Variable anchor for status bars, orbs, etc.

[lipk]

Feature committed here. It's for the master branch so it will first appear in 1.13.0.

[optimother]

A huge step back in usability IMO.

A common pattern to target unit is to move your mouse to it's hex, and it's hex is the one highlighted with the hp/xp bar. But when the bar is floating anywhere on the map, colliding with other units it becomes obscuring, and easy to confuse with other units' bars.

The only excuse is that there are not much such huge units and hopefully it will not be a problem in multiplayer games where acting fast is required and silly mistakes are punished hard.

[lipk]

A huge step back in usability IMO.

I hope you didn't draw that consequence from a single screenshot featuring two gigantic oversized sprites that are quite visually disruptive on their own.

Here's a bit more lifelike image:

The spectre is the only one that looks off to me. That guy, however, has a frame two times its height, so we can chop off some of the transparent area and it's all set.

[optimother]

They are disruptive but with original bars locations they don't cause any problems with understanding the game setup just from a quick single glance, aren't they?

[zookeeper]

Frankly, I don't really see why we'd even experiment with trading a rare visual annoyance to rare interface confusion. The final decision cannot be to keep this new method as-is anyway, so how is feedback on it really going to help?

Aside from fixing the assets (which obviously isn't going to happen) or completely redesigning the bars and orbs (such as integrating them with the ellipses or something), the most sensible solution would seem to me to be to allow each unit type to define an optional x,y offset for the bars and orbs. Automatic solutions just aren't going to work, or they'd impose additional unnecessary requirements for the sprites and their dimensions.

[optimother]

Agree with zookeeper: keep existing units rendered as before, add option for new ones to move the bars if author knows a better place for it.

[Ravana]

Agreed, that would make most sense, there arent many units like that and being able to change position from cfg file is better than having to edit images for this.

[lipk]

They are disruptive but with original bars locations they don't cause any problems with understanding the game setup just from a quick single glance, aren't they?

They do, at least for me. The fact that the sprite covers multiple tiles alone makes it quite difficult to catch adjacent hexes.

The final decision cannot be to keep this new method as-is anyway,

Err, why?

Aside from fixing the assets (which obviously isn't going to happen)

We're talking about one sprite. I did check almost every mainline unit and none but the two dragons, the spectre and the human horseman/cavalry line have a baseframe larger than 72x72.

the most sensible solution would seem to me to be to allow each unit type to define an optional x,y offset for the bars and orbs.

That's fine with me.

[Iris]

We're talking about one sprite. I did check almost every mainline unit and none but the two dragons, the spectre and the human horseman/cavalry line have a baseframe larger than 72x72.

Do standing animations count? Gryphons have 120x120 px frames.

[lipk]

No, only the baseframe is considered.

[Xudo]

The most sensible solution would seem to me to be to allow each unit type to define an optional x,y offset for the bars and orbs.

Add "Hide them completely by setting special key in [unit]" and it will be perfect.

[SFault]

Bit off-topic, but I hope this could solve the thing where human swordmen's swords get mixed with the XP-bar. More than often I see someone with full white bar before noticing that it's just the sword of the unit.

[doofus-01]

The most sensible solution would seem to me to be to allow each unit type to define an optional x,y offset for the bars and orbs.

Add "Hide them completely by setting special key in [unit]" and it will be perfect.

Yeah. The animation WML is pretty flexible as it is, but it would be much better if the orbs etc. weren't locked in the way they currently are. If anchoring the orbs to the corner of the base frame gives some people heartburn, manually specifying an x,y would also be fine. The ability to hide these things would be good too.

[firefox]

If the bars would be replaced with orbs that take the current color of the bar, it would still be possible to get an overview without having to browse every unit.
But this method would require more colors to indicate the differences more precisely.

For example: A full-health unit and a near-full-health unit share the same green tone for their bars.
Yet you can tell the difference by the lenght of the bar. You could not tell it from orbs, so you have to check the status window.
This has a great effect on units with high hp, as the difference between green and yellow can be quite huge there.

So if the color sheme would be expanded from 4 to maybe 8 colors, the orb display would be possible.

(Although I don't know if it makes the game better. Personally I find that the bars look very stylish.)

[GunChleoc]

I think bars are better for beginners, because you don't need to memorize the colors to understand them.