To start with some context
(TLDR: ree I hate it, but will give it a go)
I have spent countless hours optimizing my UI over 4 Omega accounts and 7 alpha accounts.
I do various things, PvP, PvE, huffing, scanning, hunting, salvage, loot, industry and other things.
I do not complain about things too much but when I do to the right ears, they understand that I am very upset about something and usually it’s about my corpmates actions. Today after downtime was the first time I cursed CCP for forcing this UI upon me (everyone).
Let me explain. When downtime hits you sometimes are in that unique situation that you MUST log in after downtime to be able to keep a battle going. Today was that time among many others when we hunt in wormholes. And to log in, expecting to be able to go straight into a fight and be greeted by this. I told them on coms that CCP can go [insert curse words] themselves, turned off my clients and walked away from my desk. After about 10 minutes I went to Facebook, made a post which didn’t get through moderators of the EVE group there, REEEEed on discord and walked away again.
How I feel like they should have done this update is:
BIG WARNING WHEN YOU LOG IN NOTIFYING THAT THIS IS COMING AT DOWNTIME TOMORROW
I’m not big on reading up on updates.
After calming down, accepting that it is what it is and reading a little bit of reasoning I logged back in and found the disable button. Ahhh good old UI is back.
Then I started thinking, this is what is coming and I better start using it and get used to it or I’ll have to do it later and what better time than now. So Photon UI - Enable. And here we are.
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FEEDBACK SECTION:
Simple computer setup:
I5. 1070Ti, 2x 1080 monitors (1017 in windowed mode), 4 clients using Evo-Preview
I deleted all game and client settings from the local folder to give comparison. (I have many copies of my settings because things do tend to bug out for unknown reasons)
First I need to change to windowed mode and turn “music and world level down”
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1) User Interface
*I don’t like all these small icons on dropdown menus, they make them too cluttered and too distracting to find the correct thing. But the I like the “show info” icon, its highlighted and is very useful (would keep that but lose the other icons in dropdown menus.
*I feel it is distracting to show what you have selected as default “orbit / keep at range” in the drop down menus
*When you use the “look at” option and then you “left drag” in space to free look, there is a delay and the camera centers on your ship before rotating the camera. I don’t know why this is like that by default and I find it extremely annoying (I know it can be turned off but can’t figure it out, have it turned off on my main settings)
*Fonts and line height seems to be a little to large, high in most if not all windows
*Warning popups that require you to press OK to keep playing the game. (jump a wormhole and polarization isn’t finished) should just be a flashy warning like drone commands.
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2) Windows:
*I don’t like that I must turn compact mode on for each and every one of them
*The top bar is way too bulky
*I don’t like the glow over the selected window.
*Tabs feel too large and tab selection invisible due to the colored glow and not highlighting the tab
*No compact mode for chat windows
*Not possible to X out in compact mode
*The screenspace the window title takes up is to demanding on screen space
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3) Inventory:
*I don’t like that the est. price is on the left now and is not visible in compact mode
*By default takes up 1/6th of the screen space
*No loot all option in compact mode
*When in station you can’t see the ship type for the name and UI takes up much of the space
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4) Probe scanner:
*Hate that it opens in full screen by default and unclear where the dropdown menu it to change it to floating
*Recover probes and solar system map buttons are too hidden in the UI for their importance and even worse in compact mode
*It feels more natural flowing to have formation options and selections on the top of the window
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5) Directional scanner
*Angle and range slider tabs are and sliders feel to small and I would prefer them to be the other way around (range on right and angle on left)
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6) Drone window
*Not necessary to see drone icons while in space
*Space used for the window is to invasive and excessive for what it needs to do
*Drone health bars are too high contrast to everything else
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7) Locations window
*In the old UI the shortcut was ALT-E for agents, contacts and locations and the shortcut for “Local locations” was L … now L opens Locations (but does not close it again unless you click in space, dscan window or chat window)
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Bare in mind the first image is on default settings when you log in for the first time and you can see on the screen shot, there isn’t much gorgeous graphics left to enjoy (yes I can close the inventory), and by the way making these 8 or so windows compact mode does not do much for space, though it does help. There is practically no space to have your locked targets, hope you’re not a LOGIBRO (yes I did copy paste images together)
So after fiddling with the UI and doing the best I can to make it work for me which took me about 6 hours to figure everything out and be on the mindset (this is as good as it gets, hope it won’t get worse). So far I’m far from happy with the Proton UI, but I’m gonna give it my best shot.
Things I have done to improve my experience:
I copy my client/game settings on all my accounts
Selected the “carbon” color scheme
Transparency 100
Enable window blur
Compact mode all windows possible
Resized all windows
Manually set where locked targets appear
Changed drone window for minimalist appearance (those health bars!! )
If you read this far, thank you and I hope you work for CCP.