User Interface Suggestions (first one: key bindings for dialog window buttons)

Started by tageborg, November 07, 2013, 04:57:53 AM

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tageborg

Hi,

I have browsed the last few pages of suggestions and the List Of All Suggested Features thread. Not many touch the user interface.

I have the following small suggestion: bind keys to the buttons in the dialog windows that appear. Example: I get a message about a part of my ship reentering the atmosphere near me. I click the letter icon and then need to click (CLICK!) one of "ok" and "focus on location" in the dialog window. I'd like to be able press ESC to dismiss the window without removing the message icon, press ENTER instead of clicking "ok" and some other button instead of clicking "focus on location".

Also, forums often suck for feature requests, since it's hard to find individual requests and because thread titles seldom state what the post is about. Perhaps collect UI related requests here?

EDIT: found one. Right in front of my eyes... http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=698.0

--Tage

Calandryll

This game is incredible, even at this early stage!  I am very impressed with the fire-fight engine and the AI is amazing!  I love seeing several dozens of people jump out of bed and run around the hallways like ants in the morning, each one doing reasonable things, but collectively looking like a chaotic mess.

I had to play with the Phoebe (crazy easy) AI for a few hours to learn the ropes, and I still nearly starved everyone and had an electrical fire each of the first three times it rained, so I wanted to focus my comments on lessening the learning curve with some UI adjustments.

I wanted to mention this here since I really like the idea, but someone else in this forum (Sire in his "Gameplay feedback first four hours" post) mentioned being able to build walls into the rock and have it automatically set up a two step mine-then-build operation to ease underground room creation.  This would save a lot of time!  A few simplifications like this could really streamline things.

I had many instances where I was far from the main base, or I was zoomed out too far to click on an individual person accurately, or I couldn't remember which people were busy with higher priority work and I wished I could just quickly cycle through people to direct them somewhere.  There were many instances where I would scroll between my base to find people and back out to the corners of the map several times to haul things and people back to base.  It would be very helpful to cycle through people to more easily line up people with tasks when they are not both easily visible on the same screen.  The same posts as the above mine-and-build-wall idea mentioned "next" and "previous" to cycle through people, which would be perfect.

Additionally, an optional map could be very helpful to jump from settlements to distant work camps or fire-fights rapidly.

Another idea that hit me was to incorporate most of the "Orders" grouping into right click options or some other mechanism.  Mining, clearing plants permanently, clearing rocks and hauling things (bodies, food, etc.) away could essentially be the same command.  You could also right click on berry bushes just like the right click on farm-land to not permanently destroy the bushes.  How to highlight the area and have your program understand exactly what to do will be challenging, but something to simplify this Orders grouping would help dramatically.

I have also been trying to sort out how to automatically shift to and from Drafted mode so they can fight, then when the fighting is over, it would be nice to pick up the corpses and dropped weapons with fewer clicks.  Could you highlight a group of bodies and weapons with "X"'s on them, check that you really want them movable, then just "haul" them all, and people nearby will haul them back?  The process requires a lot of clicking, and if you're taking everything back to the weapon stands and graves, it probably doesn't matter which person picks up which things.

The other UI piece that eluded me far too long was the trading screen, where you click on the "0" and then drag it one way or the other.  If you put arrows leading from the zeroes that light up, that would help immensely!  Also, I'd rather just type in number, because moving thousands of items around takes me many swipes with my mouse out from the number in the middle.  It may also be nice to double click one side or the other to move the maximum number you or they can afford.  (I had stockpiled tens of thousands of food units, and I was selling it as fast as I could to every trader, so it was taking a while.)

Though this sounds like a lot of complaining, I am just trying to soften the edges and make the game more accessible to a broader audience.  The core behind this game is very solid and engaging, and I love the fighting engine you built.  Watching the enemy spread out and take smart cover is fun, and the stories that I and so many others have had are wonderful.  It is a huge leap forward to have non-linear story-telling that produces such rich and unique experiences as your engine is doing!

Keep up the great work, and let me know if there is a better place or format for ALPHA bugs or suggestions than posting like this.  Thank you for such an amazing game!  I can't wait to see how it evolves from here!