TESTBED - Port User Interface Feedback.

[John Sheppard]

FINALLY we get rid of the black screen  first impression was good like "Wow looks really nice" but i believe there are problems :

It is important to keep balance between functionality and appearance and not make something complicated for the sake of complicating it 

Call me retro but i think the old interface (just like the OW UI) was much better on the functionality front . It took me only few minutes to figure out when i started this game. But now that i have over 3k hours it took me the better part of half an hour to find everything i needed in this new UI even with help and i do believe that a lot of new players won't be able to do simple tasks in this new UI which will make it very frustrating

While having separate little buttons to open windows to provide access to various function looks nice and frees space for the ship in the middle, it's orders of magnitude harder to navigate and use , compared to the old system . I mean take crafting for example .. you have to open buildings first then go into blueprints and then everything is mixed unlike before .. I had to ask how to find crafting in the first place. 

I believe the solution would be keep the top tabs as in the old UI that are so easy to find and use . Expand the warehouse make it semi-transparent place it where the compass usually sits in OW and have the chest/marks wallet on the other corner where ppl usually keep the chat window . This way you can still see the lovely scenery and ship and manage our stuff without getting a headache 

[z4ys]

58 minutes ago, Sovereign said:

 

Maybe something @admin might consider for the future?

 

 

 

Canada Timber Docks, Liverpool. Towards close of day by Robert Dudley (active 1865-1891)

 

View of the harbour of Valetta, Malta, illustration to Saint-Non's 'Voyage Pittoresque' IV, p.248, engraved by Berthault; part of town and town walls at r and centre, the harbour full of large sailing ships and small boats, further buildings behind at l Pen and black ink, and watercolour

 

showing a late-Stuart royal yacht sailing into a rocky harbour, apparently under British control
 

 

[Hullabaloo]

The overall design flavour like the icons, windows and text are great, same as the OW UI. The opening screen is good too. Excellent.

But as mentioned above, when 'in port' the whole screen is dominated by the current OW Port building graphics with wooden jetty. That works fine in the OW from a distance, but close up these graphics are not detailed enough. I too preferred the feeling of being in a bustling port town. You have mines, shipyards and plantations to manage, supplies to purchase, trade deals to make and plans for war! This feels like you are in a tiny little hovel village about to go on a fishing trip. A better or more detailed Harbour/Port graphic is needed. 

Some ambient Port/Town sounds would go a long way here i think?

It's nice to see the ship you are in yes. Perhaps you could have the focus on the ship but with a new harbour wall or jetty and then just the suggestion of a port and town around it with sounds? something like these perhaps:

(these are oil paintings so they would not fit in with the ship models, but they show how you can create the atmosphere of a busy port without the need for complex 3D models)

Also, not tested it yet, but I hope that you can 'pin' the windows in place to where you want them? (or it remembers where they were last positioned and sized). I prefer the windows to be in fixed positions, having to move them around or resize them each time will be annoying and messy.

 

[admin]

Just now, Banished Privateer said:

Name of the skill books like "reloading, shooting, climbing, drinking" - I hope they are just placeholders as many of them become confusing or illogical. "Reloading" Skill Book aka Light Carriages gives 1% more speed bonus. Why reloading gives extra ship speed? 

 

yes.. books are getting finished. We just wanted to start finding critical issues with UI as early as possible.

[admin]

16 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

Remove the empty space in the informational boxes/cards. Make the windows scale to fit just the containing information:

Tooltips are not final - they will be adapted and localized (bonuses from programming code will be replaced by normal language descriptions)

BTW your comment on cannons will be implemented in one of the next patches. Stores will show guns by class type and slots on ships will show caliber requirements instead of arbitrary classes). Indeed a lot of new players cant figure out the outdated cannon class system.

[GreasyMnky]

First impression, if you play on a smaller resolution (1600*900 in this case) The text seems too large and some of the windows take too much place.

http://prntscr.com/kz0sc3

Edit :seems like someone pointed the same thing about that big window.

Edited September 26, 2018 by GreasyMnky

[admin]

2 minutes ago, Banished Privateer said:

What will be the conversation ratio of combat and PvP marks into doubloons??? I am sure many players will be worried about that and will start selling in panic their PvP marks before the patch if it's bad.

selling wont happen. just check blueprint prices for ships (1st rates for example). 

[Angus MacDuff]

There are only permits....(aren't there?)

[GreasyMnky]

Will there be an option to scale the ui or the text size?

This is a lot of space used to tell me what it is and how many I have, the square icon in current live server tells the same info in 1/5 of the screen space.

Maybe a "use small icons" type option?

 

[Barbancourt]

11 minutes ago, GreasyMnky said:

Will there be an option to scale the ui or the text size?

Yes, the ship card is nice and compact and full of info, but the lists of things like shop and warehouse and hold listings have a lot of empty space and appear take up a lot of screen to display just a few items.

 

[John Jacob Astor]

I'm finding it visually confusing but that's probably mostly because it's just different.

I like the ability to see parallel windows without having to tab back and forth as in the current UI.

Would be very helpful to be able to scale them, however.  There appears to be minimum window dimensions which I am guessing is because the contents of the windows themselves don't appear to scale.

 

[John Jacob Astor]

Since this is port UI testing it might be helpful to drop some basic resources in port stock in the capitals.

Was going to craft a ship to see what that actually displayed in the windows.

Have to log out and go to work.  Probably don't have time to sail out and back and get what I need.

[Joffrey Mihawk]

Another ship stuck on the dock

 

Edited September 26, 2018 by Joffrey Mihawk

[admin]

6 minutes ago, Joffrey Mihawk said:

Another ship stuck on the dock

 

yes its a known issue. location points need to be updated for ports according to pier sizes

[Joffrey Mihawk]

should we send you all the ports that are concerned ?

[o Barão]

3 hours ago, GreasyMnky said:

First impression, if you play on a smaller resolution (1600*900 in this case) The text seems too large and some of the windows take too much place.

http://prntscr.com/kz0sc3

Edit :seems like someone pointed the same thing about that big window.

Strange. I am playing in a omen 15 and I am forced to play with 900p. If I play with 1080p I have problems in reading the words. It is missing a feature to scale the UI.

[Farrago]

How about some basic window management such as ability to close all popups, cascade, or minimize....

[z4ys]

Whats missing is the Mission journal while in OW

[Thecontrollers]

Hello, @admin @Ink  I am missing all my redeems from when I was french. I deleted that account to go Pirate and when I logged on I had none of my redeemable. Is there a way to get the redeemables back so I can test the port UI?

 

[Schwabbel]

... you don't have problems with money !!!

On the live servers I can finance with one killed trader brig the ressources of crafting 3 ship.

Now I must kill 3 trader brigs to afford the prizes of the resources to craft one ship. (and the kill is 25x).

Is this a way to make the craft level 10 an extraordinary challenge or a try to drive crafters away or just a mistake ?

[jodgi]

Is fir listed three times to accomodate different build choices?

[Teutonic]

2 minutes ago, jodgi said:

Is fir listed three times to accomodate different build choices?

I believe the 2 bottom "for log" lines are in conjunction with your frame and plank choices - if you were to change the framing and planking, it would change those as well.

Now should the fir logs all combine into one line? Probably.

[jodgi]

5 minutes ago, Schwabbel said:

Now I must kill 3 trader brigs to afford the prizes of the resources to craft one ship. (and the kill is 25x).

lol, I feel ya! Right now the Christian is something I can easily pass; too much excruciatingly boring cash grinding to be done. I will do it after wipe on live as I absolutely have to in order to play this game but not sure if I'll find the motivation for testbed.

[Guest]

I played it for 45 mins and had to stop. Way to confusing and frustrating just trying to do simple things. Ill revisit this tomorrow with a clear head.

[Dibbler (Retired)]

I found the teleporting between outposts to convoluted, perhaps have small icons/buttons that appear top right for unlocked and placed outposts you can teleport to.  Also show in text  the port the icon represents when mouseover.

 

 

Edited September 26, 2018 by Dibbler