Update 9: Suitable UI, PLEASE!!!

[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

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!

[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

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

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.