mirror attack icons for defender?

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Hidden Admirer
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mirror attack icons for defender?

Post by Hidden Admirer »

I realized that the new attack icons (I love them!) have a stronger sense of direction than the old attack icons.
Most of them suggest an attack from left to right.
If the attack icon for the defender is mirrored in the window, where the user selects the attack type, it will face to the left.

Pros:
Attack icon of the defender faces the attacker icon, and thus giving a better sense of conflict.

Cons:
Mirror images of a right hand (fist attack, lightning attack, etc.) will appear as images of a left hand.

If this suggestion belongs to the idea threads, please move it.
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Post by Sangel »

Jetryl, our lead artist, spoke against this proposal. His reasoning, which I agree with, is that these are "symbols" - we use them to characterise certain attacks. Flipping an image left-right actually turns it into two symbols, which means twice the memory.

It might not be common sense, but from my cognitive psychology classes, he has a point.
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Post by Jetrel »

*nods*

Thanks, Sangel.
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Post by Sapient »

I am beginning to agree with Jetryl. Inferring direction from attack symbols may not be a good idea, especially when you consider that the attacking unit may very well be on the right side (in-game).

So it comes down to a very minor graphical improvement versus a very minor cognitive improvement. Either way, I don't think it would make much of a difference.
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Tomsik
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Post by Tomsik »

I don't think it would make memory usage much bigger, you would need only one variable more and function that flips image, also it's not hard to code i think.
There is other question OTOH: how good idea it is?
Even easiest to implement feature won't be implemented if it's not good idea.
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Post by pstradomski »

They mean people's memory, not RAM.
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Post by romnajin »

Oh thanks for explaining what tomsik meant, I was thinking man you think in functions and variables??
Sorry for the meaningless post
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irrevenant
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Post by irrevenant »

pstradomski wrote:They mean people's memory, not RAM.
Yeh. It's about recognisability. The primary purpose of an icon is to be as quickly and easily recognised as possible. Looking cool is a distant second.

Having two different variants of an icon is cool, but it makes them less recognisable.

You still occasionally see a similar argument going on with regard to giving units different genders...
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

I don't know about people in general, but when I look at the right side of the attack dialog, I look for things to be flipped. When the attack icons aren't flipped, I take almost a whole second to recognize them.
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Post by turin »

Elvish Pillager wrote:I don't know about people in general, but when I look at the right side of the attack dialog, I look for things to be flipped. When the attack icons aren't flipped, I take almost a whole second to recognize them.
I think I agree with EP here.
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Boucman
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Post by Boucman »

yes, I agree with EP too, we're describing a battle in this dialog, reversing the defender's side makes sense.

coding it is trivial, since we already have the image fliping code..

Jetryl, why do you think it's a bad idea ?
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Post by Darth Fool »

Could someone do a mock up of how it looks now (preferably with the cool new attack icons) and how it would look with defender images flipped?
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Eleazar
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Post by Eleazar »

I find it hard to care much.
Jetryl's point about the instant recognisibility needed for icons would usually be valid, but i don't think it's a significant concern in this situation. If we make these icons so similar that mirroring destroys their distinctness, than we've done a very bad job.
I slightly prefer the flipped version, but i'll be happy either way.
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turin
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Post by turin »

:? I definitely see Jetryl's point. The two bows are much more obviously the same attack type in the non-flipped version. And I don't think the flipping helped a lot with the directionality; IMHO, it makes the bows look awkward, and does't much of a difference with the others.

I'm going to have to switch my vote to, don't flip them.
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Ranger M
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Post by Ranger M »

Jetryl is a Bandit? (and all opposition are cavalry?)

but anyway, I really don't mind, there is not enough of a difference for me to notice too much (especially not in game)
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