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CCP Surge,

I gave myself some time to digest this piece of a dev blog - it didnt really help much though

A lot of people gave a lot of very personal, detailed, constructive and (initially) friendly feedback in the Carnyx thread (as i learned a lot of similar feedback was available even earlier after the Singularity testing). The kind of empty fluff you produce in your dev-blog is just an insult to all those people... I feel really bad for those that expected something from CCP in this matter. Though you allow yourself to acknowledge, that there are "issues" and that you "could have done better", at the same time you dont feel the need to actually adress the sore points and deny them all the possible short term solutions. Instead i read a lot of narcisstic rambling about how even better everything will become (sometime).

Your icon overhaul broke the core functionality of the icons for many players - that was a ONE_GLANCE tactical overview, through the absolutely CLEAR DISTINCTION of player-ships, npc-ships, drones and celestials. As long as your new system cant offer this (and it falls horribly short on that) you should take peoples complains dead serious.


But (and here my jaw really dropped) you seem to have a totally different view of your job as a dev:



Eve indeed is a tough and merciless game - because it's one of the few/last pvp full-loot games where your fuckups really matter and may cost you dearly.
But when you feel its your job as a dev to screw with players perceptions, take functionality from them and "saw confusion" to make it a bit harder for them then I can only hope for CCP that this misconception of yours will be set straight as fast as possible.

Selling your blunder and sub par work as a "feature" is beyond stupid and just adds insult to injury for those suffering from your expansion.

http://puu.sh/iuRgo/f1f1b54817.jpg

That could be interesting; it would help the color blind folks too as we can pick colors we can see.

23 hours later, 1 developer making one comment, 1 CSM member responding he, not the CSM, is pushing for better improvements and this dev blog is already pushed of the front page.

Talk about digging in your heels.

This devblog feels like a slap to the face.

CCP Surge's found a way of being a kind of self-critical, but then patronizing and effectively ignoring the feedback from the community. I especially feel for those who gave constructive feedback to CCP and now are treated like this. This must hurt.

TLDR sum up: Pretty pragmatic solution for the icons: Do it like the new starmap, have both options available. Let the (paying!) customer decide what he prefers. Changes can be good, but if there is no need for it (=not broken), new features should be optional and only activated on demand by the player himself.



From my experience what reduces reaction time is NOT having MORE information, it is about having LESS information.
And (real) situational awareness is only gained after one knows the exact ship type (ignoring fits as one cannot tell from the icons anyways). Icons do not tell if it is a incurus or a merlin or a daredevil or a hawk. Therefore almost no situational awareness comes from icons.

The way this was handled before suited my playstyle (low-sec solo pirate) a lot more:
I knew if the ship was S, M , L or XL by checking the icon. Based upon this I could easily prioritize. I want to fight small stuff? There are only medium ships on field? Warpoff. I only had to differ between a few icons to set my initial STRATEGY (avoid, engage, check for more details, etc).
Only when I decided to stay (or was forced to), I proceeded to the next layer of thinking: TACTICS (range, ammo type, EWAR, etc). Then I could check for in-detail ship types etc.

This does not work with the current icons any longer. I have to differ between 17! icons (only counting ships) instead of four. I have to process over four times more data than before. Data might be more accurate but definitely takes more time for an initial reaction. And I still need to check wheter it is a Incursus, Comet, Enyo, Taranis or else. As mentioned above, situational awareness only starts now.

**********

The new icons might work out in situations where
a) (initial) reaction time does NOT matter as you have more time to process information (maybe big fleets?)
b) situational awareness is already (partially) given (f.e PVE -> you know what you fight)

Even though I do not participate often in such actions like a + b, I think this is a good addition for people who do. But then, there is no reason at all to screw with all the other individuals, who where happy with how it was before; and to slap them in their face.

What annoys me about the original dev post is the underlying arrogance with which it is written.

Much of the feedback revolved around the fact that changes could have been implemented with a much gentler touch and w/o ruining the uniqueness of player and NPC craft as classes of icons. I maintain that in order to make ship classes different from each other, you increased the similarity of player ship icons to many other icons in the game, which can prevent the fast identification of ships altogether. This could actually be tested empirically. In my opinion:

Improving player’s situational awareness and reaction times in combat - FAIL

A clearer system for identifying different objects in space. - FAIL

Unifying the iconography with the ship tree in ISIS. - DOES ANYONE CARE, BUT YOU?

Catering to several years of feedback telling us the old bracket system, separating ships only by size categories, was not as useful as it could be - TRUE, BUT MAKING IT WORSE HAS NEVER BEEN A GOOD SOLUTION

Apart from the mess that identifying player craft has become, the icons are also visually unappealing. The person who has designed these icons should take a lesson from the simple elegance with which the originals were designed, or better yet, just revert the whole system until you come up with something that is actually better than the original.

Well yeah, i knew someone would do it.
At least i'm trying to contribute to something. :D

I have to repeat something though, i never said CCP did an awsome job and that it was good as it was.
I was just responding to the non-constructive feedbacks syaing : "go back to old system, i have my habits, screw you CCP"..

Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overload





It is not about the habits, but rather about the cohesion of the concept in question.

One could make a bicycle with a hexa-, or a heptagon wheel, though why would one do that?

Did you break other crap in game with the overview too CCP?

Turning off brackets used to remove objects icons NOT on your overview from space. It now no longer does this. I've tried with show all icons both on and off. Same result.

You cant see a fracking THING in niarja atm with all the goon ganking. Concord everywhere.

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

I don't see myself returning to PvP in EVE until the issue of the triangles w/ chevrons is resolved.

The only icons that work are the Shuttles & the Rookie ships - that's it.

Disclosure: I play on a 17'' notebook at 1920x1080 resolution and 100% UI scaling.

The whole underlying problem is that they went to do all ze icons at the same time - should've started with player spaceships before touching anything else.

I also have no idea why icons for objects like the planets, moons, the sun, containers and wrecks were changed in the first place.

This grand unification functions at the expense of (PvP) spaceship icons, which are incoherent and unintelligible for all practical purposes.