[Vendor Suggestions Updated] 2 Sleek Vendor User Interfaces (mock-up images to show suggestions)

Please, GGG, revamp the Vendor User Interface to function and look something like one of the following 2 concepts below to make gem purchases easier and more informative for each Class.

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There are now two concepts to choose from.

Concept 1: An easier to implement concept that is likely easier to work with (all Skill Gems in 1 Tab split into 2 columns for Support Skills and Active Skills)

I actually like this concept better than the original one I proposed. There is no 'sorting' feature like Concept 2 (it is not really necessary, anyway, since all gems are sorted in alphabetical, RBG order, plus there is a Search Box), but there is much more room in this Vendor UI for informative texts in the event a Class cannot use certain gems or have not completed certain Quests to unlock gems.

NOTE: I did not include Skill Tooltips (as the Cursors in the image are hovering over the gems) because I wanted to demonstrate what the informative texts will read under certain conditions.



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Concept 2: The original concept below:




P.S. Yes, I actually did Wiki the accurate price of each individual gem for illustration purposes.

Please support. Thank you!
HeavyMetalGear

I think that not even blood magic and kitten sacrifices will ever force GGG to add auction house in-game.

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ZerotuL wrote:

I think that not even blood magic and kitten sacrifices will ever force GGG to add auction house in-game.

Except this is not an Auction House; it is a complete revamp of the current Vendor System whose sold gems are a complete mess when players want to buy gems from Vendors.

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HeavyMetalGear wrote:

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ZerotuL wrote:

I think that not even blood magic and kitten sacrifices will ever force GGG to add auction house in-game.

Except this is not an Auction House; it is a complete revamp of the current Vendor System whose sold gems are a complete mess when players want to buy gems from Vendors.

My bad. Revamp is a nice idea since one need to visit all traders to find "the skill". I think it's gonna be easier to accumulate all skill gems from previous acts and not distribute them among NPCs in different acts.

And add search box not to read all tooltips.

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ZerotuL wrote:

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HeavyMetalGear wrote:

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ZerotuL wrote:

I think that not even blood magic and kitten sacrifices will ever force GGG to add auction house in-game.

Except this is not an Auction House; it is a complete revamp of the current Vendor System whose sold gems are a complete mess when players want to buy gems from Vendors.

My bad. Revamp is a nice idea since one need to visit all traders to find "the skill". I think it's gonna be easier to accumulate all skill gems from previous acts and not distribute them among NPCs in different acts.

And add search box not to read all tooltips.

Why add a search box when you can very easily track down what gems you're looking for just by the very letter they start with in the alphabet (sorted in alphabetical order) in conjunction with their icon colors all together within the illustrated revamped Vendor System in my OP?

The whole point of creating this revamped Vendor System the way I did was to do away with the devs having to implement a search box, and of course, to make gem purchases more streamlined / easier.

Edit: Retracted the above underlined to give the devs a choice between two Vendor UI concepts.

GGG is pretty bad at in-game UI stuff. I wish the game was offline/moddable so we could do custom UIs. (although, some online games have complete UI customizability, like dungeons and dragons online).

Your gem vendor certainly looks better and has functionality/usability improvements. Another improvement I'd make is to remove "support" from the name of support gems since it creates readability issues and looks messy (and is redundant, with "support" tag and gem shape, but mainly it just looks really bad and is hard to scan/read quickly). With your method GGG can organize support gems in the vendor in their own support category (or tab).

And really, it should be 1 vendor in each act (the same person) that has ALL the gems, with things greyed out until various quests/difficulties/acts are complete.

GGG also needs to add basic tutorial /guided prompts to the start of the game (or a pre-beach intro that teaches basic things). I've watched new players try to use gems by clicking on them and dropping them on monsters, or go partially through act 1 using default attack, or make it to level 15+ without using any support gems.

Excellent post, great work on the mock up
+1

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Vhlad wrote:

GGG is pretty bad at in-game UI stuff. I wish the game was offline/moddable so we could do custom UIs. (although, some online games have complete UI customizability, like dungeons and dragons online).

Pardon my late reply.

Making the user interface able to be customized in an indefinite number of ways (like Guild Wars 1 had and Guild Wars 2 has) would take quite a bit of work and money to get going.

Not only that, I believe GGG wants to preserve their signature look in the UI (call it what you want) no matter what the UI ultimately gets to looking like in the future so when players are Streaming the game, new players don't look at the game and assume, "OMG, is that really the interface?! It looks so crap!" without knowing beforehand the UI is changeable.

GGG does not want to chance the above scenario happening even a little bit, and I believe they made a comment saying so some time ago (if I can find a source, I'll update this reply).

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Vhlad wrote:

Your gem vendor certainly looks better and has functionality/usability improvements. Another improvement I'd make is to remove "support" from the name of support gems since it creates readability issues and looks messy (and is redundant, with "support" tag and gem shape, but mainly it just looks really bad and is hard to scan/read quickly). With your method GGG can organize support gems in the vendor in their own support category (or tab).

The only reason I disagree with removing the words "Support" and "Active" from the name of Support Skills and Active Skills is because soon after players purchase a Support Skill OR Active Skill, the tag "Support" and "Active" will not be present, that which may confuse some players on which gems are Support Skills and which gems are Active Skills.

The removal of keywords like "Support" and "Active" is not a smart move because doing so assumes by default every player (especially new players) will know/remember the difference between a Support Skill and Active Skill without their rightful tags.

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Vhlad wrote:

And really, it should be 1 vendor in each act (the same person) that has ALL the gems, with things greyed out until various quests/difficulties/acts are complete.

I disagree. There should be different Vendors in each town to create NPC variety, each who has their own little backgrounds so as to bring about the impression within the player's mind each Vendor has a preference where they choose to dwell and in what environment. That gives the game personality.

Just having one Vendor travel about in each town would become monotone after a while because it would be the same Vendor you greet over and over with the same voice acting.

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Vhlad wrote:

GGG also needs to add basic tutorial /guided prompts to the start of the game (or a pre-beach intro that teaches basic things). I've watched new players try to use gems by clicking on them and dropping them on monsters, or go partially through act 1 using default attack, or make it to level 15+ without using any support gems.

I agree. One day I will mock up a system like that, but not now. I will pitch that idea later on.

It's easy for GGG to maintain a signature look with a customizable UI. The way to do it is modular, where players have options and can choose which things they want, where they want them, and how big they are.

Based on your reply my assumption is you haven't seen good modular, scalable UIs in other games, or maybe you're thinking about custom skins for UIs which isn't the same as what I'm talking about (or even necessary).

PoE's current UI has many problems with buffs/debuffs running out of space, being poorly organized, or being blocked by things like the unnecessarily giant pvp queue box, as well as insufficient hotkeys for many builds, annoying aura management, archaic chat management (chat needs tabs as an option, not just checkboxes that dump everything into the same panel).

Hideout decoration UI is terrible. MTX UI/organization is terrible. Stash UI is terrible (especially after league merges, sorting/usability is abysmal - it needs folders and better UI for managing 80++ tabs).

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HeavyMetalGear wrote:

The only reason I disagree with removing the words "Support" and "Active" from the name of Support Skills and Active Skills is because soon after players purchase a Support Skill OR Active Skill, the tag "Support" and "Active" will not be present, that which may confuse some players on which gems are Support Skills and which gems are Active Skills.

Skill gems do not need "support" in their name when they already have "support" in the tag. It's especially redundant with your vendor suggestion because the gems are in a clearly labeled support skills tab and have support in their name. It looks amateur.

After a player purchases or acquires a gem, they will still be able to mouse over it and see "support" in the tag. It's absolutely unnecessary (and horrible looking) for all the support gems to have "support" at the end of their name. New players are still confused by the skill system so adding support to everything fixed nothing and made it all harder to read. If ggg wants more differentiation between support skills and active skills there are better ways to do it than adding "active" or "support" to the name of everything.

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HeavyMetalGear wrote:

The removal of keywords like "Support" and "Active" is not a smart move because doing so assumes by default every player (especially new players) will know the difference between a Support Skill and Active Skill without their rightful tags.

First there is no active tag. Second, I never suggested to remove support from skill tags. Only from the name (so melee damage on full life support becomes melee damage on full life, like it used to be before GGG tried to bandage their lack of tutorial/new player guidance with skill naming aids).

The problem is, new interface looks good and easy to use, like modern online store. But the vendors in the game are ragged, unwashed hobos selling shit which lies in piles near them, just as it looks like in current version of the UI. So GGG will not implement your suggestion because in will be "anti-immersive".