a not enough mana warning.
1.(Dark purple) If the top left is unused, then the rally flags would be better else where. Age of empires 3 sets them top left, while Starcraft 2 sets them in the bottom center.
2. (Cyan) As others have mentioned this should be shrinkable. For campaign mode it's important that players see their objectives as they will probably vary while in multiplayer it's almost always going to be static. Changing it to be a player info screen also makes sense in multiplayer.
3. (Orange) I think the veins of evil or any other screen taking up most of the play area should be partly transparent. Seeing your dungeon in the background would give the feel of a staying in the game rather then navigating to a research page.
4. (Red) An in game timer showing the current match time. Almost every RTS game has this and is useful for timing attacks in multiplayer
5. (Light Purple) Spells are often split second game changers. Control group rally flags will probably be hot-keyed to 1,2,3,etc. so having the letter keys map to spells makes sense. Using Shit + (letter) avoids accidentally moving units it and holding shift could bring up a small menu reminding the player which letter selects each spell.
6(Yellow) This is the most important change for me. The minimap should be twice as large as well as the buttons and into panels. I've added a screenshot from SC2 for comparison. Look how their panels take up around 2/5ths of the screen compared to WFTO taking up about 1/5th. Checking other games like Company of Heroes or Age of Empires shows the same ratios and for good reason. Try to quickly move your mouse from the center of the game to a button and you'll notice how easy it is misclick if you try to go fast. The same for the minimap, the larger it is, the quicker you can zoom around your dungeon.
7(Black) Most RTS games have a ping button on the minimap, The library button could be added to the menu or moved over next to the objectives.
8(no color). Just to make the game more aesthetically pleasing I think it would be cool to add some decorative border to the UI. Things like chains,skulls and stone like the way the SC2 UI has tentacle looking borders for the zerg player. Of course the WFTO mockup wouldn't have shown this but I thought I'd mention it anyway. .
9.(no color) This last one is not really UI but a quick pickup/drop with the alt key would greatly add to player control. Individually picking up units takes quite some time. This could be fixed If I were able to hold the alt key then drag the mouse over several units. Each one that I touch while holding alt will send it into my hand. Dropping a unit while holding alt releases all held units. Pressing Alt + (control group number) would send that control group into my hand. If the control group is too large it would fail and give a not enough mana warning.
Likes:
Reyh! and James
how possible would it be to include a UI scale slider in the options, perhaps with the possibility of scaling each individual UI element separately?
There has been talk of a pinch point for lower resolutions being the bottom right, however from the mock up, it looks like even at slightly lower resolutions such as 720p the veins menu and lower panel will overlap, if each UI element could be scaled individually none of these problems would exist, including the fact that those playing at 1080p and above find the UI too small, and those playing below 1024x768 cannot play at all.
There has been talk of a pinch point for lower resolutions being the bottom right, however from the mock up, it looks like even at slightly lower resolutions such as 720p the veins menu and lower panel will overlap, if each UI element could be scaled individually none of these problems would exist, including the fact that those playing at 1080p and above find the UI too small, and those playing below 1024x768 cannot play at all.
Likes:
Seb
Yeah, a way to define Player Colour even in Single Player Campaign games would be nice. Barely any games let you do that so you're stuck with being a particular colour the entire time while playing a Campaign -.- (They do let you define your colour when setting up a custom skirmish though). This would also be beneficial to colour blind/impaired players.
@Garem
+1 for the idea of having a match clock and a Ping indicator (An indicator that displays latency in milliseconds [tooltip upon mouse over?], not just a colour or something equally unhelpful. You'd think I wouldn't need to clarify but well, look at Spiral Knights current Latency indicator [It used to be a number]. for me it says my latency is Red, useful right?)
If you want a general clock, Shift-Tab and gander at the Steam Overlay that provides it!
@Garem
+1 for the idea of having a match clock and a Ping indicator (An indicator that displays latency in milliseconds [tooltip upon mouse over?], not just a colour or something equally unhelpful. You'd think I wouldn't need to clarify but well, look at Spiral Knights current Latency indicator [It used to be a number]. for me it says my latency is Red, useful right?)
If you want a general clock, Shift-Tab and gander at the Steam Overlay that provides it!
I believe the plan is to only allow you to customise player colour in skirmish, MP, sandbox, and newgame+ modes, but that you will be green through normal campaign play, this is due to the fact that being green is part of the player character's visual personality.
For example in Red Alert games, if you play Soviet you are stuck as Red, except in skirmish and MP modes where you could be any colour.
For example in Red Alert games, if you play Soviet you are stuck as Red, except in skirmish and MP modes where you could be any colour.
I disagree. Knowing Health of the core is important, since you may consider either fighting in the core room or keep fight outside it. I always found annoying that I couldn't know how much health did Heart in DK1 have, only had to measure it's size and guess if it is at critical state or has some health left.
Likes:
Seb and Castigator
I would really prefer it , when WFTO does not inherit the pace of games like StarCraft. The clock would be a movement into the other direction and as well as the Ping should rather be seen in a Scoreboard or similar. Always found games like Dungeon Keeper or Majesty more realistic strategy games than Starcraft etc.
Ever imagined a General going: " Marine 1 go two steps forward and fire. Marine 2 run away from Zergling. Stop, Fire, Run away, Stop..."? Still like the Setting and units in Starcraft but Gameplay focused on APM is not strategy to me.
Ever imagined a General going: " Marine 1 go two steps forward and fire. Marine 2 run away from Zergling. Stop, Fire, Run away, Stop..."? Still like the Setting and units in Starcraft but Gameplay focused on APM is not strategy to me.
I didn't say that you shouldn't have a way to know it, just that it doesn't really need a prominent place in the UI because it's not information you need to have all the time. Like in DK2 you could just find out by mousing over it and the info bar will provide.
Also, I don't know why you would ever want a fight in your Dungeon Core breaking out - there really isn't any kind of defender advantage to it.
Also, I don't know why you would ever want a fight in your Dungeon Core breaking out - there really isn't any kind of defender advantage to it.
You understand the meaning of the word BETA right? It means unfinished, still in development. If saving isn't there yet (which i'm not sure since I haven't actually played the beta in a while) then it's definitely on the to do list. It makes sense that they'd need to add everything to the game before they know what exactly they need to save wouldn't it?
This reaction is kind of uncalled for Martigan. Not everybody who comes here appears to be aware of the fact that a lot of features are still missing, claiming that beta means all features are in the game already and only bugfixes are happening. Truth is, this is BEDROCK beta, which is the barebones as explained by the devs. All of us paid to support a work in progress, and in turn get a look at how the game is developing. If you'd just look at the suggestions or discussion threads, you would have known that a save option is going to be added, and you would also know why it isn't there yet.
Well he had 2 but he deleted the other i guess. Anyway, lets discuss something else, like the level cap.
While we concluded our discussion on it a couple of pages ago, We didn't receive a dev response confirming or denying that our level cap would be reduced to 5 or kept at 10. I would really appreciate it if a dev could reply and let us know what the level cap would be, and if it is 5, what there reasoning for having a 5 level cap since, personally, I don't see the advantages a 5 level cap has over 10.
While we concluded our discussion on it a couple of pages ago, We didn't receive a dev response confirming or denying that our level cap would be reduced to 5 or kept at 10. I would really appreciate it if a dev could reply and let us know what the level cap would be, and if it is 5, what there reasoning for having a 5 level cap since, personally, I don't see the advantages a 5 level cap has over 10.
