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Dev Blog: Tiptoe Through the Tooltips

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Dramaticus
State War Academy
Caldari State
#101 - 2014-05-13 20:20:01 UTC
Love the tool-tips CCP. Another great change that is going to help new players.

The 'do-nothing' member of the GoonSwarm Economic Warfare Cabal

The edge is REALLY hard to see at times but it DOES exist and in this case we were looking at a situation where a new feature created for all of our customers was being virtually curbstomped by five of them
CCP Delegate Zero
C C P
C C P Alliance
#102 - 2014-05-13 20:23:00 UTC
Hi,

The team is keeping a close eye on this thread (and the others preceding the dev blog), plus other sources of feedback, and we have some work in progress to adjust some aspects and deal with several cases where the new tooltip format is causing problems.

Specifically, we've been looking initially at:


  • 'Mouse-over on icon column in overview'-only as trigger for new tooltip (this actually would also free us to have different tooltips for specific overview columns if there are cases where that is a benefit in general).

  • Some defects with bracket tooltips (including large numbers of brackets breaking tooltips).

  • Opacity of bracket tooltip listing.

  • Bracket tooltip to not trigger in the case of singleton brackets (this should very much help with the scatter loot as well as other cases).

  • Structures with timers and status information (offline, anchoring, etc) showing in the list-form tooltip for brackets.

  • Some starmap tooltip defects.


That's not an exhaustive list and we've noted the comments about timing issues, among others, but certainly timing is a tricky balance.

Also, we're not going to ignore the points controlling display of tooltips, to the contrary, but we do think this is something that bears thinking about carefully.

We'll keep taking in all the feedback and use it in our ongoing design work. A major focus of this team is on improving new player experience by generally raising the level of the all-round player experience. We know this approach is going to require our close attention to feedback and significant iterative work.

CCP Delegate Zero | Content Designer - Writer | @CCPDelegateZero
Seraph Essael
Air
The Initiative.
#103 - 2014-05-13 20:28:10 UTC
Just a simple off button would appease most of us... Not trying to sound dickish, just saying it how it is...

Quoted from Doc Fury: "Concerned citizens: Doc seldom plays EVE on the weekends during spring and summer, so you will always be on your own for a couple days a week. Doc spends that time collecting kittens for the on-going sacrifices, engaging in reckless outdoor activities, and speaking in the 3rd person."
Daniras
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#104 - 2014-05-13 20:28:33 UTC
That doesn't say if we can turn them off or not at some point. They are nice for new players and I applaud them being added for those who need it. But its an irritant for everyone else
Jayem See
Perkone
Caldari State
#105 - 2014-05-13 20:28:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Jayem See
Thanks Delegate.

It still amazes me that in a game of such complexity, customisation tools are not applied to changes like this as a part of the design brief.

It's something that really should have been learned by now. People play the game in such a vast number of different ways.

I rejoiced when the audio changes were announced as this is exactly the kind of thing I love.

If all this stuff is "on" by default that's fine - I don't care if I have to customise every new character I make. Just let me customise it.

Customisation really is something that should be built in to the design phase of anything to do with the UI from now on (and for the last 11 years.)

Aaaaaaand relax.
Galmas
United System's Commonwealth
#106 - 2014-05-13 20:30:32 UTC
predictive movement is +1

tool tips:

please, how can i turn that off again?
Sven Viko VIkolander
In space we are briefly free
#107 - 2014-05-13 20:32:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Sven Viko VIkolander
CCP Delegate Zero wrote:
Hi,

The team is keeping a close eye on this thread (and the others preceding the dev blog), plus other sources of feedback, and we have some work in progress to adjust some aspects and deal with several cases where the new tooltip format is causing problems.

Specifically, we've been looking initially at:


  • 'Mouse-over on icon column in overview'-only as trigger for new tooltip (this actually would also free us to have different tooltips for specific overview columns if there are cases where that is a benefit in general).

  • Some defects with bracket tooltips (including large numbers of brackets breaking tooltips).

  • Opacity of bracket tooltip listing.

  • Bracket tooltip to not trigger in the case of singleton brackets (this should very much help with the scatter loot as well as other cases).

  • Structures with timers and status information (offline, anchoring, etc) showing in the list-form tooltip for brackets.

  • Some starmap tooltip defects.


That's not an exhaustive list and we've noted the comments about timing issues, among others, but certainly timing is a tricky balance.

Also, we're not going to ignore the points controlling display of tooltips, to the contrary, but we do think this is something that bears thinking about carefully.

We'll keep taking in all the feedback and use it in our ongoing design work. A major focus of this team is on improving new player experience by generally raising the level of the all-round player experience. We know this approach is going to require our close attention to feedback and significant iterative work.



Please take a look at this screenshot of normal activity in eve: http://i.imgur.com/Whbh1qv.jpg
Even if this giant list was transparent, so I could see what was going on behind it, it is still a terrible design. I don't want to constantly scroll through giant lists (the same thing happens in data/relic sites, in mission rooms, etc, anywhere with more than a few items in space). I don't want to interact with lists, I want to interact with stuff in space. Please revert to the old design for brackets in space as the new system benefits no one. The list system adds needless complexity when in the previous system interacting with a jumble of items was fairly easy.
Sarka Bathory
Perkone
Caldari State
#108 - 2014-05-13 20:49:47 UTC
Sven Viko VIkolander wrote:
After reviewing the changes, I really dislike the new tooltips. In fact, they are terrible. Here's why:

http://i.imgur.com/LYCBacJ.jpg

When you mouse over a collection of things, especially when you are zoomed out, you get a giant box that blocks your field of view. I already have an overview which takes up a good portion of my view, I don't need another overview popping up in space blocking what I am trying to look at.

Also, as Longdrinks pointed out above, most of the new tooltips are redundant, in addition to simply being in the way.

Please let me at least turn them off.



^This !

Wherever I put my mousepointer in space, a big popup-window darkens the sun......

Had a fleetfight today, and really could not warp to any specific fleetmember that needs help in the fight. If I try to point at him for the warpin, a list of 40 ships and 30 wrecks comes up - making me blind.... really bad.

I someone warps to a cluster > impossible to get a clue to which planet, belt or station. No chance to catch anybody anymore. This "tooltips"-thing is taking the fun out of PVP.....

Please, CCP, tell us how to switch it off!
Maxxor Brutor
Borderline Procurements
#109 - 2014-05-13 20:51:34 UTC
Lair Osen wrote:
[Bug] Not sure if this is related to this change or not, but the white targeting brackets >< when targeting NPCs on the overview seem to now be behind the red cross instead of in front of them, which makes it very hard to tell if you have something targeted or not.


Longdrinks wrote:
While we have you attention on UI stuff, why the hell does the selected item window minimize if i try to double-click a button(because your ui is pretty unresponsive and its better to mash a button then not have it happen) and miss it by 1 pixel it minizes the window. This means i have to use precious seconds to get it up again and most likely die if this is a pvp situation and i have to warp fast.



Not empty quoting.

Really hard to tell if you've targeted NPC battleships or not now.
Kaarous Aldurald
Black Hydra Consortium.
#110 - 2014-05-13 20:52:23 UTC
Rollback the entire thing until it can be made optional.

It really is that bad. This is, without hyperbole, worse than loot spew.

"Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws."

One of ours, ten of theirs.

Best Meltdown Ever.
Lexiana Del'Amore
Nouvelle Rouvenor
#111 - 2014-05-13 20:54:17 UTC
nothing in the past 7 years has made me want to play eve less than this poorly thought out piece of babysitting crap
Schmata Bastanold
In Boobiez We Trust
#112 - 2014-05-13 20:54:40 UTC
All fine and dandy the only problem is that in pursuit of better NPE you made UI worse for everybody.

And that is the same thing as you did on at least 2 other occasions: HUD tooltips and not persistent safety switch.

So, everybody from those teams is already gone to Riot or you just don't learn from previous experiences by choice?

Invalid signature format
Rommiee
Mercury Inc.
#113 - 2014-05-13 20:56:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Rommiee
For the love of God, please employ a Dev that actually plays the game.

Why on earth would we want so many redundant tooltips flashing up all over the screen, they are completely pointless for anyone that has been playing for more than 5 minutes.

A 1-day old player knows what a stargate is in the overview, they know what the sun is, they know how to close a window.

You frequently hover the mouse over items in and around the overview ready to click when needed. With these new tips, you cant see half of what is going on as they cover important information.

For crying out loud, stop screwing up even the most basic things and TRY your ideas while playing in the real game before bringing this type of rubbish onto TQ.

Just give us an option to filter out the worthless sh!t and turn those off.



With your new deployment schedule, does this mean that we have to suffer this type of ill-thought out rubbish every 6 weeks, instead of twice a year ?
Kaarous Aldurald
Black Hydra Consortium.
#114 - 2014-05-13 21:02:01 UTC
Schmata Bastanold wrote:
All fine and dandy the only problem is that in pursuit of better NPE you made UI worse for everybody.

And that is the same thing as you did on at least 2 other occasions: HUD tooltips and not persistent safety switch.

So, everybody from those teams is already gone to Riot or you just don't learn from previous experiences by choice?


Wait, was this obscenity actually wrought from this "NPE" nonsense?

Are you serious?

"Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws."

One of ours, ten of theirs.

Best Meltdown Ever.
Ralph King-Griffin
New Eden Tech Support
#115 - 2014-05-13 21:02:16 UTC
CCP Delegate Zero wrote:
Hi,

Also, we're not going to ignore the points controlling display of tooltips, to the contrary, but we do think this is something that bears thinking about carefully.


Can you think about this quickly please.
Jayem See's proposal is as eloquent a solution as can be had for this.

Murderers of Negotiable Motivations

=]|[=
Ibuyyou Kitty
#116 - 2014-05-13 21:02:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Ibuyyou Kitty
Not sure if this has been mentioned but even from a new player perspective these "tool tips" have made it harder and more clicky to see the descriptions for untrained-trainable and un-trainable skills within the Character Sheets. When you scroll over untrained-trainable and un-trainable skills you are now seeing a pop-up that says "You do not meet the requirements to train this skill" or "you meet the requirements to train this skill".

THAT IS WHAT THE RED "X" AND GREEN CHECK MARKS ARE FOR!

Instead of a pop-up informing us what the skill actually does!

Not to mention that the text font is all wrong. Harder to read.
Jayem See
Perkone
Caldari State
#117 - 2014-05-13 21:07:03 UTC
Ralph King-Griffin wrote:
CCP Delegate Zero wrote:
Hi,

Also, we're not going to ignore the points controlling display of tooltips, to the contrary, but we do think this is something that bears thinking about carefully.


Can you think about this quickly please.
Jayem See's proposal is as eloquent a solution as can be had for this.


I was just re-reading this line from Delegate and it really worries me.

It suggests that, despite being useless for anyone who has played for over a couple of months, we will always have to deal with tooltips.

That is just unpleasant gameplay design.

My suggestion was here.

Aaaaaaand relax.
Ibuyyou Kitty
#118 - 2014-05-13 21:08:42 UTC
Jayem See wrote:
Some great stuff here but the tooltips need a rapid iteration.

It made me think immediately of the changes that are coming to the audio features.

slider at 0 = tooltips off
slider at 1-99 = everything in between
slider at 100 = tooltips as instant as possible

Could be as coarse as

Neocom
Brackets
Overview
Modules
Menus/Context Items

Pretty much the only way it makes sense to me.



rgr that
Rommiee
Mercury Inc.
#119 - 2014-05-13 21:09:33 UTC
Jayem See wrote:
Some great stuff here but the tooltips need a rapid iteration.

It made me think immediately of the changes that are coming to the audio features.

slider at 0 = tooltips off
slider at 1-99 = everything in between
slider at 100 = tooltips as instant as possible

Could be as coarse as

Neocom
Brackets
Overview
Modules
Menus/Context Items

Pretty much the only way it makes sense to me.


That would work, as long as there were separate sliders for the useful stuff, and the pointless c**p
Gregor Parud
Imperial Academy
#120 - 2014-05-13 21:12:10 UTC
The delay is causing a lot of trouble an annoyance, it may not be an issue for the more casual player but for others (like PVPers) every delay on information can be deadly, it needs to change or (preferably) be changeable.