Necessary upgrades for UI in starcraft 2 (not talking about mbs/automine either)

This is a thread about the starcraft 2 user interface, use it as a wishlist or whatever you want. All your UI ideas go here, except MBS and automine and idle workers, which have been beaten to death and are a given at this point.

these are my ideas for upgrades:

Use a HUD

It is easier to play games with smaller, mostly semi-transparent controls, and will have a better Sci-Fi feeling to it. having a third of your screenspace devoted to controls is not a good way to fight an interstellar war! buttons like the minimap ping should not be on screen since they are simple enough to memorize as a hotkey.

Customizable UIA customizable UI would be a great help to starcraft. the UI should be able to be broken into parts, and the parts should be able to be moved around, made semi transparent, or removed from the screen. for example, a player should be able to say move the talking portrait to the right of the screen and have it disappear when he is not getting a transmission. (or disable it all together). the player could move the mini map to the top
left, and if he has memorized the hotkeys he may want to remove the command grid from the screen unless say a
group of units are selected.

Of course having the game come with these abilities is IMO definitely a good idea, but i think having the user community be able to make their own UI's with a scripting language (think WoW) *might* be a better solution.
of course there are obvious limits to what a UI should be able to do, no behavior scripting or map-hacking, obviously. again: i dont think the UI should be able to initiate any behavior (i am against automine in fact for this reason, as well as autocast spells)

Show Health Bars

There has to be a better way to show health bars then holding down the alt button. first of all, it would be easier to make the healthbar function as a toggle rrather than holding down the key.

the second problem with the healthbar is that it clutters up the screen. it is a visual pain but it is still to useful not to use. Perhaps when the healthbar is toggled it should be configurable to only show units below 50%, or only show the health of enemy units (or only allied units). instead of a bar of health, perhaps the seriously injured units should
glow darker and darker red (starting at say 50%) when the player toggles healthbars.

The Grid Controls

The grid is the controls on the lower right of the screen: attack, move, etc. i think that the controls for these should be customizable, but i think the most logical control would be the way most 3rd party addons do it for warcraft 3:

move attack stop hold Q W E R
patrol x build x should be A S D F
skill skill skill skill Z X C V

looking at a units attack grid instantly reminds you of where each hotkey is, but more importantly the hotkeys are all on the left side of the keyboard, a huge improvement over p for probe, l for lockdown, and using
the numpad for inventory in war 3 (what the hell is that about??)

by the way many players already customize this way, and use the healthbar toggle, by editing blizzards customkeys.txt, and blizzard supports this. check out http://warkeys.sourceforge.net/

Attack Ground

all units with any kind of splash should be able to attack ground, (ie siegetanks, the jackal). it would be useful to bomb out cloaked units, or even to extend range a little bit. also, with the new jackal and a little bit of micro, good players could optimize the amount of units hit (and extend their range) by firing on a location as opposed to a unit. zerg players with burrow might hate this, but perhaps they could be shielded from aoe while burrowed to compensate (on the other hand burrowing zerg to survive a nuke would be pretty lame lol)

(as a side note, i think it would be interesting if all ranged units could attack ground, and have the effect of stray bullets hitting beyond their range, but that would be probably too experimental for standard games. UMS perhaps... archery tactics anyone? side side note: shooting a projectile that travels straight and therefore requires aim as a spell is a must have for starcraft 2, like the fireball in warcraft 2 for example)

Unit selection: max selectable units

The number of units selectable at one time is a tough point. both set and infinite max selection have their strong points. personally i prefer that a set number of units selectable at one time is better because i like the feel of numbering my team (alpha, bravo, charlie) its just not the same if you select all your units at once. my suggestion is a limit of 12 to 16 units selectable at once.

one downside (besides me not liking it of course) of having an infinite selection is that displaying the group in a consistent way while maintaining the ability to quickly select one unit from the group display is impossible.

Unit selection: No subgroups

I think that the supgroup idea of warcraft 3 was a pain, because you had to double click just to select a single unit from the group instead of just once. my suggestion is selecting a group should arrange them by unit with casters up front, then ranged then melee, but you shouldnt be able to select the subgroups while in control of the group.

any of the solutions in the next section is a better choice then the subgroup control.

Unit selection: Group commands

the grid could either 1) only show commands all the units have in common (this is the way it is currently in starcraft), or 2)a composite that reflects as many of the abilities as possible or 3) the abilities of the top caster in the group. for example, suppose you select a ghost, some marines and a battlecruiser.

in common grid:

move attack stop hold
patrol x x x
x x x x

composite grid:

move attack stop hold
patrol x x stimpack
cloak lckdwn snipe nuke

(i assume that nuke and yamato would overlap, and that nuke would take precedence. however, it could be done that the yamato would default to an empty space on the grid.)

and then just the ghost grid,

move attack stop hold
patrol x x x
cloak lockdwn snipe nuke

of these choices i prefer the third option, just the caster options, with the only in common commands a close second. of the UI ideas i have this one is pretty trivial compared to the others, but worth thinking about.

Autocast

Auto-cast skills are stupid and should not be part of the game, except in the case of the medic, whose heal replaces her attack. so i have no auto-cast suggestions.

Stats

various stats, like apm, and unit score, for example, should be able to be bought up with a console command. of course, you probably shouldnt be able to look at your opponents stats becuase you might figure what strategy he
is going from his buildingscore. (ie -apm, -kills, -unitscore).

Game Clock

i think having a elapsed time counter in the upper right we would be a great idea, especially as a learning tool for building speed (i know last time i played i had 4 marines by 2:45, so he probably is just building his first marine now). being able to write notes in a txt file to show up at certain times (say build order reminders) might be modded on top of this. (ie "Warning: a rush build would have 2 barracks and 5 marines by now")

Options

If dazzling effects are part of the game, an option to tone them down would be nice, so we can find where the cloaked units are or where that little blinking red dot is in game. also, the game should not be hugely graphics intensive in order to run fast for most players anyways, but thats a bit off topic.

Secondly, if the user community will not be allowed to mod the UI there should at least be options to customize it within out of the box limitations.

Summary

Wherever possible the UI should be configurable.
SC 2 needs a smaller semi-transparent visual UI.
The default hotkeys should be better organized. see above.
the subgroup control of warcraft should not make it to starcraft 2. i have a better idea.
Healthbars over a units head is a very important feature. i have a few ideas to improve on war3's health bar.
functionality like attackground, stats, and a gameclock should be implemented.
The most important thing is a UI to be useful, not distracting, and to be intuitive.

1st edit: added italics for headers, removed a couple bad words/super oppinionated writing.
2nd edit: spelling and clarification, expanded on the idea of a game clock.

 

I dont like any of your ideas, the pro level (i know Ill be slaughtered now) would just be about who could program and not progame the best interface. I like that all players have the same controls, as its the most fair IMO. And about toogeling health bar on and off, I think its good you need to do something (hold the alt button), to see the heal... because then you atleast need to micro...
I think you want to have the game play itselfs

 

Man you said it. The alt button was so easy, I thought that in War3 it was pivitol to battle where you had to send units back and forth to get healed and taken out of battle. I hope that SC2 isn't too much like warcraft3 but it would be good to incorperate, the battles between the two because yes I believe in micro ability and it is important to make that into any RTS game, IMO.

 

Re: Necessary upgrades for UI in starcraft 2 (not talking about mbs/automine eit

well i still stand by my ideas it's certainly a valid point that a standard UI would be the most fair method. and of course their must be limits to what you can program in the UI. the game should not be able to play itself (hah! we did agree on a point!). but first of all, you have only disagreed with two of my ideas, and there were at least seven or eight in there. you are overlooking some things, for example in warcraft 3 many serious players use the customkeys.txt file in the way ive described, and they also bind a key to always show healthbars, making your point moot. blizzard supports this. take a look at http://warkeys.sourceforge.net/

also, alot of my suggestions in fact result in more need for micro: attack ground for example, the removal of subgroup control (from warcraft 3). my suggestion for solving the group control problem is a compromise between the other two solutions, and its definitely not the one to take the least micro skills.

can we at least agree that the UI should be smaller and more transparent?

 

Re: Necessary upgrades for UI in starcraft 2 (not talking about mbs/automine eit

I totally agree with Furrer on this.

 

That must be the first time!
notjim, perhaps I was a bit hard, but you took at really nice (and thats something i appriciate)... but the thing I think is what made starcraft SO great, was the pro level (that not a discussen i want have here, this is about ideas, and i have had that discussen so often already)

 

Re: Necessary upgrades for UI in starcraft 2 (not talking about mbs/automine eit

agree or disagree, thanks for posting guys, and feel free to share some of your ideas or suggestions. remember that the thread wasnt all about being customizable, there are other features too:

attack ground
hotkey setup
smaller semi-transparent UI
remove subgroup functioning

 

i'm sorry when did ghost get stimpack, i thought the ghost ops were agenst using stims cause they caused very harsh effects?

in game and lore wise...

 

Re: Necessary upgrades for UI in starcraft 2 (not talking about mbs/automine eit

i didnt really think any of my features would be a blow to the pro scene on the level that MBS/automine and to a lesser extent idleworkers would be. i think that the healthbar in starcraft would actually be trivial in regular games, because unlike warcraft starcraft is so fast paced and units are more numerous (and die in fewer hits) that players would only use it for UMS or as a quick check to see an enemies health.

also i think that having an attack ground would add an intense level of micro to the pro level the way i described, for example making a siege tanks range say 14 instead of 12 in a siege situation hit with the edge of the splash, or attacking cloaked units with the new jackal.

i love watching videos of boxer owning a zerg army with 2 units and a medic, so i definitely dont want to hurt micro!

 

You misunderstand. the composite grid is supposed to show that with both marines and the ghost selected, you could stim the marines, and you could tell the ghost to cast lockdown. using stim wouldnt stim the ghost though! this is one idea of how you could control a group of different units, and its the solution that uses the least micro. it is not the solution i prefer either by the way, i am just throwing it out there. i prefer the third solution, where you can use the ghosts abilities when controlling the group. clear as mud??

 

Re: Necessary upgrades for UI in starcraft 2 (not talking about mbs/automine eit

UI as a HUD

I don't really like this idea. I like having a certain amount of the screen geared completely to control, unit portraits, and the mini-map. The game should also be completely playable with only a mouse. I would be against customization because it is important to have a level playing field (smaller UIs would let players see more of the map, etc).

Customizable UI

Sort of touched on this above, but I disagree. Standardization for all players is the fairest way to have a level playing field. Customization is cool in first-person shooters and games like Mass Effect, but not in RTS's.

Showing Health Bars

I agree with some of the other posts - holding down ALT is fine. It creates a little bit more micro. I'd be against a red flash (or any alert) for low health, because if you aren't keeping track of your units' health that's your problem.

Grid Controls

Again, I am against customization here for the same reasons as above. I also really liked how in the original Starcraft, Blizzard tried to make the hotkeys coincide with the first letter of the command (A for Attack, M for Move, etc). It made for easy memorization and more effective game control.

Unit Selection

I'm for unlimited, or as close to unlimited as possible. A good player will hotkey different groups for maximum effectiveness anyway. The more casual players can be free to simply point and click.

Unit Commands

I have the same opinion here as I do with the Grid Controls.

Attack Ground

Here we come to an idea that I really don't have a strong opinion about. On the one hand, it'd be great to help flush out cloaked units and bombard locations for more effective combat, but on the other I do like how cloaked units pose a very real threat in Starcraft (since you absolutely need a detector unit to see them). But I'd be happy either way.

Summary

All in all, you have some interesting ideas, but I don't particularly think they would suit Starcraft well. I'm definitely not at all a pro gamer, but I'd really like certain things from the original game to carry over. Starcraft II should have some new things (they are doing a good job so far with MBS, unlimited unit selection, a better interface and rally points) but I do not want the game to play itself. As far as customization goes, I feel that the game should be standard across the board, so I am against it.

Good topic, by the way. And just because it seems like a lot of us here are disagreeing with your ideas keep posting them!

 

Re: Necessary upgrades for UI in starcraft 2 (not talking about mbs/automine eit

edit: cannot quote dude before me.

to ninerman's post:

Ok

it looks like not liking the HUD is a matter of taste, and dislike for customizable UI is in favor of satndardization for fairness, points i cant refute. but what if the game came with certain options, like disabling unit portrait, or not showing move attack stop and patrol buttons (the top 1/3 of the grid) since everyone uses these as hotkeys anyways? i dont think thats too unreasonable, even if they have the unfair advantage of more screen realestate. (btw how will the game work for widescreen monitors? a valid question, if off topic : P )

as for the customization of the grid controls, their is no point to be made... warcraft 3 already offers customizable controls by blizzard, and its a good thing because Blizzards standard hotkeys Suck!! i mean, p for probe, l for lockdown, using the numberpad for inventory (war3)?? im definitely not using my mouse hand for that, and why should i have to move my left hand over there? thats not micro, its just stupid. and the game should be playable with just the mouse?? come on dude get real! i thought these arguments were just common sense..

moving on
as for the attackground, minor point, but you didnt need detection for cloaked units, they could still be hit by ensnare for example or aoe spells. you could also open fire on one of your units if you really wanted to and kill with the splash.

in summary, thanks for a well written response and for actually reading the whole post, even if we'll have to agree to disagree. ^^

 

notjim please read the forums rules, you may not quote the people before you, and you may not double post!
About attack ground: That would be crap, you would not see those cool, attack you own SCV with the tank to splash the damage to a DT anymore....

 

Re: Necessary upgrades for UI in starcraft 2 (not talking about mbs/automine eit

My bad Furrer i fixed my longest quote. as for the two posts in a row i thought it would make sense to talk to two seperate people in two different posts.

as for seeing those cool scv darktemplar combos, i dont know what to say. i guess the games where winning and losing is decided on shooting an scv are over. i know i see that at least once in every game.

edit: I shouldn't nickname everyone that argues with me : (

 

Re: Necessary upgrades for UI in starcraft 2 (not talking about mbs/automine eit

However there is such a huge number of things that need to be hot-keyed Blizzard HAS to use the whole keyboard. It's not being stupid - the letters make sense and moving your left hand over isn't difficult. And I say that the game should be entirely playable with just the mouse because it's a learning experience. When I first played Starcraft, I didn't know that the keyboard was even usable - and still could play! The keyboard is just an aid - the mouse is the primary mode of control. Obviously using the keyboard is much quicker and more advantageous, which is why hotkeys are necessary.

I can see where you are coming from though - so I will also agree to disagree.

 

DONT CALL ME FURRY!
notjim IMO it just seems that you want a game where you can sit back and watch, not doing anything youself, and still win.

 

So what about the people who agree with him furrer? I mean it sounds to me like that you are saying anyone that wants any sort of UI improvement is just some dumb retard who just wants to watch a movie. Is that what your saying? If it is I guess I have no real problem I will just start polishing the hammer. On the other hand, if you would like to extract your foot from your mouth I would highly advise you restating your thoughts on this topic so they aren't open to negative interpretation.

I personally like most of the ideas notjim has suggested and as long as the 1 or 2 I disagree with has some kind of toggle I really don't care whether they are implemented are not. As far as the customability option is concerned, there is absolutely no reason we should be bound to Blizzard's hotkeys and considering its already possible to have keyboards that are fully customizable I don't see any good reason why these customizations are a bad thing. (The first person to say Pro Games I would like to beat you over the head with a board because anyone worth their salt on a computer can find a way to get around certain restrictions, so there is absolutely no reason to restrict people who won't even try to get around them in an attempt to stop the group who probably will either way)

I also agree with having a toggle for health bars I personally can't stand having to hold something down or tap just to get a little bit of information.

I am not going to get into the other issues, but most of them seem like decent ideas (even if I disagree with 1 or 2).

 

Re: Necessary upgrades for UI in starcraft 2 (not talking about mbs/automine eit

furrer:
you misunderstand, i actually dont think the UI should be able to initiate any unit behavior, in fact i am against automine, and autocast spells, for that very reason. alot of my ideas are just an aesthetic improvement and have no impact on gameplay. i'll go through what i wrote to further clarify it, so take a look and let me know if it helped.

sorry i called you furry ^^ i'll edit that out.

lord kerwyn:
thanks for the support, but of course i made the post expecting a beat down to come from a few directions : P. theres a large group of people out there that will be happiest if starcraft 2 is just a graphically updated version of starcraft (not a bad idea either IMO) the second they see anything that could change the game they are averse to it. i disagree but i see where they are coming from. but i still disagree.

however i am starting to be convinced that community UI mod support may be a bad idea, if only because it will inspire distrust in a lot of people, as evidenced by some of the responses. but if so, i still think the UI should be able to be broken into seperate parts which can be moved around , removed, or like in the case of the transmission portrait disappear when not in use (like a hologram on the side of the screen). these capabilities would come out of the box with every game.

also, edited my original post for typos and clarifications, and expanded on the idea of a game clock widget.