I put Omen, the default battle map, and Proximo (Gladiator/ArenaLiveFrame/ArenaMaster) in the bottom right of my viewable area, all in the same spot. I find that having equally valuable but mutually exclusive elements share the same space works well, because my eye is trained to scan that part of the screen in any given situation, and no matter what, I'll be looking at something worth looking at.
In the debate about healer v DPS UI's I have to say that I definitely see a difference between the two. The "healers stare at bars, while DPS get to watch the fight" distinction rings true for me. (Hence why HUDs and scrolling text are more popular with DPS, while Grid, etc, is more popular with healers.)
Three other issues I see and wonder what others think:
1. Smaller group v Raid. I guess some will claim that for a 5-man or 10-man, your UI hardly matters and it's only at the 25-man level where you need careful design. But I hope there will be more discussion than that. Is a 25-man simply a scaled-up 5-man in some sense, or do different concepts apply?
2. Hybrids. I'm Feral spec, but heal runs, too, and so far my philosophy has been to develop a hybrid interface that serves solo/group DPS/tank/healing fairly well. The idea being, I grow accustomed to where things are and that does not change beased on my role. But of course this may lead to a sub-optimal UI for any particular role, and a certain amount of UI overload in all roles.
The other philosophy would be to have 3 or 4 different UI's and switch between them as roles change. Omen on for DPS, Omen off for healing. Grid on for healing, ...
So far, I've been doing a lot of tweaking in Pitbull. For example, my target-of-party/target/focus is only a textual name with raid icon. All I care about is what is being targeted, not their health/mana/debuff details. (If the details are important, they are somewhere else on my screen, either as my target/focus or in other player frames.)
3. There seems to me to be four ways of presenting information in the UI's I've seen/used. When is each superior? To wit:
A. Graph-like. That is, something like health bars, mana bars, threat meters that show threat as a bar graph.
B. Iconic. Such as buffs/debuff icons. The icon would have meaning wherever it appears. Many icons have absoluter meaning, based on Blizzard's choices, while others may not.
C. Positional. I'm thinking minimal indicators like Grid's dots. Meaningful by contextual position, not in isolation.
D. Color. Actually, this is much like positional, in that a color by itself has no meaning, but a color on a health indicator or unit frame border can have meaning.
E. Textual. Good old words.
As I said, I have my target-of-party/target/focus set to be just the name and raid icon. I want to see what the target is, not all the details like health or buffs/debuffs. If I'm healing, I really don't care about mobs that are targeted, and the targets of mobs are already displayed in detail somewhere else on my screen. If I'm DPS'ing I really only care about the health of one mob, plus some knowledge of my teammates' status, and similarly -- but slightly differently -- as a tank.
3. There seems to me to be six ways of presenting information in the UI's I've seen/used. When is each superior? To wit:
Graph-like. That is, something like health bars, mana bars, threat meters that show threat as a bar graph.
Iconic. Such as buffs/debuff icons. The icon would have meaning wherever it appears. Many icons have absoluter meaning, based on Blizzard's choices, while others may not.
Positional. I'm thinking minimal indicators like Grid's dots. Meaningful by contextual position, not in isolation.
Color. Actually, this is much like positional, in that a color by itself has no meaning, but a color on a health indicator or unit frame border can have meaning.
Textual. Good old words. Including scrolling text, text in meters, etc.
Sounds.
Thoughts?
Hmm, There's some thoughts here, but basically you have just outlined the difference of "Notification" ( hightlights, icons, popup-blings) "gradient" (colour-changing based on "threat level") and "Detailed" (texts/Exact numbers)
Distinct highlights are easier to respond to and notice, for things that need simple non-decisive reactions. "Poison on person" fex.
Highlights/Gradients are somewhat harder to react to, as they requite more mental processing to work with. ( Is the 50% bar on that warlock as urgent as 50% on the priest? ) Various graphs and bars can change to show both "50%" and urgency ( Colour a bar red in case of aggro, or change gradient if they get <6k hp ) , this is still quick to take in, but requires more mental work to process than the simple notification icon.
Texts are the least useful for fast reaction, they (And numbers) provide exact information, however it takes quite a few loops through the brain to read the text (those are letters, brain!) process it, and the meaning of it. And as such, should be used as little as possible in a UI. Bars and relative information is much quicker to process in most cases. (Most cases! Nothing is ever perfect)
However, this is a fairly moot point when you design a UI, most of this is "well established" fact, so this post generally feels as if it doesn't add much to the discussion.
Here's something "new" that I haven't seen in this thread yet (maybe I just haven't looked hard enough). Notice the Focus bar in the bottom left had a portrait so that I can keep an eye on my sheep without having to look for it in combat. Also, since I'm a mage I really don't care that much about the status of my group mates (other than their alive and un-cursed) so I'm using Grid for my part frames. Grid shows me everybody's health and lights up if I can decurse them - so a decurse is just two clicks away.
Texts are the least useful for fast reaction, they (And numbers) provide exact information, however it takes quite a few loops through the brain to read the text (those are letters, brain!) process it, and the meaning of it. And as such, should be used as little as possible in a UI. Bars and relative information is much quicker to process in most cases. (Most cases! Nothing is ever perfect)
Perhaps obvious, but at least distinctions that have not been used in this thread so far -- which if I've missed it, I apologize -- so I think I rate some level of usefulness to the thread.
And I'd ask, since when is "fast reaction" the measure of a UI? Perhaps if you're a DPS'er in a PvP situation, that's the bottom line. But in situations that call for something beyond twitch, I'd disagree with you.
As I mentioned, I have text for the target-of-X because it eliminated distracting, redundant information and immediately gives me what's important: what is targeted, and is it the same as what someone else has targeted. Admittedly, if raid icons are used, that's even faster for the second part of the question -- and I display them as well -- but many times text is actually faster than your "faster" alternatives, even counting the slower speed synapse-wise-speaking.
As another example, consider HoT/DoT/cooldown timers. Nice bar and pie graphs are not always "faster" than plain old numbers, especially when comparing different-length durations which all appear to be the same (at a glance) if they are at the same percentage of their length.
There's merit in drawing distinctions and giving names to them. And there's merit to not making sweeping generalizations about UIs that are applicable in emergency/twitch situations and perhaps -- with a little thought -- not so useful in others.
There's merit in drawing distinctions and giving names to them. And there's merit to not making sweeping generalizations about UIs that are applicable in emergency/twitch situations and perhaps -- with a little thought -- not so useful in others.
I'm not sure it's necessarily a question of gathering the information more quickly, but rather more efficiently. Bars have the benefit of being purely representational, that is there is no interpretation of a symbol to achieve understanding. Numbers are totally differet - they are pure symbol.
In my experience there are very few times when someone needs to be able to make a distinction between a person having 5140 hit points versus 5170 hit points. Certainly there are times when small details like this are necessary, but that isn't often.
Ultimately, good approximate information is generally sufficient for this game, and thus bars are privileged over text. Representational models, as opposed to symbolic models, are generally more efficient and require less synthesis to be interpreted. I'm not sure there is much of a difference between looking at a bar and text in terms of their temporal impact, but one is just easier to glance at than the other.
There are also times when text might be better than a bar, for example in determining when a boss is going to switch phases. Certainly you can guess with a bar, but it is not nearly as accurate.
Here's something "new" that I haven't seen in this thread yet (maybe I just haven't looked hard enough). Notice the Focus bar in the bottom left had a portrait so that I can keep an eye on my sheep without having to look for it in combat. Also, since I'm a mage I really don't care that much about the status of my group mates (other than their alive and un-cursed) so I'm using Grid for my part frames. Grid shows me everybody's health and lights up if I can decurse them - so a decurse is just two clicks away.
The portrait on a focus target is a great quick way to tell if your target is still poly'd. I used to use this as my approach until I switch to quartz and now I have it's debuff module show my poly timer right at the heart of my screen, just below center.
But your comment about decursing is an example of over complication. Two clicks is too many for decursing. A mod like Clique allows you to bind spells to clicks on unit frames so I bind Ctrl + Left Click to decursing. Move to frame. One click. About as quick as it can be (unless decursive is back and working again).
Things like clique allow hiding of at least a few abilities. I bind Shift + Right Click to AI and Ctrl + Right Click to AB to allow me to buff without moving my mouse from bars to unit frames (given that for the most part as a mage I do not need my unit frames in the center of the action).
The portrait on a focus target is a great quick way to tell if your target is still poly'd. I used to use this as my approach until I switch to quartz and now I have it's debuff module show my poly timer right at the heart of my screen, just below center.
But your comment about decursing is an example of over complication. Two clicks is too many for decursing. A mod like Clique allows you to bind spells to clicks on unit frames so I bind Ctrl + Left Click to decursing. Move to frame. One click. About as quick as it can be (unless decursive is back and working again).
Things like clique allow hiding of at least a few abilities. I bind Shift + Right Click to AI and Ctrl + Right Click to AB to allow me to buff without moving my mouse from bars to unit frames (given that for the most part as a mage I do not need my unit frames in the center of the action).
I wasn't aware that somebody had found away around Blizzard block of targeting and casting in the same action. I'll look into Clique, thanks for the hint.
I can't remember Blizzard's exact limitations (been out of the game for 5 months until the last few weeks) but I think the point was to prevent "intelligent" targeting and dynamic frames the basic things that decursive did constant.
Clearly with Clique you still have to find them in your unit frames, which requires a modicum of attention to who is actually cursed as opposed to the "decurse me" on vent and then just hammering the decursive key occasionally throughout the fight as you've remember it's one of "those" fights in which it becomes your main responsibility.
And I'd ask, since when is "fast reaction" the measure of a UI? Perhaps if you're a DPS'er in a PvP situation, that's the bottom line. But in situations that call for something beyond twitch, I'd disagree with you.
You take my comment out of context. The context was of information-processing speed/reaction and pursual. "Fast Reaction" is golden when it comes to things like "Dispelling" "Bubble" or more so, simply judging "how much time is left on my buff".
If you want the extreme example, Publish time remaining on Arcane Brilliance in seconds, as a number, Compare with a bar (full=15 minutes or more, empty=gone) and then decide, do you need to rebuff or not?
You can, quite easily, judge from the amount of seconds. All you need is to think of it, however, its much faster to process the bar. "fast reaction" -is- something worth pursuing.
Originally Posted by Druitt
As I mentioned, I have text for the target-of-X because it eliminated distracting, redundant information and immediately gives me what's important: what is targeted, and is it the same as what someone else has targeted. Admittedly, if raid icons are used, that's even faster for the second part of the question -- and I display them as well -- but many times text is actually faster than your "faster" alternatives, even counting the slower speed synapse-wise-speaking.
Different mechanics, What you talk about here is text as label, not as information pursual. If you really want to see that, hide UI numbers from the screen. Remove SCT and all "damage" displays taken in numbers, toggle on a cobat log, and set it to only show -your- damage, and spells done -to you- It's a very hard thing to pursue.
Also, I must add when it comes to raid icons. Raid icons are only ever faster if they are consistent. If someone said that "skull means kill last", Attempt to judge how Easy it is? On the other hand, "Kill skull" is faster than "Kill shattered halls adept!" and you do need less neural processing to find "which one is the adept?"
Originally Posted by Druitt
As another example, consider HoT/DoT/cooldown timers. Nice bar and pie graphs are not always "faster" than plain old numbers, especially when comparing different-length durations which all appear to be the same (at a glance) if they are at the same percentage of their length.
Having a set of bars with relative max-length is a total disaster, and should be avoided at all costs, when designing a graph-based, you really have to have a "common min/max" set for them to show relatively consistent information that is actually useful. Please tell me you don't know anyone who'd actually -use- such a UI?
Having a set of bars with relative max-length is a total disaster, and should be avoided at all costs, when designing a graph-based, you really have to have a "common min/max" set for them to show relatively consistent information that is actually useful. Please tell me you don't know anyone who'd actually -use- such a UI?
THIS is the reason i switched from bar version of dotimer to icon and actual time. Yes you're right it takes more processing time to read the time than it did bars, but as you mentioned seeing 4 or more debuffs per target (upwards of 5 or 6 latent targets) all at various time but on the same realative size bar is very confusing. admittedly as a warlock whose been using the same dot rotation for months my timing is almost memorized. But for curses, which change with the blink of an eye especially its nice to see the time and be able to look wile i cast my next shadow bolt and see, "oh after this is done i can begin my dot cycle again and be just on time" or "uh oh, my curse of doom expired ten seconds ago on that damn phase shifted bulwark"
As for the comment of speed of a ui, i find speed to be the ultimate factor, The ui i designed originally came about because i was back seat raid leading, as my gm of the time was, well, incompetent. As such i had to see who was alive etc and i needed to know quick. Now i don't need all the info i have, but it sure is nice to see an incoming heal on our mt when hes down to 4k life. Best part of grid, that and aggro monitoring. Sure i dont need to see a single raid member, /tar works fine for quick soulstones, but its that extra bit of info that i can look at and see, "well 15 people are dead, lifetap hellfire time".
I find that a GOOD ui gives you no more and no less info than you need at any given point. The way my ui is designed is to break up my view. I have the main screen with very little clutter other than info that is pertanant at all times. SCT (which is whittled down to direct dmg, incoming heals over 500 incoming dmg, hits/crits/misses and various warnings) Dottimer just above unit frames, and boss mods. For the most part my view is unobstructed. I then have 2 bars a tiny one at the top for buffs and other things i dont need to look a every second, and then my main bottom bar which houses ora2 timers, buttons minimap chat frame combat log etc. The idea is at any time i can quickly glance down to a place on that bottom bar and see threat, or raid really quickly and at the same time maybe see something else nice too, like a cooldown soon to be up.
Receiving info quickly and acting upon it is essential to any activity, game, job. If you delay in a raid it will result in one of many things, either it being an over all lack of dps (half a second delay once is one thing, but if you delay once, you will delay again, and again decreasing dps) lack of crucial heals at proper times, or in appropriate over heals why hit your life taping warlock with an extra 8k worth of heals if you don't need to, maybe some one else needs them? Loss or gain of aggro, this is a big one, delays on a soulshatter or fade or taunt can cost hours of work, tons of gold farmed for consumables and more.
A slow ui benefits no one and hurts more than just you
Friends don't let friends play with out bindings
edit- Sorry APARANTLY i needed to make this clear. I quit the game about a month ago, but maintain a UI a few friends still use. Sorry about that Kaubel
Sorry to divert, But can someone post a link of the Geist addon? I have been following the thread and it seems to be a fairly nice addition to my current UI, and unfortunately I have lost the previous link :S
Also, can someone recommend a Rogue/Paladin cooldown/trinket timer? I haven't found one that works well between the two classes
That isn't the bast action shot, but it's what I have available right now. (forgot to put the combat shots on the ftp)
To answer some of the comments I saw, the top left corner is not stuff that is needed. SWStats isn't something I watch while fighting, and KTM is just sitting until we fully convert to Omen. However, that corner is out of sight, out of mind for me. I access SWStats often enough to just leave it open, but making it go away is just a mouse click. KTM will hopefully be gone soon. My frames will soon be replaced. Thanks for the recommendations. I think my healer (have a priest at 69 right now) will likely house Grid in the same general location, on top of where my DoTs appear, just above the target and tot frames.
About my bottom right button cluster...its nothing I access in combat. What that does is allow me to pull out macros/curses/other spells that might be used in a certain situation, but will always be known ahead of time. If I need to enslave something I'll know about it, and I'll move that button to the click-bar above my target. So no, nothing in that bottom right box requires precision clicking, so I'm not concerned about its placement.
Back to my information cluster, so far I'm liking it. Quartz is front and center, with my cooldowns to the left and my DoTimers to the right. Its all readily available to the eye and easy to see. One thing I am noticing is that SCT, while fun and attractive, if really too much clutter for me to be worrying about during a raid. I'm going to look into Eavesdrop as a decent replacement. I'll make a point of grabbing some shots in Kara tonight in combat.
The next challenge will definitely be adapting this setup to work in a healing role. I skipped over a lot of that discussion, and I'm going to go back and re-read it, but I don't remember seeing any discussion of consistency on the individual player. I'm of the mind that my basic arrangement needs to stay the same, with the same information in the same general locations, so that I'm not losing my mind when switching back and forth between dps/healer. Is this the case though? Should I balance the UIs together, or tweak each one separately?
Sorry to divert, But can someone post a link of the Geist addon? I have been following the thread and it seems to be a fairly nice addition to my current UI, and unfortunately I have lost the previous link :S
Also, can someone recommend a Rogue/Paladin cooldown/trinket timer? I haven't found one that works well between the two classes
Just thought you minimalist fans would like a heads up on Dash - a brilliant new mod to keep your UI space nice and tidy. It's basically an OSX dashboard type layer for your interface created by using simple strata manipulation.
As someone who hasn't been UI-savvy in recent memory, could someone recommend a decent starting point for refining and configuring a decent collection of basic Ace addons?
I'm looking to put together a better tanking interface. As it stands, my list of Addons includes:
- Pitbull (better unit frames - I don't want party frames, just my personal frame)
- Grid (raid info)
- Quartz (mostly for side benefits - professions, flight timers, etc.)
- Bartender3 (standard Blizzard UI-style functionality, but minus the unnecessary real estate and low-grade artwork)
- Omen (threat meter)
- Recount (damage meter)
- VisualHeal (jury's still out on this one... anyone with more experience able to speak to it)
Overall, I just need some guidance. I'm playing with a 100% OOB Blizzard base UI, and I'm slowly beginning to realize I need something a little bit fresher and with more data readily accessible.
Just thought you minimalist fans would like a heads up on Dash - a brilliant new mod to keep your UI space nice and tidy. It's basically an OSX dashboard type layer for your interface created by using simple strata manipulation.
As someone who hasn't been UI-savvy in recent memory, could someone recommend a decent starting point for refining and configuring a decent collection of basic Ace addons?
I'm looking to put together a better tanking interface. As it stands, my list of Addons includes:
- Pitbull (better unit frames - I don't want party frames, just my personal frame)
- Grid (raid info)
- Quartz (mostly for side benefits - professions, flight timers, etc.)
- Bartender3 (standard Blizzard UI-style functionality, but minus the unnecessary real estate and low-grade artwork)
- Omen (threat meter)
- Recount (damage meter)
- VisualHeal (jury's still out on this one... anyone with more experience able to speak to it)
Overall, I just need some guidance. I'm playing with a 100% OOB Blizzard base UI, and I'm slowly beginning to realize I need something a little bit fresher and with more data readily accessible.
I think you got it. You might want to add cyCircled and Prat to that list. Also, I'm a fan of Buffalo2 as well.
If you're a raider (since you're here I assume that you are) you might like PerfectRaid as well.
Last edited by Xejin : 07/27/07 at 1:39 PM.
Reason: spelling correction
Omen? Active information in case you raid as DPS, then it should live in the bottom quadrants, ( Down right somewhere, I tend to have it in the same place as I have the minimap for BG's ) if it's passive information, I'd simply hide it. (healer)
If it's a threat-sensitive encounter, I'll pull out the OT's threat bar and stick it in the middle of the screen. Otherwise the on-screen warning when I reach a certain treshold is enough for me. But then our tanks are very good and I am rarely able to do more TPS than them without having Bloodlust involved.
So far I'm very happy with it. I'm a lot more relaxed in raids, and feel comfortable with the simplcity of combat so far. One other thing I noticed that is worth pointing out, is that I didn't notice a drop in DPS due to raid leading, which was a concern of mine as I don't generally lead. I felt that I was able to monitor everything I needed as well as perform my job well. Granted, this was in Kara and with 10 very solid players, so there wan't a lot of babysitting.
A few potential changes...
I'm looking into Geist, but there is a way to have a button cause the expansion instead of a keybind? I'd like to have a single button placed in an unobtrusive spot that will pop up the action bar when I click on it. I think that would clear up the buttons in the bottom corners very easily. Also, does it work in combat? I house my limited use spells in the bottom right box, and I'm worried about doing something stupid like forgetting to pull out enslave before Maulgar and not being able to open the geist bar to get to it.
My biggest concern, is SCT. I have it placed as such that it doesn't interfere with my gameplay, but it still seems like a lot of clutter at times. The problem is that I use this information a lot, and I don't need to focus on it to watch it. Constant green on the left means my shadow priest is keeping the heals coming, so I need to make sure I'm tapping regularly to use that. A lack of green means I need to manage my own health, and I'll adjust for it. I have crits colored and stickied so they pop dead center. Seeing a lot of orange in a row is a warning sign to see how I'm doing on threat. My current thought is to filter out mana regen from the left side, which will reduce the spam a lot. I'm not as concerned about mana gain from my shadow priest, as it isn't something I need to actively use like the health regen is. Aside from that, I'm not really sure what else I can do reduce the clutter.
As always, comment/suggestions are appreciated. I still feel like this is a work in progress that can be improved. I just need to figure out how.
As someone who hasn't been UI-savvy in recent memory, could someone recommend a decent starting point for refining and configuring a decent collection of basic Ace addons?
I'm looking to put together a better tanking interface. As it stands, my list of Addons includes:
- Pitbull (better unit frames - I don't want party frames, just my personal frame)
- Grid (raid info)
- Quartz (mostly for side benefits - professions, flight timers, etc.)
- Bartender3 (standard Blizzard UI-style functionality, but minus the unnecessary real estate and low-grade artwork)
- Omen (threat meter)
- Recount (damage meter)
- VisualHeal (jury's still out on this one... anyone with more experience able to speak to it)
Overall, I just need some guidance. I'm playing with a 100% OOB Blizzard base UI, and I'm slowly beginning to realize I need something a little bit fresher and with more data readily accessible.
Tankalyze is very good also, for auto-generating messages (as /say, /party, or /raid, configurable) for resisted taunts, use of big cooldowns (Last Stand, Shield Wall, etc). pDebuffList for tracking Demo Shout, Thunderclap, and Sunder, possibly in conjunction with Quartz's bars for same -- if you are the MT, you will definitely have the mob-to-be-debuffed as your target all the time.
I use Dorje's Healing Bars instead of Visual Heals (haven't tried that one), but based on the name I assume it is somewhat similar.
Something like OmniCC is helpful to exactly know cooldown counts, assuming you still have the buttons visible.
Kiralyn: While it's almost always a "Your mileage may vary," situation, you might look into MSBT as an alternative to SCT. The event merging is the best thing since sliced bread in situations where SCT tends to get extremely spammy, like the AOE in your second screenshot.
There's a video with a feature overview for MSBT over here if you want to give that a look before actually giving it a try.
I'm very, very excited to start using a raid UI this way. When I want group and raid leading info, I mouseover the top right and there it is. When I want to focus on the field of view, it disappears.
I'm very, very excited to start using a raid UI this way. When I want group and raid leading info, I mouseover the top right and there it is. When I want to focus on the field of view, it disappears.
Looks quite awesome! I have tried it out, but you'll need to be advised, you'll probably have to do some heavy modding of your UI to make it work.
E.g. I am very fond of Grid, but it works only very sporadic and often not at all with Dash.
Also, forget about Recount if you want to use Dash. Recount main frame doesn't have an UI parent, hence it can't be linked to dash.
But I would agree that switching Grid for PerfectRaid or Pitbull's own and Recount for SWstats is indeed a small price to pay, for clearing up your UI the easiest way possible.
I've been trying to create some interesting uses for Dash that I would actually genuinely use. So far I have my SWStats on it as well as all of my hidden Bartender bars with my binds on it.
I plan on adding an arena point calculator to it as I find myself frequently going to the internet to do so. And maybe a simple normal calculator for the random math I occasionally need to do while playing.
I fear that Dash might have me running up my Memory bill.
07/23/07, 10:21 AM
Similar Threads
