Reader UI of the Week: Saintstryfe's healing UI learns from other worlds
by Mathew McCurley 
Mar 13th 2012 at 12:00PM
World of Warcraft has me spoiled in regards to MMO user interfaces. While I don't like bringing up other games in my columns, it is almost necessary at times when talking about the overarching themes of the genre, something I am passionate about. Take, for instance, the original Bioware stance on DPS meters ("there will be none") and the subsequent reversal of such a plan -- I would have preferred gun-stickage.
Competition drives innovation in our marketplace, and other MMOs have been stepping up their games in recent years in regard to almost every aspect of the MMO experience. Yet WoW's UI is still leaps and bounds more customizable, flexible, and vibrant than a majority of the AAA titles on the shelf. What the heck is going wrong with the MMO industry and the UI? The Old Republic had to patch in basic UI features. RIFT, while capable in and of itself with UI customization, still suffers from constraints. The original EverQuest made you look at a book to regenerate mana faster. I realize it's not the same world as WoW, but it's still a part of the package.
... which brings me to today's interface and topic. Saintstryfe may have not intended this submission to spur the topic that it did, but I don't care. Saintstryfe, you're riding the Reader UI train now, and this train's conductor doesn't slow for no. One. No one. Except myself. I'm the conductor. Other games reveal aspects of World of Warcraft that otherwise would be left unnoticed due to repetition and routine -- a foil, if you will, to the idiosyncracies of World of Wacraft ... and maybe insight into how to fix them.
Saintstryfe, take it away:
Hi Mat and fellow WowInsider addicts!
My UI is dedicated to PvE healing. As such I value streamlining as much information as possible so that it's easily accessible without jamming up my screen in frames and timers while keeping it pretty. Obviously I drew a lot of inspiration from ElvUI/TukUI which I use on my dps and tanking toons. Unfortunately I don't have an in-raid screenshot to show it all in action.
My main, Saintstryfe - Mug'thol, is a disc priest, which means several large CD's as well as the all-important rapture to manage. This is handled by a combination of Hermes (thankfully I no longer raid lead but this was a godsend when I did), Ingela's Rapture Tracker, and Power Auras. DBM of course its own box, as missing one important mechanic can lead to a wipe. My text box is given equal stature not only because I demanad symetry, but also how useful it can be in-combat. After taking a break from wow and raiding in release Rift, I very quickly had to relearn how to raid without any addons. That meant often times the only way to know what was about to happen was to be continually glancing at the chat box for what the boss was yelling.
Finally Skada is (in my opinion) the best "meter" addon due not only to how lightweight it is, but also how mobile and thorough it is. Oh and of course Vuhdo is the greatest healing addon. Ever.
Quick list of important addons-
- kgPanels
- Vuhdo
- Stuf Unit Frames
- DBM
- Sexymap
- Quartz
- Hermes
- Ingela's Rapture Timer
- Power Auras
- Skada
- Chatter
- Bartender4
- Satrina's Buff Bars
Hope you enjoy it. While I am very satisfied with my UI, any constructive criticism would be appreciated.
Thank you very much for the email and submission, Saintstryfe. Healer UIs are always a bit of a beast to dicuss, so let's get right into it.
Sharp lines
Saintstryfe's UI is clean, no doubt, but the real slickness comes from the boxed areas that separate each addon into its own little compartment. It's a rigid structure, sure, but aligned correctly and with enough wiggle room for new UI elements. You've got a solid base.
Action bars surrounded by a stark box or barrier are always cool in my book. Maybe it's the defined look or the nice gray colors, but no matter what, I like the setup. While I'm not as excited about how high up the bottom UI cluster goes, the Vuhdo setup gets a pass for height because of the healer factor. What's the healer factor, you ask? Well, that's when you add points to a healer's effort for just being a healer because, frankly, it's a thankless job.
The Rapture Timer bars and the Hermes Cooldown Tracker are both well situated in their places, right next to meter alley and the Skadas of the world. Front and center is the aforementioned Vuhdo, rounding out the setup with a healing focal point and simple symmetry. I do have to say that I'm liking it.
As MMOs vie for the next top spot and the next best thing, innovation will play a big part in what gets added to the genre as a new staple. I am incredibly surprised that an open and customizable user interface is still not one of those things, despite existing seven years ago in World of Warcraft. WoW has had so many competitors over the years, yet none of them have smart enough to put together a comprehensive, customizable UI like Blizzard's (with notable exceptions, of course).
In fact, at this point in the MMO-building process, I would consider it an insult that game companies do not want to give us control over the user interface. Even League of Legends has a UI scaling option.
One of the biggest draws of having a supremely customizable user interface is that players suss out and fix problems that would otherwise take a development team a long time to fix and implement because of a priority queue. How many little interface tweaks and problems could have been solved in many AAA titles by users invested in the game, versus waiting and watching subscriber numbers fall because things aren't exactly like WoW?
There and back again
When Saintstryfe left Azeroth for the other worlds out there, he brought back an appreciation for certain pieces of the UI. I know that when I log into a new MMO, the first thing that I have to do is change action bars around so that I have two of them. Who uses one action bar these days? Rather, who uses one regular-sized action bar these days? There is no way everything you need can happen on fewer than 12 keys.
In this case, it was the chat window that has been redeemed in Saintstryfe's eyes. Having no addons isn't the worst part of it -- new boss notifications and screen pop-ups that happen outside the main text interface are the new normal for World of Warcraft, while other games are still clinging to the older philosophy of having all notifications appear in the chat box. WoW also puts notifications in the chat box, but there are also copious numbers of warnings for players, making it so that you can keep your eyes forward and not down at the chat box.
Raiding in other games can be a challenge because a lot of WoW's endgame design is based on a culture of raiding that included addons. The reason that dispels and cure spells are so mana-intensive now is because of the addon Decursive, which changed the structure of raiding ever since the end of the original World of Warcraft. These games borrow the raid concept from EverQuest but have systems set up that are distinctly not EverQuest-ian. While WoW began as an EverQuest wanna-be, it grew into its own culture and language, whereas other games aren't playing to their own strengths. So to recap, raiding based on WoW raiding without addons is like basing WoW raiding on only half of the content, especially in a brand new MMO.
Clean, simple, sensible
There really isn't much to say about this UI other than the fact that I like it. It's simple, and the world is a better place because dedicated healers like you are still patrolling the mean streets at night. Healing in other games is almost as ridiculous as it sounds, especially without UI scaling or configuring. RIFT is a notable exception, with a robust built-in UI configuration utility, but for many, it was just barely enough. The lessons learned in other games can and will stay with you for as long as you let them.
I'm in the process of teaching a new person how to play World of Warcraft, and believe me -- don't discount the basics. That includes your vast knowledge from other games.
Interested in getting the most out of your user interface? Come back once a week for more examples of reader UIs. For more details on individual addons, check out Addon Spotlight, or visit Addons 101 for help getting started.
Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Epcon Mar 13th 2012 12:06PM
For the reader UI of the week you guys need to get the player to set up a link to download his wtf file and addons. It's extremely difficult for most to try to download a UI and set it up the way this one looks.
twrizzo Mar 13th 2012 12:56PM
I completely agree. The users are sharing their work with us for a reason. Why should we have to spend hours trying to duplicate it, and or improve it? It would be a great service to the readers to make this available to us.
Mjv21 Mar 13th 2012 12:22PM
Its a great looking UI, but I'm not sure how functional it is. I don't think I could survive with anything less than 4 actionbars.
Ebylon Mar 13th 2012 12:31PM
I have two action bars, and to be very honest, I don't NEED to be able to look at them. If you use SexyCD, or a similar cooldown mod that condenses everything into a pretty little bar, and you can memorize your hotkeys for everything, you could easily have most of your bars hidden until you need to switch things out on it.
I've been using the same setup of hotkeys (Q, E, F, G, R, T, V, Z and the Shift variants) for years, and by now I don't even need to look at my bars to play.
mournelithe Mar 13th 2012 12:35PM
Agreed, I can understand having all your heals bound to mouseclicks, but how does he ever attack anything? Especially with the broad toolkit a priest has.
Lipstick Mar 13th 2012 1:01PM
Bartender has a wonderful ability to hide action bars and only show them while in combat. This allows you to only show crucial cool downs in a visible place and leave everything else which is just a distraction as a healer out of view.
As a priest, I really don't need to be able to see my mana burn, dps spells and buff bars typically while in combat. They're still accessible on mouse over as I know exactly where they are in the unlikely event I should ever need them but they just distract if I were to leave all 4 out.
Lipstick Mar 13th 2012 1:11PM
bah wtb, edit button.
I meant to say that bartender has an ability to hide action bars -- in or out of combat, so that they don't clutter the overall appearance of your UI. They're always there and always accessible if you mouse over them, but they are not viewable on your UI taking up valuable screen real-estate, or mental band-width as a healer. You're able to focus simply on what you need to while healing, and not DPS spells, or seldom used spells. While still making them accessible in a flash.
eric.m.harvey Mar 13th 2012 1:17PM
This set up is very similar to my Disc priests, the need for bars is very minimal with vuhdo since you can assign spells to clicks on enemy target frames. The only buttons I ever have to hit are for my cooldowns.
Heather Mar 13th 2012 1:25PM
@mournelithe:
I cannot remember the last time I actually had to do anything beyond Smite and Holy Fire to an enemy mob. I have two action bars set up for my Priest, simply to track CDs through Power Auras. The rest are hidden, and every one of my healing spells other than Power Word: Barrier are bound to mouse clicks through VuhDo.
Honestly, I probalby don't need half the indicators I have showing on my screen as is, since everything is a mouseover macro. I tend to tune them out and not even pay attention.
@Lipstick: HAI! It's Reta/Tiriél from da forums. xD
jacob.rabjohns Mar 13th 2012 2:33PM
Agreed. He specified hes a healer. Hes also a priest, so in all likelyhood he will have a holy/disc os/ms, since he never ever mentioned shadow. All you need bound for keys is anything you cant be bothered to bind to a mouse, so cooldowns and, as previously mentioned, smite and holy fire.
Theres really no need for more than 1 action bar as a healer, if you have something to track your various CD's on stuff like holy shock or riptide.
I personally like the side bar for mounts and stuff too, thats similar to mine, 1 bar for CD's and a few basic attacks, and one for buffs and mounts. The rest is click-bound.
Trickk Mar 13th 2012 2:36PM
I should have said something about this. Bartender4 has the fantastic ability to bind an entire bar to a key modifier. My offensive bar is bound to shift and cc'ish type stuff is bound to ctrl.
Saint Mar 13th 2012 2:54PM
It seems my main from my dark tanking days was the name I was using when I activated this account. And as it happens I am Disc/shadow, but I have a completely different set- up for shadow.
mournelithe Mar 13th 2012 8:11PM
Ahh, ok. Generally hidden action bars makes more sense.
I do a fair bit of questing outside of raiding still in my heal spec, so was curious to see how a simple UI like this would work. I guess you just set up the bars so your keybinds work then hide them.
How do you swap your UI for shadow then? Is it a simple profile change, or a complete reload of UI plus addons?
Also, what happens when you use a vehicle?
Bumblebee Mar 13th 2012 12:42PM
I really like this UI setup. Well done!
I'm currently in the process of culling my list of addons, since they tend to add up after some time. I play on a laptop and the idea is to make the UI work with every toon, regardless of class, spec or even if you PvP or Raid. Of course, there'll be a few tweaks for each thing, but for sanity's sake, I want to be able to access enough information to act accordingly, without over-flooding my senses. At the same time, it needs to be fairly light weight, due to hardware limitations. Any ideas on this would be much appreciated.
Sally Bowls Mar 13th 2012 12:43PM
I have way too many add ons to get this stark but it is a very nice UI.
SWTOR's announced upcoming change was interesting: they provide you an xml file of your combat log which just includes your info. So people who were saying they needed logs for theory crafting and improving get everything they need. The 1337 l2p epeen crowd do not get another Cudgel of Rudeness.
Luke Mar 13th 2012 6:12PM
Yeah I was disappointed in their reversal until I was given more information. It really is the best compromise. As much as I love the theory crafting crowd, I never wanted them in SWTOR. A small but important part of the fun in SWTOR is the fact that a lot of it is still a mystery.
Bumblebee Mar 13th 2012 12:44PM
Oh, before I forget!
Are people using Opie as much as they should? I find it really handy for marking targets, changing gear sets and using various non-combat items (teleport tabards and cloaks etc.) and accessing professions. I highly recommend it to everybody.
Lipstick Mar 13th 2012 12:58PM
This UI bares a very strong resemblance to my own, even though there are some marked differences.
I feel like someone was in my house while I was sleeping and rearranged my furniture.
/boggled.
SaintStryfe Mar 13th 2012 1:59PM
There's ANOTHER SaintStryfe out there? I'm shocked.
/not a healer.
Saint Mar 13th 2012 3:12PM
Its been my tag of choice ever since table top D&D way back when. (I played the groups token evil character who usually went about trying to secretly undo everything we had recently done.) All I can say is great minds think alike.