EVE General Discussion

Heheh, like that did or would ever work

I'm sure you remember F&I thread with excellent proposals for functionality in tactical overlay. Now show me where can I find that in-game. Oh wait, I can't because nobody cares about player's designs or proposals, they are posted, trolled and left alone to rot in depths of forum hell.

UI is getting better each time CCP karkur is left alone in the office but that's all. You have better chance with just twitting "I would love to be able to sell multiple things at once" than defend your proposals from trolls and have it noticed by dev.

I'm not saying OP pointed out any particular flaws or proposed solutions to any particular problem but the fact is making CCP's job for them and posting it on forums is waste of time.

Wouldn't that be RMT? :)

Maybe PLEX4karkur just to play it safe?

That's because all the proposals are for a single small segment of the UI and 99% of the time about "How to present the info already given by the client in a way which is understandable by a parrot!". I'm talking about a full overhaul. If the UI is horrible, there is no cherry-picking on the worst part, do it all or you'll have a new worst part on your hands in 2 days.

"hey are posted, trolled and left alone to rot in depths of forum hell" is an another way of saying that "a sizeable chunk of players find this change not needed and/or bad and shouldn't be implemented as given". I hope you see that difference.

the f&i sub forum looks like it does for a reason.

Agree that would be awesome, if done right.

FWIW I see 2 big issues:

1) Thousands of players are used to the current UI and happy with it. The low-risk approach would be to have the option to use either the old or the new UI. I'm no expert but I would assume keeping this kind of option could be costly for CCP.

2) The main problem is representing complex 3D situations on a 2D screen. Maybe CCP could wait until Oculus Rift is fully developed and available, then design a new UI as a real 3D environment. I'm not thinking of Valkyrie-style gameplay, I'm thinking the current EVE-style gameplay but represented in a 3D environment instead of a 2D screen (becuase let's face it, on a 2D screen you have to constantly move around the camera if you want to understand where all the ships/objects really are relative to eachother). Again, this would have to be optional since not everyone will want to buy nor use the Oculus Ritt to play EVE.

My 2 cents.

Also, obligatory <3 Karkur.

I was dreaming of something more dramatic, that for me at least would be quite cool for highly dynamic PVP situations.

If it's just the above that you need, I'm sure 3-4 fluffies would suffice.

You want dramatic? Remote convo with my L4 agent. Ha!

If you want dramatic UI in pvp try do everything you do with overview and selected item window without them. No fluffies required :)

Pretty much this. A good gamer isn't going to oppose to something that makes his job faster and more intuitive to others, because he will always find ways to adapt and gain an edge over others. Gameplay deriving from a bad interface prone to mistakes has no excuse to exist, and has no value. It's a good thing CCP is finally realizing that.

Agree.

My main issue, at the moment, is with the 3D representation of brackets.

Say I'm trying to be a decent logi anchor in a 15 dps + 5 tackle/support + 5 logi fleet, fighting against an enemy fleet with similar composition.

Ideally, I'd want to (in order of priority):


1) keep within comfortable rep range (say 50km) of the bulk of my fleet

2) stay as far as possible from the bulk of the enemy fleet; as a bonus, also do my best to always keep some transversal up

3) confirm at a glance that my logi mates are actually anchored and not drifting away from me, so I can give them a shoutout if necessary

4) notice at a glance if one of my fleet mates is drifting away from the bulk of the fleet, to be able to decide if it's worth chasing after him to try to give him reps (if he's just a moron: no; but if for example he's trying to tackle an expensive enemy ship: maybe yes)


What happens to me today (very possibly because I just suck; so any advice would be appreciated!). Consider I use the tactical overlay, zoomed out to around the 100-150km circle, and have just ships visible (no drones):

a) My brain mostly sees a random blob of little coloured squares

b) I have a hard time distinguishing at a glance if in a certain position there are 10 ships close together of just 2-3 ships (the brackets just overlap)

c) Say it looks like 20 ships close together; it's really hard for me to see at a glance if it's 17 of my guys and 3 enemies or viceversa, because all I see is a few purple squares and a few orange squares, all overlapped

d) If I see a single purple square all by itself, I can't see at a glance if it's just an interceptor keeping range or my logi mate that has strayed off

e) When I look at the overview, it's very hard (at least for my poor brain) to quickly translate 40 different distance figures in the info I really need: who is next to me (<5km), who is close (<20km), who is medium range (<50km), who is far off (100km or more)

etc. etc.

If CCP found a way to make the 3D tactical view clearer, or the overview something better than a simple spreadsheet, the game would be so much better imho.

I have been avoiding actual things I think are in need of improvement because that's not what this thread is about. It that were the case, I'd post in F&I which is where I spend most of my time actually. I've made dozens of posts there around specific UI issues there.

This was more of a question as to why some people are resistant to UI improvements and I've gotten quite a few answers to mull over.

I do get a sense that people use the difficulty of the UI to give them a feeling of superiority over others (WoW players come to mind). But that also that people simply don't see the negatives. A common issue in large UI changes is that people don't even comprehend that there are myriad alternatives. They tend to limit themselves to small tweaks here and there based on what already exists.

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P.S. And, making EVE use the Oculus Rift is pretty much a recipe for vomit. It's not a good candidate.

P.P.S. This was not an attempt at a stealth LOCAL. I brought up two alternate examples showing up perfect intel and non-perfect intel, but that are different than what we have today. Not the best examples mind you, but I am *not* taking a side on this issue here, nor do I suggest anyone else do so.