[Suggestion] Various Usability Improvements

Updated for 0.86

from Elemental Forums

Hello,

I have a handful of ideas of usabiltiy improvements and would like to know waht you think:

 

1) Take the Equip button out. I think this is completely by covered by Trade & Equip, which I at least use most of the time. What do you think?

2) In battles clear up the list of uits on the left side. I would say just list every unit once on that side (and if it has more than one action before my next unit comes up, but a number on it). For spells I would place them right beside the unit, with number of actions, till this spell gets active. At the moment I find this list just too cluttered.

3) For building city improvements allow double clicking.

4) Bring ressources up in the top bar as soon as production starts, not only when the first resource is generated (e.g. wild horses produce 0,3 per season, so they show only up after 3 seasons)

5) When designing units I would like to get a better feedback of the dependency between attributes. So what does increasing of Strength really mean.

6) I would like to get an easier feedback for cities how many turns they need for the next level.

7) In the shop screen allow to cycle through heroes in the army (or even that area).

8) Do you think greaves and gauntlets add anything to the game? or are they just "more"? For me they just clutter up the possible equipment w/o significant benefit. I also do not think that they show up prominently on the units renderings.

9) reduce the number of clicks when finding equipment, so times multiple dialogs just pop up.

 

Those are just my 5cent on some possible usability improvements.

 

3,851 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Update on 0.86:

 

1) slightly improved, at least you can directly switch from Equip to trade...

Unfortunately there are some articles you can only use on the equip screen (potion, books, etc.)

I think this need still to be improved.

2) no change...I still do not use the list...I would focus this more on spells and less on units.

3) fixed

3 a) Unfortunately there are now two train / build buttons. Not very intuitive.

6) Slightly improved. The City slider states how many persons are needed and you can check under details if still enough food is available.

Further improvement here is possible

7) fixed

8) I'am still of the oppinion that some clean up in this area would put more focus on the game.

9) this has been greatly improved: fixed

 

So improvements have happened ;-)

 

10) put the correct help where it belongs: here one annoying think: for potions in the battle just the flavour text appears but not what happens

11) similiar give feedback on what spells do to units during battles

12) Keep in mind to update unit rating for the final version, e.g. Ignys are still rated as Strong but I at least kill them easily. On the other hand the Shrill lord is quite an opponent

13) During Quests also at least a short info (similiar to unit rating) would be helpful, if the next step is a battle...Something like: the sound of the bears sounds like there is quite STRONG/WEAK/DEADLY horde.

14) Also mentioned in other threads: improved handling of units on one tile...

 

Keep the good work going...

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top



1) i use that button often, also i dont see why bother removing it


2)  sorta agree, that list is not easy and nice to use personally id rather have a number near each unit showing when its his turn and same with spells


3) i dont care but nothing wrong with it

4) yeah that would be better i thought the same playing

5) wouldnt hurt

6) yes that would be useful


7) isnt already possible?

8) i like them

9) maybe

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Update on [0.90]

 

1) slightly improved, now equip is available, but you have no comparison and use is still missing (so items which are removed after usage like potions).

2) no change...I still do not use the list...I would focus this more on spells and less on units. Especially as spells get more and more important.

3) fixed

3 a) this one I did not notice any more, so either fixed or not relevant

4) still not fixed. Resources appear and vanish.

5) fixed with the removal of secondary stats.

6) No improvement you still need to collect this data: food available vs. persons needed to level up

7) fixed

8) If if works for others it works for me. At least 0.90 I noticed for the first time, that I had to decide what to use, as some of my heroes could not carry everything.

9) fixed.

10) still  there, e.g. for healing potion from the shop, there is no quanity description of the effect.

11) for spells this is fixed

12) Unit / Army rating is still not very helpful.

13) In some cases I noticed the army rating on quest symbols, but not yet on all. This should be at least on all symbols, where I already know that a battle will happen.

14) Army management is still a major problem: both on one tile and some times, the next army will be automatically selected (and then I sned those most of the time somewhere on the other side of the map.)

 

[0.90] Issue

15) the most critical issue I noticed was, that I had one time in my game too many cities to fit on the left side of my screen (1280x1024) and in that case I had no way of scrolling up the list. Mouse wheel worked once, but in that case it was always used for zoom. Only closing of one section reseted the list. On large maps this can get quite cumbersome.

16) On level up of cities and heroes: I can press OK with out selecting anything and I have no chance to get to this screen back.

 

 

 

Overall [0.90] is abig step forwared.

I would currently rate a 6/10.

(I would give a:

7 with the AI being a real challenge on hard,

8 with fixing most of the remaining game play bugs (like not working quests),

9 with balancing,

10 with more unique content)

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Too much! too much!! makes my head hurt, Wish people would make posts more... accurate in theme...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej