Feedback for the new HUD indicators

code65536

There are some nice new features buried in the 2.4.0 patch notes:

Added indicators for Armor Durability, and Weapon Charge/Poison.
Added an option to display resource numbers on the player and target frame.
Added an option to display the Ultimate number on the Ultimate ability frame.

In-game, these settings are found under Interface:

And this is what it looks like on the PTS, with both the armor-broken and weapon-uncharged indicators lit up and showing the new ultimate number:

As a point of comparison, this is what it looks like on Live with the Azurah addon:

Here is the top portion, PTS vs. Live-with-Azurah:

And here is the bottom of the screen, PTS vs. Live-with-Azurah:

Overall, I think that these are some much-needed quality-of-life changes. But there are some suggestions that I would like to make.

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Please do not shorten the number. As a software developer, I've spent some time working on user interfaces and optimizing the efficiency with which we convey information to the user.

We did a study once where we asked people to identify the smallest and largest numbers in randomly-ordered lists of numbers, and we timed how quickly they were able to do this. One list had numbers that was formatted in the long form; e.g., 243 / 3,843 / 1,452,344 / etc. The other list had numbers that was formatted in the short form; e.g., 243 / 3.8K / 1.4M / etc.

What we saw was a small--but fairly consistent--advantage in the speed in which people could pick out the largest and smallest numbers from the list of long-form numbers. This experiment confirmed what we expected because people are much better at visually identifying shapes (and colors)--it happens naturally with minimal mental effort. They can look at "1,452,344" and see that it is a visually-long and therefore large number. In contrast, if they were presented with "1.4M", they'd have to go to the end, visually and mentally parse that "M".

While the short form might look "cleaner", it's actually more efficient for a user visually parse the long form (assuming that the long form has thousands separators; e.g,. "65,536" vs "65536").

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Please improve the delimiter between the value and percentage. A single space between the value and the percentage, e.g., "10k 100%" is simply not enough; it makes the display look jumbled and is inefficient to visually parse. Please either use a different delimiter such as parentheses, e.g., "10k (100%)", or increase the spacing between them. (Personally, I prefer the parentheses.)

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Please make the health numbers and percent apply to the boss bar as well. In fights where boss percentages are important (e.g., vCoH gold pledge where Nerien'eth goes to the center at 35%), it's useful to see the boss percentage at all times without having to target the boss.

Also, given the generous amount of space available on the boss bar, it would be nice if you could also include the boss's maximum health, too. Pretty please?

PTS:


Azurah addon on Live:


@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert Could you please pass this feedback to the appropriate team? Overall, it's a great and much-needed feature. It could just use a few minor tweaks to improve the efficiency of the information display.

RDMyers65b14_ESO

Oh yes. We need our numbers and percentages. That is the one reason that I have to run some of the addons. I like to see the percentage of damage, especially on keep walls and doors. I know it is helpful for world bosses to too. Hey, look at that. Something both PVE and PVP can agree.

susmitds

@ZOS_GinaBruno @Wrobel

danno8

Excellent feedback.

And you are completely correct on how the human brain is able to quickly use visual cues to make fast decisions and how it relates to presented data.

Same reason I don't like the "double ended" health bars that deplete at both ends. I find it much harder to quickly compute how much health an enemy has left because I need to take the middle portion and compare its size to the two outer portions added together and then mentally estimate the comparative size of that middle portion to the imagined size of the two outer portions.

A health bar that depletes from right to left leaves you with only two sides that need comparing, and both are presented visually with no further mental math involved.

Sugaroverdose

danno8 wrote: »

Same reason I don't like the "double ended" health bars that deplete at both ends. I find it much harder to quickly compute how much health an enemy has left because I need to take the middle portion and compare its size to the two outer portions added together and then mentally estimate the comparative size of that middle portion to the imagined size of the two outer portions.

A health bar that depletes from right to left leaves you with only two sides that need comparing, and both are presented visually with no further mental math involved.

Agree with that, i can't even parse <50% or >50% state of my own health bar.
On consoles we sadly don't have an option and only way to see useful info about your health is group up and watch at group bars -_-

Hope that numbers on bars will be more readable.

Epona222

OP- Very well put, I agree completely. Whether we like it or not, our brains are more analogue (actually in quite a basic "does x appear bigger than y" way) than digital when it comes to interpreting numbers and quantities quickly. For split second decisions, display of numbers such as 14M, 14K, 1.4M, 1.4K are largely meaningless, because the numbers are modified by a letter at the end, and at a glance look fairly similar. It is better to see the number because there is a massive difference between 14,000,000 and 1,400, which is easily interpreted at a glance if everything is presented in the same way.

zerosingularity

This is definitely a step in the right direction, but everything mentioned in this thread is true. We do need the numbers fully laid out, even as just an option if not default.

Additionally, there are a few things that are needed for the vanilla UI to be worth using over mods.

• Option to have stat bars visible 100% of the time.
• HP bar that is reduced via 1 side, easier mental calculations. Even as just an option. (Reduce from left, right, or both.)
• Shield bar that does NOT overlap with HP bar. This is a real problem in the default UI, you can't tell what your shield and HP values are because of too much overlap.
• Improved textures, the UI still has a grainy old kind of feel. Though I suppose many like this look.

After all this, work can be done improving the group/raid frames, but that should come later. (Less needed mods the better.)

Enodoc

I agree with the suggestion that numbers should be displayed in full, as you don't get enough information from something like "14.2K", and that a clearer delimiter between value and percent would be good. I would also like the option of seeing max values, and being able to have different settings for displaying my numbers ("Player Resource Numbers") and enemy numbers ("Target Resource Numbers").

These are the options I would like to see, and how they would appear:

• Off
• Value: 20,000
• Value/Max: 20,000/25,000
• Percent: 80%
• Value (Percent): 20,000 (80%)
• All: 20,000/25,000 (80%)

code65536

Any chance we could get some tweaks here?