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Readability Issues (Xenopedia mostly)


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I can't put my finger on it. Is it the font, its size, its color, the pixel spacing between letters, I don't know. I can't read the Xenopedia without squinting (I got no eye problems and it's only in this game so it's not my TV) and I end up giving up after a paragraph. Over and over.

I didn't have this problem in X1 (which I played 2 months ago for the last time so my memory's fresh) which means despite the Xenopedia being similar in presentation in both games, something has changed in X2. I hope it's only me. But I humbly think it's a real problem.  While I'm at it, I'd like to seriously compliment whoever wrote X1's xenopedia. He nailed it so hard that even I who hates reading blocks of text ever since I was 5 ended up eating the entire Xenopedia up.  

Back to the issues. It's not just the Xenopedia. Those hints during loading screens seem to be slightly blurred, not perfectly crystal clear to read, as if a mild fog was in front of the sentences. I don't know how to say it.

I also noticed that the events in the Geoscape are also blurry and the fact that they're written in very small font size doesn't help. I'm talking about "Electrical Blackout, Train junction bombed, Crop circles etc". The text which appears on the map itself, not on the log down there even though that one is kinda small too. And my TV is a meter in diameter sitting 1.5m in front of my face. Yes yes dont tell me its bad lol 

City names on geoscape are also very slightly blurred.

While I'm at it, I'm not complaining but the blue squares that indicate the location of a city aren't as nice to look at in comparison to the red circles in X1, according to my personal preferences. But this here is entirely subjective, I realize that, and people have different tastes etc etc.  

Thank you for reading.

Edited by Praetorian
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We all don´t have such Problems, because we use the correct Hard- and Software (PC, Monitor, Operation System, Updates for the Hard- and Software).

Your Problems result on your TV, not the Game.

First: Update your PC first (newest Drivers for Graphics Card, Operation System, Sound etc. etc.)

Second: Update your TV and other systems there like a Subwover-Sound-System (the same like your PC)

Both will need time and are absolutely necessary. My TV, PC, Recivers inform me when it´s time for an new Update. Only the Subwover-Sound-System I have to check Manually for new Updates. And if necessary you have to make the correct Adjustments for the TV, which get forgotten very often.

If it´s done and you have the same Issues again, you have to play with the correct PC-Hardware on your PC directly then. There you don´t have such Problems.

Edited by Alienkiller
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11 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

We all don´t have such Problems, because we use the correct Hard- and Software (PC, Monitor, Operation System, Updates for the Hard- and Software).

Your Problems result on your TV, not the Game.

First: Update your PC first (newest Drivers for Graphics Card, Operation System, Sound etc. etc.)

Second: Update your TV and other systems there like a Subwover-Sound-System (the same like your PC)

Both will need time and are absolutely necessary. My TV, PC, Recivers inform me when it´s time for an new Update. Only the Subwover-Sound-System I have to check Manually for new Updates. And if necessary you have to make the correct Adjustments for the TV, which get forgotten very often.

If it´s done and you have the same Issues again, you have to play with the correct PC-Hardware on your PC directly then. There you don´t have such Problems.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm glad it's only me. 

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On 1/13/2021 at 2:31 AM, Praetorian said:

I can't put my finger on it. Is it the font, its size, its color, the pixel spacing between letters, I don't know. I can't read the Xenopedia without squinting (I got no eye problems and it's only in this game so it's not my TV) and I end up giving up after a paragraph. Over and over.

I didn't have this problem in X1 (which I played 2 months ago for the last time so my memory's fresh) which means despite the Xenopedia being similar in presentation in both games, something has changed in X2. I hope it's only me. But I humbly think it's a real problem.  While I'm at it, I'd like to seriously compliment whoever wrote X1's xenopedia. He nailed it so hard that even I who hates reading blocks of text ever since I was 5 ended up eating the entire Xenopedia up.  

Back to the issues. It's not just the Xenopedia. Those hints during loading screens seem to be slightly blurred, not perfectly crystal clear to read, as if a mild fog was in front of the sentences. I don't know how to say it.

I also noticed that the events in the Geoscape are also blurry and the fact that they're written in very small font size doesn't help. I'm talking about "Electrical Blackout, Train junction bombed, Crop circles etc". The text which appears on the map itself, not on the log down there even though that one is kinda small too. And my TV is a meter in diameter sitting 1.5m in front of my face. Yes yes dont tell me its bad lol 

City names on geoscape are also very slightly blurred.

While I'm at it, I'm not complaining but the blue squares that indicate the location of a city aren't as nice to look at in comparison to the red circles in X1, according to my personal preferences. But this here is entirely subjective, I realize that, and people have different tastes etc etc.  

Thank you for reading.

I don't think the text in the game is rendered as cleanly as it could be and displaying blocks of text is always hard to do in a readable manner, but it shouldn't be blurred. It sounds like the game is at a different resolution to your monitor / tv, perhaps? If it's displaying at a non-native resolution then you get an effect where the UI isn't as sharp as it should be, so I'd check that in the settings menu as your first port of call.

Frustratingly it's kinda hard to diagnose where the problem might be beyond that, maybe unless you took a photo of the screen with some text up? That way I could say whether that's what the game is meant to look like or not.

EDIT: this is how a city name looks on my monitor, if that helps:

image.png

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This is how I see the Xenopedia. I just noticed that some letters are darker in contrast than others. In other words in a sentence, the contrast varies/jumps from light (normal white I guess) to darker to white to darker. For example, do you see the 2nd word on the first line "Destroyer" - if you zoom in you'll see that the letter "r" is dark, "o" is 2/3 white 1/3 dark, "y" is white. On the 1st line again you have the word "than" which is almost completely dark. My point is the entire text has these variations. The same words and letters will be white in some places and dark in others. Maybe that's why I have trouble reading it. But if you guys don't see it like I do then it's all good because it's only on my end.

825687339_Snapp0213622021-01-0112_24_47.thumb.png.a52a94f0b490b18656e2f58510681805.png

 

Here I just noticed the same contrast problem both in the log and the "Communications disruptions" on the world map. As much as with the green letters in the log as everywhere else, really. Do you have these contrast variations ?

1970324282_Snapp0214942021-01-0218_09_32.thumb.png.4f28abdfb4cf1577143195ff0ec5fd68.png

See the "I" in the name of my base ? Maybe "blurry" wasn't the right term when I first wrote the post.

 

1518204690_Snapp0217542021-01-0516_58_35.thumb.png.0907e20f01fe76e4f155f50ea9630ee1.png

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On 1/15/2021 at 1:13 AM, Praetorian said:

I forgot to say. On the screenshot you sent me, Lagos Nigeria looks perfect to me and is perfectly readable. 

Yeah, there's something badly wrong with that text, particularly on the base labels. What screen resolution are you playing at? I have quite a large 1440p screen so I wouldn't be surprised if the text is less readable on smaller screens / resolutions.

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I don't use the map magnification. After the old X com everything looks good. There are much more important things to do. For example, filling Xenopedics with content. There you need to add not only new research, but in general everything that is available in the game (including things that are available from the beginning of the game). As it was in the original. This is the first thing that attracted me to the original game. The second thing I would like to see is the ability to just throw things. This gives the battles realism. This has already been implemented in the old x coms too. In our case, in order to transfer an object from one soldier to another, you need to approach each other, put it on the ground and then take it by another soldier. Instead of just throwing and taking. Also in the old X com, objects and aliens were damaged by explosions. It also added realism. Why don't you implement such a thing? And there, every thing on the map that survived was a reward for the player. It is not clear to me why I will receive alien magnets instead of magnetic rifles, pistols, and so on.

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17 hours ago, Chris said:

Yeah, there's something badly wrong with that text, particularly on the base labels. What screen resolution are you playing at? I have quite a large 1440p screen so I wouldn't be surprised if the text is less readable on smaller screens / resolutions.

I am playing at 1333 x 768.

I wrote this post in case everybody had it but considered it normal. I've had many games with things that really pissed me off but when I read the negative reviews on steam nobody mentions it and it doesn't seem to bother anybody, so I thought this might be the case with this game. But since it's only me, it means the game doesn't need fixing so it's all good, since no one else said anything. I'll tolerate it if it's like that in the final release, no problem. You're busy enough as it is.

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On 1/22/2021 at 4:40 PM, Praetorian said:

I am playing at 1333 x 768.

I wrote this post in case everybody had it but considered it normal. I've had many games with things that really pissed me off but when I read the negative reviews on steam nobody mentions it and it doesn't seem to bother anybody, so I thought this might be the case with this game. But since it's only me, it means the game doesn't need fixing so it's all good, since no one else said anything. I'll tolerate it if it's like that in the final release, no problem. You're busy enough as it is.

Yeah, but it indicates a problem someone else will experience at some point and they might be less chilled out about it than you. If you include free giveaways I think there's something like 600,000 people who have played Xenonauts 1 around so I tend to view any problem raised on the forum by even one user as the tip of an iceberg lurking below the surface.

We'll probably not be looking into it urgently, but it's something I'll take a look at eventually.

On 1/22/2021 at 2:19 PM, MrAlex said:

I don't use the map magnification. After the old X com everything looks good. There are much more important things to do. For example, filling Xenopedics with content. There you need to add not only new research, but in general everything that is available in the game (including things that are available from the beginning of the game). As it was in the original. This is the first thing that attracted me to the original game. The second thing I would like to see is the ability to just throw things. This gives the battles realism. This has already been implemented in the old x coms too. In our case, in order to transfer an object from one soldier to another, you need to approach each other, put it on the ground and then take it by another soldier. Instead of just throwing and taking. Also in the old X com, objects and aliens were damaged by explosions. It also added realism. Why don't you implement such a thing? And there, every thing on the map that survived was a reward for the player. It is not clear to me why I will receive alien magnets instead of magnetic rifles, pistols, and so on.

This stuff is mostly off-topic so I won't discuss it here, but if you bring this up again later into development we might well implement / change some of it.

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On 1/25/2021 at 5:57 PM, Chris said:

Yeah, but it indicates a problem someone else will experience at some point and they might be less chilled out about it than you. If you include free giveaways I think there's something like 600,000 people who have played Xenonauts 1 around so I tend to view any problem raised on the forum by even one user as the tip of an iceberg lurking below the surface.

We'll probably not be looking into it urgently, but it's something I'll take a look at eventually.

 

Fair enough. If I was a game dev I would think about it the same way.

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