Action Bar and Action Frame Enhancements

[thedudeabides]

One of the common design flaws with most online games is the amount of scrolling involved. You attack, then scroll to the bottom, click attack or whatever, multiple times, then you have to scroll back to the bottom to see what dropped. There are a lot of greasemonkey scripts that assist with this on most games. But I think a nice fix that would stifle the need for these scripts would be a Action Bar control panel.

This could be a thin bar between chat and the main action frame and could contain all of the clickable options. For example:

Attack, Use Item [dropdown], Retreat
then
Do It Again, Go Back

Additionally, In order to minimize scrolling to see item drops, perhaps the monster's name could be put directly on top of the picture. Then the results could be items on the left and stat gain on right. I know there's the issue of smaller resolution monitors so there would have to be some tweaking involved but I really think condensing the actual battle sequences, results, etc. you'd have a smoother interface.

Something to think about...?

[mastechno]

i like the idea in principle...

but I think that this would lead to mindless clicking(i know most of us are doing this atm, but wait for new content to appear ) in which case your missing out on teh awesomeness of teh content which there has been a bunch of time put into, etc :-p

but that's just me

[Reenix]

Anyone with an 'End' bar (i.e. everyone) makes scrolling easy enough. If people don't want to read content, they're not going to. Not a negative comment on the content, but it's for people who take the time to read it. However, I do agree that changing the battle scene is a good idea. The attack messages and damage are too small and not emphasized enough to know how the battle is going, I feel.

[thedudeabides]

Here's the thing, I agree, it's about the content but people will only reread content a time or two then no matter how clever it is people will just move to the end and hit attack. KoL has combatted this with different attack messages for different familiars and equipment, but again, once you've seen it, you've seen it. But dissuading mindless clicking by making it less easy to click isn't really the answer though, is it?

And hitting End or Tab is nice but on some laptops this isn't really the answer either.

Constant new content is a way around it...though impractical. But until there is actually random convos by monsters whereby there is a queue of 20 different things potentially said each time like MadLibs or something...people will click mindlessly.

Basically this is for those times when there is no new content, or people are in a hurry. Anyway,I'm sure someone will greasemonkey something eventually but I just thought having a set action link bar would be nice and ergonomic.

[Gobberwart]

I tend to agree with dude on this one, although feel a need to point out that Paradox ALSO has multiple attack messages for different items, opponents and equipment, randomly selected each time depending on the outcome of an attack attempt. But yes, once you've seen it, you've seen it and it's just an inconvenience to have to scroll each time.

I must admit, I quite like the action bar that KoL implemented last year. It's customisable, context-senstive (which is important) and.. well, quite neat really.

One thing I don't like about it, however, is that you still have to scroll to find out what item drops you get which, when you're after something in particular, reduces the effectiveness of the bar, since you have to scroll anyway.

Definitely worth putting some thought into.

However, I do agree that changing the battle scene is a good idea. The attack messages and damage are too small and not emphasized enough to know how the battle is going, I feel.

Not sure about this one. I agree that battles are currently probably not as visually appealing as they could be, but increasing the size of messages/damage is likely to further increase the amount of scrolling required each time.

It's all down to HTML/CSS though, and pretty much anything can be changed fairly easily (except the dark background and the 120x150 image sizes). I'm a coder, though, not a designer, so if anyone feels that they can think of a better way to display battles, feel free to knock up a sample using your paint program of choice (or HTML/CSS if you have the skillzzzz) and send it my way.

[Blaize]

Does anyone here use mafia for KOL? When I have mafia up and running there is a button at the top of the attack window that just says 'again'. The regular attack again button stays where it is so if you are enjoying reading new content and such then you are still free to scroll down and click that button.

I don't know squat about coding and stuff but couldn't it just be a case of replicating that button and putting one at the top of the page as well as the bottom?

Don't yell at me if I'm being stupid, it isn't deliberate.....

[Gobberwart]

Heh, you're definitely not being stupid, but I think we can do a bit better than just adding an "again" button.

[Blaize]

Heh, that's a relief....