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Dev Blog: Tiptoe Through the Tooltips

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Gully Alex Foyle
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#521 - 2014-05-15 12:01:23 UTC
Nijaza wrote:
CCP OMFG THESE TOOLTIPS ARE not harming my playing ability at all.

Good for you, but 1) disable option is always a smart feature 2) some of the changes (overivew, brackets) are just plain bad UI design, even the devs' 5y-old kids would've pointed it out to them had they asked: 'mommy why is this thing popping up that tells me a station is a station? I'm not 3 anymore you know!'.

Make space glamorous! Is EVE dying or not? Ask the EVE-O Death-o-meter!
Traein Andedare
Doomheim
#522 - 2014-05-15 12:01:52 UTC
Aiyshimin wrote:
These aren't anywhere near as problematic as this whining hints, clearly there is a lot of room for improvements (a bit premature release?) and we really would love to see options for UI stuff like this, but they are already useful in places. Overview is not one of them, they definitely need to show at least the previously available information.

One thing I'd love to see on gate tooltips is sec status of the destination system.



They dumb down the game but overall yes they are problematic and need some serious work. Absolutely annoying change that
needed an adjustment switch on release

More testing and feedback by people other than newly elected CSM (whom I'm not sure got too much info about the release am not sure)
Quinten Sarn
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#523 - 2014-05-15 12:08:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Quinten Sarn
I don't know who came up with this idea, but that person should have put it through a little more testing with the playerbase because this is a textbook example of how not to implement changes to a working system. in most, if not all, pvp situations i encounter decreased streamlining of gameplay due to pop-ups everywhere which for instance obscure critical information or prevent me from warping to a celestial, quite the opposite of what they should be accomplishing. Of course there is potential in this new tooltip system but until it has been overhauled properly it should be 1. optional and 2. disabled by default.
Traein Andedare
Doomheim
#524 - 2014-05-15 12:09:51 UTC
Kenneth Endashi wrote:
It is absolutely imperative that we be allowed to turn off tool-tips indefinitely. I am only an explorer. All my skills are in exploring. I am new to the game and I still don't need tool-tips. I do, however, need to be able to see my cans spewing out and all about my cans. I may be new, but I can tell the game is broken. Currently, I can see only tool-tips, and they don't say much of anything.

Here's a tool tip: let me turn off tool tips so I can explore again.



This.

Coming from the new player this patch was supposedly aimed for

Lose. Lose. Lose. all around

On/99.9%likely-OFF switch please
Darin Vanar
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#525 - 2014-05-15 12:21:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Darin Vanar
They could give us gold, and we would complain it was too heavy.

I think the (F10) starmap tooltips, are great!

Finally, a way to see sec status, and the selected information for a system, together, in a truncated form?! Nice. Even the solar system names seem improved. Just overall, I'm getting a sense of more information from using the map.

The old 'contextual popup' was a nightmare because it could mistakenly grab your mouse into a huge list of stuff you readily had access to otherwise, and lock you there for a second or two, while all you wanted to do was rotate the map or select another nearby cluster.

Selecting a station, and telling me that it's a station, not so much. lol :)

But I don't mind them personally. An option to turn some of them off for older players, seems like a good idea though. I can see how they can feel to be 'too much' at a time. Maybe put them into groups and allow settings to turn some of them off or on.

Maybe even customize what information certain groups provide.

For example, the "Station is Station", tooltip, could be changed to give the name of the station, instead.
Jeremiah Saken
The Fall of Leviathan
#526 - 2014-05-15 12:23:36 UTC
Nijaza wrote:
EVE MUST REMAIN CRYPTICALLY COMPLICATED for eternity????

No, it doesn't.


No, it doesn't. Was it so complicated to think i don't want tooltip about X in right top corner?

Quote:
"...the tooltips when hovering over something in the overview seem quite redundant since they mostly show whats on it anyway

I feel that there should be an option to only show tooltips when a key is pressed

edit: I don't believe that the person that needs a tooltip for the little x in the top right corner of a window should be playing eve, sorry ..." (Crazy KSK)


Lol

"I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas..." - Herman Melville
Colman Dietmar
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#527 - 2014-05-15 12:25:48 UTC
Nijaza wrote:
I for one thought the tooltips make this game more approachable for new players.


Yes! Because, obviously, the new players won't have enough brain matter to figure that a circle means planet and a square means station! And that is exactly the kind of player we want to be playing EVE with us!

Quote:
EVE MUST REMAIN CRYPTICALLY COMPLICATED for eternity????


If EVE seems to be "cryptically complicated" to you, then you're just playing the wrong game. Check out Angry Birds, that should suit you well.
Gully Alex Foyle
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#528 - 2014-05-15 12:30:22 UTC
Darin Vanar wrote:
some of the changes are good

Sure, that's why it's such a shame they let a couple of awful things slip through untested.


Darin Vanar wrote:
For example, the "Station is Station", tooltip, could be changed to give the name of the station, instead.

Yup, that's exactly what it did before, that's why so many people are saying 'WTF did you change that for???'. Lol

Make space glamorous! Is EVE dying or not? Ask the EVE-O Death-o-meter!
Darin Vanar
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#529 - 2014-05-15 12:42:30 UTC
Gully Alex Foyle wrote:
Darin Vanar wrote:
some of the changes are good

Sure, that's why it's such a shame they let a couple of awful things slip through untested.


Darin Vanar wrote:
For example, the "Station is Station", tooltip, could be changed to give the name of the station, instead.

Yup, that's exactly what it did before, that's why so many people are saying 'WTF did you change that for???'. Lol


Hehe, that's funny.
CCP Delegate Zero
C C P
C C P Alliance
#530 - 2014-05-15 12:47:06 UTC
There's been some great feedback and we're working through a list of tweaks and fixes, with some to come to TQ very soon.

First, I want to address some misconceptions. The test server, AKA SiSi. Some of the new tooltips were A/B tested on SiSi. All the new tooltips were subsequently on SiSi for all accounts on SiSi for two weeks.

Then there is the matter of pre-existing content that has not changed. An example of this is the solar system map. It hasn't changed. Feedback on how much that needs some love is welcome but it's not feedback on the last release. Other examples are many, many tooltips that were pre-existing but are now in a new format, with a different delay. This makes them more noticeable.

Following on from that, we are thinking very seriously about how delay timing interacts with the tooltip contents and context. This is a contender for some configuration options. Enough people have asked about an off switch that I think I have to give a straight answer to this: a blanket off switch is not a strong contender as a configuration option.

One of the reasons for this is that many, many of the tooltips in the game are not new in a content sense. Format and delay may have changed but the majority have been around for a very long time and they are attached to so many systems and of so many content types that the 'simple fix' of an off switch is really not so simple. On the other hand, as changing delay has exposed some of these to people's perception for the first time, it seems much better to focus on that issue - with improving tooltip content formatting where necessary as a followup measure.

To the list of things we will have ready to deploy very soon:

UI tweaks:

When you hover over brackets in space the full name and distance is displayed next to the bracket.

The tooltip that explains the details of the icon associated with an overview entry is now displayed only when hovering over the icon in the overview.

The tooltips for the buttons in the Selected Item window no longer overlap with the important information in that window.

The tooltip for the skill queue in the NeoCom now continuously updates the remaining skill training time.

The name column in the overview now has a tooltip with detailed name information for that entry.

A number of changes have been made to the bracket list tooltip for overlapping brackets in space:

  • The bracket list tooltip is no longer displayed for single brackets
  • The logic for picking which brackets to include in the list has been greatly improved
  • The bracket status information (such as reinforcement time and anchored status) has been added to the entries in the list
  • The list now has a maximum width limit
  • The list background has a slight transparency applied to it
  • An issue has been fixed that kept the list open after interacting with it


Fixes:

A number of hardcoded statistics strings in the starmap tooltips have been replaced with properly localized strings.

The indicator overlay on overview icons that you have targeted is no longer overlapped by the icon itself.

Fixed the anchoring position of the tooltips in the map browser (opened with F11).


This is not an exhaustive list of incoming fixes, nor the end of the tuning work. Moreover, we plan to expand and iterate on tooltips going forward.

CCP Delegate Zero | Content Designer - Writer | @CCPDelegateZero
Traein Andedare
Doomheim
#531 - 2014-05-15 12:47:22 UTC
Darin Vanar wrote:
They could give us gold, and we would complain it was too heavy.

I think the (F10) starmap tooltips, are great!

Finally, a way to see sec status, and the selected information for a system, together, in a truncated form?! Nice. Even the solar system names seem improved. Just overall, I'm getting a sense of more information from using the map.

The old 'contextual popup' was a nightmare because it could mistakenly grab your mouse into a huge list of stuff you readily had access to otherwise, and lock you there for a second or two, while all you wanted to do was rotate the map or select another nearby cluster.

Selecting a station, and telling me that it's a station, not so much. lol :)

But I don't mind them personally. An option to turn some of them off for older players, seems like a good idea though. I can see how they can feel to be 'too much' at a time. Maybe put them into groups and allow settings to turn some of them off or on.

Maybe even customize what information certain groups provide.

For example, the "Station is Station", tooltip, could be changed to give the name of the station, instead.


I wouldn't describe anything about this last patch gold except for the mouse prediction. Alot of these changes are making people pull their hair out and changes like these shouldn't have been pushed out without more feedback and a way to adjust the feature on release.

Overview with completely redundant information popups. Bad.

redundant Black boxes that popup in space and obscure your view. Bad

Anything that isn't eyestabbingly bad here is just a questionable facelift of what we had before

Gold aint here son prospect somewhere else
Oraac Ensor
#532 - 2014-05-15 12:55:47 UTC
TigerXtrm wrote:
To those unsubbing over a this tiny little nuisance; you will not be missed Lol

. . . 'cos you can't be seen behind the tooltips anyway.
Gully Alex Foyle
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#533 - 2014-05-15 12:55:58 UTC
CCP Delegate Zero wrote:
Much appreciated and detailed feedback

Thank you very much. Looks like an excellent way forward.

Make space glamorous! Is EVE dying or not? Ask the EVE-O Death-o-meter!
Eurynome Mangeiri
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#534 - 2014-05-15 12:58:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Eurynome Mangeiri
CCP Delegate Zero wrote:
There's been some great feedback and we're working through a list of tweaks and fixes, with some to come to TQ very soon.

First, I want to address some misconceptions. The test server, AKA SiSi. Some of the new tooltips were A/B tested on SiSi. All the new tooltips were subsequently on SiSi for all accounts on SiSi for two weeks.

Then there is the matter of pre-existing content that has not changed. An example of this is the solar system map. It hasn't changed. Feedback on how much that needs some love is welcome but it's not feedback on the last release. Other examples are many, many tooltips that were pre-existing but are now in a new format, with a different delay. This makes them more noticeable.

Following on from that, we are thinking very seriously about how delay timing interacts with the tooltip contents and context. This is a contender for some configuration options. Enough people have asked about an off switch that I think I have to give a straight answer to this: a blanket off switch is not a strong contender as a configuration option.

One of the reasons for this is that many, many of the tooltips in the game are not new in a content sense. Format and delay may have changed but the majority have been around for a very long time and they are attached to so many systems and of so many content types that the 'simple fix' of an off switch is really not so simple. On the other hand, as changing delay has exposed some of these to people's perception for the first time, it seems much better to focus on that issue - with improving tooltip content formatting where necessary as a followup measure.

To the list of things we will have ready to deploy very soon:

UI tweaks:

When you hover over brackets in space the full name and distance is displayed next to the bracket.

The tooltip that explains the details of the icon associated with an overview entry is now displayed only when hovering over the icon in the overview.

The tooltips for the buttons in the Selected Item window no longer overlap with the important information in that window.

The tooltip for the skill queue in the NeoCom now continuously updates the remaining skill training time.

The name column in the overview now has a tooltip with detailed name information for that entry.

A number of changes have been made to the bracket list tooltip for overlapping brackets in space:

  • The bracket list tooltip is no longer displayed for single brackets
  • The logic for picking which brackets to include in the list has been greatly improved
  • The bracket status information (such as reinforcement time and anchored status) has been added to the entries in the list
  • The list now has a maximum width limit
  • The list background has a slight transparency applied to it
  • An issue has been fixed that kept the list open after interacting with it


Fixes:

A number of hardcoded statistics strings in the starmap tooltips have been replaced with properly localized strings.

The indicator overlay on overview icons that you have targeted is no longer overlapped by the icon itself.

Fixed the anchoring position of the tooltips in the map browser (opened with F11).


This is not an exhaustive list of incoming fixes, nor the end of the tuning work. Moreover, we plan to expand and iterate on tooltips going forward.


1- great to hear some feedback from you, much apprieciated
2- what is a problem, at least for me, is that the tooltips are on a big box preventing us from clicking whatever is behind, making it more transparent doesn't solve the issue at all !!!!
3- another issue is the delay, to put it short, it should be customisable setting

all in all, you can't, on a new feature, insert a on/off option.....this means that said feature wasn't thought with this possibility, and with CCP history regarding that kind of feature, this is just astonishingly non-professional.

tldr; half baked update, then half backed pacth wich doesn't solve the #1 issue ppl have with said update => failure

conclusion: rollback to previous eve version
Schmata Bastanold
In Boobiez We Trust
#535 - 2014-05-15 13:00:35 UTC
Those fixes, tomorrow or Kronos?

Invalid signature format
Darin Vanar
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#536 - 2014-05-15 13:02:41 UTC
Traein Andedare wrote:
Darin Vanar wrote:
They could give us gold, and we would complain it was too heavy.

I think the (F10) starmap tooltips, are great!

Finally, a way to see sec status, and the selected information for a system, together, in a truncated form?! Nice. Even the solar system names seem improved. Just overall, I'm getting a sense of more information from using the map.

The old 'contextual popup' was a nightmare because it could mistakenly grab your mouse into a huge list of stuff you readily had access to otherwise, and lock you there for a second or two, while all you wanted to do was rotate the map or select another nearby cluster.

Selecting a station, and telling me that it's a station, not so much. lol :)

But I don't mind them personally. An option to turn some of them off for older players, seems like a good idea though. I can see how they can feel to be 'too much' at a time. Maybe put them into groups and allow settings to turn some of them off or on.

Maybe even customize what information certain groups provide.

For example, the "Station is Station", tooltip, could be changed to give the name of the station, instead.


I wouldn't describe anything about this last patch gold except for the mouse prediction. Alot of these changes are making people pull their hair out and changes like these shouldn't have been pushed out without more feedback and a way to adjust the feature on release.

Overview with completely redundant information popups. Bad.

redundant Black boxes that popup in space and obscure your view. Bad

Anything that isn't eyestabbingly bad here is just a questionable facelift of what we had before

Gold aint here son prospect somewhere else


Did you check the map? I thought that was an improvement as well as the better contextual menus.
Colman Dietmar
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#537 - 2014-05-15 13:05:57 UTC
CCP Delegate Zero wrote:
When you hover over brackets in space the full name and distance is displayed next to the bracket.


Does this appear instantly, as it did before, or with the new delay?

The rest of the changes appear to be all good, one thing seems to be missing though: the tooltip with information on an item stack blocks the view of the rest of the inventory window. It could perhaps be moved on a side of the inventory window, since when working with inventory, the tooltip blocking something outside of it is not as bad as when it blocks the very window you're looking at.

Oh, and another thing that's missing, the space that tooltips take is too large due to the font size and sometimes formatting (a shortcut info adding a whole new line, most of which is empty, for example).
Ralph King-Griffin
New Eden Tech Support
#538 - 2014-05-15 13:07:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Ralph King-Griffin
Though I will say I am happy about the columns in the overview, thanks for the update.

Murderers of Negotiable Motivations

=]|[=
Jeremiah Saken
The Fall of Leviathan
#539 - 2014-05-15 13:14:14 UTC
CCP Delegate Zero wrote:
Enough people have asked about an off switch that I think I have to give a straight answer to this: a blanket off switch is not a strong contender as a configuration option.


Forget about switch off, it was designed without such option. So as gate jumps.

Tooltip to Devs. UI is good when it can be modified to player needs ("User"). On/off on UI is a must.

"I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas..." - Herman Melville
Oraac Ensor
#540 - 2014-05-15 13:32:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Oraac Ensor
CCP Delegate Zero wrote:
  • The list background has a slight transparency applied to it

    • "Slight" doesn't cut it. Should be at least 50% or, better still, give us an option to adjust it to personal taste. You know, just like we can on our tv's and dvd recorders. The technology is out there - use it.