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Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 1 post(s) |
Kyoko Sakoda
Veto. Veto Corp
11
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Posted - 2011.11.14 22:47:00 -
[1] - Quote
While cute, in light of the new AP table, I think it would be better to bring back the old rotating animation but make it bigger. Then place the actual number of seconds next to it and place the whole thing below the AP window. There's no real reason why the whole AP window should move on a session change completion and it's kind of jarring. |
Xenial Jesse Taalo
Tactical Nyan Cat Attack Force OMNIMODUS ALLIANCE
26
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Posted - 2011.11.15 16:49:00 -
[2] - Quote
I might not agree with that alternative suggestion, but I do think you're right about it being jarring. Short of a screen-bordering toolbar, there shouldn't be anything in the whole UI that is worthy of relocating other elements like that.
What's worse, this is a display of technical data, not gameplay data. The session timer is important but it is not a readout of spacey fun, it is a readout of something happening under the hood that doesn't exist to a capsuleer. I am really surprised that such a technical element suddenly won the right to take centerstage - a most prominent part of the screen - and visibly move other UI elements every. single. jump.
Just to be clear on that; every single jump and more the capsuleer is being reminded very loudly that he's on a computer, on the internet. In a room. Holding a mouse.
It needs to remain optional, that's a good start, but when it is on it should not celebrate itself or demand attention at all. The last thing that we should see are the words "SESSION TIMER." This just does not belong anywhere in a UI that is about spaceships. You could alter that label to connect it more to game world events, but now that only makes it obvious that it was demanding too much attention in the first place.
People who need it know what it is. We don't want "SESSION TIMER" stamped in the middle of our space spelunking. We don't want some technical bar pushing the nice new AP readout around. We only just got that upgraded and already it's getting trashed. The session timer indicator needs to be clear and in a handy location, but with a deliberate priority on discretion. The old timer lacked in clarity but it had the discretion right.
The session timer indicator: -+ should not be noticeable by people who don't know what it is -+ should be easily readable by people who do -+ should not call deliberate attention to itself at all -+ should not make explicit its technical separation from the capsuleer's world
There are plenty of nice ways this could be done without junking the AP readout or breaking the capsuleer's world view. It would be easy and fun to design. |
Bienator II
24th Imperial Crusade Amarr Empire
275
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Posted - 2011.11.15 17:47:00 -
[3] - Quote
session timer is the reason why you die at gates or at stations and sometimes even in between. Only a part of it is technical nature (session change timer) the other timers are game mechanics (e.g undock invul, decloak timers...). In other words it is an essential part of the game and should have proper UI. Sure, you can play eve without being aware of it, however every second time you get killed you will think that the game lags, is unfair, broken etc.. without knowing the reason why it happened.
+1 for the progress bar You fail you fail you fail you fail you fail you fail you fail to jump because you are cloaked
a proper bounty system for eve: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=359105 |
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CCP Anthelios
C C P C C P Alliance
59
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Posted - 2011.11.15 18:11:00 -
[4] - Quote
This is in progress right now. The implementation you see was the first trial of making this thing more visible
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jonnykefka
Adhocracy Incorporated Adhocracy
5
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Posted - 2011.11.15 18:15:00 -
[5] - Quote
As far as I'm concerned it's brilliant. The main things I want from a session timer are:
- I know when I have one
- I know how long I'm going to have one for.
The new one on sisi does both of these very well, but if it were shrunk, relocated, or otherwise altered, as long as it does both of the above I call it good. |
Raven Ether
Republic University Minmatar Republic
24
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Posted - 2011.11.15 18:25:00 -
[6] - Quote
jonnykefka wrote:As far as I'm concerned it's brilliant. The main things I want from a session timer are:
- I know when I have one
- I know how long I'm going to have one for.
The new one on sisi does both of these very well, but if it were shrunk, relocated, or otherwise altered, as long as it does both of the above I call it good.
Hmm, I agree. Not only the above, but some extra flashy UI never hurts.
Perhaps it could be made toggable? |
Adrenalinemax
Perkone Caldari State
3
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Posted - 2011.11.15 18:46:00 -
[7] - Quote
Yeah, I would rather have it in the middle of the screen 5 times the size of what it is now. Session timers keep you alive in many many cases. |
jonnykefka
Adhocracy Incorporated Adhocracy
6
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Posted - 2011.11.15 19:05:00 -
[8] - Quote
Raven Ether wrote:jonnykefka wrote:As far as I'm concerned it's brilliant. The main things I want from a session timer are:
- I know when I have one
- I know how long I'm going to have one for.
The new one on sisi does both of these very well, but if it were shrunk, relocated, or otherwise altered, as long as it does both of the above I call it good. Hmm, I agree. Not only the above, but some extra flashy UI never hurts. Perhaps it could be made toggable?
It is: options > general options > top left panel > "show sesison change timer" check box.
If you mean toggled between display modes, that's another issue. |
Bloodpetal
Mimidae Risk Solutions
122
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Posted - 2011.11.15 20:02:00 -
[9] - Quote
I agree it's too big and disruptive.
I'm sure you'll have a better solution - my thought would be to make it much smaller and put it underneath, or to the right of the solar system identification. NOSTRO AURUM NON EST AURUM VULGI |
Xenial Jesse Taalo
Tactical Nyan Cat Attack Force OMNIMODUS ALLIANCE
27
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Posted - 2011.11.15 20:54:00 -
[10] - Quote
CCP Anthelios wrote:This is in progress right now. The implementation you see was the first trial of making this thing more visible
Oh, that's good to hear then. Makes my mini-thesis look a bit silly now.
Bienator II wrote:session timer is the reason why you die at gates or at stations and sometimes even in between. Only a part of it is technical nature (session change timer) the other timers are game mechanics (e.g undock invul, decloak timers...). In other words it is an essential part of the game and should have proper UI. Sure, you can play eve without being aware of it, however every second time you get killed you will think that the game lags, is unfair, broken etc.. without knowing the reason why it happened.
+1 for the progress bar
The other timers you brought up - invulnerability & cloak - aren't session timers nor do they have progress bars. There is indeed a discussion that could thread itself off right here about those particular timers but they don't have the problems I was writing about. Here I'm just clarifying my thoughts on the session timer bar itself because you sound like you disagree, but I think we agree.
Yes, the session timer's significance is all about the gameplay. It dictates when I can dock my spaceship or hit a stargate, etc. I wasn't clear in that I was only referring to the technical display of the timer; the presentation that leaves the pilot to recall its real-life technical origins every time they see it, when they should instead only be registering its position in whatever fight they're currently in. A capsuleer should be thinking about sessions as much as he thinks about video cards.
That makes me sound like some kind of roleplayer, but I was only registering that complaint to then argue that something already putting a crack in the game's UI has no place unseating the real elements of it. That was the jarring part. So I wasn't just saying that the session timer labelled "Session Timer" is out of place (it is), I was saying that it's also the last thing that should be relocating the actual spaceship interface. I think/hope that's moot now thanks to CCP Anthelios.
With that out of the way, I did acknowledge that it needs to be clear and easily readable. So you can go two ways with this: real acknowledgement of the situation in space, or discretion. My post was pushing discretion but both can be done well.
The discretion approach is easy, because it's easy to think up a clear, readable indicator that looks cool yet isn't in your face or explicit about its origins. The current TQ indicator only fails at clarity.
However it seems there is a lot of support for seeing a real indicator now. I'm part of that support, I just won't like it if the opportunity to bring this timer into the game is messed up with a lazy idea and reminders of "sessions."
Any timer indication should only be about gameplay. We shouldn't be thinking of a session timer at all. We should be thinking of the station master's rules, the stargate's traffic control, or the fleet ships syncing up comms across the stars, just like the cloak or invulnerability has us thinking about the game and nothing else. It is backwards to be honest, that those timers aren't getting a UI presence but the network-focused session timer is. To me that looks a lot like the inner workings of Eve really are being given special treatment in terms of rights to UI visibility, even though uncloaking is every bit as important as being allowed to dock. Why did only the technical timer get the spotlight?
1. If it's going to be in our face, don't let it disconnect the player from space. Define it by the universe, not the network. 2. If it's not going to cater to the game situation, don't put it in our faces. Keep it clear and readable, sure, but discrete and non-explicit. If you don't want discrete, see 1.
Bugger, another thesis. |
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Tamiya Sarossa
Hedion University Amarr Empire
72
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Posted - 2011.11.15 21:37:00 -
[11] - Quote
Since showing the session change timer is optional, there's no reason to keep it 'discrete'. If people enable it, they certainly want to see it. Don't make it push the UI, around, sure, but I sure as hell want it obvious when knowing this timer is often the difference between losing an important internet spaceship or not.
I enable the timer to let me shoot people better. If I screw up burning back to gate sometime because the session timer has been made 'discrete' for RP reasons, then I will be spacemad. If you want your immersion, just keep it off.
Furthermore, 'session change' timer is a perfectly fine psuedo RP name for the numerous situations that make it happen. I sure as hell don't want the 'station master's timer, the 'traffic control timer', and the 'fleet sync' timer, when really they're all just session change timers. Maybe your ship's computer has to 'sync up sessions' whenever one of those actions take place, if you care about immersion, it's easy to RP away.
TLDR, it's a game, clear UI should be the goal. There's an option to enable and disable the timer, so when it is enabled, make it very obvious. |
Xenial Jesse Taalo
Tactical Nyan Cat Attack Force OMNIMODUS ALLIANCE
27
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Posted - 2011.11.15 22:37:00 -
[12] - Quote
As has been said by yourself and others, it's important and it relates to the gameplay. "Just keep it off" isn't giving the topic a lot of thought. Neither is missing how many times I said "clear" and "easily readable." It's very easy to produce a solution to all, that's why I suggested that the toggle option shouldn't even be needed anymore. Discrete doesn't mean hard to see, not at all.
If your only fear is that you might not see a timer's display, then you're fearing the wrong thing from what I'm saying. If you realise that what I'm saying doesn't rule out the sort of clarity you'd like, then you could consider that it is also worthwhile to keep the design unified, and easy to do regardless of which of the two approaches is taken.
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Bienator II
24th Imperial Crusade Amarr Empire
276
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Posted - 2011.11.15 22:54:00 -
[13] - Quote
well thats CCP :) The session timer should have never been called session timer for the same reason why a player owned station should get a non technical name. Bookmarks should be coordinates etc
the session timer should be context sensitive. After undocking (in SISI) you have actually two timers. one technical (20s session change) and one game mechanics timer (30s invulnerable).
Since its a game, the session timer should be called "redock delay" or something like that. Gates etc behave analog (context sensitive naming).
Eve has even more timers. Aggression timers etc. So many ways to represent a timer... What is really needed is a unified representation of this crap. But i believe we all agree with this point :) You fail you fail you fail you fail you fail you fail you fail to jump because you are cloaked
a proper bounty system for eve: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=359105 |
Xenial Jesse Taalo
Tactical Nyan Cat Attack Force OMNIMODUS ALLIANCE
27
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Posted - 2011.11.15 23:15:00 -
[14] - Quote
They kind of seem to bounce between the two. Docking permission feels perfectly inline with the game, but good point about POS's. Meanwhile many things like finding a bush and donuts are tongue in cheek, but rare enough to be fun. |
Bubanni
SniggWaffe
12
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Posted - 2011.11.16 01:00:00 -
[15] - Quote
Could you potentially build in an invulnerbility timer.+ agression timer into that bar? Perhaps with different colours? I would imagine a 3 layered thing, where you could have agression being red, invulnerbilty being.yellow and then session change being white... they would all be in the same bar, but with different layers,
Example, you jumped through a gate, and your invulnerable for 1 min while cloaked + you just got a 20 sec session change... as the white session change bar rolls down, the yellow bar below is revealed
Or if you shoot something, the bar would be red, so you know when you can dock or jump again |
Solhild
Republic Military School Minmatar Republic
74
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Posted - 2011.11.16 19:25:00 -
[16] - Quote
New circular timer is looking cleaner and less obtrusive. My first thoughts were that it was running backwards but as a countdown it works well. Nice one. |
Xenial Jesse Taalo
Tactical Nyan Cat Attack Force OMNIMODUS ALLIANCE
27
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Posted - 2011.11.16 19:41:00 -
[17] - Quote
The system readout has been lowered permanently with the new indicator sitting on top when it appears. Slight loss of screen real-estate including if you have the session timer switched off. Strangely, the Route readout has been lowered further also.
Its overhanging ends were chopped off, but it seems they forgot to chop off their shadows with them. I liked those overhanging Route bars doh.
Bit of a bug: Now the session timer tooltip appears upon any part of the system/AP display. You can't interact with HUD readout at all until the timer is finished, except for the first line. Turning the timer off doesn't give this problem. |
Xynthiar
Nulli Secunda
12
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Posted - 2011.11.16 21:35:00 -
[18] - Quote
I liked the previous patch's session change timer more than this one tbh, but I have no idea what this "AP" you speak of is.
Either way, this one works, but I'd much like an integer countdown and not just a graphical one, like when you hover over it, but constant. |
Tas Nok
Hedion University Amarr Empire
9
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Posted - 2011.11.25 02:20:00 -
[19] - Quote
Honestly, the current timer is awful, blends into the background much easier than the old one and while the bar was a bit big and clunky at least I had a clear representation of my timer.
Since the timer is only 20 seconds long... I'd suggest a THIN line that starts as Red turns Yellow at 10 seconds turn Green or blue at 5 second (blinking helps) and maybe a small white flash at 0/-1 (reminds us its finished)
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Cloora
APEX Unlimited APEX Conglomerate
16
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Posted - 2011.11.25 02:34:00 -
[20] - Quote
I like the session change timer and it is important, but I want an aggression timer bar I use that WAY more. CEO and Major ShareholderAPEX ConglomerateMaker of Starsi softdrinks and Torped-Os! Cereal http://www.altaholics.blogspot.com
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Arele
Valar Morghulis. Get Off My Lawn
1
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Posted - 2011.11.30 01:48:00 -
[21] - Quote
Can you bring the bar back please? This new circular countdown is just as awful as the previous, still a tiny circle @ 2560 x 1600.
The bar was
This new circle is |
Ryans Revenge
V0LTA VOLTA Corp
26
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Posted - 2011.12.01 10:29:00 -
[22] - Quote
Would it not be simpler to just make this a numeric countdown big enough to see?
As currently you have to mouse over to see how long is left. Simplifying it to a countdown number keeps it simple and usable without mouse over / guesstimation. |
Mioelnir
Cataclysm Enterprises Ev0ke
29
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Posted - 2011.12.01 19:06:00 -
[23] - Quote
Not making it light-grey with a medium-grey border on a dark-grey background would be a start. Red was good. |
Leah Solo
State War Academy Caldari State
19
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Posted - 2011.12.02 10:06:00 -
[24] - Quote
I find the new session timer icon perfect. It's really discrete, and doesn't stand out in the overview. When you don't need it, you don't even know it's there..as it should be.
If you need to check out your timer, you know where to look. |
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