[2019] Let's Talk Buff and Debuff Visual Indicators

We’ve been working on creating visual indicators for buffs and debuffs.

 
Desires for such a system can be conflicting. They include;

• Providing needed information (stack count, duration, etc).
• Ensuring clarity - which are buffs? Which are debuffs?
• Preserving screen real estate - we don’t want a list of buffs and debuffs to impair your ability to see and react to what is happening on the screen.
   

Three stacks of this buff have just been applied.

 
Our approach to balancing these concerns includes;

• Having a retreating outline (green for buffs, red for debuffs) represent the remaining duration. A buff or debuff will begin with the outline completely encasing the icon. When half of the duration has expired, the outline will only be on the right side of the icon. For stack count we will display a small number in the bottom-right corner.
• Representing buffs with circular icons, while using hexagon-shaped icons for debuffs. Additionally, buffs will be shown on the left while debuffs are located on the right.
• Keeping the icons small, and positioning them above the action bar between the health and mana globes. This is to minimize the amount of the screen taken up by the UI.

Multiple shapes are used to differentiate between buffs and debuffs.

There will be information available on mouse-over. The current intention is to have that take the form of regular tooltips, however this hasn’t been implemented yet so is non-final.
 

If a single row provides insufficient space, a new row will appear above the existing one.
 

For anyone with Deuteranopia the different shapes should help. We haven’t gotten any specific settings written in stone for this particular feature just yet. If you suggest any in particular, I’d be happy to raise them at one of our future meetings.
 

Thank you for the feedback.

My personal preference would be for them to be separated, as whether I use a high Mana cost skill may be determined by whether I currently have a specific buff, whereas I would be more inclined to check the debuffs in response to what enemies are doing. Them being separated means that my focused checks involve me parsing fewer icons; it’s quicker.

Would you always be looking at both buffs and debuffs, or would that only be the case some of the time? I’ll speak with the team about this and see what we can come up with.

As a quick update on this, we do plan to offer the option to have the remaining duration in seconds displayed over the art. I’ve got a screenshot of the current design below.
 

There are five seconds remaining.

 
Let us know what you think!