I really hate them. It's not that the new art/design is poor quality so much as they're just way, way too busy. While I agree that a number of the old icons didn't make sense or were unclear, I appreciated the overall simplicity of the designs. The old ones were far more easy on the eyes. I also like to roll with smaller UI, and kept to a minimum. These new icon designs don't translate well with small UI.
I really hate them. It's not that the new art/design is poor quality so much as they're just way, way too busy. While I agree that a number of the old icons didn't make sense or were unclear, I appreciated the overall simplicity of the designs. The old ones were far more easy on the eyes. I also like to roll with smaller UI, and kept to a minimum. These new icon designs don't translate well with small UI.
I was thinking of this too and how to explain it.
Basically, it's similar to using letters from the alphabet, and how the shapes of letters are so well-defined, we can read sentences that are missing the lower-half of the letters. To put it simply, the icons need to be "legible", that is, easily readable by scanning.
The icons on many screens are quite small, and as they're so busy (perfect word for it), some of these are effectively illegible: we cannot read them without getting close and looking hard. Simplicity is part of the key to success for icons, but so is "shape", or the ability to see what something is purely by the outline or space it takes up. This is boosted by the colors used.
Some of them are okay (Beam Overload versus Beam Fire At Will) but others are just woeful, like Nadion Inversion versus Miracle Worker.
Basically, it's similar to using letters from the alphabet, and how the shapes of letters are so well-defined, we can read sentences that are missing the lower-half of the letters. To put it simply, the icons need to be "legible", that is, easily readable by scanning.
The icons on many screens are quite small, and as they're so busy (perfect word for it), some of these are effectively illegible: we cannot read them without getting close and looking hard. Simplicity is part of the key to success for icons, but so is "shape", or the ability to see what something is purely by the outline or space it takes up. This is boosted by the colors used.
I made essentially this same argument on Tribble weeks ago.
I love the new feature. Other than the minor annoyance of having to buy a few skills from the trainer. After somehow they removed them from my Boffs. But that was just some EC. No Dil sink yet for me.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Not usually one to comment on anything I dislike, but this...this is just horrible...
I fully get that there are people who will find the buttons a lot easier to read, some are, others (like many have pointed out) are not. For example; Why would you change EPtS to something that resembles the old transfer shield strength? Yes, using the same icon that the power tray uses is nice, but put a bloody + instead of an arrow, makes WAY more sense.
The cannon skills I do like but everything is extremely busy and way too "flashy".
Polarize Hull now looks like the old ground skill glitch is back and my KHG set is on my tray as it is basically the same as the original icon for that.
Go Down Fighting would have been best just putting KHAAN! because the new icon doesn't even come close to representing bracing for anything (unless on the toilet, kinda looks like ya hit the side with a shard)
Can I have a way to get the old icons back please? With the way my HUD and PC are setup i can barely make out some of the tiny symbols that fully explain what they do even when I'm wearing my glasses.
Basically, DR was a fail, 5th Anni is a fail, Boff changes are coming up as a fail with a LOT of the old players....maybe it's time to think about listening to what WE (the players and ones putting money in your pockets) want, not what your marketing department says we want because they keep TRIBBLE you guys over.
Faith in Cryptic took a major fall when PWE came in due to their heavy "GRIND EVERYTHING AND CHARGE MONEY FOR WHAT WE CAN'T MAKE THEM GRIND!!!!!!" mentality, then there are several customer relations issues I won't get into, poor support, leaving 5 y/o bugs in the game, pretty much ignoring 2/3 factions....the list goes on and all we get are excuses.
Man up, admit you royally f**ked up, and try to make amends with your customers. We are what's keeping you afloat after all
Long winded and rambling but it's 5am here and been a long night trying to get my Boffs to stay in their seats with proper skills
The skills now look almost identical. The old icons are by far more distinct! The idea to make these icons look similar as they are Emergency Power to X skills is sound, but making the icons tinier and harder to discern is not really an improvement. :mad:
Pretty much sums it up for me, these changes were so not needed. If the goal was to make it easier for players, it was a fail for me.
Really? Another thing that wasn't broken but felt like changing?
I'm at a loss Cryptic really I am it's becoming ever harder to understand your strategy and accept this is something you need to do as a business. If there weren't more pressing things in game I'd be positive about this "Sure go Cryptic" but with the state things are in and you're actively looking for things that have been fine for 5 years and decide let's shake the dice and see what happens?
I only have two questions :
1) Are Cryptic actively trying to find something for Thomas to do ?
2) How many times does TOR upgrade their icons ? Once a year , like STO ?
I'm on the fence right now about the new ability icons...
What I'm confused about is that my bridge officers no longer have many of the abilities that they have been previously trained in. For example, most of my characters are Tactical Captains, and their ships are armed with dual heavy cannons. For this reason, I've trained most of my Tactical Bridge Officers in the cannon abilities (Cannon Rapid Fire I, II, III, etc.). With the installation of the new icons, many of these Bridge Officers are sporting beam abilities (which is not what I trained them for, nor do these abilities benefit my current weapon load outs.
Basically, it's similar to using letters from the alphabet, and how the shapes of letters are so well-defined, we can read sentences that are missing the lower-half of the letters. To put it simply, the icons need to be "legible", that is, easily readable by scanning.
The icons on many screens are quite small, and as they're so busy (perfect word for it), some of these are effectively illegible: we cannot read them without getting close and looking hard. Simplicity is part of the key to success for icons, but so is "shape", or the ability to see what something is purely by the outline or space it takes up. This is boosted by the colors used.
Some of them are okay (Beam Overload versus Beam Fire At Will) but others are just woeful, like Nadion Inversion versus Miracle Worker.
Yes, that's it exactly. It's like choosing the right font, so to speak, serif v. san serif. The old icons were "thicker and bolder" whereas these new ones are intricately detailed...too much so for a graphic that's typically very tiny. And again, while the art itself is good (I want to be clear in not knocking the artist), it's not memorable from a collection standpoint. The old icons, as a collection, had a great stylistic theme. You could take five or six random icons and easily see that they were related. The new ones feel messy as a collection, much the same way as my messy bank looks.
I'm on the fence right now about the new ability icons...
What I'm confused about is that my bridge officers no longer have many of the abilities that they have been previously trained in. For example, most of my characters are Tactical Captains, and their ships are armed with dual heavy cannons. For this reason, I've trained most of my Tactical Bridge Officers in the cannon abilities (Cannon Rapid Fire I, II, III, etc.). With the installation of the new icons, many of these Bridge Officers are sporting beam abilities (which is not what I trained them for, nor do these abilities benefit my current weapon load outs.
I have the same problem on my main. And I'm forced to buy the appropriate training manual to teach them the skills they've known for years...
Aslo, I kinda like the new tactical icons. The Engineering and Science icons however are way too confusing. If I have to spend time to mouse over a skill to know what it does while in combat then that skill becomes useless. And I become a liability to the rest of the team. If everyone in the team is forced to mouse a skill then you get a fail team... of experienced players.
BO vs. FAW is fine. Even torp spread vs. HY is fine. But the FAIL is strong in a lot of these icons. Why can't Hazard Emitters simply be a ship outline with a + in the middle? Why can't Brace for Impact still be a gigantic "X" icon? Even something like Reverse Shield Polarity could have been a shield outline with a "+/-" in the middle. The old Gravity Well icon was much easier to recognize. I could go on and on. There's a lot not to like about the new tray icons; change for the sake of change isn't better.
Maybe something else you could do is incorporate a symbol in the corner of the icon that's color coded to the type of ability (offense = neon green, defense = neon orange). That could be another way to help distinguish the tray icons in the heat of battle.
An icon revamp shouldn't require me to get my glasses. They look nice but they are far less easy to see compared to the old versions. That's pretty contrary to good design.
Agreed, tbh I hate them.
Suppose ill get used to them eventually, but as stated, change for the sake of change is not good.
Icon are way to busy, I see no improvement with any of these.
I understand the mistake tho, there's not much you can do with scale, with that small a panel.
I want my old icons back! I know many people like the new ones and for them I suggest a opt for the old ones back. I haven't played but 5 mins since the new icons and I refuse to get use to them. I use my icons. I do not use a # layout. I am not gonna try and remember with each ship layout was the fire at will 2 or 3 or was that emergency power to weapons or was it emergency power to aux. so if this can't be done well I will post 1 post after of my good riddens and austa's.
I don`t mind new icons, soon got used to them but as someone said in earlier comment there does seem to be a delay between pressing icon & activation since the change. Also since most of us use icons based more on memory of where we put each trait than what the icon looks like it would be nice if the bug that removes/mixes up the tray icons could be fixed. This bug happened straight after i dismissed an old ship from inventory, eventually it seemed to go away (after many times of putting traits back in slots i wanted them in) but since the icons were revamped it has happened again a few times. Please fix this bug, i just want icons (whatever they look like) to stay where i put them.
Comments
I was thinking of this too and how to explain it.
Basically, it's similar to using letters from the alphabet, and how the shapes of letters are so well-defined, we can read sentences that are missing the lower-half of the letters. To put it simply, the icons need to be "legible", that is, easily readable by scanning.
The icons on many screens are quite small, and as they're so busy (perfect word for it), some of these are effectively illegible: we cannot read them without getting close and looking hard. Simplicity is part of the key to success for icons, but so is "shape", or the ability to see what something is purely by the outline or space it takes up. This is boosted by the colors used.
Some of them are okay (Beam Overload versus Beam Fire At Will) but others are just woeful, like Nadion Inversion versus Miracle Worker.
I made essentially this same argument on Tribble weeks ago.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=21716431&postcount=20
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I fully get that there are people who will find the buttons a lot easier to read, some are, others (like many have pointed out) are not. For example; Why would you change EPtS to something that resembles the old transfer shield strength? Yes, using the same icon that the power tray uses is nice, but put a bloody + instead of an arrow, makes WAY more sense.
The cannon skills I do like but everything is extremely busy and way too "flashy".
Polarize Hull now looks like the old ground skill glitch is back and my KHG set is on my tray as it is basically the same as the original icon for that.
Go Down Fighting would have been best just putting KHAAN! because the new icon doesn't even come close to representing bracing for anything (unless on the toilet, kinda looks like ya hit the side with a shard)
Can I have a way to get the old icons back please? With the way my HUD and PC are setup i can barely make out some of the tiny symbols that fully explain what they do even when I'm wearing my glasses.
Basically, DR was a fail, 5th Anni is a fail, Boff changes are coming up as a fail with a LOT of the old players....maybe it's time to think about listening to what WE (the players and ones putting money in your pockets) want, not what your marketing department says we want because they keep TRIBBLE you guys over.
Faith in Cryptic took a major fall when PWE came in due to their heavy "GRIND EVERYTHING AND CHARGE MONEY FOR WHAT WE CAN'T MAKE THEM GRIND!!!!!!" mentality, then there are several customer relations issues I won't get into, poor support, leaving 5 y/o bugs in the game, pretty much ignoring 2/3 factions....the list goes on and all we get are excuses.
Man up, admit you royally f**ked up, and try to make amends with your customers. We are what's keeping you afloat after all
Long winded and rambling but it's 5am here and been a long night trying to get my Boffs to stay in their seats with proper skills
Pretty much sums it up for me, these changes were so not needed. If the goal was to make it easier for players, it was a fail for me.
I only have two questions :
1) Are Cryptic actively trying to find something for Thomas to do ?
2) How many times does TOR upgrade their icons ? Once a year , like STO ?
What I'm confused about is that my bridge officers no longer have many of the abilities that they have been previously trained in. For example, most of my characters are Tactical Captains, and their ships are armed with dual heavy cannons. For this reason, I've trained most of my Tactical Bridge Officers in the cannon abilities (Cannon Rapid Fire I, II, III, etc.). With the installation of the new icons, many of these Bridge Officers are sporting beam abilities (which is not what I trained them for, nor do these abilities benefit my current weapon load outs.
Fed/Vulcan: T'jar Voltek Fleet: Section 31
Fed/Andorian: Lissan Ek'Noor sh'Aqabaa Fleet: Section 31
KDF/Cardi: K'Im Qah da Sian Fleet: Klingon Intelligence
KDF/Reman: R'Chras Jonzor Fleet: Klingon Intelligence
Yes, that's it exactly. It's like choosing the right font, so to speak, serif v. san serif. The old icons were "thicker and bolder" whereas these new ones are intricately detailed...too much so for a graphic that's typically very tiny. And again, while the art itself is good (I want to be clear in not knocking the artist), it's not memorable from a collection standpoint. The old icons, as a collection, had a great stylistic theme. You could take five or six random icons and easily see that they were related. The new ones feel messy as a collection, much the same way as my messy bank looks.
I have the same problem on my main. And I'm forced to buy the appropriate training manual to teach them the skills they've known for years...
Aslo, I kinda like the new tactical icons. The Engineering and Science icons however are way too confusing. If I have to spend time to mouse over a skill to know what it does while in combat then that skill becomes useless. And I become a liability to the rest of the team. If everyone in the team is forced to mouse a skill then you get a fail team... of experienced players.
BO vs. FAW is fine. Even torp spread vs. HY is fine. But the FAIL is strong in a lot of these icons. Why can't Hazard Emitters simply be a ship outline with a + in the middle? Why can't Brace for Impact still be a gigantic "X" icon? Even something like Reverse Shield Polarity could have been a shield outline with a "+/-" in the middle. The old Gravity Well icon was much easier to recognize. I could go on and on. There's a lot not to like about the new tray icons; change for the sake of change isn't better.
Maybe something else you could do is incorporate a symbol in the corner of the icon that's color coded to the type of ability (offense = neon green, defense = neon orange). That could be another way to help distinguish the tray icons in the heat of battle.
Suppose ill get used to them eventually, but as stated, change for the sake of change is not good.
Icon are way to busy, I see no improvement with any of these.
I understand the mistake tho, there's not much you can do with scale, with that small a panel.
No? Well ****.