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

[Probain]

The new changes are horrible.

 

I play a Sentinel and it is almost impossible to determine when abilities are off cooldown. During my hardmode raid last night, my entire UI was constantly greyed out or flashing, which made it impossible to determine which abilities could be activated.

 

I could not monitor Merciless Slash, Cauterize, Overload Saber and Zealous Strike properly. I basically had to guess when each was ready to use. The other raiding Sentinel in my guild was having the same issues.

 

And don't get me started on the flashing every 1.5 seconds...

 

 

There are two main problems:

 

One, the Global Cooldown causes ALL abilities to flash when it's up. This means all of your bars will flash white every 1.5 seconds.

 

Two, using ANY ability causes all of your abilities to go grey and they don't fade back in until after the Global Cooldown is up. This is a huge problem when you're a class that spams abilities every second, such as a Jedi Sentinel. Basically, the abilities never light back up and are in a constant state of fading grey and flashing. Because of this, you can't tell what abilities are ready, whether or not you're in range, or if you have enough resources to use the ability.

 

Well said, and well explained. Althou I'm A SW, I find that this explains my feelings perfectly!

[Terko_Koslah]

Just copy WoW...

[violetdea]

I like the changes on the whole but I found that the flash when the GCD is done does seem to be a bit slower than when its actually done. I'm able to use abilities before the flash which kinda makes it on the whole useless. Making it a UI option may be for the best.

[darthtoph]

I'm gonna spell this out real slow so Ray, Greg, Gabe, James and all the other lead developers at BW understand it loud and clear:

 

"Having your peripheral vision bombard you with flashing hotbars from left, right and bottom part of your screen is not good for your health and can cause serious physical illness."

Thank you for reading!

Edited February 8, 2012 by darthtoph

[StephenReid]

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.)

 

The primary purpose of this poll is to get more accurate numbers on player sentiment. Threads are very helpful for us to get an immediate idea of areas that need attention, but accurate numbers as opposed to post counts help us present a more accurate picture of those affected (threads/post counts can easily be inflated by multiple posts from the same person, opposing points of view, and so on).

 

If you'd like to give us constructive feedback on changes to the UI and the global cooldown animations, we'd welcome that in this thread. Discussions about the poll or other aspects of development aren't appropriate.

[Nitewolfe]

The new cool down light show is causing some of us physical discomfort. I personally have to take IBU's after a hour of game play to stop the headaches.

[Svettly]

I'm not sure where people get the headaches but everyone is different. I am sure you guys will put in an option for people to set it how they like in the future. At least that is the smart thing to do. Just make a slider for people to set how bright it is to them and that complaint is solved. Then just add another color to indicate if the skill will actually be usable after the GCD is done.

 

I like the look with the setting I have. I would just like a red overlay or something on skills that have not procced yet.

[DarthWarrior]

bioware, stop wasting resources on TRYING to make a good UI. you'll never make everyone happy.

 

implement player made addons. end of story.

 

Yep.........

[Duffz]

Is this a joke BW? You broke the ability bar for classes using rage / focus and now you're starting a poll if we like it? This is the best thing you came up in 24 hours?

 

No I don't like the changes, because GCD is being treated the same as CD. I can't look at an ability and tell if i can use it once the GCD is up. Don't darken the Ability Icons on GCD and 80 percent of the crowd is happy again.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Duffz

[Yndras]

I'll have to go for "terrible", but I'd rather vote between that and good.

 

The change seems very heavy-handed with fat inelegant borders around the icons, and it introduces a LOT of visual noise to the UI, with a good bunch of elements starting for flash a lot. In comparison, cooldown indicators in other games manage to convey the same or more information without basically flashing the entire screen, so go forth and ste^W be inspired!

 

In the long run, maybe experiment with a more visible, optional, and click-through global indicator centered around the PC, showing global cooldown and times for some important cooldown groups (medipacks!) around the character. A quick net search shows the WoW addon IceHUD as an example, but maybe not quite as annoying and limited to CD and maybe health. (The really popping and annoying UI elements can be left as an exercise to the modders once customisation is in place.) To be useful and have acceptance this will need at least the customisation facilities shown in the last video so players can move it around, resize it, and change opacity.

 

Have you played wow lately? It's the same thing in swtor. They have always flashed, they added a white border to highlight it.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Wekeltes

[Vlacke]

I voted that it's good, i personally have no issues with it.

[Scar]

For cooldowns - Like it

 

For GCD - Hate it

Hate is a strong word. I would prefer something less ostentatious, but sort of captures the feeling I have about it.

[British]

It's gone from being a little anoying to ridiculous! I really just pressed anything last night as I had no idea what was on cooldown

[Sholagar]

So I guess they didn't bother reading through any of the 1000s of posts about why this UI is so bad.....

[gryhmr]

The new Ui makes me dizzy and the game unplayable.

[Keta]

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.)

 

The primary purpose of this poll is to get more accurate numbers on player sentiment. Threads are very helpful for us to get an immediate idea of areas that need attention, but accurate numbers as opposed to post counts help us present a more accurate picture of those affected (threads/post counts can easily be inflated by multiple posts from the same person, opposing points of view, and so on).

 

If you'd like to give us constructive feedback on changes to the UI and the global cooldown animations, we'd welcome that in this thread. Discussions about the poll or other aspects of development aren't appropriate.

 

 

Not good enough. Where's your comment about those who are getting sick from the new and improved UI? Changes will be made? When, what's the time frame? Am i locked out for at least another 2 - 3 weeks because your UI makes me physically ill? You are aware that a fair number of us literally cannot play your game with this UI aren't you? Or are you among those who are claiming we're lying when we say the new UI is making us ill?

[bleuquila]

revert it. revert it today. As a priority rage-based class, what button I hit next is entirely dependent on: how much rage do I have vs what a spell costs? did something else randomly proc during the GCD? Did my 45 second cooldown attack come off CD? Normally, during the GCD period I scan what is available and make my choice so that as soon as the GCD ends I know what I'm doing. With everything grayed out right now, I CANNOT MADE THAT DETERMINATION. It's incredibly frustrating, when there is never a time that I can see what is available unless I am literally standing around, doing nothing at all after a GCD has ended. It goes without saying, for a class with a very shaky hold on threat tables to begin with, doing nothing is the worst possible choice. This bar change is actively impairing my ability to play the game with friends. The flashing lights and all that - nuisances, but they don't prevent me from tanking.

[darthtoph]

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.)

 

The primary purpose of this poll is to get more accurate numbers on player sentiment. Threads are very helpful for us to get an immediate idea of areas that need attention, but accurate numbers as opposed to post counts help us present a more accurate picture of those affected (threads/post counts can easily be inflated by multiple posts from the same person, opposing points of view, and so on).

 

If you'd like to give us constructive feedback on changes to the UI and the global cooldown animations, we'd welcome that in this thread. Discussions about the poll or other aspects of development aren't appropriate.

 

Finally some feedback. Thank you very much!

 

Maybe now is the time for the player base to come up with a couple of suggestions? Seriously, this is not a difficult issue to resolve at all, the year is 2012 and we've had working MMO UIs since... 1999?

Edited February 8, 2012 by darthtoph

[ichime]

I just want it back to the way it was at launch to be honest... With the option to have numbers for cooldowns (or at least for the last 5 seconds)

[Kthx]

The poll would have been more useful if it had provided either more graduation in the response (i.e a question that can be answered with strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, or strongly disagree) or, even better, options on what changes to make.

 

(a) Keep as is

(b) Revert to pre-patch

© Revert to launch

(d) Redesign from scratch with user input

(e) Allow some combination of (a) through © with user preference

 

There may be other options as well.

 

The other thing that the person evaluating this poll needs to understand is that this survey is subject to very strong selection bias: Those most likely to participate are those who strongly dislike the changes. If you really want to measure the preferences, a random sample is needed. Maybe the best way would be to have a pop-up in game with a survey, as was done during beta to collect feedback.

[Naroga]

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.)

 

The primary purpose of this poll is to get more accurate numbers on player sentiment. Threads are very helpful for us to get an immediate idea of areas that need attention, but accurate numbers as opposed to post counts help us present a more accurate picture of those affected (threads/post counts can easily be inflated by multiple posts from the same person, opposing points of view, and so on).

 

If you'd like to give us constructive feedback on changes to the UI and the global cooldown animations, we'd welcome that in this thread. Discussions about the poll or other aspects of development aren't appropriate.

 

Will we have to wait until next Tuesday for a fix? I am not exaggerating when I say that my Jedi Sentinel is almost unplayable with the current UI. Raiding on him was anything but fun and I logged off instead of joining my guild for PvP because of the UI.

 

On my Operative alt, the changes are still bad, but not nearly as bad as the Sentinel. If I have to wait until Tuesday, I won't bother logging onto the Sentinel other than to raid.

[Lostpenguins]

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.)

 

The primary purpose of this poll is to get more accurate numbers on player sentiment. Threads are very helpful for us to get an immediate idea of areas that need attention, but accurate numbers as opposed to post counts help us present a more accurate picture of those affected (threads/post counts can easily be inflated by multiple posts from the same person, opposing points of view, and so on).

 

If you'd like to give us constructive feedback on changes to the UI and the global cooldown animations, we'd welcome that in this thread. Discussions about the poll or other aspects of development aren't appropriate.

 

1 - You need to give us the ability to copy over characters to the PTS. Very few times at low levels do we have the ability to test out some features until we level up that character to a high enough level. What character has relics at low levels or long cooldown abilities to aptly test whether a 5 minute icon on cooldown is readable or not? What player is going to level a character on the PTS to test Operation changes and endgame PvP? Don't place the blame on your player base for not properly giving you feedback when you do not give us the proper tools to easily test out these changes.

 

2 - For my suggestions on the changes... I'll repost it here:

 

Make this easier. Put a big, red, countdown number (1 = 1 second, 2 = 2 seconds, 1m = 1 minute) that goes away when it's not on cooldown or GCD (i.e. when it's available to use). Have it always round up to the lower increment. Each unit shown should be:

Every second : 1 - 59.

Every minute : 1m - 60m.

 

So something that has 4 mins, 30 secs left will show "4m" on the button. Something that has 1m 15 seconds left will show "1m", something that has 1.5secs (GCD) will show "1".

 

Make the ability grayed out when it's ineligible to use (out of range, a heal ability on an enemy non-healable npc).

 

So:

Visible number = Not ready to use yet / Still on cooldown.

Grayed out = Ineligible target / not in range.

 

How hard would it be to do that?

 

Want to know when your ability is ready and you can use it? Simple... it's a bright color with no number on it."

 

Sample Image:

http://tinypic.com/r/15wktpe/5

[AlexiKakos]

They're not terrible but they're closer to that option than them being good.

[DalekCaan]

These were giving me a headache last night. For the first time since I started playing in Beta, I got a headache from playing. That obviously tells me something is wrong.

 

I don't mind making cooldowns clearer, but making them the brightest thing on screen and flashing like a Coruscant nightclub isn't helping anyone.

 

If you keep them in the game, I suggest having an option to switch between the original and new.

[MactheSmuggler]

Easiest solution IMHO:

 

A overlay of a number counting down over your ability when its on cooldown. If you have 29 seconds left on a cooldown the ability is greyed out with a big 29 over it (obviously counting down to zero).

 

The current system is worse than the one prior which was worse than the one prior to that...