Engine and Interface issues

from Offworld Forums

I've noticed you run into the same issues a lot of Unity games have for some reason. So far there are no proper visual options and I have doubts about you getting really under the hood of Unity there. You need to make proper antialiasing code as well as actual support for DSR resolutions. Like many other games out there that use this middleware and fail to get the graphical tech part right, ending up in offering the very default of Unitys code. Which is sadly rather bad.

Second the UI systems feedback and some of it's design is bad imo. The left bar takes away too much of the actual game screen. Cascading the building options into it makes it even worse. It is good that you instantly get from ressource towards the actual building producing it, but not how it is done now.

The tooltips of many buttons as well as the game map tiles are bad. You have too much "on mouse over" shit happening, and tooltips clutter the space unnecessary. Why not relocate building/tile info into a separate window, preferably somehwere at the bottom of the screen like in traditional RTS.

There is also an issue with either the font you chose or it's antialiasing, since smaller text on lower resolutions is often hardly readable through it's heavy antialiasing with just so much pixels to smooth

 

 

3,048 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Offworld Forums Top

The tooltips of many buttons as well as the game map tiles are bad. You have too much "on mouse over" shit happening, and tooltips clutter the space unnecessary. Why not relocate building/tile info into a separate window, preferably somehwere at the bottom of the screen like in traditional RTS.

We've found with playing and playtesting the game that if we put information away from where the player's mouse is, they don't correlate that with what they're mousing over. In a standard RTS, you select a unit/building and then there's a window that appears with information about that. Offworld does allow for building selection (and brings up a menu as you say) but most of the game is involved in buying/selling resources and seeing if you can afford various things.

The tooltips are large. It's a hard line to walk between showing too much stuff and too little. Too much and players feel as you do, too little and players don't know where to get the information that they need. We'll continue to evaluate our tooltip state and try to make improvements on them.


There is also an issue with either the font you chose or it's antialiasing, since smaller text on lower resolutions is often hardly readable through it's heavy antialiasing with just so much pixels to smooth

I think that the next version will have better looking fonts, but I'm not sure. We will work on making the event display more readable in a future version.

Thanks for your feedback!

-Scott-


 

 

Reply #2 from Offworld Forums Top

Quoting DeftMunky, reply 1


Quoting ,
quoting post
The tooltips of many buttons as well as the game map tiles are bad. You have too much "on mouse over" shit happening, and tooltips clutter the space unnecessary. Why not relocate building/tile info into a separate window, preferably somehwere at the bottom of the screen like in traditional RTS.



We've found with playing and playtesting the game that if we put information away from where the player's mouse is, they don't correlate that with what they're mousing over. In a standard RTS, you select a unit/building and then there's a window that appears with information about that. Offworld does allow for building selection (and brings up a menu as you say) but most of the game is involved in buying/selling resources and seeing if you can afford various things.

The tooltips are large. It's a hard line to walk between showing too much stuff and too little. Too much and players feel as you do, too little and players don't know where to get the information that they need. We'll continue to evaluate our tooltip state and try to make improvements on them.


Quoting ,
quoting post

There is also an issue with either the font you chose or it's antialiasing, since smaller text on lower resolutions is often hardly readable through it's heavy antialiasing with just so much pixels to smooth



I think that the next version will have better looking fonts, but I'm not sure. We will work on making the event display more readable in a future version.

Thanks for your feedback!

-Scott-


 

 


 

Thanks for the reply Scott!

 

The thing is (for me at least) right now, that the distinction between game world and UI isn't quite given. As I said, too many things happen at just mouse over, while I also use the mouse to actualy move around in the world. So it gets distracting/annoying if I can't simply move the picture without the cursor area *constantly* changing for tile info, popups etc. It *seems* like the cursor would be as big as a tile which feels wrong.

Maybe you can counter that issue with better delays (I think the actual tooltip delay for the sector is too long, though I don't know if it would feel better if it was instant), fading of overlay colors or the like.

Right now the entire game just feels wrong to me due to the interface issues. The same happens in a lot of Unity games and the same happened in a lot of games that use Scaleform (especially early versions) where the entire mouse control felt off.

For reference (not necessarily in prettyness :)) the Sins of a Solar Empire interface is what I consider perfect. It's extremely responsive and you know exactly what you clicked immediately, as well as having all the necessary informations via modifiers available. The latter is maybe something you could consider as well.

 

 

PS: please consider the technical aspects as well. Maybe not a priority for many people, but why even caring for such a wonderful (!) art style when it is kicked with feet due to technical issues. Also I'd love a screenshot mode without the interface. Trust me, that may sell a few more units and won't cost you much to implement.

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Reply #3 from Offworld Forums Top

Quoting VeraVirus, reply 2

Thanks for the reply Scott!

That's what I'm here for! 

Quoting VeraVirus, reply 2

The thing is (for me at least) right now, that the distinction between game world and UI isn't quite given. As I said, too many things happen at just mouse over, while I also use the mouse to actualy move around in the world. So it gets distracting/annoying if I can't simply move the picture without the cursor area *constantly* changing for tile info, popups etc. It *seems* like the cursor would be as big as a tile which feels wrong.

Ok, so you're saying that when you're drag-scrolling with the map that you don't want tooltips to show up?

Quoting VeraVirus, reply 2

Maybe you can counter that issue with better delays (I think the actual tooltip delay for the sector is too long, though I don't know if it would feel better if it was instant), fading of overlay colors or the like.

The sector? What do you mean by that? I'm a little confused by what you mean.

Quoting VeraVirus, reply 2

Right now the entire game just feels wrong to me due to the interface issues. The same happens in a lot of Unity games and the same happened in a lot of games that use Scaleform (especially early versions) where the entire mouse control felt off.

We're going to be updating the UI technology so it'll be much more responsive. It will take a while, but we see having a really responsive interface as incredibly important to the feel of the game and we don't want a laggy, cruddy feeling with our interface at all. We want it to be sharp as it can be.

Quoting VeraVirus, reply 2
For reference (not necessarily in prettyness :) ) the Sins of a Solar Empire interface is what I consider perfect. It's extremely responsive and you know exactly what you clicked immediately, as well as having all the necessary informations via modifiers available. The latter is maybe something you could consider as well.

I haven't played Sins, but I will try it out. Thanks for the reference!

Quoting VeraVirus, reply 2
PS: please consider the technical aspects as well. Maybe not a priority for many people, but why even caring for such a wonderful (!) art style when it is kicked with feet due to technical issues. Also I'd love a screenshot mode without the interface. Trust me, that may sell a few more units and won't cost you much to implement.

I think there's a way to take a screenshot. I'll check and get back to you.

Thanks!

-Scott-

Reply #4 from Offworld Forums Top

Control + Print screen = High resolution screenshot without the interface.