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CK2 Dev Diary #86 - Character View Redux

Greetings!

Today I’d like to show off the new Character View, which we affectionately refer to as the ‘Redux’ version. The old Character View, despite having been redone several times already, was still plagued by not having enough space for the various elements (traits, in particular) and having random buttons floating all over the interface (Leading Troops Toggle, Artifacts, Barber Shop, etc). Our primary goal has been to free up space and facilitate the addition of new buttons, and here’s the result:

DDCharView_YourCharacter.png


This is how the Character View for your own character will look. As you can see, a lot of things have been reshuffled to create more space. We’ve kept in mind that certain habits are hard to break, so some of the more commonly used things are still in their original place, e.g. the ‘Arrange Marriage’ button, and the information you need at a glance is in the same general area as it used to be, e.g. the Levy Size number. We’ve replaced the text with icons, and all icons now also have tooltips - this means that, unlike before, we actually explain the concepts of the various lists you see, such as what the difference between a Trait and a Modifier is.

Some elements have been removed, such as the ‘Dynasty Tree’ button, as clicking the Dynasty Shield itself fulfilled the exact same function.

The old ‘Combat modifiers’ icon (the two crossed swords) have been replaced by a new icon (orange with a sword and chess piece) in order to make it more clear that you can hover it to see useful information. We’ve also added a similar button that shows the total effects of any Artifacts a character has (yellow with a goblet and helmet). This icon is also visible in character lists, making it useful for tracking down characters which hold artifacts on their persona.

We’ve also exposed the Personal Combat Skill value of characters in the list of skills. More on this in a future DD, but rest assured that it’ll have an enhanced impact on your gameplay experience!

To preserve some sense of mystery I’ve censored some of the buttons pertaining to expansion features using pictures of confused ducks, I’ll go into more detail on what the buttons entail in later DD’s.

This is how it looks when viewing another character:
DDCharView_OtherChar.png

As you can see, it’s similar to the other view although with more censored buttons. The main difference, which may take some time to adjust to, is the new location of the Plot button - though it is now in a way more convenient location overall.

We’ve tried to shuffle as much information as possible to the right of the view, in order to make it easier to get the information you need at a glance - Active diplomacy (such as wars), levy numbers and stats are all lined up and easy to view.

While we don’t expect everyone to instantly embrace the new layout, we did it out of necessity and managed to use the space we had available in a very effective way - and after having spent months using it internally, I don’t believe there’s a single one of us in the Dev Team that could go back to the old layout. :)
 
Yes both would be neat. It can get cramped quickly with lots of ingredients for instance.
Yeah fitering the ingredients out would be a great first step, secondly getting all the books in one tab would be nice too.
 
Isn't too small place for titles, claims and diplomacy?
I wonder how it would looks if I have (as my current character) 2 empires, 4 kingdoms, 2 duchies and 8 counties, have about 8 claims, 2 wars, 6 truces and constantly plagued by 5 coalitions.
 
Big fan of this change. It is much more neatly organized yet will feel familiar enough to those of us who have been playing for some time. Can tell you guys put a lot of effort into it and it makes me even more excited for this expansion and the patch coming with it!
 
Isn't too small place for titles, claims and diplomacy?
I wonder how it would looks if I have (as my current character) 2 empires, 4 kingdoms, 2 duchies and 8 counties, have about 8 claims, 2 wars, 6 truces and constantly plagued by 5 coalitions.
Hence why clicking on the icon to the left of these should display the stuff in that category in a window.
 
Some elements have been removed, such as the ‘Dynasty Tree’ button, as clicking the Dynasty Shield itself fulfilled the exact same function.

Is there new way to see a character's liege, since the liege portrait has been removed from the interface?


EDIT: Just realized the rulers in the screeshots are independent, so obviously they will not have a liege.

I'm assuming the liege portrait will go to the upper-right of the selected character's portrait?
 
Nice, this makes it much clearer what my characters traits are.
Oh it is a definite improvement, but as you can see there are some of us who are concerned it may not be enough.
 
To preserve some sense of mystery I’ve censored some of the buttons pertaining to expansion features using pictures of confused ducks, I’ll go into more detail on what the buttons entail in later DD’s.

Come on, the PDXCON stream already revealed them all!

On other characters:
Top row: Artifacts, Bloodlines, Kill List
Bottom row: Sway, Antagonize, Plot to Kill

On your own character:
Top row: Artifacts, Bloodlines, Kill List
Bottom row: Barber, Allow/Disallow Leading Armies, Empty

I wonder where will the buttom to forbid others to lead armies be, as all six slots of other characters (including your heir as seen in the stream) are already full.

In the "Empty" slot, I suggest you add your character's Active Plot (right now located in the top right corner along Focus/Ambition) for consistency and extra space in that corner. :D
 
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The titles/claims/wars bar looks bad at the first glance. How would it look when there are tens of these?

I.e. with something like this:

View attachment 378176

It will look crowded.

I don't think there is much to be done - there can't be plenty of space for it all.

However, you can perfectly see all titles in the character's Title View (just click a title or hit F1) while traits can only be seem in the Character View - so if I had to choose I would give premium space to traits.
 
Maybe switch the placement of the barbershop + not lead army button line with the Ambition, Focus and Plot line? Having the three later in the center of the menu and near to the inventory would be nice.

Edit: Confused duck says no.

Swap the location of the “culture, religion icon and government icon” with the “ambition, focus and plot icons.”
 
I like the layout just question if there will be room for titles held claims and all the active wars and peace treaties that will stack up. I just dont want to have one problem fixed and end up with 3 news ones so to speak. either way I am sure that after a few hours this will feel normal.
 
I am somewhat concerned about reducing the size of the personal titles bit. In the case of emperors, kings and gavekind PCs, it was already too small. Now it only has space for a couple of titles. For a PC who might have 12 titles including kingdoms, duchies and counties (all very possible in this game on most runthroughs) this is too small. In fact, AI characters could easily get enough titles to fill this tiny bit of the page, which aside from telling us they are powerful is not very useful for the player.
 
While the new Charater View window looke great and all the traits now are perfectly visible, what about the titles? It seems that the space is too small to comfortably fit even a dozen of titles.
 
I don't know... I'll probably just stick to using the (Somewhat) Bigger Interface mod, provided they'll keep updating it. I'm too used to the classic look.
 
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Not totally digging it at the moment...
would prefer the sortment on the right side to be more similar to how it currently is...
how about something like this? (quick paint shuffling, sorry for the bad work with white spaces :p )

but nice that the traits and modifiers get more space!
 

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I like it...

My only complaint is that I don't like how far away character stats are from the portrait, since usually the first thing I look at when looking at a character are (First) portraits and (Second) character stats. I'd like it closer to the portrait so that there is more of a natural flow of the eyes. In the one odd computer science class I took at university, they always told us to arrange our interfaces so that there was natural progression (left to right, top to bottom) in order of how the customer would want to interact with the interface (or in order of important information). I love how you guys crammed so much more useful information into the character screen. It's awesome! This is the only thing I would change.

DISCLAIMER TO OTHER POSTERS: No, I do not expect P'dox to cater to my whims. No, I do not think I am an expert on interface design. This is a piece of subjective, unprofessional feedback. Thank you for your understanding.


EDIT: Yeah, this is more along the lines of what I was thinking. If they could swap stats with dynasty/realm/tree/family tree that'd be great too. Honestly, dynasty/dynasty tree/realm tree is usually the thing I use least. I usually only use it when looking at my own character to check up on my dynasty or on potentially rebellious vassals.
 
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Not totally digging it at the moment...
would prefer the sortment on the right side to be more similar to how it currently is...
how about something like this? (quick paint shuffling, sorry for the bad work with white spaces :p )

but nice that the traits and modifiers get more space!

Putting all the buttons next to each other, as you did, is much more ergonomic.