Aesthetic/performance issues with new UI

Published on Monday, October 26, 2015 By blackmagic1 In Offworld Trading Company

Here are my issues with the beta 7 UI. I'm posting this in hope of improving the experience. Several of these issues have been posted by other users but they are still an issue. I'm not in charge of the decision making but if i was in charge these are the things I would change.

1. The progress bar in auctions

I miss this as a visual representation of when an auction is going to end from the old UI (absent in the new UI). I've failed to bid on several auctions in beta 7 because I thought I had more time.

2. The font

Quick! Someone tell me if that's $90 or $98. This picture is zoomed in and enlarged. Now imagine having to figure it out quickly next to a bunch of different numbers.

3. Extra decimal points

No explanation necessary.

4. HQ upgrade popup

3 issues here.

First the spacing doesn't allow enough room to fit all the numbers in the same line so it throws your eye off visually.

Second having the resource requirements separated by lines (as it was before) and having the header boxed in and colored breaks everything up visually and makes it quicker and easier to read and process all this information.

Finally when you still need a particular resource to upgrade the font was white to call out what you were lacking. I think that was really important to have and would like to see that back in again.

5. Black Market

The black market in the new UI is considerably smaller. That makes it harder to read, quickly distinguish what's on the market, and harder to read the prices. The new upgrade button is almost the size of 3 black market items. I miss being able to see the black market.

In the new UI you can fit the entire black market in 1/3 of the new upgrade panel (below is to scale). Which panel do you use more often?

6. Building popups

This is a zoomed in version and I still can't read how much power is being drawn from this building (because of both the size and the red font). Just about everything on this panel is hard to read during normal gameplay.

7. Chat screen is hard to read (particularly over top ice)

There used to be a shaded region behind all the text and some shadowing to make it easier to read everything. It's really hard to read the text right now even when it's not ice. I had to squint just to read my own writing earlier when talking with vievi during a game.

8. Font in the engineering lab is way too small to read

Notice how much larger and easier to read the numbers are. Also take note of how hard it is when you get to 4 digits for a resource. Very hard to read.

9. Auction font is too small for high bidder and high bid

I mess up auctions because I can't tell if i'm the high bidder or what price the auction is going for because it's really small. Notice how big the font is to the right for comparison on the same screen.

10. HQ summary

I couldn't quite put my foot on what was wrong with the HQ summary until I went back to the old UI. It's basically the same issue I brought up in point #4. Separate some of the sections to make it easier to read so it's not just one massive blob of information that runs together. I look at the right image and it reminds me of people that don't use paragraphs when they type online. Your eyes glaze over and you end up understanding none of it.

One last issue that I still have is an issue with lag which i reported earlier. I've never had lag with betas 3-6 but beta 7 gives me lag issues when I found, upgrade, build buildings right after an upgrade, and when I build special buildings. I suspect others are still having this issue as well.

I understand that the main focus for beta 7 was making it functional. That being said the combined aesthetic and performance issues above taken in cumulative make playing the game more of a chore for me and sucks all the fun out of it. It's too hard to process most of the information when you have to squint to read things and you can't make quick decisions.

These issues are really simple fixes but hadn't been addressed yet to this point. I hope this helps.