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Important UI things missing in 1.0 to make it really polished!


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I was very excited to at long last read about the 1.0 release of Xenonauts, so I could finally play it!

However, immediately several issues popped up... I'm probably going to add to this list as I play:

  • No radar sweep or pulse graphic on the map, or explanation in base on how to improve efficiency of the radar. How often does it (try to) detect something? Does building another one help?
  • Why are there no Xenopedia entries on base facilities? How DOES that radar work? Should I build another one? I have no idea currently!
  • No middle mouse click drag to pan the view in combat? THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT!!
  • No tooltip to explain what the different stats represent in the soldier list.
  • No obvious button to select next soldier with unissued orders... perhaps highlight the small 1-8 stat buttons with a orange colored border until the guy has received at least one command?
  • When marine dead zones, storms and other events are reported, I cannot send aircraft to scout the areas by clicking on those zones, which I should be able to... otherwise, why mark them on the map with mouseover highlights at all?
  • In fact, how DO you send out aircraft to patrol? In X-com, all aircraft had a small radar which helped with Ufo discovery, and you could manually patrol regions with high activity... how do you do that here?
  • I see my forecast change for monthly income is negative, but there is no tooltip explaining why and I can't click on it to get more information. Mousing over countries just says the same negative stat, but with no real explanation... where are the graphs from X-com showing alien activity?
  • Double clicking on an unassigned soldier with still not full health in the soldier list doesn't take me to his equipment screen. Bug!
  • I chose two aircraft to intercept an ufo, and another one popped up. Now I can't split my two aircraft!
  • Manual combat is unfortunately poorly explained. For auto combat it was 100% win chance according to the UI, yet when I entered manual combat and just let it play out, I lost. Yet I saw my plane fire missiles and shoot... I even clicked evasive roll a few times... yet this happened over and over again... auto combat gives me 100% win, manual gives me 100% loss... what should I have done?
  • Night missions don't look like it's dark at all. The original UFO was much darker. I can't even see where my soldier's aim is supposed to end, as the tutorial popup mentioned. Also, why not add a blue, moonlit palette shift to the night missions?

Also, I cannot explain this:

2rPazOu.jpg

Intuitively, in the left image I should be able to hit the alien, and in the right one I should not. So how can I plan ahead when the cover system doesn't appear logical to me?

The game looks and sounds lovely, it has a very good atmosphere and vibe around it, but all in all, imo, it's not 1.0 yet, and I'm very sad to hear the news that development has ended apart from fixing "stability". :(

I really hope that last statement doesn't turn out to be true, though.

Edited by eobet
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[*]No radar sweep or pulse graphic on the map, or explanation in base on how to improve efficiency of the radar. How often does it (try to) detect something? Does building another one help?

Building extra radars improves their range by 25% (or 50% total with two extra radars). Anything above 3 radars in a base is wasted.

[*]When marine dead zones, storms and other events are reported, I cannot send aircraft to scout the areas by clicking on those zones, which I should be able to... otherwise, why mark them on the map with mouseover highlights at all?

[*]In fact, how DO you send out aircraft to patrol? In X-com, all aircraft had a small radar which helped with Ufo discovery, and you could manually patrol regions with high activity... how do you do that here?

There's a "launch interceptors button along the top (on the right of the speed control panel).

[*]Manual combat is unfortunately poorly explained. For auto combat it was 100% win chance according to the UI, yet when I entered manual combat and just let it play out, I lost. Yet I saw my plane fire missiles and shoot... I even clicked evasive roll a few times... yet this happened over and over again... auto combat gives me 100% win, manual gives me 100% loss... what should I have done?

You'll probably find the auto-resolve undergenerous when you get the hang of air combat. Against small UFOs that can roll, stagger your missile launches so that the first missile causes the UFO to evade and the second one hits it before the evade cool-down has worn off. For non-evasive UFOs, Foxtrots kill just about anything.

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I can confirm with the autoresolve, once you get the hang of air combat, you'll do better than autoresolve. Versus light scouts, launch one missile to cause a roll, then launch another while the UFO rolls, and you will hit it. Versus Scouts, just shoot them with everything. Versus Corvettes, they can be easily gunned down with 2 Condors that have Laser gun/Alenium warheads. Send Condors in opposite directions, Corvette will try to follow one, sneak the other Condor in from behind doing heavy damage, then also order the first Condor to attack, and you will only need one evasive roll. Versus both Corvettes and Landing Ships, you can just send 2 Foxtrots to kill them outright, or 1 Foxtrot + 1 Condor.

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Cover is probably a no-win situation now, it has been the topic of much heated debate, complaint, update, rework, debug and where we stand now is probably no worse than whatever else can be or could have been done about it.

A few more weeks into the game, I have the desire to start modding facilities into the xenopedia in my spare time at work where I can't play if no one does it until then, using screenshots from the beautiful Base defense tileset which are I think quite wasted by being only shown to the player in base defense, which is quite rare if you play well.

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Yeah the cover system is fairly wonky like that, whatever's going on I don't understand it.

Although far more annoying is when im in a similar situation where i have a shot i don't expect to have like in the second screen shot, i take it, and all the soldier ends up doing is shooting the wall in front of him. I've had heavy waste 10 bullets on a wall like that several times, and vaporized my rocket man inside my dropship in one very unfortunate incident. Other times in those situations it shoots fine, so i'm at a loss to explain it.

I will say that now that i've gotten hang of the air combat system i'm finding it very fun and satisfying, much more so than i expected. It's a huge improvement from x-com.

This game lives up to all my hopes but sadly suffers from quite a few serious bugs and a few areas that lack polish. Could have used another 2-3 months, i think, even if the entire dev team ended up broke and losing their minds :P

Edited by BaronM
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There's a button that says "Launch Interceptors" at the top of the screen that allows you to launch the interceptors.

The little Geoscape events can't be investigated because they're actually notifications of funding loss - so that answers two of your points! :)

(EDIT - For the air combat, you should either have read the explanatory tooltip for the screen or the Quickstart Guide, both of which explain it.)

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The point of the OP seems to have been missed. There are lots of things which literally make no sense to a new player (who hasn't played X-Com I suspect, as I imagine lots of things are the same as X-Com).

For one thing, an individual shouldn't have to come ask on the forums what things do and how to do things which should be basic functionality. There is no manual yet - hopefully that is coming before the 1.0 release, but maybe that would explain everything.

There are lots of his comments not mentioned (esp what the soldier stats actually mean), plus loads more. How does research work? (More researchers make it go faster? Or just get the the next 'progress' level?) . I had to search the forums for how to use medpacks. What does the belt do better than the backpack? Can interceptors patrol an area without having been given an alien aircraft to target? Can you split interceptors mid-flight? Why does throwing a grenade or shooting cost more for some soldiers than others? Can I change my squads order (so the hotkeys map to different soldiers). There are probably a billion things that I just have flat out missed.

I don't need all these answered here (although it'd be nice), these need answering in-game for all players to know, especially as general release may see a lot of new players like myself who have never played the original X-Com. But the game hardly explains anything, only the most basic of things and only some of those. As I said, maybe the manual will help and I hope its coming before general release, but at present if you didn't already know, there's tons of things that make no sense whatsoever or you don't know to do or how to do.

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>How does research work? (More researchers make it go faster? Or just get the the next 'progress' level?)

if I understand correctly, each research has an internal counter of man-days. so if research requires 100 man-days, then 10 researchers will complete it in 10 days, 20 in 5 days, 30 in 3,3

>Can interceptors patrol an area without having been given an alien aircraft to target?

there are two text fields on top of geoscape.

in reality this is buttons. to build the base and launch interceptors

>Why does throwing a grenade or shooting cost more for some soldiers than others?

because it uses % of units TU

You can see % in pop-ups over weapons in equipment screen

in my opinion, entries for buildings should be added into xenopedia and text fields should be changed to buttons.

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There's a button that says "Launch Interceptors" at the top of the screen that allows you to launch the interceptors.

Here's the problem with that and why I did not see those buttons: They do not look like any other buttons on that screen. All other buttons have grey outlines, like a button, and the "launch interceptor" and "build base" look exactly like the budget stats in the corners. It's a consistency issue and a readability issue (that text did not "pop" for me).

The little Geoscape events can't be investigated because they're actually notifications of funding loss - so that answers two of your points! :)

So why doesn't a corresponding negative dollar number pop up near that symbol and slowly fade away so you understand that connection? Right now, it looks more like an alien contact which you naturally want to investigate, and again, you really should be able to, because it would be a really cool sort of indirect radar feature...

(EDIT - For the air combat, you should either have read the explanatory tooltip for the screen or the Quickstart Guide, both of which explain it.)

I did, and I still do not understand it (and I've been gaming since Pong and worked with creating user interfaces for various companies for almost 10 years now).

Edited by eobet
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It is an alien contact. UFOs generate events as they move around the geoscape, which are then reported. You can follow where a UFO has been by tracing the events it generates. An event generated by a UFO tells you where it was so if you send an interceptor to that general area, you have a point to start looking for the UFO.

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-_-

Look, its great and thanks for answering our questions. However its missing the key point is that we shouldn't have to ask these if the UI explained things well and was more clear. As it stands, there are a billion things that are completly opaque to a first-time player.

I would consider myself a fairly competent player of games, I don't need to be held by the hand all the way through. But there is literally no explanation of what is going on in this game. No indication of what to do. Heck, it never even tells you that countries have a relationship with you and that they fund you. Even the most basic of mechanics are not clear to the player unless they ALREADY KNOW, i.e. they've played X-Com or trawled through the forums finding things out. It should not be like that at all, and I hope that as part of this 2 weeks of pre-launch, they actually add some UI polish and explanation along with the manual (which is currently a placeholder). Fixing bugs is good but people need to understand your game and I feel that if many elements are very unclear to a player like myself, who I would consider pretty average, its going to alienate a lot of players and reviewers when it launches properly.

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Your best efforts would be not to ask for UI elements which look like they are very unlikely to happen, but to ask for a manual which as a first time player you could critique. Your critique of the quickstart guide, which intended for first-time players would also be extremely useful. Seriously. My sincere advice would be to look at the quickstart guide, start a new thread, and critique it from the POV of a first-tme player. It's going to be so much faster for Chris to write new sections for the quickstart guide or write a full-blown manual than to try and implement UI elements in the game.

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Yes, I thought new UI elements were unlikely. Thus as I've said in my posts, the manual - which must be inteded to be written, as it is in the launcher but currently a placeholder - could go leaps and bounds to making things clearer.

The quickstart guide gives an alright overview of combat, but very little on the world map, and how to play the actual campaign. I might well do as you suggest, create a new post critiquing the quickstart guide.

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I think the point Bills6693 and the OP are making is that they shouldn't have to sign into the forum and ask about how certain features of the game work on a basic level (starting structures, nation funding, healing in combat, etc). The final release date hasn't passed, so the lack of an in-depth manual is understandable, but that's something that should definitely be sorted out before release imo (or one of the many great fans can put together a guide and make it available).

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I never read instructions unless the game is expected to be deep in strategy, which sadly I don't have time for those anymore. Only Xenonauts, since I'm an X-COM:UD diehard.

Now that I think of it, my first copy of X-COM didn't come with instructions, and I remember playing over and over as a kid until I got it. My parents weren't too happy when I got my first autopsy too I remember that much lmao.

Anyways, Let's Plays are my instructions nowadays. Once I get basic know-how of the game, I close the video to prevent anymore visual spoilers and run the game. Fill in the last few spots with guess work as usual.

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There's a button that says "Launch Interceptors" at the top of the screen that allows you to launch the interceptors.

The little Geoscape events can't be investigated because they're actually notifications of funding loss - so that answers two of your points! :)

So I'm trying out 1.04 now and using the "Launch Interceptor" button (which actually allows me to launch the crew ship as well, which isn't an interceptor, so either the title of the button is wrong and should read "Launch Aircraft", which would have made me perhaps understand the button earlier, or the crew ship should be greyed out).

Also, I now realize that when you say that visible Geoscape events on the map can't be investigated, that meant that you can't even target them for a location to send your aircraft to! They're on the map, but they don't say why, and you can't even fly to them. This may sound harsh, but it feels like a double slap in the face to me as a player. Why show them at all on the map?

Again, it's such a missed opportunity for a micro managing player to send patrols to those locations for a heightened chance of finding a UFO, and a miss in the UI design, since it actually doesn't tell you that what it really means is the funding loss!

Finally, with no new features planned, does that mean that there is no way to drag/pan the view in tactical combat with the mouse, or did I miss how to do that too? Edge scrolling or having to reach for the keyboard is driving me mad, since I play in a window.

EDIT: Added a new item about night missions to my first post.

Edited by eobet
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I was confused when you wrote "you can't fly to them". Because you can click on the geoscape where the event took place and send an interceptor there. I think what you're actually saying is that you can't click on the event itself which in turn brings up the aircraft roster which then would automatically send the aircraft to the geoscape location where the event took place. Am I right? You're not being very clear about it.

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I was confused when you wrote "you can't fly to them". Because you can click on the geoscape where the event took place and send an interceptor there. I think what you're actually saying is that you can't click on the event itself which in turn brings up the aircraft roster which then would automatically send the aircraft to the geoscape location where the event took place. Am I right? You're not being very clear about it.

Try clicking ON the event itself as a target after you've selected "Launch Interceptor" and you will find that you actually have to click beside it to be able to launch. What you are describing is the ideal UI design that I was originally asking for.

Also, if I may use this thread to ask questions which, as someone said, should be obvious from the game itself rather than having to search for it: Where do you see your base transfers? I just hired two new soldiers, and they haven't appeared from what I can tell, so I'm guessing there's a delay like in the original, but where do I see that delay?

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All transfers of any sort take 3 days.

eobet, you sound really angry. Do you really want to play this game? It hasn't been offically released yet and if you're upset with the game to the point where you're coming across as lashing out (and I judge that by the frequent use of negatively-charged emotional language such as "double slap in the face to me as a player.") I honestly think the sourness you apparantly feel will poison any joy you might get out of Xenonauts, and you would be better off asking for a refund before it's too late.

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Sending interceptors to the actual event is pointless because the UFO will be long gone by the time they get there. You need to either anticipate the UFO's trajectory by following the "line" of events or just guess, a bit of both in most situations.

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All transfers of any sort take 3 days.

eobet, you sound really angry. Do you really want to play this game? It hasn't been offically released yet and if you're upset with the game to the point where you're coming across as lashing out (and I judge that by the frequent use of negatively-charged emotional language such as "double slap in the face to me as a player.") I honestly think the sourness you apparantly feel will poison any joy you might get out of Xenonauts, and you would be better off asking for a refund before it's too late.

I'm not angry, but I am blunt. I don't dance around issues.

But what does get me a bit upset is when hardcore fans always tell people to get out instead of seeing criticism for what it is and realize that the developers might actually get some more sales if they fix issues which people report.

Also, regarding the game not officially being released, the developer quite prominently said that this is the end, which hey, to me sounded just as harsh and blunt as my writing style. :P

PS. I'm an original Kickstarter backer, physical tier.

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As you prize bluntness and you don't like dancing around issues, I'm sure you won't have a problem with what I'm about to say. With all due respect eobet you've had almost two years to raise the issues that you raise now. You didn't do this during beta, nor did you do it during polishing, you have chosen to raise them at the point where the game is about to be released and all the devs are focussing on are the game-breaking bugs that will definatly tank sales, as opposed to UI and explantory issues that might. Why haven't you done it before? Seriously, why not? Looking at your forum post history you clearly stay in touch, because you pop back every so often in 2013, so you can't claim ignorance about the state of development. At any point during development you could have checked in and said "hold on, what about all these things?" because all the points you raise (with the exception of line-of-fire) would have been relevant if raised (this is what happens when people play a game over a long period of time - they no longer see the woods for the trees). But no! You get mad about the things you consider important when the game is done, then you get even madder when you're told that none of them are going to be implemented, because the game is done. What did you expect? You've had a chance to say something, anything before the end of development and you didn't. Now development is done and it's too late. Call me a fanboi if you like, a circle-jerker, a "hardcore fan" or whatever derogetory phrase you prefer, but why haven't you said anything? You've remained silent, not just until nearing the end of development, but until development was finished. It's too late now, eobet. The only way you're ever going to get anything done now is if you do it yourself.

Edited by Max_Caine
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There's still no reason why you couldn't send craft to them. I mean, the notification effectively act like blockers peppering the geoscape with little areas you can't set destinations in.

Also, as mentioned earlier, there really needs to be a way to split up a group of fighters (or indeed join them up to attack a ufo together). Right now you have to send them back to the base (where they may or may not be temporarily grounded) and send them out as a group - or tag team a ufo which can be much more inconvenient.

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