Suggestions for the Feat Selection Dialog

Hi,

as I said in the status upate post, I am currently working on the character creation UI. I tried to stay near the original UI as much as possible, but I have growing concerns that the UI just isn't up to date anymore (800x600 as the target resolution is just too small nowadays, especially if it's not really scaling up).

So, I want to redesign some (and later all) dialogs to make them more user-friendly. This includes raising the font-size from 8pt to 12pt and making them more intuitive to use.

Since I am currently at the Feat Selection stage in the character creation process, I would really appreciate input for this dialog. Do you have any suggestions how this dialog could look (and "feel") like?

My current ideas:
- Get rid of the drag&drop mechanic. It's not explained anywhere, that the user is expected to drag feats from the list to the boxes on the right.
- I experimented a bit with "checkbox lists":

Problem with this approach is: Since some feats can be chosen multiple times, this is inadequate.

The overall semantic is: choose M out of N. Another way of implementing this would probably be a two-panel list. Available feats on the left, Chosen feats on the right, the way of selecting a feat would be: select it in the left list, click button in the middle, it gets "transferred" (if it's unique) or "copied" (if multiple instances can be selected) to the list on the right. Any comments on this?

Regards,
Storm

 

My 2 cents:

I rather liked the right-click functionality. It's the fastest way, if you know about it.
I suppose the "highlight + transfer button" is clearer, but it'd be slower.
Another option is to display a "transfer arrow" when you hover the cursor over the feat, and use left click to transfer.

Oh, and I don't think the drag and drop method is really that counter-intuitive, given that you drag and drop your ability scores into place.

Also, I don't think the list on the right should display all existing feats - needless clutter IMO.


Regarding the single list / checkbox implementation, it could be modified slightly to accomodate re-selectable feats by creating sub-entries, e.g.:


Acrobatic
Agile
Alertness
Animal Affinity
Weapon Spec

• Ranseur

Toughness

• +3 HP
• +3 HP

Feats that can be selected multiple times would be re-selectable. (a visual cue should indicate this)

Lastly, unselectable feats should be visible (perhaps with a toggle button) - sometimes you want to see what the prerequisites are for advanced feats.

 

It would also allow to select a feat using a double-click.

Heh, I thought about exactly the same thing, but again, using double-clicks. I want to maintain the single-click=select behaviour so you can reliably display help-information for the selected feat.

It's just something you usually don't see in desktop applications. For the ability scores it makes some sense (and I implemented it like that as well), since you have actual "places" where you can drop scores. With feats, the order and place don't really matter.

I think it should in a separate area (similar to what it's doing now), and greyed out. The actual list should only display the feats selected *at that level*.

Hm.... I suppose it would be possible to do. But rather complicated to implement (maybe we can do this later?). The checkbox system also has the problem of communicating how bonus-feats work, although some "auto-magic" could work here (still have only one checkbox and the first selected bonus-feat just consumes the available slot).

I agree. I also want to categorize the listing similar to what the SRD does (General, Item Creation, Metamagic). It might also be useful to categorize further. (Skill Boni for instance are something I never ever take since they're underpowered).

In addition, i'd like to display not only the prerequisites in the help section, but also what the feat is a prerequisite for (these two listings will be auto-generated from the rule-set information in the game).

Thanks for your feedback!

ps: One more thing I just thought of: Are there any feats (in any of the additional rulebooks too. This system is *heavily* open for extensions) that require *two* additional selections (Weapon Focus, Skill Focus, Spell Focus all require one additional selection - weapon, skill, spell school)? Right now the system I have implemented allows for an arbitrary number of discriminators for feats (So a feat may require multiple selections by the player).
If this *can* be limited to a single sub-choice, then the system you suggested above (The "tree-like" selection of feats) is much more feasible. It becomes rather complicated to implement if you can have multiple levels of choice per feat.

Oh and if you want to provide feedback on the actual "definition"-system for feats:
http://gitorious.org/eviltemple/engine/blobs/master/bin/data/scripts/d20-feats.js

The prerequisites for feats are defined using the following functions:
http://gitorious.org/eviltemple/engine/blobs/master/bin/data/scripts/requirements.js

Right now the feats also list transitive requirements. I.e. if a feat requires power attack, it also lists the 13 strength requirement. I'll drop this in the future, since the system can deduce (and list) transitive requirements automatically.

Regards,
Storm

 

I made a mockup of the checkbox/tree suggestion:



This shows how the feats would be expandable/collapsable (otherwise the interface would be cluttered with all the weapon choices) and how the collapsed Weapon Focus would look if one of the sub-choices was already selected.

Does that come close to your suggestion?

 

I think it's better to create a pop-up box when you click Weapon Focus, and then append the selection beneath Weapon Focus, since the list of selectable weapons is quite huge.
And the sub-entry should probably not have a checkbox, but rather an 'X' to cancel the feat selection if you change your mind.

Other than that, that's pretty much what I had in mind.

As for feats with two or more discriminators, I don't know of any.

Feat definition - seems sound to me, except perhaps feats like Weapon Specialization which currently seem to require "same arguments" (?), but I suppose that's placeholder?

Listing what the feat leads to - great idea.

 

I'm personally a fan of the two column "avail on left, chosen on right" paradigm which I think is fairly common now buy maybe not sexy Similar to this design As for speed in such a model a double-cick on any list entry typically moves. Benefits of that type of design is that it's much easier to see your full list already selected on right without scrolling. I think if list on left was implemented with tree control as well for expandable/collapsable items, all the better.

Side comment: have you thought at all about keyboard vs. mouse for navigating the UI? On game screen there's probably not much improvement to be made, but I'm thinking about in the Spell selection selection lists when the PCs need to grab specific spells and put into specific slots (Magic Missile goes here... Burning Hands goes there...) that screen in the original always seemed very mouse heavy and rich for improvement - and will probably be even more complex to what you're going through now with feats.

 

FWIW, not that you need to take as gospel but it's always good to see what The Other Guys are doing - I just went and checked-out how the WotC 4e Character Builder handles feats (free to download and use up to 3rd level PCs... Windows only)

They put the "available" list as a 3 column list control with feat name, primary bonus, small summary in that control. Single clicking to select will give more detailed info within an info screen to the right. Choosing that feat adds to the feat choice selected list - the "right" list... but in their case on the bottom. So essentially a similar model to the 3 panel list described above with the addition of dropping a tree control for a list control to show more info.

 

@ManosFate I'll download that and have a look
I also wanted to take a look at Neverwinter Nights 2, they also had Prestige Classes and it might be worth a look.

I will look at the spell-memorization screen when I get to it

I will try to build a functional mockup of the two-lists approach. In that scenario, it wouldn't matter how many discriminators there are, since one or more popups would allow the player to choose them.

The requirement is documented correspondingly. It means that Weapon Specialization requires Weapon Focus with the same argument, where the argument in this case is the type of weapon. I.e. Weapon Specialization (Warhammer) requires Weapon Focus (Warhammer). In ToEE the weapon focus/spec feats seemed to be duplicated per weapon, but I find that hard to extend, so I am going with parametrized feats instead.

Regards,
Storm

 

And now that my curiosity was piqued, I went and re-installed IceWind Dale just to see how they handled this issue. They do some interesting half-checkbox/half counter type control.

 

Hmmm. But do they actually have discriminators for Weapon Focus and others?
And how do they handle that?

 

Each focus becomes its own selectable item in list. Looking at it now it has:
Martial Weapon, Axe
Martial Weapon, Bow
Martial Weapon, Flail
etc.

...which I suppose allows to increase each one separately nicely.

 

The whole character generation in IWD is perfect!

I would love to see that good of a system being used again.

 

IWD1 or IWD2?

 

Good point. The screenshot I provided was from Icewind Dale 2. I don't own the first one so I'm not sure how different it may be.