So I still consider myself to be a “New Player” since I really am in that phase of playing, not playing, playing, not playing Eve-Online. Good game, not so good game etc…
However something I can provide some feedback on is regarding the User Interface. And I notice this is very common for alot of Eve Online players and I guess for all the old players they are so used to it that it doesn’t really bother them.
But, my feedback to CCP is to really take a good inventory of what percent of the screen is filled with UI clutter. And ask yourself if that is good design, or not.
Eve Players want alot of information, and in order to get all that information they need to have alot of different windows open just to get that feedback resulting in like 40-60% of their screen covered with windows that display information.
Besides that it looks stupid, it just tells you there is alot of room to optimize the UI to give players that information they want, in a more sensible way that doesn’t clutter 40-60% of their screen, but maybe only 20% of the screen and have the other 80% to actually see the game and stuff around.
I am not in a position to give suggestions how to do this efficiently. But its just one observation I make as a new player is the amount of windows you (need) to have open to display information.
And, from a new player perspective… yeah… simplified UI that can still display all that information would be easier for them too to process all that information. For experienced players they are so used to it that it really doesn’t bother them at all.
But I think even long-time players and veterans can appreciate a UI that displays the same information they are used to saying without taking up 50% of their screen.
I can’t speak for newbies, I’ve been playing EVE for almost two decades now, but the main issue I have isn’t that all the windows take up too much space (newer things that insist on opening full-screen excluded, that’s beyond stupid and I absolutely hate it), but that the white text is sometimes very difficult to read if you’re in an area where space is unnaturally bright (all of Amarr space, or many deadspace and mission pockets with clouds).
Making space properly dark (the way it is in most holes or null) in empire space and sites would go a long way to fixing the UI for me.
If you guys want an absolute layup for a little thing, get rid of this.
The default probe and dscan windows are particularly egregious. The list and the map should be separated by default. Dscan shouldn’t even open a map display out of the box.
I often wonder how many new players have been trapped in that particular hellscape without realizing they could change it.
Photon has always been a massive failure and will always remain a massive failure. You can be happy that we got Compact Mode. Initially, Photon shipped without; it was the crap in terms of wasteful use of white space. Even now, there’s so much useless empty space for the sake of it and not for the sake of improving readability of the UI.
I think I was here for less than one year when they decided to swap to this Photon UI. I sure don’t care much for this UI. There is an old thread here on the forums asking the players for input on the new UI. I am sure anyone can see, in that thread, how much they ignored every user’s suggestion. Players continue to post about the awful UI they generated, and only the developers patted themselves on the back.
Once you do get it viewable by your standards, be sure to make a backup copy of the Default Settings folder. Since every once in a while, they make sweeping changes, and reset your UI settings.
If you have a lot of characters, you can clone the UI settings from a master character to all the others. That suggestion was made 3 years ago this February, we still have to do it ourselves.