Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-20T19:03:51+02:00

FtXCommando wrote:
Icons = quick and intuitive way to give information at a glance. You can argue that this change will do that. I am arguing that it complicates a basic system that is easy to understand and make decisions off of for no extra, or just marginal, gain in utility. Not worth the effort of programming, not worth the effort of thinking about it, and not worth the effort of discussing it.

You can make up all the scenarios you want, I've never lost a game because I thought a T4 icon was something else. My 20 apm ass strangely has zero issues spending the second to see the experimental that is coming at me. The only time this entire issue has affected me at all was when I played BHedit and the brick icon was the same as the loya icon. The closest issue similar to the loya = brick icon one is the amphibious tank = normal tank icon and as I said before, it's the only icon change that I think is even justifiable in any way.

I would agree that it doesn't take much time to initially look at a t4 and see what it is, but every little bit helps. That's like saying you shouldn't need hotkeys or templates because they "only save a bit" of time.

The problem I have experienced on multiple occasions, is when there are multiple t4s being built. I recall dying once for sure in late game with multiple experimentals on the field, because I knew they had 2 monkeys at their front (not enough to cause a threat at the time), but then they also had a soul ripper built in the meantime, and one monkey retreated to support the other side. I still saw two t4 icons, and didn't think i HAD to check AGAIN to confirm they were still the same units. Died because I didn't know I needed to be rushing up sams and shields and/or falling back. The ripper was sitting up front and not moving for a while, so I couldn't tell from the speed difference what it was and didn't happen to notice when the monkey retreated and was replaced.

Don't say it was just a fail in scouting because we have all been in countless team games where the air player's scouting just isn't sufficient and you may not be able to get your own t1 scouts across their aa. Even so, it's possible to miss things in chat if there isn't a marker placed and this just makes it a bit easier.

If it's feasible to program in different icons, it won't hurt you if you don't care anyway. You don't have to memorize which icon is which t4 if you don't want to. You can still just know "it's a t4." If other people would like it and it doesn't hurt you in any way, why complain so much?

Statistics: Posted by Steel_Panther — 20 Feb 2018, 19:03

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-20T11:17:15+02:00

@stormbeforedawn
I think you get it wrong. According to your logic, all unit icons oughta be removed.
Strategic zoom is important for microing - no matter which icons you use, strategic zoom will remain essential to the game.

Statistics: Posted by --- — 20 Feb 2018, 11:17

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-14T17:13:09+02:00

What a crap idea. Only adds complexity. Defeats strategic zoom, the defining characteristic of the game.

Make it a mod and see if you can get anyone to play with it.

Statistics: Posted by stormbeforedawn — 14 Feb 2018, 17:13

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-11T13:35:09+02:00

I really don't want a major rework of the most crucial parts of the UI made "in an afternoon". I want actual evidence behind why this would be a good change with proper testing. Else im going to have to push to add the old icons to bhedit.

If you've got any good ideas for the amphibious/hover unit icon shape, I'd be glad to hear them.
Upside down triangle might work.

No, you're taking the basic identifier for most if not all air units, and then making it a land icon? I'm literally not sure if you understand what you're trying to change here. Design an icon that actually conforms to the existing system, test it for actual quality, and then bring it here, don't think up (im sorry) garbage that will cause a negative impact.

Spoiler: show

Statistics: Posted by biass — 11 Feb 2018, 13:35

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-11T09:12:54+02:00

Yeah the Brick/Percival icon was changed before, that's a great example of speed not being enough. They don't move all the time after all.

This is not very hard to do at all btw. I could do this in an afternoon. Requires making the new icons and replacing the name of the icons in the unit blueprints(if size is changed also placement code for the icons.)
The problem is that we can't make an UI mod that does this because changes in the unit blueprints are required. It has to be done in official FAF build.

Also another thing, would amphibious markers for things that can go underwater be useful? Because Wagner, Othuum are pretty much the only things affected, now I think Wagner icon could possibly have some use(if nothing else, to separate from Rhino) but Othuum is already the only level three tank so the icon is unique.
I'm thinking the icon shouldn't be for amphibious but rather icon for hover since everything that hovers is amphibious (exception of sera sniper bot but that is already classified as a bot.)

If you've got any good ideas for the amphibious/hover unit icon shape, I'd be glad to hear them.
Upside down triangle might work. There's also the bot icon but in vertical form. We can have the circled out half-diamond as well. Those are what I've come up with for this so far.

I think the upside down triangle is the most distinct out of these but I think that would be better used for the engineering drone(currently same diamond as T1 engineer) actually because it's an air unit and triangles go with air.

Statistics: Posted by JoonasTo — 11 Feb 2018, 09:12

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-11T02:14:23+02:00

Icons = quick and intuitive way to give information at a glance. You can argue that this change will do that. I am arguing that it complicates a basic system that is easy to understand and make decisions off of for no extra, or just marginal, gain in utility. Not worth the effort of programming, not worth the effort of thinking about it, and not worth the effort of discussing it.

You can make up all the scenarios you want, I've never lost a game because I thought a T4 icon was something else. My 20 apm ass strangely has zero issues spending the second to see the experimental that is coming at me. The only time this entire issue has affected me at all was when I played BHedit and the brick icon was the same as the loya icon. The closest issue similar to the loya = brick icon one is the amphibious tank = normal tank icon and as I said before, it's the only icon change that I think is even justifiable in any way.

Statistics: Posted by FtXCommando — 11 Feb 2018, 02:14

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-10T22:35:55+02:00

A bunch of stupid things that need correcting:

"As an 1800 player, I'm going to assume that you realize that the Megalith and Fatboy are from different factions. It's just dumb to make overly complicated icons when the T4 icon already tells you "this is a strong unit" and that you need to focus on countering it. Spend the half second to gloss your cursor over the T4, or, realize what the T4 is because you scouted it 3 minutes ago when it was 30% built like most players do."

I have been in probably hundreds of team games where t4s get gifted from one player to another to micro (eg from air player), or where they get an engi from another player to build different faction units. Simply knowing the faction of the person controlling it doesn't tell you anything definitive. And even still, it would be nice to know a bit more easily if it is a mega or monkey anyway.

"I really don't have any words for this other than stupid. If it's a fast circle, it's an air experimental. If it's a slow one, it's a land experimental. If it's in the ocean, it's a navy experimental. Use the faction of the dude you're facing to realize what the experimental is. This is all without addressing the BASIC idea of s c o u t i n g and l o o k i n g. There is zero reason in changing a 10 year old system. It is a system the veteran players are totally used to. Adding 1000000 new icons will do nothing but complicate the game for new players when the only information they need is a basic summary of a force's strength which is given by simple general icons."

Just fyi, sometimes players will have an air experimental sitting or hovering, waiting for the opportunity to use it. It would be nice to be able to know which t4 icon is which unit without having to zoom in again to see. You could say that "BASIC IDEA OF SCOUTING AND LOOKING" APPLIES FOR LITERALLY EVERY STRATEGIC ICON, SO WHY DO WE HAVE ANY AT ALL? Obviously, because it saves you time by NOT having to look closely at the unit. And again, I have seen it literally hundreds of times, where a t4 is BUILT IN THE WATER. They can travel through the water too, in case you didn't know. This happens in probably at least 5% of all setons games.

I can see a benefit to this particularly in team games when there are multiple t4s on the field.

So in conclusion, "I really don't have any words for this other than stupid."

Statistics: Posted by Steel_Panther — 10 Feb 2018, 22:35

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-09T14:22:30+02:00

Almost like someone here has a degree in graphic design

Statistics: Posted by TheKoopa — 09 Feb 2018, 14:22

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-08T10:18:59+02:00

This is turning into a flame thread. I think the base idea is good just needs a lot of refinement to get it to a professional level. Biass you raise some nice points but do you have to be such a d*** about it.

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 08 Feb 2018, 10:18

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-08T10:12:47+02:00

These are the exact same symbols the game comes with so I am not quite sure I understand how they can be any more confusing for existing users than what we already have. I also was under the impression that the consensus by now was not to divert from them so I did not.

The bottom two rows are what they look like in the medium icon size(most unit icons are this size in the game.) These are what you need if you want to make unique experimental symbols inside a faction, but not across factions.

The third row from the bottom is what they look like in original experimental icon size, you can't even fit some of the standard symbols there properly and I'm not sure why the experimental icon is that small to begin with. Not enough possible icons to differentiate experimentals inside a faction.

The five rows above are 16x16, which is not a game system icon size and would be one pixel off-center in game I assume(possibly a problem if you play on low resolution, like 1024x800, probably not though because of the auto-aim feature of the engine) but allows for clearer icons(double lines because not odd number.) This is the preferred size if we wish to make unique symbols for all experimentals due to readability.

Statistics: Posted by JoonasTo — 08 Feb 2018, 10:12

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-08T09:39:21+02:00

You literally denied a better suggestion earlier because of icon size and now are trying to use icon size changes to further your own point now.

We've seen the icons, and they only make sense to you and you alone, you've also put them in the most recognisable, high contrast display zone, and not in a group of units, different colours, the outside outline, or on different terrain backgrounds. "great"
if we just threw these said icons in, how many people do you think will understand what the icons mean within their first two tries?

I don't know how much i need to explain to get through to you that you're making a step in the wrong direction here so i dug up some semi related articles about icon design for you.

http://www.givegoodux.com/the-right-way ... n-your-ui/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/bad-icons/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/icon-t ... pt=article
http://turbomilk.com/blog/cookbook/icon ... on_design/

enjoy.
also, don't act like everyone who disagrees with you are misinformed

Statistics: Posted by biass — 08 Feb 2018, 09:39

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-08T09:13:41+02:00

Okay, I'm starting to think you guys can't see the example pictures I'm posting because of what you keep writing about overly complicated icons. Let me upload somewhere else.

We can do factionally unique icons with already existing ingame icons(though monkeylord becomes stealth and ythotha becomes suicide symbol) but the cross-faction problem still exists, megalith and a fatboy will have the same icon(land factory.) The biggest problem with this is that soulripper, GC, and Ahwassa all have the direct fire symbol. I don't like this as they're all so different from each other. I'd rather put the GC, monkeylord and ythotha with the same symbol and make ahwassa and ripper their own new symbol but if we do that, might as well make new symbols for everything and get rid of the cross-faction problem all together. One solution to this is of course to not separate soulripper, gc, monkeylord, ythotha and ahwassa at all and just leave them all as direct fire but I don't think this is optimal either.

Myxir wrote:
i mostly agree with ftx here, and would find new icons (especially with no direct/obvious relation to existing ones) as proposed for experimentals more confusing than helpful

what i could imagine would be adding the unit's base type's icon shape as inner icon to the experimental circle.
so basically a tank icon (inside the circle) for fatty, gunship icon (inside the circle) for ripper, submarine for atlantis, bot icon for ML mega chicken and gc, and yes you would have to take a closer look, but this should be acceptable.

I actually tried this as one of my earliest ides. We'd have to make the experimental icons larger for this to work, otherwise there's not enough space to identify the icon inside the unit(the examples above are already 16x16 and they're still too small for this.) The experimental icon is actually one of the smallest icons in the game at 11x11, the bot icon is 15x11 because it is unclear in smaller shape with a symbol inside. This is not necessarily a problem ofc if we're willing to make the icons larger than others.

Statistics: Posted by JoonasTo — 08 Feb 2018, 09:13

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-07T22:47:15+02:00

Amphibious experimental kappa

Statistics: Posted by Farmsletje — 07 Feb 2018, 22:47

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-07T22:37:20+02:00

The furthest I would go would be making "X" represent air experimentals, "+" represent sea experimentals, and the regular exp icon representing land experimentals. (Amphibious experimentals would have the normal land icon)

Statistics: Posted by Zeldafanboy — 07 Feb 2018, 22:37

Re: Add unfinished buildings and amphibious unit icons

2018-02-07T21:36:28+02:00

i mostly agree with ftx here, and would find new icons (especially with no direct/obvious relation to existing ones) as proposed for experimentals more confusing than helpful

what i could imagine would be adding the unit's base type's icon shape as inner icon to the experimental circle.
so basically a tank icon (inside the circle) for fatty, gunship icon (inside the circle) for ripper, submarine for atlantis, bot icon for ML mega chicken and gc, and yes you would have to take a closer look, but this should be acceptable.

Statistics: Posted by Myxir — 07 Feb 2018, 21:36