For better or worse, with Shadowbringers, TP was dropped into the abyss, never to be seen again. While i agree it's a pointless mechanic that was made even more pointless by the class gauges, it very clearly wasn't thought out from a UI perspective, and it needs a redesign for several reasons.
For one, the loss of the TP bar has left a gaping hole where it used to be. The Parameter Bars no longer line up with EXP or are even CLOSE to the length of the hotbars, and while it's functional, I like to have my UI be both functional and aesthetically pleasing. This makes it really, really difficult to do that.
On top of that, HP numbers are getting bigger and bigger, and there's barely enough room for them. I don't expect them to run out of room- it'll take a while to hit 1mil HP and up, and by that point, chances are the game will have had the obligatory number crunch of games like WoW and stuff- but it is a little tight, and leaves no room for error.
And, in my opinion, one of the most glaring issues with the parameter bars currently is that they don't display shield- not in a visual nor numerical form. Meaning either you look at the party member at the bar that covers EVERYTHING (thanks for that by the way) or you just guess or wait until you start losing actual HP.
So, here are my suggestions. Stretch the parameter bars to fit the same space that it did with TP there, and give the bars the neon effect like the Party menu to make adapting the shield mechanic easier. As for the shield mechanic, it can be one of two things- Either an overlay of the HP bar itself, or an extra bar on top.
https://i.ibb.co/8bBHJJH/Untitled.png
Of course, as for the second one, i could be stupid and the dots could mean something else entirely. But from what i can assume it's just that there's even more shield backed up, which i displayed as a bar OVER the shield bar in yet another color.
Anyway, what do you all think of this solution? Is it good? Unnecessary? Anything that still needs to be fixed that i'm not aware of? Let me know!
The Parameter Bar needs an overhaul
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08-17-2019, 03:44 PMDrMaverickThe Parameter Bar needs an overhaul
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08-17-2019, 03:46 PMDrMaverick
Okay, i don't know why but the images haven't previewed for some reason. Lemme fix this.
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08-20-2019, 12:15 PMFeronar
You can still scale up the parameter bars to make them bigger. I personally think they are too small by default, and I have mine scaled to 160%. I agree that the shield should be added however. For large numbers, those could be abbreviated, i.e. 174316 could be shown as 174.3k. I do like your concept art though.
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08-20-2019, 02:22 PMRongwayA comma separator would be better. Abbreviating the number like that doesn't present the number any more readably than just adding a comma.Quote:
Originally Posted by Feronar