TeNoumen Prime
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
0
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Posted - 2014.07.22 20:52:00 -
[1] - Quote
My most important grudge comes from the UI, and therefore, anything else is positive by my standard.
Overall, I think some points of the new industry UI are overly simplified, especially when compared to the bits presented in the various devblogs (yes I know it was tentative UI, but I don't understand why it has been oversimplified). I also have issues with the new blueprint's show info, and from a more general point of view I think CCP missed the opportunity of clarifying up the station UI, especially with upgrade.
In a nutshell, I think that CCP did the same thing as always. They unnecessarily obfuscate informations that are critical to the players while making useless information visible instead. This whole thing make the industry UI feeling rushed and unpolished to the point that I wonder if someone really take the time to think what should be displayed and what should not.
More generally, this is a perfect case of good complexity vs bad complexity (if you want to use recent buzzwords) where discoverability is crippled by hiding core informations while promoting useless ones. The fact is that the relentless player will eventually figures out how to deduce these core informations, so there is no point in hiding them. Player will just spend their time searching for informations rather than optimizing their setup, which was one of the motivation behind the industry revamp.
In my opinion, the issue will only aggravate with time as devblogs will get forgotten. I am particularly concerned about new players' experience in a year or so when most of the relevant informations about crius will require extensive research to get.
The following is a bullet-point list of what bug me the most with the UI. These points are merely examples that illustrate my general concerns. I am far from having explored all the UI novelties in Crius. Nonetheless, these are the most pressing issues I have with the UI.
- System Cost indexes : First, the only way to get numerical value is to go to World Map control Panel -> Star Map -> Stars -> Industry -> system cost index. This is incredibly complicated for a value that is supposed to be the principal factor in deciding where to settle industrial production. I understand the logic behind putting it there, but it should be accessible (in a numerical form) from the industry window
- System Cost's Bar : No explanation at all about this. Right now it is near useless. Hell, I do not even know why 2R- and Jita have a full bar for manufacturing while the system cost index is clearly different. If its region-wise, say so !
- Put back Job cost modifier breakdown : When I see a pop-up I expect to have a nice recap with precise values. Right now, all I got is the unexpressive system cost's bar. What happened to the nice breakdown shown in devblogs ? Hiding this kind of informations from plain sigh is good. Simply removing them is a terrible idea. We are supposed to optimize this value, how is that supposed to be if we only have a red bar and an obscure numerical value hidden in the star map. Give us precise calculation, base cost, percent modifier and all the stuff advertised in the devblogs. Even more infuriating is the fact that the thing is here for material cost.
- Blueprint details : Only one tab, I would loved to have, somewhere, base stats such as base building/research time, rank (what's the point of adding rank if you do not display it). Also, right now there is nothing that tell the naive player that research time actually increase with level because of the overly simplified show info.
- Build Menu / Ship type breakdown : Over the top and outrageously visible for something so useless. What is the utility of such a precise list. Is there any location where you can build a marauder but not a BlackOps ? If it is to say that you cannot build titan/SC in station why not just put 3 categories in this list (Subcap / Cap / Super) ?
- Stations upgrades : They are sill invisible to line members (same as I-Hub upgrades) and we have to guess them from side effects. This is stupid as these upgrade are quality of life improvement for line members. We are supposed to make decisions based on which system has which upgrade, but we cannot have this knowledge from in-game client.
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