Interfacing with the Interface

There are are parts of the interface that have even long-time vets saying, "really? all this time, I never knew that!" And there are things that I think many of us, particularly those who started out as casuals, struggled to figure out. This guide is a visual dictionary of sorts to help people identify on-screen elements and what they mean.

While this guide may help, my druthers would be that the devs create and interactive on-screen, screen element tutorial.

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. It has been taking a long time to get, crop, upload and code in all the images. Not to mention sort everything out in a semi-coherent organized fashion with meaningful text.


Parts of your Heads Up Display (HUD)

• Minimap
  • question mark = return here to complete last step of a Journal objective, usually for a reward
    
  • exclamation point = get a journal mission here, or reset a mission
    
  • Yellow = objective
    
  • Green = waypoint
    
  • Blue = ping
    
  • Red = non-player character (NPC) enemy
    
  • Red with diamond or with caret = player enemy
    
  • White house = Safehouse (police station for Heros, nightclub for Villains)
    
  • Hexagon with a swirl = Teleporter
    
  • Price Tag = vendor
    
    • I'm sure there's a rhyme and reason to the colors of the tags, but I've yet to spend time trying decipher them. Orange seems to be PvP related.
    • It should be noted that there's no way of knowing if these are above or below you. This can make them particularly difficult for new Villains to find certain vendors in the Hall of Doom.
  • White dot (minimap), Isosceles triangle (map) = That's you, silly.
    
    • On the minimap, the area coming out of the dot is the direction you're facing and your view. On the map, the triangle points the direction you're facing.
    • Other color dots and carets are members of your group. If they are out of your area, it will show a blue triangle, and a caret/arrow of their color on the edge of the map closest to them.
      

• Minimap Symbols:
  • Dreidel = how damaged your gear is (I think it's supposed to be a picture of a damaged shield)
    Blue = slightly damaged
    Yellow = needs repair
    Red = broken and ineffective
  • League Symbol = status of your queue..
    Yellow = Waiting for Your Response
    Blue = Waiting for someone in your group to queue, or queue to process.
    Green = Queue is ready, waiting for everyone (even those who will join you from outside your premade group) to confirm.
  • Anchor = your inventory is full (I think it's supposed to be some sort of hole with an arrow coming out of it)
    
  • Down/Up Arrow = your clamp
    
  • Mail icon means you have unread mail.
    
  • Radar Enhancers
    Collections, Investigations and Briefings are visible on the minimap for a short time
    Exobits are visible on the minimap for a short time
  • Ping Arrow/Mission Arrow/Waypoint Arrow
    
  • Minimap Beacon
    
    Still not quite sure when the whole minimap beacons, does that just mean you entered another official area (eg Clocktower, Union Station, Crime Alley, etc)?

• How to tell where things are
  • If something is below you, it will show a caret pointing down
    This is a non-player character (NPC) enemy below me
    
  • If something is above you, it will show a caret pointing up
    
  • If something is on your level, it will show as a dot or, if it's an objective, an X
    NPC enemy
    Objective
  • If something is not in your vicinity, the minimap will have an arrow on the edge. It only does this for objectives, waypoints, pings, and nodes. Respectively, yellow, green, light blue for the first three. For the latter, it depends on the status of the node: owned is dark blue, contested or un-owned is white, and captured is red. For players off map, see the section about Player frames. PvP Unowned or Contested Node
    PvP owned node
    PvP enemy held node
    Ping
    Objective
    Waypoint
  • Orange area
    
    When you have an objective to travel to a certain area, that area will be outlined on your map and on your minimap in orange. Another meaning of this is that your other objectives should all be available inside this area (they do not have to be in the area to count, but it's the best place to look for them).
• Loadout Bar
• Chat Window

RESERVED

• Player Frames
  
  • Sound symbol
    • If there is a symbol, it means that the person is in your chat channel, has chat enabled, and has a configured output device
    • If the symbol is green, it means that sound is being registered, even if it's minor feedback (eg: they have their TV on, and it's sounding through the microphone even if you can't hear it)
  • Stance symbol
    • = Damager = Controller = Tank = Healer
    • No symbol indicates that they are in a different form (eg: healer in insectoid form, damager in wolf form ... neither will have a symbol). Or, no symbol will be present in certain PvP instances, such as Legends.
    • There can be a delay in the stance that appears if they have recently changed stance with their Armory.
  • Equipped Combat Rating
    • This is the gear score of what they are wearing. If you see zero or 30, it might mean that they were just in a PvP or Legends instance.
    • This is different from their overall gear score, which determines their eligibility for an instance, and the CR of their pets.
  • Health / Power
    • Yellow is Health, Blue is Power as usual. Supercharge is not shown.
    • There can be a delay between the health that appears here, and the health that appears above their heads. The latter is more accurate.
  • Name
    • Name colors match the color of your group's dots on your minimap, provided they are in the same phase/area/instance.
      
      From left to right, I can tell which off-map caret represents Ah.. Ga.. and De..
    • Name colors you see are not necessarily the same colors that others in your group see. (eg: "the guy in yellow" above is Ah.. for me, but De.. could be yellow when Ga.. is looking at it)
    • Generally, though it is often not the case, the person with the bright yellow or orange name is the group lead. I was grouped with Ah.. above, and he had lead before we went into the instance.
• Pet Frame
  
  • Only the last pet you called out will have their bar show.
  • The blue bar represents their power. Pets regenerate power the same as players, either by using their weapon (Watcher), or through passive regeneration, ie: waiting.
  • Pets can be healed by anything that heals NPCs.
  • A pet has the same Combat Rating as your equipped Combat Rating, so a pet scales with you. That is the number to the right of their power bar.
• Parts of your name bar (Health Frame) and opponent's name bar:
  • Health / Power / Supercharge (along with how to build a SC ... when I started playing and Blizzard was 100% I thought it was just something awarded to me once a day)
  • Buff / Debuff Symbols
    Red indicates a Debuff, Green indicates a Buff. You want green under your name and red under your enemy's name.
    • Healing
      Healing received (if you're a controller, you want to debuff the thing getting healed, not doing the healing, unless it's a healer in PvP)
    • Defense
      Buff means blocking or shielded, Debuff means armor defense reduced.
    • Damage
      Damage out.
    • Movement
      When debuffed, you're grounded or slowed.
    • Damage Modifier
      
    • PoT
      
  • Movement Mode indicator
    
    (when I first started I had no clue what L3 was. I thought pressing my joystick into my controller would break it). Having an extra part sticking outside the left side of your Health Frame means you're in movement mode, not having it means you are not in movement mode. Movement mode means continuous movement and, if you have skill purchased, swifter movement (eg: Supersonic for flight)
  • PvP Indicator
    
    This indicates that you can be attacked by enemy players. Either you are in a PvP phase, in a PvP instance, are in the middle of a duel, have your PvP flag on, are in a PvP mission area (Diamond Heist / Ring War), or have touched a mysterious meteor (which, hopefully, will return to the game at some point).
  • Stance / Level / Combat
    • Stance (role)
      = Damager = Controller = Tank = Healer
      You start off the game as a Damager, and receive the ability to switch stance when you're level 10. Everyone can be a Damager (often referred to as DPS, because effective Damage Dealing is measured in Damage Per Second), but which role you can take on is determined by what powerset you've chosen.
    • The number shows what level you are. Once you are off the Brainiac Ship, you are level 3, and the game goes up to level 30. Levels are awarded based on XP (experience points). This is different than your Combat Rating, which is a gearscore based on the level of (attuned) gear you own.
    • If this is blinking red, it means you are "in combat." While in combat
      • you can not switch role (stance) except with an Armory once every five minutes
      • you can not change your loadout
      • your passive power and health regeneration is greatly reduced.

Other screen elements

• Hitcount
• Objectives
• Reticle (Target)
• Warnings and Information
• Rally Timer
• Quick Menu Indicator
  When I first started, I had no clue what this shark mouth eating a safe with a weird handle was. It's trying to indicate that you need to press up on your directional pad (D-Pad) to get to the quick menu, because it needs you to respond. At that time, there was only the first indicator here for all D-Pad inquiries.
  • Queue
    
  • Kick
    
  • Choose Loot / Group Loot
    

Game Visuals

• Immunity
• Feint
• Skull Chevron

Interactive Elements

• Smash icon
  This is an object target that can be broken. Often it should be broken, but not always.
  • It can be damaged by weapon attacks
  • It can be damaged by certain powers (examples: briar, Haunt in ScH, soul well in damage stance, terror tendrils)
  • It can be damaged by Shock Soders. Like powers, this is inconsistent. If a smashable target is a crucial objective, it is less likely to be susceptible to Shock Soders (eg: Totems in Throne of the Dead can not be destroyed with Shock Soders)
• Base circles
  Base is a catch-all term for customizable areas like Lairs and League Halls.
  • Blue/Yellow Circles
    
    When placing items, items attached to a circle will stay placed when relocating the base, and will appear in group content, such as Lair battles or League Hall instances.
  • Pink Circles
    Only Amenities (Teleporter, Armory, Vendor, Mail, R&D, etc) may be placed on the pink circles. And, they can only go on the pink circles.

Messages

• Current objectives will be in the lower-right
• Pay attention to red words in the center: Avoid Sonic Blast, Countermeasures Activated, etc
• Hitcount (explain that the tiers aren't there just to cheer you on, like I thought when I started)
• blue tips (pvp events), white tips (informational tips like go to a safehouse vendor to repair), gray tips (button tips, like press to gather)

Symbols beyond the screen in front of you

• color of crosshairs being range and item targeted
• red skull chevron means danger, special attack
• flashing blue means you can interact with it, green means you can pick it up or weaponize it
• effects that remain on a target represent power interactions
• various cog symbols ... and it's not always good to turn them
• lightning symbol (smash-able. shock soders or repetitive damage will break.)
• number colors: might / precision / cr (pet) / heal / power / and so forth
• etc

RESERVED

At this point, people are welcome to submit shots for me to include to help the work progress, and give suggestions for organization so it's less like a scroll-until-you-find-the-picture list.

Really, all this work, not one comment yet? It must be because I'm editing and not bumping.

Good job!

20 image limit per message. Hope I reserved enough. Let the shuffling begin:

Man this is tedious.

It is, very. I still have a guide where I have to change over 50 links before the old domain is removed. A nightmare.

Anyways: Awesome guide. Here pics from my guide you may use.
(and if the forum boots me AGAIN, deleting all text, after adding more than 10 picture links I'M GONNA FREAK OUT!)




















For the newer ones (above not sorted at all) I might have higher-res versions.

found some stuff in my screenshots. Here you go:

Very helpful. Thank you. Hope this helps someone. Had planned to do it, then them making fun of someone (was it Tikkun?) on the livestream of Desecrated Cathedral upset me into actually starting it.

There are some symbols of which I don't know the meaning myself....

And please add the supercharge, xp and SP bar.
I saw Le'ts Plays where the newbie thought the supercharge bar is the xp bar. They did not level up when that was full...

this has helped me very much thank you for the info..I might pester you a few times..haha