It separates DLC characters from On-Disc characters, allowing for a clear distinction and identification(and considering DLC may not even be valid in anyone outside of locals or friends-only makes further sense, but that is a debate for another time). Whether or not you choose not to download any DLC, the main CSS remains unaffected, which gives familiarity and simplicity to the design. You don't want your design to be overly... Cluttered, so to say.
And a DLC extra screen makes it less simple, less familiar and more cluttered.
I think that if DLC is in, we may simply see the layout change when DLC characters are added. Really we don't know, as it depends on both the size of the final roster and the number of DLC characters planned.
As a man far more intelligent than I said once, 'My work as a designer is not done when there is nothing more to add, but instead when there is nothing more to take away.'
This is just a non sequitur.
Check your math again, at least with regard to the 3DS screen. It uses a 400x240 layout, which is 5:3.
Ok, there are 400:240 pixels. And the number of rows and columns is not 5:3. There are borders too
which only appear between columns, and not at the left or right. The name bar at the bottom effectively acts as a border between rows.
If the column separators are 2 pixels, then the ratio should be 65:60 in terms of pixels (6 icons x 65 pixels + 5 column separators x 2 pixels = 400 width). The height would be 240/4 = 60.
That's a ratio of 65:60, or 13:12. I don't know why you keep saying 5:3 and 16:9 over and over.
What this has to do with anything, I don't know. My point was just that they're not using the same icon shapes.
The Wii U version likely has 16:9 given that it's an HD platform and that's the standard.
What the hell are you talking about? The Wii U version isn't taking up the entire screen for the roster, so the resolution is irrelevant. I simply measured the box on CSS and it's nowhere near 16:9. It's approximately 4:3, like I said.
While the fact that the icons can be scaled is true to an extent, you don't want 16:9 elements on a 5:3 layout, because it looks like trash. It would look stretched and distorted. The cells would need to be 5:3 to conform to the 3DS's display, and if they're at that resolution, why not use them to fill the screen?
Again, what the hell are you talking about?
Nothing I said implied that they should use 16:9 proportions on the 3DS, or use the same pictures pixel for pixel or something like that.
My point is that the 3DS leaves no extra space - the layout was clearly chosen simply to use the entire space while keeping the icons at a reasonable size. The Wii U CSS, however, has plenty of extra space. They could've changed the proportions if they wanted to, or made the roster grid taller (making room for 5 rows) or whatever if they wanted to. Thus the Wii U CSS is a much stronger indicator of the roster size.
It's not excess information, it's quick and easy access to see how many characters you have.
Who are you talking to? Where is this "excess information" thing coming from? Because I didn't say that. You're making these weird points in response to things that nobody said.
Being able to at-a-glance is critical for design, and a scrolling CSS just can't do that as there's too much investment on the viewer. Let's not forget that people want to be able to browse web pages with minimal scrolling. Instant information, as it were. That mentality would translate to the CSS as well. The best UIs are the ones that require minimal fuss.
People also like things to not be tiny. Having the character icons be big enough is also important, and it's something you're dismissing on the basis of nothing but your own design preferences. Fitting them all on one screen has a benefit, but it also has a cost.
And while you keep insisting that DLC will be a separate page, it violates everything you're talking about, except to a greater extent.
There's tension between the two, like I said. The choice is not as obvious as you're making it out to be.
True, but that's because you don't want to make the icons too large, as they would overwhelm the rest of the design on the screen. The real estate of the 3DS screen is at a premium, to say the least. There's no excess pixels for extraneous design to exist in the 3DS version's CSS, which is fine, because that's meant to display. It's not meant to showcase the rest of the action buttons, like going back to the main menu, who has what character, DLC toggle, etc. The 3DS has the luxury of a second screen(that is also touch!) to handle interfacing. The top screen need only concern itself with displaying.
All of which is obvious and irrelevant.
The Wii U doesn't have that, it has to be able to show all of those elements I just listed on a single screen, so of course the icons won't take up every last inch.
That's exactly my point. It means that they had freedom to design the CSS boxes to require minimal modification between the final roster display and the demo/starter roster display.
Which means that the Wii U roster screen gives us more information, because they had more freedom to adjust the shape and size of the boxes.
Two primary aspect ratios of landscapes have developed over the years. 4:3 in old-school TVs, and 16:9, the current standard. The 3DS is a unique creature, being 5:3, so the icons are shaped to match. I envision the Wii U following suit with either 4:3 or 16:9 CSS cells.
Again, with the weird aspect ratio obsession. The boxes on the 3DS are not 4:3, 5:3 or 16:9.
The shape of the boxes on the Wii U does not need to be 4:3 or 16:9. Why would you assume that they would be?
This would actually be one of the easier things to deal with. Be rid of the number within the player 'chip' as it were, and have them just be their color. Maybe 10-20px diameter. Use the bottom screen to define each color's ownership(P1 Red, P2 Blue, P3 Yellow, P4 Green, CP Gray(perhaps varying tints of it depending on placement, like grayish-red for CP1, grayish-blue for CP2, etc etc)), and go from there. This also has the aspect of being easily worked with in case of problems such as color-blindness, as a colorblind mode could be easily instituted to facilitate use. Previous Smash titles allowed for crowded tiles of overlapping chips, and I don't see that changing here.
That was actually not the most important point...
The point was that the icons being that small is not necessarily desired for other reasons.
Scrolling is more work than just looking. Plus, it allows DLC characters to be set apart from on-disc characters by giving them their own CSS that's a toggle on top of the normal CSS.
Viewing a separate DLC screen is more work than just looking. You're presenting that as a
positive while complaining that scrolling is a fatal flaw in a menu.
You don't seem to notice when you put contradictory statements right next to each other.
a scrolling menu that takes time to decipher(increasingly so if DLC and On-Disc characters are on the same CSS!).
That's not what decipher means.
Taking a little bit more time to view the whole thing does not mean it requires effort to decipher.
