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DusterBuster
Zumari Force Projection
Caldari State
1
   |
Posted - 2013.03.07 22:11:00 -
[1] - Quote
Hiya everybody,
I decided to make a series of threads addressing of some of the most common complaints I hear when asking other players about their opinions of the game. The people I asked ranged from friends I had play for the first time, to experienced Dust players, to experienced EVE players who gave Dust a try. I am not going to provide the issue themselves, as well as try to come up with some good solutions. I know I am not perfect however, and some of these solutions may be straight-up bad. If that is the case, please provide some constructive criticism, and maybe we will be able to come up with some better solutions. I also know that many of these things are already in the pipeline, but I am going to include them anyway for completeness. And finally, I am not going to include any balance issues (though there definitely are some) as there are countless other threads that beat these to death. Some of these threads may have lists (!) (Sorry CCP), but they will all contribute to the same overall theme.
A couple questions I may receive:
Q: Why in the world do you feel important enough to make multiple new threads for this, you noob?
A: I have been playing Dust since the closed beta, with multiple different characters playing many different styles. Throughout that time, I have seen the immense progress CCP has made with Dust, and I would like to see it go even further. This is a beta, which has a sole purpose of providing the developer with feedback on its prototype, before releasing a final product.
Q: QQ more, l2p noob, etc.
A: Firstly, that isn't a question. Secondly, I have been playing EVE for years, and have subsequently been bombarded with some of the finest in the art form of trolling, and know how to deal with it. This Tomfoolery you bring here from other console games is no match for my superior anti-flame coating. And thirdly, this thread is doing exactly what I promised to do when I signed up for the beta, which is provide feedback to the development team on the status of their product, so they can figure out what the players want and improve it.
And, check out some of my other threads in the series:
#1: The Mercenary Quarters User Interface
#2: In Game Controls (not yet published)
#3: Information Display (not yet published)
#4: Level Design (not yet published)
#x: (More to come later?)
Now, with all of that out of the way, lets move on to the actual content of this thread:
#1: The Mercenary Quarters User Interface.
This is one of the hardest sections of my series to write. It is obvious that there are some serious issues with the current user interface. Not so obvious however are the ways to fix it. Below I have listed some popular issues, as well as some possible solutions. There is a massive amount of information that needs to be displayed however, and a limited way to access it. Ultimately it is going to be up to CCP to make some miracles happen, and I hope they have some very talented UI designers on their team.
Put plain and simply, the current user interface is "clunky". It takes multiple stages to complete even the simplest of tasks, and feels like it has poor integration with the controller. For example, lets say you want to add someone from your contacts list to your squad. First, you have to go into your squad menu (1 keystroke), and select "invite player" (2 keystrokes), this brings you to your contacts tab, where you first have to select the square your contacts are in (?) (3 keystrokes) then choose the character you want to invite (4 keystrokes). Then you have to push circle to unhighlight the square that your contacts are in (5 keystrokes) and then go down to push "OK" (6 keystrokes). All of that to add someone to your squad. If you do not have that person in your contacts list, it takes even longer, and involves typing out that persons name using the horrible soft keyboard. I understand the problem is that Dust has a huge amount of information that needs to be accessed, but there has got to be a better way to do it than what we have now.
a. Firstly, everything should be made slightly bigger. For example: While viewing a list of items in the marketplace, sometimes the description is too long, and forced to scroll horizontally. This is completely unnecessary. You should make each item multiple lines taller, so that all of the description and relevant information is easily visible. The downside to this is that there is less on the screen at the same time, but at least what is there is easily readable.
b. Secondly, make everything selectable. If someone types something into chat, I should be able to hover over it and select it. From there I should be able to do multiple things, such as add the author to my contacts, invite the author to my squad, invite the author to a chat channel, show info about the author, etc. That would allow much easier completion of certain actions. If I decide to show info, I should be to view his bio, employment history, stats, and corporation, similar to how I can in eve. If I go into my contacts, I should be able to scroll and select anybody in there, and do the same actions as above. I should not have to go to the contacts tab, then select the area that my contacts are in, then select my contacts as I have to now.
[continued in next post] |
DusterBuster
Zumari Force Projection
Caldari State
1
|
Posted - 2013.03.07 22:12:00 -
[2] - Quote
c. More obvious notifications. There have been multiple times I have gone through many matches without realizing I had new mail or a squad invite. I think this should be made slightly more obvious, while still not getting in the way. When a new notification is received, instead of the icon just blinking, I think a small tip should slide out from it saying things like "New Squad Invite" or "New Mail". After a few moments it should slide back in. After that though, a small number should stay to the left of the icon, saying how many new notifications you have. This would allow people to quickly realize when they have a new notification, without being bombarded with annoying windows.
d. Easier chatting. I think there should be an option to activate updates on certain channels. If you do this, there will be small boxes popping up somewhere on screen about 3 or 4 high showing the most recent comments made in the chat channel. You could then push a button ('O'?) to easily reply in this channel, without having to open up the chat interface and constantly keep an eye on the channel. (On a side note, I wish there was a mini-keyboard peripheral that plugs into the controller availble for the PS3 like there is for the XBOX, alas, I don't think we have this option.)
That is all I can suggest, and even I am not happy with some of the above things. However, I see no easy way to go about this. Your move CCP. If I receive any good suggestions or criticisms, I will edit the above or add more points. Please check out some of the other threads in the series as well, and provide feedback or support to those. Thank you. |
trollsroyce
Seraphim Initiative.
CRONOS.
191
|
Posted - 2013.03.07 22:43:00 -
[3] - Quote
Agree on all. The way to invite people to squad should be from chat playerlist right click menu on player portrait. |
DusterBuster
Zumari Force Projection
Caldari State
7
|
Posted - 2013.03.07 23:28:00 -
[4] - Quote
trollsroyce wrote:Agree on all. The way to invite people to squad should be from chat playerlist right click menu on player portrait.
Thanks for the support. I really struggled with this section, as I knew that I did not like the current implementation of the UI, but could not come up with very many ways on which to improve it. In its current state though it takes way too many keystrokes to complete simple tasks. |
Eris Ernaga
HAV Deployment Organization
66
|
Posted - 2013.03.16 05:03:00 -
[5] - Quote
I think they are coming up with a full remake of the ui ^_^ reading your other threads |
Jetteh22
DUST University
Ivy League
23
|
Posted - 2013.03.17 15:46:00 -
[6] - Quote
Agreed on all. Very well thought out. |
DusterBuster
DUST University
Ivy League
45
|
Posted - 2013.03.17 16:02:00 -
[7] - Quote
Eris Ernaga wrote:I think they are coming up with a full remake of the ui ^_^ reading your other threads
I have heard this too, and am hopeful. Thanks for the response.
Jetteh22 wrote:Agreed on all. Very well thought out.
Thanks for taking the time to read it, and for your response! |
XXfootnoteXX
DUST University
Ivy League
121
|
Posted - 2013.03.17 17:19:00 -
[8] - Quote
I think this belongs here with User Interface, but it was not something you addressed. It has been a gripe of mine for some time.
When setting up a drop suit, or looking at equpiment. I want to see how your skills effect those items! The best we have right now is in your dropsuit layout, if you have a damage mod it will show your damage as 1.03. I want to be able to look at my dropsuit fitting and see exactly how much damage I am doing after my skills are taken into consideration and equpment.
I also want to see this in the market place, by all means show the base damage and requirements, but also show how your skills will change that. |
DusterBuster
DUST University
Ivy League
48
|
Posted - 2013.03.17 17:52:00 -
[9] - Quote
XXfootnoteXX wrote:I think this belongs here with User Interface, but it was not something you addressed. It has been a gripe of mine for some time.
When setting up a drop suit, or looking at equpiment. I want to see how your skills effect those items! The best we have right now is in your dropsuit layout, if you have a damage mod it will show your damage as 1.03. I want to be able to look at my dropsuit fitting and see exactly how much damage I am doing after my skills are taken into consideration and equpment.
I also want to see this in the market place, by all means show the base damage and requirements, but also show how your skills will change that.
So, how about in white it shows the default damage, then in green it can say +3 or something along those lines. Is this what you mean?
Or do you mean that at the moment, it does not show your increased damage at all, and you just want it to say how much damage you will do, you don't care about the base damage? (If this is the case, I guess I never noticed this, but it should be implemented asap.) |
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