Game Development: UI Scaling

[MagicManICT]

But what will you do when 8K screens will become common? Draw them all over again? When will we get vectorized graphics?

To be fair, beyond a certain pixel density, we probably don't really need actual per-pixel information anyway, and if you mean to be playing Haven on your 80" 8K television, you probably don't need or want UI scaling to begin with.

If my suggestions mean anything, I'd strongly look into how much extra it would take to do this. We got 4k displays in well under half the time it to get full HD (under 10 years vs nearly 20 years), and 8k was nearly half the time to get out as 4k. Cell phone displays are driving this pixel size push, and we'll have the next size smaller pixels available for large displays available entirely too soon for those willing to drop the money on upgrades. The 16k standard already exists, and can be achieved with certain technologies and willingness to do the necessary tinkering. (There just isn't a single display, either desktop or wall mounted, available yet.)

Good update, we need polish like this.

Agreed. I know a few people will be rejoicing over this.

[loftar]

If my suggestions mean anything, I'd strongly look into how much extra it would take to do this. We got 4k displays in well under half the time it to get full HD[...]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily disputing that. Just, as I said, what matters is the final pixel density. The current intended pixel density of the pre-UI-scaling resources is ~100 DPI. I'd argue that increasing pixel densities beyond 200 DPI isn't extremely meaningful for visual fidelity, and certainly beyond 300 DPI it's pure placebo.

It sounds like Jorb is planning to draw new graphics at 4× the previous scale, which would yield full fidelity even at 400 DPI. Even if we do get displays with higher pixel densities than that (the only real reason for which would be that it gives higher numbers for the marketing material, and a plausible excuse for selling more powerful and more expensive GPUs just to keep up), it doesn't really matter if the graphics are scaled up to that resolution, because you won't be able to see the difference anyway, at least not without a loupe.

Conversely, if you're using a large display with a high pixel-count, but which doesn't sport a particularly high pixel density, there shouldn't be any real need to scale the graphics, at least not beyond a reasonably small factor.

[NeoBasilisk]

congrats to all those with meme 4k monitors

[jordancoles]

Hey, you finished UI scaling before oldschool Runescape did

Nice to have this out of the way

As far as siege goes, the entire siege system is such a convoluted mess at this point that only people willing to test themselves and write down timers/mechanics are able to properly participate in it. Can we just scrap it all and start over at this point? And if that day does come, can you please DOCUMENT ALL OF THE CHANGES in one living document that changes as needed

[SnuggleSnail]

I don't think siege is convoluted, other than excessive randomness(like how catas are meant to counter archery towers, but sometimes the towers outrage the cata(or how it can take anywhere between 4-10 archery tower shows to kill a ram)). I'm pretty sure the only reason it's not commonly understood is because nobody interacts with it. Very few people seem interested in siege in practice.

I think public documentation of key mechanics would be really good for the game, though

[ElSid]

Finally I don't need to mantain UI scaling, thanks for fixing and merging it. But when the changes will be pushed in the master branch https://github.com/dolda2000/hafen-client/commits/master? I see them in the "old" branch https://github.com/dolda2000/hafen-client/commits/old, but picking specific commits from there is not very convenient.

[loftar]

Finally I don't need to mantain UI scaling, thanks for fixing and merging it.

Thanks a lot for submitting it! It was really helpful.

But when the changes will be pushed in the master branch https://github.com/dolda2000/hafen-client/commits/master?

Sorry, I thought I had pushed it already, but apparently I hadn't. Should be there now.

[jordancoles]

I'm pretty sure the only reason it's not commonly understood is because nobody interacts with it. Very few people seem interested in siege in practice.

There aren't many occasions where you would want to interact with the siege mechanics and the few times that people have actually done it I'd bet have been spread out far enough that changes to the system were made in between.

Most people I've spoken with have just lost track of what works/doesn't work, timers and other mechanics and unless you go back a few years of update threads and update the base information as you move further into the future, you don't really know what is impossible/possible

A document with all current siege mechanics would help a lot. The wiki writers would thank you at the very least

[jordancoles]

Finally I don't need to mantain UI scaling, thanks for fixing and merging it.

Thanks a lot for submitting it! It was really helpful..

ElSid statue when

[Massa]

this update was highkey scuffed as fuck and honestly a bad decision no one asked for

i'd take more birds and wounds at this point but man you guys broke every client that made the game tolerable lmao