Am I alone in thinking the UX of the older UI was better?

[ConvexedSkye]

I feel so confused with this new one and I'm not a fan of the new layout... It feels like it's hard to do simple things or get information about my stats, the map, movement, status, items, etc. Is this just a placeholder maybe? I feel like it really needs to be addressed...

 

[ShySquare]

I'm with you on that one. It might just be that I need to get more accustomed to it, though (and I absolutely adore the new color schemes !)

Plus I'm not a fan of the fact that now you have to go to a specific area in your ship to sleep/store stuff/etc.

 

[ConvexedSkye]

I'm with you on that one. It might just be that I need to get more accustomed to it, though (and I absolutely adore the new color schemes !)

Plus I'm not a fan of the fact that now you have to go to a specific area in your ship to sleep/store stuff/etc.

I love the colors too! I like the idea of having a big ship and having to move around in it, but moving at all seems super cumbersome right now. Map Is way too small or way too big, don't like having the movement control very small on the bottom left corner when it's going to be the thing you interact most with, and a bunch of other little things like that.

I'm not a UX person, I'm a programmer. Buttt, I work with UX people and feel like this just doesn't work haha. Need some UX studies and user feedback on the design. I think it needs a lot of work.

 

[ShySquare]

I like the idea of having a big ship and having to move around in it, but moving at all seems super cumbersome right now

My thoughts exactly. I'm not opposed to the player's ship having its own map, but I liked having all possible actions available in a single, always displayed screen.

Map Is way too small or way too big, don't like having the movement control very small on the bottom left corner when it's going to be the thing you interact most with, and a bunch of other little things like that.

Again, I agree entirely, though I do like having the option to see a bigger map (it makes it easier to know excatly where you are and where to go)

 

[Shura]

I also miss the old UI. Current one seems a lot clunkier and not very intuitive.

 

[ConvexedSkye]

I also miss the old UI. Current one seems a lot clunkier and not very intuitive.

I really hope they redesign it soon. I kinda find it hard to enjoy playing it

 

[Drash]

Yeah, I liked how the old UI managed to cram all of the information you really needed into a fairly compact space.
(That and it was more keyboard friendly.)

 

[Theron]

In some of the old blog posts, there was talk about making the UI more Mobile-friendly.

Maybe they could be convinced to make some additional functions, but I don't think a total overhaul is likely. There's still at least one core system that need to be added (ships/ship combat, maybe PC pregnancy), so I doubt they'll be making any unplanned changes until those are in. I'd guess not until they make it back to Dhaal and the bug reports die down.

I wish I knew where requests for UI functions/alterations would be most likely to be seen.

 

[ConvexedSkye]

In some of the old blog posts, there was talk about making the UI more Mobile-friendly.

Maybe they could be convinced to make some additional functions, but I don't think a total overhaul is likely. There's still at least one core system that need to be added (ships/ship combat, maybe PC pregnancy), so I doubt they'll be making any unplanned changes until those are in. I'd guess not until they make it back to Dhaal and the bug reports die down.

I wish I knew where requests for UI functions/alterations would be most likely to be seen.

Is there any way to ask them directly? Because as it stands now, it's kinda turning me off from playing and testing... So many UI features missing from the old version, but even just simple UI flow/UX is lacking. Hell, the movement itself seems cumbersome now.

 

[Spidereggs]

On my Nordic keyboard, the key to switch between the map and the stats corresponds to the "Ö" key, which is pretty much all the way to the right of the keyboard - very inconvenient to reach for while moving about. I don't know if it's feasible with this game, but being able to remap keys would be great - as well as not having to swap between map and stats while still having large busts.

 

[ConvexedSkye]

On my Nordic keyboard, the key to switch between the map and the stats corresponds to the "Ö" key, which is pretty much all the way to the right of the keyboard - very inconvenient to reach for while moving about. I don't know if it's feasible with this game, but being able to remap keys would be great - as well as not having to swap between map and stats while still having large busts.

Not seeing the stats and the map at the same time is a big one for me! And rebinding keys sound amazing.

Also, I'm not entirely sure how they did the port over to JS, but I'm kinda curious why they have so many function name issues.

 

[TheoFel]

Personally I liked the single room ship, but the moving through the ship bit could help with future shipboard content and in showing you how the ship changes when you trade up. My biggest gripe right now is the stats screen being shared with map. I'm constantly switching between them to see what effects I'm under, my money,health, and lust, and to know where I'm going.

 

[Theron]

Personally I liked the single room ship, but the moving through the ship bit could help with future shipboard content and in showing you how the ship changes when you trade up.

I think it will depend on how spread out the functions are on larger ships. If I have to go to the far end every time I want to sleep or store items, it's going to get irritating.

My biggest gripe right now is the stats screen being shared with map. I'm constantly switching between them to see what effects I'm under, my money,health, and lust, and to know where I'm going.

Health and Lust are the big ones. Lust increases over time (to 75% maximum), but there are some places with environmental damage, like the thorns in the Vanae Jungle, Myrellion's Mines or Uveto's cold. Uveto also has Savicite encounters, which can boost your Lust over maximum. If you run out of HP or max Lust, you auto-lose the next encounter.

Stat training will be much more annoying because you can only see your 'Passive' stats via the Codex. 2 button presses after every (few) time(s) you get Slow Stat Gain adds up quickly. Maybe they could add a notice when you reach a new whole number?

Using items is more involved, too. You have to select the item and click 'Use'. Then it kicks you out of the Inventory. If you want to use a bunch of Transformatives in quick succession, you have to keep going into your inventory after each one. And you'd better put the one you use at the top, or you might have to scroll the list or use a filter button, which also has to be done every time.

I've said this before, but the UI is much prettier and less informative.

 

[Big Papa Coyote]

It makes savescumming harder. Used to be able to do most of it with a few quick button presses, now I definitely gotta go back and forth between screen and keyboard more. Not having passive stats visible isn't great. Definitely less user friendly I feel.

 

[Fwfrakes]

I feel so confused with this new one and I'm not a fan of the new layout... It feels like it's hard to do simple things or get information about my stats, the map, movement, status, items, etc. Is this just a placeholder maybe? I feel like it really needs to be addressed...

I agree, very confusing

 

[Robot12345678]

First of all, I do have a question for everyone who has been complaining about not being able to see map and stats at once : have you tried tapping "M" key on keyboard? It allows you to see map, stats and text all at once. Personally, I have no issue with it on a wide screen. Though, it only works on 2 conditions (maybe more) :

• "Map" should be viewed and not "stats"
• You shouldn't be in a fight, puzzle or any kind of special scene that makes displaying both map and stats difficult.

Things I don't like in new UI :

• Arrow keys on keyboard don't work. Only WASD seem to work.
• Remapping keyboard keys is not possible at the moment. It would not be a big deal for me if arrows worked.
• Icons for inventory and Codex.
  • Inventory should have a gun or something on top of boxes or next to them. Or maybe armor. 3 boxes make me think of rankings or achievements.
  • Why not just make Codex icon a book? Or maybe a magnifying glass?

Things I really liked

• Bust for player
• Combat logs ^_^ Thanks for making them as they are now.

Suggestions :

• Currently, default mode is "view either map or stats". I suggest making "both map and stats" default one as, apparently, players are having troubles finding it.
• Add some music and effects, please (the minimum of having a theme per planet would be nice). Kevin MacLeod has quite a lot of royalty free music. Just search for "space", "alien" etc. You can easily find ambient music like "Space 1990" and so on.
• Combat logs are already in separate bubbles. Could you make some bubbles of different color? To distinguish fighting info from in-fight talking? Ideally, even separate between bubbles that result in inflicting/dealing damage/lust (4 colors)
• Whenever it is impossible to see both a map and stats (for example, during puzzle), I suggest viewing stats as a default or even only option.
• Is it too much to ask for a back view of the bust or rather lower back and legs ? ^_^ Maybe even remove switching between map and stats and make more space for both views? And maybe even a couple of options for a haircut?

Overall, I don't have a problem with new UI. It's been a while since I have played the game with old UI, but I can't see even a single thing that would make new UI worse than old one. Old one didn't allow to remap keys either, no? I haven't played the Javascript version for long though. I just wanted to check UI for myself, but I will wait for more bugfixes first.

 

[Theron]

First of all, I do have a question for everyone who has been complaining about not being able to see map and stats at once : have you tried tapping "M" key on keyboard? It allows you to see map, stats and text all at once. Personally, I have no issue with it on a wide screen.

That is an excellent tip. Thanks. It is perhaps counter-intuitive that 'make the map huge' also makes stats visible, but it does work. It even persists through loads.
I'd still like a way to display the 'Passive Stats', but it's a start.

Arrow keys on keyboard don't work. Only WASD seem to work.

Did you see the Blog post where Gedan was talking about making it possible to click on a square to move there automatically? That might help.

 

[Spidereggs]

First of all, I do have a question for everyone who has been complaining about not being able to see map and stats at once : have you tried tapping "M" key on keyboard? It allows you to see map, stats and text all at once. Personally, I have no issue with it on a wide screen. Though, it only works on 2 conditions (maybe more) :

But this is mutually exclusive with having large busts open, as it takes the same space as the large map. I could bear with having to switch between the two, if the key to do so wasn't on the opposite side of the keyboard for me.

 

[Mooing_Mermaid]

I personally would like a way to customize what we switch between in the options menu, though I have no idea how much effort that would require.

For example, choosing whether to flip between the map and stats, or switching it up so that you switch between map and bust, or bust and stats. Or anything else that would fit in the left-hand portion there that wouldn't completely obliterate the efforts Gedan and others have been putting into the UI/UX.

ETA: That way we could permanently have the stats visible, while swapping between bust and map, for example....

 

[Robot12345678]

Did you see the Blog post where Gedan was talking about making it possible to click on a square to move there automatically? That might help.

No, thanks for mentioning this

But this is mutually exclusive with having large busts open, as it takes the same space as the large map. I could bear with having to switch between the two, if the key to do so wasn't on the opposite side of the keyboard for me.

For example, choosing whether to flip between the map and stats, or switching it up so that you switch between map and bust, or bust and stats. Or anything else that would fit in the left-hand portion there that wouldn't completely obliterate the efforts Gedan and others have been putting into the UI/UX.

ETA: That way we could permanently have the stats visible, while swapping between bust and map, for example....

Ok, now I see.
I have several things to say about this :
1) Is having a large bust (pun intended) that important for you? I played a little with customizing it, and it is indeed very well done, but the novelty of it kind of faded away after 5 minutes of seeing it. Unless devs improve it greatly (haircuts, back view etc), I probably won't be using it and would prefer to just set an image instead.
2) It would indeed be great if developers could share with us their plans about the bust. Is it going to improve over time or will it just remain as it is? Because, to me, it is just a nice to have feature, but which is really of no big importance.
3) Overall, my opinion

I can't see even a single thing that would make new UI worse than old one

still stands. Bust wasn't present in the old version. Small bust, in my opinion, fits perfectly on the screen. As for the big bust... I think devs should create a poll or something to discuss this.

Would be great if they participated a little bit in this discussion though ^_^

 

[Spidereggs]

I have several things to say about this :
1) Is having a large bust (pun intended) that important for you? I played a little with customizing it, and it is indeed very well done, but the novelty of it kind of faded away after 5 minutes of seeing it. Unless devs improve it greatly (haircuts, back view etc), I probably won't be using it and would prefer to just set an image instead.

I'm not talking about the auto-generated player bust per se (and I'm working on drawing myself a custom one), more about the npc busts. Many of them are lovingly detailed and the post-stamp sized bust just does no justice to them, mushing all the details into a hard-to-discern soup. With the large busts, though, all of that detail comes out beautifully the moment you interact with the character. That is why I prefer going about with the busts enlarged.

 

[Robot12345678]

I'm not talking about the auto-generated player bust per se (and I'm working on drawing myself a custom one), more about the npc busts. Many of them are lovingly detailed and the post-stamp sized bust just does no justice to them, mushing all the details into a hard-to-discern soup. With the large busts, though, all of that detail comes out beautifully the moment you interact with the character. That is why I prefer going about with the busts enlarged.

Ok. Thanks, I see your point of view now.
It is indeed a valid point.

 

[Tainted-Alice]

Hmmm interesting I didn’t realize people didn’t like th new UI well each to their own I guess.

 

[ConvexedSkye]

Hmmm interesting I didn’t realize people didn’t like th new UI well each to their own I guess.

I mean, I love the features of it. I just feel like it's very clunky and hard to do anything close to what we could with the old one. Just not intuitive or as useful. Looks amazing for sure, but the UX needs to be looked at.

 

[Crafty]

Shopping for equipment is a particular rough spot, in my opinion. Because the actual stats only show up when you inspect, comparing items goes from clicking one then the other to clicking one, clicking inspect, clicking back, clicking the second item, and then clicking inspect on that. Regular items have their full description available without inspecting them, so I don't see why equipment stats should be different.

Requiring more button presses and giving less information seem to be at the heart of a lot of my issues with the new UI.

For the ship, having shortcuts at the entryway would really help - if you could select storage or sleep to instantly travel to the relevant rooms and open their menu, and had a "back to entryway" button you could use anywhere on board would streamline things a lot.

The save and load menu also threw me off - partly because of CoC2. I'm used to clicking the slot, then choosing whether to save or load, not the other way round. Because the file menu defaults to save unless you specifically choose load, I ended up overwriting a save I was trying to load (I know it asks to to confirm you'd like to overwrite, but years of being asked to confirm whenever loading or saving has made confirming basically happen on autopilot for me).

I don't expect we'll get the old UI back, but here's hoping the new UI is updated to be easier to use once the bug fixes start dying down.

 

[ConvexedSkye]

Shopping for equipment is a particular rough spot, in my opinion. Because the actual stats only show up when you inspect, comparing items goes from clicking one then the other to clicking one, clicking inspect, clicking back, clicking the second item, and then clicking inspect on that. Regular items have their full description available without inspecting them, so I don't see why equipment stats should be different.

Requiring more button presses and giving less information seem to be at the heart of a lot of my issues with the new UI.

For the ship, having shortcuts at the entryway would really help - if you could select storage or sleep to instantly travel to the relevant rooms and open their menu, and had a "back to entryway" button you could use anywhere on board would streamline things a lot.

The save and load menu also threw me off - partly because of CoC2. I'm used to clicking the slot, then choosing whether to save or load, not the other way round. Because the file menu defaults to save unless you specifically choose load, I ended up overwriting a save I was trying to load (I know it asks to to confirm you'd like to overwrite, but years of being asked to confirm whenever loading or saving has made confirming basically happen on autopilot for me).

I don't expect we'll get the old UI back, but here's hoping the new UI is updated to be easier to use once the bug fixes start dying down.

Very much this, I think the inventory system, in general, could use a rework. UI-wise anyway.

 

[Eldfjall]

One thing that gets me about the new UI that I've not seen mentioned is the main panel is now shunted right because there's only the left side panel now. And gets pushed even further if you want to have the map and stats open at the same time (this will only get worse if map-click navigation is implemented, because then there's a mechanical reason to keep the map expanded beyond just being able to see it and combat stats at the same time).

It's a text-based game, but the panel where all the actual text is isn't given the priority position in the upper center of the screen anymore. It feels wrong.

 

[Drash]

One thing that gets me about the new UI that I've not seen mentioned is the main panel is now shunted right because there's only the left side panel now. And gets pushed even further if you want to have the map and stats open at the same time (this will only get worse if map-click navigation is implemented, because then there's a mechanical reason to keep the map expanded beyond just being able to see it and combat stats at the same time).

It's a text-based game, but the panel where all the actual text is isn't given the priority position in the upper center of the screen anymore. It feels wrong.

Having a bust/map area on one side, while the player stats on the right like before would seem like it would balance things out.

 

[Colaymorak]

Yeah, I think putting all 3 features (stats, map and busts) on the lefthand side of the screen messed with readability a bit too much

Combined with the fact that your character's passive or base or whatever stats are no longer visible from the main screen is not great

Some of the changes are nice, but I think they need to rework some stuff before I can say that the new UI is actually good

 

[Crafty]

Given that the new UI allows you to "pop out" the portrait icon, having a button on the pop-out to shrink it, rather than clicking on the smaller, now empty portrait space, would mean you could use some of that space to display stats and map at the same time - you might not be able to fit everything, but even some basics (shields, health, lust, credits) would be a big improvement. Having to toggle between your map and health bar is probably my biggest gripe right now.