Hello, some glaring GUI problems which are begging to be fixed like yesterday!
SFX upon arrival into a new grid. Problem:
too lenghty (5-7seconds, rly??? annoying!)
too attention grabbing (partly because of sharp “attack” phase of a sound like someone is playing synthesizer AND a drum KICK at the same time - need more ambienty nature!)
every time is a different type of SFX but I fly asteroid belts which are the same (assign “families” of SFXes to respective classes of objects in grid: stations, stargates, acc gates etc..).
To illustrate problem - try to “belt-rat” in a fast cruiser like Cynabal - lot of unwanted SFXes in a rapid succession!
Option to Disable “cloudy” formations in certain DEDspace rooms and disable “big rocks” canvas objects which eats all RAM/CPU to be calculated! It’s like in FW plexes, asteriod plexes etc..
Those gazzilions little particles are good for showcase, but only if this mode is choisen by the user!
Tooltips are annoying as hell! Problem: they are here, but I don’t want them to be here. So, we need make them non-intrusive (how?):
set of toggles - whether I want for certain areas to be backed by tooltips or not (for example, i DON’T want any tooltips over my cosmic OVERVIEW tab! but I need them upon my modules in combat to quickly evaluate am I being weapon disrupted by TRACKING speed or by OPTIMAL range)
overhaul all tooltips to make them NON-INTERACTABLE, meaning - user should ALWAYS be able to LMB/RMB “through” the tooltip whithout moving mouse around! Set tooltip behavior to fade away instantly if the mouse is moved a bit (will solve the problem)
To illustrate problem - try to navigate with your mouse in SKILLS of a character - those tooltips are hovering skills I want to click and drag into the training pane!
Add dedicated audio sliders for different groups of SFXes, like those “on grid” welcoming SFX. Now I’m playing barely hearing all other effects because I have to reduce volume of unwanted SFX which is connected to the needful ones :((((
It seems, game doesn’t use all available RAM over approx. 4Gb per account even if I have my RAM free (I have 16GB). This leads to dramatic FPS drops when logging in or entering new grid (sometimes) because game uses hard drive to “load upfront” some un-needed VISUAL FLUFFS!
Opening AGENCY or OPPORTUNITIES tabs is a guaranteed FPS drop - super heavy to calculate interface!
Overall estetic of UI is one-dimensional scrolling addiction - I tried to navigate new warfare projects (where nations are working tow certain goals) and immediately closed - this much I disliked it, but the idea is rather interesting :(((
Super annoying bug which slows down the game is when you opening OVERVIEW SETTINGS and picking colours from COLOUR SET. I only have one try to pick the colour and after I MUST close overview setting to “unfreeze” my client.
FUNDAMENTAL overlook - not all entities are represented in OVERVIEW types. To illustrate:
untick ALL and then tick ALL NPC types
as a result you will be finding NPCs which are still not in your overview!
I had to manually “add to overview tab” each every NPC I met after my overview setting up hell :(((
Add slider on how fast camera is moving when using “Look at” command!
Default value is TOO SLOW! Example: I need instant update on target on which weapon type it is using! I don’t need no slow-mo fluffs!
Drone activity icon for “providing repairs” is of the same colour (GREEN) as of IDLE. Thus, making it confusing for user’s periphireal sight. Are my drones actually repping teammates or they just IDLIng? Hmm… This need to be changed, but I don’t know how since I’m not a graph designer.
Please, add information of numerical SP left/required for SKILL which has been trained to any level and I want to check how exactly much SP I need to BUY in skill injectors to cover it!
Currently hack is to make “Apply SP” command on a SKILL - bring forth the window which tells the remaining SP left for next level. Then close the window without applying SP (obviously!)
This is always the case when new ships/npcs are added, that you need to add them to overview. Overview is client side and not server side i believe, which is why every update with npcs/ships ppl should be doing this
After playing bit more I’ve recently unearthed even more grievous findings related to UI.
Behold!
Game Launcher. Too vastful spacings, useless add character button, un-removable spam ads.. all these are bringing aggressive stance to its wielder - to devs
Need “Disable auto-focusing on entry field” when switching chats!
Better=> introduce “lock” function on entry field of a chat, so it PREVENTS any typing until the LOCK is lifted.
This is helpful when you ONLY want read certain chats, not typing into it - like in Wormholes.
Remember, when you switched tabs to observe the update of a certain chat and THEN wanted to check D-scan - you can’t do it! Instead, you will be typing into chat “v”'s literals every time!
So, in the end your chat will contain string of "vvvvvv"s!
It is even more dangerous when you want to quickly warpout and press=>hold “S”!
In Project Discovery when clicking by mouse of outside of the borders of the viewport - it DELETES all progress of drawing! Why? We already reserved RMB for DELETE PROGRESS. It would have much more sense to set a point at the very edge of the viewport, where the last time mouse cursor was seen.
Get rid of pop-ups upon initiating warp to anomalies or signatures!
These pop-ups DEMAND attention with “OK” button on them!
Not only it has ridiculous amount of text to read - which is NO GO in combat environment, they also offer NO VALUABLE intel except some flavourish LORE elements.
There should be dedicated SPACE to read all this info in calm and safety, you can place it in SYSTEM CHAT or smth!
Compare items.
Disasterous.. previously, I could tick/untick desired parameters to compare upon and observe only them; also, I was able to SORT ITEMS by certain keys such as CPU, PG, DamageModifier, OptimalRange etc..
But now, it’s impossible to SORT ITEMS in compare window. This function was carelessly removed from game!
You definitely should REVERSE back X-axis and Y-axis of a table (columns<>rows) - previous version of “compare items” was working SUPERBly fine.
SORTING ITEMS was important because user often wanted to quickly check “who is the winner” on certain parameter, like best CPU efficiency or highest damage or reps provided. Make an experiment and try to figure this out WITHOUT sorting items yourself!
Rather minor issue: selection behaviour when selecting TEXT in NOTEPAD.
Observe,
when I make “diagonal” move from bottom right corner to upper left corned with intention to select ALL TEXT of inside a note, it DESELECTS all texts as I leave the boundaries of a NOTE entity!
Thus, making user to be a sniper-precise and release the mouse button right at the UPPER LEFT corner of a NOTE.
This is incredibly annoying when you dealing with constant copy-pasting text into NOTEPAD and then replacing this text with new version.
I, for example, doing abyssal contracts pasting into a notepad to generate a contract link, so I’m copypasting rather OFTEN, since there are many abyssal modules out there.
I can sort those fields if in the comparison window if I switch the view to horizontal (row based listing instead of columnar). Accessible with the 3 dots, and you can also enable the one that only shows properties that differ across items. Reducing information overload.
Honestly, I don’t know why that isn’t the default view.
On your point about tooltips, what I’d like would be a modifier key binding, instead of jiggling the delay slider untill it feela better. I don’t kniw all bindings in use but left/right alt + mouse over could trigger tooltips, or left mouse click, whichever doesn’t break existing user flows.
OMG! Galaxy is saved! Y/X axis swap is there indeed! Now comparisons can be performed in a most convenient way! Thank you, sir!
UPD: sorry, but I still can’t find a RULER bar “left<>right” for the spreadsheet of inversed y-x axis view. So, not all table is being fit into the width of my display.
Fitting Window, filter “Community fittings”.
Problem is that with everything OFF it still shows those community fittings most ppl don’t really need.
Also, I cannot uncheck community fittings.
It is aggressive behaviour of software - it FORCES users to face pre-scribed info!
Apply logic: “Only show if it’s ON”
Fitting Window. Upon opening there is a short ~2sec UNSKIPPABLE ship model animation where camera is zooming-in.
How about make it SKIPPABLE?
I open and close fitting window dozens of times because I fit lot of ships and I don’t want to watch this animation and spend 2 additional seconds every time I decide to open fitting window.
Sometimes, when accepting mission from an agent in station it doesn’t automatically set TRACK flag ON.
Most of the times - it does.
Now I must spend my attention to check every time if the mission is being TRACKED (and if it does’t - tick that TRACK button).
Overview “default” settings, like when you first start a game.
It’s a big mess for a newcomer and default settings are hardly helping.
I’m highlighting my ground rules of building overview presets, if it helps:
separate tab for stations and stargates ONLY (like TRAVEL) - imagine this is function which allows you to travel on a “world map”
separate tab for ALL player ships
separate tab for ALL HOSTILE player ships
separate tab for ALL HOSTILE player ships but without drones brackets in space (to clear the cluttered view in crowdy grid)
separate tab for DRONES and FIGHTERs
separate tab for MOONS (to save POD)
separate tab for ASTEROID BELTS
separate tab for LOOT (wrecks and containers)
separate tab for MISC (everything else)
And this is the bare minimum every pilot should start with! Further on one must deeply customize it depending on their activity, like creating separate tabs for CAPITALS, or MJD booshers or CYNO-bearers etc..
Healthy idea would be to introduce "COMMUNITY OVERVIEW PROFILES", like you did with ship fittings!
In addition to overview stuff - please, do remove that “=” neutral standing of gray colour for EVERYONE when starting fresh character!
Apply logic: “If player is unknown - it must not have any standing”
Maybe it is finally time to fix WARPING TIME meter?
Apply logic: “When WARP command issued - display its numerical value in seconds along with progress bar”.
So the pilot should know exactly when the ship will warp out.
Sometimes I have the progress bar at 99% and it keeps aligning for eternity; this nullifies the value of the progress bar because at 99% mark I should be almost already at warp.
Progress bar messes with itself mostly when the propulsion module cycle is involved (various scenarios).
I wasn’t being able to perform MJD/Cloak trick (not MWD/Cloak!) because ships breaks cloak too early for no reason.
If it is a desired behaviour - this must be reflected in description of a module.
My client has different behaviour in fitting window, maybe.. let’s compare?
When I uncheck everything - it shows “community fittings” AND any other fittings (personal, corp etc..)
So, to filter out community fittings I do what? Tick “personal” fitting to show ONLY them.
But in this case, when I don’t have any fitting on selected ship hull - browser shows EMPTY results!
So, user is FORCED to “uncheck all” to show everything incl. community fittings no one wants.. just to being able to SELECT that hull and maybe save fit in desired folder (personal, corp etc..).
That’s either a dirty trick by devs or just an unfortunate overlook which must be corrected.
As for overview templates.. does this channel you speak about is visible and “in reach” for the beginner player who have just started like 2mins ago? I recently was creating some characters for PI stuff and have not found such channels to be conveniently available.
It is good, however, that users teamed up but devs MIGHT make it much more easier, don’t you think?
