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Cross-post from battle.net forums/reddit
+ Show Spoiler +
I came up with an idea for UI improvement.
TL;DR: remove textures from the minimap
By adding an option for the mini-map to show just the map layout, units/buildings and vision overall players' map awareness could be improved. Frozen Temple may be the best example for that due to its range of textures from dark to light:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fGWYxR7.png)
I believe that reducing the amount of visual states on the minimap from a wide range of textures dependent on art style of the map to just three important to gameplay:
- you have vision there
- you've been there, but the state of it could have changed (fog of war)
- you haven't been there yet
may be a great quality of life improvement due to how fast-paced and attention dependent the game is. Of course the screenshot with original map and modified with a single texture on it is a rough quickly made example, it can be done much better, shadows can be toned down to show high/low ground better etc.
In the end I think that map wireframe + vision state mini-map would be an excellent default or just an alternative option for it, the other one that we have now that displays units/resources on black is not helpful, I don't know why I would ever use it.
Map awareness through mini-map is affecting several things. Being able to see what is happening on the map within the area of vision that you create for yourself is critical for either your survival, or dictates your success or failure with an attack with a part or parts of your army not being your "main" that gets most of your attention. And by being able to see I don't mean that the game should just provide you with that information by sole existence of the mini-map, but the game should have it as more of a part of the UI that is intuitive, natural and even simpler than it is now.
I personally believe that coupled with map design direction that would concentrate even more on spread-out gameplay (maybe even vision buffs as well?) the overall game could change from basing less on element of surprise but more on unit interactions (that's a bold speculation, but it makes sense in my head at least thinking in the long run). Element of surprise has been a problem and a daunting thing for beginners for years and making it easier to just see everything quicker with less attention and eye-strain required would in my opinion be better for the game. For example you may be able to miss drops less often letting you just play against the attack itself, not just instantly losing because of the fact that you missed it, it's your fault and should have kept more attention.
Thoughts?
EDIT: here's an extra small comparison of creep with potential simplified mini-map and current state:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/B5ffnOZ.png)
Edited to make more sense after good points from CatZ.
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Excellent improvement suggestion. Would become the standard quickly.
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You could also request the BW style minimap : all black with only units/buildings colored dots.
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On November 06 2016 02:19 TwiggyWan wrote:
You could also request the BW style minimap : all black with only units/buildings colored dots.
They already have that in SC2. You can toggle it with the button on the side of the minimap that's just below the ping button.
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Yeah that's definitely much cleaner and better.
On November 06 2016 02:25 eviltomahawk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2016 02:19 TwiggyWan wrote:
You could also request the BW style minimap : all black with only units/buildings colored dots. They already have that in SC2. You can toggle it with the button on the side of the minimap that's just below the ping button.
That was my first thought but pure black has always been a detriment. You don't see where you have vision, where you've been, the basic terrain (is this walkable or flying only). It's not useful and it's a carry over from the 90s.
Replace it with this suggestion.
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I would love that SO much. I hate the way mini maps look in modern games - too much clutter, they're supposed to be useful.
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Post it as well on the blizzard forum, hope blizzard will read it and use your suggestion.
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On November 06 2016 02:44 PinoKotsBeer wrote:
Post it as well on the blizzard forum, hope blizzard will read it and use your suggestion.
Yeah I posted it on tl/reddit and battle.net since Blizzard checks out all three, let's see what happens
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Norway839 Posts
1) great post!! the simplified minimap looks great 
2) no reason not to implement something like this, adding a 'minimap style' option to the Gameplay tab (or wherever) and maybe removing the terrain button entirely. Compared to everything else terrain button in particular is a really annoying mis-click
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Looks beautiful, blizzard pls
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And the simplified map images already exist, SC2 shows them to me most of the time on the loading screen, so less work for Blizzard!
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On November 06 2016 03:19 Barrin wrote:
Looks good on Frozen Temple, but I should warn that the improvement might not always be so great depending on how cliffs are used in the art style.
Also note that in the example given, the textured side is asymmetrically revealed while the untextured side is more symmetrically revealed.
I do expect that it will look better on most maps, even better than the given example sometimes, but again it might not always look that way depending on how cliffs are used in the art style. Mapmakers can learn not to confuse people with it though; they're probably familiar with what I'm talking about.
I give it a thumbs up.
Yeah I mentioned that a lot of things can be made really well like clear low/high ground separation and ramps as you are saying, I never said that the way I did it as you see on the screenshots is the way it should be. I'm just pointing out a direction and I think the less hard-on-eyes mini-map idea is just a correct way to go on improving the game.
And I tried to keep in mind that it's not only about how pretty it looks, it could also potentially minimize the number of games that end for unsatisfying reasons like missed drops or not seeing a unit coming your way when you are scouting.
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Can we have that Style for the main-view, too? For the player only, of course, the observer keeps Regularien graphics.
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There's currently an option to make it black but this looks way better.
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This is a good solid suggestion. I would hope that it would get impemented. By implemented, I mean that it isn't deliberately done with blurry textures like map preview was.
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EPT
