[Improvement] MMORPG like experience progress bar that shows how much XP needed to next LV up

[Purkkaviritys]

I was thinking it might be nice to see how much XP is needed until the next level up. I like it how in e.g. WoW, TERA Online, and in Guild Wars 2 they show just a small progress bar that shows how much XP you've collected.

That gives an idea of how much XP you still need to collect until player hits the next level up. The bar can be a completely optional thing player can enable from the console. And it's probably not too difficult to implement.

Of course if it's too much trouble to implement, and there are more pressing issues to attend then forget about it. But almost invisible progress bar like that, orange or red or something, in bottom of the screen taking few pixels, and completely optional, probably would be a fun thing to have.

You can see the kind of progress bar I'm talking about for example in the following screenshot. (It can be hard to see. But it's the whole bottom part of the screenshot and only like 2 or 4px thick.)

[Mike K]

with the latest version of DK displaying a text string of how much EXP you get on kill of an enemy, I think something like an experience percentage or fraction could be added to the string, for example, 5 Exp for kill. 200/210 experience to level up.

as for experience bar on the hud, im not sure how far the hud editing goes, but something could be done with a text overlay maybe, or have the level number on the HUD modified with more information.

The 64 version of Daikatana had an experience counter I believe

[Frank Sapone]

It might be possible. Knightmare is more well-versed with the HUD code and might be able to pull it off.

I don't know if it's easy to hack around it being drawn if you're on a 1.2 server though. The HUD code grabs packets that are sent from the server to draw the scoreboard/hud/etc. So sending any extra data down requires a protocol change. Which we are in the middle of doing now... so anything breaking the protocol is OK at this point, but maintaining compatibility becomes challenging. This is why you haven't seen a new build in a while, but some people are testing the nightly builds.

In any case, if Knightmare is able to draw something up and make it work keep in mind it may not work on 1.2 servers if we can't find an easy way to grab the level stats data from the server.

[Daniel Gibson]

are 1.2 servers even a thing/will they be a thing in the future? aren't you and daikatananews the only ones hosting daikatana servers? let's just make a 1.3 release in the forseeable future and then update all servers to 1.3

I don't see why anyone should still use 1.2 anyway

[Frank Sapone]

Theres one other person running a server, using the linux 1.3 build.

I'm pretty much ready to release. But, if we want this bar we might have to hold off because it's probably a slight protocol change with sending down some shorts/ints/something to the status bar update code.

Yeah, nobody should be using the actual 1.2 client anymore. I don't think anyone is, thankfully. At least nobody connecting to the servers.

[Purkkaviritys]

This is embarrassing but I just realised that there already actually is a hud item that shows how much experience is needed until the next level. I have no idea how or why I haven't paid attention to it before, sorry. To be honest it's probably because it's so tiny and because I use 1080p as my resolution it didn't caught my eye. Improving the visibility of this tiny bar would also be sufficient solution.

[Frank Sapone]

There is HUD scaling in the options menu

[Purkkaviritys]

Yeah, I've known about the HUD scaling a long time by now and I've been using it for some time. But it didn't make it more visible. If it wasn't for a friend of mine who pointed during the conversation about the Daikatana that there is a XP bar in the game I probably would have never noticed it. The problem probably comes from having a tiny dark green bar against dark green background in the UI.

[Американский Шпион]

isn't it used for daikatana and not player leveling?

[Teflon1]

No, it's used for player leveling. I never used the Daikatana once in my recent run and it kept going up.

[Frank Sapone]

Teflon1 is right. To see your Daikatana stats to next level just hit tab to show the scoreboard it will show a number at the top something like:

Daikatana 1.25/5.00. 2, 3, 4, and 5 are the levels and as the sword progresses it becomes harder to level up.

[Knightmare66]

I just added a new, higher-visibility bar drawing option. How's this for improved visibility?

[Teflon1]

Looks good, but I want to see in in action before I pass final judgement.

[Purkkaviritys]

It seems better but it's still green against green background and it's fairly tiny. Furthermore there are space on the right side of the number where you could do add slightly more mass to it.

[Knightmare66]

The HUD is a monochrome-ish green design, so I won't be adding any additional colors.

I made the bar a bit wider, added an outline, and shifted the number/label over. Good enough?

[Американский Шпион]

looks pretty awesome, gj!

[Purkkaviritys]

That's awesome, Knightmare66! That most-likely solves the user interface related usability issue I'm talking about. I think you've done a good job!