skill icons

[Ammareddo_Fritter]

Re: skill icons

Most of them are fine, but one really gets me. The one with the pointy weapon going towards a persons eyes, and his eyes are bulging out like a loony toons character who has just been handed a stick of dynamite. The problem is, they have a realistic, scary looking painting of a possessed looking Barbarian on the background of the skill tree, and the two styles class horribly.

 

[Dimmu]

Re: skill icons

So a white depiction of a simple sword is an almighty symbol of ultimate power?
Ultimate power is cheap these days.

That's a total oversimplification of what I mean. What I'm saying is that simple is better, in the case of Diablo, no color gives a more raw, gritty feel.

Think of superheroes, does thor have a gigantic lightning storm and hammer crushing his enemies as a symbol on his chest? Nope, just a lightning bolt.
Does superman have a picture of himself punching lex luthor in the face on his outfit? Na, just an S.

The colorful pictures for skill icons just looks cheesy and meaningless.

 

[LaZeR]

Re: skill icons

+1 Dimmu.
There's no better way to explain it.

 

[RedDog]

Re: skill icons

That's a total oversimplification of what I mean. What I'm saying is that simple is better, in the case of Diablo, no color gives a more raw, gritty feel.

Think of superheroes, does thor have a gigantic lightning storm and hammer crushing his enemies as a symbol on his chest? Nope, just a lightning bolt.
Does superman have a picture of himself punching lex luthor in the face on his outfit? Na, just an S.

The colorful pictures for skill icons just looks cheesy and meaningless.

The issue is not simply one of aesthetic, which you are talking about in terms of the Thor and Superman symbols. It's also an issue of gameplay visualization. A monotomic, gritty icon is great, but does little during gameplay when your entire hotbar is just one long stone block with white stuff in it. Instead, the icons must be somewhat colorful so that they catch our eye and we can see them peripherally.

I agree with alot of what has been said. The newest version of icons (photo-realistic) is not a good direction. The set used at BlizzCon, maybe a little more toned down, would be ideal in my opinion.

 

[Krugar]

Re: skill icons

I honestly don't see the problem with the last set. I like it better than all others *shrug*

I can understand a certain worry concerning the cartoonish look to them. But this can quickly change without removing the general concept behind them which I seem to believe is depicting portrait-like icons, instead of abstract images or silhouetted ones, both of which present problems in terms of rapid peripheral identification against a set of similar icons.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: skill icons

Think of superheroes, does thor have a gigantic lightning storm and hammer crushing his enemies as a symbol on his chest? Nope, just a lightning bolt.
Does superman have a picture of himself punching lex luthor in the face on his outfit? Na, just an S.

The colorful pictures for skill icons just looks cheesy and meaningless.

Good point, but that IMO makes the D3 WWI 08 icons the best, as even hero symbols use colors to convey a certain feeling or something regarding the hero, and the WWI 08 icons really are simplistic and at the same time use colors to add verity and make the icons easily identifiable even in the heat of a battle (no one can deny many of D2 icons looked very similar to each other .. and the lack of color differentiation wasn't helping much)

 

[Dimmu]

Re: skill icons

Well yeah I understand the need to distinguish the icons and everything with the hotbar, but shortly after setting the skills to your hotbar, you won't really need to look at the icons anymore anyway, it gets commited to memory rather quickly.
That's one of the many things that turned me off to WoW. The aesthetic appeal just seemed to vanquish for the sake of dumbing down the game. You have all these things on your interface that just look hideous because I guess people need overdetailed pictures of what exactly is going to happen before they're able to cast their pyroblast or whatever.
I must be one of few though, considering WoW has like 15 million subscribers.

And there's nothing wrong with a little color, I'm by no means saying they have to be identicle to d1 or d2 icons, but what we have now just looks gross. The WWI icons would be okay if they had less goofy sillhouettes.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: skill icons

Well yeah I understand the need to distinguish the icons and everything with the hotbar, but shortly after setting the skills to your hotbar, you won't really need to look at the icons anymore anyway, it gets commited to memory rather quickly.

That's partially correct.

The hotbar part is correct ... But actually the need to quickly recognize icons is when you switch one from your hotbar with one of the skills in the skills tab (which displays all the icons of active skills you have) .. when a large group of icons like that is displayed it is needed that we an differentiate them easily ... and colors are the best choice for that .. a max of 3 to 4 basic colors to organize and differentiate the skills will do the trick.

That's one of the many things that turned me off to WoW. The aesthetic appeal just seemed to vanquish for the sake of dumbing down the game. You have all these things on your interface that just look hideous because I guess people need overdetailed pictures of what exactly is going to happen before they're able to cast their pyroblast or whatever.

I do see that the new icons in D3 (post Blizzcon) look to similar to WoW's over-detailed talent icons ... that's the first time i say NO to something from WoW .. just no.

And there's nothing wrong with a little color, I'm by no means saying they have to be identicle to d1 or d2 icons, but what we have now just looks gross. The WWI icons would be okay if they had less goofy sillhouettes.

Less goofy .. hmmm ... okay .. i'm fine with that .. as long as they are abstract and color coded i'm fine with them.

 

[Smash]

Re: skill icons

Sadly in the latest incarnation of icons (with the latest UI update that included the new fury meter) they removed the color coded icons from the WWI 08 with full color detailed icons which frankly really look out of place and unnecessarily detailed.

I really preferred the abstract color coded ones from the debut gameplay trailer, bring them back BLIZZ :crazyeyes:


And to the OP, no ... just no .. i don't want to see the same exact freaking D2 icons with the same freaking style .. when people are going to realize it's a sequel not an an expansion.

+1
I preferred full glowing colors from first movie.

 

[teh_Thrasher]

Re: skill icons

ur all crazy the overhaul icons look way great. they have great color/artwork and are not even remotely cartoony.
someone mentioned they are the same color and are hard to recognize from others... what others?! theres only one skill tree shown. the only one in that tree thats a different color really is the one with the mouse icon hovering over it. and its a shout. it shouldnt be the same as a melee skill and thus is blue. which is great.


and i totally agree with dimmu, after playing for any period of time, the skills on your hotbar should be committed to memory and easily used with just a push of a button. and if u need a refresher, hover ur mouse over them before u go out in combat
also i dont think i want some overly extravagant color scheme down at the bottom of my screen thats averting my gaze from the action. (as in the second group of skill icons Knight showed)

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: skill icons

ur all crazy the overhaul icons look way great. they have great color/artwork and are not even remotely cartoony.

That's the problem mister .... what's the point of filling a 15X15 square with a freaking overly detailed painting !!!!

someone mentioned they are the same color and are hard to recognize from others... what others?! theres only one skill tree shown.

You are wrong ... the icons visible in the hotbar (in the pictures showing the new skill icons) show skills form other trees .. and it is very obvious they all look the same.

the only one in that tree thats a different color really is the one with the mouse icon hovering over it. and its a shout. it shouldnt be the same as a melee skill and thus is blue. which is great.

Ok so we hvae like 20 blue tinted skills and 20 red tinted skills ... go figure .. good luck trying to figure them from each other.

and i totally agree with dimmu, after playing for any period of time, the skills on your hotbar should be committed to memory and easily used with just a push of a button. and if u need a refresher, hover ur mouse over them before u go out in combat

Sigh, did you read my pervious comment, it's not the hotbar that is the problem ... it's when you want to switch one of your 6 skills with one of the other +20 skills you have in your disposal in the middle of a fight.

also i dont think i want some overly extravagant color scheme down at the bottom of my screen thats averting my gaze from the action. (as in the second group of skill icons Knight showed)

Abstract art and basic colors are extravagant now !!! .. what is a 15X15 fully detail painting then.

 

[Krugar]

Re: skill icons

I tend to ignore most of what teh_Thrasher as to say on about any issue, even when -- as is the case here -- I partially agree with him. Suggest you do the same, knight. I don't think that gentleman can be reasoned with or have a discussion for too long before calling you stupid or something else.

 

[SlechtWeerBeer]

Re: skill icons

Ok so we hvae like 20 blue tinted skills and 20 red tinted skills ... go figure .. good luck trying to figure them from each other.

GuildWars has 1235 player-skills, and I can tell any skill by it's icon.
The 'core' professions (first 6 to be released) have ~140 skills per prof. and despite all Warrior skills being yellow/orange/grayscale, they're easy to tell apart. If you see an icon for hours upon hours, you'll know what it corresponds to.

And no, the fact GuildWars' icons can be larger doesn't matter. Scaling them down to 20*20 just makes em smaller, not less distinguishable.

Don't overexaggerate, please.

 

[Funkopotamus]

Re: skill icons

That's a total oversimplification of what I mean. What I'm saying is that simple is better, in the case of Diablo, no color gives a more raw, gritty feel.

Think of superheroes, does thor have a gigantic lightning storm and hammer crushing his enemies as a symbol on his chest? Nope, just a lightning bolt.
Does superman have a picture of himself punching lex luthor in the face on his outfit? Na, just an S.

The colorful pictures for skill icons just looks cheesy and meaningless.

Thor doesn't have lightning bolts on his chest, but I get what you're saying. A simple symbol is all you need and you can recognize them from a mile away. But it can cause some overlap. I always associated lightning bolt and lightning fury with The Flash.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y186/zanpanzer/other things/lightningbolt.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y186/zanpanzer/other things/lightningfury.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y186/zanpanzer/other things/flashsymbol.jpg

The issue is not simply one of aesthetic, which you are talking about in terms of the Thor and Superman symbols. It's also an issue of gameplay visualization. A monotomic, gritty icon is great, but does little during gameplay when your entire hotbar is just one long stone block with white stuff in it. Instead, the icons must be somewhat colorful so that they catch our eye and we can see them peripherally.

I agree with alot of what has been said. The newest version of icons (photo-realistic) is not a good direction. The set used at BlizzCon, maybe a little more toned down, would be ideal in my opinion.

On the flip side, if you go too far you can end up just seeing a long block of colors. I think there should be a compromise. Something a little more recognizable than the original icons. I don't want to have to look down to see if the little man is holding his left arm up or his right arm up.

 

[GoldenBird]

Re: skill icons

I agree with OP somewhat. The ones for both WWI and the new ones are pretty cartoony... especially the numbers on them. The font needs change baaaad.

I do agree though that D3 will need something new... but I do think it is a little cartoony... but I can't think of anything better *shrug*

 

[eliot]

Re: skill icons

another thought is that we are going to be able to alter our skills with runes.

it makes more sense to me that i am embossing something real with a rune, or carving the rune into something physical, as opposed to putting the rune into a little picture reminiscent of an online forum avatar. i guess they could put the little cartoon pictures on pages of a book, which is typical of fantasy RPG games.

there are ways of implementing a similar or derivative style with color just use different materials for the item that represents the skill like colored stones.

I did not consider the hotbar when making this topic. I played DII with left click being my main damage spell, then having secondary stuff on right click and cycled thru with mouse wheel. the new skill use dynamics of this game will probably create a need for easy to discern icons.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: skill icons

Don't overexaggerate, please.

There is no exaggeration here at all .. the new icons do all look dark, similar and filled with too much unneeded details.

Knowing very well that the skills tab (not the hot bar) displays slightly smaller versions of the icons (as seen in WWI) this is going to be one big mess to look at with the new icons and pick the one you want.

 

[Mad Mantis]

Re: skill icons

also i dont think i want some overly extravagant color scheme down at the bottom of my screen thats averting my gaze from the action. (as in the second group of skill icons Knight showed)

Although I find you lack of punctuation disturbing, I have to say that I agree to a certain extent. The game already has more colors than a carebear farm run by overzealous my little ponies. Something a little more greyscale at the bottom of the screen will make things easier on the eyes.

 

[Dimmu]

Re: skill icons

I just realized something today when I decided to play Diablo 1 just because I happened upon the disc. D1 had all the spell icons color coded by elemental. Fire spells had a red tint, lighting spells were blue, and magic was grey (I may have lightning and magic mixed up). Why not go back to what both beefs the aesthetic appeal and caters to people's apparent need to distinguish icons that they'll see a million times and memorize anyway.
Since there are obviously like 10 different damage types now, it wouldn't be hard at all make the icons themselves different enough that the minor color hues wouldn't be too confusing. We would have something like:

Physical: Grey
Magic: White
Fire: Red
Lighting: Yellow
Cold: Blue
Poison: Green
Plague: Orange
Arcane: Purple
Auras (If there are any): would be either blueish for defensive or reddish for offensive and have some kind of border
Support skills or curses: Same as above but both would have unique borders.

They would be a very, VERY pale color just like in D1. The colors themselves could be changed but that's arbitrary. Or instead of having that many different skills that are red/blue you could put small runic symbols in the corner of each skill that indicate: Basic damaging spells,Physical damaging skills,Support skills and/or auras, and Special offensive (like curses and stuff) and color code them from there. Then when you bring up all your skills, they would be organized accordingly.
This way everybody's happy. The agry old-timers who are afraid of change (like myself :whistling: ) and the youngins who would gladly trade aestetic for functionality.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: skill icons

The game already has more colors than a carebear farm run by overzealous my little ponies.

Diablo 3 colorful .. lols ... apparently you haven't seen how colorful some games can get, it can give you nightmares XD

Something a little more greyscale at the bottom of the screen will make things easier on the eyes.

Last thing any games designer wants is making something that player selects from and switches over very often "grayscale", colors are and make the skill icons selection very accessible and intuitive when both activating the hotbar skills and more IMPORTANTLY when switching skills from the skill tab during combat.

Again like traffic signs .. ever seen a traffic sign with a full painted scene on it .. no .. why !!! .. because people need to recognize the meaning behind the sign as quickly as possible while driving ... that's why they are abstract and make use of basic colors .... that's why making traffic signs fully detailed painting is a stupid idea.


Also .. a good advice that always works, if pure colors hurts your eyes lower the contrast a little bit.