UI improvements
Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 7:10 pm
I've been playing TOME for about a week now and I have almost beaten it. Coming from Crawl, TOME is a significant step down in usability. Here are some improvements that would make the game a lot more user-friendly:
Spell targeting:
-Consider an enemy around a corner. With a single-target beam, or a multiple-target bolt, you have to aim 'past' it to hit it (or else it'll collide with the wall and end). With other spells, you have to directly target it, even though the path seems to go 'through' a wall. The targeting system should take this into account and display appropriate interface prompts.
-I'd suggest this color scheme: blue = will hit this target, red = will hit a wall first, yellow = will hit a non-wall target and stop there.
-For spells with a travel time, mark how far it will likely reach by turn 1/2/3.
Abilities:
-Abilities you don't have the resources to use should still show their cooldown numbers. AFAIK you can't tell in advance whether you can use them until you regain resources.
-The ability list can probably manage being two-column on larger resolutions.
-Item abilities should display how many activations they're currently good for - or if 0, they should display as (Current Charge / Charge Needed Per Activation).
-Mouseover on item abilities should display the item's stats, and the ability's information (range, etc).
-Use of other colors may be beneficial. For example, instant abilities could be cyan rather than green.
-Infusion hotkeys should be by slot. If you replace one, it should by default have the same hotkey that the old one did.
Inventory:
-Multi-drop/multi-sell, please!
-Drag-and-drop to equip, unequip, or drop on the ground.
-Possibly, item icons. There's a lot of text on that screen once you start finding double-prefixed items and it's frustrating to take in at-a-glance.
-Possibly, item categories ("rings", "maces") to make finding things easier. They're already sorted like this, but this would just make it clearer.
-Items with abilities should display that ability's information (range, etc).
Tactical interface:
-Damage popup text should be larger and fade away more slowly. Ragnarok Online has the right idea here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKdbEBSwcMw#t=45s
-The large "low health" popup is great. I think there might be a place for popups for critical hits, or for total damage done in a turn when you hit a large number of enemies, to give you a feel for how effective your character is currently.
-A way to examine the status effects (the way you can examine your own) on a monster - say, right click on it to inspect it as a focus-getting popup.
-Being able to scroll the player status pane. I play fullscreen on my netbook and only three lines of my buffs will fit, so I can't get info on the rest, as far as I know.
-It would be nice to have semi-transparent "floating" panes able to be placed over the viewport.
-It would be nice to have the ability to have multiple text boxes, and split channels across them.
-It would be helpful if certain status effects had an icon appearing next to the monster, different-colored 'brackets', etc. For example, some Corruptor abilities depend upon the target being diseased, and Doomed should know what they're Feed-ing on.
-Monster colors should be better differentiated. Orc soldiers, fighters, berserkers, and elite berserkers look very similar to each other.
-Monster glyphs should have a border around them (not sure what thickness, or whether white or black). They can currently become invisible if they're grey standing on grey floor. Even on some tile floors, they can be hard to spot. This would be a huge increase to legibility.
Character info:
-Some way to see how many lives you currently have left. Also, an announcement on level-up if you gained another life.
-An estimate of how "good" your stats are. This is probably contentious, but think of it this way: compared to many roguelikes, TOME is a number soup. It's easy to figure out how the resist/immune percentages work, but it's not as easy to figure out the way "spellpower" or "physical save" work. I would recommend having a canonical set of "average" values for given XLs displaying difference from that in a broad way.
-Mouseover on stats should display the effects contributing to them.
General:
-Better autotravel. Most of what stops it right now should only stop it once, and should do so on discovery (like a monster) rather than movement next to it. It should path over items, and avoid pathing over traps.
-Better minimap. The entrance and exit to the level should be a brighter shade (say, magenta). Items should continue to show up after you leave LOS, but be colored differently based on whether you can currently see them. Unopened doors should show up in a different color.
-Autoexplore. Lots of people complain that this isn't roguelike-like. They're right, and that's good. TOME is a very, very long roguelike and this would cut down on that length substantially by removing tedium.
-"Failure to do something" actions should consistently not waste turns. This includes bumping into walls, trying to pick up an item when there's nothing there, trying to use an item with no remaining charges, and probably more. The information to not take these actions exists, but would require extra steps to obtain. It is far better for user experience if it's just assumed that the player did not actually want to waste a turn.
Some of these might already exist, and I'm just not noticing them. If so, they may not be clear enough to new players.
Spell targeting:
-Consider an enemy around a corner. With a single-target beam, or a multiple-target bolt, you have to aim 'past' it to hit it (or else it'll collide with the wall and end). With other spells, you have to directly target it, even though the path seems to go 'through' a wall. The targeting system should take this into account and display appropriate interface prompts.
-I'd suggest this color scheme: blue = will hit this target, red = will hit a wall first, yellow = will hit a non-wall target and stop there.
-For spells with a travel time, mark how far it will likely reach by turn 1/2/3.
Abilities:
-Abilities you don't have the resources to use should still show their cooldown numbers. AFAIK you can't tell in advance whether you can use them until you regain resources.
-The ability list can probably manage being two-column on larger resolutions.
-Item abilities should display how many activations they're currently good for - or if 0, they should display as (Current Charge / Charge Needed Per Activation).
-Mouseover on item abilities should display the item's stats, and the ability's information (range, etc).
-Use of other colors may be beneficial. For example, instant abilities could be cyan rather than green.
-Infusion hotkeys should be by slot. If you replace one, it should by default have the same hotkey that the old one did.
Inventory:
-Multi-drop/multi-sell, please!
-Drag-and-drop to equip, unequip, or drop on the ground.
-Possibly, item icons. There's a lot of text on that screen once you start finding double-prefixed items and it's frustrating to take in at-a-glance.
-Possibly, item categories ("rings", "maces") to make finding things easier. They're already sorted like this, but this would just make it clearer.
-Items with abilities should display that ability's information (range, etc).
Tactical interface:
-Damage popup text should be larger and fade away more slowly. Ragnarok Online has the right idea here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKdbEBSwcMw#t=45s
-The large "low health" popup is great. I think there might be a place for popups for critical hits, or for total damage done in a turn when you hit a large number of enemies, to give you a feel for how effective your character is currently.
-A way to examine the status effects (the way you can examine your own) on a monster - say, right click on it to inspect it as a focus-getting popup.
-Being able to scroll the player status pane. I play fullscreen on my netbook and only three lines of my buffs will fit, so I can't get info on the rest, as far as I know.
-It would be nice to have semi-transparent "floating" panes able to be placed over the viewport.
-It would be nice to have the ability to have multiple text boxes, and split channels across them.
-It would be helpful if certain status effects had an icon appearing next to the monster, different-colored 'brackets', etc. For example, some Corruptor abilities depend upon the target being diseased, and Doomed should know what they're Feed-ing on.
-Monster colors should be better differentiated. Orc soldiers, fighters, berserkers, and elite berserkers look very similar to each other.
-Monster glyphs should have a border around them (not sure what thickness, or whether white or black). They can currently become invisible if they're grey standing on grey floor. Even on some tile floors, they can be hard to spot. This would be a huge increase to legibility.
Character info:
-Some way to see how many lives you currently have left. Also, an announcement on level-up if you gained another life.
-An estimate of how "good" your stats are. This is probably contentious, but think of it this way: compared to many roguelikes, TOME is a number soup. It's easy to figure out how the resist/immune percentages work, but it's not as easy to figure out the way "spellpower" or "physical save" work. I would recommend having a canonical set of "average" values for given XLs displaying difference from that in a broad way.
-Mouseover on stats should display the effects contributing to them.
General:
-Better autotravel. Most of what stops it right now should only stop it once, and should do so on discovery (like a monster) rather than movement next to it. It should path over items, and avoid pathing over traps.
-Better minimap. The entrance and exit to the level should be a brighter shade (say, magenta). Items should continue to show up after you leave LOS, but be colored differently based on whether you can currently see them. Unopened doors should show up in a different color.
-Autoexplore. Lots of people complain that this isn't roguelike-like. They're right, and that's good. TOME is a very, very long roguelike and this would cut down on that length substantially by removing tedium.
-"Failure to do something" actions should consistently not waste turns. This includes bumping into walls, trying to pick up an item when there's nothing there, trying to use an item with no remaining charges, and probably more. The information to not take these actions exists, but would require extra steps to obtain. It is far better for user experience if it's just assumed that the player did not actually want to waste a turn.
Some of these might already exist, and I'm just not noticing them. If so, they may not be clear enough to new players.
