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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
   |
Posted - 2007.03.26 04:20:00 -
[1]
Hey.
It's finally started annoying me enough to post about it. I like to do a lot of things at once in eve, I will always have several windows going and will be doing several things at the same time. Eve, however, much like the majority of programs, is designed with the assumption that the user is only ever doing a single thing at a time. This causes me no end of annoyance. I'll explain why it's annoying and suggest ways to possibly correct the user interface to remove this problem.
Problem #1 - Undocking:
Say I'm chatting away to a friend in corp chat and I need to undock. I undock and the entire screen goes black for a good 20-30 seconds. I can continue to type and the chat window is definitely there and recieves text but I can't see it. I can't see anything, all because I'm undocking my ship. It's annoying and it's not required.
Possible solution:
Make the chat windows and left hand sidebar display on top of the fading screen. When the screen has faded, close inappropriate windows as the game currently does. Only chat windows and the left hand bar, everything else would fade to black as normal but I could keep chatting to people as I undock. If possible, the market and other windows that are allowed to be open when undocked should also remain above the black fade.
Problem #2 - Shifting focus:
This is the single biggest cause of me shouting "NO!" and "STOP DOING THAT!". Under no circumstances, EVER should a program switch your mouse or keyboard focus from one object to another unless you expressly ordered it to do so by moving the mouse, clicking or some other interactive mode. Eve is terrible for this and I'll give a few examples:
I keep local channel separated from the main panel and keep it on the topleft of the screen. If I'm typing a sentence in a chat channel when I dock, half the sentence ends up in local because half way through the docking sequence keyboard focus switches to local. Or say I'm typing something in the market search window or character search while I dock, it appears in local channel.
Say I convo someone but they aren't at their computer. That's fine, they'll see the window when they get back and click accept. When they click ok, regardless of what I am doing or whether or not I am typing, my game will stall for a moment and open their window right on top of what I'm doing, causing the focus to shift. And that's not the worst bit. Sometimes the focus DOESN'T shift when a chat window opens and I'm sitting typing in another channel that's on a different tab of the current stack.
In the same vein, sometimes I'm sitting chatting and a convo invite window pops up right when I'm hitting enter. I find myself in a convo unexpectedly, not a big issue, but what happens when it's a gang invite? People were using this not too long ago to pirate in highsec. They'd sit outside jita ganging haulers repeatedly in the hope that they would be typing and hit enter or be stupid enough to accept, then people at war with the gang leader pop the hauler.
Possible solution:
Keyboard focus should never change unless as a direct response to something the user does. Simple as that. Windows which pop up in front of the user should not grab the focus unless the user directly (as in immediately beforehand) pressed a button which caused the window to appear.
In the case of convos, I suggest that if they are set to appear on the same stack as is currently being used, make them appear as normal and grab focus. However, if they are to appear on another stack or on their own stack, they should not grab the focus. This stops a window that doesn't directly cover up the one you're using from grabbing the focus mid-sentence without making that annoying thing happen where a nonvisible window has the focus.
There are more, which I'll get around to posting eventually.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
|
Posted - 2007.03.26 05:15:00 -
[2]
Problem #3 - Progress Indicators:
Whenever you log in, dock, undock or do any od a myriad of tasks like checking a contract, a small progress indicator pops up Progress Indicators in programs are designed to let you know that while the program may appear to be unresponsive, it is actually doing something that might take a little time. In eve, they have the unfortunate side-effect of interrupting what you're doing and forcing you to wait until they are completed. While you can make them disappear by hitting escape, the fact remains that while a progress bar is on the screen, you can't do anything. It steals the mouse focus and disables all mouse functionality. It steals keyboard focus and then gives it back once it's done. It doesn't need to do those things to perform its purpose - to indicate loading.
Possible Solution:
Make loading indicators completely transparant to I/O.
Problem #4 - When Jumping..:
Whenever you jump from one system to another, the mousefocus is stolen by an invisible upper layer momentarilly while the game changes systems and the keyboard focus switches to local. This has some unfortunate side-effects. I can't type while jumping, jumping interrupts my market dealings for 5 seconds and most annoyingly, it's often too late to stop the autopilot if I see that I need to upon entering a system because it starts to warp before I can even use the mouse again.
Possible solution:
I don't know what possible reason there is for stopping people using the mouse while jumping so I assume it's not intentional and is simply left over from when jumping used to be a fade-to-black affair (or am I remembering that incorrectly?). Please find a way to smooth out jumping, it would make eve so much more pleasant to play. While I'm on the subject, the visuals of jumping are disappointing. Your ship fittings disappear and re-apear after the jump, the background changes juttedly and the game stalls for a moment as the new grid loads and appears all at once. Instead, why not have something a tad smoother and graphically friendlier? I'm not suggesting we go back to the old fade to black when jumping thing but surely there could be a simple fade of some kind between the old background and the new one, assuming the slight stalling issue can be sorted out (perhaps by preloading the other side of the stargate?).
Problem #5 - Stuff jumping around all over the overview:
The overview updates about once per second and rearranges itself accordingly. Unfortunately, if there's a lot of activity, this can make actually clicking on something impossible. Try selecting a stargate in jita, for example. It's been a minor annoyance of mine since the overview came out.
Possible Solution:
I believe the overview item that you have the mouse over should not move. If the overview updates, the item you have the mouse over should remain where it is for that update. It's a simple fix and would save so much grief. If it would cause any problems, make it optional and default it to off.
Problem #6 - Someone jumping into the system resets mouseover:
Whenever anyone jumps into or out of the system (whenever the local user list changes), the chat mouseover data is lost. For example, if I move the mouse over a link and then someone jumps in, the link deselects. I'll have to test whether or not this makes the link unclickable until you move the mouse again but I think it does. Try clicking links in jita local, where the local list changes every second at peak times.
Possible Solution:
Obvious.
Problem #7 - There should be a number 7:
I'm sure there is one. If it comes to me, I'll post it.
Possible Solution:
I'll probably suggest a solution for it once I remember it.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Par'Gellen
Gallente
Low Grade Ore
|
Posted - 2007.03.26 07:28:00 -
[3]
I am in full agreement. My personal favorite irritation is the use of blocking calls when they aren't needed (entire client freezes and stutters as it's communicating with the server). This is not a good practice when coding TCP/IP or UDP communications unless you have no user interface at all. Otherwise it's simply annoying to anyone trying to use it.
---
CCP : Save my mousewheel! |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
|
Posted - 2007.03.26 08:23:00 -
[4]
 Originally by: Par'Gellen
My personal favorite irritation is the use of blocking calls when they aren't needed (entire client freezes and stutters as it's communicating with the server).
This is my pet peeve with games these days. This, not using threading and buffering to split IO from the main game loop and stalling a game while loading textures and models are starting to **** me off in games. If the client cannot continue without some information, sure, lock the portion of the game that relies on it until that information arrives. Don't lock the entire game up, disabling my chat channels and making the game feel unresponsive, just because there's a texture that hasn't loaded yet or because you're downloading what's on the grid you just warped into.
The other problem, I just remembered. Explosions. I am getting sick of seeing my entire screen flash when an explosion occurs on the same grid as me. This giant flash obscures my vision for a split second every time an npc gets blown up and I know why. They're making explosions (which take WAY too much CPU to calculate btw) spawn on the camera and then moving them to their proper location. So for a split second, the explosion is right in front of you and it's god damn annoying when something is exploding every second and you have to put up with that. It even happens when I'm 100km away from whatever exploded and looking in the opposite direction. If you want to get annoyed by this, go to Deltole, go to the comet complex and go to the serpentis survey site while people are killing everything. God damn that's annoying as hell.
Possible fix? This is a programming mistake. Don't display an explosion until it's in the position it's supposed to be.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
|
Posted - 2007.04.01 20:16:00 -
[5]
I'm surprised there aren't more vocal people annoyed by these things. Eve stutters and interrupts users, even on broadband and with a great computer. Granted, they aren't game-breaking issues, but they're the kind of problems that erode your resistance and start to really **** you off after a few years.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Nyana
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Posted - 2007.04.01 21:41:00 -
[6]
Mega-signed.
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Frecator Dementa
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Posted - 2007.04.02 13:45:00 -
[7]
uber-signed
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SN3263827
The Black Rabbits
Fatal Persuasion
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Posted - 2007.04.02 14:15:00 -
[8]
Signed, except maybe the overview sorting thing, but since you've admitted it should be optional I'll give you free support for that too ;)
My niggle is part of problem #2. More specifically, the calculator. I have never in my life known an application to NOT have focus when you start it up. I can't believe you have to actually click in the calculator to give it focus after opening it. The number of times I've been working out stacking penalties or somesuch and typed "0.87*0.7" or whatever in local/corpchat/jointops I couldn't count.
_____________________________________________
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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
|
Posted - 2007.04.02 19:44:00 -
[9]
Originally by: SN3263827
Signed, except maybe the overview sorting thing, but since you've admitted it should be optional I'll give you free support for that too ;)
My niggle is part of problem #2. More specifically, the calculator. I have never in my life known an application to NOT have focus when you start it up. I can't believe you have to actually click in the calculator to give it focus after opening it. The number of times I've been working out stacking penalties or somesuch and typed "0.87*0.7" or whatever in local/corpchat/jointops I couldn't count.
The issue for me is that there's no standardised way to decide if something should take focus when it appears. Things either do or don't take the keyboard or mouse focus when they open, regardless of other variables. If I click a button to do something like open a contract, it may take up to 20 seconds and even under good conditions it can take up to 10. So I click this button and I start typing something in a chat channel while I wait but right in the middle of me typing, the window appears and steals the focus.
A window you open should obtain the focus if and only if the command to open it was given immediately prior to the window appearing. For example, the calculator. As you said, the calculator appears instantly when the button is pressed but it doesn't take the focus and it should. However, for things which can take several seconds to occur, they should not take the focus as the user has likely begun another process while they wait. Worst of all are the things that have loading indicators to show they're opening and may take a few seconds. These things not only steal the focus on completing the opening process when they shouldn't, the loading indicators also steal it in an attempt to prevent you from actually doing anything while it loads.
Another pet peeve of mine is the "show info" thing. I'm sure it saves on bandwidth on ccp's side to render every single portrait on the local computer but couldn't there be an option to disable it? I'm sick of right clicking on someone and selecting "show info" to see what corp they're in and having my client lock up for 20 seconds while it renders a portrait I don't even want to see. A simple solution for this issue is to make the portrait only ever render if you click on it, EVEN in the "show info" window. Many people want to check info on people without rendering their portraits and currently this is not possible.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
John McDuff
Caldari
Jovian Labs
The Foundation.
|
Posted - 2007.04.02 21:13:00 -
[10]
SIGNED on most of it
The focus problems are driving me nuts, especially the calculator thing mentioned before - i actually use my work calculator on my desk next to my keyboard, which is way to complicated tbh. Why not make it a chat command while we're at it... '/calc' or something.
the interface itself could do with some skins to choose from. Don't get me wrong this one was cool the first time i saw it... or the first year. But now i pretty much tried all the colours i'm kinda done with it, actually looks bulky to me now - something a bit more minimalistic would be great (xoblite/blackbox anyone?) but that's prolly just me. The bugs/irritations should have preference anyway imo.
On the mods disappearing on jump thing... i think its been on SoonÖ for a long time now.
Also there are some some real nice suggestions on the ideas board for other interface improvements that i think need mention in this context. Think damage indicators next to F1-F8 buttons and various decluttering-the-overview posts. i'll do the linky thing if i find some time.
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Jen Woo
Gallente
Iugum Noctis
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Posted - 2007.04.03 17:43:00 -
[11]
I sign about the overview one. I hate lock targeting wreck. Thinking about it, maybe the overview panel can be grouped by icons, like the drones or the gang. So you can minimize the wreck, or stations. And view only the npcs...
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Sir Bart
Vendetta Underground
Rule of Three
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Posted - 2007.04.03 17:50:00 -
[12]
These are all bugs and should be included in a bug report.
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Sir Bart
Vendetta Underground
Rule of Three
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Posted - 2007.04.03 18:01:00 -
[13]
What bothers me is when you have a lot of ships in one location, the client seems to have no way of reducing the detail displayed, you can scroll out but it's still really laggy, like it's trying to render every ship in full detail. Why not have a way of reducing each ships detail to a squal box if you want and have every ship show up on grid start as such a low detail object until the full object is ready to be rendered? Then have a thread running in the background that will asign the proper renderings to each object as it can but the rest of the game doesn't need to stop to wait for this.
In fleet fights this is why fleets will first warp on grid 400km away from the fight, then do a small warp within grid to get into firing range.
It's also why some fleets will intentionally gang warp in a way that passes them right through your gang, you get a nice close up of all of them as they pass through you so you get lagged to hell trying to render it.
Please fix.
-Bart
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Mainreh Rhonaki
Jazz Associates
R i s e
|
Posted - 2007.04.04 10:36:00 -
[14]
I beleive a better solution to problem #5 is to have the overview freeze when you're holding down shift, ctrl and/or alt. Preferrably, there will be some indication that overview is in a frozen state.
For me, the main issue is when targetting hostiles, so I would be satisfied with just ctrl freezing overview, but I assume there are ppl once in a while that would like to be able to actually leave Jita without needing a special overview profile for this particular task. :)
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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.04.04 14:36:00 -
[15]
Originally by: Mainreh Rhonaki
I beleive a better solution to problem #5 is to have the overview freeze when you're holding down shift, ctrl and/or alt. Preferrably, there will be some indication that overview is in a frozen state.
For me, the main issue is when targetting hostiles, so I would be satisfied with just ctrl freezing overview, but I assume there are ppl once in a while that would like to be able to actually leave Jita without needing a special overview profile for this particular task. :)
That sounds like a good idea but what if someone jumps to the next system or warps out while you have the button held down? You'd have someone on your overview that you're not meant to. And removing them would negate the point of freezing the overview since things would keep jumping around as people warp in and out.
It's still a good solution but to add to it, the game should leave a blank space in the overview if someone leaves the grid or otherwise would disappear from the overview (cloaking, exploding etc). If something warps in, decloaks or spawns while the button is held, the overview would have to add them at the very end or nearest blank space to the top. That way, the overview positions can be frozen while you're holding whatever key it is but the people ON the overview will still represent what is on the grid. And if you need to re-jiggle the overview so it's displaying everything sorted correctly, you can just let go of the key and press it again.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Alpine 69
Slacker Industries
Exuro Mortis
|
Posted - 2007.04.04 17:02:00 -
[16]
/signed
Your signature exceeds the maximum allowed filesize of 24000 bytes -Sahwoolo Etoophie ([email protected])
Noes not again =( |
Adunh Slavy
Ammatar Trade Syndicate
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Posted - 2007.04.05 00:24:00 -
[17]
Originally by: Par'Gellen
... use of blocking calls when they aren't needed ...
/signed
-AS |
Blind Man
Kemono.
Anarchy Empire
|
Posted - 2007.04.05 01:10:00 -
[18]
agreed. although this is a drop in the ocean of UI fixes and additions we need 
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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.04.08 14:54:00 -
[19]
Originally by: Blind Man
agreed. although this is a drop in the ocean of UI fixes and additions we need
Suggestions like these are probably falling on deaf ears, to be honest. Some of these issues have been in eve longer than I have.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Tycoon Girl
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Posted - 2007.04.09 03:12:00 -
[20]
Originally by: Nyphur
crapload of noob coded stuff
all this stuff the OP reported bugs me as hell on a daily basis...
also... this char is a trader and guess what... I open up the market as less as possible since it's a lag fest:
click veldspar... 30s for orders to appear...buy some veldspar... 30s for orders to update... do this with shuttles and you can go have a lunch or something... seriously ?
I seriously wonder if Stackless Python is a good language to run a game or if CCP's coders need 10 more years of training before we see a smooth working interface ever happen in EvE. go recruit some Blizzards coders or I don't know.
STOP any new content devellopment and use ALL the staff to fix this game till their fingers and eyes bleed will ya.
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Mainreh Rhonaki
Jazz Associates
R i s e
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Posted - 2007.04.09 11:54:00 -
[21]
Originally by: Nyphur
Originally by: Mainreh Rhonaki
I beleive a better solution to problem #5 is to have the overview freeze when you're holding down shift, ctrl and/or alt. Preferrably, there will be some indication that overview is in a frozen state.
That sounds like a good idea but what if someone jumps to the next system or warps out while you have the button held down? You'd have someone on your overview that you're not meant to. And removing them would negate the point of freezing the overview since things would keep jumping around as people warp in and out.
Well, given that a reasonably fast ship is unlockable most of the time it is visible in the overview if it warps/jumps in and immediately out, this problem exist already. All you need to do is release ctrl for a fraction of a second to get an updated view - when you want it. I think you can get that into your reflexes pretty quickly.
Originally by: Nyphur
It's still a good solution but to add to it, the game should leave a blank space in the overview if someone leaves the grid or otherwise would disappear from the overview (cloaking, exploding etc). If something warps in, decloaks or spawns while the button is held, the overview would have to add them at the very end or nearest blank space to the top. That way, the overview positions can be frozen while you're holding whatever key it is but the people ON the overview will still represent what is on the grid. And if you need to re-jiggle the overview so it's displaying everything sorted correctly, you can just let go of the key and press it again.
That would be even better, but would prolly complicate the code quite a bit. Oh, well, I reckon that code has been thru innumerable rewrites. They can prolly do another one. 
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Sevarus James
Minmatar
Meridian Dynamics
FREGE Alliance
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Posted - 2007.04.09 13:11:00 -
[22]
Signed, but one little thing bugs me MORE THAN ALL OF THAT ABOVE THIS POST, and here it is:
25-35fps @ 1900x122 fullscreen. /// CTRL+F9 and suddenly 105-130fps.
Give me a UI that DOES NOT TAKE OVER 70% OF THE DAMN FRAME RATE. All else is negotiable. The fps kill for the 2-d overlay is complete crud.
Ubuntu 3d Beryl-Linux Desktop+EVE |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
|
Posted - 2007.04.09 14:38:00 -
[23]
Edited by: Nyphur on 09/04/2007 14:36:54
Originally by: Sevarus James
Signed, but one little thing bugs me MORE THAN ALL OF THAT ABOVE THIS POST, and here it is:
25-35fps @ 1900x122 fullscreen. /// CTRL+F9 and suddenly 105-130fps.
Give me a UI that DOES NOT TAKE OVER 70% OF THE DAMN FRAME RATE. All else is negotiable. The fps kill for the 2-d overlay is complete crud.
Rendering a user interface with chat etc. can be bottlenecked by user and network I/O as each time the UI is drawn (or at least at regular intervals), it must check for updates or process I/O buffers. Additionally, since the UI is translucent, it's possible that they render the screen twice (once without the UI then once applying the UI). That would cut the framerate down by a rough factor of the ratio between the speed the computer can render the game and the speed with which it can render the UI.
For example, if the UI takes twice as long to render as the game, you'd end up taking three times longer in total to render the entire thing than you would without the UI, cutting frame rate by about 66% with the UI up. I don't know how they coded eve so I could of course be glaringly incorrect, but I've had this problem in programs before where the program slows down significantly when a certain thread is running. The solution for me was to speed up that thread and let it run autonomously, using synching very sparingly or not at all.
I personally can't stand a translucent UI and set everything to opaque, and a 2D opaque UI should render which should render extremely quickly.
Another major problem I have, which may have been touched on before, is why the game stalls when making a chat window with someone or while someone is joining my gang. It should not.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
|
Posted - 2007.04.13 17:22:00 -
[24]
Edited by: Nyphur on 13/04/2007 17:19:28
This thread also brings up some relevant points. The main one I wanted to add here being the overview's input transparency. If there's an icon under a button on the overview and I click the button, it clicks the icon under the overview instead.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Tobias Sjodin
Caldari
Ore Mongers
R0ADKILL
|
Posted - 2007.04.15 12:03:00 -
[25]
*BUMP*
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Tycoon Girl
|
Posted - 2007.04.20 10:02:00 -
[26]
page 3 ? no way.
FIX IT.
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Pan Tan
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Posted - 2007.04.20 12:36:00 -
[27]
Signed. Travelling is defiantly one of the most tedious tasks because of the constant jitters. It reminds me of skipping CDs, even if your not paying attention the off time pause grabs your attention.
Also learning in game is a pain in the a**, this is completely the GUIs fault. Having to use the market to see whatÆs what with lag included is just not on. There should be a general in-game library. This website isnÆt so hot either with multiple windows required to view anything. Open site/Item Database/Skills/Gunnery/Gunnery 4 clicks with few lines of information I should at least be able to view turret types.
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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.04.22 01:14:00 -
[28]
Every time I go to start a second client for an alt or even just do simple things like open the market, check someone's info to see what corp they are in, undock or go to the next system over for something, I find that I weigh the pros and cons before carrying out the actions. The major issues that fall into the category of cons should NOT be things such as:
- Will my client stall? (Usually yes)
- How long will it stall for?
- Could I get blown up due to the lag?
- Will I have to reboot eve? (Usually no)
I've had ships returned after losing them in this manner. And they were lost in PvP, too, so if I am understanding the policy correctly, GMs checked and proved that it was a fault with the game that made me lag out and get blown up. This isn't just me idly complaining that these things about eve are annoying, this encompasses things which are known causes of people getting blown up.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Merick Dronome
Quantum Industries
Prime Orbital Systems
|
Posted - 2007.04.22 11:33:00 -
[29]
/signed, signed again to make sure.
Well presented, excellent suggestion for fixes.
I'd like to add 2. (and don't flame me if someone else wrote about them, I did not read the entire post.)
1). I miss being able to zoom into my ship and admire the beautiful textures on them. Please return the ship zoom back to what it used to be.
2). When jumping through the gate, can not the ships zoom level and camera angle be stored before the jump, and retrieved after the jump? Its so disorienting to have the zoom and camera angle reset to default every time I go through a gate.
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Rosur
|
Posted - 2007.04.22 17:05:00 -
[30]
singed
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Nama Saya
Absolutely No Return
|
Posted - 2007.04.23 10:18:00 -
[31]
/signed
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure
about the the universe
Albert Einstein |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
|
Posted - 2007.04.26 22:08:00 -
[32]
In the recent devblogs, they talk about a new interface engine coming out some time. Has anyone got any info on this?
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Thommy
|
Posted - 2007.04.30 12:31:00 -
[33]
Pretty effectively sums up many of the small but annoying issues with the EVE UI.
Let me add another one: missile explosions.
There is now a ship called drake which can spew missiles every second depending how a person launches.
Add a 2nd drake and you will have an continuesly shakeing screen, clicking anything becomes really annoying as you end up keeping misclicking stuff this way.
Also tried useing citadel torpedo's? (hint the red flash it gives cannot be missed, distracting for the user of them aswell as their opponent)
Another thing is the endless zoom of doom (many topics about that: ccp save my mousewheel!).
Additionally it would be nice if certain screens could be made smaller by customised options (for example only names but no avatar icons in chatscreen, they are non images with me anyway as i always run my eve cache cleaning tool prior to launching eve)
Guide to fix eve problems.
Cleanup your cache with my cache tool |
Qolde
Minmatar
Guardian Heroes Inc.
|
Posted - 2007.05.01 00:30:00 -
[34]
The stutter is the only one that bothers me. But it bothers me so much that I close my eyes for that split second when you warp into a grid, so that I don't see it.
Never get popped again! |
Nyphur
Pillowsoft
|
Posted - 2007.06.21 18:02:00 -
[35]
I believe the recent patch proves that the devs need to have some proper interface design habits. Running the game through a number of different colourblindness filters for a portion of the testing is essential, as has been pointed out by a number of colourblind players. With 5% of men and 0.5% of women in western societies having some form of colourblindness, this should be a big concern.
The second area that needs adressing with the interface design is buttons. Anyone who thought the new module UI was a good idea needs their heads checked, frankly. Each module button consists of a circular button, a giant circle around the button and a tiny little arc above the button for overloading. It should be understood that this arc is a clickable object that players are intended to click (albiet infrequently and only in emergencies). The overloading button is not a proper button. A proper button should be separate from all other interactable UI elements and should be clear in its purpose.
It should not be possible to accidentally click the overload button when activating a module (regardless of the overload lock option) and it should be easy to overload when you need to. That tiny overload switch is not only obtrusive and easy to hit when you mean to hit the button, it's also very hard to hit when you DO need it (when you're panicing and in trouble) and provides no additional functionality over a simple right click -> overload option. The additional speed of being able to click a button to overload a module is completely negated by two factors:
1) The button is difficult to quickly press, negating the extra speed of having it on-hand.
2) Due to the way heat works, you would expect to use it extremely infrequently if it all. What's the point in having a button on-hand on the main UI to press if you're only going to actually press it once a month?
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
SilKKZ the3rd
Caldari
Vogon Deconstructions Inc
|
Posted - 2007.06.21 18:09:00 -
[36]
Quote:
Problem #5 - Stuff jumping around all over the overview:
The overview updates about once per second and rearranges itself accordingly. Unfortunately, if there's a lot of activity, this can make actually clicking on something impossible. Try selecting a stargate in jita, for example. It's been a minor annoyance of mine since the overview came out.
Possible Solution:
I believe the overview item that you have the mouse over should not move. If the overview updates, the item you have the mouse over should remain where it is for that update. It's a simple fix and would save so much grief. If it would cause any problems, make it optional and default it to off.
OMG I hate this one so bad!!!!
Please fix it CCP.
I'm usually slow on targetting becuz right before I click the target it moves.
Damn!!
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Sc0rpion
Archer Daniels Midland
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Posted - 2007.06.21 18:41:00 -
[37]
Originally by: Nyphur
since the UI is translucent, it's possible that they render the screen twice (once without the UI then once applying the UI).
Nah, they don't have to do that at all. Yes, translucent objects do take more processing to render, but that's because you have to perform blending on every pixel the object covers. All they do is draw objects in reverse order on the z-axis (farthest first, nearest last). That's just graphics 101 really.
I think the problem here is that the UI elements (or at least some of them) check for updates *every time* the scene redraws. That's completely rediculous. Does the overview for example (by far the worst offender) really need to recalculate the position of every ship on the grid 120 times per second? That's some seriously bad architecture.
The true secret to enjoying life is to live it dangerously.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Killmails are for pooftas. |
Hammer Judge
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Posted - 2007.06.22 17:07:00 -
[38]
I agree.
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Visit my newbie guide for experienced MMO gamers.
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Jane Shroud
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Posted - 2007.06.22 18:17:00 -
[39]
Something to stick on the list of accessibility issues... The user has no control over font, font size or color. I'm rapidly approaching the Age of Bifocals, and being stuck with Eve's truly ****ty sans serif font is killing my eyes. Having it only in white on X makes matters worse, since that gives the text a halo or aura that mutes the distinction between characters.
The chosen font has a number of issues: zero and capital o are indistinguishable. Lowercase i and lowercase l are minimally distinguishable at high resolutions. Comma and period are minimally distinguished (and by extension colon and semicolon). Capital I and lowercase l are indistinguishable. Tilde and minus are indistinguishable. The kerning is abysmal and causes many ascender characters to appear as one hybrid character. There are plenty of sans serif fonts that are not this badly designed that could be substituted.
The ideal fix for this and the colorblindness issue is to move to an industry standard XML based UI design and open it up to user modification. That way color blind users are not shut out, nor are any other users who can be helped by a specialized UI. Added benefit of those who want elaborate UI graphics can have them.
All the other previously mentioned issues are important as well. Many of them are merely irritating to a normal user. To a user with a minor physical or visual handicap they can make the game unplayable.
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Imhothar Xarodit
Minmatar
Wolverine Solutions
Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate
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Posted - 2007.06.22 19:49:00 -
[40]
Edited by: Imhothar Xarodit on 22/06/2007 19:57:13
I fully agree on the chat focus and chaning input randomly.
For example: Ia m typing something in corp chat, a gang invite pops up (notice that "No" is now the default option if you hit enter accidentally), I accept and continue typing. However, it will take a while till I really get into the gang and suddenly, the game stalls, the chat windows appear, and I continue writing in gang chat without even noticing.
Generally, EVE has to get rid of all the modal dialogs. Why on earth can't the undocking happen in the background while anything that can be used either docked or not stil is usable? Why do we need a modal progress bar when installing a schience/industry job? Why? Why is the "accept quote" on installing jobs a modal dialog? Why is selecting installations for jobs a modal dialog? Seriously get rid of modal dialogs, especially those you wouldn't except to be and maybe hinder you in actuall gameplay!
It is very bad UI design to have modal dialogs where they truely interfere with the main task of the application. Modal dialogs should only be used in emergency situations where they require your FULL attention and are crucial! A job installment can continue in the background, as technically it is simply waiting for server response. Same goes for undocking and jumping.
Everybody who has played World of Warcraft has to admit that the way they handle the game threading is great.
Example: You fly into a very crowded city with a hundred players in there. Maybe your game will stall a few times for a second, but that is because it has to load the terrain and textures (and since you can travel on a whole continent without loaing screens it cannot be avoided) BUT these stalls are dependant on your harddrive's speed and if you have a fast one there are NO stalls at all.
Why is this so? Because the WoW engine does not wait for server packets, it is simply reading what is coming in!
So you enter the city, and you see some shadows appear which slowly build up to complete characters as you get more details about them and load their models/textures. The game does not wait till the whole city population is loaded, it just adds people to your environment while the server is feeding you with data.
THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is really the perfect solution.
Move the concept to EVE:
All server income is buffered in a seperat thread, sorted in priority queues and does not mess up your actual gameplay.
1) You open the market window, and it keeps "loading" in the background without stalling the game. Once tha data is complete it is displayed on the window.
2) You enter a gang and your client does not freeze until the whole gang list is loaded. Instead the game slowly adds member after member while your client is receiving the list.
3) You open "show info" on a person/corp/alliance, click on relationship and the game slowly adds entry after entry while it is receiving the list without stalling your game.
4) You jump into a new system and the gate there is crowded. The first and most important things to laod is overview and local. But instead of freezing the game until the loads are complete, let your overview and local list slowly fill with entries while your client receives the information. Heck, you have a whole 30 seconds of invulnerability (this contdown could be trggered after you are finished loading). Heck, this could even solve the black screen of death while undocking in crowded systems.
etc. etc.
There are tons of improvements just by moving the server comminucation to a seperate priority queue instead of having windows to wait for the data and interrupting the main game loop!!!
Once you had this implemented, you could also very easily add the feature of pre-loading a grid while you are warping there as the client would already have the technique to buffer inputs until they are needed.
If I was a dev, this would be a high priority item as it would greatly improve almost everything in the game!!
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Inspiration
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Posted - 2007.06.22 20:29:00 -
[41]
Edited by: Inspiration on 22/06/2007 20:40:42
Edited by: Inspiration on 22/06/2007 20:40:01
So Signed!
Also I did not realise the 'overload button' was in fact a button. It apreads like a nicely formed indicator led to show which modules are on oberload.
Lucky I did an overload lock on all my modules. If not I would problably have died a few times already!
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Nyphur
Pillowsoft
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Posted - 2007.06.23 04:15:00 -
[42]
Originally by: Imhothar Xarodit
Everybody who has played World of Warcraft has to admit that the way they handle the game threading is great.
Agreed on that. I played World of Warcraft AND Everquest 2, both very similar types of games with similar graphical hardware requirements. World of Warcraft performed better because it didn't stall during I/O. In EQ2, if someone runs past you wearing a shirt that you don't have the texture for loaded, the game literally stops functioning until loading of that texture is complete. It stops rendering, it stops taking input, everything stalls while it waits for that model and texture to be loaded. Eve, unfortunately, is the same. It stalls when loading anything.
From a design and programming context, stalling while waiting for I/O, be it from the server or from the hard disk, makes sense if and only if you haven't got constant user interactivity. It is easier to code something ignoring the end user, trust me I know, but it will almost always make for a worse product. In World of Warcraft, where you can run into a group of hundreds of players without stalling, if the textures and models haven't loaded then the game simply doesn't show that person. They're invisible. In Eve, this could be simplified down to showing people as icons. Loading the point where you'll drop out of warp mid-warp would also help. There is no reason why the scene cannot be rendered before models, textures and special effects are loaded, but for some reason Eve's programmers decided that this information was VITAL and the scene should never be rendered without it.
That's a bad progamming habit, sacrificing user interactivity for looks, and it needs to stop. Other games have adapted to this using proper threading techniques, it's time Eve caught up to current technology and made better use of threads.
Eve-Tanking.com - For tanking spreadsheet and resources. |
Buckthorn
Caldari
JotunHeim Hird
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Posted - 2007.08.02 07:47:00 -
[43]
Edited by: Buckthorn on 02/08/2007 07:48:25
Originally by: Imhothar Xarodit
Edited by: Imhothar Xarodit on 22/06/2007 19:57:13
Everybody who has played World of Warcraft has to admit that the way they handle the game threading is great.
Example: You fly into a very crowded city with a hundred players in there. Maybe your game will stall a few times for a second, but that is because it has to load the terrain and textures (and since you can travel on a whole continent without loaing screens it cannot be avoided) BUT these stalls are dependant on your harddrive's speed and if you have a fast one there are NO stalls at all.
Why is this so? Because the WoW engine does not wait for server packets, it is simply reading what is coming in!
So you enter the city, and you see some shadows appear which slowly build up to complete characters as you get more details about them and load their models/textures. The game does not wait till the whole city population is loaded, it just adds people to your environment while the server is feeding you with data.
THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is really the perfect solution.
Move the concept to EVE:
All server income is buffered in a seperat thread, sorted in priority queues and does not mess up your actual gameplay.
1) You open the market window, and it keeps "loading" in the background without stalling the game. Once tha data is complete it is displayed on the window.
2) You enter a gang and your client does not freeze until the whole gang list is loaded. Instead the game slowly adds member after member while your client is receiving the list.
3) You open "show info" on a person/corp/alliance, click on relationship and the game slowly adds entry after entry while it is receiving the list without stalling your game.
4) You jump into a new system and the gate there is crowded. The first and most important things to laod is overview and local. But instead of freezing the game until the loads are complete, let your overview and local list slowly fill with entries while your client receives the information. Heck, you have a whole 30 seconds of invulnerability (this contdown could be trggered after you are finished loading). Heck, this could even solve the black screen of death while undocking in crowded systems.
etc. etc.
There are tons of improvements just by moving the server comminucation to a seperate priority queue instead of having windows to wait for the data and interrupting the main game loop!!!
Once you had this implemented, you could also very easily add the feature of pre-loading a grid while you are warping there as the client would already have the technique to buffer inputs until they are needed.
So signed! Used to play WoW as well, and loved the way THEY handle the load/communication-issues. Also, the fact that you were able to design and UPTIMIZE your UI the way you wanted it - removing all the stuff you didn't need on an individual basis - is fantastic. I'd like to see more of that in EVE as well. Furthermore I sign on the other suggestions for improvements posted in this thread! Let's hope CCP are listening!
_________________________________________________
CEO of El Mosquito de Locos: Currently Recruiting |
Checkle
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Posted - 2007.09.02 09:01:00 -
[44]
I really think the UI should be updated.
For an instance, double clicking doesn't work 100% accurately and I'm pretty sure I'm a quite capable double clicker, when double clicking an agent doesn't work, it is bearable, I can right click and choose open conversation, but when I have to double click on open space to move my ship and it doesn't move and I have to try several times, it gets annoying to the point of having to cuadruple click the open space.
Having the UI depend on network latency is not my idea of a good UI design.
Still love the game, though.
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Cpl Clegg
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Posted - 2007.09.04 22:47:00 -
[45]
From Dev Blog on Revelations III:
"Our core technology group has been working on a new network layer for the server and client which should also be ready for Revelations III."
Does that mean that it's possible to get rid of annoying blocking ?
I'm becoming angry each time I loot a wreck because of freeze :-(
And I really, really hope that it will be solved in next engine.
Any chance of confirmation ?
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Nate D
New Atlantis Tek Corporation
The Nexus Alliance
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Posted - 2007.09.05 04:01:00 -
[46]
Originally by: Buckthorn
Edited by: Buckthorn on 02/08/2007 07:48:25
Originally by: Imhothar Xarodit
Edited by: Imhothar Xarodit on 22/06/2007 19:57:13
Everybody who has played World of Warcraft has to admit that the way they handle the game threading is great.
Example: You fly into a very crowded city with a hundred players in there. Maybe your game will stall a few times for a second, but that is because it has to load the terrain and textures (and since you can travel on a whole continent without loaing screens it cannot be avoided) BUT these stalls are dependant on your harddrive's speed and if you have a fast one there are NO stalls at all.
Why is this so? Because the WoW engine does not wait for server packets, it is simply reading what is coming in!
So you enter the city, and you see some shadows appear which slowly build up to complete characters as you get more details about them and load their models/textures. The game does not wait till the whole city population is loaded, it just adds people to your environment while the server is feeding you with data.
THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is really the perfect solution.
Move the concept to EVE:
All server income is buffered in a seperat thread, sorted in priority queues and does not mess up your actual gameplay.
1) You open the market window, and it keeps "loading" in the background without stalling the game. Once tha data is complete it is displayed on the window.
2) You enter a gang and your client does not freeze until the whole gang list is loaded. Instead the game slowly adds member after member while your client is receiving the list.
3) You open "show info" on a person/corp/alliance, click on relationship and the game slowly adds entry after entry while it is receiving the list without stalling your game.
4) You jump into a new system and the gate there is crowded. The first and most important things to laod is overview and local. But instead of freezing the game until the loads are complete, let your overview and local list slowly fill with entries while your client receives the information. Heck, you have a whole 30 seconds of invulnerability (this contdown could be trggered after you are finished loading). Heck, this could even solve the black screen of death while undocking in crowded systems.
etc. etc.
There are tons of improvements just by moving the server comminucation to a seperate priority queue instead of having windows to wait for the data and interrupting the main game loop!!!
Once you had this implemented, you could also very easily add the feature of pre-loading a grid while you are warping there as the client would already have the technique to buffer inputs until they are needed.
So signed! Used to play WoW as well, and loved the way THEY handle the load/communication-issues. Also, the fact that you were able to design and UPTIMIZE your UI the way you wanted it - removing all the stuff you didn't need on an individual basis - is fantastic. I'd like to see more of that in EVE as well. Furthermore I sign on the other suggestions for improvements posted in this thread! Let's hope CCP are listening!
No... I refuse to play and pvp in EVE if ships just fade in at leisure... it's all or none. Wow is terrible for this... I can recount several times that I've been killed by invisible (non-existent) enemy. This is very much like a desync.
-Nate
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Kazamidori
Division 9 Golden Leaves
Izanagi Alliance
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Posted - 2007.09.05 18:14:00 -
[47]
/Signed
Also, I'd like to add...
For the love of god remove the freaking RADIAL MENU!
Everyone hates it, nobody uses it. It is like a bug in the game which somehow stayed in through from start of eve annoying unfortunate players every now and then.
---
Izanagi Alliance |
Gaogan
Gallente
Solar Storm
Sev3rance
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Posted - 2007.09.05 21:43:00 -
[48]
I have a big one to add to the list:
HORIZONTAL SCROLL BARS!
Many windows are simply too wide to view their entire contents, and ccp hasn't figured out how to add a bloody horizontal scrollbar so you can see the rest of the window. Another example is with the item list in the create contract window. Neither the window itself, nor the columns in it, can be made larger even if you have room. This is a big problem for longer item names which can not fit in the column, making it impossible to distinguish between Internal Nanofiber Stricture I and II, as the I/II is cut off. I bug reported this one a few times and keep being told this is by design. Well fix the broken design!
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Miss KillSome
Caldari
School of Applied Knowledge
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Posted - 2007.09.06 07:39:00 -
[49]
./signed!!!!!
And i bet that none of the CCP looked in this thread yet..
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