Boards›Gameplay

HUD suggestions for Improvement

SCE··19 votes·3,275 views

I have made a list of things that I have found disruptive in the new HUD. They mainly deal with color scheme contrast and clarity of information. I would hope that Riot can fix these things if they refuse to have 2 HUD options.

Skills Bar: The skills bar for QWER and summoners spells is visually difficult to see and distracting compared to the old HUD. When a skill goes on cooldown there is a blue circle that rotates and covers up the skill making it difficult to know what each skill is (especially when trying a new champ "qwer" is not muscle memory). When skills went on cooldown for the old HUD I did not need to fight the game HUD to see what is skill is which.

  1. Blue Circle: makes it difficult to view the actual skill.
  2. Skills get grayed out making it visual difficult to determine what the skill is. (would prefer no graying of skills like previous HUD)
  3. When getting cc'ed or going into invulnerable stat certain skills get a red "x" mark. I do not think that is necessary because if I can't cast it I'll keep smashing until it's cast when I'm out of cc or invulnerability. You also cannot see the cooldown of your skills while there is a red x. This just forces visual adaptability to how the skills look like in different states. Again this makes me need to focus on what the skill is.

[IMG]http://i59.tinypic.com/2w6s8rl.png[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i57.tinypic.com/r9g5g9.png[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i59.tinypic.com/2z65hcg.png[/IMG]

Trinkets:

  1. There is an added timer making it difficult to know which trinket I own at the time. IE: I'm trying to kill Vayne and I want to see if I own lvl 2 sweeper trinket, but it is covered up by the cooldown timer and blue circle. I have to really concentrate and look to see what I own rather than just glance at it and immediately gain information that I need (what trinket I own & if it's on cooldown). Or I would have to press Tab and find my champion slot to see what trinket I have. [IMG]http://i58.tinypic.com/fuwdgz.png[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i60.tinypic.com/1zyioa8.png[/IMG]

Champion info display: I noticed there is an option to hide this display. I think a better option would be to hide champion portrait since most people know what champion they have selected to play. (Possibly streamers would want their champion portrait to be displayed for viewers) This would improve room efficiency and give more visual on the map. Old HUD diplays: Attack dmg, Ability power, armor, MR, attack speed, movement speed New HUD additions: Attack range & cooldown

  1. Attack range display addition: I personally feel like if I picked Jax or Renekton I know that I am a melee character. I do not feel this displays vital information and distracts the eyes from viewing other more important information. (The only exception I can think of that this may possible be helpful is Kayle, Nidalee, and Jayce since their Attack Range changes)
  2. Cooldown display addition: This can be useful for mages or other cooldown based champs for people to know how much cooldown they currently have. Personally I feel it should not be displayed as it used to be displayed when you pressed "C." I think it should be put back into that area and not constantly displayed as a distraction to the other important numbers. [IMG]http://i59.tinypic.com/16267uh.png[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i59.tinypic.com/14ecrav.png[/IMG]

Leveling up skills: The new HUD for leveling up skills is a downgrade on visual clarity in my opinion. I normally glance down at my skills really quick with "ctrl QWER" and can see which skills are able to be lvl'ed up. On the new HUD I have many times accidently tried to level up a skill that already has 5 points into that skill. Old: The old level up for skills had a yellow box outline and a yellow + sign with dark areas around it making it visual efficient. It also contrasted well with skills that you cannot level with complete black. I did not need to fight the game visuals for the old HUD. New HUD: The level up for this is a yellow ^ sign surrounded by dark green with the skills that you cannot level also looking visual similar to skills you can level up. The contrast on the new HUD for skills you can lvl up vs skills you cannot lvl up is too similar when I only take a quick glance. Overall I hope there is an improvement in color contrast for this part for clarity.

Old skills lvl up: [IMG]http://i62.tinypic.com/dh32qc.jpg[/IMG]

New skills lvl up: [IMG]http://i60.tinypic.com/24awg9x.jpg[/IMG]

Pots getting grayed out: Sometimes when pots are grayed out when unusable makes me not notice if I have pots and forget. This is not as big deal as the previous concerns, but it personally disrupts my game play.

[IMG]http://i58.tinypic.com/4jl2l2.png[/IMG]

Conclusion:

  1. Cooldown blue circle is blocking skills portrait.
  2. Gray color effect on skills makes skill difficult to determine.
  3. Trinket timer's plus blue circle during cooldown prevents user from seeing what type of trinket they have.
  4. Champion info has too much excess added info causing clutter: Attack range & cooldown.
  5. leveling up skills clarity level has gone down with the new color scheme.

36 Comments

Phoquelesanimaux11 votes

There is an added timer making it difficult to know which trinket I own at the time.

That's the worst argument you could ever imagine.

Confron7a7ion710 votes

I like the new Hud better

Conturbatio2 votes

That's not a solid argument to FORCE IT ON OTHER PLAYERS WHO DISLIKE IT. Wow, it must be hard to maintain 2 HUDs! It probably requires a brand new server to run the old HUD!

Nauthes2 votes

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Conturbatio1 votes

Wow, having a different opinion must be a crime!

Niaphim6 votes

The major flaw I see in the new HUD is that when I play I look everywhere on the screen. In the old\current ranked HUD there is some useful information everywhere, and while I scan the screen with my eyes I constantly update it piece by piece. Using the new HUD is much more difficult since there is nothing on the left side and upper side is also almost useless. So we are forced to look in one direction for a few seconds to understand what's going on.

Phoquelesanimaux2 votes

It's not a flaw, just a new habit.

Jesus Canaj 4201 votes

Like Phoq there said, it's a new habit. If it takes you seconds, then it's a matter of skill compared to your opponent's who need less time for example and make their decisions quicker. Having your information concentrated like this does allow the potential of gathering all the information in a quicker manner. Ex: Your team just won a teamfight. You need to see who's dead on each side and how long until they're up. You look right above the minimap. Bam, everything. Tilt your eyes down just a miniscule amount and you also now see your minimap, which waves are pushing, where you are, if dragon or baron are up. This is way faster than "we won!" - look at left side of screen for allied info - press tab to look for enemy info - look at minimap for objectives.

Plus by having more of the screen open, there's less obstructing your view of possible enemies or fighting.

The Queen Viper2 votes

{quoted}

The major flaw I see in the new HUD is that when I play I look everywhere on the screen.

Well that's not a flaw in the HUD, that's a flaw in your gameplay since you shouldn't have to nor should you need to look everywhere. Scanning all the corners of your monitor takes your attention off what is happening in the center and is also more time consuming.

{quoted}

In the old\current ranked HUD there is some useful information everywhere, and while I scan the screen with my eyes I constantly update it piece by piece.

And that was the problem with the old HUD: the info was scattered all over the place.

{quoted}

Using the new HUD is much more difficult since there is nothing on the left side and upper side is also almost useless.

No, you are thinking wrong. It's better to have more empty space that doesn't distract you from the actual game than fill everything up with information that you may or may not need. Now, all the info you need is properly situated near the minimap, which you should be looking in the first place instead of the left side of your screen.

Mimaropa6 votes

Bring back the ping button. When I was a noob, it helped me learn how to communicate with my team rather than taking the time to type and press some button that I could hardly remember during the game.

Nielarken3 votes

They really need to bring them back there is no reason why they should be removed

The Queen Viper1 votes

There was a reason: nobody used them and nobody should have used them anyway. We have hotkeys for pings.

Arbitron2 votes

We also have hotkeys for abilities, but still have buttons for those.

Nielarken1 votes

I used them and alot of other people did too, as shocking as this might sound some of us found it easier to use the buttons then to use the keys.

The Queen Viper1 votes

There was no reason whatsoever to use those "ping buttons" anyway, since there's a hotkey that brings up all of them at once, in a radial/circle menu.

You just need to start playing properly from now on.

SCE1 votes

I actually didn't notice that they took this away. When I first started to play I did use the ping button, but I use hotkeys to ping now out of habit now. However, if you noticed many of Riot's changes is for more noob friendly gameplay. They added animation to show minion aggro, turret aggro, adding HP number above red & blue buff, dragon, and baron, lock screen changes for purple side, and many others. All these can be argued that you should improve your gameplay to do these things, but Riot clearly wants players to not be fighting against the game and more noob friendly. I think the ping button will be brought back based on these assumptions.

NuSix35 votes

I think the side by sides kinda make the new hud look good. I will never understand all these complaints.

Phoquelesanimaux2 votes

the arguments are also awful

Jesus Canaj 4205 votes

Skill bars: Sure. Haven't had that issue myself but guess maybe that's just me.

Trinkets: Honest to god if you forgot what trinket you have, i don't know what to say. I feel like this is super simple and not as massive as an issue as you're playing it out to be.

Info: I actually don't mind the idea of hiding the champion portrait, it'd feel weird and there'd need to be some visual tweaks to move around it (like exp bar), but overall good idea. Next patch they're changing attack range with crit chance in terms of spots, which is a good switch imo. As for cdr, I like having it visible tbh. Maybe there's something in the "advanced" stats that could be swapped out for it, but I'm not sure which one.

Leveling: Kind of see what you're saying, had that issue once or twice but also honestly just a minor nuisance that's a matter of getting used to.

Pots: Kind of get what you're saying, but I feel like this is almost a trinket thing. It's a matter of being aware of what choices you've made. This can separate better players from worse imo.

SCE1 votes

Thanks for your input! Most of these suggestions I made are based on Riot's push for clarity in game. I just feel that they took a step back by compromising clarity for efficient viewing of information. All these things I can "get used to" or "live with" eventually if Riot does not decide to change it. The same also be said of the addition of turret aggro, minion aggro, health numbers above baron, dragon and buffs, buff timers by pressing tab. These were all skill sets that I developed prior Riots implementation for noob friendliness. All these things Riot has changed to allow players clarity and to not "fight" against the game.

For the trinket thing, most people may stick with the same trinket the whole game or change to a lvl 2 sweeper by default if they are a support or a farsight orb if they are an adc. This may not be an issue for most players. For me personally, I do sometimes change my trinket 2 to 3 times at different stages of the game depending on if they have stealth champs, if we have enough vision on the map (I'm split pushing I need the double ward trinket for safety), what trinkets do my teammates have (if we all have lvl 2 sweeper trinkets then I may not get that trinket and opt for vision) and if I'm item blocked and can't buy a pink ward I get the pink trinket to control baron area. These little things add up for me personally in game. Also, I want to focus on decision making in game not trying to remember which trinket I had changed to 5 minutes ago. This also aligns with Riots desire for clarity.

I really do appreciate your constructive comments. These are just my justifications for the reasons why.

ZephyrDrake2 votes

wait, i just noticed that the champion info shows the attack range! why riot!? why you tell me this stupid thing but i cannot see anywhere how much armor/mr pen i have? ugh

Catastrop1 votes

{quoted}

wait, i just noticed that the champion info shows the attack range! why riot!? why you tell me this stupid thing but i cannot see anywhere how much armor/mr pen i have? ugh

They're swapping that out for Crit Chance in the next update.

crowfox2 votes

There is no reason why RIOT should not give us an option to switch back to the old HUD. Everyone I know is complaining about the new layout but even more so about the fact that you cannot choose. Some people might like it but others are used to the old one, and have trouble re adapting after years and years worth of muscle memory training. It is only fair everyone should have a choice in which HUD they wish to have. Having no option makes it imbalanced.

Nielarken1 votes

only reason ive heard so far is it would be too much work to update both in new patchs

Conturbatio1 votes

Riot came up with the new HUD in the first place, so they have to carry their own burdens, NOT US.

Jesus Canaj 4203 votes

"Imbalanced" because... you can't adapt to a change in the game? What about the new summoner's rift? Are you still adapting to that and need an option to play on the old one because it's "imbalanced" that some people can adapt to a video game which has patches every 2 weeks faster than you?

DrCyanide2 votes

item 3157 - "phew! I'm alive! Now what to do in 2 seconds! *looks at abilities and active items, only to see them all red with X's through them and no CDR timers * "Great... I guess it's blindly button mash and hope things work out."

Those red X "you're CC'd" indicators are the most useless thing ever. I really hope that gets removed next patch.

*Gets Twisted Fate on ARAM.* *Does Ctrl+qwe to level up each basic skill.* *E is still completely black.* "Did I mess up?"

The readability here is horrible. Combined with the incredibly tiny dots for if a skill is leveled up, it just doesn't make sense to make a purely passive skill indistinguishable from a non-upgraded skill. (PS: the boards apparently doesn't like escaping * on a lot of lines back to back).

*Opens store, it runs off the edge of the screen *

This is one I don't understand from a visual consistency side of things. I have noticed that the Store is just too big, especially when you compare it to how small the tab and options windows are now. I changed the settings on one computer to experiment with different resolutions, and the "sell" and "undo" buttons were hanging off the bottom of the screen while I had the window as close to the top of the screen as I could.

Did you know that opening up the store automatically opens your champions detailed stats? I didn't until I was fiddling around. It doesn't matter much, because you can't actually read the stats because of the gargantuan window in the way of them, but I did think it was a nice idea.

SCE1 votes

*\E is still completely black.* "Did I mess up?"

LOLLL, this happens to me a lot.

mlewi1082 votes

What I hate about the new HUD and patch is that it's missing 5 things that the previous patch/HUD had:

  1. Champion Stats window. I liked the fact I can see my armor/magic penetration, life steal, critical chance, spell vamp and more there. It's cool that they added the cooldown reduction stat in the new one but they could have left out the attack range.
  2. Ping Volume. I have the volume slider for the Ping set to 0 and muted and yet, it will still ping. It's annoying especially when you have those constant "pingers" on your team. So, they need to fix that because it worked fine last patch.
  3. Chat Buttons. I don't use the keyboard shortcuts for the chat window but now it's like I'm forced to. It was easier to clear chat and send chat to all players with the click of the button but it's gone. Should bring that back.
  4. Crowd Control: Previous patches, you can still see your abilities and their timers while you're stunned, charmed, knocked up, suppressed or whatever. This patch, you have to take a guess to when you can use your abilities after getting CC'd for a while (especially with Ekko's stun) since a giant red X is blocking the background of the ability.
  5. Visual: This HUD seems a little bland, dull and simple. I liked the old one because it was lively and all the information was right there. Teammates on the left; Selected champion, minion, monster, tower, etc. on top left; map on bottom right; champion and items on bottom left; abilities, health and mana/energy bars on bottom middle and K/D/A, ping, FPS, score, CS and time on top right. The visual effects were a lot better before.

Just wish they have some kind of preference button to go from new HUD to old HUD or at least a feature to add things to the HUD and to rearrange parts of the HUD to your liking.

SCE1 votes

I completely agree with you. All those things you mentioned minus the ping volume I've had issues with. I would actually really like having crit chance in the small stat window since I play Tryndamere frequently. Thanks for your input!

mlewi1081 votes

No problem!

Monsta Moo2 votes

--more feedback boys, keep it going---

Bergk2 votes

Why not just let the player customize the HUD? Like let us position everything where we want it and choose the size of each individual item. Also let us choose what to hide and what to display at all times. Just let the player customize his/her own HUD lol

ifeelsheepish2 votes

Great list and the screenshots really make things clear. To this I would add a couple points:

  1. Similar to the trinket timer, when you press tab the death timers completely cover the champion portraits making it difficult to see at a glance who is currently dead.

  2. Similar to the skill level up buttons, the little circles (new hud) underneath the skills are a lot harder to see at a glance than the yellow rectangles (old hud), which exacerbates the problem of the level up buttons themselves being difficult to distinguish.

Overall, there are a lot of clarity issues that the old hud didn't have due to the new hud having both a 'flat' design and a low contrast colour profile. It does look sleek and modern, but usability is lost. A lot of phone apps and websites started looking like this a couple years ago but the design community has already moved away from it because the products were less intuitive to use.

a blonde guy1 votes

The one thing about the new HUD that i can't stand is that i am not allowed to click my portrait and look at champion tips anymore D:

Nicorus 1 votes

I think the new HUD needs some tweaks, but I didn't really think you made any sort of argument for changes needed.

I would change 5 things on the new hud

  1. The level up animation on the abilities is kinda odd, I cant actually articulate a reason why, but I find myself missing the chance to level up my ult.
  2. the location of the KDA, timer, and team KDA on the mini map is confusing, returning it to the top right and having it read my team KDA on the left every time is helpful. Having it read red to blue is confusing.
  3. If you were to take the advice from step 2 you could make the teammate frames larger so I can focus on my teammates health and status in team fights, helping that soraka ult be fully utilized.
  4. The stats currently are difficult to read, not because I'm no longer used to the icons. But because they're tiny. I have suggested giving the ability to tailor this section to our liking, similar to masteries and runes. Having the ability to order them in a particular manner or to remove or add stats at will in a similar page to masteries or runes.
  5. A lot of people's primary issue with the HUD is the actual color scheme, and that it is either difficult to see, or hard on their eye sight. I think this is a major problem, but I think people are going to complain about this regardless. But I think it is still worth addressing. I think offering several different color schemes on the HUD wouldn't be hard, and it would make the argument that it is visually painfull null.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by SCE

Making 3v3 team Push to MASTERS
[ARCHIVED] Player Recruitment2 comments
1
votes