Does the unit got a flag like harmless or passive or something like that checked? :S

Also, fix the stun of mines via the dropship/bomber thing with a validator. I've made a custom one that checks if the target is not a mine/explosive.

I don't know, where would this flag be? The actor or the unit itself? I'm not at home right now, but I'll check when I do get home.

Ok, I'll add the validator to the stun effects do it won't effect mines.

This reminds me, the mines have this no weapon problem as well...

unit.
Also, the weapon might have the flag hidden set. Then it's not there, too.

Maybe it needs some sort of attack ability, too.

The attack ability is there I believe... Maybe... xD it's on the command card, but I didn't actually check to see if it was the attack ability lots of things to check, I'll find out what the problem is.

So I have thought about Medic for a bit.

I do not think Calm Mind should be it's L3.
Instead, it should be a Special Upgrade. When you have it, your L1 heals and increases Mana regen on allies you are healing.

Question about Medic's l1, it seems to heal whoever is closest, how many units can it heal at once, and is there a priority? It should prioritize healing allied heroes.

It's new L3 will be some sort of flying mechanical drone that automatically follows you or target ally. It rapidly fires lazers at any enemy in close range, finally giving the medic a damage spell. It should also heal you/target ally. It is indestructible, but lasts 30-50 seconds.

It's L4 could use a better name haha :$

We can also give the medic some sort of Passive ability like the jump/stimpack/weapon swap/tribute to hunger. I am thinking a Sniping ability that does extra damage and either stun or silence (no spell castable) for a very short time (like 2 seconds).

Disable has been buffed, but atm the spell is quite different than TS1 in that it's pretty impossible to dodge. It'd be better if it requires more skills to land or have more warning so players can dodge it. Maybe hold the medic at sniping position, making it require a standstill charge time. Also, add a red dot @ AoE where disable will be.

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LM's L2's needs to be show the area in which it'd hit. You can maybe use that protoss beacon doodad. If you show where it'd hit, it may not need a slower projectile speed.

Spec Ops' UAV (L3)'s abilities probably need a rethink. It'd be best if it can synergize with it's other spells somehow hmm..

During our test game today, luzz mentioned the idea of having me do the UI. Here's something I put together as an example of what I'd do with the UI's layout personally:


As a general note, I'd replace the current command card button textures and all the other buttons in the screenshot would actually look like that, And now for some explanation:

BOTTOM CENTER FRAME

• I removed the unit's wireframe and HP/MP text, and replaced them with bars in the center. The bars and text would be updated near instantly through triggers. In my experience, the updated text and image resize has always been lag-free, but I'm still calling it "near instant". As a side note, the HP/MP text would be bigger and easier to see.
  
• Next to each health and mana bar is the quickpurchase health and mana increase. Those + signs could be the icons instead, I was just lazy and didn't want to find and shrink them to that size.
  
• Under the health and mana bars are the main command card abilities. I would be hiding the second and third rows entirely to achieve this. This shouldn't be an issue for any summoned units as long as they don't have more than 5 abilities.
  
• The "L4 UPGRADE" is a placeholder for my suggestion on how to do the quickpurchase of the next level abilities. Rather than having a small icon, I think it would be better to have the purchase button cover the empty command card slot where the ability would be placed. For example, when you start the game, the upgrade button for L2 will be over the second command card slot. When L2 is purchased, the ability will appear, and the button will move to the next slot to get L3. I think this is just a much slicker method. Also for easy purchasing, you could add the normal hotkeys to those buttons.
  
• Under the command card is the experience bar. This basically works the same way as the existing one.
  

BOTTOM RIGHT FRAME

• This is where the normal unit info will be, except with a more opaque background, and without the portrait or wireframe.
  
• I moved the quickpurchase buttons that are normally here so that they are under the unit's name instead. They could go back to their existing position as well, but I just thought it looked cleaner this way.
  
• In the bottom right corner is the mineral count. I realize that it may not catch your eye at first, but considering that minerals are only good for the things shown in the area above it, it seemed like it would make sense to put it there.
  
• Next to the mineral count is the stat point button/counter. My goal for this frame was to basically put almost everything in the same area for easy use, so this just made sense to me.
  
• The hero button is also in this corner (though I was too lazy to change the frame around it). I was going to get rid of it, but when we were playing I actually found that thing to be useful.
  
• I've also framed the voice chat and battle.net buttons here as well.

TOP RIGHT FRAME

• This frame is just the leaderboard. Compared to the existing one, I've added player names to it as well as a background to make it easier to see.
  
• What you can't see in this shot is that there is a "LEADERBOARD" button attached to the top frame that disappears and opens up this leaderboard. When the leaderboard is closed, the button reappears.
  
• Ultimately I'd also make this look snazzier, but for the sake of this example layout I just kept it looking close to the existing one.

TOP CENTER FRAME

• This displays the player's kills, deaths, and assists.
  
• Under the K/D/A display is the day/night timer with a background.

TOP LEFT FRAME

• This is the stat points window. It opens up when you click the stat points button on the bottom right frame. I also considered making the "Stat Points" button in the bottom right frame as a simple text display, and then create a button similar to the "LEADERBOARD" one to open up this window. That just seemed redundant, though.

EDIT:
And yes, the screenshot doesn't have anything to do with TS.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 2 2012, 10:13 am by DevliN.

The HP and mana bars are extremely important and should be much more visible, both brighter and larger. I suggest placing them underneath the spell buttons, and stacking them on top of each other, with mana at the bottom, then HP, then the spell buttons.

Otherwise, hot.

I was trying to avoid making the bottom center frame a large stump, but I was also considering moving the experience bar to the bottom right frame, above the unit info. That should free up tons of space for large HP/MP bars. I'll get on that tomorrow.

Wait so u made this all last night, or is this just a screenshot with all the UI pasted on ? this is great! I was wondering if unholy sent u the map, but I guess not.

Can we still hotkey units with this layout? For heroes with summons this will be a needed factor for them so they can select each summon easily.

That's all Photoshop, but the actual implementation of it wouldn't take more than a few hours. I don't have the map, but I can do the basic SC2Layout editing on any map and just add it to the actual TS2 map later if that's easier.

You can hotkey units, I just haven't figured out where to put those frames yet. I know I can edit the textures for them, so I'll try to find a way to integrate them into this.

Something else: some heroes have a sixth ability to supplement one of their main abilities.

Special ops for example has the ability "Detonate" to explode all of the mines he has placed. I don't know how you would implement this, but keep it in mind.

Edit:

Also for split upgrades, or additional upgrades in general, you could place a button next to the center UI frame that opens up another dialog box that u can link to upgrades for spells (e.g. Summoners ling movement speed and attack speed upgrades).

For split upgrades you could create an additional button next to the upgrade attack button on the bottom right UI frame.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 2 2012, 3:21 pm by luzz.

@Jack - I agree. HP and Mana bar needs to be brighter

@Hotkey buttons - There're lots of space at the bottom of the screen. Just needa make it not feel cluttered.

@Split upgrades and Extra Abilities - It shouldn't be too hard to add an extra icon and recenter the UI, right? Split upgrades we can just add an extra button.

What about the Experience bar? that'd probably be left on the left side of the screen?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 2 2012, 5:54 pm by UnholyUrine.

Does the Detonate Ability replace the ability that places the mines on the command card, or are you able to keep placing mines and then detonate? The only way I'd be able to implement it on that UI is to create a dialog button for the detonate ability, or to skip using a button entirely and basically make it so that pressing a hotkey uses the detonate ability. I can add a 6th slot, but it would have to be visible for every hero. If you guys don't mind the blank spot on a majority of heroes, then that's fine with me.

Just make additional buttons left and right of the default skill buttons. Delete their background, just use the plane where they are placed.

then it's possible.

also, keep in mind that text will appear when you chose an ability and that stuff is hardcoded. so we might need to use special button numbers for the skill ones. Then the text is written onto them like you can see that in some of the current screenshots.

But then there would be floating command card buttons. I've already redone it to include a 6th button. Is there a need for a 7th as well?

You could make them bigger and then make a design that we integrate into the buttons to make them appear like normal buttons with a background... their hit size would just be bigger.
Anyway, just show us what you did.

I added the group bars above the map. I was going to put them along the bottom of the screen next to the map, but figured that due to varying resolution sizes, that could be an issue.
I moved the exp bar to the right, above the unit info.
I added a 6th command card button.
I widened the MP and HP bars, and made the HP bar a bit larger. I can make them even bigger if need be, but I think just widening them like this helped a lot.
I didn't add any of the special upgrade buttons to it, but they'd go with the others in the bottom right frame anyway so I figured there'd be no need to slap 'em on this.

One thing I could do as well is move the +Mineral quickpurchase button down to the actual mineral display, so that its just the upgrade buttons on the actual unit info frame.

The mineral thing is great, just keep the normal mineral button.

Can u make the EXP bar brighter? It's kinda dark and hard to see at the moment.

Also, we would need to find some way to show the HP of the heroes summons (Maybe make the units the player has selected show up on the left, next to the map, this way he/she can see the HP of enemy units he/she selects as well as their own summons. We need some way to see the HP and energy of units other than the players hero.

Here's a lighter version of the exp bar.

As for the selected unit thing, the entire bottom middle console changes based on the selected unit just like the default UI would.

What about if the player has multiple units selected (summoner)? He wouldn't be able to see the HP of all his lings, just the first one he selected. I think.