Applying Graphic Design to the Info Bar

[guest]

Odd.

I thought it would be obvious that the one in the center was the best. Apparently it is not obvious. For me, however, that is the clearest one so far. Partly, because of the indentation being correct (as Eleazar mentions), partly, because the "5-2 faerie touch" format just keeps all the different attacks in the same vertical column.*

*) With regard to this: How about allocating a space of 4 chars plus a space to the attack stats ("right justified" against the trailing space), and then justify the attack names after that? It would probably be the easiest to read.

i.e.

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16-2 Hammer
 5-2 Faerie touch
3-10 Tentacles
 1-1 Dummy attack

Edit: re: traits
The current order is based on the fact, that traits are individual. Thus, one can say that "traits belong to the name", before the unit's type. After type comes level (because that is based on the type).

I think this is the perfect solution.

[Eleazar]

*) With regard to this: How about allocating a space of 4 chars plus a space to the attack stats ("right justified" against the trailing space), and then justify the attack names after that? It would probably be the easiest to read.

That only looks good because you've left out the intervening text: (And a Super-Kraken's attack would mess it up. )

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16-2 Hammer
  Melee--Impact
 5-2 Faerie touch
  Melee--Impact
  Magical
3-10 Tentacles
  Melee-Blade
12-10 Super Kraken Tentacle Slap
  Ranged--Impact
  Marksman

Considering other languages, I don't think we can "afford" the space to start the attack description 5 spaces in. I understand some languages have a lot of overflow.

[khamul]

We just need something to logically seperate the damage and the name.
How about the humble colon ":"?

7-3: Hammer
melee - impact
8-2: Hatchet
ranged - blade

[torangan]

Considering other languages, I don't think we can "afford" the space to start the attack description 5 spaces in. I understand some languages have a lot of overflow.

Don't forget that with Hebrew we even have an RTL language already which needs a rather different layout. Keeping it simple will make it easier to adapt it for those languages.

[guest]

Re: Info panel

*) With regard to this: How about allocating a space of 4 chars plus a space to the attack stats ("right justified" against the trailing space), and then justify the attack names after that? It would probably be the easiest to read.

That only looks good because you've left out the intervening text: (And a Super-Kraken's attack would mess it up. )

Yeah, you're right. In that case, keep it as it is (the middle version). No additional colons, please.


Re: Attack dialogue

....On the altered dialogue, even with the greying out of some text, you have to scan through to the middle of the text to find what you are looking for, which is, IMO, bad.

No, the vast majority of people will not scan through the middle of the text after using this dialog 3 or 4 times. I'ts obviously a different chunk of information, and can automatically be skipped over if the player wants to look at the various attacks.

You may be right - I'm not the pro graphics designer here.

You may be wrong, too. Now I can think of another reason why I prefer the HP info on the bottom of the "upper part". -> In-game, I (and probably many others) will repeatedly glance from the opponent's attack to my HP, and vice versa.

To give you an example (off-hat) of the significance here: I'm attacking a troll with an elvish fighter, melee. Troll has 8 HP, Elvish fighter does 4-4. Elvish fighter has 32 HP, Troll does 16-2. So - I have to consciously compare the HP value and the damage value. It is then good that they are located close to each other. I do these kinds of comparisons (between HP and damage) all the time while playing.

So, I strongly urge you to consider this once more. Please do not over-engineer this - it could lead in trying to fix what is not broken.


A couple more points to consider:
- I still would prefer the unit name to stay where it was. (To avoid concentrating too much information in the central column. The name's not needed there, and it goes conceptually better with the image and the "profile".)

- The traits "strong" and "dextrous" can significantly affect the battle, and you may want to consciously decide whether you use a unit with or without these traits. So, it would be kind of nice to have that info stick out.
- Also, the "neutral" / "chaotic" / "lawful" affects the stats, and it's sometimes worth considering more consciously, especially at dusk/dawn.
(Currently, all of these are equally white, which I haven't found to be a huge problem. Having them greyed out could work OK too, that's not the big issue here, whereas the order might be.)

Just my couple cents.

[JW]

I don't like the hearts and I think the damage should come before the attack name. The rest I won't comment on.

[Naeddyr]

I think that the attack-type (ranged, melee) is more important than its element, and should be paired up with the damage-attack numbers -

Splannon
18-2 ranged
Impact

[Woodwizzle]

I think that the attack-type (ranged, melee) is more important than its element, and should be paired up with the damage-attack numbers -

Splannon
18-2 ranged
Impact

I kinda like this idea.

[JW]

Is there room to possibly have more than 1 ability listed with an attack?

An example would be a magical attack that also slows. Although there is no such attack that I know of, would it be possible to display using the current methods?

The reason I ask is that I plan to introduce a new faction soon that includes a unit that I plan on having more than 1 ability linked to an attack. I would like to keep it this way and am hesitant to change it as the idea for the unit is pretty closely tied to having these 2 abilities (3 later) at the same time.

Let me know if it is possible or not and I may have to change the unit according to your answer. =(

-edit-

I think that the attack-type (ranged, melee) is more important than its element, and should be paired up with the damage-attack numbers -

Splannon
18-2 ranged
Impact

What if there is also an ability?

Splannon
18-2 ranged
Impact
Magical

That's 4 lines...does this work?

[Tomsik]

Attack can NOT have two(or more) specials! (at least yet)

[Eleazar]

What if there is also an ability?

Splannon
18-2 ranged
Impact
Magical

That's 4 lines...does this work?

Not on an 800x600 screen. All the Shyde's attack info wouldn't fit.

[Woodwizzle]

How about:

Splannon
18-2 ranged
Magical Impact

That keeps up at 3 lines and I don't think there are any attacks that would cause the 3rd line to overflow. Could be wrong though.

[Darth Fool]

• Ok, the only difference between the left one and the middle one is weather the attack name comes first or second, right? I'm having a hard time prefering one over another. On the left one the first line of each attack is slightly indented. I don't know if that's a glitch or not, but i think it dilutes the indentation of the following lines, i.e. it's not good.

The one on the left was not supposed to have the extra space.

• Having the status icons on the same line as the unit's name is not ideal. DFool, what if we made the unit-picture-box 72+12 pixels high? It could then fit both unit image + status icons at once, without the dreaded overlaping, right?

I agree that this is less than ideal. The status icons are 16x16 not 12x12. Also, making the image bigger will cause it to be scaled to fit, which I don't think will look good. I am open to suggestions.

• Is there a reasonably simple way to alter the space between lines of text?

yes and no. Yes, between lines of text that are seperate status items (most things). No, between lines of text in the attack descrpitions, as they are all part of one status item.

• I don't understand the order and indentation that the unit's name, description, and attributes have been placed in. Well, i guess i can think of a reason, but IMHO, it would be clearer in this order:
Name
Unit Type
level (indented)
traits, alignement, and abilites (indented, each on it's own line)

The guest essentially got this right,
the traits are associated with the individual unit. everything below the unit's type and above the attacks is associated with the unit-type. I am not particularly tied to the current layout, but I found that having everything beneath the unit-type led to having a really ugly large indented area.

[Kestenvarn]

Is it out of the question not to give your units attack names such as "Super Kraken Ultra Megazord Slap" in the first place?

Who thought the original one up, anyways?

[Naeddyr]

Maybe some of the oft-repeated text from the current layout could be replaced with icons - an asteriksy looking blue star for Magical, a stylised arrow for Ranged, a hand for melee etc. Icons for Impact, Slicendice, Cold, whatever you have.

EDIT:

Together with other visual cues - different font colours, and suchlike. The usual text layout could be used in some easy-to-access action - like a hovering popup over the picture of the unit.

Or you could do icons and text at the same time, to help with quick-scanning the text.

Side-note, can you do boxes around text in the side-panel? For attacks and suchlike.