So just a fun fact here. Apparently for the past week I've been having some minor anxiety. At first I was like "Why the hell", but when I actually thought about it, I'm on a strict deadline to finish a novel. Halfway through the month and only a quarter through the book as far as word count goes. Yeah, it's a little stressful, but it's also strange that my body's like "OHHH MYYY GOD" *random loss of breath and raised pulse*. It's not school, after all.
Anyway, whenever I don't feel like working on my novel, I work on Terminys. Such has been the case as of this weekend. And things are getting pretty interesting now. Here's a list of what I've got.- The game now allows party leader choice, made from the pause menu. The party leader is the playable character, and offers a unique buff to the rest of the party. So remember when I had that demo where you played as punk-ass River? You still can, and some others as well.Some party buffs (without spoilers):As long as Aidan is the party leader, all damage taken is reducedAs long as River is the party leader, Ether recharge rates are increased- Every character has a passive buff as well, which they give to only themselves. That way, the gameplay is quite a bit different when you switch characters.Aidan gains more health upon leveling up than anyone else.River receives Ether Points upon taking elemental damage.- Modified the party AI a bit to be responsive to the player. When you snare the enemy, they'll situate themselves and try a spell with a long cast time.- All spells tagged with "Ether" can be upgraded to a more powerful version.- All spells can be upgraded in various ways, like their range, power, cast time, etc.- Items have been removed. The only items available are key/quest/story items. There is no need for healing with supportive characters or EP restoration with the recharge. There is also no equipment, making the game a little more focused on skill over luck and money.Quite the ambitious list. The hardest part, surprisingly enough, was spriting the new characters, for a total of four potential party members who switch out now and then. The rest was just a little modification.But before you all get bored with no screenshots (=(), I want to see what your thoughts would be on one more thing. Here's what you should know first:- The screen is 320x240- The game was originally designed to mimic handheld games- The game does not use the mouse- The party frames occupy a small space at the top of the screen, and the boss frame is at the bottomNow, here are the questions I'd like answered:- I want to put in a quick spell select system, so rather than using Q and E to cycle, you can select them more quickly. This would be done with the number pad. Would that be too complicated in a game that looks simple and otherwise relies on few keys?- Similarly, I want to add a "party communication" system, where you as the party leader can make calls like "Fall in" or "Heal me", as well as changing other party members' attack styles from supportive to defensive to offensive. That could also be done with the number keys.- If you think it would be a good idea to do both, how would you recommend going about the HUD indication (because people aren't going to remember everything on the fly), and how well could you work with what controls?You may ask why I come here before doing it myself, but due to complaints on controls and visibility, I think it's a better idea if I see what appeals to others first. After all, the game's not 100% for myself and I'd like controls and the like to be intuitive.Thanks for your time.What Makes a Good Interface? Share Your Knowledge
Posted by Castypher on May 16, 2011, 2:56 p.m.
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Sorry I didn't get back to that sooner, I forget you edit your comments frequently.
I like that idea for a spell selection system (and I'll have to come up with a way to do it so the player has time to choose but it doesn't interrupt the flow of battle).The other thing I came up with was a sidebar extended by using the other key (Q/E until I can think of something better), which has spells/commands on it. However, the commands would either have to be large (to have enough room to command party members individually) or it'd have to be tiered (which would be difficult to control in a battle, but I'll probably just incorporate a pause).Or I could just let the characters run rampant with no influence from the player besides what he decided before the battle. Trial and error or activity?i've been having a lot of situations where i'll be anxious for something i've totally forgotten about, until i remember it, i've actually had it my whole life but it's taken me a while to start using it as a compass of sorts. lol that probably sounds weird.
Hotkeys. Configurable hotkeys.
The mouse equivalent of that, of course, is a configurable action bar, but if you're sticking entirely with the keyboard, give me at very least the 1-0 row as entirely configurable hotkeys. Minimum.The numpad is generally a bad idea because it forces you to make arm movements, that's quite an expensive action, hitting the 5 key on my numpad there took me almost half a second, wheras the 5 key on my upper row can be pressed without breaking flow, letting me keep up typing speed. In a game, that's important because if you screw up, it's your fault - not the UI's. Nothing is more irritating than failing because the UI is too obtuse.If you have a shitload of spells, consider an incremental search so you can quickly select a new spell on the fly. Same with communications - the problem with most systems is they either have a highly simplified system, which puts tight limits on how you can actually use them, they use some sort of hierarchy (Hit one key to open, another key to go to heal actions, a third key to select the specific heal, for example) which requires foreknowledge of what you want, as well as knowing where the developer put it, or it pauses the game, which takes you out of the action.On the other hand, a search isn't perfect, primarily because it requires keyboard control, leaving you fairly vulnerable during the short time it takes you to locate your spell, item, or action. Still, primarily, hotkeys, hotkeys, hotkeys. If you have to show me a menu to select something, you don't have good enough hotkeys, and if you have to pause the game to let me do something, it's wrong.Well, I was going to upload a picture of what the current interface looks like, hel, but it looks like 64D's file manager is cross with me. Anyway, it's not a turn-based RPG, it's more action-oriented, so the interface looks different than you might expect. It wasn't intended to mimic or be compared to Pokemon.
On top of that, the characters have healthbars that briefly pop up over their heads when they take damage. Damage counters do the same thing, but things like current health and what they're currently casting would clutter the screen if I had them close to the characters, so I have them at the top instead.And PY, I like the way you think, but by number pad, I actually meant to include the keys that run across the top of the keyboard as well (I play on a laptop without a number pad after all).While I'm supportive of hotkeys, the only reason they're not implemented yet is because in the battle screen, you don't have access to the menu. All you can do is pause if you need to take a break. That's why I considered bringing up smaller menus with indicative icons, in case someone set hotkeys and forgot what they did. And in a fast-paced battle, they really don't have time to experiment.Since Terminys is an action-oriented game, I'm a little whorish on perfecting the UI and controls, so like you said, it would be the player's fault if they screwed up, and not the fault of the UI. I want to avoid pausing to do simple menu operations, but I don't want to have the player be forced to run around while he navigates the UI because he didn't bother to memorize where his selections were.And in a game that was once simple, it's a little hard for me to make the transition as well. That's why I'm here, because a lot of people have a better idea of what works right now than I do.Well, configurable hotkeys have the advantage of being configurable - if the user can't remember what's on each key, that's their problem! They should know, they put it there!
In any case, the user not knowing where something is is… a very difficult situation to resolve smoothly. You pretty much have to give them a listing, and if you're taking up somebody's screen you pretty much need to pause. On the other hand, we could all learn a lot from Dead Space, who said "Fuck you, pausing" - though the UI was a little clunky anyway. The problem is that menus require navigation, but so does your character, and you can't have both on the same keys. An interesting problem. Perhaps a toggle? Bring up an item/action/command listing on shift, if you don't hold shift for a second or so it fades out (But keeps the same state - same search items, same list position, so on), and is always mostly transparent (Except around text - transparent text *does not work*), and just generally requires shift to use it. Would allow very fast switching between menu and gameplay modes without the issue of losing your place in the menu most systems have.Again, though, that's incompatible with easy filtering, because W A S and D are letters. Hm. I do like the idea of a search, generally I know what I'm looking for and the issue is just getting to it, something a search should be able to get around, but the UI for it needs more thought. Still, if you have a lot of items, a quick way to address them is absolutely essential. I'd go as far as to say that for a realtime game with a lot of items, hotkeys are not optional.Currently I'm using the arrow keys to navigate and a few select keys on the left-hand side for action. While I like the idea of a search, I'm not sure if it'd be necessary for my purposes, since there are no combat items and I'm deliberately trying to have few spells per character for simplicity (9 or 10, most likely).
Using a toggle key and the numbers might work well while still allowing the player to run around. I'm liking the whole idea more and more as I picture it. Now as far as placement, I wonder if I could lower the transparency and put it in the middle of the screen, provided content was the issue, or if I should stick to the sidebars.The other thing I wonder is if using numbers to navigate the menu, should they still be used as hotkeys or would that hurt players with poor memory and awareness (meaning their reflexes tell them they're still in the menu when they're not, or something like that)?It's a good amount to think about while I finish making other modifications. Thanks for your input.Ah, yes, search is unnecessary there. I was imagining Oblivion levels of "Oh jesus christ I have how many spells?" when I was thinking of that one.
For numbers to navigate the menu, I'm not sure how well that would work with a toggle - I know I can't hit anything further than 7 comfortably while holding shift, and my other hand might be off doing other things. I don't think it would be too confusing, though, assuming the menu was quite obvious, or it required a toggle, so if you can get it to work it could be pretty useful.Oh, one thing I will shamelessly steal from Oblivion is that holding down a hotkey should show an action bar or something with icons for everything, or just a plain numbered list if you don't have distinctive icons. Something I'll steal from an Oblivion mod is that you should be able to have multiple items on each key, and pressing that key will swap between them (So you can, for example, but all your healing spells on one key and quickly tap through them until you select the correct one). But I can't take credit for either of those ideas!I vaguely remember that when you had an NPC in your game, their HUD displayed whatever they were doing at the moment… maybe instead of commands, use a simple tactics system, where every character has settings (like "aggressive", "defensive", "follow") and switch between them? You could display their current setting in their HUD, along with a hotkey to change it for that character, aand then you could just make them switch between settings rather than involve complicated commands. Just a wild idea.
If by number pad you mean numpad (the one on the right - the one most laptops don't have), that's always a bad idea. Number keys would be fine (if you don't use customisable keys), but avoid using them for both spells and commands. I think they'd be fine for spells.Well Cesque, that's exactly what they do. There are six states: attack, pursue, support, flee, stand, and retreat. For comprehension purposes, retreating is tactical and fleeing is a last resort for when the character's health is low or the party leader is dead. Once upon a time they did show their current state, but I removed it for the sake of simplicity.
The idea was to allow them to focus on one role:Attack - The character disregards supportive tactics to deal maximum damage.Defend - The character preserves themselves, healing and supporting party members only if they have time.Support - The character spends the majority of their time helping teammates and keeping themselves alive.The commands would allow them to switch between their focus, and would give the player indirect control over them for a while. For example, "Fall in" tells all party members to return to the leader, etc. I want the player to have a little control over his party, so that's why I want the commands list.And yeah, numpad wasn't what I was going for. Like I said, I was referring to the ones on every keyboard, laptop or not.I'm not a hundred percent sure I'd hotkey commands though. They're pretty situational, but if a hotkey was required, I'd have no idea where to have them mapped.When you get around to doing the actual interface, look into using Lua. When I eventually release my Lua Interface engine, I recommend using that. :D