Sunday, 26 February 2012

SWTOR UI Suggestions!



Waiting for 1.2, there aren't many things to write about right now so I decided to do something else. I decided to write some suggestions for the game. This time, I'm presenting my though for the UI. Don't forget to comment, I really want to hear your ideas.

UI Changes


Right now, SWTOR’s UI is nothing more than a basic UI. I was positive surprised when I saw how fast you implanted more options for the UI in weekly and major patches. There are things that need to be changed though.

1. Threat and Aggro.

When I’m tanking with my Juggernaut, I want be able to know if I have enough aggro from the mobs I’m fighting. Please, if you can implant add a bar above the enemies’ portrait with the percentage of the thread I’m generating. Even better, make the mobs’ portrait that are attacking me red, the mobs’ portrait that I’m losing aggro yellow and mobs’ portrait that are not attacking me grey. An additional flash of screen’s corners could help dps know that have pulled aggro. I really hope that this addition would be implanted soon.

2. Visual Procs.

It’s a little frustrating figuring out that your abilities have procced. To begin with most classes’ rotations are based on buffs. Even though the current place of the buffs are convenient (much better above the portraits than the upper corner of the screen) it’s hard to track it down. I would really really want my procs to be visually highlighted to the middle of my screen when they are up. I’ve made a small example, sorry for the bad Windows Paint skill. I’ve attached the photos. Some classes will benefit a lot by visual proc indicator more than others. Operatives would know how many stacks of Tactical Advantage they have and if after using Lacerate they regain their stack when Tactical Opportunity procs, Mercenaries would better track how long the Supercharge Gas last. Also display targets’ and focus’ buffs and debuffs as duration bars. That way I’ll know if the tank has the buff Kolto Residue that would increase my healing done to him and how much is left. That would also help dps that would be able to calculate their rotations easier, knowing how much they got left before their DoT drops from their target. I really think this as one of the top priority additions and I really hope to be applied as soon as possible.

2. Move bars.

Please allow us to determine both the size, the position of the quickbars. Plus, let us make the two sidebars horizontal and then to be able to stack them on top of the center ones. I want to have all of my quickbars stacked so I will be able to track the cds of my abilities easier.
3. Raid UI.
Raid UI is actually pretty good. That doesn’t mean that couldn’t be better, especially for healers. Please make it so that I can know how much my healing abilities would heal my allies. Keep the current health red in the bars and make the incoming healing being indicated as a darker red. That way I would know if other healer is casting his heals to my target and if his heals will top his health so I can either cast him a weaker healing spell or heal another person. On top of that, I would love the raid bars to change color when someone is affected by a negative effect. That way I would be able to know to whom I have to use my Cure ability (my merc’s ability).

4. Casting Bar.

The casting bar is doing its job fine; just make it so I can adjust the size of it. Plus make displayable the amount of time spent between cast send and start events, in the form of a bar at the end of your casting bar, with optional text that displays the actual duration of the lag. That way I would know how to queue my abilities and would also help avoiding canceling channeling abilities that are interrupted by me because I had a lag spike that prevented me from seeing the proper time left to my ability’s activation time.

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