I dont think its a secret that many feel that Champions needs a few Quality of Life (QOL) updates to the game, in terms of user friendliness and UI support. The following are some basic QOL updates that I think myself and perhaps a few other players would like to see to make things more user friendly in Champions.
Graphic User Interface (GUI) Update
Currently, Champions basically has two GUIs going for it; the old blue tinted UI thats kind of unwieldy and blocky and the newer UI that is evoking a comic book flair to it. I say take the comic book style UI, stream line it and make it less invasive, and go with it for the entire UI with the following suggestions for certain parts;
Character Sheet/Super Group Design Update
Make the Character and Super Group pages look like a Dosier sort of like
this. It feels more like a super hero character sheet providing confidential information, as it is something seen in comic books when looking at character info, and would also help with the immersion of the character. One thing about the character sheet is that it has always been too small in game, and having a bigger character sheet would help out as more pertinent information about the character can be added. Put the tabs down the side like you would see on a real dossier style; Overview, Builds, Costumes, Auras and Description.
In addition to that when other players get info on a character allow them to see our Perks (Achievements) that weve collected. It can just be a list with the icons that tell us what they are when moused over, but it doesnt have to be complex list like we get in our perks window.
This can also apply for the SG as well as a lot of SG info just seems crammed in instead of providing easy to see information at a glance. This could also help go a long way towards any potential SG improvements that Cryptic North might be looking to do. Same tab system like it would be with the main character sheet.
Chat Box Improvements
Take a page from Neverwinter and go a step further with it; the chat box needs to be improved. Two things would help out a bunch in this regard. First, color code player names in chat. This would help immensely in identifying who is talking and allow players to track conversations easier in chat boxes. Secondly, color code the chat line to reflect the color code of the chat the player is participating in. For instance, the text while typing will be white when you are talking in local, but it will be in the pink if its a private message, or orange (if your colored the text that color) for the channel you colored orange. This would help a lot ways. Also change the code so that the channel changes instantly to the new channel you back slashed to instead of waiting for you to hit enter.
Add a Second Chat Box
This one has been asked for, for a very long time. Star Trek Online now has it, I think getting a hold of that code would be in the best interest of Champions and providing that second chat box weve always wanted to. Basic something we can transfer tabs to and just keep a casual eye on things, maybe as simple as a box to eye rewards we get or keep an eye on other channels.
Streamline the Health Bars and Add a Raid UI
Ive never been a fan of health bars with pictures on them. Its redundant and kind of silly when you think about it. Its not like you are going to forget your own characters name, and most of the time healers are only watching the green to worry about who the face is attached to. Why so we have this excess UI bloat? Remove the picture and make the health bars more streamlined. Also the buff icons should be divorced from the actual health bar gump and allow us to place them where we want on our screens with better timers on them so we can see what buffs and debuffs we actually get.
With this change you also need to add in a proper raid UI for rampages and anything planned for larger than one party combat. Healers are currently frustrated in rampages because of the broken raid UI.
Unify the Inventory into One Bag
The current method of opening multiple inventory bags is not functional. In addition to this madness, there is a prevalent bug that thinks when the first bag is full; your entire inventory is full. Change this to one big bag, and any additional bag space purchased or added just increases the overall size of said inventory. This would go a long way into making many people happy in that respect alone.
Add in Emote Bubbles, Yell Bubbles and radio Bubbles for Emotes, Zone, and Team Chat
This is another thing that would help with the immersion of the game and I still dont understand why it has yet to be considered in the long run. But helping to differentiate chats with bubble styles helps a lot to. We need emote bubbles for emotes we do with actual chat text, yell bubbles for zone chat since we dont exactly have a yell channel, and a radio bubble for team chat. Examples are
Emote,
Yell and
Radio for team with the normal bubble with the lightning style link. I think these would go a long way in helping players feel better immersed and identifying different chat channels at a glance as well.
Upgrade the Auction House to Star Trek Online or Neverwinter Quality
Easy thing to say of course, but probably not easy to implement. But this is long overdue. The basic level of Champions auction house is, quite frankly, abysmal, and a much better upgrade is needed.
Sell Resource Cap Increases in the C-Store
Add in a resource upgrade on a per character basis to allow players to buy up their resource cap. Say 500 zen to do so? Maybe a 3000 zen version for the entire account.
Anyways just my list of QOL updates I think would help the game.
Comments
Our ui needs some work, a lot of this would help.
RIP Caine
That does remind me.
And updated.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
RIP Caine
Any breath of fresh air is welcome.
Yes, inventory re-vamp to fix that annoying bug w/ the extra bags
Yes, purchasable resource cap increase
Yes, improved (or at least more intuitive) AH
FIXED/IMPROVED RAID UI - YES PLEASE! Currently I dun generally bring my Support toons to Gravi and F&I cause the queue and linked UI bugs means its likely I won't 'see' half of the raid- nor will they get my auras
/signed (doesn't mean anything, but w/e, still want the damn grouping UI looked at)
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
That's all I really need to say
One more thing that me and a lot of other althaholics would like to see: Let us re-arrange the characters in the character selection screen! :biggrin:
Especially on health bar UI updates. Healing and shielding on rampages is a bit problematic. For the sole reason that keeping track of the entire group is nearly impossible with the current configuration.
/signed these are all things Cryptic should have done ages ago.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
/signed
Better Auction House and chatboxes are basic requirements.
Consolidated bags and inventory are already present in STO and NW.
And I never understood all this love for pointless character portraits next to health bars. In any mmo.
I think it's a holdover from very early games like Mario where you could see Mario's face x the number of lives he had. Supposed to make you identify with the character or something I guess.
Funny, how people in game industry can't grasp how redundant and onscreen space consuming it is in any game with 3d character models and paperdoll windows.
It is useful for quick identification of mobs and party members, but that's about it. Not for my own player character.
Should tell something how many popular WoW UI mods actually removes character portraits.
While we're daydreaming, I'd like to see basic opacity and mouse over options too along with my all raid frames all the time option. The hobbyist that made my shell replacer knows how to add the ability to hide inactive parts of my desktop until I mouse over them and that's what I'd like to see in CO. Also: lua enabled UI. I would learn how to do scripting if it means having a UI of my choice. Those of you that are narcissist can keep your character portraits and I can have a UI that is functional and minimal.
Personally hate chat bubbles and don't care if they exist as long as I can turn them all off.
Guild UI needs a miracle. If I wanted to do something dumb, like adjusting guild rank permissions, I need to do some magical window resizing until I can actually click the rank I want to change. And the sorting options don't even work properly.
Not sure about a per character vs account wide globals lift. There really is no reason to have more than one toon be the AH pony. I'd rather the global cap be lifted if you spend money in the cash shop or a gold sub. Kind of like how Sony does their account levels. They have the total free players, the ones that have spent money on the game, and the subs. If you spend all of $5 you get a few more character slots, a higher money limit, and ... um ... other stuff. I don't remember off hand.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
RIP Caine
/signed all the things!
That Dork In The Suspenders, signing out.
WARNING: Not An Actual Internet Reviewer
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Let us Fuse mods in blocks, or at least reduce the time for fusing them. That would help a lot!
I really don't understand the need for such a long range on [Local]. If you're playing content together you're usually in a team and [Team] has no max range. If you're just idly chatting to someone in a social area you generally don't want to be hearing what people more than about 20 feet away are saying.
In social areas like Club Caprice you are easily overwhelmed by the fast-flowing speed of text from several different conversations in the same room as you, since you're forced to have your chat pane filled up with conversations on the other side of the room. It would actually be helpful to have the speech bubbles that appear in the game world still broadcast at the same range as they are now, but not have it print in the chat pane. That way you could still 'listen in' on other people if you wanted, but not have it clutter up your own experience if you don't.
Alternatively:
Change [Local] chat text brightness depending on distance
Simply put - the further you are from a person, the darker their text appears in the chat pane. This allows the reader to disseminate one conversation from another - people talking nearby will have their dialogue be bright, that of people on the edge of the broadcast radius will appear dark and dull.
This is probably the harder option to achieve because CO already has the ability to change the hue of chat channels, but hey, just putting it out there.
Also:
Make /em emotes a separate colour to [Local] by default
It's hard to dissociate emotes from chat, right? Well, no, all you need to do is change the colour. I go for light orange, personally. But as they are both white by default it can be an unnecessary hassle for many. It's an easy change, please sort it.
As someone who used to frequent and host a ton of costume contests, I hate this suggestion with every fiber of my soul. We already have enough issues doing trivia because hosts can't hear the responses of everyone in the room. Join a team if local chat bothers you, you're in a *bar*. It's gonna get loud. Seriously, this would just flat out cripple costume contests.
Fully signed on the emote thing though, that'd be awesome.
RIP Caine
It's actually possible to change the color of Emote text in chat settings, I believe. It's just white like Local by default.
Loud in real life is one thing. Here text moves too fast to keep up with. It's not really a solution, and making teams is impractical as people come and go from the conversation. You might be standing nearby to people and overhear what they're talking about, which is of course impossible if they're talking in [Team].
Compromise then? A new [Yell] channel that has slightly greater range than [Local] currently has, and [Local] itself reduced in distance.
I did say that. The suggestion was to change the default, that's all.
RIP Caine