New mini map icons - once again, BW tries to "fix" something not broken

[Wastrelz]

I agree. The new icons are absolutely horrible. A simple test with actual players of the game should have nixed this idea pretty fast.

 

With so many bugs in the game never fixed, why pull stuff like this?

[wainot-keel]

Only explanation for this is whoever is designing this stuff doesn't play the game. Or never did any WZ.

It's just dumb.

And in Odessen proving ground sucks because one icon covers the entire node. Between rounds is bad because you cant tell which node is active or not.

[Radzkie]

Oops I lied. Looks like I have two set to medium. I don't remember doing that but maybe thats the key?

 

Edit: The two I had on medium were anti-aliasing and texture anisotropy. I'm putting them back to high now to see if that makes a difference.

 

It did make a difference. Now they're extremely bright and horrible.

[eriksarcasm]

It did make a difference. Now they're extremely bright and horrible.

 

Grazi. There's your quick fix to Bioware's latest Patch Day surprise!

 

Don't know why either of those settings would affect this but there you are.

[Alexandrozingsw]

Pro tip to devs:

 

Render that circle thing first then other map things over it, just move layers around.

 

* blue map

* area of effect (mainly pve)

* new circles thing

* vendors/triners/npc

* objetives (mainly pvp)

* allies

* enemies

 

 

Thanks

Edited February 8, 2017 by Alexandrozingsw
clarification

[Zasszz]

Oops I lied. Looks like I have two set to medium. I don't remember doing that but maybe thats the key?

 

Edit: The two I had on medium were anti-aliasing and texture anisotropy. I'm putting them back to high now to see if that makes a difference.

Obviously you are exploiting the graphics to gain a tactical advantage over others. Now BW has a reason to revert it.

[Radzkie]

Obviously you are exploiting the graphics to gain a tactical advantage over others. Now BW has a reason to revert it.

 

...or make it horrible on all settings.

 

I hope not. It's legit a disadvantage not to turn your graphics down. I'm pretty sure this is the opposite of a QoL update...

Edited February 8, 2017 by Radzkie

[Torvai]

Pro tip to devs:

 

Render that circle thing first then other map things over it, just move layers around.

 

* blue map

* area of effect (mainly pve)

* new circles thing

* vendors/triners/npc

* objetives (mainly pvp)

* allies

* enemies

 

 

Thanks

 

No. The pro tip is to undo this change and instead just change to colour of the icon to something that isn't blue on a blue background. Like purple, the way it was before they changed it to blue. Or even yellow.

 

I mean, when you think about how this happened:

Dev 1: Man, I can't see my group mates on the map very good

Dev 2: Why not?

Dev 1: Well, the symbols are blue. The map is blue.

Dev 2: I have a simple fix: Make the symbol so big it covers everything else.

 

I mean, really? That's the solution you think of for this nonexistant problem?

[WoeWasMe]

No. The pro tip is to undo this change and instead just change to colour of the icon to something that isn't blue on a blue background. Like purple, the way it was before they changed it to blue. Or even yellow.

 

I mean, when you think about how this happened:

Dev 1: Man, I can't see my group mates on the map very good

Dev 2: Why not?

Dev 1: Well, the symbols are blue. The map is blue.

Dev 2: I have a simple fix: Make the symbol so big it covers everything else.

 

I mean, really? That's the solution you think of for this nonexistant problem?

 

I wouldn't say it was nonexistent... I definitely agree that the new symbols are horrible but, as someone who is color blind, I've had a hard time being able to see the original symbol (Depending on the shades, I can hardly discern purple and blue). In my opinion, the blue background we all know should stay but make the group icons a color that greatly contrasts it (Bright yellow? Maybe even white?). If anything, they should really let us change the colors of all the map icons like you can with chat channels and such.

[AscendingSky]

I wouldn't say it was nonexistent... I definitely agree that the new symbols are horrible but, as someone who is color blind, I've had a hard time being able to see the original symbol (Depending on the shades, I can hardly discern purple and blue). In my opinion, the blue background we all know should stay but make the group icons a color that greatly contrasts it (Bright yellow? Maybe even white?). If anything, they should really let us change the colors of all the map icons like you can with chat channels and such.

 

I can definitely understand your issues. I think a bright yellow or orange icon would probably be a good idea to make it easier for everyone to see the position of other players, colorblindness or not.

[Torvai]

I wouldn't say it was nonexistent... I definitely agree that the new symbols are horrible but, as someone who is color blind, I've had a hard time being able to see the original symbol (Depending on the shades, I can hardly discern purple and blue). In my opinion, the blue background we all know should stay but make the group icons a color that greatly contrasts it (Bright yellow? Maybe even white?). If anything, they should really let us change the colors of all the map icons like you can with chat channels and such.

 

Didn't think of colour blindness, sorry. But yeah, as I said, changing it to a colour that contrasts the background would have done the trick.

Instead they went for this. I simply can't understand the logic behind it. That's all I wanted to say.

 

Problem: Both have the same colour.

Solution: This?!?

 

Every normal person would have changed the colour. Bioware changes the symbol to create an even bigger problem.

Makes you wonder that they still, somehow, manage to get their code working half decent. Because with this kind of logic it should be hard to code anything, since coding is based on logic.

[rantboi]

they can't just change it to another color again because that would mean they're admitting that changing it to blue was not a very good idea.

[merovejec]

lol if they would divert the energy needed for such stupid changes, we would already have a bug free game

[cyrusramsey]

they can't just change it to another color again because that would mean they're admitting that changing it to blue was not a very good idea.

 

^ This. Really just this. It's getting painfully obvious that whenever they switch tracks and realize (after it's been repeatedly pointed out by their player base) that it was better before, they will always insist on plowing on anyway. Rather come up with ridiculous and/or convoluted fixes than to ever admit you made a mistake and change something back.

[Rabenschwinge]

A few loosely relatily design problems, apart from this minimap disaster:

 

A really curious thing is that some hostile area of effect icons are suddenly green and have a thinner outlining. The first boss in the Tython flashpoint for example. I can't remember what it was before, but I did remember that I first thought our trooper was dumb enough to fire aoe attacks on a single one target and did not realize that I was standing in the stupid. I noticed that I was somehow taking a massive periodic damage and was puzzled where it was coming from.

 

I don't exactly recall what it was before and when exactly it changed, but I am pretty certain it was more obvious before.

 

The Uprising where you need to defend the beach another such design shipwreck. There are thin outlines in purple that indicate an aoe. On top of the one of the players gets an aoe circle attached to their feet which does damage to the respective character's team mates. In consequence it's easy to miss the aoe outlines, because you can hardly see them beneath the circle.

 

With particle effects getting ever more massive it's difficult to see anything at all.

[Lionflash]

Render that circle thing first then other map things over it, just move layers around.

 

I like this idea best.

 

You can hover your cursor over the mini-map ally circles and it'll become slightly transparent and you can see behind it, but I'm not gonna do that mid combat.

[docbenwayddo]

Look at it from the Devs point of view. All the threads that are complaining about this dumb change are not more threads about horrid Galactic Command. It's a positive change for them.

[tummiswtor]

I like new mini map icons BUT it should be scaled, depends on map.

Map with Turrets - OK (Civil War?)

Voidstar - No.

[dr_mike]

Just a fyi, this maybe an attempt to improve accessibility to the game

 

Linkie - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=261552&page=3

 

Page down once or twice.

 

edit: It's unfortunate to have all these threads scattered all over the forums. Pity we can't get them combined.

Edited February 8, 2017 by dr_mike

[Alexandrozingsw]

I like this idea best.

 

You can hover your cursor over the mini-map ally circles and it'll become slightly transparent and you can see behind it, but I'm not gonna do that mid combat.

 

Yup, the main problem is that the current implementation covers tactical information.

I would suspect that the original intent was to make the circle translucid (like an alpha at 50%) but different video cards would render it different (like a solid color covering things and overlapping) as it seems from some comments, and unfortunately that's my case: I see them as solid circles overlaping and covering tactical information such as objetives and enemies.

 

I personally would avoid transparencies as they tend to be CPU/GPU intensive, but having an indicator of an enemy that's actively hitting you (like those funny mobs under the floor) or a better view of allies could improve the combat experience, just don't cover critical information, that's why I suggest a reorder of layers instead of a possible "breaking other things" code rollback.

[Darkside]

Bioware Developer Handbook, Rule #213:

 

 

Our company motto is not - "If there is a problem, Bioware will fix it"

 

The correct company motto is - "If there is no problem, Bioware will fix it"

Edited February 8, 2017 by Darkside

[btmart]

Yeah if they wanted to make group members more visible, they could have simply just made the icons, I dunno, yellow? Instead of the same blue that is the map window? Now it just a big blob covering everything, which is not useful.

[Airehn]

Look at it from the Devs point of view. All the threads that are complaining about this dumb change are not more threads about horrid Galactic Command. It's a positive change for them.

 

I laughed so hard at this I'm sure the neighbors heard me across the street.

[Khaleg]

It's because changing the color of the player icons would have been a way too intelligent and obvious solution for the "geniuses" @Bioware/EA. It's just how they work. Doing intelligent and obvious things, in general not only in this case, would be so totally against their corporate identity. We need to understand and accept that...

Same is true for x Server and/or mergers and other intelligent and obvious solutions.

 

Also, the development team and the bug tracking/fixing team are MIA since their team trip to Tijuana 5 years ago so it's all not that easy in the mmo world for Bioware...

Edited February 8, 2017 by Khaleg

[Krazhez]

I thought I liked it at first, then I went into a raid. Soa for example, why is your character filtered to the bottom of the icons? You can't see which direction you're facing. I can see how this is an annoyance and a nightmare in pvp and other operations.