Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I saw in the video devblog that there's a team working on tooltips! So, like a Jack Russel on a wounded squirrel, I pounce while I have the chance and lock you in my jaws!!!

I've been playing EVE on and off since the Beta test in 2003. OMG the most annoying thing of all about the EVE UI are the tooltips, and in Inferno it got worse. Please introduce three improvements:

1. If the text in the tooltip says exactly the same thing as the text you're mousing over, it is not giving you a tip!!! Don't show it!!! (e.g. saying "Plagioclase (Asteroid)" over those asteroids in the overview that say "Asteroid (Plagioclase)"


2. Please introduce two new options to the General Settings options tab:

*** A delay time for tooltips that is controllable by the player. The installation default would be 0.0 seconds, so we get the same functionality as we have now. But if the player changes the number to (say) 0.5, tooltips will be delayed by 0.5 seconds before they show up - you have to hold the mouse over that item to see the tooltip. That way you won't be bombarded by annoying tooltips shadowing your every mouse move, like what happens now.

*** a checkbox that says "Only Show Tooltips When Shift is Pressed" The installation default would be unchecked, so we get the same functionality as we have now. But if the player checks the checkbox, then tooltips won't show at all unless the player holds down either Shift key. Typically you know when you want a tooltip... and you can get to the Shift key. Unchecking this box will go a long way to reducing the clutter.


3. Bring uniformity to the tooltip delay time; in Inferno you introduced these bloody great tooltips on HUD icons, which have more information on them (granted) but unlike other tooltips, they now have what feels like a 1-second delay time before they show up. When I am mining, it takes me ages to figure out what crystals are loaded into each of the three lasers on my Hulk due to this delay. That time is critical sometimes and I'd rather have instantaneous tooltips (holding down Shift key, see above). And yet on other useless items like tooltips on asteroids, I get an instantaneous tooltip following me over whole swathes of items in the overview. The inconsistency isn't good design, and puzzling honestly; it would be solved with the improvements listed above.