Feedback Buff icons and Debuff icons

Not sure how feasible it is but what if the buffs bar was movable like the buccs energy charge bar?

 

Perhaps the most important information to convey in a layout is the ability for a player to tell if a buff/debuff is active and how long it has left. Buff durations are fairly well portrayed to the player as is, but if it takes a while to find where on the bar important buffs are located, the design is flawed. The current system works, but I also think that's more a symptom of users simply getting used to it, and the need to quickly check buffs is minimal, rather than being an efficient ui design.

Personally, the effectively randomized window of buffs ordered by cast time is the biggest offender of ability to locate a buff. It's fine when there are only a couple buffs, but it quickly becomes a daunting task to find one specific icon in a group of 10+ while doing anything more than hold dpm button, rare as that may be. In lieu of drawing an entire ui layout, I propose a 3-row system of buffs:

1. Potpourri buffs: self-buffs with lower priority (ideally defined by user, but not a deal-breaker) boosters, pally charges, summons, etc and potions. Probably still sorted the way they have been as there may be too many to do anything more.
   
2. Party buffs: the list of party buffs should be small enough that they could each have their own set location in a static ordering and a high transparency array so a player knows exactly where to look to see if they have shield, for example.
3. High-priority buffs: survival stuff and things on the current 2nd row could go here. Bonus points for the ability for a user to define stuff like stance or shadow claw higher priority, but it should ideally be a small list of only a couple icons at most.

If we haven't ran out of ui space, a row for debuffs could go below that, or maybe in the top left? Or even in the moveable window karn proposes as there can only be 2 anyways? Either way, until we plan to develop situations where debuffs are more relevant than pressing the all-cure button if you have a debuff the important debuff informations would be remaining duration of sed and reverse, and thats mostly because they cant be dispelled. Additionally, whether or not you are zombifed is important, but that one isnt for yourself as much as the hs-mule in the corner to know they can press heal in the 1-2 fights its relevant. I wonder if a revamped party status window would be the place to show party debuffs...?

Also, why is rage listed in the buffs section and not the debuff section?

Ultimately, the way to test ui designs is fairly trial and error testing with various prototypes on a variety of players. Not sure if staff has that capacity due to its inherently veiled nature.

 

Hey my thread is here! Hero buffs are closer than ever

 

While we’re at it, a cooldown row would be amazing.

 

I'm really hesitant to have a staff-designed "priority" list of buffs, because it'll:

1. require ongoing upkeep and maintenance according to balance changes, reworks, staff member changes, etc.
2. change depending on the player and the context (I'm sure there's plenty of players who would rather not have things like Magic Guard or Hyper Body on the "priority" bar)

Customized buffs would be fantastic but sounds like a lot of work to set up as not only would that functionality need to be built, there would need to be additional infrastructure to allow the player to define what they want where.

That all being said, I too would like to see a third bar in some form and/or debuffs displayed somewhere on the player UI.

Honestly I don't know how feasible this is but if players had the ability to just drag frames around their screen (drag their HP bar around, drag their buff bar around, drag their chat box around, drag their quick bar around, drag the boss timer around, etc) or resize them (make the boss timer smaller, make buffs bigger, etc) that would be such a monumental improvement to UX.

This is only tangentially related but I'd also like to potentially look into with defining custom sprite layers. If the players could say set Boss sprites to a higher layer than other player sprites or attack animations (not their own sprite/animations) this would be I think the single best possible QoL change that could be made in terms of visual clarity.

 

I think it'd be nice to keep "my buffs" in my own bar, with concentrate it often gets buried in buffs. For me personally (other experience may apply) I just want to check my buffs, HB, bless, Hs. It would make it much easier for me if I can quickly reference one bar for each specific thing I'm looking for

 

Party buffs
Self buffs
Status conditions

should be the 3 lines imo

 

I also agree with:
1. Self buffs
2. Party buffs
3. Debuffs (if implemented)

I think self buffs on the top row will look neater in general, especially when running content with small parties, but that could easily be a config option.

I agree that deciding on and maintaining a priority list is not practical and would take far too long to iterate on to reach an optimal list, given the frequency of patch cycles.

I would also be interested in exploring the option to sort buffs alphabetically instead of by cast time, so that one can develop an intuitive idea about where "roughly" to look for a specific buff, instead of it being essentially random. This could again be a toggle in the config.

 

I've given this a little more thought and I actually am unsure about debuffs on the top right, at least not without being able to move our health bar as well in some form.

Let's take a look at where player focus tends to be drawn after being affected by a status effect.
Debuffs:

• Cursed (EXP reduction): irrelevant
• Weakness/Reverse/Slow (Movement interference): player focus on character
• Seduce (Pot denial): player focus on HP/MP
• Seal/Darkness (Ability denial): player focus on HP/MP or character
• Zombify (Heal reduction): player focus on HP/MP
• Stun (Action denial): irrelevant, no possible player response

For the vast majority of these, the player's attention will generally be focused either in the center (on their character) or bottom left (on their HP/MP bars) of their screen in response to a status effect in order to adjust their movement or prepare for a subsequent reaction (such as seeing if they need to use Hero's Will). By placing these debuffs on the top right, you're forcing players to split their attention between two parts of the screen for some of these, most notably Zombify and Seduce, whereas ideally the player would like to be able to monitor both debuff status and their current HP/MP simultaneously. If we're trying to actually design good UI here, I think top right is the incorrect place for debuffs, and as weird as it may sound it might be better to place them in the center or bottom of the screen somewhere, where it can actually be used effectively without dragging player focus away from other important elements.

Alternatively place all of these inside frames such as the Party "HP Mark" frame and let us just drag it around wherever we want.

 

hp bars can be dragged anywhere already

 

Do you mean the Party "HP Mark" element? I don't think this is actually effective in letting the player track their own HP, since in peripheral vision there is no way to distinguish the bars from each other. In order for the player to actually make use of this, their own HP bar needs to be distinguished somehow.

 

ya i used to use whichever order i was in the party to get used staring at the dr

 

I would much prefer having an actually dedicated self-HP/MP element we could move around. I think using Party HP Mark is pretty terrible in terms of UX.

 

I think that's a fair criticism, and the same reason why bucc energy bar near hp/mp is the obvious, objectively correct choice.

In practice, I think players would not change their focus and instead adjust to noticing debuffs on the top right in their peripheral vision to react accordingly, but I would also personally prefer debuff icons near hp/mp if it's possible to implement.

 

I agree players would adapt, I mean it's just strictly better than what we currently have since we don't even have debuffs on the UI at all except in the chat box. I think good UI design should accommodate for the different actual use cases though, and if a custom change like this is going to be implemented, I'd rather it be done right.

 

If we get debuff icons in the top right I want to be able to cancel them by right clicking.

 

Energy charge bar goes in that nice little spot between the level and chatbar, and you cannot change my mind. Also, there may be space right next to the HP bar for debuff tokens? Though I question if there'd be enough space to get the icons distinct enough, and don't believe it solves the issue of conveying duration of status remaining. The latter is the bigger issue, at least personally.

 

Yeah it might be a little cramped, but I do like the placement in terms of alignment with player focus.

 

That's why I agree with Karn's suggestion, of being able to move it like buccs bubble, whoever made Auf right when it was released, knows
how the player looked cross-eyed