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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The old ‘Combat modifiers’ icon (the two crossed swords) have been replaced by a new icon (orange with a sword and chess piece) in order to make it more clear that you can hover it to see useful information.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. :)
 
Ugh...no. Just no. This is ugly as fuck and way more confusing and way less clear than the old layout. The old layout had distinct places for the buttons and indicators, you could see them all at a glance, now they're all thrown together in one messy heap that feels super cramped. This is a massive mistake. Look at the mod "Bigger Interface" instead, copy that one please. Make the window bigger, extend it all the way to the bottom of the screen so the lists have more space and give traits, titles, claims and diplomatic relations each their own full-width line.

Like this: https://i.redd.it/zqpq9znsgcm01.jpg
 
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My only concern is that it might be a bit difficult seeing all of your titles as an emperor or king, but having more room for the 20-odd modifiers you pick up is very helpful.
 
Sorry but this doesn't have anywhere near enough space for titles. Have you ever even played nomads? They can easily get up to 50+ titles. This is terrible.

Oh and the new "personal combat traits" icon, the one with the sword above the pawn looks awful and it's too easy to mistake it for the military education trait icon because it's square. The old one with the crossed swords looked much better, it had a more distinctive color, design and most importantly, shape.
 
Mindblowing idea: Add pop-up windows for Titles, Children and Personal Traits. Click on a button at the edge of each section, turn window into a full blown overview of each specific type of item. Not enough space to view titles? How about a full-blown page!
 
Mindblowing idea: Add pop-up windows for Titles, Children and Personal Traits. Click on a button at the edge of each section, turn window into a full blown overview of each specific type of item. Not enough space to view titles? How about a full-blown page!

This is a good idea. Maybe for claims and diplomacy too.
 
Mindblowing idea: Add pop-up windows for Titles, Children and Personal Traits. Click on a button at the edge of each section, turn window into a full blown overview of each specific type of item. Not enough space to view titles? How about a full-blown page!

I agree, playing as a nomad i always end up with so many titles they get impossible to click on, and I use the Bigger Interface mod that has an entire row the full width of the window reserved just for titles, and it's still no enough. Traits didn't need more space, titles did. Traits never realistically get over 15 different ones or so, it just doesn't happen, titles on the other hand you can easily get over 50 as a nomad, and much, much more if you do even a partial world conquest. Also, if you're immortal, you can easily run into the same problem with children, where you have too many so even see them properly anymore. Titles and children definitely need their own scrollable overview pages.
 
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!

Looks better IMO.
 
Great to see this screen getting more attention. It's improved a ton since I first started playing CK2.

I feel like the biggest area of potentially reclaimable space now is around the character portraits. I know the goal isn't necessarily to eliminate all empty space in the layout and design considerations play a role too, but I think there's some (especially vertical) squishing that could be done there to potentially free up even more space for buttons.

The one part I kind of disagree with is this:
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
In my opinion, consistency is far more important than habit. Things have been moving around in this screen pretty frequently over the 2.x series of updates, players on the current version are used to relearning what to do in here. Trying to keep some similarities is always appreciated, but if we're centralizing most of the buttons, I'd rather have all the buttons in the same place, rather than looking to one spot for almost everything and another spot for a few exceptions.

I'd also rather have a confused duck button on every character. Someone please make a mod.
 
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!
I tried to make an interface that combines new and old elements, which I like personally and here is the result:
DDCharView_YourCharacter.png
Bloodlines next to the dynasty window and Kill List next to duel skill.
And I think that to save space on the screen you can merge the icon from the artifact modifiers and the button that opens the artifact window.
 
I tried to make an interface that combines new and old elements, which I like personally and here is the result:
View attachment 378196
Bloodlines next to the dynasty window and Kill List next to duel skill.
And I think that to save space on the screen you can merge the icon from the artifact modifiers and the button that opens the artifact window.
I really like that one.
But we're missing the artifacts effects button, maybe put the pcs in the trait list, but far to the right and replace the pcs button in the modifier by the artifacts total modifier, so both artifact related buttons would be next to each other?

DDCharView_YourCharacter.png
 
Every little helps. CK2 is showing it's age, UI-wise. Although I don't suppose there's too much life-extension planned for the game now that Imperator has shown an even better face system.
 
Some thoughts related to moving things around in the character portrait pane. Frees up enough space for buttons, titles, diplo, traits, and modifiers to all have their own rows. Sorry for the crappy editing.

DDCharView_YourCharacter.png
 
Looks great, I approve.
 
I really like that one.
But we're missing the artifacts effects button, maybe put the pcs in the trait list, but far to the right and replace the pcs button in the modifier by the artifacts total modifier, so both artifact related buttons would be next to each other?

View attachment 378198

I like this one better, and the barber and army leading buttons are on the portrait are good. Not even sure what's wrong with them and why they have to be on the display next to more important buttons.

Hopefully it is moddable.