The basic idea is good, make it easier for people to figure out what a skill is and does.
But it has NOT been achieved. Example? Seeker Drones! The new idea arguably looks even less than the ingame representation of various kinds of seeker drones.
Attack Pattern Alpha, Beta, Delta, Omega: The old icons were better.
Cannon Rapid Fire / Scatter Voley / Beam Overload / BFAW: Now there I see some more "logical" icons. The only bad idea was to make the new BO icon look so much like the old BFAW.
The icon for the Engineer skill "Weapon Malfunction" also looks more logical and not bad.
Emergency Power to X skill: The same man behind the art, the same problem as with Tactical consoles: 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.
So much about Feedback, I like giving it as none was asked and this is apparently just to prepare us for the shock of something that go waved through already.
Not really convincing result, sorry!
Also I can understand people when they wonder about the priorities at Cryptic!?!
Let's see what gets revamped next without dire need but what else in really dire need of a fix put on the long list. :mad:
The new icons are nice & I look forward to seeing them on Holodeck; especially the new Attack Pattern icons, whose top right arrows give hints as to how each particular Attack Pattern works. The only new icon which I wish would be redrawn is Fire on my Mark (Tactical Ground).
DPS-Bronze, DPS-Silver, DPS-Gold, etc. are FAKE! They were created by an outvoted minority who destroyed the original DPS channels!
Tactical Team sucked, once upon a time. I got it buffed. Don't think for a minute that Cryptic ignores forum feedback.
I, for one, welcome this change... you may not like it, but it's going to happen. Best thing to do is just accept it.
I never said I didn't like it but it's hard to enjoy this update when the game is in the state it's in and Cryptic's handling of it. If I had to forget about the state of the game I'd be indifferent about this sort of thing, I didn't mind the old ones, the new ones are fine and it will take time to adapt but I won't complain.
And as for what would the art team do? Again I never said I wouldn't welcome these changes, the art team do a great job most of the time and need to do something but it's another reminder that Cryptic would rather change and meddle with stuff that has been fine for 5 years rather than invest time and effort in stuff that I think the community at large would rank 'a bit higher' than art updates. How Cryptic does this is up to them.
Pvpers have been waiting for an update for years and though I'm not even a hardcore pvper I'd at least credit Cryptic for addressing something a portion of the community has been asking to be looked in to even if it wasn't a big thing for me.
But hey at least when I fail VCE because I can't complete the anomaly optional I can enjoy the updated boof icons :P.
- Lunge icon is funny, in a bad way probably.
- Vascular Regenerator is a little too graphical, for me. It looks a little disturbing.
Some icons are slightly confusing but I'll sleep over it to try to figure how to explain how.
PS: please re-adjust the links to the pictures in a vertical way. Links to the right cant be seen in mobile browsing because they're rendered out of bounds and no zooming or changing orientation fixes it.
No kidding. While we appreciate the effort, is there a possibility we can keep our old trusted and above all familiar icons?
Players are creatures of habit after all.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
There's a few I'm not too keen on (the emergency power abilities, for example, which I think are better represented by the old ones), some which look a bit overly complicated for the size they'll be but look very good (some of the medical ones), and even those look very good as do the rest of them which look fantastic, thanks Thomas.
And as for what would the art team do? Again I never said I wouldn't welcome these changes, the art team do a great job most of the time and need to do something but it's another reminder that Cryptic would rather change and meddle with stuff that has been fine for 5 years rather than invest time and effort in stuff that I think the community at large would rank 'a bit higher' than art updates.
Since when could "what'd you rather" be held as an actionable standard of video game design? I'd rather have Bungie build a puzzle-platformer-bouncy-castle hybrid than remain rooted in the mire of AAA first person shooters. I wouldn't tell them that though because I know that my priorities are entirely dependent on my tastes, standards, and subjective pespective more generally. I'm not going to pretend that other people [which includes video game developers] should abide by it [to the point where I could openly chastize those people for not following along with my dictates.]
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Honestly, in some cases, I feel that there is little to no improvement. Some of them are excellent, but others are just as baffling as the originals. (If not more.)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Here it is. Just remembered that I had it bookmarked.
Txs... I forgot to save the link also.
:cool:
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
A nitpick that I have after looking at all the icons in-depth is that Medical Tricorder and Tricorder Scan look too similar at a glance. I think someone else in the thread mentioned it too. Maybe if the Medical Tricorder one was over a body or something, could help differentiate it more.
And you have to remember that all of these icons are gonna be much smaller in-game than they are in these preview pics; resizing these previews to ~60% (in-game size for me at least) makes some of them harder to discern easily. I think that we had this same issue when the Console icons were revamped; everything looked nice and Trek-like at full size, but at in-game sizes a lot of them became a lot harder to quickly tell the difference (the Armor Console icons for instance).
These are really beautifully done. I was able to guess which of the new ones corresponded to the current icons in the preview article, so kudos. The tactical icon overhaul in particular make each icon more distinct and informative. Overall they should help ease the learning curve for newer players/returning players, but there are a few issues.
The differentiating symbols for the EPtX icons are really small, which might be an issue for players on smaller resolutions or UI scales.
The medical symbol for Medical Tricorder icon could be easily obfuscated by low brightness or small resolution, which may lead to some confusion between it and Tricorder Scan.
There is a slight overuse of the thunderbolt symbol, which could confuse players as to whether the power is a buff or a debuff (i.e. Damping Field, Hypospray - Dylovene, and Tachyon Harmonic all feature the thunderbolt). Granted, there is the buff, debuff triangle, or X to indicate the effect of the power, but new players may not hone in on that.
Three of the Beam Target Subsystem powers feature a vertical icon, which doesn't read well when scaled down, in particular for the weapons tray on a science ship.
A nitpick that I have after looking at all the icons in-depth is that Medical Tricorder and Tricorder Scan look too similar at a glance. I think someone else in the thread mentioned it too. Maybe if the Medical Tricorder one was over a body or something, could help differentiate it more.
And you have to remember that all of these icons are gonna be much smaller in-game than they are in these preview pics; resizing these previews to ~60% (in-game size for me at least) makes some of them harder to discern easily. I think that we had this same issue when the Console icons were revamped; everything looked nice and Trek-like at full size, but at in-game sizes a lot of them became a lot harder to quickly tell the difference (the Armor Console icons for instance).
Your link goes to the Space Icons.
:eek:
Does Chroniton Mines Barrier really BUFF (upward Triangle) my Character?
Shouldn't the lower right corner symbol be a Dot to indicate they get Summoned??
The Seeker Drone/Support Drone and the Turret actually attack, but you changed their symbols from an X (attack) to a Dot to indicate Summoned.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
A nitpick that I have after looking at all the icons in-depth is that Medical Tricorder and Tricorder Scan look too similar at a glance. I think someone else in the thread mentioned it too. Maybe if the Medical Tricorder one was over a body or something, could help differentiate it more.
And you have to remember that all of these icons are gonna be much smaller in-game than they are in these preview pics; resizing these previews to ~60% (in-game size for me at least) makes some of them harder to discern easily. I think that we had this same issue when the Console icons were revamped; everything looked nice and Trek-like at full size, but at in-game sizes a lot of them became a lot harder to quickly tell the difference (the Armor Console icons for instance).
When I looked at it, Medical Tricorder was completely different to Tricorder scan (the new versions). Medical Tricorder icon has the tricorder pointing left, while Tricorder Scan has the tricorder pointing right.
The Medical Tricorder and and Tricorder Scan are nearly mirror images of each other, it might be better to do something else with one of them to make them more obviously different, perhaps by having a scanning signal coming out the tricorder on Tricorder Scan it would be more distinguishable at a glance. Just thinking for others more than myself, I'm very picture orientated when it comes to spotting stuff so I can appreciate the difference more than maybe others would.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
When I looked at it, Medical Tricorder was completely different to Tricorder scan (the new versions). Medical Tricorder icon has the tricorder pointing left, while Tricorder Scan has the tricorder pointing right.
I guess what I mean is that they both just look like plain ol' Tricorders at a glance. Sure the medical one has the tiny scanner thingy and a hard-to-tell-if-you're-not-squinting Medical background symbol, but I betcha if you showed just the icons to a new player without tell them which is which, they'd just look like Tricorders. The left/right thing simply leaves distinguishing them reliant on memorizing which does which, than intuition, and I'm guessing that the whole point of the revamp is to make the intuitive approach work better (i.e. 'That Tricorder is hovered over a body, maybe it's for healing!'). Again, I'm looking at these at ~60% image size.
The Medical Tricorder and and Tricorder Scan are nearly mirror images of each other, it might be better to do something else with one of them to make them more obviously different, perhaps by having a scanning signal coming out the tricorder on Tricorder Scan it would be more distinguishable at a glance. Just thinking for others more than myself, I'm very picture orientated when it comes to spotting stuff so I can appreciate the difference more than maybe others would.
If They made the Caduceus more prominent on the Medical Tricorder, that would probably help.
It does have the handheld scanner showing, but the size might not be conducive to a quick recognition eyeball scan.
:cool:
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
If They made the Caduceus more prominent on the Medical Tricorder, that would probably help.
It does have the handheld scanner showing, but the size might not be conducive to a quick recognition eyeball scan.
:cool:
I had a similar thought. Especially considering I have BOTH powers in my tray when I'm running as a ground healer.
Overall, an improvement to the current icons - which aren't always intuitive.
My only question is how does this affect the various factions? Things like Engineering Team have a different icon per faction. I don't remember offhand what all of the faction-specific icons are, but I'd be curious.
<signature under reconstruction>
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Want cheap commodities? Yeah you do. Commodity Cheat Sheet (includes food and data samples)
Want to make the game better? Might I suggest this form
Dampening Field is close, but feels a little too busy.
The wavy lines on Electro-Gravitic Field feel like clutter and obfuscation. A series of arrows pointing down would be much clearer.
Not sure what to suggest for the other two.
Science - Space
Also not really intuitive:
Jam Targeting Sensors, Polarize Hull, Scattering Field - These aren't significantly better than the old ones. Polarize Hull would be much clearer without the honeycomb effect inside the shield. A lightning bolt to represent being energized would have been better I think. The other two are so far off the mark I can't even comment on them.
Sensor scan is clear enough, but feels too busy. Tractor beam is also clear enough, but I still don't like it. Putting the engine symbol in the stop sign would have been better.
Tactical - Ground
With the one exception of "Fire on my Mark", I like all of these. FOMM seems ugly, cluttered, and no clearer than the original. I think you were going for a cracked shield look, but it doesn't work with the targeting symbol.
Tactical - Space
All good.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I quite like the new icons, BUT (Of course there is a but), they are bit... gameified. Yes, I know we're playing a game, but the old icons had a vague sense of gravitas - Like they could be used in a real life situation. The new icons (some of them anyway) do a better job at signifying what they are, but lose that smidgeon of realism.
Why fix something that isn't broken? People are used to these icons for 5 years, no one really complains. Yet, there are more pressing issues in this game that don't any attention from the devs... ever.
Happy to see the SST ability icons brought in line with EPT abilities. I'll finally possibly learn to recognise them.
As for the rest, well, that's gonna take quite some time getting used to.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
While a lot of these do seem to convey their purpose a lot more easily if you look at them, but a lot of them seem rather too similar to each other. I think it would be rather easier to mistake one for another with these, especially in combat when you don't have much time to really scrutinise each icon.
That was probably the thinking behind the old ones i.e. "keep each one as different from the others as possible" rather than "make the icons more intuitive".
As nice as they are, it strikes me as a bit of a "make work" thing
Some are awesome and explicit like beam fire at will but some are really a step backwards.
I dont called it "recognizing at a glance" the enginnering space skills "Emergency Power to..." icons. Yes, I get they are now standardized, but the symbol in the "lil roof house" its too small. On big screens it will be very hard to see. Same with the engie drones from the ground. Have to look twice to see the symbol near that "bullet" to check if its a "wrenck" or an "arrow".
And the ones that were confusing... still are: the target subsystem ones. I never see them from a glance wich are wich at a carrier or sci ship, but will not see it either with this update.
And I wonder if this new update will make all factions to have same icons, since now some powers have different icons on each faction, like tac team and security team.
Emergency Power to X skill: The same man behind the art, the same problem as with Tactical consoles: 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.
I agree here - the EPS transfer and Aux2Batt icons are also very 'busy' and hard to discern. Not all of us use a huge widescreen monitor - I'm gonna need stronger reading glasses to tell some of these powers apart.
DEM, while the icon is certainly more descriptive, the old one is perhaps the most easily recognizable one in the game. Perhaps keep the 'triangle' in the back somehow.
Completely agree with whoever said don't change the med tricorder icon. The new one is far less identifiable when you're in a hurry.
I do dig the new Grav Well icon.
All the other changed icons are at least a wash or an improvement, in my opinion.
"You Iconians just hung a vacancy sign on your asses and my foot's looking for a room!"
--Red Annorax
Comments
The basic idea is good, make it easier for people to figure out what a skill is and does.
But it has NOT been achieved. Example? Seeker Drones! The new idea arguably looks even less than the ingame representation of various kinds of seeker drones.
Attack Pattern Alpha, Beta, Delta, Omega: The old icons were better.
Cannon Rapid Fire / Scatter Voley / Beam Overload / BFAW: Now there I see some more "logical" icons. The only bad idea was to make the new BO icon look so much like the old BFAW.
The icon for the Engineer skill "Weapon Malfunction" also looks more logical and not bad.
Emergency Power to X skill: The same man behind the art, the same problem as with Tactical consoles: 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.
So much about Feedback, I like giving it as none was asked and this is apparently just to prepare us for the shock of something that go waved through already.
Not really convincing result, sorry!
Also I can understand people when they wonder about the priorities at Cryptic!?!
Let's see what gets revamped next without dire need but what else in really dire need of a fix put on the long list. :mad:
Tactical Team sucked, once upon a time. I got it buffed. Don't think for a minute that Cryptic ignores forum feedback.
Cryptic Derangement Syndrome isn't meant to make sense.
I never said I didn't like it but it's hard to enjoy this update when the game is in the state it's in and Cryptic's handling of it. If I had to forget about the state of the game I'd be indifferent about this sort of thing, I didn't mind the old ones, the new ones are fine and it will take time to adapt but I won't complain.
And as for what would the art team do? Again I never said I wouldn't welcome these changes, the art team do a great job most of the time and need to do something but it's another reminder that Cryptic would rather change and meddle with stuff that has been fine for 5 years rather than invest time and effort in stuff that I think the community at large would rank 'a bit higher' than art updates. How Cryptic does this is up to them.
Pvpers have been waiting for an update for years and though I'm not even a hardcore pvper I'd at least credit Cryptic for addressing something a portion of the community has been asking to be looked in to even if it wasn't a big thing for me.
But hey at least when I fail VCE because I can't complete the anomaly optional I can enjoy the updated boof icons :P.
Thank you! I once again forgot to save my bookmarks when I redid my machine last.
- Lunge icon is funny, in a bad way probably.
- Vascular Regenerator is a little too graphical, for me. It looks a little disturbing.
Some icons are slightly confusing but I'll sleep over it to try to figure how to explain how.
PS: please re-adjust the links to the pictures in a vertical way. Links to the right cant be seen in mobile browsing because they're rendered out of bounds and no zooming or changing orientation fixes it.
STO Screenshot Archive
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
No kidding. While we appreciate the effort, is there a possibility we can keep our old trusted and above all familiar icons?
Players are creatures of habit after all.
Since when could "what'd you rather" be held as an actionable standard of video game design? I'd rather have Bungie build a puzzle-platformer-bouncy-castle hybrid than remain rooted in the mire of AAA first person shooters. I wouldn't tell them that though because I know that my priorities are entirely dependent on my tastes, standards, and subjective pespective more generally. I'm not going to pretend that other people [which includes video game developers] should abide by it [to the point where I could openly chastize those people for not following along with my dictates.]
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Honestly, in some cases, I feel that there is little to no improvement. Some of them are excellent, but others are just as baffling as the originals. (If not more.)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Txs... I forgot to save the link also.
:cool:
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
And you have to remember that all of these icons are gonna be much smaller in-game than they are in these preview pics; resizing these previews to ~60% (in-game size for me at least) makes some of them harder to discern easily. I think that we had this same issue when the Console icons were revamped; everything looked nice and Trek-like at full size, but at in-game sizes a lot of them became a lot harder to quickly tell the difference (the Armor Console icons for instance).
The differentiating symbols for the EPtX icons are really small, which might be an issue for players on smaller resolutions or UI scales.
The medical symbol for Medical Tricorder icon could be easily obfuscated by low brightness or small resolution, which may lead to some confusion between it and Tricorder Scan.
There is a slight overuse of the thunderbolt symbol, which could confuse players as to whether the power is a buff or a debuff (i.e. Damping Field, Hypospray - Dylovene, and Tachyon Harmonic all feature the thunderbolt). Granted, there is the buff, debuff triangle, or X to indicate the effect of the power, but new players may not hone in on that.
Three of the Beam Target Subsystem powers feature a vertical icon, which doesn't read well when scaled down, in particular for the weapons tray on a science ship.
Your link goes to the Space Icons.
:eek:
Does Chroniton Mines Barrier really BUFF (upward Triangle) my Character?
Shouldn't the lower right corner symbol be a Dot to indicate they get Summoned??
The Seeker Drone/Support Drone and the Turret actually attack, but you changed their symbols from an X (attack) to a Dot to indicate Summoned.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Ah, brain fail.
I guess what I mean is that they both just look like plain ol' Tricorders at a glance. Sure the medical one has the tiny scanner thingy and a hard-to-tell-if-you're-not-squinting Medical background symbol, but I betcha if you showed just the icons to a new player without tell them which is which, they'd just look like Tricorders. The left/right thing simply leaves distinguishing them reliant on memorizing which does which, than intuition, and I'm guessing that the whole point of the revamp is to make the intuitive approach work better (i.e. 'That Tricorder is hovered over a body, maybe it's for healing!'). Again, I'm looking at these at ~60% image size.
If They made the Caduceus more prominent on the Medical Tricorder, that would probably help.
It does have the handheld scanner showing, but the size might not be conducive to a quick recognition eyeball scan.
:cool:
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I had a similar thought. Especially considering I have BOTH powers in my tray when I'm running as a ground healer.
Overall, an improvement to the current icons - which aren't always intuitive.
My only question is how does this affect the various factions? Things like Engineering Team have a different icon per faction. I don't remember offhand what all of the faction-specific icons are, but I'd be curious.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Want cheap commodities? Yeah you do. Commodity Cheat Sheet (includes food and data samples)
Want to make the game better? Might I suggest this form
And we get a chance to see them on Tribble before they come to holodeck - even better
Some of the new icons are excellent and clearly express the intent. I love many of these.
Others don't really make things any clearer than they were before and possibly should have been left alone since they didn't really help.
Engineering - Ground
Awesome! No complaints.
Engineering - Space
Ditto. Love these!
Science - Ground
I'm not finding any of the following to be intuitive:
Dampening Field, Electro-Gravitic Field, Nanoprobe Infestation, Scientific Aptitude
Dampening Field is close, but feels a little too busy.
The wavy lines on Electro-Gravitic Field feel like clutter and obfuscation. A series of arrows pointing down would be much clearer.
Not sure what to suggest for the other two.
Science - Space
Also not really intuitive:
Jam Targeting Sensors, Polarize Hull, Scattering Field - These aren't significantly better than the old ones. Polarize Hull would be much clearer without the honeycomb effect inside the shield. A lightning bolt to represent being energized would have been better I think. The other two are so far off the mark I can't even comment on them.
Sensor scan is clear enough, but feels too busy. Tractor beam is also clear enough, but I still don't like it. Putting the engine symbol in the stop sign would have been better.
Tactical - Ground
With the one exception of "Fire on my Mark", I like all of these. FOMM seems ugly, cluttered, and no clearer than the original. I think you were going for a cracked shield look, but it doesn't work with the targeting symbol.
Tactical - Space
All good.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
As for the rest, well, that's gonna take quite some time getting used to.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
That was probably the thinking behind the old ones i.e. "keep each one as different from the others as possible" rather than "make the icons more intuitive".
As nice as they are, it strikes me as a bit of a "make work" thing
I dont called it "recognizing at a glance" the enginnering space skills "Emergency Power to..." icons. Yes, I get they are now standardized, but the symbol in the "lil roof house" its too small. On big screens it will be very hard to see. Same with the engie drones from the ground. Have to look twice to see the symbol near that "bullet" to check if its a "wrenck" or an "arrow".
And the ones that were confusing... still are: the target subsystem ones. I never see them from a glance wich are wich at a carrier or sci ship, but will not see it either with this update.
And I wonder if this new update will make all factions to have same icons, since now some powers have different icons on each faction, like tac team and security team.
DEM, while the icon is certainly more descriptive, the old one is perhaps the most easily recognizable one in the game. Perhaps keep the 'triangle' in the back somehow.
Completely agree with whoever said don't change the med tricorder icon. The new one is far less identifiable when you're in a hurry.
I do dig the new Grav Well icon.
All the other changed icons are at least a wash or an improvement, in my opinion.
--Red Annorax
Bravo, Cryptic Art Team!