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GM Picatratus
Staff

I've begun working on the UI overhaul, which will replace the current UI that we all know and love (or maybe just tolerate). If you have any requests related to this overhaul, feel free to make them here.

Current confirmed additions include:

- A sky window which, while outside, will display the current time of day and weather

- A new intent selector including a third form of intent, Sparring, which will prevent Viciousness procs and downing other characters (if you make a hit in Sparring intent against another character in Sparring intent that would down them, they will be taken out of Sparring intent, so you have a visual indicator that you've won the spar)

- Methods of hiding the action bar and the full UI (finally, uncluttered screenshots!)

- A fullscreen version of the game with UI elements moved to the margins will be designed alongside this, although it may not be implemented at the same time

Scritch

For the skill bar, either an intuitive grouping of skills, or maybe a way to customize your own grouping, such that they appear in a drop-down window for that space. For example, any language skills could be grouped together, perhaps the gathering skills can be grouped with their passive variants, etc. 

If drop-downs isn't feasible, maybe a second skill bar that can be toggled with alt or something? (maybe not alt, since alt+F4 will be inevitable, even if it is hilarious every time). 

Basically it's a pain to know every language, especially if you have any other skills.

GM Picatratus
Staff

Thank you for the suggestion! It's given me the idea to make a language selector and move it off the hotbar entirely, if I can find an intuitive place for it.

Bright Eye

I'm still in favor of having multiple action bars you can switch between, or at least different ones for friendly and hostile intent.

Twyrine

The core thing I want to see from a UI rework is reducing the amount of clicks/interactions needed whenever mind/stamina aren't spent, and making things more in-line with how other games handle things like inventories.
The biggest example right now is bags and containers- I'd like to open a bag and be able to quickly and efficiently move things in and out of it. Shift-clicking a stack to transfer it between two open inventories (the critter's and a bag or container), ctrl-clicking to drop, alt-clicking to move one at a time, things like that. Maybe even moving items directly from the ground to a bag. These are examples and not suggestions, ideally I'd have to look at how other games do it and what makes the most "sense".

Another is being able to 'view' details on an item from a container or a character's inventory without that closing the previous window- that way you can look at a character's things with a single 'look' action (I believe the 'look' action shouldn't notify the character but that's a different discussion).

Normalizing the context menus would be good too- in my experience every other context menu has the standard, double-click action as the first choice, but that's not true in Farwoods (this is also something I'm not sure about and would have to look at how other games handle). Really I think there's a need for a pass that brings everything in-line with people's expectations of a UI that's similar to usual computer UI, like the 'cancel' button on prompts being the less eye-catching one.

Freely variable resolution is maybe a pie-in-the-sky thing and barely a UI request but it's always there. There are probably both engineering and balance considerations to it, but 1366x768 is still a pretty common resolution and Farwoods has run into plenty of edge-cases along development, so making it playable in as many devices as possible would be good.

GM Picatratus
Staff

Item and container movement is a separate discussion and not something I can address; Ethos has confirmed a number of QOL changes along those lines, but I can't say when they'll be implemented. There is already a thread about it here if you'd like to add to it.

Better look features are also coming, although they are still a ways off. When large character sprites are finished, you'll be able to hold down a button and mouse over characters to look at them quickly, for example. I expect this could be extended to items as well.

What I'm specifically looking for feedback on are the UI elements overlaying the screen during standard gameplay: the hotbar, resource pools, character sheet, inventory/equipment, text log, intent buttons, crafting and ESC menus, and any new additions.

Skitter

For the character sheet, I'd love if each stat, trait, and skill could get a mouse-over effect saying in a few words what it does or affects. It would also be nice to be able to see what effect your jewelry is having (maybe something like "Magic | 23 (19+4)" or something?), rather than having to un/re-equip to compare.

There's also the issue where if you have too many traits, they trail off the bottom of the menu.

GM Ethos
Staff

You can just report that as a bug if you want it to be fixed. You'd be surprised how few janky things have been reported as bugs.

Treldala

Some visual indication on the Mind Icon when actions like "Passive Scrounging" or "Passive Herbalism" are enabled. I've wandered around with it on before by mistake. Might be nice to indicate somehow you are passively scrounging, aside from the icon on the action bar.



Ollo eo Ollo

If the new UI has visual condition indicators, then passive scrounging and herbalism could be there. A little icon for each condition seems to be popular with RPGs.

Treldala

Tooltips when hovering over traits in the character sheet would be nice to have. Not as important, but it'd be nice to read what it said in character creation in your character sheet.