Hud Mock-up

[sparhawk]

I think you underestimate the number of hardcore thief players out there

 

I don't underestimate them. That's why I want to support them by adding features that makes it interesting for such hardcore player to play it. Otherwise I wouldn't bother the extra effort.

 

(or the number there would be if more peole were given a little shove in the right direction)

 

LOL. Whatever a "little shove" means.

 

Giving choice doesn't work to change attitudes, because people are so comfortable and used to playing a certain way, they won't even bother to change given the option.

 

Why should I bother to change anybodys attitude? They can see the threads on TTLG and read about this playstyles and if they are interested they will give it a try. But nobody needs to be forced into such a playstyle he doesn't want.

 

Why are they conmfortable and used to playing this certain way?  - becasue they are constantly spoon fed it by game developers who underestimate the adaptibility of gamers, and so remain stagnant in so many areas where innovation should be occuring.

 

That's what T3 was doing. I hope that we do better in that area, because we are NOT catering for the total newbies. I felt it quite insulting in T3 that notes were literally shoved into my face because the devs wanted to make sure that you read their great lyrics. But enhancing a game means to me that the challenge should come from the gameplay mechanics and not from arbitrary restrictions that are only frustrating in the end, because this will just cause players to drop it.

[Springheel]

This is all because of Sparhwks insistence ion a completely useless tilting compass, everyone else hatd the idea...

 

Actually, the compass in the center of the screen doesn't tilt. Just the one in your inventory does.

 

Giving choice doesn't work to change attitudes,

 

Jesus, oDDity, we're making a game, not trying to convert the masses. This mod is not a soapbox. There are at least twenty regular contributors to this mod, and you are the only one who feels the need to constantly push this agenda.

 

Everyone is entitled to argue for their personal preferences while decisions are being made. But once the decision is finalized, continuing to make snide comments about it is not only nonproductive, it creates a negative atmosphere that is *most* unhelpful.

[oDDity]

*gets off soapbox*

[BlackThief]

What's wrong with the version without the compass, specifically? (note that this isn't Tyrot's version...I just chopped the spikes off.  But it looks fine to me)

well it looks kinda naked. here's my suggestion for a more minimalist version of the hud. my lightgem doesn't have a compass, but still a metal-ring around it:

Edited January 24, 2005 by BlackThief

[oDDity]

I was thinking of having animations of the weapons and items being prodeced on screen, so we won't need any inventory or weapon icons in the corners.

We could then have the health bar up one side of the screen and another long thin lightbar up the other.

[sparhawk]

I was just thinking about that. How does the player see which arrow he has selected if there is no icon for it? The arrow will not be shown until the player starts aiming.

[oDDity]

We could make it so. IT wouldn't be difficult to make an animation where you see your right arm disappear, hear a sound of an arrow being drawn from a quiver, then see your hard reappear with the arrow, it could drop to the bottom right iof the screen, but leave the head of the arrow visible there .

The arrow will be easily recognised by their heads anyway.

[New Horizon]

Could be done. I still like to have the icons on the screen showing how many I have left of each item, but I'm open to the idea. Will giving the hands more onscreen time be less distracting that small icons though? I realize the general idea would be to remain unarmed at all costs and I can see why you would want to have this considering it would be for people who want to play without the hud icons.

[Ishtvan]

I could see a situation where people might complain about realism tho: If you animate it so that, when selecting an arrow, the character is holding a bow in one hand, and the arrow in the other, then somehow they're still able to frob things (3rd arm at work? ).

[oDDity]

I think anyone could easily lift someting else while hloding an arrow in their hand. I don't thin the payer hand will actually reach out to frob things anyway. It doesn't in the previous games.

This does require a certain amount of thought for the player. You have to have memorized all your hotkeys, you have to mentally keep track of how many of each arrow and item you have left, and you have to learn each arrow and item by sight. Not for noobs, obviously.

I hope we're having the system where the health bar only pops up fior a few seconds when you take damge to let you look at it, and it's not just lingering there the entiure time. That should be implemented by default.

[Springheel]

I hope we're having the system where the health bar only pops up fior a few seconds when you take damge to let you look at it, and it's not just lingering there the entiure time. That should be implemented by default.

 

I'd prefer that as the default too, but either way both options will be there. There is a key that toggles the healthbar on and off during the game. When it's on, it stays on, and when it's off, it fades like T3. It allows you to turn it on if you'd like to check your status, or to play with a classic HUD, but you don't have to.

 

I was thinking of having animations of the weapons and items being prodeced on screen, so we won't need any inventory or weapon icons in the corners.

 

I like a minimalist HUD too, but it gets really tricky to show both the weapon and inventory item this way. What happens if you have an arrow drawn and then select a flashbomb in your inventory? I don't know if an animation can handle that.

 

Although I'm sure we will be including a menu option that turns all the HUD elements off if people want to play it that way.

[Darkness_Falls]

The configurability is more for placement rather than different models.

FM authors will undoubtedly want to make a HUD exactly like Thief 1/2's HUD. And some will want to minimize it even more, as in oDDity's case. As such, I think we should give them the tools necessary to do this. At the bare minimum, allow them to create a T2 light gem and health bar.

 

I was just looking at our health bar again, and felt the ornaments on either end were kind've anti-minimalist. They look cool, but are unnecessary. I'm now longing for something a little more T2 in that respect.

 

Everbody has an opinion. Gotta love it

[sparhawk]

No objections to that. I also would prefer the T2 style HUD.

[oDDity]

I like a minimalist HUD too, but it gets really tricky to show both the weapon and inventory item this way. What happens if you have an arrow drawn and then select a flashbomb in your inventory? I don't know if an animation can handle that.

You should have to put your bow away to retrive an inventory item. WHy would you need to hold both at the same time? You couldn't shoot a bow while holding a flashbomb or something anyway.

Inventory items will be drawn out and thrown/used with the left hand, weapons with the right, except for the bow obviously, which is a two handed item since you only draw it when you select an arrow.

[Springheel]

Well, keep in mind that selecting an inventory item and *using* it are two different things. Just because you select your health potions doesn't mean you use one.

[New Horizon]

I think we might be making a mistake in actually showing the arrow and the bow on screen in the players hands. It creates more business than is necessary in my opinion. I see the logic behind it and respect the principle, but I don't think it's the best way to do it. If there are players willing to do away with the onscreen icons and memorize their key bindings then they probably would appreciate not seeing the tip of the arrow poking up on the screen. The arrow tip would be more distracting since it's moving around.

 

It also doesn't strike me as a good idea in the sense that the character is running around holding the arrow like that. It's not going to be as easy to knock the arrow. The player would have to position the tip into his fingers before firing. Normally, the player reaches back and pulls an arrow out of the quiver from the appropriate orientation in one smooth movement.

 

I think this is one of those situations where we don't need to provide the visual. If a player is hardcore enough to turn off the weapon/ item icons...they likely don't want or need the visual representation. It would defeat what they're trying to achieve and needlessly clutter the screen for those who do want the icons.

 

Keep it simple.

[Springheel]

Yeah, I agree. And having both right and left hand animations would really busy up the screen, worse than the gear-changing animation in T3. Personally, the less we see the hands, the better.

[Darkness_Falls]

I agree.

 

When we frob a candle flame out, can we make it so our thief leans toward the flame a little and gives a subtle *puff* (blowing out sound) when he does it? I only brought it up here because I was thinking the other alternative it to do it like T3 (boring), or pinch the candle wick with our fingers. Since I don't want to see his hands pinch the wick, I thought doing the 'blowing out' sound would be cool. If this feature request needs to be moved to a different part of the forum, please do.

[Ishtvan]

While it's natural in RL to take stuff out and hold it in each of your hands, then decide whether to throw it or not, setting up a control scheme to do all that in game might lead to a complicated control scheme which is not at all natural.

[Domarius]

I think we might be making a mistake in actually showing the arrow and the bow on screen in the players hands. It creates more business than is necessary in my opinion.

...

 

This is something I think we can consider before the initial release.

 

The bow is a weapon, just like the blackjack, just like the sword. In Doom 3, you can see what weapon you're using at the bottom of the screen. You don't need an icon because you can SEE it. If a player doesn't like this, they can turn View Weapons off. And they will see NO weapons. I don't see why we need to make a special exception for the Bow, just because T2 did. It's inconsistant and doesn't lend itself well to customising your HUD.

 

While it's natural in RL to take stuff out and hold it in each of your hands, then decide whether to throw it or not, setting up a control scheme to do all that in game might lead to a complicated control scheme which is not at all natural.

 

But as always, we shouldn't be talking about things SOLEY in terms of realism - rather, Gameplay first, realisim second. In this case, we're talking about interface optimisations.

 

This is something I don't think we can consider before the initial release, but I'm mentioning it anyway.

 

You can make it so that everything is selected the same way. Deux Ex did it. Deus Ex was made by Looking Glass after T2, and I think the interface is a general improvement over T2's.

 

In Deus Ex, you have less keys to fiddle with, because there is no distinction between "items" and "weapons", and you have a "HUD Item Belt".

 

You have way less keys to worry about, because you simply select an item with item up, item down, then you see it, and you press fire to use it. It could be a MedPack, or a gun. Makes no difference.

The use key is reserved for interacting with fixed game world objects, like switches. No need to put your current item away.

To manage all your items, you have an item belt, which is always on screen, has 10 slots each with a corresponding number key, and you can put anything in any slot via the inventory screen. Item up and item down only moves through these 10 items.

 

This is better than T2 because;

• All the items I can cycle through are all on screen, so I know how many clicks I'm going to have to go through to get what I want
  
• I know exactly which number key to press to get what I want instantly.
  
• I dont have to cycle through stuff I'm not currently interested in, including certain weapons.
  

And in our mod, a hard core user could turn off the belt display, already knowing what they've got in each slot.

 

I only think there is a distinction in T2 between weapons and items because they don't have an interface like Deus Ex does.

 

Obviously making a Deus Ex type interface is more work, but it proportionately more useful to the player, I think.

 

 

Eg. in the (heavily GIF compressed) top screen shot, I dragged the medpack into slot 6. In the bottom screen shot, I pressed 6 on the keyboard, or scrolled the mousewheel over to slot six, and he's holding it out in front of him, ready to drop it or use it.

Edited January 26, 2005 by Domarius

[Springheel]

Isn't that far more visually distracting than the other two options? oDDity suggested the animations replace the HUD indicators, because the indicators add clutter to the screen. Any option that adds even *more* clutter is going in the wrong direction.

[sparhawk]

That is fine for an RPG, but not for an FPS style game. i think we should stick to the original style because that worked well, and there is no reason to clutter up the hud anymore then neccessary. And I never heard a complaint that to many keybinding were required to usefully play the game.

[Domarius]

Isn't that far more visually distracting than the other two options?

I know what I posted is a lot to read - but all it is is a belt, and that could be turned off, so you'd have nothing on screen at all. After configuring the belt in the inventory screen of course.

 

That is fine for an RPG, but not for an FPS style game. i think we should stick to the original style because that worked well

...

And I never heard a complaint that to many keybinding were required to usefully play the game.

 

I handle just as many items and weapons in T2 as I do in Deus Ex (probably MORE in T2 in some missions, since there is no limit), and I much preffer Deus Ex's way of doing it.

 

I'm just showing how things can be done differently. The interface is simpler in Deus Ex. It's more complex to program though.

[sparhawk]

What I really liked about T2 interface is, that it fits in with the minimal approach of a medivial setting. This HUD looks much more technical and modern. So I could see it working perfectly in an RPG or in a more modern game.

[oDDity]

It's a simple solution. What can happen is that you select your weapon/item, a part of it ends up at the bottom corner of the screen playing its idle, if you don't use it after n number of seconds, it drops off the screen completely.

This replaces the abstract, iconic HUD representation of things (which I despise) with a more immersive 'I'm actually getting the bow from my back and holding it in my hand' experience. I agree having it constantly hovering there is not necessary, so your hands drops down comletely afeter 5 seconds or so.