Poll: What do you think about the new changes made to global cooldown UI in 1.1.2?

[MaximusRex]

Changes are definitely going to be made to the UI in response to initial feedback we received after the patch was deployed. (Very little feedback was received on the PTS Forum before the patch was deployed to the live servers, otherwise changes may have been made before the patch's deployment.)

 

People are less likely to play the PTR and see things like the UI changes before they go live, because most of us don't want to start a new character we don't get to "keep" so to speak and risk having the test character wiped out or whatever. Its hard to meaningfully test content, expecially when most of the changes you guys are making are high level, or impact us most at high level, with a character sub 20.

 

Honestly, this is the first MMO I have played with a Public Test server where you don't either get pre-mades or a way to copy a character from live. Personally, from my prior experience with testing I prefer a copy of my live character because I am familiar with him, and his gear, and his performance in that gear, so things are more obviously wrong.

[harpuax]

I don't want my ability lit up unless I can press or click that button and use it. This is how it was before the infamous 1.1 patch that changed everything to be lit up all the time. People hated that change so Bioware changed it back (plus a flash when an ability is ready).

 

I like the new change and find it a lot more easy to tell which long cooldown abilities available and which aren't, especially those long cooldowns.

 

So you don't que your abilities before the GCD is up, or at the very least take a look to which you have the resources for next? So you waste time waiting for them to light up and THEN make your decision? All the while your dps suffers from this wasted time. I guess this poll just shows that 1/3 of the community are poor players.

[Nuchie]

At least for myself, I am spending my play time playing my main character, rather than testing new features. I understand that BW depends on player feedback for patches. Personally, I don't have enough time and I haven't made the effort to find out how to get on the PTR I'm assuming is fairly straightforward. My understanding is that this particular feature wasn't in the latest patch so there really wasn't an opportunity to speak to this issue.

 

I'm not prone to drama or wild accusations. I don't know exactly what the science is behind why the new UI change is making me nauseated and dizzy. I just know that I was fine before, and now I'm not and I can't play a game that makes me sick.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Nuchie

[darthjanus]

Just remove the new effect for GCD.

 

Keep it for actual ability cooldown.

 

Use the old/dark overlay for GCD or simply darken buttons effected by GCD for 1.5s

 

This seems to be the general consensus.

[melsworld]

can we go back to how it was at launch? At least then I could tell what skills were available. Most skills look grayed out when they should and are off cooldown.

 

No offense but did anyone internally test this? Someone internally who plays the game?

[DregorThule]

Overall it's a change for the better to how it was last patch. My only suggestion would be to not grey out abilities that are simply unavailable due to GCD. The highlight "wipe" or whatever is sufficient enough for GCD.

[Eszi]

Very little feedback was received on the PTS Forum before the patch was deployed to the live servers, otherwise changes may have been made before the patch's deployment.

 

It's because most of the people are too lazy to level another char and gearing it on the PTS.

Just to it like CCP does in EvE - import characters from live to test server.

[darknightcvs]

I have stood by through all the random bugs and glitches in this game. The poor customer service and terrible experience that is Ilum. I hate people who threaten to quit or throw their sub around like it is a bat, but I must say as a SW:J I will not be playing this game until the GCD is changed.

 

I say GCD because the change to the CD abilities are nice, I don't even mind the slight flash.

 

The fix seems obvious to me, make abilities that have cool downs function like they do now, and abilities that don't have cool downs (but function off of the GCD) work like they did in the previous patch.

 

That fixes our immediate issue with the crazy screen flashing/not knowing if an ability is going to be ready after the GCD. As well as fixes the problem that an ability with a cool down was hard to determine if it was off CD or not at the sub 10 second mark.

 

The current system doesn't make me dizzy or give me a headache or anything like that, it is just bad/annoying to look at. I just see a constant line going through all my abilities and they are always grayed out.

 

I can live with WZ not counting or bad RE ratios for learning schematics for quite sometime. What I won't do is play this game with the abortion that is the current CD/GCD system.

Edited February 8, 2012 by darknightcvs

[Marcus_Cade]

I don't want my ability lit up unless I can press or click that button and use it. This is how it was before the infamous 1.1 patch that changed everything to be lit up all the time. People hated that change so Bioware changed it back (plus a flash when an ability is ready).

 

I like the new change and find it a lot more easy to tell which long cooldown abilities available and which aren't, especially those long cooldowns.

 

While GCD is going now, you can't tell what's available until 0.5/1.0 sec after it finishes & available ability's light back up. If the ability's stayed "lit" with the small grey overlay, with the bar going down, we wouldn't need the "flash" to show they were ready.

[Dalwhinnie]

They make it hard to play. Seems like you have changed them 3 times since beta where I never noticed them as not working. Plenty of games do this correctly perhaps you could think about your players before your egos and use their models.

[InnateOne]

This poll is too vague.... there's no room for actual feedback... just do you like it or not...

 

I think it was a step in the right direction but when it boiled down to it they were all still greyed out even though I could use the skills... the timing was way off and it was confusing... All in all I think you're trying to do too much when you should just follow the KISS method and keep it simple.

[Benstoned]

There is no way to tell what abilities are up / which one procced with the new global cooldown. B-R-O-K-E-N. Not a question if we like it or not.

[Khryn]

People are less likely to play the PTR and see things like the UI changes before they go live, because most of us don't want to start a new character we don't get to "keep" ....

 

Honestly, this is the first MMO I have played with a Public Test server where you don't either get pre-mades or a way to copy a character from live. Personally, from my prior experience with testing I prefer a copy of my live character because I am familiar with him, and his gear, and his performance in that gear, so things are more obviously wrong.

 

 

 

I think that instituting a free copy of our high level characters would go a long way towards alleviating problems like this.

 

 

My issue with the UI (and I'm sure it's been said over and over) is that I now can't tell at a glance what is on and off GCD or CD at all. Lots of flash and color, but it's completely meaningless and blinding. I need to know what's available and what's on cooldown at a glance, and although I like the action icon flashing, not ALL of them need to flash. Just the ones so I know it's off cooldown - Which was the issue with the last UI update... People couldn't tell when something was below 10seconds if it was on or off cooldown.

[Vemnox]

How hard is this really? Black when it's down and lit when it's up. Turn off the glowing and crap.

[Dukrous]

My issue is that my eye is drawn to abilities on cooldown to the point that it's all I see and it's hard to tell what is ready since its so much dimmer than the cooldown indicator.

[Gidoru]

I think the changes are ok, but what i dont understand is why the color for the global cooldown is the same as the color for an ability on cooldown, how hard would it be to make them different colors to differentiate them? Seem to me making them different colors would solve any problems. Leave the global with its current color and shade in abilities on cooldown in red or something. Edited February 8, 2012 by Gidoru

[Khryn]

This poll is too vague.... there's no room for actual feedback... just do you like it or not...

 

 

 

Re-read the first page. The poll may be vague but the intention was to have people put their ideas here so they could get a clear vision of what was wrong, what needs changed, and what people want. There is plenty of room for feedback in the message section.

[Kroonerr]

I don't think it's fair that I voted "It's terrible!" when infact that doesn't sun up how I feel so I'll add this. I would prefer the flashing only on non-GCD cooldowns. For GCD CDs, it just blinks far too often.

[Jalliah]

Well I voted terrible even though I personally don't think it's terrible.

 

 

My concern is for the number of people that are reporting getting physically affected by it. Regardless of why, this was not an issue with other incarnations of the UI. Even if it's only a small percentage relative to the entire player base I think there are enough both in the forums and in game to warrant some quick changes to it.

 

This sort of thing should not be happening in the numbers that it is and especially since it was not an reported issue before the change occurred.

 

People can argue and debate other problems till the cows come home but these physical problems should not be a debate.

[Umpire]

It's better than the previous tries but it's still not perfect.

 

Before, I couldn't see my cooldowns unless I was staring at them. Now I can totally see my cooldowns with my peripherals, but I really don't want a lazer light show every GCD

Edited February 8, 2012 by Umpire

[Aenoria]

The funny thing about this all is besides the fact we cant copy a 50 to the PTR that the issues was pointed out on the PTR forums on the 3rd of this month so before it was released:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=264965

 

So there are actually people leveling to 50 on the PTR it seems.

Anyways like the rest said " Its terrible" please look at addons in wow like OmniCC to get a good idea how things should be done relating to cooldown tracking.

[andrew_b_gross]

While I have a ton of sympathy for people who are reporting headaches and such from the new UI (I had to uninstall Skyrim after two nights of motion sickness), I personally don't suffer from it.

 

The reason I will not be able to run Ops with my guild until the UI is changed is that I can't queue my next ability because I have no way of knowing what's available until after the GCD is done. It's that simple. I need to be able to glance at the action bars and see "once the GCD is up, abiltiy X will be usable and ability Y will be usable by not ability Z". If I can't do that, I can't play this game. It's really honestly that simple.

[zordox]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but I don't think Bioware is keeping in mind that not everyone has a monitor with perfect contrast and color accuracy and so forth. I beleive these elements factor into the visibilty of abilities current status.

[Catsmeat]

Whatever changes you make Bioware please hire a consultant physician to give his opinion before inflicting another day of real pain on your paying customers.

[Thesseract]

The funny thing about this all is besides the fact we cant copy a 50 to the PTR that the issues was pointed out on the PTR forums on the 3rd of this month so before it was released:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=264965

 

So there are actually people leveling to 50 on the PTR it seems.

Anyways like the rest said " Its terrible" please look at addons in wow like OmniCC to get a good idea how things should be done relating to cooldown tracking.

 

Why didn't anybody listen to this man! All could have been avoided.