I have a long-term frustration with the new(ish) player UI that I am hoping I can convince you (TS) to fix.
I know people -- me included! -- have a tendency to disproportionally dislike change right out of the gate. So I’ve played for two months with this interface to see if I would eventually adapt. Or if maybe other changes would come along that would alleviate the problem.
No such luck. It’s still not any good for me.
Here’s the situation:
Energy is represented by two UI pieces, both always visible:
general: the color-coded arc
precise: the translucent number
Mood is represented by two UI pieces, only one of which is visible:
general: character facial expression & background color
precise: percentage & number (only available on mouseover)
Energy:
Mostly, I use at the color arc to get a sense of my energy. I just want to make certain I’m not close to dying, a condition for which the color arc provides PLENTY of warning. The color arc is such a good UI feature for this purpose that I rarely even look at the exact number.
Mood:
With the conversion of game mechanics from XP to iMG, I now find myself caring a LOT what my mood is. Furthermore, I care specifically about a range that is less than one-tenth of my total mood (or energy). I am constantly striving to keep myself above 90% and below 100% for maximum iMG generation. This requires much more micromanagement.
... Which means I spend a stupid amount of time moving my cursor up to the top left of my screen, and then back down to where I need it. The general information provided by the facial expression is only useful after it’s too late and I’m out of the mood zone I want to be in.
This means that the interface is exactly backwards for me. The energy number, which I rarely care about at all, is visible always; the mood number, which I care about always, is visible only with extra work.
It looks like y’all tried to address that very problem shortly after the new UI was released by making the circle flash briefly over to ‘numbers’ mode each time you gain or lose mood. That hasn’t helped. It’s forcing information at me when I don’t want it, and not making it readily available when I do. After the initial adjustment period, I find that I ignore the flashes more than half the time -- not on purpose, just because they’re irrelevant more often than not. But sometimes my eye is drawn to the movement anyway, even when the change is not a critical one, and that just makes me more annoyed. It doesn’t cut down appreciably on the number of times I am required to mouseover.
Now, maybe there are other playstyles which cause someone to care more about energy, or less about mood, or both. I don’t have data on how common that is. But even so, there should be a way to make this less annoying for those of us who micromanage our mood.
Here are some ideas. Any of these would be an improvement for me; surely one of them would work across the board ... or maybe someone else has a better suggestion.
1. Change the current translucent energy number to mood instead.
2. Make the translucent number toggle-able, so that the user can set whether they’d prefer to see energy or mood at any given point.
3. Leave the energy number alone and add an always-visible mood number somewhere else.
4. Allow the user to set an alert (something front-and-center and requiring user confirmation) upon reaching a user-specified mood level. (Me, I’d set it for 91%, so I could stop worrying about it all the time.) Then stop with the circle-flashing.
5. Create a whole new UI piece that allows fine-grained at-a-glance mood assessment. With the energy color arc, I know right away what various shades of yellow, orange, or red mean, without having to do any mental math. Give us something that serves the same purpose for the 90%-100% mood range. This could replace the current headshot circle.
Thanks for reading.