Game Design GUI Design from the recent update

since 3 flames triflame has made a post about this https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/old-chat-option-for-the-love-of-god-please.310012/

first, to start off, here are some good things about the new GUIs.
1. the ranks in the chat are compact
this is awesome because you can see more messages in chat at a time
i don't think this needs explaining

2. it's cleaner than it was before
yeah uh compared to the old version it's way cleaner. maybe it's my own opinion but it gives the needed information without overloading the player

look at this:

and


in the first one, it shows the combat level, the total amount of levels, the class, the guild, and the rank of the player. if another player is on a different server it will say which world before the entire line of text

while in the second one it shows: the world you are on, the combat level, the class (the icon), silverbull, the rank, and the guild

to the new player the first question they might ask is: tf is that large number
which if someone told them profs they might actually start doing profs because it's in the gui :skull:
not even kidding if that number is right next to the combat level some newbies might think it's important

and that level is left out in the newer gui. which is good which means less (even if not a lot) newbies will start doing profs which will help with engagement (i assume)

however, there kinda does need to be something for the proffers to flex but not in that way idk ct you solve this issue

guild stars are removed :like: make guild wars less important (im just kidding don't flame me)

silverbull is there, i guess silverbull users need to be special somehow

the whole thing is way more compact and uses up less pixels which is just good and gets the job done well

now let's look at the cons of the chat

let me just say first that the colors are fine for chat i have no problems with em

1. text
text is.. ok
although i do know it is difficult to make letters that small in pixels, i feel like there could've been a different style gone for with the text with bubble letters

triflame has mentioned that the tags look like a p2w server crossed with mcc/mcci
and in my opinion he's just malding that the text is too small /s

text looks ok though if you could change them pls do

2. the tags
with how grand the champion flask looks in the store

i feel like there could've been a cooler way to show champion in chat. before the update, there was the obfuscated text in the chmapions ranks, which really made them stand out compared to all the other ranks, which were just normal text

now, they are really just carbon copies of each other and the champion rank doesn't look particularly special

i don't even have a rank in game btw

Now before hopping into the new lootrun and quest book and compass, lemme just say that the new compass looks awesome like holy i would eat the compass every day it looks very tasty and good and yummy and delish and fresh and tasty and good
just. look at. it.

lemme go over all things about this that are awesome
the scroll background: 10/10
the layout: 10/10
placement of ability tree: 10/10
the skill points and the ball: 10/10 i love the ball

and let me go over the one bug i have about this
all the colors look the same so please add like more of a color difference between the skill point area and the other areas of the compass thanks

here's the version i have of it on 1.16.5 for some reason

it doesn't blend in with the inventory that's for sure

ok fine here's your lootrun GUI review

This is what you'll see if you log onto wynncraft on the newest version when opening the lootrun chest.
Let's go over some of the good things.

1. it matches the chest colors
2. it's cool lookin i guess
3. it matches the colors of the silverbull syndicate which is what the lootrunning camps are started by (source?)

let's go over the things i don't like about it now
1. it's kinda bright
this is a problem, although it does match the colors of the chest, it kinda fails to highlight the items which are the main part of the lootrun chest (for vanilla players and not wynntils players)

2. it's kinda. bright
personal choice but this is kinda too vibrant. although blue and orange are complementary colors this really contrasts the other guis which are a lot calmer than this gui (like the compass)

now let me go over the quest book (now the content book)

this is really confusing to look at. at lower levels it's better because there's less stuff, but when you're max level it just gets flooded with areas, miniquests, raids, ultimate discoveries, caves, etc.

remember: less information overload is better than having an information overload

also another personal choice but the cave icon looks like a hill with a circle

here's what it looks like at lower levels

this is what it looks like for me on 1.16.5 essential, no mods

let's go over what it does well:

1. it organizes stuff well and you can find what you need
2. it gives the completionists something to do

now what does it do not well? here:

1. too many icons
there are way too many icons when you first open the content book
for new players they will feel like you need to complete everything in that content book

if you could default the book into the quest section that'd be neat

2. theming
i can see the book in it with the fold in the middle but like this looks more like the sheikah slate from BOTW than anything

3. the icons
they are in similar tones to the book and blend in well

Spoiler: a very personal opinion

too many tabs
im not even joking there are way too many tabs although it organizes it it's a double edged sword

it's like having too many containers for your legos and only the masters can know which ones hold the ones you need

this is a part of a bigger problem in wynncraft that i cannot talk about in this thread i will talk about it later if i ever will

honestly i have spent way too long on this thread >1h
no i am not giving you a tl;dr read the whole thing

 

You can hover over the class icon in chat to get the same information so it’s just condensed

________________________________

Also nice actual objective review. (Hey ct Plz give champion some kind of animation in chat)

 

so true

yea i like the review, personally the eye-jarring theme they went for hurts my soul (except the username colors which blend nicely now)
as a not-fan of the icon approach for chat i'd say a good compromise would look somewhat like

Code:

[(classicon)105/(cup icon representing stars)TAG] [SB star][RANK] WC IGN:

it's a blend of both styles and doesn't take as much space, the oval icons just look disgusting ngl

 

My biggest gripe with the content book is that it defaults to showing everything. I think that it dhould default to sorting by quests (as stated by OP), as quests are the main content of the game, as it woild make the first impression less overwhelming for newer players and less cluttered for older players that aren't 100%ing. I don't think there would be a disadvantage to making the other content not immediately visible to newer players, as it was always invisible before and the CT could just add a quest cutscene to show newer players the "sort" option in the book.

I don't think there are too many tabs, however. I think that each separated type of content is individual enough to warrent it's own section and I think each one should be able to be seen on it's own list. Unless you're talking about the sort by level/proximity tab list, in which case, I agree, it's a bit overdone.

 

the content book is kinda a tough one to talk about. mechanically, it is a cool concept, but it really should not have territorial discoveries in its default filter, and caves are also debatable.

as for the UI itself, I do have some issues. I think the colours are fine, but the fact that it tries to go for a "hodgepodge of notes" look while having notes of the same type have the same rotation is a very weird choice. personally i'd remove the "note" aspect of these icons, and make them just the image that shows up inside the notes. also, the buttons in the lower section of the menu are pretty hard to notice, and I feel that the up/down buttons could do with being a bit bigger.