Update the HUD!

I must give credit to the ranger forum on GWO for giving me the idea in the spirit interface thread.

HUD - Heads up Display. In other words the sort of layer on top of what is happening that shows you health, your party, your skills and weapon. ETC.

Now before I go on, this isn't about having a screen that looks like WOW where half of your screen belongs to your HUD. All I am saying is playing this game with tactical builds could become so much easier with a better HUD.

Here is what we have now:




Hmm...Okay. This is fine for standard gameplay. You know, I have no problem with it. But let's see if we can make it more useful to every class that could also help in intense GVG, missions, 4v4, PVE, 12v12 and so on.



So let's see what we have here. BTW sorry for the crappy 2 skill recharges couldn't find an actual one, but you get the idea.


FIGURE 1-1
Shows the number of minions you have and their health: Bone minion(s) bone fiend(s) spirits etc. Useful for keeping track of when to use veretta sacrifice, healing spirits, placing another spirit. etc.

FIGURE 1-2
Shows the duration left on skills such as vereta's sacrifice and signet of creation.

FIGURE 2
Added energy to party bar. Reduces sayings like, "WHY NO HEAL ME BAD MONK!?!?!" and also helps out battery necros by far.

FIGURE 3
Shows duration left on enchanments cast on you. Helps you know how much time is left.

FIGURE 4
Shows duration of hexes on target (party, you, enemy) on the left. Shows duration of enchantments on target on the right. If the target is you it won't show enchanments since you can see them on the left.

FIGURE 5
Shows energy of target. Useful for mesmers.



Pros of doing this:
Helps anyone who deals with hexes, enchantments, energy de/regeneration, summons creatures or spirits, uses a party, etc.

Cons:
Takes up more space on the HUD

BUT WAIT! All of that can be edited with the interface controls to be smaller bigger, anywhere, or nowhere. So.....there is no cons.


If you try to say it is unfair for your enemies it can't be, because they have the same advantage as you.



So what do you think? CC? Anything you think should be added?


IF YOU VIEW THIS AND LIKE WHAT YOU SEE LEAVE A POST TO KEEP THIS THREAD IN SIGHT FOR DEVS.


THANKYOU

I like it. Current GUI is fixed across your account. Would like to be able to customise it for each character.

/signed

/signed

/signed

I love the idea for the energy on the party menu. Duration left on enchants is awesome too.

Would be nice to see something to let us know when and who enchants are stripped from. The current method is terrible. :\

/SIGNED!

i've had this idea for a while since i tend to be battery and try to keep everyones energy up especially the bonders and MM's.

and i agree with Tarun, would be very helpful to see what current enchants other party members have.

/signed

It really really can help specially for bonding/enchantment heavy monks

Energy Mesmers can actually KNOW how much they are draining/denying energy

Necro Minions can have better control

You can actually see hexes and enchantments of your target

YOU CAN actually FINALLY see duration of hexes and enchantments on you

YOU CAN actually see your party teamates energy so they wont beatch that you arent healing or casting

I cant say how good this HUD would be for PvP and even PvEing

/signed.. for the most part

I don't think that showing the energy of your target would be beneficial for pvp at all. It takes a lot of the skill out of e-denial and greatly reduces the usefulness of tactics like energy hiding set ups, etc. And if a mesmer is good, it should know how much energy it is draining and what the monk is at.

I know you reason that both sides have the same access to each other's energy bar, but it dumbs down one of the more intricate parts of the game.

ok i argee with blocparty about the mesmer part, *wink* me, but i also like the showing of hexs and enchants

/signed

If this means that less PUG fools will rush to their deaths now that they might notice how their casters' and monks' energy bars are depleted...

/signed with permanent marker

/singed i want to be able to change the color i don't like the silver

/not signed

This just takes away some of the skill required to play the game. New players might be confused by all that stuff and yes they could turn it off, IF they know how, and I for one did not know how to do all that interface stuff when I was new and im sure a lot of other people were the same. This game is supposed to be about skill (thus the level 20 cap). I believe that this makes things too easy for everyone. No matter how useful I think these ideas are, I just cant support something that makes the game TOO easy for everyone.

/SiGN!

I think it is a GREAT idea, for the most part - it would really make the game much more noob-friendly, and I'm sure it truly WOULDN'T decrease the skill required to play the game - it'd just make you more aware.

However, I disagree with one point- giving the energy of the enemy is a bit much, truly. It would create much confusion, especially in targeting players, and give a bit TOO much powers to some play styles, like Energy-Denial Mesmers.

I say: Keep it informative for yourself, but not intrusive for your opponent- keep it fair!

-Meta

Whats wrong with watching the game clock to know when your enchants will stop? They blink before they go away, you can recast them before they're gone.
Same thing with duration.

SIGNED a million times.

The enchantment thing is helpful because some enchantments blink for 5 seconds and some only for 2 or 3. that gets very confusing and makes it hard to know when to recast.

I also like the minion thing because it makes it MUCH easier to target one in particular instead of having to hover over them and click the right one to say... to cast death nova or heal it or whatever.

/Signed

/signed

What game clock are you talking about Lampshade? It makes it difficult, if not impossible, to keep track of two or more enchantments you ahev thrown on other members of your party.

/signed, sorta

I agree that keeping track of allies' energy would help a ton, but that's about it. This idea of seeing your foes' energy would make the concept of Energy denial even easier (not that I'd complain), but having it the way it is now adds a bit of uncertainty and mystery to it. We don't want the game to be too easy to play. But otherwise, some very good ideas.

/signed, but with caveats

What happens when you get 30-40 minions? Talk about spammy...

Definitely no-go on showing enemy energy. HP is one thing, but energy is too much. I'm also a bit leery of the "show hexes and enchants on targets" widgie. Seems like a bit too much info.

Perhaps see your foes energy in PvE, but not PvP to make things a bit more fair? Just a thought. :P

SIGNED!!!

BUT: show stuff casted on enemies only by you or your party. it would be a bit unfair to know if a guy has got something like mending on him. and dont show the energy, it just doesnt seem right.

ive never been a necro, but wouldnt it be better just to know how many minions/spirits of what type you have instead of showing every single minion/spirit and his lifebar?

(maybe you should have a lifebar wich is a middle between all lifebars of minions/spirits for such stuff as veratas sacrifice...)

/signed

but the minion icons should be the size of maintained enchantment icons.

/signed, except we should not know more about the target, just that they are hexed, conditioned, etc like now - and not know their energy.

/signed

This is some damn fine looking

/signed but not all.
Firstly, I think we only need to know the number of minions we are controlling, not health or energy of every minion.
Energy bar for party member and enchantment duration on yourself ( yourself only) are necessary indeed and need to be added.
But any information about target foe ( how many hexes, which hex, duration left, energy bar) shouldn't be added. That will make game less interesting ( I don't say imbalanced).

/signed ONLY on the following:
ally energy bars
hex and enchantment durations on yourself

/signed
If you can turn it on and off and skip the minions part of it...

/signed

Also, how about giving us the option of getting rid of the pop-up messages describing skills when you place the cursor over the skill bar. It just gets in the way.

Good call Joe, I hate that. Or when you want to target enemy with cursor, and get the description of the grim cesta laying at his feet.

I love the idea. As a new mesmer, I really like the energy bar added. We shouldn't know what hexes and enchants others have on them though.

/SIGNED

/part-signed
Not signed articles 3, 4, and 5.
3. Most enchants are cast on yourself or are monk ones. You should be familar with the recharge/build of your own enchantments and you should not be worried about what a monk (or necro with death nova) cast on you. Let the players playing those characters worry about those enchanments.
4. Makes a monk's job way to easy in PvP. Defeats the purpose of hex stacking/covering.
5. As someone who has a lot of experience playing an E-denial mesmer, this would make playing the build absolutely no fun. The main challenge is knowing when to cast on an enemy caster, and when to wait to let them build up a little bit more energy so your energy tap steals more from them and your energy surge is more efficient/does more damage. Displaying enemy energy would completely defeat the design of a e-denial mesmer. It would also allow people to figure out what weapons sets were being used (15+/1- items would be spotted easily).

Um...do you usually only have 8 minions?

I think many of the MM's here can tell us that they can get massive amounts of minions. In fact, check the screenshot forum.

A little icon for every minion would be insane...I wouldn't be able to see what was happening...


Personally, I'm not signing this. I didn't know we wanted the game to be so much easier. It really isn't that hard right now, why make it less challenging?

I second that. The ally energy bar is good. The minion counter thing...uh....I dont have enough screen space if things are going well unless they were the tiny maintained enchant size and still.... If veratas sac(or GoR) is recharging your doing your job. Definately like the Enchantment duration vs. the flashing thing even though I do know most of my skills well enough to know approx. how long they flash before ending.
Leave the default alone but these options should be available.

/Signed

Edit: BTW I oppose giving or getting any more enemy info as is. I dont endorse any way to keep track of enchant durations on other targets except the timer or your own head. I absolutely disagree with the showing Enemy E levels.......get real..nuff said on that. I dont see the need to list in any way all the hexes or enchants on even your own party members beyond what is shown. You can CtrlClick or call out in TS/Vent anything on your screen. By simply adding the individual options, or removing the skill description(I so hate that frign banner), the team now has access to all the information. Of them all though if we only get one I vote lose the skill descriptions banner. A very close 2nd though is the Energy bar for teammates.

/delicious

/signed

I like everything (smaller minion icons though), seeing enemy's energy in PvP might be off, but thats probably because were all not used to it. What if you coulden't see HP?

Adding a few of these options won't necessarily make the game easier, it gives more leeway to micromanage, so you can concentrate on other things (if you strive to be more than mediocre).

Now for instance battery necros can watch and see who may need energy soon, and position themselves ahead of time to use BR or BiP, instead of having to wait untill someone is already out of energy, must call their energy, then must run over and enchant them.

/signed

But I think that the icons for the minions would have to be reduced greatly in size, that the energy for enemies should not be there, and that skill recharge should be kept in the skill bar. But the ability to see the duration of the enchantments left on you would greatly help while solo farming and in most other situations, and the ability to see how long you have left for traps would be very usefull. The only problem that I could see is too many enchantments stacking and having the clock click down, so I would suggest having the duration show up only when you mouse over the normal enchantment Icon. Other than that, i can't really think of anything else to help suggest right now.

/signed with options to turn on and off and to resize/move the icons

Yep,I like the layout you showed,wouldn't bother me while playing. Also,like the whole minions,horrors,etc. health bars shown.


As has been put in other posts before this.


/sign

/Notsigned.
The only part that I'd even agree with is the ally energy display, and most good monks can sense when they'll need BiP/BR and call energy or say on TS/Vent.

/Signed

Atlast someone put this all into an image!

However , I do not want that the energy of the enemy and hexes and enchantments on the enemy are shown. It is bad to know too much about everything, it takes away from certain tactical elements. Also the minion thing has always been a problem in my thoughts. Maby the icons should be very small, something like the maintained enchantment icons.