The only thing that really sticks out to me so far is the weapon and scroll location. I'm used to menus, links and things for websites being on the top left side of the screen. With the updated layout, they're on the right and it's kind of throwing me off because I just want to pick weapons and go. :'D

True, you do make a point. I'll consider it whenever his level actually catches up lol

I think I understand what you mean now. The only problem I can see with that and kinda just a problem in general with having pre-selected weapons is if you accidentally click next turn before choosing the weapons you wanted for that turn and run the risk of losing the battle. Like if I wanted to blast mid battle, heal or block with a shield, but forgot to select it becaus most turns I was using something else. You could argue that out of muscle memory or habit you manually still select the wrong thing, but you're forced to give selecting a little more thought when done manually as opposed to already selected for you.

I'm lazily editing the new battle page to look a little different/better (for me) and I wanted to point out that I think it's amusing that the invisible man minion is used as the placeholder when you don't have potions equipped. :P

And, I am liking the scroll dropdown, because I can just get into it, click the first letter of the scroll that I want to use, and go. It's maybe a little more involved than just clicking an image, but I know the names of the things that I use, so it's working just fine (for me).

- first of all thank you for your response. In your time here I have noticed that you are always willing to listen which is very much appreciated.

I'm so glad to hear that you understand the importance of visuals and seeing items at a glance.

I would like to mention that, for me, the old layout lets me see everything at a glance - weapons, health scrolls, damage, battle text and I need that. Seeing part of it at a time means I have to reassemble that in my head and I am not able to do that during a serious battle. So changing to say, a pop-up menu with graphics for scrolls would be an improvement, but wouldn't fix my personal problem.

And please save us all from from old messy legacy code (you would have totally cringed to see the code to make telephones work - some of it was actually written in the equivalent of assembler - shudders, and most developers found the database so daunting they would just reproduce part of it making maintenance a true nightmare)

I'm not sure I made myself clear (maybe I used a newer technical term incorrectly?) I am not at all surprised to hear that the old battle code is messy and you need to redo it rather than revise it. I was trying to ask whether it was possible to essentially take a picture of the old page, throw away all the messy stuff that implemented it, and write completely new stuff to draw the same picture (possibly with some streamlining, better graphics,, submit on top ...) I was sort of making the assumption that if you are writing from scratch you can make a page look however you want, but also wanting to be understanding of the fact that there are sometimes other technical reasons why this isn't possible.

So it's not that I don't have any trust in you - I actually have a quite a lot because of what I have seen you already do, or even that I want or expect you to provide a full technical explanation. (Although you are certainly right that, I would always love to know more about how things work underneath, maybe part of why I wanted to be a developer to begin with? :-) But I know that's neither possible, nor reasonable.) And just FYI, I never assume that making any sort of change - or even developing something new is easy. I've seen too many times when it wasn't. That's sort of why I asked. It was just intended to be a more simple question than it sounded like, trusting you to know the code and the interfaces and just say something like - "that picture just can't be done on mobile" or "the way the code communicates makes that too hard" (like my understanding of why more clicks can't be removed between BQs right now).

For what it's worth, with a little explanation (the short version) of why something happened and some up front reassurance that feedback is heard and further improvements will come, I am very willing to be patient. More so, because I have been at your end of the code and truly understand it takes time to do all this (and despite previous banter I am guessing you have to sleep eventually :-) I even know that you have to have a life outside of work.)

Ooh, battling changes! Here are my thoughts:

• I love that weapons are auto-selected (although I had to completely reverse both my weapon and scroll sets as I always selected from the right, so I'm still getting used to that)

• I love that the battling screen is more compact

• I like that it loads pretty quickly!

• I'm not sure that I like only being able to see one scroll, (I always varied my initial choice hugely) although I do like that that makes the screen more compact. Hmm.

• I really dislike that the 'make turn' button and 'see results' buttons aren't in the same place/aren't the same size, so I have to move my mouse after a few initial moments of confusion

• the new quick battling layout REALLY makes it obvious that the filler pages are a huge waste of time: one to start the next level, one to select the next opponent/skip them, one to select your pet/scrolls/weapons (I would LOVE for the first pet to be auto-selected!), one to show EXP results and one to give your prize. Most of these pages could be amalgamated and I would be ridiculously happy if they were! We don't need all these filler pages when battling.

Thank you for all your hard work! ^_^

Hai, sorry to bother I'm just not sure where would be the best place to post this! Firstly, the changes are nice, it's an adjustment, but I'm growing to like them [especially the speed!]~

My main question is that did Malerias Clawed Glove somehow get changed during these changes [intentional or not?] It used to have a chance to curse your pets with hunger, which I used to make my 'lil piggy hungry all the time! I just used in in over 60 battles and never once got the hunger curse, only HP or happiness, when normally I'd have gotten it at least 3 - 4 times in those battles.

I'm only asking since you'd just made the changes to hunger showing up when you fed, and along with the battle changes, so I was curious if something got switched off or anything? Thanks for all you do for us, you've been so amazing so far! ♥

[EDIT]So I checked my Hunger just a few minutes after posting this and it was down to 1/10! So maybe it's a slow cache issue?

I have 3 curses/blessings now, the challenger has 5. Apart from the Frozen icon being ridiculously small, mine are in the second row, his in the first and second. Weird.

Important battle text: which item did the Somas blast? Scroll, scroll, scroll... Letting aside, that almost all the battle info is/maybe important (which/how many icons dealt or blocked by what, how much stats gained, how much damage, how much heal,...) My damage and healing info is wayyyy off the challengers', not comparable.

The right side of the page is almost empty except for those doubled selected weapons, while the left is super filled but mega condensed and needs much more and of course repeated scrolling in order to find and compare.

All very unfortunate, time consuming and off putting :-(

Granted, one hit battles are faster, mindlessly hitting "make your turn" and "see result" buttons.

I tried a few battle quests and I'm impressed at how fast battling is now. The pictures seem bigger than they were last night and I appreciate that due to medical reasons.

( I currently have Bell's Palsy on the right side of my face that took out my right eye and paralyzed the right side of my face until the facial nerves swelling goes down so the feeling will come back, plus dealing with Multiple Sclerosis on top of that). (Also I apologize if my first post seemed a bit harsh it wasn't meant to be - I was freaked out because I couldn't see my battle pets battle set - my bad).

I was wondering will the sP rewards be returned to the battle quests like they use to be long ago pretty please?

Please keep up the great work and have a great day ❤.

I just tested the new layout with Natasha that has the chance to generate bullets. On my phone, the bullet generation stretches the weapons column and everything beneath it (i.e. Drop downs and next turn button) past the border outline. I will try it on my laptop to see if the same thing happens. It looks like weapons that generate other weapons will push everything past the borders. Maybe you can change it a bit so that the column borders follow the overflow when weapons are either stolen or generated and you have more than 8 weapons equipped. Or maybe make the weapon box scrollable so only 8 weapons are visible at one time unless you hover over it and scroll.

[edit]

Ok same thing is happening on my laptop but definitely takes more generated weapons than when battling on the phone.

This is honestly so amazing??? I am so deeply, vastly, wildly in love???

I can only dream that the pet/weapon select page can be similarly condensed somehow.

So after actually using it some more to do BQs today, this format doesn't feel too bad. It could still use some improvement, but it's got some nice things about it. I like being able to see my health and who's frozen and all of that stuff without having to scroll back and forth to select weapons and such.

One thing I would suggest (if it hasn't already been suggested) is moving the "Game Over" text and button to the top of the selecting weapons section instead of the bottom, if possible. Right now it's not as obvious right away when the battle has ended, since on desktop I actually have to scroll a little before seeing the red button. I liked that in the previous format the Game Over button was at the top of the page, it's easier to see right away.

This sounds kind of complicated. What if there was just a little lock icon next to each weapon slot, and clicking it would pre-select that weapon in that slot at the start of the next turn? Then you could unlock it at any point to clear it.

We are a chatty group. I mean, do you not see how fast the battle chat thread goes? lol Thank you both for your quick response and concerns!

OK so after rearranging my stoof I did my BQs in 14 min. I guess it is faster. I did find myself just mindlessly clicking for the first 25 challengers tho. I am glad that the potions are preset to none. Not like I use them often except for non BQ stuff. As for scrolls & weapons ... I only had to use a diff ones first go a couple of times. I still cba to move my mouse over to scroll to see the damage & whatnot. I also got rid of the Arena & Weapons font/boxes so now my mindless clicking is really without scrolling.

For me, Its the initially change. But after doing my BQs I dont mind it. I do hope that atleast the potions get some sort of visual. The pylonics do it to me. I know those by colour only.

Thank you for these changes! I like the compact window. It was confusing at first with the "use spell" because it has a ? and it looks like you have to DO something to use it, but overall they all seem to work really well.

Current UI objectives:

• Minimise scrolling
• Make everything visible within the screen

Layout assumes:

• Set has maximum 8 weapons at any given time.
• All battlers have a scroll they will definitely use on the first turn.
• All battlers have an infinite using scroll that justifies pre-selection for scrolls.

Strengths:

• Quick
• Fast for when battling is repetitive
• Everything visible within the screen

My criticisms and suggestions:

1. Scrolling is an inherent part of web experience. Unless it is excessive, it doesn't need complete banishment. The current layout's shortcoming is the location of the button. The layout assumes that there are max 8 weapons at any time, and when OPB items are consumed, the box only condenses not expands. This ignores item-generators (Natasha and The Ether) that will generate even more weapons and stretch the box over long battles, further pushing the submit button from view. Here's an example with Ether:

Stealers such as Truth Serum and stealing scrolls can also add more items to the weapon box. The layout's shortcoming has been evident through the requests for the Submit/End Battle button to be moved up, or cloned at the top to avoid the scrolling. Since scrolling cannot be avoided, rather than eliminating it, I find it better to work out the priorities: elements that we can bear with some scrolling, and those that we must do without it. My question is, which of the following elements where scrolling is tolerable?

• Curses and blessings
• Weapon box. Can we tolerate scrolling for the box but only when there are three rows or more of weapons?
• Battle text

2. Everything don't have to be visible all at once on the screen. The current layout is a bit too ambitious in trying to fit everything into the visible part of the window, thus the cramped look. From my experience, there are always elements that battlers consider more important than others. These differ among us, but I believe many will sacrifice the less important for the more practical. When we've worked out the universally less important, they can be pushed to the hidden part of the screen, but still accessible with some scrolling or toggling. For example, let's look at 's personalised layout for the old UI: WEAPONS POTIONS SCROLLS SUBMIT TURN

NAMES IMAGES HP BARS BATTLE TEXT In this layout, the priority was made clear: the important/ practical elements were always visible, while the rest were further down the page, hidden. The scrolling was still there, but he wasn't forced to do it to hunt for the Submit button, a scroll, or a potion

... which leads to my suggested layout (Right click +Open in new Tab for larger view):

3. Other assumptions about sets and battling:

• 'Don't we all have a scroll that we will use for the majority of the battle?'. Fact is: not everyone has an Aftershocks or OC in their set. Some battlers don't even have Divine Denizhen or Terra Focujin. Some have limited AP or fund, opt for OPB defensive or freezing scrolls, and prefer to reserve them until much later for emergency blocks or freezes. Pre-selection is great if you have an infinite scroll, but inconveniences other battlers who can't yet afford it. Pre-selection requires more work for these battlers because, instead of remembering to select a scroll only a few times during a battle, now they have to remember to deselect a scroll every turn of a battle, until there is reason to use one. Imagine the inconvenience of them going through a 20-turn battle with only one or two OPB scrolls. Smaller pets with fewer APs and less fancy scrolls fight longer and harder battles; I don't support making it harder for them for our convenience. My suggestion is, though I don't know how feasible it is, to have our choice memorised for later turns. Scrolls aren't pre-selected, but when we choose one, that scroll will be used for every subsequent turn until we switch to another scroll or run out of copies (for OPB scrolls).
• I also support the option to choose between pre-selection and manual selection. I'm not in favour of the first for many reasons I have listed, but don't want to take away what other battlers find convenient.

In complete agreement with everything you've said. I was testing with Natasha and the turkey quill, but was hoping someone with the ether could test it out since that is a constant +2 weapon generation. When fighting someone like prakerash, the ether becomes your own worst nightmare.

The new layout makes it hard to follow battle text and is not intuitive to anyone new to battling. They might not realize battle text is important because most of it is hidden or find it a hassle to search for key words because its scrunched to one side of the screen. The new layout needs to find a healthy balance between making battling fun for new and old battlers.

I think all of my suggestions and concerns have been covered. In theory, it's easier to whip through BQ's, but in reality, I ended up making a third battle set that had my freezer and stealer in the first two spots. Natasha generating bullets causes everything to squench up. Would love to see another option for scrolls other than drop-down menu.

Regardless, I think the changes are a step in the right direction. :)