Feature Discussion: Combo Color

[justin_ator]

A recent suggestion was made to increase the included combo colors from AAA, FC, and Regular to include SDG and Flag colors too.

The majority of the work to handle these in the engines is completed in a recent development build, and I've done additional work to handle Miss Flags now too.



What I would like to know (and everyone to vote on) is which of the following would be preferred (NOTE: existing colors users have chosen for Normal/FC/AAA will NOT be overwritten):

1) All statuses and flags default to their designated colors. Users can change them to the same color as other statuses if they do not want to see combo color for certain statuses/flags.

2) AAA, FC, and Normal combo colors persist with their same colors but new combo colors for SDG & song flags are set to FC/Normal color by default. Users can then specify colors if they want to see the additional combo colors while in-game.

Additional to voting on the poll for the above options, please feel free to provide feedback on the colors used. My logic is currently as follows, but I welcome community feedback on this too.

- SDG = transition in score from AAA to FC colors, so color somewhere in between.
- Black Flag = gray, as most song backgrounds are black and black would not be visible.
- Average Flag = Average judge color exactly.
- Boo Flag = lighter variation of Boo judge color for ease of visibility on black background.
- Miss Flag = Darker variation of Miss color as pure bright red displays when the engine is on autoplay.

Thanks all!

[PrawnSkunk]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

Where's the metro flag for 3-0-2-0

[trumaestro]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

Customization like this is great. For those of us experienced with the game, tweaks to the game's presentation allows us to fine tune our play.

But if you're new and these options are enabled, it's only going to be confusing af. I would argue even the current Normal/FC/AAA colours have potential to be confusing. "Why does the combo colour keep changing?"

This should remain strictly optional. Or even better, let users enable specific flags which default to your colours.

[justin_ator]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

A quick point of clarification here: if the functionality is in-game, it won't be "enable/disable" -- those who do not want to see it will just need to set the color to match that of the statuses they want to see.

If a user doesn't want to see any colors when playing all 7 values can be set to white, for example.

[trumaestro]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

A quick point of clarification here: if the functionality is in-game, it won't be "enable/disable" -- those who do not want to see it will just need to set the color to match that of the statuses they want to see.

If a user doesn't want to see any colors when playing all 7 values can be set to white, for example.

That's ..not good.

Maybe I'm not reading the post correctly. I think I assumed all these would be enabled by default which it looks like that was wrong, my bad.

But, why not have enable/disable? Leave the normal/FC/AAA choices enabled, disable the new ones by default, and players can choose which ones they want

idk I just think the options menu is super cluttered already and this doesn't help

[justin_ator]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

That's ..not good.

Maybe I'm not reading the post correctly. I think I assumed all these would be enabled by default which it looks like that was wrong, my bad.

But, why not have enable/disable? Leave the normal/FC/AAA choices enabled, disable the new ones by default, and players can choose which ones they want

The options are all enabled and visible, with new colors by default - if you run the latest dev build you'll see all of them except Miss Flag.

The main point of this thread is the poll - option 1 is to have all of them with different colors from the start as default, option 2 is don't introduce new colors but give the option to change them to new colors.

The 'why not...' you say above is essentially what I'm recommending as option 2 - display those flags by default as the colors of FC/Normal, and if they want to set them as other colors they can. There's no functional difference between defaulting them to the same colors as the FC/Normal or hiding the options, except defaulting to share colors means they're not hidden behind another setting.

I can live with keeping them FC/Normal colors and letting users change them from there, but I would strongly argue against burying the functionality behind another setting just to show the option to customize and use those...

[trumaestro]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

I think I see where you're coming from now. I just haven't had enough coffee today

-Option 1 is a terrible idea, especially for a new player. It's just too much information and we'd be answering the "why is my combo colour changing so much" question in forum/discord all the time.
-Option 2 is better. I'd keep it for current players. It's a fair bit of info to be showing during gameplay, but I don't feel it's too much as is.
-I'd even spitball having all the combo colours be the same for a new player.

[Pizza69]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

I agree with trumaestro's point about the visual clutter for new players, both in the options screen and in-game. I personally play with the combo display disabled, so my opinion might not hold the most weight in this matter (and may be more negative than most), but with the exception of the SDG colour (which would be really nice to have) it seems like the new ones are mostly just novelties. Their functionality seems pretty niche, and any practical use for them could be accomplished better by the autofail feature imo.

This is essentially just a convoluted argument in favour of option 2, I suppose.

[storn42]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

I wouldnt mind a few more color options, but this is just way too many. I think having a seperate color for each flag is just overkill. I like sdg as an option, and maybe a color for when you go over a certain number of raw goods (similar to autofail/sdg) but other than that i think its just too much.

[Zageron]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

To alleviate concerns, could we guard the extended colour options behind an "advanced accuracy colour control" flag or something similar? If enabled, things are locked in the engine defaults and if the extended option is enabled then everything is editable.

[justin_ator]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

To alleviate concerns, could we guard the extended colour options behind an "advanced combo colour control" flag or something similar? If disabled, things are locked in the engine defaults and if the extended option is enabled then everything is editable.

This isn't too bad of an idea, but unless it is located right next to the system default options it takes me back to my previous concern of hiding it from users and it not getting used.

Oh boyo, you've got me thinking... hehe

I kind of like the idea of even giving further customization options such as a certain color for a run to still be possible for beating your personal best (raw-goods based) or allowing colors for user-specified values, but providing those options would be a lot of work for ultimately minimal gain/usage most likely.

[Zageron]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

This isn't too bad of an idea, but unless it is located right next to the system default options it takes me back to my previous concern of hiding it from users and it not getting used.

Oh boyo, you've got me thinking... hehe

I kind of like the idea of even giving further customization options such as a certain color for a run to still be possible for beating your personal best (raw-goods based) or allowing colors for user-specified values, but providing those options would be a lot of work for ultimately minimal gain/usage most likely.

I mean that also opens the door for things like preference complexity presets, and highly visible buttons for toggling between them.
Like say "Casual", "Advanced", "Competitive".

[PrawnSkunk]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

I like the idea of having an SDG combo colour that's enabled by default, but maybe the underlying need there is an in-game raw good count.

[AutotelicBrown]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

maybe a color for when you go over a certain number of raw goods (similar to autofail/sdg) but other than that i think its just too much.

This was pretty much my thought when I was testing the new version yesterday. Tracking various flags simultaneously is pretty useless and getting a different color depending on your mistake is very distracting (not to mention the choice of colors is less than ideal).

I think the simplest way that also solves the default for beginners is having only a single additional color for an arbitrary number of raw goods and the field for that number defaulting to 0 (inactive).

[xXOpkillerXx]

Re: Feature Discussion: Combo Color

There's really no point in adding visual clutter in gameplay UI unless it's for things that are relevant to something in the game. Flags do Absolutely nothing in FFR except... well... being there in the song selection menu and taunting you. You unlock nothing with flags.

That being said, SDG has been argued to have a completion bar in the profile page. That would make the SDG color on the combo relevant.

You could also, as mentionned, have a color for PB raw goods count. The reason why that's still useful even with raw goods autofail is that some players wont use autofail because it can develop mindblocks if failing multiple times in the same spot, or simply because they'd rather play songs fully anyway.

Finally, not every "relevant thing" in the game is of interest to everybody; having these be "disabled" by default is necessary.