"Fresh Eyes" interface improvement ideas

[tiger_eye]

Hey, I recently started playing ToME4 (beta 20b), and *wow* was I surprised! I played ToME2 for a bit, but it seemed too tedious and didn't have much of a story. ToME4, on the other hand, has more game-like qualities (read: fun). It impressed me so much that I want to help make it better. I don't have much to say (yet) on races, classes, and the plot, but below I list several small-ish improvements I would like to see made to the interface:

(1) Bind an action to middle-click of mouse.

(2) More obvious way to bind inventory and equipment actions to keys (or mouse buttons).

(3) Ability to use or activate equipment or inventory special abilities when right-clicking on an appropriate target. For example, use a digger to tunnel by right-clicking on a non-occupied adjacent wall or tree, or use special gloves to shoot fire or lightning by right-clicking on an enemy.

(4) Better default behavior of look command when no enemies are in view. Most of the time it seems looking begins half-way across the level, even if I haven't "looked" on that level before. Why not default to the player?

(5) When a monster first comes into sight, sometimes the image races across the screen beginning from the upperleft--(0,0)?--and ending at the location of the monster.

(6) Better options for organizing inventory:
a - Put like types together, such as "Brawler's Sun Infusion" and "Titan's Sun Infusion", because they are both a sun infusion.
b - Have expandable/collapsable categories and perhaps even sub-categories, such as "Infusions", "Runes", "Weapons", "Weapons: daggers" (if there are several daggers), and so on.
c - Ability to sort by time collected. For example, useful if you want to drop or use an item you recently picked up.
d - Don't revert to default sorting after dropping an item. For example, suppose you sort the inventory by encumbrance because you want to drop several heavy items. After you drop an item, the inventory should still be sorted by encumbrance.

(7) Don't allow changing pages into an empty page via Page-up/Page-down buttons or mouse wheel. Applicable to equipment page, ability information section in main game screen (lower right), etc.

(8) Reenter a store by pressing "5".

(9) Don't run past a friendly character if you would normally stop if the friendly character wasn't there (such as if it is blocking a "T" or branch in a passage). See diagram below:

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(10) Don't run past a corner if the outer-most corner terrain is open. See diagram below:

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(11) Improve information graphics on the main game screen (such as green numbers floating above an enemy that you hit). If there is multiple information to show in one turn (such as dealing light, dark, poison, and physical damage to an enemy), stagger or delay each informative graphic so you can actually read each one rather than seeing a green blur. Longer time on screen may be necessary. Also, perhaps the damage amounts above the monster should be partially color-coded as they are in the message screen.

(12) Show infravision distance on character screen.

(13) Is there a way to know within the game how much armour an enemy has? If not, then it is complete guesswork as to how much a person should increase their characters APR.

(14) Do stats for summoned animals max out at 100? When improving a summoning ability, the summary can show stats above 100, but when summoned, the stats appear to be capped at 100.

(15) Accomplishing achievements should DO something other than allow for bragging rights. For example, perhaps accomplishing 10/20/30 achievements could unlock something...

(16) Enemies should be strongly discouraged from damaging bosses. It is very frustrating when another enemy kills a boss after I did most of the damage. Grrr...

(17) Why can't we use gems to make amulets or earrings?

(18) Why can my character wear only two rings? We have eight possible ring-bearing fingers, don't we?

That's all for now. Thanks!

[Canderel]

A lot of your suggestions should become individual threads in the "Ideas" section... But here goes:

1. Bind an action to middle-click of mouse.

2nded... Kinda obvious.

2. More obvious way to bind inventory and equipment actions to keys (or mouse buttons).

Suggestions?

3. Ability to use or activate equipment or inventory special abilities when right-clicking on an appropriate target. For example, use a digger to tunnel by right-clicking on a non-occupied adjacent wall or tree, or use special gloves to shoot fire or lightning by right-clicking on an enemy.

YES! Very good idea, though perhaps not that easy? Wouldn't know.

4. Better default behavior of look command when no enemies are in view. Most of the time it seems looking begins half-way across the level, even if I haven't "looked" on that level before. Why not default to the player?

Agreed. I think there is some work being done here, but I may be wrong.

5. When a monster first comes into sight, sometimes the image races across the screen beginning from the upperleft--(0,0)?--and ending at the location of the monster.

This is true, and should probably be listed under "bugs".

6. Better options for organizing inventory:
a - Put like types together, such as "Brawler's Sun Infusion" and "Titan's Sun Infusion", because they are both a sun infusion.
b - Have expandable/collapsable categories and perhaps even sub-categories, such as "Infusions", "Runes", "Weapons", "Weapons: daggers" (if there are several daggers), and so on.
c - Ability to sort by time collected. For example, useful if you want to drop or use an item you recently picked up.
d - Don't revert to default sorting after dropping an item. For example, suppose you sort the inventory by encumbrance because you want to drop several heavy items. After you drop an item, the inventory should still be sorted by encumbrance.

It is sortable on any of the current columns (click on them), but the tree structure's UI code exists (for skills) so inventory could also do this. However dunno if it should be default behaviour. Generally I think it's a good idea.

7. Don't allow changing pages into an empty page via Page-up/Page-down buttons or mouse wheel. Applicable to equipment page, ability information section in main game screen (lower right), etc.

Personally, I'd like to see a long window that is scrollable, no pages. pg-up and down just scrolls, as well as mouse scroll.

8. Reenter a store by pressing "5".

Dunno, you can just go up and down (or left and right). If it's a very small change sure, but it seems like a lot of effort for very small irritation. Why didn't you buy what you wanted in the first place? ... Admittedly I would sometimes want to be able to see what I have equipped when in store, so I can see what is better. So perhaps being able to open inventory while in stores?

9. Don't run past a friendly character if you would normally stop if the friendly character wasn't there (such as if it is blocking a "T" or branch in a passage). See diagram below:

Running needs a bit of work, but it is pretty decent at the moment. AFAIK there is work being done on running, so check next beta.

10. Don't run past a corner if the outer-most corner terrain is open. See diagram below:

See above...

11. Improve information graphics on the main game screen (such as green numbers floating above an enemy that you hit). If there is multiple information to show in one turn (such as dealing light, dark, poison, and physical damage to an enemy), stagger or delay each informative graphic so you can actually read each one rather than seeing a green blur. Longer time on screen may be necessary. Also, perhaps the damage amounts above the monster should be partially color-coded as they are in the message screen.

I believe this is also addressed, but not 100% sure.

12. Show infravision distance on character screen.

Yes... as well as current "speed".

13. Is there a way to know within the game how much armour an enemy has? If not, then it is complete guesswork as to how much a person should increase their characters APR.

There are some other threads asking about this, not sure what the end result was/is.

14. Do stats for summoned animals max out at 100? When improving a summoning ability, the summary can show stats above 100, but when summoned, the stats appear to be capped at 100.

Not sure, but I think 100 is the "natural" max (items will push it over), though for characters 60 is the max.

15. Accomplishing achievements should DO something other than allow for bragging rights. For example, perhaps accomplishing 10/20/30 achievements could unlock something...

Some do, some not. I don't really think this needs refinement.

16. Enemies should be strongly discouraged from damaging bosses. It is very frustrating when another enemy kills a boss after I did most of the damage. Grrr...

If you have specific examples you should post under bugs. Though stuff like a stray arrow, where the boss walked into it, wasn't intentional killing the boss, and I don't think that would be a bug.

17. Why can't we use gems to make amulets or earrings?

We don't have earring slots, but amulets makes a *lot* of sense. And I think has been discussed. Whether a change is coming I dunno.

18. Why can my character wear only two rings? We have eight possible ring-bearing fingers, don't we?
Can of worms! One can try and make a long story and try to explain it in the game, but the real reason is... it would make the game imbalanced. Characters who typically have all slots of equipment filled would be much stronger than NPC's who usually only have a weapon and perhaps armor.

[gruevy]

In the IRC channel, we've actually talked a few times about the keybindings. Darkgod admitted that they need work, but nothing really came of it. Couple of the people in there had the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" mindset for some of the problems, too, which didn't help

[edge2054]

I just want to comment on 16 and 18

16) Other enemies killing bosses.

Doesn't matter, you still get XP and Loot from a boss regardless of who kills it.

18) Rings.

As was said this is a can of worms. If characters could wear 8 rings the value of rings would have to be reduced a lot. In other words, to keep things balanced, you can either wear 2 nice rings or 8 sucky rings.

[marvalis]

4) press 5. the game stores whatever x,y it was last on.
:3
14) Summons are fixed (stats can no go above 100)

16) you still get exp

[tiger_eye]

Thanks for the replies! It sounds like some of this has come up elsewhere, but I'll be a good sport and give my two cents:

1. Bind an action to middle-click of mouse.

2nded... Kinda obvious.

Let me be a little more specific on this: allow binding an action to middle-click of mouse on target just like you can do with right-click of mouse. For example, if you bind "Steady Shot" to middle-click and then middle click on a target, you should immediately fire a steady shot (if available) at the target. The current way to bind the middle-click is to bind middle-click to a hot key (in "Hot Key" menu), then bind a hot-key to an action. The problem with this is if you middle-click on a target, then the action isn't immediately performed on that target. Instead, you enter a mode in which you must select the target with another click.

2. More obvious way to bind inventory and equipment actions to keys (or mouse buttons).

Suggestions?

Two come to mind. First, add a column on the "Key Binding" page that shows the action bound to the hot key (perhaps descriptions of actions can be information pop-ups as exists elsewhere). If you right-click in that column, then a contextual menu gives you four options: (1) Bind to ability, (2) bind to equipment, (3) bind to inventory, and (4) unbind action. Once selected, show the appropriate page and allow one to choose the action to bind.

The second idea is to simply have a "Bind to hot key" in the contextual menu of items that are able to be used. For example, the contextual menu for equipment items would be (1) Use, (2) bind to hot key, and (3) take off. For inventory items, it would be (1) Use, (2) bind to hot key, and (3) drop. Note that runes, infusions, and plain items in inventory and equipment would not have the "bind to hot key" option.

One issue is how to show hot key binding when viewing equipment and inventory. There isn't much room left in the window, so having an extra column showing the key binding probably wouldn't work well. My suggestion would be to show the key binding in the information box that is displayed when the mouse hovers over the item.

4. Better default behavior of look command when no enemies are in view. Most of the time it seems looking begins half-way across the level, even if I haven't "looked" on that level before. Why not default to the player?
press 5. the game stores whatever x,y it was last on.

Thanks. I'll try that out.

6. Better options for organizing inventory:
a - Put like types together, such as "Brawler's Sun Infusion" and "Titan's Sun Infusion", because they are both a sun infusion.
b - Have expandable/collapsable categories and perhaps even sub-categories, such as "Infusions", "Runes", "Weapons", "Weapons: daggers" (if there are several daggers), and so on.
c - Ability to sort by time collected. For example, useful if you want to drop or use an item you recently picked up.
d - Don't revert to default sorting after dropping an item. For example, suppose you sort the inventory by encumbrance because you want to drop several heavy items. After you drop an item, the inventory should still be sorted by encumbrance.

It is sortable on any of the current columns (click on them), but the tree structure's UI code exists (for skills) so inventory could also do this. However dunno if it should be default behaviour. Generally I think it's a good idea.

I think we're on the same page here. Reusing the tree structure UI code (for skills) was my thoughts exactly. I agree, though, it probably shouldn't be default. Once different viewing options exist, it probably would't be hard to have buttons (or tabs) to easily select views.

7. Don't allow changing pages into an empty page via Page-up/Page-down buttons or mouse wheel. Applicable to equipment page, ability information section in main game screen (lower right), etc.

Personally, I'd like to see a long window that is scrollable, no pages. pg-up and down just scrolls, as well as mouse scroll.

Sounds good to me. I'll leave this to the experts

8. Reenter a store by pressing "5".

Dunno, you can just go up and down (or left and right). If it's a very small change sure, but it seems like a lot of effort for very small irritation. Why didn't you buy what you wanted in the first place? ... Admittedly I would sometimes want to be able to see what I have equipped when in store, so I can see what is better. So perhaps being able to open inventory while in stores?

Exactly: I want to compare my equipment, runes, or infusions to what the store is offering. Admittedly, this is a very, very minor quip, but I thought if it was easy to change...

15. Accomplishing achievements should DO something other than allow for bragging rights. For example, perhaps accomplishing 10/20/30 achievements could unlock something...

Some do, some not. I don't really think this needs refinement.

Fair enough. My observation is that there are nearly 50 achievements in the "do not" category. Games are often fun because of incentives and rewards, so it might be worthwhile to eventually incorporate these with something somehow. But I'll leave this to the experts... (and it's much better to have these achievements do nothing rather than not having the achievements at all)

16. Enemies should be strongly discouraged from damaging bosses. It is very frustrating when another enemy kills a boss after I did most of the damage. Grrr...

Doesn't matter, you still get XP and Loot from a boss regardless of who kills it.

Great! I don't feel so discouraged now!

18. Why can my character wear only two rings? We have eight possible ring-bearing fingers, don't we?
Can of worms! One can try and make a long story and try to explain it in the game, but the real reason is... it would make the game imbalanced. Characters who typically have all slots of equipment filled would be much stronger than NPC's who usually only have a weapon and perhaps armor.

Hahaha! I know, I know... but I had to say something completely unreasonable, didn't I?

[marvalis]

thing about those rings... the rumor is that when you where more than one magical ring your hand explodes. Nobody knows for sure, but it seems like nobody is willing to try it out.

[Grey]

For equipment binding it might be nice if all activeatable equipment showed up in the binding menu, including greyed out bindings that don't exist any more. I'd also like it if you could see your hotkey pane clearly whilst in the m menu and be able to scroll through pages as I resort them.