Couple of Small Complaints

Re: Hard to Learn/UI Scaling

Hey guys, I won't get into anything too complex here (Too be honest I didn't play much of Elemental yesterday, the crashes kind of took it out of me) but I did want to say that I'm pretty displeased about two fairly general things.

First and least is the UI Scaling, I have good eye-site and I play a lot of strategy games ... But some of the on screen icons/text in Elemental are absolutely minuscule. I'm talking icons/buttons you have to be able to see and manipulate (Think those pesky top-right buttons) that are like 1mm in diameter.

Secondly and more importantly the game is so incredibly difficult to learn! I've been playing 4X games almost as long as they've existed but in Elemental I still find myself constantly saying "What?".

Often there is no easy way to distinguish an icon with a button, such icons as the "Spellcaster" icon (which ofc is where you cast your spells from) could easily be misconstrued as simply an indicator that the unit is a spell caster not "Click me to cast". 

The build system is also pretty diabolical, I spent maybe two hours yesterday just repeating over and over "But Farm isn't on my Build Menu..." to myself. Then the resource trackers are scattered all over the shop and there is no concise single glance solution to most of my problems. Far too much is buried in either subtle unreadable icons or menus and menus and menus.

I think the UI needs a good tinkering because atm it is pretty hostile for new users and there have clearly been zero usability considerations.

All in all, it's looking promising but if every day of Elemental I play is as irritating as the last one it'd be a real shame.

James.

P.S. Learning materials if you've got them please :)

1,433 views 2 replies
Reply #1 Top

Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but i recently found that if you select a unit/city and click the portrait in the bottom bar it gives you all the detailed information in a much more easy to read format.

The city version is kind of similar to the Civ IV city view.

Reply #2 Top

Quoting cfehunter, reply 1
Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but i recently found that if you select a unit/city and click the portrait in the bottom bar it gives you all the detailed information in a much more easy to read format.

The city version is kind of similar to the Civ IV city view.
End of cfehunter's quote

That might indeed help it's just a shame not nearly as much info is available in an obvious and intuitive fashion.

I always find myself scrabbling to find information which after so many years of these games is a bit silly