Couch play needs spell cooldown UI

[Shabby]

Maybe just something to the side of the screen similar to a debuf HUD in mmo's? i could understand the argument for why its not there, but for the sake of game play and knowing what spells are ready when is kinda vital.

[brettpennings]

Hi Shabby!

I know it's not fully informational (like, it doesn't say how many seconds are left until it's back), but the wizards' healthbars have little icons above them that show which spells are available. The gameplay 101 video (second video on the store page) does a good job of explaining those.

In a very early version of the game, I tried putting full cooldown indicators all around the outsides of the screen, but you get used to looking in a specific corner for your cooldowns, and then there's no guarantee you always get that corner in a couch game so we shifted to a more minimal, on-the-wizard approach. Another benefit of the on-wizard approach is that you can also tell at a glance what spells your opponents have available.

Hope that helps!

Brett

[Shabby]

oh true! i had seen those little bars but wasn't quiet sure what they were! loving the game so far! as a new player i'd recommend maybe putting a lil hint for that in the intro tutorial, or a tool tip somewhere, i would have completely missed that if you hadn't told me!

[brettpennings]

Very fair! Thanks for the feedback :)

[Meteorhead]

IMHO the on-the-wizard bars are far too small and subtle to be usable "in the heat of battle". If they were larger, they'd interfere with the gameplay. I'm near certain that just placing the cooldown meters on the sides of the screen would be better. (Of course I can't know for certain, true test of the pudding is eating.) Not having spell icons also means that one always has to remember the spells they picked, they're never available for peaking.

This mildly ties into aspect ratio issues, given how we regularly play with a team where most people sport 21:9 monitors, and the excessive horizontal screen realestate just shouts for cooldown icons/meters in a column on both sides of the screen. I tried the config file hacks mentioned in the aspect ratio issue, but they seem to be overwritten instantly, I can't set 3440*1440 in any way, so we either mess up aspect ratio (makes aiming harder) or watch two thick black stripes on both sides, where plenty of cooldown meters could go. (Though we'd regularly just need 2, one for a keyboard mouse player and one for a controller player, both of us participating in a larger team.)

Awesome game though. We're thoroughly hooked! Love your work!

[brettpennings]

Hi MeteorHead!

Are you talking specifically about couch play? Or having more than one player on a single PC? If you are playing online on your own PC, you already have the option to toggle spell cooldowns on from the pause menu. Actually, when we started working on MageQuit 6-7 years ago, the cooldowns were initially as you described, around the edges of the screen. In the theory, it sounds great, but the issue we ran into immediately was, players get used to looking at a certain part of the screen for their cooldowns, but since everyone in couch mode is looking at the same screen, there's no guarantee that you'll always get the same corner or side of the screen every time you play. The above-head cooldowns are also crucial for knowing what spells your opponents has available at a glance. I know having just an icon with a color means you have to memorize all the spells essentially, but this we the best middle ground we could figure out given the constraints.

Anyway sorry for the ramble, I probably over explained my point 😅
Glad to you hear you and your friends are enjoying it though!!

Brett

[Meteorhead]

Having more than one player on a single PC. I understand it can be confusing to know which side of the screen to look at, but one feels at quite a disadvantage when in a 3v3, 4v4 game two people play from the same machine and they can't have nice fat cooldown meters like everyone else that play on their own.