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Identifying available skills, learned skills, etc. ...

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 3:19 pm
by marct
OK, It became clear last night after 90 minutes helping one of our new friends to our wonderful land that it is not really as clear as it could be in looking at the action progression which skills you cannot learn yet, which skills are available to be learned, and which skills you have already learned.

I believe, if my sleepy-eyed head recalls correctly, that a skill you can learn and a skill that you have not met the prerequisites for appear the same in the action progression window.

I would like there to be 3 clearly distinctively different icon appearances to indicate these 3 states.

Here is my suggestion:
1. Skills you have learned: Appear as today in full shining color with the addition of a green checkmark in one of the corners to idetify you have learned it. (maybe a book overlay or something would work too)

2. Skills you have met the pre-reqs for but have not learned.: Appear as today with the addition of an icon (in the same location as the checkmark icon) or maybe a lock that is open (ie indicating unlocked).

3. Skills you have not met the prerequisites for: Appear as today in that they are greyed out with the possible addition of some indicator. The same lock but have it closed, so it appears locked.

The lock icon should be golden or so so that it is apparent and stands out form the greyed out icons. Try this as an example (just make it smaller)


If anyone would like to confirm this as a problem and/or suggest a proper solution or modify my own that would be greatly appreciated.


Hoping this will help everyone that is new,

Noin.

Re: Identifying available skills, learned skills, etc. ...

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:01 pm
by sprite
Hmm, not 100% sure, but I seem to remember they they are different shades in the Action Progression window... I could be way off tho - will check when I get home :confused:

Re: Identifying available skills, learned skills, etc. ...

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:04 pm
by larwood
You're right Sprite.

Actions that are learned, are full color and vibrant.

Actions not yet learned, are "greyed" over.

Re: Identifying available skills, learned skills, etc. ...

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:08 pm
by marct
The problem is the actions not learned and the actions that you have not met the pre-requisite for.

Would it really be that hard to implement this and make it explicitly clear? Imagine if the 1 new player I helped for 90 minutes+ and all of the others that struggle with this.

What a major win it would be to be able to say is the lock unlocked or locked? And have that be the end of the discussion. I know that this is present today, I am stating it is not quite as clear as it could be and a minor fix could save A LOT of aggravation for a new player in the early days.

Imagine spending 90 minutes of your 2 hours a night for 7 days in trying to figure this out. I would not go on to pay for it if things this simple are this difficult.


Noin.

Re: Identifying available skills, learned skills, etc. ...

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:09 pm
by petej
and actions you cant learn have a red overlay

Re: Identifying available skills, learned skills, etc. ...

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:20 pm
by marct
Well, it is possible that I am just thick. I'll have to check when I can get back on. It was not obvious last night. As I said I was sleepy-eyed.

Re: Identifying available skills, learned skills, etc. ...

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:30 pm
by petej
The red overlay (looks more like orange) is realy weak could do with being more obviously different from the greyed out ones

Re: Identifying available skills, learned skills, etc. ...

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 7:12 pm
by sipanek
petej wrote:The red overlay (looks more like orange) is realy weak could do with being more obviously different from the greyed out ones
Yep, the difference is there but should be made more easy to detect. If its with other colors or with the lock icon as suggested above doesnt matter much to me.

I would like to take it a step further though and ask for the possibility to filter out skills depending on which category they fall under. Some kind of logical skill tree would be nice as well.

Its all there of sorts, it just isnt obvious at first. The design could use a workover.

Re: Identifying available skills, learned skills, etc. ...

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 7:28 pm
by sydius21
One new player I spoke to was learning everything in the "Required for levels x-x" because it said "required"... So, he was learning each and every action/stanza, even though he did not want some of them, simply because he read "Required" and took it to mean "Required to go to the next set"... That word, I think, should be changed.