Update 9: Suitable UI, PLEASE!!!

[Al'Darion]

I really love this game, but the more and more I play it, the more and more I become aggravated at how inferior and sub-par the user interface is. The whole time I'm thinking to myself 'If I knew enough about coding and programming (which I don't), all it would take me to come up with a UI that would maybe not rival WoW's, but at least not look like 2nd rate work in comparison, would be a month, maybe two, of dedicated and undivided work!'
So, in the spirit of the season, I would like to put forth my Festivult wish list to DDO as follows:

Dear DDO development team:
All I want for Update 9 is a much MUCH better user interface. That's it. I don't want more adventure packs, world events, cosmetic items, or any other random bug fixes. I wish for weeks of work on the part of the development team dedicated exclusively to the task of presenting a beautiful, intuitive, customizable user interface for the next major update of Dungeons & Dragons: Online.
In my eyes, any content that shows up in update 9 or any other subsequent update before a revamped and remarkable user interface, will be seen as laziness and neglect towards the loyal player base.

Thank you.


Now, I don't know how best to get the development team's attention, but I really hope others out there ( I know you're there) share my wish and voice it enough for our plea to be heard.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Have you tried customized skins?

[Al'Darion]

Yeah, but that's not what I'm talking about. Skins essentially make the UI look slightly different, but function exactly the same. I've played way worse MMOs than DDO that had way better UI.

[Shishizaru]

Yeah, but that's not what I'm talking about. Skins essentially make the UI look slightly different, but function exactly the same. I've played way worse MMOs than DDO that had way better UI.

It might be easier to find people who agree with you if you explain which aspects of the current UI you find to be badly implemented or non-intuitive. It seems mostly fine to me, but if you were to bring up specifics, I might have an "oh yeah" moment. :)

[Impaqt]

It might be easier to find people who agree with you if you explain which aspects of the current UI you find to be badly implemented or non-intuitive. It seems mostly fine to me, but if you were to bring up specifics, I might have an "oh yeah" moment. :)

QFT

OP: Youhave said nothing as to how you would "Improve" the interface at all. I like it quite a bit, the Devs have made great strides over the years improving and making it more functional. other thanmaking all elements scaleable and being able to really lock all emelments in place where I want them to stay, I cant think of anything I'd actually change at this point.

Just because you may be used to WOW's interface doesnt mean DDO's is bad.

[Bogenbroom]

Yeah, I have to join in with the dissenters. Not there are not a couple of areas I wouldn't do differently, but in general I find the UI to be pretty good.

[Al'Darion]

Everything duely noted. I suggest that this forum become a kind of wish list for a better UI. Not necessarily a bash list. Like I said in my first sentence, I love this game. I assume everyone who reads and/or posts on the forums also loves this game. So, not to pick apart the hard work that the dev team has done (this is me apologizing) with the UI already, let's just suggest some improvements we would like to see. Here are some of my ideas:

Zoomable minimap

Ability to examine other players' gear without them having to link everything into chat.

Guild commands in window & button form, replacing the (currently non-functioning, please fix soon) /slash commands.

A /follow command. I would do this in a pnp game if a party member and I were simply going from here to there.

Toggleable cloak visibility. We've already got helm and armor kits with this option.

Checkable list in the chat window. For instance check 'party' and 'guild' while avoiding general and combat chat.

A better macro system than alias. Something that you can associate with actions and throw on the action bar. For example: A rogue leads a party into a seemingly harmless corridor. The rogue spots a trap and taps a key. To his party he does some emote, instantly begins searching for the trap, while saying to the party 'TRAP!"
Another useful example: A wizard has 3 melee ranged spells (chill touch, shocking grasp, etc), 2 CC spells, and 4 ranged AOE spells prepared and on his action bars. Instead of filling up 9 slots on his action bar, he fills up 3; one for the melee spells, another for the CC spells, and a third for the AOEs. By using a combination of 2 or 3 modifier keys that apply to the same action bar button, the wizard accesses all of his plethora of spells on one action bar. No need to clutter up the screen with 20 different action bars.

Anyways, these are a few ideas that I would love to see in this game that, imo don't detract from the D&Dness of the game (notice I didn't say little red dots on the minimap to indicate where all the mobs are?) and seem relatively simple to produce without weighing down the game with tons of lag.

[Trippy]

Might want to do some searching for pervious suggestions on the forums here. I know that being able to examine players suggestions generaly devolve into flame-fests and the /follow and macro systems have both been shot down by developers at one time or another.

Could you go into more detail on the minimap (where have you felt the need for a zoom?) and the chat windows, how is it different then what we have now?(Right-click, pick from list what to see)

[Al'Darion]

Didn't know about the right click list thing for the chat pane, but then after testing it, I discovered a great example of how the UI could just be cleaned up a bit in a lot of areas. When choosing which chats to receive, I had to right click and go through the menus each time to check or uncheck multiple things, when a sysmple matter of making it stay open while you're choosing from the lists until you're done (as indicated by closing the window, or moving the mouse out of the menu) would make it feel more thought out and completed.

As far as the minimap goes, I haven't felt a need. I was merely brainstorming of ways to make the UI feel... crisper... more cohesive... less... clunky. At the moment I really can't think of exactly how a zoomable minimap would help in that cause. I guess, one big thing that would really help me feel better about the UI would be the already and frequently suggested improvement of having things nailed down into place a little more in a pretty and happy frame around the border of the screen or something.

I guess that's really my big issue; Many aspects of the UI feel very unfinished, as though the development team created some great and useful features, made them at least somewhat functional (in most cases), and then moved on to something they could sell like an adventure pack or a new race/class(My.DDO.com vs Half-Elves). I hope they have a list of unfinished projects so they can just go back through and finish everything up.

I've been playing for over a year now and there are some things that have just never worked as advertized, like guild commands! Can you please just fix that to appease me?

But, really, there is no one else out there that has any reasonable desires and suggestions on how to make the UI a little less clunky and more appealing than it already is?

In actuality, beyond some of these issues, I can't really complain about DDO at all. Considering the huge task it is to run a game with as little funding as it has (compared to the other major MMOs- THANK YOU FOR F2P!), DDO is a wonder and a treasure.

[Thrudh]

I really love this game, but the more and more I play it, the more and more I become aggravated at how inferior and sub-par the user interface is. The whole time I'm thinking to myself 'If I knew enough about coding and programming (which I don't), all it would take me to come up with a UI that would maybe not rival WoW's, but at least not look like 2nd rate work in comparison, would be a month, maybe two, of dedicated and undivided work!'
So, in the spirit of the season, I would like to put forth my Festivult wish list to DDO as follows:

Dear DDO development team:
All I want for Update 9 is a much MUCH better user interface. That's it. I don't want more adventure packs, world events, cosmetic items, or any other random bug fixes. I wish for weeks of work on the part of the development team dedicated exclusively to the task of presenting a beautiful, intuitive, customizable user interface for the next major update of Dungeons & Dragons: Online.
In my eyes, any content that shows up in update 9 or any other subsequent update before a revamped and remarkable user interface, will be seen as laziness and neglect towards the loyal player base.

Thank you.


Now, I don't know how best to get the development team's attention, but I really hope others out there ( I know you're there) share my wish and voice it enough for our plea to be heard.

How about some real concrete suggestions other than "make it better"

Your post has zero value without some suggestions for change.

[Impaqt]

Everything duely noted. I suggest that this forum become a kind of wish list for a better UI. Not necessarily a bash list. Like I said in my first sentence, I love this game. I assume everyone who reads and/or posts on the forums also loves this game. So, not to pick apart the hard work that the dev team has done (this is me apologizing) with the UI already, let's just suggest some improvements we would like to see. Here are some of my ideas:

Zoomable minimap

not sure what the function of this would really be... THe mini map serves its purpose



Ability to examine other players' gear without them having to link everything into chat.

no thanks. myddo is bad enough



Guild commands in window & button form, replacing the (currently non-functioning, please fix soon) /slash commands.

I dont use the guild commands much.. which ones dont work?



A /follow command. I would do this in a pnp game if a party member and I were simply going from here to there.

no thanks. and not really UI related.



Toggleable cloak visibility. We've already got helm and armor kits with this option.

not really UI related.



Checkable list in the chat window. For instance check 'party' and 'guild' while avoiding general and combat chat.

Exists



A better macro system than alias. Something that you can associate with actions and throw on the action bar. For example: A rogue leads a party into a seemingly harmless corridor. The rogue spots a trap and taps a key. To his party he does some emote, instantly begins searching for the trap, while saying to the party 'TRAP!"
Another useful example: A wizard has 3 melee ranged spells (chill touch, shocking grasp, etc), 2 CC spells, and 4 ranged AOE spells prepared and on his action bars. Instead of filling up 9 slots on his action bar, he fills up 3; one for the melee spells, another for the CC spells, and a third for the AOEs. By using a combination of 2 or 3 modifier keys that apply to the same action bar button, the wizard accesses all of his plethora of spells on one action bar. No need to clutter up the screen with 20 different action bars.

You need to explore the shortcut options more and invest in a keybaoard that has macro capabilities. WHile I have a High res screen and dont mind the 15+ hotbars, I now plenty of people that play with 1-3 Hotbars up and even use game controllers rather than keyboard/mouse and do just fine in game.



Anyways, these are a few ideas that I would love to see in this game that, imo don't detract from the D&Dness of the game (notice I didn't say little red dots on the minimap to indicate where all the mobs are?) and seem relatively simple to produce without weighing down the game with tons of lag.

[Thrudh]

I would suggest getting a Logitech G15 keyboard...

You can set hotbars in the DDO UI to respond to key combos (like Shift-F7 for instance), and then bind that key combo to a macro key on the keyboard...

Having a mouse with multiple buttons is nice too...

[Templarion]

Zoomable minimap

Ability to examine other players' gear without them having to link everything into chat.
Yes, please. And I want also scale the size of my minimap without limits.

I would also like to see the buffs my target has in the mini window with small icons below or above the picture.

PS. I want a possibility to make map and minimap transparent with percent-slider. So I could keep the map on all the time transparent like in Diablo.
http://lazarus.elte.hu/hun/digkonyv/szakdolg/katona/image/pc_game/056_03_diablo_2_map.jpg

[Darsith]

Everything duely noted. I suggest that this forum become a kind of wish list for a better UI. Not necessarily a bash list. Like I said in my first sentence, I love this game. I assume everyone who reads and/or posts on the forums also loves this game. So, not to pick apart the hard work that the dev team has done (this is me apologizing) with the UI already, let's just suggest some improvements we would like to see. Here are some of my ideas:

Zoomable minimap Not sure what this would add, but sure why not if it was easy to implement AND required little dev time.

Ability to examine other players' gear without them having to link everything into chat. while this could be handy, I agree with Impaqt... My DDO is bad enough with the privacy invasion

Guild commands in window & button form, replacing the (currently non-functioning, please fix soon) /slash commands. This would be nice, more ranks, ability to set access to certain things in game.

A /follow command. I would do this in a pnp game if a party member and I were simply going from here to there. No, I like that DDO makes players actually play the game. I find the lack of a follow command helps kill botting ability. While your experienced botter may be able to continue botting, your average person wont care enough to do so.

Toggleable cloak visibility. We've already got helm and armor kits with this option. this would be another Dragon Touched issue. Most people at level 20 are wearing GS cloak, Napkin, Mabar Cloak (sure there are others, but these seem the most common)

Checkable list in the chat window. For instance check 'party' and 'guild' while avoiding general and combat chat. we already have that... right click the party tab, go to incoming, select what chats you want to see.

A better macro system than alias. Something that you can associate with actions and throw on the action bar. For example: A rogue leads a party into a seemingly harmless corridor. The rogue spots a trap and taps a key. To his party he does some emote, instantly begins searching for the trap, while saying to the party 'TRAP!"
Another useful example: A wizard has 3 melee ranged spells (chill touch, shocking grasp, etc), 2 CC spells, and 4 ranged AOE spells prepared and on his action bars. Instead of filling up 9 slots on his action bar, he fills up 3; one for the melee spells, another for the CC spells, and a third for the AOEs. By using a combination of 2 or 3 modifier keys that apply to the same action bar button, the wizard accesses all of his plethora of spells on one action bar. No need to clutter up the screen with 20 different action bars. No, see the /follow command for my gut reaction to this one.

Anyways, these are a few ideas that I would love to see in this game that, imo don't detract from the D&Dness of the game (notice I didn't say little red dots on the minimap to indicate where all the mobs are?) and seem relatively simple to produce without weighing down the game with tons of lag.

Comments in Red

[Trillea]

The only thing I would ask for in the UI interface is to have the ongoing buffs across the top of your screen be sorted so that the one that is going to expire first is at the farthest right, instead of just being the ones that are cast first being there.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Zoomable minimap

Before making it more zoomable, it would be nice if they made it work all the time, and in 3D considering we don't have flat dungeons



Ability to examine other players' gear without them having to link everything into chat.


No, mind your own business. MyDDO is annoying enough



Guild commands in window & button form, replacing the (currently non-functioning, please fix soon) /slash commands.

I've never found a guild command that didn't work and there are buttons for the key guild functions. Can you be more specific?


A /follow command. I would do this in a pnp game if a party member and I were simply going from here to there.

God no. This has been hashed about more times than I can count. New players come in from certain other games and want /follow and /assist so they can /pike. No. Bad idea for more reasons that I will get into, and I believe we have heard past dev no's on this as well.


Toggleable cloak visibility. We've already got helm and armor kits with this option.

As a very very very low priority item, maybe. The problem is they aren't showing cloaks at all now and no existing cloaks have skins. That would be one heck of a lot of work to all that to the system, and I bet half the people would turn it off so they weren't always looking at the same boring red cape after they paid for an armor skin.



Checkable list in the chat window. For instance check 'party' and 'guild' while avoiding general and combat chat.

That exists now.


A better macro system than alias.

As a low priority item, maybe. I'm not convinced of the value, and certainly it can be emulated at the keyboard level.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

The only thing I would ask for in the UI interface is to have the ongoing buffs across the top of your screen be sorted so that the one that is going to expire first is at the farthest right, instead of just being the ones that are cast first being there.

I kind of like the current "last applied" order but I'd be good for giving you the option for either.

More important however is dealing with the fact that a moderately buffed player (well, anyone with a ship for sure) has their buffs (and more seriously, debuffs) scroll off the screen now so they can't tell at all what they have. They really need to fix that.

[CaseStringer]

I think they could have added a second buff bar under the 1st for Ship buffs.
We all know what buffs we got from the ship. These are the ones that last longer & usually prevent us from seeing some of the party buffs we have.

----> Case.

[Aeolwind]

G15's & the like are way better than any macro system they can add in game, man.

/follow would be dope for those times you have to go AFK for nature, drinks, etc so you don't fall that far behind. Give it a duration of like 2 minutes or so.

If someone is serious about running 2 or more characters, they'll get a keyboard splitter.

[Uska]

Just a few comments NO to a /follow command, and examine gear that is something that other games have and annoys the hell out of me and sure add someting to the UI if its only a small part of the update as I dont have a problem with the UI as is.

[Rinnaldo]

I think they could have added a second buff bar under the 1st for Ship buffs.


Or else, as I remember others suggesting in a different thread, have one buff bar for positive effects, and second one beneath for negative ones. This could even be broken up further, in terms of how long they last (half hour - 1 hour spells on top, 10 mins to 29 mins, on the next one down, etc.), or even by types of effects: protection from x on the top row, attribute buffs on the next one down, damage/healing auras next down, skill boosts next, etc. If any bar was empty, the lower ones could slide up to take their spots. I'd also suggest making the icons a bit smaller if this were implemented. Just a thought.

[markhoge]

The biggest thing I would like would be for them to expand the weapon sets to make them equipment sets.

That way I can click one button to equip all of the equipment I want for melee, another for searching for secret doors and traps, one more too equip everything I need to cast fire-based spells, another to equip everything for cold-based spells, one more to equip everything I want for using a bow, one to equip everything I want for attacking slimes, and another to equip everything I want for selling stuff to vendors.

Of course, one character would not use ALL of these, but I think this functionality would be great!

[TessRavenscroft]

All I want for the UI is a way to hotkey spells with particular metamagic feats activated. I always want a heightened Web, for example, but casting it means stopping to turn heighten on, cast the spell, then turn it off so the damage spell that follows is not heightened and churning SP. :D

[Lorad]

1. Right click/left click + modifiers on a hot bar casting on different targets. Like right click always casting on self, left on target etc.

2. Logging. A nice just dump it to file logging. So we could do some real DPS comparisons.

3. I like being able to inspect people and their equipment just to get ideas of what to wear, I do not want it to evolve into a 'equipment score' ala WoW.

4. A single pack window that sorts.

5. Ability to add hp/mana numbers to group/raid display.

6. Hot key bar that changed based on modifier key (shift, contorl, alt)

[Zobi]

All I want for the UI is a way to hotkey spells with particular metamagic feats activated. I always want a heightened Web, for example, but casting it means stopping to turn heighten on, cast the spell, then turn it off so the damage spell that follows is not heightened and churning SP. :D
+1

Maybe a screen where you can assign metamagic feats to a spell. Then if that feat is on, it only affects spells it is assigned.

Heck, maybe even just right click on the spell in your spellbook and have a checklist of metamagic feats that you can apply.

May need to break this out into its own thread!

[zrandrews]

A few things come to mind:

1. The ability to setup your hotkey layout in a template. so every character is already setup that way, and to lock them in position without locking what is hotkeyed.

2. When selecting incoming chat types, having check boxes so you don't have to select them one at a time to add or remove them.

3. Gear Set Slots. Like weapons sets, but for gear.

4. The Macro prepared spells slots sound good too :D

And while not really a UI thing, the ability to create a macro would be great. Though I understandit would have to be very limited in it's functionality to prevent heal bots from being made. Just something to yell words would be fine for me, like the hot keyed "/say Trap!" button.

[Al'Darion]

As long as guilds have been around, the /guild commands have been bugged and don't work properly. These are commands beyond what you find in the guild tab of the social pane. type "/guild help" in game to see a list of commands that would be wonderful if they worked correctly, and even BETTER if they could be selected and modified through a menu based interface instead of text based only.

usage: /guild < create | disband | recruit | accept | decline | quit | expel | promote | demote | motd | successor | resign | rename | createrank | removerank | changeranklevel | changerankname | ranks >

Each update I check to see if these work at all. Each update I am sadly disappointed :( Mostly the ones I would use are | promote | demote | createrank | removerank | changeranklevel | changerankname | ranks |

Seriously, a visual output for this information would be sweet.

[oberon131313]

As long as guilds have been around, the /guild commands have been bugged and don't work properly. These are commands beyond what you find in the guild tab of the social pane. type "/guild help" in game to see a list of commands that would be wonderful if they worked correctly, and even BETTER if they could be selected and modified through a menu based interface instead of text based only.

usage: /guild < create | disband | recruit | accept | decline | quit | expel | promote | demote | motd | successor | resign | rename >

Each update I check to see if these work at all. Each update I am sadly disappointed :( Mostly the ones I would use are | promote | demote

Seriously, a visual output for this information would be sweet.
yeah, I mean, if only they had a guild window in the social panel to deal with these things?

[zrandrews]

As long as guilds have been around, the /guild commands have been bugged and don't work properly. These are commands beyond what you find in the guild tab of the social pane. type "/guild help" in game to see a list of commands that would be wonderful if they worked correctly, and even BETTER if they could be selected and modified through a menu based interface instead of text based only.

usage: /guild < create | disband | recruit | accept | decline | quit | expel | promote | demote | motd | successor | resign | rename | createrank | removerank | changeranklevel | changerankname | ranks >

Each update I check to see if these work at all. Each update I am sadly disappointed :( Mostly the ones I would use are | promote | demote | createrank | removerank | changeranklevel | changerankname | ranks |

Seriously, a visual output for this information would be sweet.

Reading those commands* makes me wonder if they are there from when the devs created guilds and then just never fully removed.

It would be super cool (awesome?) if createrank, changeranklevel, and changerankname worked :D

[Sirea]

Everything duely noted. I suggest that this forum become a kind of wish list for a better UI. Not necessarily a bash list. Like I said in my first sentence, I love this game. I assume everyone who reads and/or posts on the forums also loves this game. So, not to pick apart the hard work that the dev team has done (this is me apologizing) with the UI already, let's just suggest some improvements we would like to see. Here are some of my ideas:

Zoomable minimap

Ability to examine other players' gear without them having to link everything into chat.

Guild commands in window & button form, replacing the (currently non-functioning, please fix soon) /slash commands.

A /follow command. I would do this in a pnp game if a party member and I were simply going from here to there.

Toggleable cloak visibility. We've already got helm and armor kits with this option.

Checkable list in the chat window. For instance check 'party' and 'guild' while avoiding general and combat chat.

A better macro system than alias. Something that you can associate with actions and throw on the action bar. For example: A rogue leads a party into a seemingly harmless corridor. The rogue spots a trap and taps a key. To his party he does some emote, instantly begins searching for the trap, while saying to the party 'TRAP!"
Another useful example: A wizard has 3 melee ranged spells (chill touch, shocking grasp, etc), 2 CC spells, and 4 ranged AOE spells prepared and on his action bars. Instead of filling up 9 slots on his action bar, he fills up 3; one for the melee spells, another for the CC spells, and a third for the AOEs. By using a combination of 2 or 3 modifier keys that apply to the same action bar button, the wizard accesses all of his plethora of spells on one action bar. No need to clutter up the screen with 20 different action bars.

Anyways, these are a few ideas that I would love to see in this game that, imo don't detract from the D&Dness of the game (notice I didn't say little red dots on the minimap to indicate where all the mobs are?) and seem relatively simple to produce without weighing down the game with tons of lag.

Soo...basically just like WoW's interface? No thanks. Just because it's not like WoW doesn't mean it's ****.

[SardaofChaos]

I don't understand what's wrong with being able to see what other players are wearing. It's not like this is a pvp game, where you need an advantage over other players. And how could it be an invasion of privacy? Did you hack the game so that you're wielding some uber weapons with embarrassing names for some reason? Are you afraid that somebody might take issue to you wearing a +5 cha hat instead of a +6 cha hat? Personally, I'd love to be able to examine other players because sometimes I see a really cool looking set of armor or weapon but the player in question doesn't respond to tells, be it because they're afk or elitist or can't figure out how to reply or what have you.

[Trillea]

I don't understand what's wrong with being able to see what other players are wearing. It's not like this is a pvp game, where you need an advantage over other players. And how could it be an invasion of privacy? Did you hack the game so that you're wielding some uber weapons with embarrassing names for some reason? Are you afraid that somebody might take issue to you wearing a +5 cha hat instead of a +6 cha hat? Personally, I'd love to be able to examine other players because sometimes I see a really cool looking set of armor or weapon but the player in question doesn't respond to tells, be it because they're afk or elitist or can't figure out how to reply or what have you.

People already use MyDDO to screen people out of raids, and this would get worse with player equipment examination.

[SardaofChaos]

Then we put up lists (on a non- ddo.com hosted website, to prevent unnecessary bannings) with the names of everyone who is denying people just because they don't like their gear, along with the details of what happened for regulatory purposes. I don't want to play with anyone like that and am perfectly fine with the consequences, i.e. only running quests with fun people and never having to listen to some guy rage at me for accidentally doing something I couldn't have known not to do in the first place.

Also, anyone who uses MyDDO to see what people are wearing is a monumental idiot, as it can barely even keep up with the character level, let alone the gear. My monk finally updated, and finally shows all the right items, but none of them have any of the effects that they were not generated with and half of them don't have pictures or names, only descriptions.

[dunklezhan]

Someone ask for UI suggestions?

1. scalable, lockable UI
2. sort out the buff bar so you can see all your buffs
3. sort out the examine window so you can scroll through buffs
4. Have buffs you cast on a party member show up under their health/SP/Ki bar with a 'clock face' type display (like cooldowns) so you can see when they're about to run out for recasts
5. Have debuffs from monsters show up in a similar way to assist with healing/support
6. Zoomable mini map - I'd have found a zoom out option really useful particularly when I or someone else gets seperated from the group and I don't want to lose half my screen to a large map.
7. Split maps by physical level - so that you only see the part of the map thats on your current level, with stairs/slops up/down clearly showing so you can navigate. Have a toggle on the minimap border itself to turn this on and off at will.
8. The option - only the option mind you - for you, client side, to turn on speech bubbles. some people hate this, some people love it, I don't see why an option would be such a bad thing provided it defaults to 'off'
9. Make it so that when you have multiple hotbars on the screen, Ctrl+mouse scroll actually scrolls through those hotbars as well as the ones you don't have on screen.
10. sort the chat system out so that when you hit /somethingchannel it stays in /somethingchannel till you /someotherchannel. Again, have this as a toggleable facility in the UI options so that those who want to use the 'traditional' DDO chat system can do so.
11. have 'DDOclassic' skin available in the skins list by default.
12. Sort the chat system out so that when you are selecting incoming and outgoing channels you don't have to right click>incoming>individual channel each time, and you can just keep ticking things on and off the list till you signal you're done by clicking elsewhere in the UI. Current system is annoying when you've got a new toon.

I have more. But those are the off the top of my head ones. Seriously.

[dunklezhan]

Just because it's not like WoW doesn't mean it's ****.

With all due respect, the converse is also true - just because the interface isn't like WoW doesn't make it good. There's plenty about WoW to hate - but there's a fair bit they do have right. Often that is something that is lost sight of here.

But if you want an example of a really good UI for customising, look no further than Turbine's other product - LOTRO's UI is brilliant.

[Sirea]

Someone ask for UI suggestions?

1. scalable, lockable UI
2. sort out the buff bar so you can see all your buffs
3. sort out the examine window so you can scroll through buffs
...
7. Split maps by physical level - so that you only see the part of the map thats on your current level, with stairs/slops up/down clearly showing so you can navigate. Have a toggle on the minimap border itself to turn this on and off at will.
8. The option - only the option mind you - for you, client side, to turn on speech bubbles. some people hate this, some people love it, I don't see why an option would be such a bad thing provided it defaults to 'off'
9. Make it so that when you have multiple hotbars on the screen, Ctrl+mouse scroll actually scrolls through those hotbars as well as the ones you don't have on screen.
10. sort the chat system out so that when you hit /somethingchannel it stays in /somethingchannel till you /someotherchannel. Again, have this as a toggleable facility in the UI options so that those who want to use the 'traditional' DDO chat system can do so.
11. have 'DDOclassic' skin available in the skins list by default.
12. Sort the chat system out so that when you are selecting incoming and outgoing channels you don't have to right click>incoming>individual channel each time, and you can just keep ticking things on and off the list till you signal you're done by clicking elsewhere in the UI. Current system is annoying when you've got a new toon.


Those are good suggestions, 8 and 10 only if client side/toggle-able.

[The_Cataclysm]

All I want for Update 9 is a much MUCH better user interface. That's it. I don't want more adventure packs, world events, cosmetic items, or any other random bug fixes. I wish for weeks of work on the part of the development team dedicated exclusively to the task of presenting a beautiful, intuitive, customizable user interface for the next major update of Dungeons & Dragons: Online.
In my eyes, any content that shows up in update 9 or any other subsequent update before a revamped and remarkable user interface, will be seen as laziness and neglect towards the loyal player base.

Thank you.


So what are the content designers and various other guys who have no business/expertise working on the UI supposed to be doing during this time? Taking a vacation?

[ConnorMacLoad]

I am sure all of these have been mentioned before, but I wanted to add to the tsunami.

The ability to re-size every single piece of interface on my screen. Also the ability to add/remove any of them.

the buffs need work so bad. I like the idea of making them display the shortest on the right, but that is a partial fix. the need to be redesigned in order for them all to fit on the screen.

The item set hotkey is brilliant

I do not think I have ever seen this, But I would like to be able to add info flags to the map. I appreciate that the world should be explored, but not for the 600th time. I know I should know by now every little nook and cranny in every aspect of the maps...But then I would forget what that thing is called that scoops ice cream.....and you eat cereal with it......

I also want the background of the chat box to be mat black and not transparent. I hate that so much!

[dunklezhan]

I do not think I have ever seen this, But I would like to be able to add info flags to the map. I appreciate that the world should be explored, but not for the 600th time. I know I should know by now every little nook and cranny in every aspect of the maps...But then I would forget what that thing is called that scoops ice cream.....and you eat cereal with it......


I beleive there is actually some lore precedent for the disappearing maps which would also apply to the idea of player notes on the map (I agree with you as it happens - I'm just saying). Seen a post somewhere here from someone who knows their eberron lore which says that Xendrik cannot in fact be mapped due to the magical leftovers of the dragon/giant wars.

Of course, this could just be coincidence and the fact that the maps constantly blank out and reset could just be something they haven't fixed...

[Al'Darion]

What do you guys think about being able to switch between servers without having to close out DDO? Not a huge, or even small priority, I know. But all I'm thinking is simple things can be done simply and if the collection of simple things makes something nicer, why not go for it.

Everyone else's suggestions are better than mine so far, IMO :)

Thanks to those who are actually suggesting things and giving positive feedback instead of just knocking on others' posts. The reason why I started the thread fulfilled :)

[dunklezhan]

What do you guys think about being able to switch between servers without having to close out DDO? Not a huge, or even small priority, I know. But all I'm thinking is simple things can be done simply and if the collection of simple things makes something nicer, why not go for it.

Everyone else's suggestions are better than mine so far, IMO :)

Thanks to those who are actually suggesting things and giving positive feedback instead of just knocking on others' posts. The reason why I started the thread fulfilled :)

Remember that they're simple things from a user experience perspective. How simple they are from a development perspective we will probably never know. Fingers crossed they aren't huge deals... but if they really were easy they'd probably have done them as part of the UI polish pass on U7.

[Ikumah]

With all due respect, the converse is also true - just because the interface isn't like WoW doesn't make it good. There's plenty about WoW to hate - but there's a fair bit they do have right. Often that is something that is lost sight of here.

But if you want an example of a really good UI for customising, look no further than Turbine's other product - LOTRO's UI is brilliant.

In agreement, there is a lot about Wow to hate and IMO a lot of it is player base. Have you ever been on DDO at the times when Wow is down and they come over here... its not pretty >_>

On the origonal topic:

Have you ever been running through a dungeon with a group of people and you look behind you to notice one person has decided to exp sponge without contribution? Just standing there, afk and loving the exp they rake in for doing nothing.

On this topic I would love the ability to in dungeon boot. I have had repeated instances where the rogue does not know he should have been putting his skill points into disable device and he has a skill modifier of +5. (aweful rogue, even if he is assassination) Or my personal favorite. The cleric or favored soul who is more content to swing his weapon around and watch the party die after he joined on, agreeing to heal. (I will concede there are battle clerics and FvS out there, but when I specifically ask you to heal before I accept your request to join, and you say you will do it, I expect you to make an effort with even a 'cure light wounds' now and then :) )

I am in favor of seeing what others wear in the way of gear. If somone decides to flame you let me remind that there is this lovely function that helps you keep that from happening. Ignore list :D

Here is one that I would concede is a minor nit pick. A try before you buy (from the AH) function. How many times have you purchased a suit of armor only to have it come out looking like purple PJs? When given a choice to buy, dont you think it is fair to you to pick the shield that most fits your style? Or the Armor that has the most spikes, should you want it? Or my personal favorite, pick a armor color that is as far from, and I quote: "Looking like a unicorn puked on it." (courtesy of Zeroex Five)

So to Rehash what I personally wouldnt mind:

1) a Mid run boot, or afk timer to get rid of pesky pikers
2) A preview function on the AH

A side note, all the posts in here giving suggestions have been great, I look forewards to seeing what else people have had gripes over :P

[dunklezhan]

1) a Mid run boot, or afk timer to get rid of pesky pikers
2) A preview function on the AH



1 - License to greif I'm afraid. This one's been brought up many times before, the arguments against are much stronger than the arguments for.

2 - /signed. Along with the same facility for vendors, brokers, linked items and the DDO store. In that Other Game we speak of you can do this with a simple click and boy do I miss it.

[bogart99]

There are 3 UI changes I would like to see
1 a scaling slider 15 bars fills a lot of screen.
2 A transparency slider
3 Integrate the mini map focus window and player hp/sp bar into one tool, when the play has no target selected you see the mini map when they do you see the mob simple.

[stockwizard5]

There are many improvements that would help game play.

Let's start with hotbar spells with specific metemagics attached?

Then fix all the spells so that metamagics can apply if desired.

[Al'Darion]

In that Other Game we speak of...

Lol.

[Ullysses]

Would like to be able to re-size everything, such as hotbars, focus orb, etc. Instead of it being tied to screen resolution. Would be nice not to have to move everything when switching between laptop-desktop, which have different resolution capacities.

Would help a lot with hotbar clutter as well, as you could make them fit in smaller spaces.

[NortheOfThelanis]

I'd really like to see snappable components (hotbars especially), or at least able to move the components a pixel at a time with the arrow keys to get them just right (though snapping would be preferred). If anything, this is what pains me the most and makes the UI appear amateurish if at all.

Also, remembering how my UI was laid out after I TR. I know it isn't a frequent occurrence, but it's irritating to have to set it all up again each time.

I'd be okay with a follow command as long as it was limited to people in your party at the time, otherwise it'd get rather ridiculous and annoying.

A lot of good ideas on this thread! I especially like the equipment set one (where it functions like a weapon set). Something I never would have thought of but a rather nifty concept especially in the early levels.

[donfilibuster]

Can rant wide and large, on how ddo's hotbars and all gui looks like wow's or about the size of 10 in a hotbar is too constraining, or how it gets ugly on smaller screens, and then rant some more.

Ideas for ui are plentiful, from rotating hotbars (maybe like in the d&d arcade game of mystara), to collapsible hotbars, to placeholders like those already in game (such as with teleport or resist energy), free form icons (snappable of course), icons to change the hotbar (like u can with a hotkey), etc, etc, etc.

[quijenoth]

I've seen a fair few UIs in my time playing MMOs including watching how EQ 1 developed and expanded on since its release.

many of the OPs suggestions are not UI based but he holds a valid point - the existing UI is just not user friendly enough. if it was we wouldnt have the "some like, some hate" threads like this.

A UI needs to be self explanitary and pleasing to the eye. update 7 did some eye candy work with a few minor tweeks to show hidden features (such as the helm toggle) but the UI still needs alot more work.

some suggestions I have stem from my old games...

Chat Windows...

- ability to set font type and font size per window.
- ability to set message filters and "Hit Modes". (Hit modes is a feature of EQ 1 where you can specify if combat data displays full combat message, number only, number and target only, hit/miss only etc.
- use traditional window layout. The visible, removed border, invisible button is next to useless. I personally would prefer a minimize, maximise, closed window. this would allow you to stack all windows in a line. currently when you make a window invisible its still there and can block mouse clicks.

Mouse Pointer...

sizable, customisable. the standard mouse pointer on a large full res monitor can become lost too easliy.

Hotbars...
small and large versions please. I like to prioritise my hotbars and some i like to operate through mouse click instead of keyboard shortcut. larger buttons would help with the mouseclick. The larger buttons would also help with personallized keyboard shortcuts. I use a logitech G11 keyboard and have set the memory keys (G1 to 18) to unusual key combinations like Ctrl+alt+2 unfortunately on screen the button displays the Ctrl+alt+2 which obscures the icon in the hotbar almost completely. a simple clean solution would be to set personal display to match the key.
layout adjustment per hotbar. 1x10 is fine but I use the numeric keypad for my quick cast and a 3x3 hotbar onscreen would be ideal. im sure some people would like to have 2x5 or 4x2 as well.

Health/Spell Points/Ki...

Bigger, Bolder, More versatile! Theres lots of changes that can be done here, I would like to see a diablo style split on hp and sp into draining orbs. I would like to see numbers and percentages also. color changing bars would also be a great boon as the change often draws your eye (a mod on EQ1 i use to use had a flashing skull that would appear below 25% health) Hotkey binding within these for potions and spells would be a nice touch too. On size I have seen UIs that have your health run the length of the screen, some people like that so the option would be nice.

Party Window...
make it sizeable. this is the only improvement i can think of - clerics often like a larger party window to track health levels. fighters often prefer not to see it clutter there window. two extremes that people often cannot come to a compromise on - i think the party window is ideal size atm.

Dedicated Spell Hotbar...
Without a doubt this is the most useful addition for a caster. it would be nice to see casting timers and other info like DCs and SP costs at a quick glance.

Inventory...
More glamorous. the inventory is functional but very old. this is the 21st Century and im sure adding 3d paper dolls, 3d rendered equipment, and the like is not beyond the realms of possibility.

The Rest...
get them to work 100%. Many of the menus have niggling glitches such as the feat and spell pane not scrolling properly however they currently all serve the purpose they are required too so need little tinkering beyond the cosmetic.


General UI additions...
Save/Export. I have a general layout but when i create a new character i often have to spend 30 minutes rebuilding the UI as I like it. if i could save my UI layout and export it into a new character that would be wonderful. It would also help with saves on a different scale. I occationally play at work and my work PC uses a different resolution often forcing the hotbars to overlap. if i could load a preset UI layout this would save alot of irritation.

location store. many of the windows open in default locations such as the ingredients bags. It would be nice if they remembered where they where last so the next time you open them you dont have to move windows already open to see them.

relativity. finally many of the windows have fixed sizes such as the bank/character/inventory/store windows. however when all are open there just isnt enough room onscreen to see them all - a general overhaul would see the windows resized so they didnt impede on the screen so greatly. a better result would be if they docked into each other creating a unified UI window.

[stu1972]

The ability to re-size every single piece of interface on my screen. Also the ability to add/remove any of them.

This! I would love to have a very minimalist screen setup. I can get close to what I want with some of the skins out there but having complete and easy control would be even better.

And revamp the whole inventory structure. I know this isn't Wow but addons like ArkInventory make the problems of handling your inventory painless.

[Wren666]

Some much-needed & long-overdue UI improvements, please! (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=288862) :)

[Flavilandile]

Each update I check to see if these work at all. Each update I am sadly disappointed :( Mostly the ones I would use are | promote | demote | createrank | removerank | changeranklevel | changerankname | ranks |

Promote, Demote works fine. But to be able to use them you have to be Guild Leader.

Createrank, Removerank, ChangeRankLevel, ChangeRankName, Ranks... worked... for at least a few hours.
( I don't remember how long it took them to disable it, once it was noticed that changing the rank name in 1 guild was doing it serverwide )

That I really would like to see fixed and brought back.



Reading those commands* makes me wonder if they are there from when the devs created guilds and then just never fully removed.

It would be super cool (awesome?) if createrank, changeranklevel, and changerankname worked :D

They wanted to improve the guild system by adding ranks a few years ( 2-3 ? ) ago... and it went to hell... due to a huge bug that allowed any guild leader or officer to change the name of the ranks on a server wide basis... ( that is if instead of Officer I ( as an officer ) renamed the rank to : Vacuum Cleaner everybody on the server that had the rank of Officer would be with the rank Vacuum Cleaner...

They promptly disabled the commands and left them rot. (( note : this predate F2P, so might not be searchable in the forums ))

Now for the sugestions ( I have only two, the rest is just fine for me ) :
- the ability to reduce the minimap to something small like the examine orb. Seriously, the minimap is useless if a fair number of quests and raids ( lack of 3D, or just on map ) and after a while it's just something that takes up screen space without being used beyond the basic "where are the blue dots compared to my position".
- the ability to stack several items in a shortcut... it would help in some case, like going to "hagglebot" to adventuring bard in one click.

And last :
- No for /follow because the world is compact enough that this function is pointless. It takes less than 5 minutes to go from Restless Isle to Meridia or Amrath...
- No for macros, that's what makes this game relatively platfarmer free. ( among a few other things )

[Bahi]

There is much that can be done about the standard interface, right now it feels so cheap and "tacked on at last moment" that its really taking a big chunk out of the general quality of the game.

I mean, one of the main reasons i stopped playing my cleric is because the UI is not in any way complimentary to healing. Yes you can heal with it but it's not user friendly in the slightest.
For one if someone runs around the corner or out of range (but didnt on my screen yet) i have spent the SP, the CoolDown is consumed but the spell never went off..? This ofc due to lag/latency but i don't think it's fair you get punished by the game because of it's own flaws. Sp and Cooldowns should not be consumed if the spell never went off.
Wich brings us to actual interface improvements. A way to see if someone is out of range for example would be nice (IE: Fade out their box) and the possibilty to select a player's char model more easy to dispel a debuff. Right now i'm clearly clicking someone's char but its not targetting them. Wich makes me having to remember 12 ppl's location on a pretty small raid screen. (Maybe class colorcode/sort would be an option?) Still, (de)buffs are impossible to keep track off, on inspect you get a wall of text and the party/raid interface has nothing that shows de-buffs. Perhaps a colored outline to show someone has an Enchantment(Blue?), Disease (brown?) Poison(green?) or Curse(red?) would make this abit less frustrating.

Also my own buffs are falling off the screen, wich woulndt be to bad if it was on the other side but new buffs and temporary boosts are getting put outside my screen on the left side..? :)
Instead New/Short buffs should get shown on the right side with the longer ones getting pushed off. Or even better, 2 rows off buffs and the possibilty to hide/shrink the abomination that is the menu bar.

Either way i gave up on finding fun in healing, i'm now playing barbarian & rogue and being unable to see the remaining time off my clickies and buffs is pretty depressing to say the least.

The bag interface is abit cluny, the recent change was really welcome but what would make it less of a pain to find a specific stack would be an option to show it all on one big bagscreen so you dont have to plow trough 5 bags to find it. Managing stacks on the new bagscreen would also sort this out btw, but you cant atm.

But im sure everyone has stopped reading this post by now :P so ill leave it to this.

[Uska]

I don't understand what's wrong with being able to see what other players are wearing. It's not like this is a pvp game, where you need an advantage over other players. And how could it be an invasion of privacy? Did you hack the game so that you're wielding some uber weapons with embarrassing names for some reason? Are you afraid that somebody might take issue to you wearing a +5 cha hat instead of a +6 cha hat? Personally, I'd love to be able to examine other players because sometimes I see a really cool looking set of armor or weapon but the player in question doesn't respond to tells, be it because they're afk or elitist or can't figure out how to reply or what have you.

Well if it isnt bound gear they might bug you to sell or trade it or they will tell you how terrible your gear is I always hated this feature in games that had it almost to the point I wont play them well most of them bite anyways.

[Uska]

In agreement, there is a lot about Wow to hate and IMO a lot of it is player base. Have you ever been on DDO at the times when Wow is down and they come over here... its not pretty >_>

On the origonal topic:

Have you ever been running through a dungeon with a group of people and you look behind you to notice one person has decided to exp sponge without contribution? Just standing there, afk and loving the exp they rake in for doing nothing.

On this topic I would love the ability to in dungeon boot. I have had repeated instances where the rogue does not know he should have been putting his skill points into disable device and he has a skill modifier of +5. (aweful rogue, even if he is assassination) Or my personal favorite. The cleric or favored soul who is more content to swing his weapon around and watch the party die after he joined on, agreeing to heal. (I will concede there are battle clerics and FvS out there, but when I specifically ask you to heal before I accept your request to join, and you say you will do it, I expect you to make an effort with even a 'cure light wounds' now and then :) )

I am in favor of seeing what others wear in the way of gear. If somone decides to flame you let me remind that there is this lovely function that helps you keep that from happening. Ignore list :D

Here is one that I would concede is a minor nit pick. A try before you buy (from the AH) function. How many times have you purchased a suit of armor only to have it come out looking like purple PJs? When given a choice to buy, dont you think it is fair to you to pick the shield that most fits your style? Or the Armor that has the most spikes, should you want it? Or my personal favorite, pick a armor color that is as far from, and I quote: "Looking like a unicorn puked on it." (courtesy of Zeroex Five)

So to Rehash what I personally wouldnt mind:

1) a Mid run boot, or afk timer to get rid of pesky pikers2) A preview function on the AH

A side note, all the posts in here giving suggestions have been great, I look forewards to seeing what else people have had gripes over :P

Getting really tired of this request

[Ghoste]

A /follow command. I would do this in a pnp game if a party member and I were simply going from here to there.
Personally don't care whether or not they put in the other suggestions, but /follow would be awesome.

[bigolbear]

ok id agree with MOST of what you said, although i dont think ddo's UI is bad it could use a little improvement.

HOWEVER.

1. /folow is bad. Its bad for the game, its bad for the players.

2. The /alias command used to do a lot more than it does now, some features it has are now disabled such as coloured text, and the reason it was changed was because people were abusing it to cause grief. Id like a macro system so that i could press a single key and my rogue would yell trap in red letters in the party chat and switch my gogles and start to search. trouble is if i can make a macro that does that theres nothing stoping me making a macro that switches my potency item and metamagics on or off when i cast a spell, now that is over powered and would kill some of the fast paced action and it would remove some of the tactical decision making.

3. the mini map is fine for what it does, If anything little red dots for enemies would be kinda cool assuming those enemies are currently in line of sight of a party member or have been detected by magic some how - a posibility to add more spells here.

The problem i see with your suggestions is that it may weaken the game by allowing another case of the morons ruining it for the rest of us like what happend with the /alias command.

[Daggaz]

Personally don't care whether or not they put in the other suggestions, but /follow would be awesome.

Piking issues completely aside, it would be heavily "follow at your own risk" if implemented here, given characters' different abilities to traverse the 3d landscape. Run speeds, jump mods, listen checks by mobs, all of this is vastly different from character to character.

I can see it now, 11 noobs follow the leader in their first Tempest Spine run. Only 3 actually make it inside the dungeon.

[Ghoste]

Piking issues completely aside, it would be heavily "follow at your own risk" if implemented here, given characters' different abilities to traverse the 3d landscape. Run speeds, jump mods, listen checks by mobs, all of this is vastly different from character to character.

I can see it now, 11 noobs follow the leader in their first Tempest Spine run. Only 3 actually make it inside the dungeon.
Two toons on extra accounts follow me to quest entrance, park them in entrance. Would save me time on power levelling.

I suspect as blind as the AI for such a command would be, it would still work better than what a lot of the players manage.

[Hordo]

I've seen a fair few UIs in my time playing MMOs including watching how EQ 1 developed and expanded on since its release.

many of the OPs suggestions are not UI based but he holds a valid point - the existing UI is just not user friendly enough. if it was we wouldnt have the "some like, some hate" threads like this.

A UI needs to be self explanitary and pleasing to the eye. update 7 did some eye candy work with a few minor tweeks to show hidden features (such as the helm toggle) but the UI still needs alot more work.

some suggestions I have stem from my old games...

Chat Windows...

- ability to set font type and font size per window.
- ability to set message filters and "Hit Modes". (Hit modes is a feature of EQ 1 where you can specify if combat data displays full combat message, number only, number and target only, hit/miss only etc.
- use traditional window layout. The visible, removed border, invisible button is next to useless. I personally would prefer a minimize, maximise, closed window. this would allow you to stack all windows in a line. currently when you make a window invisible its still there and can block mouse clicks.

Mouse Pointer...

sizable, customisable. the standard mouse pointer on a large full res monitor can become lost too easliy.

Hotbars...
small and large versions please. I like to prioritise my hotbars and some i like to operate through mouse click instead of keyboard shortcut. larger buttons would help with the mouseclick. The larger buttons would also help with personallized keyboard shortcuts. I use a logitech G11 keyboard and have set the memory keys (G1 to 18) to unusual key combinations like Ctrl+alt+2 unfortunately on screen the button displays the Ctrl+alt+2 which obscures the icon in the hotbar almost completely. a simple clean solution would be to set personal display to match the key.
layout adjustment per hotbar. 1x10 is fine but I use the numeric keypad for my quick cast and a 3x3 hotbar onscreen would be ideal. im sure some people would like to have 2x5 or 4x2 as well.

Health/Spell Points/Ki...

Bigger, Bolder, More versatile! Theres lots of changes that can be done here, I would like to see a diablo style split on hp and sp into draining orbs. I would like to see numbers and percentages also. color changing bars would also be a great boon as the change often draws your eye (a mod on EQ1 i use to use had a flashing skull that would appear below 25% health) Hotkey binding within these for potions and spells would be a nice touch too. On size I have seen UIs that have your health run the length of the screen, some people like that so the option would be nice.

Party Window...
make it sizeable. this is the only improvement i can think of - clerics often like a larger party window to track health levels. fighters often prefer not to see it clutter there window. two extremes that people often cannot come to a compromise on - i think the party window is ideal size atm.

Dedicated Spell Hotbar...
Without a doubt this is the most useful addition for a caster. it would be nice to see casting timers and other info like DCs and SP costs at a quick glance.

Inventory...
More glamorous. the inventory is functional but very old. this is the 21st Century and im sure adding 3d paper dolls, 3d rendered equipment, and the like is not beyond the realms of possibility.

The Rest...
get them to work 100%. Many of the menus have niggling glitches such as the feat and spell pane not scrolling properly however they currently all serve the purpose they are required too so need little tinkering beyond the cosmetic.


General UI additions...
Save/Export. I have a general layout but when i create a new character i often have to spend 30 minutes rebuilding the UI as I like it. if i could save my UI layout and export it into a new character that would be wonderful. It would also help with saves on a different scale. I occationally play at work and my work PC uses a different resolution often forcing the hotbars to overlap. if i could load a preset UI layout this would save alot of irritation.

location store. many of the windows open in default locations such as the ingredients bags. It would be nice if they remembered where they where last so the next time you open them you dont have to move windows already open to see them.

relativity. finally many of the windows have fixed sizes such as the bank/character/inventory/store windows. however when all are open there just isnt enough room onscreen to see them all - a general overhaul would see the windows resized so they didnt impede on the screen so greatly. a better result would be if they docked into each other creating a unified UI window.

I like the specificity of this list. Some things I don't worry about, but much of it would be a hoot to have. +1

[Jacket]

I can't believe not one person mentioned changing the party view to some how note that wizards were in a pale master form.

/follow.. bad

Macros are bad because as soon as you add functionality then someone will add an auto healer or something else that breaks the dynamic.

I'd like to see them change the examine option to be useful for examining a character with a lot of buffs and work out the buff display on screen some how as well.

[Yukitiger2]

I haven't read the whole thread so forgive me if it this was mentioned.

What I'd really love to see added is chat time stamps. I could not live without time stamps in EQ2. You go AFK for a bit, someone sends you a tell, you come back and you have to guess how long ago it was sent. Time stamp it, and you can see at a very quick glance.

The ability to disable what chat something comes from, like I don't want to see (general):, (guild):, (party):. I have that colour coded, I already know where it's comimg from and it's just clutter.

The ability to colour code different parts of combat in chat, if I miss on a swing, I want to see that as dark red, if I hit, I want it to be regular red, if I critical, I want it to be violet. I want to see heals as green etc. etc. It's easier to track and find that one line I'm interested in, like what I need to roll to hit.

The ability to have different aspects of combat related chat like heals, hits, save rolls etc. in seperate tabs.

Macros: I'd seriously like to see chat macros. Like TRAP! at a push of one button instead of going into chat mode, typing TRAP! hitting enter and by the time I'm done typing, someone has already triggered it and perhaps died. Or Palemaster on! for the wizards that are too lazy and self absorbed to announce it to the party's healer.

Resizable hotbars, 5x2 hotbars, 3x3 hotbars.

Seperate buff window for buffs I myself cast to track timers easier. Or just have a yellow hue around the ones you have cast. And make the buff bar MOVABLE.

The ability to switch to changable health bars for group and self. Health bar's colour changes according to how much hp you have. Green for >74%, yellow for >49%, orange for >24%, red for 24%-1%.

Just a number on each party member in the party window that coresponds to the F key. Six members is no problem, but raids are a different matter and sometimes I'm left guessing in the heat of battle. I usually guess right, but not always.

And a nicer target window... Don't have anything specific for this, but I just don't like the current one very much. It's just too big for how little info there is on it even in no avatar displaying mode.

Oh, and a complete map of the zones upon completing explorer. All the time.

EDIT:

Guild window. The ability to type short notes under/next to your name for messages to members, like MIA until such and such date. Officer notes that only officers/leaders can see. Also, customisable rank names and at least one more rank for new recruits if the guild wishes to evaluate members before promotion.

In-game guild recruitment bulletin board where guilds can advertise themselves. One in Harbour, one in Marketplace. Leave the LFM guild recruitment off the LFM window.

[quijenoth]

just a small addition i thought of thats similar to macros but not so powerful.

The ability to define simple text announcements to the party that can be bound to hotkeys. common uses would be /p "Trap!" for rogues to stop people walking into danger or /p gather for when casters want to redo buffs.

I agree full macros can break the game more than adding simple functionality but a simple short text hotkey would go along way to improving my gaming experience.

[Hordo]

just a small addition i thought of thats similar to macros but not so powerful.

The ability to define simple text announcements to the party that can be bound to hotkeys. common uses would be /p "Trap!" for rogues to stop people walking into danger or /p gather for when casters want to redo buffs.

I agree full macros can break the game more than adding simple functionality but a simple short text hotkey would go along way to improving my gaming experience.

Why don't you try the /alias command programming so that you can make all sorts of complex statements into one quick command entry if you want?

[skyjuice]

The ddo interface is cumbersome at best, this was my first impression when first introduced to it.

Have played many RPGs (Diablo series, Baldur's Gate Series, IWD series and NWN series) and all of them have great UI.

I think what is missing is that all these icons are missing sounds. I am so spoilt by what was -supposely- the standard that when i heard a 'click' sound on the ddo interface that i realize how much those little things mean to immersion.

Turbine attempting to update the UI a few updates ago is a thumbs up in the right direction tho.

Come to think of it, the UI is a little similiar to neverwinternights 1, except reduce to microscopic level.

[VonAlmerth]

It would be nice to be able to individually set the transparency of your hotbars, so that less used bars could be made near-transparent and maybe even lose transparency when you hovered over them. But I'd hardly ask for that over druids, savants and titans, oh my.

[Monkeytoe]

I'd like for the examine window to be scrollable so that when I'm looking for that joke someone wrote in their bio, I can actually find it instead of just seeing a hundred lines of ship buffs. Or so that I can read the entire description of that mad l33t green-steel khopesh.

1) scrollable examine window.

I noticed that when I'm running a character that uses UMD, there's a message describing whatever restricted items have just been equipped. I like that and wish it was a general feature of equipping items rather than a feature of using UMD.

2) short description message upon equipping an item.

I'd like an indication of where on my screen a speaking character is located. The stat-bars turn green to indicate that a player is speaking. It is a well known fact however, that only clerics know how to find stat bars, much less associate the name on the bar with the name over one particular character's head out of the six or twelve in motion. Its also well known that even some clerics find the process challenging. I'm not gonna say any names here. When someone says "Haste on me!" I'd like to know exactly and immediately where on my screen that character is. When someone says "Monkeytoe, you zerging fool! I can't target you!" I'd like to be able to pick that person's character out of the tangle of names, guild names and TR wings zipping around the mess of firewalls, acid fogs and dancing balls and get right back to where said person might be able to save my foolish, zerging tail from imminent destruction.

3) names over the character's heads turn green when the player speaks just like the names on the stat bars do.

[picaisfun]

So you can play this game with a gamepad, keyboard and mouse if you like. Sometimes in quests I find that I can no longer access my inventory, hotbar or loot chests (by clicking on items in chest) after or just before named bosses in certain quests with the mouse. Logging off and on fixes this. Improve this.

[pwentt]

I know how taboo it is to bring up wow here but if its one thing Blizzard does correctly is polish and that is severely lacking in DDO on the UI front. Also, it's very close minded to think the DDO developers haven't looked at how the macro feactures and LUI scripting works in WoW, not looking at features of a game as popular as WoW is would be just terrible development.

For one thing WoW has a working macro function without allowing things like healbots. The coding for all of this is open source to mod developers its not like the devs don't have access or couldn't figure it out for another this is what programmers are hired for.

As for the /follow command. Pikers exist already and will continue to exist the addition of a follow command wouldn't change that dynamic in any real way. The functionality already exists in the form of hirelings.

There are tons of other things that could be mentioned and many of the other posters have, but the thing a lot of the nay sayers need to keep in mind is Turbine is in the business to make money and having a user interface that is easy to navigate is a corner stone of good software development and only serves to retain customers.

[marshm1972]

I agree that the entire UI could use a refresh To be frank, the are much worse games with better interfaces. The thing is DDO is hardly a new MMO, so I wonder how easy upgrading the UI could be. It might not be easy easy as it seems.

One thing I really dislike is the chat. Its confusing, overly complex and not at all user friendly. I have gotten used to it but I still dont like it and wouldn't whine about a redesign.

[Shenlung-Mahathi]

Didn't know about the right click list thing for the chat pane, but then after testing it, I discovered a great example of how the UI could just be cleaned up a bit in a lot of areas. When choosing which chats to receive, I had to right click and go through the menus each time to check or uncheck multiple things, when a sysmple matter of making it stay open while you're choosing from the lists until you're done (as indicated by closing the window, or moving the mouse out of the menu) would make it feel more thought out and completed.

/signed

A better macro system than alias. Something that you can associate with actions and throw on the action bar. For example: A rogue leads a party into a seemingly harmless corridor. The rogue spots a trap and taps a key. To his party he does some emote, instantly begins searching for the trap, while saying to the party 'TRAP!"
Another useful example: A wizard has 3 melee ranged spells (chill touch, shocking grasp, etc), 2 CC spells, and 4 ranged AOE spells prepared and on his action bars. Instead of filling up 9 slots on his action bar, he fills up 3; one for the melee spells, another for the CC spells, and a third for the AOEs. By using a combination of 2 or 3 modifier keys that apply to the same action bar button, the wizard accesses all of his plethora of spells on one action bar. No need to clutter up the screen with 20 different action bars.
/definitely signed, typing locks out all command abilities while you are trying to alert your party to the impending doom they are blindly walking into.

EDIT: Reading what Hordo said....Alias command is a good start, being able to tie the "/p Trap!" to a /search function is just one more small step. limit the number of functions, so you can only do 3 or 4 on any given hotkey, and it makes it really difficult to "break" the game. One-click buffs, anyone?

You need to explore the shortcut options more and invest in a keybaoard that has macro capabilities. While I have a High res screen and dont mind the 15+ hotbars, I now plenty of people that play with 1-3 Hotbars up and even use game controllers rather than keyboard/mouse and do just fine in game.
That's all nice for your friends, but that is not what he wants. I personally agree with him, having expandable hotbars(such as the wizard macro idea[click the hotbarslot you want and it expands out to show the things you have "stacked" there...at least, that's how I picture it...think Diablo II potion belt]) would be an awesome thing to have, and save people like myself from having to dig through a slew of hotbars to find what I need. Granted, I usually keep myself to 4 hotbars, and even those are not heavily utilized, that is primarily because I do not use a good portion of my skills because navigating to them through the hotbars is a mind-numbing task with the current setup.

As long as guilds have been around, the /guild commands have been bugged and don't work properly. These are commands beyond what you find in the guild tab of the social pane. type "/guild help" in game to see a list of commands that would be wonderful if they worked correctly, and even BETTER if they could be selected and modified through a menu based interface instead of text based only.

usage: /guild < create | disband | recruit | accept | decline | quit | expel | promote | demote | motd | successor | resign | rename | createrank | removerank | changeranklevel | changerankname | ranks >

Each update I check to see if these work at all. Each update I am sadly disappointed :( Mostly the ones I would use are | promote | demote | createrank | removerank | changeranklevel | changerankname | ranks |

Seriously, a visual output for this information would be sweet.
/Seriously signed x1,000,000
I'm not an officer in my guild, but the ability to make ranks and give them permissions accordingly would allow people to setup an army, or make a wizards guild, and then keep with the RP aspects, or even just allow you to give someone "trial" access to a guild, without giving them the ability to rob the guild coffers blind...yet still help the low-levels in the guild who have proven themselves.

2. sort out the buff bar so you can see all your buffs
3. sort out the examine window so you can scroll through buffs
4. Have buffs you cast on a party member show up under their health/SP/Ki bar with a 'clock face' type display (like cooldowns) so you can see when they're about to run out for recasts
5. Have debuffs from monsters show up in a similar way to assist with healing/support
8. The option - only the option mind you - for you, client side, to turn on speech bubbles. some people hate this, some people love it, I don't see why an option would be such a bad thing provided it defaults to 'off'
12. Sort the chat system out so that when you are selecting incoming and outgoing channels you don't have to right click>incoming>individual channel each time, and you can just keep ticking things on and off the list till you signal you're done by clicking elsewhere in the UI. Current system is annoying when you've got a new toon.

/signed again

I know, this is just signs on others idea, but they laid out all the ideas I had and then some...why should I put them out in my own words and call them my own?

[Jacoby]

I really love this game, but the more and more I play it, the more and more I become aggravated at how inferior and sub-par the user interface is. The whole time I'm thinking to myself 'If I knew enough about coding and programming (which I don't), all it would take me to come up with a UI that would maybe not rival WoW's, but at least not look like 2nd rate work in comparison, would be a month, maybe two, of dedicated and undivided work!'
So, in the spirit of the season, I would like to put forth my Festivult wish list to DDO as follows:

Dear DDO development team:
All I want for Update 9 is a much MUCH better user interface. That's it. I don't want more adventure packs, world events, cosmetic items, or any other random bug fixes. I wish for weeks of work on the part of the development team dedicated exclusively to the task of presenting a beautiful, intuitive, customizable user interface for the next major update of Dungeons & Dragons: Online.
In my eyes, any content that shows up in update 9 or any other subsequent update before a revamped and remarkable user interface, will be seen as laziness and neglect towards the loyal player base.

Thank you.


Now, I don't know how best to get the development team's attention, but I really hope others out there ( I know you're there) share my wish and voice it enough for our plea to be heard.


Uhmmm...

Dear DDO all I want is more content! The UI is just fine being as far removed from WoW as possible!

lol

Thanks You!

[Aliss7]

I'm gonna limit myself to one UI faux pas here:

1. When I bring up a window (be it the map/inventory/social/etc...), it should be in the _foreground_... in front of _all_ UI elements.

[Jenkins77]

I know how taboo it is to bring up wow here but if its one thing Blizzard does correctly is polish [...]

I'm here because I'm sick of WoW (and I simply love DDO's combat!), but I have to admit that the one thing Blizzard does right is that they constantly refine their UI. I'd love to see the same dedication from Turbine.

I don't care about macros, I think that (although it would make my casters more powerful) incorporating metamagic feats into single spells would defeat the mechanic, and /follow isn't really a concern. What I really want is a modern, customizable (NOT the same as skinnable) interface.

Some of you old-timers and only-play-DDO folks are probably wondering what I mean. Here are a few examples...

- The auction house UI needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt from scratch
- The LFG interface looks like a programmer's mock-up before it's been passed to a designer (everything's there, looks like poo)
- The party and raid bars need a ton of functionality... status effects, out of range fading

I'll have to agree with the earlier poster who asked for a whole update dedicated to UI improvements. The UI is horribly dated for such a great game.

[payne500]

target of target displayed would be nice as well as the current status effects with buffs/debuffs
or just add scrolling bar in the examine window
also add scrolling bars to some greensteel items that u cant fully read without the option unchecked.


and yes we should be able to inspect equiped items, maybe build a complete new "examine" window to make it real.

[Truga]

I suspect as blind as the AI for such a command would be, it would still work better than what a lot of the players manage.You, sir, win the thread.

Also, macros would indeed win. Hit 1 key: extend off -> GH, resist, blur entire party -> extend on.