Love the new HUD, but there's still room for improvement
Ojakokko
Finland Join Date: 2017-01-20 Member: 226999Members
Finland Join Date: 2017-01-20 Member: 226999Members
So as I said, I love the new HUD, it just looks so much better than the old one. But there's one thing missing from it; numbers. In the old HUD, everything had numbers. Now only oxygen has and for the rest you just kinda have to guess the exact number. The exact number is useful when you don't want to waste food, HP packs etc. Since the old HUD had this, the new one is actually worse when it comes to usability. I want it fixed because it's otherwise just awesome.
Another neat thing would be the ability to choose between the new and old HUD or even further customize it. I'll stick with the new HUD, but more customization is always better-
Another neat thing would be the ability to choose between the new and old HUD or even further customize it. I'll stick with the new HUD, but more customization is always better-
Comments
There's no guessing with oxygen, tha one shows the exact number. It's just not enough
47280 /main/New UI - Stage 3 2017-04-28 06:19:36 Vyacheslav Sedovich Switching to numbers in HUD indicators when the PDA is open.
https://subnautica.unknownworlds.com/#/subnautica/checkins
Maybe if toggled the center icon on each indicator would change to an actual number; the heart, water drop, etc. would just be replaced by a similarly colored number.
Greyfairer
"Hm, I'm only 73% full, guess I'll eat more" No most certainly not like that, more like "Hm, one nutrition block provides 80 food. I have 30. I'll wait until it drops to 20 so I won't waste food." In game, ofc.
"Numbers seemed a little...cheaty. " Well how about oxygen then? It's not like you know the exact time in seconds you have oxygen left
"After all, humans are analog, not digital" Humans are not analog or digital. The terminology has nothing to do with numbers (except for 0 and 1, which are actually off and on), and a number approach on these would be closer to analog; analog tech is based on constant small changes, and the changes in the HUD are small. Digital in the other hand is based on a set of two opposite states; current and no current/on and off, represented by 1 and 0 respectively. If the HUD was digital, everything would have only two positions:
Oxygen: full-suffocating
Health: unsratched-dead
Food: full-starving
Thirst: Well hydrated-severe dehydration
Well...no, sorry.
See, bits are put together to form bytes. Bytes form words. Words are grouped as needed to convey data. Just as a digitally-stored audio file isn't only "NOISE" or "silent" at a given time, digital data in all its forms is about representing a value or set of values at a given time. The contents of that data isn't limited to "on or off," except in the smallest - and for most purposes effectively useless - scale. Digital data is not 1 or 0; it's whatever data you care to store to whatever precision you're willing to pay for. After all, your computer is a digital machine and you're not looking at a bunch of 1s and 0s on screen; at the tiniest level, that's the foundational structure of data, but that's not data itself. In the scale you've chosen for your illustration, you're not a person; you're either an A, C, G, or T. But just as you are not a single DNA base, digital data is not a single bit.
The problem with expressing biological variances like hunger or thirst as a digital value is that digital representation of data is not infinitely precise, nor is it continuous. The best example is music recording. When you look at the data structure of an analog recording, be it a record or tape, you'll see that the waveforms are smooth; the recording process is continuous, and thus every infinitesimal change is a part of the recording. However, the exact same audio recorded digitally is "jagged" rather than smooth. This is because digital data recording uses a process called "sampling." It checks the data, writes the value at that moment, then a few thousandths of a second checks again, writes again, and so on. As a result, it's like a strobe light rather than real life. More than that, digital data is only resolved to a given level of precision. If the actual value is 3.99982680, then it may well be recorded as 4.000 because that's all the room that's apportioned for that data point, so the system had to round. It's why LP purists claim that records sound warmer and more real.
"Analog" is not solely a technological word. That's one definition. Life is analog. Continuous variation of values. The universe operates on gradients and continuous variation, not clean, discrete little steps.
Well, good that that will be fixed. Hasn't been pushed out to even the Experimental Branch yet, as I've just updated to that and started a new Experimental game. It was just checked in today though, so maybe in a day or two.
I agree. While you can accurately gauge how much O2 you have via an external tank or how deep you dive with a depth gauge, you don't really know how much food is in your stomach, or how dehydrated your body is. The 'guesstimation' radial gauges make more sense, since there's noaccurate means to track it. Also seeing as how the PDA is running off of emergency mode, the Medical Lab is thrashed, and the Aurora's computers are offline, we shouldn't have that precise of a biological readout.
To be more on point, Stalker attacks always deal 30% damage, while Bleeders suck away 5% damage per tick. I would go so far to say while those values should be a base, it should be random damage each time. It doesn't make sense to be at 100% health, then get bit by a Stalker: "Oh, I can take two more hits before I'm in serious trouble!" In that vein, First Aid Kits probably shouldn't heal for 50% each time as well. Could they instead heal for base 20%~30%, then have a strong regeneration factor for a short time? As advanced as modern medicine is in the future of Subnautica's universe, I doubt we could survive two chomps from a Stalker and just shake it off with just a roll of medicated gauze.
Edit from the future: Thanks to @AceDude I can finally fix my post and quell my OCD!
I can only assume the limits were added to trigger our collective typo OCD.
My guess is spam prevention or something, but I feel your pain - I see something I wanted to clarify or fix a typo and then "Sorry, no more edits / editing window has passed" and I'm just like Noooooooo because those mistakes or a poorly worded sentence begins driving me mad ;v;
Yeah or there could even be different types of Medkits to add to variety of items. Like static ones as we already have that give sets amounts of healing like a normal one giving 50% and a weaker one for 25% healing, one that gives a Heal-Over-time type of healing ..... the sky's the limit!
And again, it is merely the OPTION people like myself are asking for. A toggle to please all.
Cheers.
The new compass is also a step backwards in usability since it doesn't provide numerical bearing information anymore.
I guess I like my numbers in the UI since they're much more precise and indicate exactly how much of something you have, not just the percentage of the maximum value.
In response to the posts above about humans thinking in imprecise terms instead of numbers, this is true IRL, but in this game, the player is wearing an advanced survival suit with a HUD that apparently is able to precisely calculate this information. Plus, behind the scenes the game is keeping track of an absolute value anyways so it's trivial to provide this helpful information to the player.
What ... the old compass showed numerical infos ? mine sure never did
I stand corrected, for some reason I was thinking that the old compass had numerical heading indicators. Must have been thinking of a different game (it's been a little while since I played Subnautica, I just came back for the new update).
I don't know where else to put the number at. I could just replace the image and make it like that open PDA thing.
What about swapping the numbers there with the symbol, so those are on the outside next to the meter...kind of like the old meter but with roundness.
That would work, or my mind thinks it would too.
So curved text?
I'm starting to see why the devs made it the way it is.