[Bug] Is the bug that you can't see all your buffs fixed?

[Kabruncu]

With the airship buffs and raid buffs on live server i can't see all my buffs, thats really a pain to look if you have or not a buff. Is that beeing fixed on U7?

[Calebro]

With the airship buffs and raid buffs on live server i can't see all my buffs, thats really a pain to look if you have or not a buff. Is that beeing fixed on U7?

It's not a bug, it a real estate issue.

If your resolution is so low that you can't see all of your buffs you have 4 options:
1) Increase your resolution.
2) Buy a new monitor so you can increase your resolution.
3) Disable detailed descriptions under UI options and examine yourself with the pop-up box to see what you have.
4) Deal with it.

[mediocresurgeon]

It's not a bug, it a real estate issue.

If your resolution is so low that you can't see all of your buffs you have 4 options:
1) Increase your resolution.
2) Buy a new monitor so you can increase your resolution.
3) Disable detailed descriptions under UI options and examine yourself with the pop-up box to see what you have.
4) Deal with it.

I play on max resolution on a very large widescreen monitor. Even on live servers, when I have my Bards songs, resist energy, mass protection, deathward, haste, rage, yugoloth poition, barbarian rage, frenzy, deathless frenzy, and madstone rage (aka "Standard Buff Array for Epic") the buff bar is artificially cut off in the middle of my screen. No explaination. In fact, it cuts off mid-icon.

Gameplay effect: I have to check my character sheet instead of my buff bar to see if my rages/frenzies have expired, which is VERY annoying. (Because my frenzies and rages are refreshed more often than other buffs, they are the ones that are always missing.)

In other words, none of your options help players like me. The Devs should fix it quickly, and make the buff bar extend across the entire screen.

Edit:
I was browsing my screenshots to see if I could find an example where my buff bar was capped. (The screenshot was taken for other reasons, so I cropped it.)
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/8277/screenshot00031m.jpg

Another solution would be to allow us to dismiss beneficial buffs from ourselves by right-clicking on the icon. Right now, players cannot say "No!" to buffs they don't want or need.

[Calebro]

In other words, none of your options help players like me. The Devs should fix it quickly, and make the buff bar extend across the entire screen.

Yes, in the default res (800x ?) it fills the screen.
In the next step up (1020x maybe?) you get a few more and that happens right about the length of the menu bar from the side of the screen, but you get a few more out of it total.
In higher resolutions that blank space ending happens further and further over the larger the resolution.
But the larger resolutions means smaller icons, so you can see more of them in the same amount of space. That's what I meant by increasing the res.
Someone playing on a smaller res (let's say default) will only have about half that many buffs showing.

Your XP bar will do the same, if you look at that screenshot you'll see it.

These are functions of the UI, and the UI can't be resized by us. Maybe they'll eventually allow us to resize things in the UI, but at this point we can't. So it isn't a bug, it's a real estate issue.

#3 applies to you.
Unfortunately so does #4. That's why I put #4 on there. :(

[Irinis]

It would also be nice if there was a scroll bar on the view details of a character that has so many buffs. Most of the time I can't even see the top of their details sheet. The bio scrolls, why can't the buff descriptions scroll? Would be lovely.

[AyumiAmakusa]

It would also be nice if there was a scroll bar on the view details of a character that has so many buffs. Most of the time I can't even see the top of their details sheet. The bio scrolls, why can't the buff descriptions scroll? Would be lovely.

Ingenious! Scroll Bars! Of course!

[Nospheratus]

I would also suggest that buffs are ordered by the time left to expire! That would be super helpful!

[Modinator0]

It would also be nice if there was a scroll bar on the view details of a character that has so many buffs. Most of the time I can't even see the top of their details sheet. The bio scrolls, why can't the buff descriptions scroll? Would be lovely.

Scroll Bar? OH, you mean like the Portable Hole? ;)

[rest]

I'd love to see a second buff line added if they don't want it to extend all the way across the screen. Maybe all the 'permanent' buffs (stances, set bonuses etc) or those from guild ships on a second lower line and have the regular buffs in the current position.

[Eladiun]

It's definitely time to rethink the buff bar display.

[Spiderwight]

scroll Bar? Oh, You Mean Like The Portable Hole? ;)

+1 :-)

[Kabruncu]

Im using a 22" monitor @ 1680x1050 and have this issue...
I think my monitor is not the problem, or they will need to add a minimun req: 72" monitor(lol) to the game
Imo a shrink to fit could be one solution

[Carpone]

It's not a bug, it a real estate issue.
There's absolutely nothing a customer can do to rectify the problem. The issue is in Turbine's display code. It's a bug, not a feature.

[Calebro]

There's absolutely nothing a customer can do to rectify the problem. The issue is in Turbine's display code. It's a bug, not a feature.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a codemonkey, but it would seem to me that the only solution would be to recode the entire UI so that two parts of it scaled while the rest did not.
But scaling wouldn't necessarily solve the issue either, because if it scaled then the buffs would be huge on that bar (and only show as many as it would if you were in default resolution).
So it would have to scale the length of the bar, but not the height. And it would have to do this while keeping the vertical ratio of the icons to match the horizontal aspect of the icons, which means that new art would have to be created for every single buff in the game, and that art would only be usable for one specific resolution.
This would have to be done for every single resolution setting.

How much developer time time would that cost us for something aesthetic?
When you can visibly see 28 different buffs on screen at max resolution, I don't see it as worth all of the effort.

edit: 3 parts (buff bar, status/debuff bar, xp bar)
I think a much simpler solution would be to write code that allows the buff bar to wrap around into the status bar. This would effectively almost double the area available, while not creating nearly as much code needed.

[forum_account]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a codemonkey, but it would seem to me that the only solution would be...

No. Please refrain from offering technical advice when you do not understand the issue.

[dkyle]

There's no scaling needed whatsoever. They just need to display more icons. Given that it works at low resolution, already, where the existing buffs would actually extend of the screen, there's little reason to believe that extending the horizontal space to 2000 pixels instead of 1000 (or whatever) would be a major undertaking.

A more complicated solution, is to overflow buffs to the next line, where stat damage and neg-levels appear.

Or, perhaps a simpler alternative, make all debuffs (healing curse, etc.) appear in that second line. That way, if I don't notice the floating text appear when I get cursed, I'll be able to see it next time I look up at the top of the screen.

[Calebro]

No. Please refrain from offering technical advice when you do not understand the issue.

So you're saying that the issue is not the scaling of those three portions of the UI in relation to the resolution?
I do understand the issue. What I obviously don't understand, as I'm not a codemonkey, is the solution. So please, enlighten me.

[forum_account]

So you're saying that the issue is not the scaling of those three portions of the UI in relation to the resolution?
I do understand the issue. What I obviously don't understand, as I'm not a codemonkey, is the solution. So please, enlighten me.

The issue is that buffs are cut off at the middle of the screen. Desired behavior is for buffs to fill remainder of the screen to the left.

Why do you feel that you need to tell developers of the game how to code it, especially when you are not qualified? It's like coming to a car shop and giving suggestions on how to fix the car to the mechanic...

[Calebro]

The issue is that buffs are cut off at the middle of the screen. Desired behavior is for buffs to fill remainder of the screen to the left.

Why do you feel that you need to tell developers of the game how to code it, especially when you are not qualified? It's like coming to a car shop and giving suggestions on how to fix the car to the mechanic...

I didn't ask about the desired behavior.
I asked about how to resolve the issue. Your seemingly haughty statement made me assume that you have the answer and that I'm ignorant, so let's hear it.

[dkyle]

I didn't ask about the desired behavior.
I asked about how to resolve the issue. Your seemingly haughty statement made me assume that you have the answer and that I'm ignorant, so let's hear it.

There is clearly a "number of pixels" limit to how much horizontal space the buff icons can take up. Since it cuts off the last buff, it's not a "number of icons" limit. Simply increase that limit. No icon scaling, or anything else, required. And since the current limit already exceeds the lowest resolutions, it's not even necessary to make that pixel-limit scale (although, this would likely be quite easy to do).

[SisAmethyst]

@Calebro

In the Computer graphics you use window frames for certain data. You can think of that each object on your GUI has an own window with a translucent background. So for each element like your inventory, a quiver, a sack, your map, your toolbar an own little rectangular window is painted. each of this windows may overlap each other and may even overlap the Screen.

The point of this is that you can calculate the position inside of the window always the same regardless of the origin. Like if you click on the first field of your toolbar it is always in a certain X-Y range of that particular window frame, as it is relative to its origin. That is even the reason why some elements with round borders like a quiver or sack may prevent you from clicking on a lower element because the frame itself is still rectangular.

The problem here is that this window was once created with a maximum length of about 1000 pixels, so all elements that are painted in this buff bar after that margin will not be displayed but crapped. So usually not the whole UI need to be changed but just the maximum length of this virtual rectangle. However that may still mean increasing background buffers to store data or other coding and to check it's impact. But from the general coding understanding this is usually a trivial thing, depending on the current implementation.

[Calebro]

Thank you, as I've already told dkyle.
But I was more interested in hearing that answer from forum_account, as his 1 word answer of No was hardly helping. And when I asked him to explain, he only told me things that I had already explained myself, indicating that he had no more knowledge on the subject than I did and therefore was in no position to ridicule me for it.

At least I commented on the fact that I don't know code.
He implied that he did, and yet couldn't give the answer that the two of you presented.

[forum_account]

Thank you, as I've already told dkyle.
But I was more interested in hearing that answer from forum_account, as his 1 word answer of No was hardly helping. And when I asked him to explain, he only told me things that I had already explained myself, indicating that he had no more knowledge on the subject than I did and therefore was in no position to ridicule me for it.

At least I commented on the fact that I don't know code.
He implied that he did, and yet couldn't give the answer that the two of you presented.

If you're really interested in technical aspects of game programming, start by picking up a book on DirectX, that can be found on amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D15375251&field-keywords=directx&x=0&y=0

Or doing some reading from any of the online tutorials. http://www.google.com/search?q=direct3d+tutorial

[Calebro]

If you're really interested in technical aspects of game programming, start by picking up a book on DirectX, that can be found on amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D15375251&field-keywords=directx&x=0&y=0

Or doing some reading from any of the online tutorials. http://www.google.com/search?q=direct3d+tutorial

Or respond to a question in a civil manner, rather than saying "Wrong! You don't know what you're talking about!" like A_D would have.
Simply doing that adds nothing to the conversation and incites the previous poster.
It's the very definition of trolling.

I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong, as I was in this case, but in order for that to happen it has to be explained why. Without the explanation there can be no understanding.

[megathon]

One MMO I played solved this issue by having the buffs go into their own box so that you could actually re-size the box by pointing to one of the edges and dragging it in or out (like the chat box on DDO). Plus you could also move the box around to someplace that you would like to have it.

[Dark-Star]

This is an inexcusable bug or feature and needs to be in the top three of issues to be fixed.

As an interim measure, have the shortest duration buffs be on the right of the screen, so at least we can see what needs to be refreshed.

[kinar]

I'd love to see a second buff line added if they don't want it to extend all the way across the screen. Maybe all the 'permanent' buffs (stances, set bonuses etc) or those from guild ships on a second lower line and have the regular buffs in the current position.

There is already a second line for icons. Monk uncentered icon and enhancement points available display there. THey should be able to add those permenant buffs like stances and stuff there pretty easy.

[Phaye]

There is already a second line for icons. Monk uncentered icon and enhancement points available display there. THey should be able to add those permenant buffs like stances and stuff there pretty easy.

Exactly, if most of the "Set Bonus", very short terms buffs and such goes there, it will be at least a temporary solution.

Of course, the best will be to see the borders of the buff bar and to be able to resize it (probably a not so complicated solution).

I just hope a dev can give us his feeling on this one since they are also playing the game and must have suffered from this too.

[FrostBeard]

Yeh this one needs to be addressed.

longer buff bars would rock

[sirdanile]

Would it be possible to allow you to "Scroll" through the buff bar if you're on a lower resolution?