This was a fine week of vacations. I managed to finalize the UI's mockup for the character generation as well as having a blast playing Massive Darkness table game with my soulmate.
I believe that the new UI provides a cleaner way of generating characters, with a new approach to the information available when choosing classes.
The avatar selection is not featured as I don't really need to design
it; it will be straightforward placing all avatars in the middle section
where the class information is currently displayed in the image below.
I'm now going to relax for a bit; probably going to watch a movie. Stay safe!
Looking very clean - and loaded with (new?) information! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have another look later on, but right off the top of my head:
- the new layout seems to offer a lot more flexibility
- some stats seem to be modified from their default value. Is this a result of Arcturus' race or a consequence on his chosen perk, fortitude?
- what is the deal with perks, anyway? Classes seem to offer one, each. Are there other ways to get them in chargen, and are you restricted to choosing a single one per character?
- oops, some typos
- aren't those stars somewhat redundant?
"Looking very clean - and loaded with (new?) information! :)"
ReplyDelete> Thanks! In reality, all information you see was already available in the old UI, but it would only be apparent when you would mouse hover certain elements, making information overall more obscure. For example, the skills of each class would only be revealed with mouse over.
"some stats seem to be modified from their default value. Is this a result of Arcturus' race or a consequence on his chosen perk, fortitude?"
> You have 4 points you can distribute over the main attributes.
"what is the deal with perks, anyway? Classes seem to offer one, each. Are there other ways to get them in chargen, and are you restricted to choosing a single one per character?"
> Perks are class bound. You can acquire other perks as you unlock specialized classes, 4 subclasses for each base class. There will be other other ways to acquire perks in-game albeit that will be a rare event.
" aren't those stars somewhat redundant?"
> Absolutely, but they offer visual aid since I'm not using color codes for their text qualifiers. As you know, graphical bars / charts provide an easier ready out of numeric values. Then, there was that dead space just sitting there doing nothing ;)
Can't have space just sitting there, doing nothing, can we? ;)
DeleteIf perks are class-bound, are there a couple to choose from in every class or are those perks (your UI seems to highlight just one next to the portrait) more like class-dependent modifiers?
Also, Arcturus doesn't seem to have chosen a class yet (no class icon) yet he is assigned the fighter class perk, fortitude.
Finally, what does that perk do, exactly? It doesn't seem to obviously change any stats.
Now that you point out, those perks are wrong. Each character should be displaying the perk related to their chosen class, they all say fortified by should be displaying the ones shown in each class description. For the most of it, perks will modify the secondary attributes displayed at the bottom of the screen, with the exception of the Advisor perk that will be applied to everyone granting 2% more experience points to the whole party. Having 2 Support units will provide 4%.
DeleteAll attributes and skills will have hovering hints pretty much like the old UI had. I really need to make a video dedicated to the character generation panel. I also need to revamp the secondary attributes, there are many pending changes I still need to apply, which I'm saving when I start implementing the new char gen UI.
"Tabbing" the portraits and merging the selected one with its stats and abilities below works well. It might be neat to tuck some options under 'Advanced' or just organize them into groups.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about the classes screen - is this where players select a class?
Yes, when you click on the left-bottom circular icon on their avatar, the 4 possible classes to choose from appear. The bottom section (where the secondary attributes are seen) will also be changed displaying the message: "Choose a class" and other details like the perk's description and cancelling the class selection.
ReplyDeleteAhh, different content in the bottom section when selecting class makes sense. I guess it will include the specializations for the selected class?
ReplyDeleteI would have easily missed the circular class-selection icon being a button. The UI should clearly convey that something is interactive. Is it the bright yellow or white? I recall there was a related issue in the previous post (with the tiny arrows). The buttons with the frame (like "start adventure") are clear enough, but there should be a single element (like color) consistent across all interactive elements that would set them apart from non-interactive ones.
>"Ahh, different content in the bottom section when selecting class makes sense. I guess it will include the specializations for the selected class?"
DeleteYap. When you mouse over a class section, you will see it reacting accordingly.
>"I would have easily missed the circular class-selection icon being a button. The UI should clearly convey that something is interactive. Is it the bright yellow or white? I recall there was a related issue in the previous post (with the tiny arrows). The buttons with the frame (like "start adventure") are clear enough, but there should be a single element (like color) consistent across all interactive elements that would set them apart from non-interactive ones."
I understand what you mean. It's always harder to demonstrate the functionality of an UI via a static image over motion picture. When I first tarted using smartphones, it wasn't clear how UIs operated. It wasn't apparent that some functions could be accessed by swimping the screen to the right, swiping from top to bottom, making a long tap, using hand gestures to zoom-in / out.
Thankfully, in Underlair, all interactable UI elements are visible and will react with mouse over. There will be no hidden functions apart from key shortcuts. On the character generation window, only the dice close to the avatars and the arrows will act as buttons. Nonetheless, I will still need to test it out with people that will use the UI for the first time. I quite curious to see how long they will take to figure it out. ^^