The new HUD: How can Riot make it better?

Greetings Summodners!

I have seen quite a few posts extolling the virtues and vices of the user interface update and wished to add a constructive discussion to the mix.

This is not the first game I have played where a new "streamlined" user interface was introduced and then based by the community. People generally dislike change; they like to dwell with what is comfortable even if what is comfortable is terrible. I am not saying the old HUD was terrible by any means, I am simply establishing a point of fact.

I do not wish to compare and contrast the old vs. new HUD. Why? Because Riot isn't going to roll it back. There is no point in complaining (correctly or otherwise) that the old HUD had certain advantages over the new.

So, let's talk about what we would like changed in the new HUD (and please don't say "replace it with he old one" because that isn't helping anyone).

Improvement one: Allow UI layout and information customization

For starters, take a clue from SWToR. I was a progression raid tank in SWToR (assassin for those who know the game). When EA released the new HUD, the community was up in arms. But you know what EA did right? They made the entire thing 100% customizable. You could move pieces around, change what was displayed on them (like HP vs %HP vs colored bars vs colored bars with text... just on your HP bar), change their size. Yes the new default was fairly terrible, but with about an hour of work, you could create some pretty amazing UI set ups completely the way you wanted them. People started sharing their ideas and layouts of the forums for others to copy. It was pretty awesome all things considered once everyone got used to it.

SWToR implemented this by storing the layouts locally. There are down sides to this if you play on multiple computers that have different resolutions (at least the way SWToR implemented it, you couldn't just copy and paste the files between machines and have it work correctly). Riot could do the same. This would also allow different layouts depending on your role without taking up space on Riot severs; for example as a healing support I might want a differed HUD layout then when I am running a mid-lane assassin that emphasizes my teammates health vs. maximizing the visibility around my champion. I'm not saying I would do this, but it is an option.

** Improvement Two: Fix the contrast **

Due to the condensed nature of the new HUD, things seem to blend together and you need to spend more than a few fractions of a second looking at the UI to figure out which blue/white number is the one you care about... that sort of blend into the blue/blue-green of everything else. I think that textual information (such as KDA, CS, etc...) should stand out more. Maybe this will be less of an issue if we can move this stuff around, but it would be nice. I don't want it to be super, bright, bold pink as that would be distracting, but a little less subtlety would be appreciated here.

** Improvement Three: The information we need**

I would love for the dragon/tower/score information on the top of the tab screen to be available on the main screen. Again, this goes back to my first point; not everyone will want this. Being able to hide/display information on the HUD would be awesome (you would have to leave it on TAB as well for those who don't need it on the screen at all times).

Additionally I find the allied status circles over the mini-map to be far too small. Again, customization would help here, but they still feel really cramped. I'm not saying we need the full blown MMO portraits with resources and buffs/debuffs, but a little bit more size (and moving them to the left side of the screen) would be really helpful.

I also find the gold information to be really hard to find at a glance, but that could just be me.

If customization isn't feasible for whatever reason, I would love for Riot to utilize the top corners of the screen for some of the information crammed into the bottom corner (as well as adding the overall game status to the top right, with your own CS/KDA below it).

More improvements!

Please add your comments as to what you think would be helpful to making the new UI more useful and enjoyable. Please bear in mind Riot has invested time and money into it and will not just throw it away and replace it with the old.

My opinion:

It took me two games to get used to the new UI and I like it overall. Forcing myself to look right for things like items, gold, and ally status took some getting used to. It will probably take more time before my eyes get used to looking in certain places for hard to read information (hence my improvement suggestions). I think with some improvements, this could be a really nice addition to the game. There are things I absolutely dislike about it, but those can be fixed by customization.