Pet info for the group window
 

Today I started working on including the pet name, health and power for each group member in dynamic data. Originally I was going to leave this data for the modders but I think it might be nice to incorporate the pet info into the default UI. Just messing around, I lowered the detrimental effect icons and inserted the pet name and two smaller progress bars between the player power bar and the effect icons.

I would be open to a new design of the group window if anyone has some great ideas. Feel free to post some mock-ups and maybe we can come up with a new design that would look nice in the default UI.

Nice. Since the pet can get its own impairments would it not make sense to have:

Player HP
Player Power
Player Impairments
PlayerPet HP
PlayerPet Power <-- actually I'm not sure if we even need this on the group window, but others can comment.
PlayerPet Impairments

You would need to pay attention to which pet you are showing though, I think (but may be wrong, have not been playing for too long) that the player's pet window is probably still buggy in sometimes showing the wrong pet (like god pets, or if you charm pets in addition to your main pet).

Also not wanting to derail but DynamicData for raidwide impairments would still be great! :)

I'd drop the pets name (could make it show on hover over/tooltip info) and just have two mini bars for the pet. Like gm9 I am not even sure if its power needs to be readily displayed but I've never played a pet class so maybe it does. Maybe a align the power bar so it show as the lower part of the Health bar; a two bars in one type thing. That window is already kind of big, should try not to make it to much bigger.

Ahh that's great!

On the power thing: I have played several pet classes and while pet power is crucial to know for the pet's player, I do not think group members have any reason to see it (and they can still target the pet if they really care).

Pet impairments whoever would be useful I think, but if you want to redesign a lot maybe make impairments in general toggleable since some classes do not care too much about them.

I was thinking that the pet bars/cures would have to be smaller than the actual group members because 1). they're not important 2). to avoid confusion. And maybe even a smaller font for the pets. And I was thinking that when there are no pets in the group, it should resize back to normal or something.

These are just some thoughts. Also, doing it this way would/could be better because the player could resize it if they don't want to see the pet info. :cool:

Right now I'm not showing the detrimental effects for the pet. I'd have to look into how hard it would be to put that info in dynamic data. This is separate from the spell effects that you see when you target it, so it might be a decent amount of effort to make it all work.

I could understand leaving off the pet name and power if its not necessary for other group members to see, but it might make sense to have them on there for completeness and good visual appeal. My first pass already included smaller progress bars close together, so its similar to the idea of two bars in one. Here is a screenshot of my first mock-up I threw together. Keep in mind that this window needs to resize horizontally as well, so putting the pet data out to the side might only work in a vertical situation.

Not sure if the default group window can be resized but if you move the pet below of the cure icons first of all there is no confusion whom they apply to and in addition players could resize the pet out of the way if they do not care about it.

I wouldn't show the name of the pet to save some more space. It is still big enough to click and the pet is usually named like the player for parsing purpose anyways.

The problem with putting the pet info under the detrimental effects is that when the group window is used vertically and there are no detriments on a player, the pet info will appear closer to the player below him which would cause confusion as to who the pet belonged to.

I was just moving the controls into a composite so I could make the detrimental icons move up if there was no pet info. The only problem with that is when a player has the window displayed horizontally, I dont like the idea of the detrimental icons not being lined up if some players have pets and some dont.

Basically you do one thing that looks good horizontally and it looks bad vertically and vice versa.

Another option is we could let the client move the controls around based on a vertical or horizontal display. So if a player stretches the window tall, the pet info would move out to the right of the player name making a wider window. This way if a player didn't have a pet it would look fine. If the player stretches the window horizontally, we could display the pet below the detrimental icons so that the window becomes taller instead of wider. And again, if a player didn't have a pet it would look fine because the icons would stay lined up.

Just to give you an idea how I would set it up.



Leave cure curse normal size and slightly reduce the other 4 cures put the bar as a third bar and make it go almost to cure curse so.

even added bullets to the sides so it stood out a little bid more

EDIT: Oh and to stress when adding this make something like Gamedata.pet.window so when their pet dies there can be a command or something run.

I agree something to like the above (maybe not the bigger curse icon) would work best, as it worked great in EQ1.
Just place the pet's health bar under the player's power bar and have it display thinner.

So instead of 4 pixels between the players power and effects, there will be 8.
2 pixels for the pet's health...
Adjust as seen fit. Here's a mock up:



I think this works best as it would look fine vertical or horizontal.

Why would you need "window"?

The dynamica data is currently setup like

/GameData.Group.Group_0.PetName
/GameData.Group.Group_0.PetHealth
/GameData.Group.Group_0.PetPower

The PetName value will have its visibility toggled when there is no pet, so couldn't you script based on that show/hide?

Thats fine, in the current gamedata Gamedata.pet.name doesn't toggle visibility. It just says "No Pet", which is the reason I mentioned it.

Yeah, but it looks funky and would cause confusion...

Here are a few options.

The first option is to do something like I mentioned before. We could position the pet info to the right or bottom depending on the orientation of the group window.

The other option is similar to what Samijima suggested.

I've decreased the icon sizes from 26x26 to 21x21 to make the group window a little more compact. Plus an even 50% scaling of the icons from the original 42x42 size will probably look better.

Let me know what you guys think.

Elaborate on your opinion if you don't mind.

Are you thinking the pet's health bar with no indicator (like the pet name) makes it a little unintuitive? That was my initial reaction to having a bar without the name label. But I could warm up to the idea especially if the mouse-over tooltip was clear.

Personally I like the idea based on mine and Drumstix's examples. To further expand on that, I use the group window in a 3x2 set up so the other setup would cause problems for me and cause it to be massive either way. While the Idea me and drumstix presented doesn't cause any problems in any possible setup.

Don't see how. You never played EQ1, eh?
I really think having the pet name there is redundant. It really isn't that confusing to the eyes at all. 'Specially when the bars are full.

Btw, Rothgar. I think you should definitely reduce the icon sizes as you did no matter what the turn out be. Looks nice having the debuffs the same width :)

Samejima, you bring up a good point about people that might have their group window 3x2 and we know how sensitive people are to change. :) Plus I don't really like the idea of moving UI elements within our code. Makes it harder to mod the UI.

Drumstix, I definitely think I'm going to keep the icons 21x21. Being a stickler for straight lines and "evenness" I was really excited when the icons lined up perfectly with the progress bars. The bars are 109 pixels wide if you want to keep the textures at a 1:1 ratio and 5 icons at 21 pixels each plus 4-1 pixel separators is exactly 109.

Yes, the things that make me happy qualify me as a weirdo. =)

You're just fidgety when it comes to that. I'm sure we all are like that with certain things. But I can honestly say I'm not... :D

You know I can see that working, because it would work vertical and horizontally. The pet name is unnecessary. What would it look like if the player has no pet? There would be a lot of dead space.

Yeah, there would be some dead space, but considering that the detrimental effects are invisible most of the time, I don't think the dead space would be that detracting from the layout. I'm finishing it up now to see what it looks like in game.

Just a thought, I really do like way Dragowulf has it, maybe put the pet/s name on the pets' health bar itself. But do not have it so dark to not see the pets health. This way you can include the pet/s name and still keep everything uniform. Even if there is not pet around just have it read something like, Pet Sleeping, or something like that. But then again I am not much of a modder. Did some in Vanguard just not EQ II.

OnHoverIn="PetName.visible=true"

That solves that :rolleyes:

Yeah that would work.

I like that idea, I'm going to steal it. Here's what I've got so far.



I like the way this collaboration has turned out. And if anyone doesn't like it I can just blame it on you guys. =P

They will like it...or we'll make them! :D

I really like how you compacted it more, with smaller 21x21 icons and the voice chat icon moved. Are you going to put the pet page and effects page into a composite to eliminate the dead space in between? Or how is that going to work? I'm sure if anybody is like me, they would rip their eyes out because of the 5 extra pixels of dead space in between.

I played around with using a composite but eventually ripped it out. I think having the detrimental effect icons not line up would bother me more. Of course this only matters with a horizontal setup but that's how I play. =)

The other strange thing about a composite if you had it arranged vertically is that the group members would pop up and down as people cast / dismissed pets.

I think since the detrimental effects are mostly invisible, the extra space wont be that noticable.

Ahh yes, that's true

Woot, win win. I like the layout.

Modders can do with what they want, the way they want ,when they want.
Woot, I love confusing sentences. I'll probably take out the frame bubbles next to the pet health, but that's just me :D

Remember, Rothgar is all about the aesthetics! God forbid what he'd do if it's a pixel off... ;)

Sounds like you just had an epiphany drums. :p

Looks nice with the pet name on the bar itself, sweeet!

Yeah, but you're only going to see it when you hover your mouse over it.

I like it.

Pet in group window
 

Just my two cents. I think it might be a good idea to shift the pet health bar a bit to the right and put the word "Pet" to the left. You know there will be a lot of confusion when this first hits as many people don't read the patch notes. I can just see the thousands of conversations that start with, "Hey why do you have an extra bar on the group window?" Oh, sure I know your going to have a tool tip that pops up, but I have found that it's better to error on the side of the obvious.

Well if the bar is only there when there's a pet, I really don't see the confusion.
I think you guys a reading too far into it. It's not like some new full-fledged feature that's gonna cause mass confusion.

It's a pet health bar. "What's this new bar" "Pet health"
End of story :D

I was thinking the same thing. I can't count the times I've been asked obvious question.

You obviously haven't dealt with the general public long.

I agree, I think putting the word "Pet" beside the health bar would be great. It would also let people know what it is.

One more suggestion, not sure if it can be done but I think it can be, but when you have a pet and when the name of it is on the health bar make the name Italic this way it will stand out a bit better. Just a thought.

Also will you be able to target the pet like this? Like when adventuring would the healer or anyone else in the group be able to click on the pets name to target it?

I hate it. ;)