ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Is there an option to change the bottom of the screen to the old layout? I just don't like the minimalism of the new layout. And the fact that the text shows up in the gameplay screen and not in its own box.

The minimalism is to make space for the next beta's talent icons. In terms of the chat and game log I dunno if there's going to be more options than currently available for that.

Not yet, but someday I will add "ui packs" that allow you to choose UI

Yeah, I just jumped back into tome myself, and I can't stand the new layout

Also, what the hell happened to the hotkey system; why did it change from (desired_hotkey -> skill) to (desired_hotkey -> hkey12 -> skill). Now if I want to bind (-) to a skill I need to remember that it's "hkey12". It's just unnecessarily complicated.

Mostly the combat/chat log(s) really need to get out of the playing field. Keeps obscuring stuff.

Frumple wrote:Mostly the combat/chat log(s) really need to get out of the playing field. Keeps obscuring stuff.

It's no different than having it in a window that obscures stuff, as before. It's better since at least you get to glimpse what's in the playing field. You cannot see any less of the playing field than you could before.

My issue with the new layout is that if my character in along the bottom of the screen any mouse commands brings up the chat window... I cannot hover over to loot at loot or scan threats... just revert to arrow-key movement.

~R

Grey wrote:

Frumple wrote:Mostly the combat/chat log(s) really need to get out of the playing field. Keeps obscuring stuff.

It's no different than having it in a window that obscures stuff, as before. It's better since at least you get to glimpse what's in the playing field. You cannot see any less of the playing field than you could before.

You know, a good GUI isn't one "That absolutely maximizes information avaliable", it's one that gives the user the information he needs while looking and feeling good. You could potentially give the user every piece of information about every monster on the screen in countless tiny information boxes, but it would be useless and look terrible.

Personally I love the aesthetic of getting to see as much of the field as possible. In the old interface too many windows and panes cut into the playing area and detracted from the gameplay. It also looked... unprofessional, I guess. It's nice for the game to look like something you'd pay money for.

In terms of the practicalities, I don't see the problem myself. The only issue is when the character is underneath the text, and that can be easily fixed by making the game centre on the PC better.

My biggest issue with the UI is still when pop-up boxes cover parts of the screen I need to see.

For example, when shopping, if I select an item, a pop-up box obscures half of the store inventory, including the price of the item I am currently selecting. The only way I can see the price is to go select something in the other pane and pray the pop-up box decides to obscure something else's price.

Also for example, if I'm in a corner of the level map, and I'm trying to target some monster with a talent, a pop-up box will often cover up the monster and all of its friends. I have to shift-move the selection cursor to a nearby wall or something to get rid of the box, then memorize the positions of the monsters, then shift-move the cursor back to the monster (or tile-behind-the-monsters, for beams/projectiles) that I want.

Kjoery wrote:You know, a good GUI isn't one "That absolutely maximizes information avaliable", it's one that gives the user the information he needs while looking and feeling good.

Knowing that there could be something deadly underneath the wall of text that pops up while you're fighting something (or just while you're walking around, from chat messages) does not feel good. It is, in fact, quite frustrating, and has put my characters into bad situations more than once. The only way to deal with it, currently, is to either constantly be waiting for the combat text to fade or do an annoying amount of playing via the minimap.

Aesthetics are important, definitely, but function should always come first, especially in situations where lax attention to function can drastically effect the overall experience. A working thing that is beautiful is more beautiful than something that does not work as well, but is still beautiful. Function improves form more than form improves function, so long as the form of the function doesn't get in the way of the function. Getting the chat and combat logs away from where they can interfere with playing the game would not be throwing in 'countless tiny information boxes'.

[aside] I would like 'countless tiny information boxes', personally -- I loved *bands' term windows, which weren't very tiny if you had them at a decent font size and tremendously eased GUI issues if you configured them to fit you -- but from my perspective, 'absolutely maximizing information' is a beautiful thing in a roguelike. What the player needs to know is generally "everything, or at least most of it." Having that makes playing RLs in general, usually considerably more pleasing. It looks a little worse, but feels much, much, better. Even in T4 I code dive for enemy information quite regularly. Term windows (or rather, dockable/undockable windows) would solve almost the entirety of the (being fair, usually fairly minor) troubles I've had with T4's interface.[/aside]

Grey wrote:Personally I love the aesthetic of getting to see as much of the field as possible. In the old interface too many windows and panes cut into the playing area and detracted from the gameplay.

Windows with a translucent background and border is what would be really nice to see moved out of the playing field As you pointed out, actually, the obscuring windows haven't gone anywhere, they've just been made more translucent.

Grey wrote:In terms of the practicalities, I don't see the problem myself. The only issue is when the character is underneath the text, and that can be easily fixed by making the game centre on the PC better.

To be fair, the problem doesn't come up terribly often... but it does come up, and often enough to be very annoying. I end up underneath the text regularly, quite often immediately when entering a level or when teleporting from something dangerous. It's rather unpleasant.

Better centering helps a bit (the SVN builds have introduced this, somewhat), but doesn't fix the problem. The text getting in the way can happen when you're in the middle of the map and something nasty walks in while you're murdering something else. You don't see it, unless you're watching the minimap, until the critter jumps you from the shadows. It's happened enough to me to make me leery.

But under the old interface that monster would have been off the screen entirely, obscured by the large and opaque chat and talent windows. The problem was worse in the old layout. I admit it's still an issue, but the only real solution is to play on a bigger screen or smaller tile size. Interface tweaks aren't going to help much when the playfield is bigger than your screen.

Personally I'd like to see the talents shifted to the side (as icons) underneath the status bar, which would be shortened and have a transparent background and use icons for the status effects. The more minimal the interface the better in my books. Of course others feel very differently, which is why resizable and dockable subwindows that can be toggled on/off would be great.

Ah... well, yes. I wasn't advocating the old layout, personally. Just that the bloody combat/chat log get out of the playing field. The only way for that to happen is to, yanno', have it moved out of the playing field. It was worse in the old layout, but it's still bad in the current one. Increasing resolution or dropping tile size still leaves the ruddy things in the way.

The only thing that'd be alright to be in the actual playing field is, maybe, the tooltips. I wouldn't terribly mind if those got kicked into their own lil'box off to the side, though.

What if the bottom edge of the map could come all the way up to the top of the chat log? I believe that would be the best of both worlds, as you get extra (slightly obscured) viewing area normally, without being blocked all of the time when you are on the southern edge of the map.

Or you could move the log to the top of the screen when the player is near the bottom of the screen. Though I'd prefer to have it default to the top anyway, as long as it's not in the way, I don't mind.