Combat icon screen

[kellyxxx]

When you move your mouse over a combat icon we used to get a little screen up top left corner. Now the damn screen is huge and it is right in middle of my combat. Is there any way we can get rid of that screen??? The game has become unplayable as you can't see whats going on and on top of that the auto attack to next critter does not always work.:(:(:(

[Ledaig]

The tooltip for combat abilites is anchored to the character portrait. By moving the portrait, you can also change where the tooltip appears. For example, I moved my portrait to the bottom of the screen between the chat window and the combat skill bars, so now the tooltips appear next to my chat window. Not the best solution, imo, but better than having the tooltips in the middle of the screen :)

My auto attack next critter seems to work just fine, except that all skills are grayed out as if unusable (and not just the ones on cooldown). But when I press them, the game still changes target and attacks the next mob (if that's what you mean with auto attack).

[Erthiel]

Good to know, I though the tooltip was just staticly placed in top left. Well, the tooltip being anchored to the portrait with the status bars is not very optimal in combat either. I fight be clicking the ability icons and my mouse hovers over them lot of the time. How about anchoring the tooltip to the quest tracker or the minimap? Those are quite useless during combat and do not have that important info.
I keep my portrait and party status bars in top left corner and the tooltip covers them all. I think the Old UI tooltip had a bit of transparency which made it less obtrusive in the original location?

[kellyxxx]

Yes I know if I move the portrait back to the top left that clears the screen. Since we can move the char portrait why does the info screen have to follow it. By removing the 2 globes I put my portrait where the left globes was and I placed the critter portrait to the right globe spot. This allows me to keep my eyes on a line at bottom of the screen instead of looking all over the screen.

[DamageIncorp]

I totally agree with Kelly. That combat description box is gigantic and not only obscures my vitals but also most of my combat interaction. I was testing some stuff last night in GK and got frustrated and quit playing. I would want thatwindow having the combat skill description to be much much much smaller and placed elsewhere other than over top of my power, life, and armor bars.
It would also be great to have an option for the bars to all be horizontal instead of vertical like we had in AC.
Two other things i wanted to touch on were the numbers over top of inventory items. They are so big they obscure the item icon. Can they be changed without affecting something else?
The other thing was not having a vendors scroll bar go all the way back to the top after purchasing an item or 1 of a stack. Makes for very frustrating shopping.
Overall, i think the first rollout was a huge success and many great options came with it.
Huzzah to all devs for an amazing job.

[Roekai]

if you select the item you want to buy, there is an option to select how many of said item you want to buy; it even shows you how much it will cost total subtracted from your councils so that you know how much you'll have left after you make the purchase.

I too was originally upset by the new UI (who likes change?) but after playing for a day or two I worked out most of my issues simply by using settings; got rid of the diablo bubbles, figured out how to buy stacks, etc.

The only thing I can't figure out is how to save a loadout over an existing loadout - I've had to keep a loadout clean so I can juggle my loadouts when I need to save for a new item or skill.

[Tagamogi]

The only thing I can't figure out is how to save a loadout over an existing loadout - I've had to keep a loadout clean so I can juggle my loadouts when I need to save for a new item or skill.

You can erase your existing loadout, and then save the loadout into the newly empty slot. ( I assume there will be some updates to how the loadouts work eventually, but for now this works fine.)

[Citan]

The anchoring of tooltops is a very annoying problem to me because I would very much like to make people happy with their position, but I can't seem to please people.

First: in the old GUI, ability tooltips were anchored in the top left. They could not be moved. They were about the same size as the new UI, too. (People who say their ability tooltips are "huge", I don't know what you're seeing. They're tiny little boxes for me, so I'd love to see screenshots.)

In the first preview of the new UI, I had tooltips appear overtop the abilities directly, like typical tooltips do, but people complained VOCIFEROUSLY. As in, they fucking hated it. So I anchored those tooltips out of the way, in the upper left, like they were before. I anchored them on the character avatar since it is in the top left by default.

Now, I can definitely anchor them on something else. But please understand here: they MUST be anchored on something. You cannot move them like regular windows because tooltips disappear when you move. And they can't be free-floating with the new UI. I MUST anchor them on something. So the million dollar question is: what do you think I should anchor them on? I picked overtop the avatar window because people already complained it was useless: it is redundant with the orbs, after all. Fair enough. But other people hate that too. So... what do you want?

(And yes, I can add some hacky thing to let you pick. But it won't be elegant and will just be some hacky special command. Let's ignore that for now. What I want to know is: what should the DEFAULT BEHAVIOR be? Where do you think it will be out-of-the-way for most people?)

[Erthiel]

I don't know the layout of most people but minimap seems reasonable for me. Then again some people have it disabled.

Another idea which I think might be worth considering is not having a 'tooltip' at all. We have a quest tracker window, which is mostly transparent and has very slight background. How about when hovering over the abilities make the ability tooltip text display in the quest tracker view instead of the quests.
It is resizable, movable around the screen and very unobtrusive due to it's transparency. Furthermore currently enemy's detailed status with their strengths and weaknesses has to be opened in a new smaller window. This information could also display in the quest tracker view when enemy is selected, but while pointer is not hovering over any ability. Quest tracker info is very useful out of combat for some people, but I would guess noone reads it in combat.

Edit: screenshot for me: https://imgur.com/a/NDoal

Edit2: Effect icons have this resizable border. How about small empty border square or just any new semi transparent object which would anchor the tooltip which you can move around the screen like current avatar window. And anchoring it to that.

[Tagamogi]

I actually do prefer my ability tooltip near the ability bar.

I think I didn't like the tooltip in the initial UI release, but I don't recall why which is less than helpful. I want to say it felt I couldn't see in front of me since the tooltip was big enough to obscure my view? On the other hand, I have currently moved my character avatar to be a bit above the ability bar, and that tooltip location works perfectly for me (minus covering up my health bar).

Anyway, I think the problem with the tooltip is more that it covers other important stuff than its exact location. So, I think Erthiel's anchor on top of the quest tracker would work. I'd prefer the tooltip not covering the minimap though since I may want to use that during combat. On the other hand, anchoring it so that it would appear to the left of the minimap would be fine for me.

Other places I can think of:
- keep it anchored to the character avatar but move it right so it doesn't cover up health bars
- anchor it to the left or right of the ability bar without covering anything. I think anchoring it to the right of the ability bar would be my default choice, but I'm sure other people would disagree. ;) And it may get awkward on lower resolutions, sigh.
- anchor it to the enemy detailed stats window, again without covering anything in the anchor window. Since this is an optional window, that would allow people to drag it around to wherever they'd like the tooltip, and then close the stats window if they don't want it. Assuming closing a window doesn't close whatever is anchored to it, too, anyway... (Oh, and I really like it that we can move the stats window around on its own now)
- this is going into special hacks, but the detail stats window and its i button had me thinking: What if we had a special T (or whatever) button that we could click on in order to make a small tooltip anchor window visible that we could drag around to where we want the tooltip to be anchored?

Ok, this is way too many random options rather than just one default. The current tooltip location is really not a big problem for me though... I'd like to be able to move it elsewhere but its pretty far down my priority list.

( I'm not at my computer now but I'll try to add some screenshots later. My ability tooltips are also fairly big; I think it's because I picked a larger font.) (Speaking of screenshots - thank you so much for fixing the screenshots on Linux so quickly!!! I also really like the separate screenshot directory that the new laucher set up. )

[Silvonis]

Based on feedback, I think we just need to anchor it and then leave it. There are going to be people who like it and then there will be those who won't, no matter the position. I think it's one of those things people will have to get use to and it will grow on them.

That said, we need to figure out why the box is so huge on some setups. If that's fixed, I think it'll help a lot.

If you have a 'huge' tool tips window please post screenshots here.

[ShieldBreaker]

....
(And yes, I can add some hacky thing to let you pick. But it won't be elegant and will just be some hacky special command. Let's ignore that for now. What I want to know is: what should the DEFAULT BEHAVIOR be? Where do you think it will be out-of-the-way for most people?)

Because people don't seem to be complaining about the left side bars tool-tips, I'd say attach it to the left side bar. If you move the tool-tips that do come up for the left side bar, say a fixed distance to the right of the icon instead of mousex, that would clear up the overlap there, but that pretty minor, the tooltips on the left side bar work pretty well as is. A toggle key to turn on and off tool tips I still think is a better solution, and if there was an option just so they need to be toggled on during combat that would maybe make people happy. It is only in combat that they get in the way. Sorry we complain :|

[kellyxxx]

As we already know what these combat icons do we really don't need to see it. We can always go to abilities and see the spells if we want to change them. When the box was up top left i bet people never really looked at it. You were to busy fighting to really care about it.

[DamageIncorp]

I am not sure what feedback you are going off of Silvonis, but I can assure you that no one I have spoken to in Asheron's Legacy is happy having it obscure their vital bars. Leaving it be is NOT the answer just because you can't decide on an alternative. What is the point of having vital bars and an avatar if I cannot monitor my health and power during a fight because it is obscured by the ability tool tips. I like the idea of having it anchored to the left edge of the mini map..which currently resides in my top right corner. No idea how to put a screenshot here. As a side note, I guess it just seems so much bigger than before or perhaps was less relevant before is all.

[Gruffon]

As we already know what these combat icons do we really don't need to see it. We can always go to abilities and see the spells if we want to change them. When the box was up top left i bet people never really looked at it. You were to busy fighting to really care about it.

Hold on, I disagree with this. When using mods that influence abilities' damage values during combat, it helps to have those numbers indicated by the tooltip. For instance, I use the 'Pain Yields Art' mod for Bard, which increases base damage based on how many times you take damage in combat. Not only does having the tooltip handy help me plan out my method of attack (such as waiting until the damage value reaches a certain amount before using harder-hitting abilities), but it also helps me determine the maximum damage potential for any given encounter.

For more general use, it can also help with budgeting when you're low on power. Having each ability's power cost readily available on the tooltip is helpful as well, so you can prioritize by taking into account how much of your remaining power you'll use.


Now, I can definitely anchor them on something else. But please understand here: they MUST be anchored on something. You cannot move them like regular windows because tooltips disappear when you move. And they can't be free-floating with the new UI.

I might be misunderstanding the exact limitations in play here, but would it be possible to implement an "Edit Mode" for non-persisting UI aspects? Such as the ability tooltips and the grey message bar that pops up when you bury remains or light a lamp and things like that. Opening up the edit mode would enable those exact areas to which the aspects are anchored to become visible and customizable, allowing a user to click and drag that area or modify its size. If that solution isn't possible/intuitive that's fine, but I thought it might help to suggest that.

[Tagamogi]

No idea how to put a screenshot here.

https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?910-Linking-images-to-the-forum-from-imgur-com

So, my promised screenshots. First of all, I apparently have terrible memory and my tooltip isn't actually where I thought it was. :) Second, here is how my screen currently looks, with a UI file that was default-created under UI preview #2 (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=2) , and then modified by me to set UI scale to 1.30267 and tooltip text size to 16. Screen resolution is 1920x1200:

https://i.imgur.com/Xaluudh.png

This doesn't currently obscure anything important like I thought it did, but it would be kind of helpful to be able to see the enemy I'm fighting. Even enemies a bit bigger than a chicken are easily hidden by this tooltip. I don't really want the tooltip to be smaller because then it would be hard to read but it's kind of hard to find a free section of screen for a big text box like that. (And I agree with Gruffon, I definitely want the tooltip visible somewhere on my screen.)

(For my own amusement, the screenshot is also showing off my amazing tundra spikes taunt damage, and a yellow on yellow cooldown timer on Take the Lead.)

I poked around in my old config files, but I can't really find one that looks as awkward as I thought my UI originally looked before I reset the config file. Here is one that looks a bit rough - resolution 1280x800, GUI scale 1, tooltip text size 11:

https://i.imgur.com/TO5P91e.png


My big complaint there is basically just that it hides the armor and power bars.

Also: I've been trying to find a good spot to place the party member health bars when in a group. Originally, with my avatar in the top left, I tried putting them under my avatar where they got hidden by the tooltip. Then with my avatar above the abilities bar, I tried placing the group health bars above my avatar where they were again obscured by the tooltip. So yes, maybe anchoring the tooltip to the character avatar isn't ideal, since I think people would usually want their group to show up near their own portrait which makes it more likely for the tooltip to interfere with the group display.

(No chickens were harmed in the making of these screenshots.)

Edit: Well, doh, so I just realized that the size of the tooltip depends on the ability. So, for a possibly even better big screenshot, here's the largest tooltip I could find:

https://i.imgur.com/jvC9vrr.png

[Crissa]

Have you thought of giving the tooltips a window that we can turn on, move, and then vanish?

In WoW, the addons that let you move things have a key or button your can press to reveal the window edges, so you can move them around. Final Fantasy does this as well. And then you move them, and then hide the controls again.

I might point out that the tray to the status effects is visible and crooked. It drives me nuts ^-^

[Tagamogi]

I'd definitely love to be able to move the tooltip around myself, but I don't want to strain development resources too much.

One more thought I had: The current tooltip is really more of an essay than a tooltip. I love every single line of it but... What if we had a very abbreviated 3-4 line tooltip that just showed ability name (no icon), power use and base dmg, and then we could hit alt to bring up a detailed tooltip that shows all of the current information? A short tooltip like that could work anchored to the ability bar. Or hide the whole tooltip by default until we press alt? The problem with the latter option would be letting people know there is a tooltip available there. So maybe by default make the tooltip show, and then have a Settings menu option to allow people to turn it off unless they press a key?

Of course, I don't know if any of those ideas are less development intensive either. :) I think the reason the tooltip worked well in the old UI is that by default there was nothing else up in the top left corner.

For a quicker solution, I think anchoring to the left of the minimap would work nicely. For me, at least.

[Murk]

The trouble with the ability tool tips over the abilities was that you couldn't see the ability icons sometimes - especially their "recharge" timers. The is of course when you are "hovering" ready to initiate a combat skill. At the moment I usually use the keyboard for abilities but sometimes use the mouse for other ones, but some people may just use the mouse.

Perhaps the tool tips should:

* Not be displayed while in combat? (you won't be reading them while in combat so much, right?)
* Have a toggle off?
* Right click for the tool tip? (doesn't sound so good.)
* Something else I've not thought of

[Roekai]

It's not a real solution to have a toggle off (although I do think it should be available for other reasons), or to have it not be displayed while in combat (that's more of a workaround).

Is there a way to make a new item (like a chat window) that it can be locked too, an item small and obscure so that you can move the tooltip as though it wasn't locked to something, because the thing it's locked to is very very small?

For the time being, its best if one moves ones portrait to the bottom left side of the screen. That's where the tooltip is least intrusive and aggravating.

[Silvonis]

I am not sure what feedback you are going off of Silvonis, but I can assure you that no one I have spoken to in Asheron's Legacy is happy having it obscure their vital bars. Leaving it be is NOT the answer just because you can't decide on an alternative. What is the point of having vital bars and an avatar if I cannot monitor my health and power during a fight because it is obscured by the ability tool tips. I like the idea of having it anchored to the left edge of the mini map..which currently resides in my top right corner. No idea how to put a screenshot here. As a side note, I guess it just seems so much bigger than before or perhaps was less relevant before is all.

We go off feedback as a whole, not just comments from one person who says their 'entire' guild is unhappy. Additionally, where are the screenshots showing your issues? The point I'm making is there are going to be people who complain no matter where we move it to.

If you can't figure out how to post a screenshot by pressing that little picture on the edit bar, then just copy and paste the link as text. You can upload images at imgur. You want to take the time to huff and puff at me, but you don't want to take a few minutes to figure out how to post an image?

[Silvonis]

Have you thought of giving the tooltips a window that we can turn on, move, and then vanish?

In WoW, the addons that let you move things have a key or button your can press to reveal the window edges, so you can move them around. Final Fantasy does this as well. And then you move them, and then hide the controls again.

I might point out that the tray to the status effects is visible and crooked. It drives me nuts ^-^

Citan addressed this already, earlier in this thread:

"But please understand here: they MUST be anchored on something. You cannot move them like regular windows because tooltips disappear when you move. And they can't be free-floating with the new UI."

[Crissa]

Citan addressed this already, earlier in this thread:

"But please understand here: they MUST be anchored on something. You cannot move them like regular windows because tooltips disappear when you move. And they can't be free-floating with the new UI."
And understanding that there needs to be on a window, I asked for a window that we could turn opaque, move, then turn transparent again. Perhaps a single key to wake up other hidden control handles as well; for other action bars and displays that you wouldn't want to accidentally move in combat.

Windows do not need to have frames that can be seen or interacted with: See also the floating text of the chat window when it's disabled. The window is there, you just can't touch it while it's hidden. But the items in it still display from the anchor.

[Danette]

Now, I can definitely anchor them on something else. But please understand here: they MUST be anchored on something. You cannot move them like regular windows because tooltips disappear when you move. And they can't be free-floating with the new UI. I MUST anchor them on something. So the million dollar question is: what do you think I should anchor them on?

An invisible object with an option in the settings that lets us turn it visible for the purpose of moving it wherever we want. I don't see why that wouldn't work.

[Aionlasting]

Makes sense to me what Crissa is saying. Why isn't that a possibility instead of this zero sum game of not everyone is going to be happy? O_O

[Murk]

I was happier because it's not in the way of the ability bar as it's at the top for me. But I now understand why I am dying more than usual. I can't see my stats readouts with the globes turned off.

The only thing I ever need the tool tip for - this is me personally - is when I want to read what some ability does before combat, mostly when:

(a) have just got a new ability
(b) changing equipment round and want to see the effect.

New players on the other hand, will want to get to grips with the skill bar, so I see why it might be helpful to have it around a bit more. But still, I think the two above points still apply. Which is why I suggested it's visible only in non combat mode, and then, it can be anchored back just above the ability bar.

What are other people looking at this tool tip for and when?


For some reason embedding an imugur image is in fact eluding me, and I can only link them.
https://i.imgur.com/a/Z7YC8
https://imgur.com/a/Z7YC8 (https://imgur.com/QRm2RvS)

[INXS]

I was having the same issues, so i decided to move things around i placed the vitals tool bar on top right corner, now the pop up window appears left of it not covering vitals i lowered the map enough not to cover vitals, mini group tool is top middle just out of pop up window and the food,snack,potion ect.. bar is on top left i removed to globes since i can see my vitals now and they just huge space waster.

[kellyxxx]

Here is the layout I prefer. The combat icons with mine and the critters stats are all in line so my eyes are not all over the screen. The big issue you see in link is that tool tip box blocks view of combat. https://imgur.com/a/CXNYB

[Murk]

I've come to think that there is too much information to put a tool tip up when you are in combat, that seems to be the complaint people have.

On the other hand some people want to plan ahead and read the tool tips during combat, how they have time for that I am not sure... but there we are.

So there are these possibilities, some I've already banged on about, I am sorry.

1) Have a setting to show tool tips only when not in combat
2) Anchor the tool tip to the left bottom corner of the chat window, or where it would be displayed if not invisible. The reason on this one is that you won't be reading chat and tool tip at the same time. I realize the tool tip still might not fit.
3) Otherwise, I guess a tool tip pin is needed so people can put it where they want, and said pin disappears once you've set it. in fact -

3.1) I have the notion that there could be a little lock button on screen that locks the positions of all things as sometimes I end up moving things around by accident. So you press this to make changes, and press it again to have things set unmovable. Whereby, in this mode one can show pins, status effect window outlines, or any such other window positioning outlines as is desired for the positioning activities. Of course, that sounds like a bit of work...

[FredaHeartsun]

This is how i arranged my windows to stop vitals from being hidden. hope this works.
https://imgur.com/a/zWBsT

this might be better.
https://i.imgur.com/cA3xhVm.jpg

[kellyxxx]

I have it set up with vitals on left. The screen shot i showed was better for me because all the combat info was right there in 1 little area. My complaint was the big tooltip screen that blocked my view. It used to be top left out of the way i could not figure out why they moved and then i found out it needs to be anchored to something and they had it anchored to stats. As we never moved our stats panel it was not a concern or issue.

[Greyfyn]

https://i.imgur.com/sf19C1O.jpg


The skill box could move. Tie it to a box like the combo box, right? Clearly the box does move depending on where on the screen you place your character window. Tie it to its own moveable box?

Note: this is only a portion of my screen. The path for the screenshot shows on my chat dialog, so bleh on that.

[Roekai]

or just make it its own box instead of something anchored?

[Ells0430]

I actually hesitate giving feedback on anything I really want to but it's a little toxic here for my liking. I think the game is amazing and I adore so many new things about the new UI but I actually feel this is more than a we are never going to make people happy so lets leave it this way issue. I think if it stays this way to steam launch you would see people install the game and uninstall it before they make it off the island which would be tragic. So much amazing work has been put into this game.

Here's the problem as I see it. The default layout has your portrait including your vital bars, and if I am not mistaken your party and pet vitals all in the left top corner. Most people aren't going to immediately arrange their layout they are going to play for a while and see how they like it. While you are in combat every time you hover over a skill which is most of the fight..you are blocked from seeing all of these vitals. There is no way to turn that off. The only way to change it is to move your portrait. Many won't want to move it. Its pretty standard to want to look in the top corner for vitals. I don't want to move it. So during the fight I can't see how my party is doing, I can't see how my pet is doing I can't see my armor or power unless I look for the globes. So say one person in my party is going to pull an enemy back for us I like to hover over a heal or stun so I can help if they get into trouble. Now I can't tell if they are in trouble. I can't tell during a fight if I am going to lose my golem without stopping and moving my mouse off the skill bar. It's broken, I think there are a lot of creative ways to fix it. I will be interested in seeing what the future brings.