General interface improvements

[Regn]

The probability that people will read this might be minimal, and if they do they might unfortunately get annoyed at me. If it seems like I'm stalling my point it's because I'm having trouble communicating in a way as to be properly understood, and to not step on anyone's toes. Especially when it comes to creation people are very sensitive to criticism, even if it's meant to be constructive. And I want to be constructive, and practical, but unfortunately, like I'm going to write next, I can't do much about it myself. So, the only thing I can do is give my opinion, or my point of view.

I used to be very good at learning things quickly, no matter how complex it was, but as I've gotten older, certain things have resulted in me losing that intellectual trait. So I cannot learn how to e.g. create my own interface anymore. And believe me, I've tried. More than once. I get far into development, but eventually I lose patience and stop when things do not work as intended; I feel like I get more out of doing something that requires less energy, you know.

I just wanted to get that out of the way. That, I am in no way saying that those of you who can and has created user interfaces are not doing it well enough. It would be hypocritical of me since I cannot do what you do at all. I acknowledge that, and do not disregard it in what I'm about to say next.

The reason why I wanted to make my own interface was because I was not and am still not content with the default or modified interfaces in EverQuest 2, because they are disregarding the following (which I consider important):

- Relevancy
- Size
- Design

Relevancy being the most important, size being the second most important, and design being the least important.

Although I used to like being able to see all my stats, and all my experience bars, and my health, power and concentration bars in three different locations covering half the screen next to three different spells windows (Effects, detrimental, and maintained), and a giant group window, raid window, mini-map, quest journal, and lest I forget six hotbars, I have now grown less attentive to focus on all of these interface pieces, most of which are irrelevant to combating mobs, and interacting with the game in general. And instead want to minimize the interface, and magnify the world I play in.

Ok, so, to the point. Let me move on to what I consider relevant and not relevant to certain interface pieces.

Character stats window

- Irrelevant to combat. Clutters up screen. Can be found in the persona window.

Effects window

What's irrelevant to the effects window:
- My own buffs that remain active until death. They can be found, read and toggled on the hotbar.
- Other peoples group buffs. They can be found in the persona window. And if I want to know what kind of buffs the Dirge/Troub has up, I'll ask them. Otherwise these thirty to one hundred buffs clutters up my screen.

What's somewhat relevant to the effects window:
- Other peoples single target buffs on me. If they buff me up with a hate increase/decrease buff, and they forget to put it back on me after we have died, I can remind them to put it back on me. And this is still somewhat irrelevant because I can ask them, or open up my persona window, but it should be an option. They are not that many buffs so they do not clutter up the screen.

What's relevant to the effects window:
- Experience and stats potions, because there is no other way to see when these potions need to be consumed anew.

Maintained window

What's irrelevant to the maintained window:
- Buffs that remain active until death. They can be found, read and toggled on the hotbar.

What's relevant to the maintained window:
- Buffs that will eventually run out of time or charges, like tradeskill poisons, the ranger's Archer's Fury buff, ranger and assassin's Exploit Weakness buff, priest and tank wards, reactives, and stoneskins.

Experience bar

- Irrelevant to combat. Should be found in persona window, achievement window, crafting window, and guild window.

Group & Raid window

- Class icons are not needed. These can be seen when hovering over group members.
- Player levels are not needed. These can be seen when hovering over group members.
- Player names should be on the left side of the health and power bars, and should be aligned to the right, while the health and power bars should be on the right side of the player names and aligned to the left (Think of the cells in an Excel sheet).
-- Alternatively, player names should be over the health and power bar, and aligned to the left.
- The health bar should have twice the thickness of the power bar, and the power bar should be very thin. This could be an option for illusionists/coercers, so that they can turn the power bar's thickness up, like a healer who needs to see the health bar more clearly. The power bar does not need to be visible for everyone else, even though sometimes power is drained for an entire group, it will still be noticeable.
- The groups of a raid window should have the option of being stacked in 1x4, 2x2, and 4x1 on the screen.
- The raid window should look like a minimized group window, not have its entire design changed to the color patterns of a clown. It should also not have an all black background; if names and health are difficult to read, it's just the names and health bar that needs more shadow, not the entire window.
- A small button that will toggle between group and raid window view.

Player window

- Irrelevant. Really(?) Yes. The health and power can be found over the character's head, and in the group or raid window. There's no need to see ones health and power in the player window, over the character's head, and in the group and raid window.
- The concentration bar is irrelevant to experienced players. New players would find concentration warnings peculiar if the bar was not present. To fix this spell icons should have a small blue dot in the corner when it implies taking up a concentration slot (Problem solved. Less clutter. No confusion.)
- Even though the health bar, power bar, and concentration bar is irrelevant; curing trauma, elemental, noxious and arcane using potions or abilities with the click of a button is not irrelevant because it avoids cluttering up the hotbar with potions and single target cures. This could be a single interface piece that did not replace the detrimental window.

Target & Target's Target

- These should be locked together by default. Main target to the left. Target's target to the right.
- Option to turn off target's target by the single click of a button.
- Option to turn buffs and debuffs off on target and target's target.
- Option to turn casting bar off on target and target's target.

Quest helper window

- Clutters screen. Should have an option to resize text of title and context to make much smaller.

Bags

- Needs joints and snap.
- Option to joint lock.
- Option to joint resize.

Chat window

- Tabs on the bottom (see next point).
- Window fades from bottom to top (gradient transparency).


Like I said, I hope nobody gets offended by this, and I'm not telling anyone to change. I'm not better than you. This section of the forum said "UI User Discussion - Talk about what interface best helps you." And I took that opportunity to mention what best helps me, or how I prefer or visualize my interfaces. I just wanted to relay my point of view, and maybe, hopefully, someone who can create interfaces will go "Hmm, I like what you're saying and share some of your views," or maybe it sparked some new ideas. But like I said, I'm not telling anyone to change; the people who can and has created interfaces most likely got into it for the same reason that I wanted to, and that's ok.

Oh, and another option to all of the above would be to create a small interface piece that could be configured to display certain buttons, the buttons to hide and show interface pieces. That way the group window could be turned off and raid window turned on, turn off or on the effects and maintained windows whenever certain things needed to be checked up on, hide the quest helper until it was needed, and so on. It's unfortunate that I can't help create any because I have lots of ideas. Well, at least I can share my ideas should you want to take from them, integrate or modify them as you wish.