UI suggestions thread

[nikosthefan]

This one is for small suggestions that aren’t really worth a thread on their own.

This suggestion is to show that a crafter is done with the maintaining orders, and moves on to the next.

[Sombrero06]

To be fair the whole maintaining orders thing should have a seperate UI instead of having a never ending list of maintain + craft items. That being said your UI suggestion is still relevant. But I really hope the entire system of crafting will be updated at some stage, having one worker using one specific table for instance would be neat (the same way beds can be assigned to hearthlings). And along the same lines having a different panel for maintaining stocks and crafting new ones.

[MajorFordson]

I’d like to see Fine items put under their own heading in the ordering list.

I’d also like to see items not appear at all until there’s a possibility of them being built. For example Fine items requiring gold flakes do not appear at all until the player has a Mason OR gets some gold flakes another way. That way the player is surprised and gets joy as the building options expand. It’s always a pleasure to discover new content in the game, as long as it is telegraphed to the player that this has happened or is possible.

[nikosthefan]

@MajorFordson

I’d also like to see items not appear at all until there’s a possibility of them being built. For example Fine items requiring gold flakes do not appear at all until the player has a Mason OR gets some gold flakes another way. That way the player is surprised and gets joy as the building options expand. It’s always a pleasure to discover new content in the game, as long as it is telegraphed to the player that this has happened or is possible.

But the player would loose the ability to look out for new goals, and to start obtaining the materials necessary for these new things the player wants. That is the trade-off here.

---

Also, from this thread I got the following idea:

@sdee

One thing that might be happening, if you’re not seeing them, is that the current notification window, if up, can hide new notification windows. So if you’ve got say, the daily update up on your screen, and new updates happen before you dismiss it, they can queue behind the top notification. To see all the notifications you have, click the ! button in your UI.

[MajorFordson]

@nikosthefan

But the player would loose the ability to look out for new goals, and to start obtaining the materials necessary for these new things the player wants. That is the trade-off here.

That’s a great point. Instead they might have the preview of the craftable item as a black silhouette, with a text prompt telling the player “Unlockable at Level 2!” or “Unlockable when your town has a Mason!”

I just feel it’s a way of
a) not overloading a new player when they open the crafting screen for the first time and see a whole tonne of items there, most of which they won’t actually get for a while
b) creating some suspense and sense of satisfaction when you discover more possibilities. It gives the game a feeling of depth and new content. To my mind it’s no more inconvenient than rewarding the player with Tier 2 building templates out of the blue at a certain point in the game.

One thing that the very best games in this genre have is a continual drip feed of new mechanics and possibilities into the mid and late game. Evil Genius and the Anno games come to mind. I prefer that to having EVERYTHING thrown at the player from the start, especially if it’s greyed out but still visible. It really destroys a sense of wonder and progression.

[nikosthefan]

Here is one for A24:

This is a new piece of UI for the new building system, showing the costs of a building.

The suggestion is: Add another bar for the benefits. When building infrastructure like this, there are both costs, and benefits, so it is something that should come in tandem. Specifically, I’d like to have that bar to keep track of the following:

• Amount of hearthlings that the building can house: amount of beds. (icon: bed)
• Storage space in capacity. (icon: crate)
• Net worth. (icon: stack of coins)

[Agon]

Got to say, those coins feel a bit out of place. Sure, it’s a “cost” but if it costs money as well then the coins should be on the right side of “Cost:” with the amount next to it.

[nikosthefan]

It’s fine that for the descriptions you fixed the elli…
…
But…

Tell, me, oh mighty goblin chieftan, what is your full name?

Is it maybe possible that if the name does not fit inside the box, and when you hover your mouse over it, that the box floats upwards, and then stretches long enough so that it does fit.

[RallyPoint]

On the Crafting Orders windows for each crafter and you click on something to craft it’s nice that it tells you how much you have in reserve and how much it will cost. Problem is say you have several orders queued up by the Weaver then switch over to the Herbalist to make coarse bandages… how much of that silkweed is effectively available?

Say I have a total of 12 silkweed 4 items queued up to the Weaver which will consume 12 silkweed. Then I go to the Herbalist to make some coarse bandages… says I have 12 silkweed. Yeah technically that’s how much is in storage but It’s all going to be used by the Weaver.

Wish it would say on the crafting page how much total is in storage but also how much has been provisioned to be crafted based on all orders in queue.