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Up Topic General / Feedback and Ideas / UI Feedback (Inventory screen & more)
- - By B_E Date 2018-03-17 21:56 Edited 2018-03-17 23:44
I took the recent 8.1 release as an opportunity to play a bit of OC again. Inspired by some of the discussions over at Clonkspot, and rather than joining the discussion there, I thought I'd contribute here a bit by sharing some direct feedback I had during a round today.

For context: I used to be an avid Clonk Rage player, and played a little OC around the initial release. A lot has changed since then, and I only really picked it up again recently, so only have a few hours of recent play time.
I haven't completed the tutorials recently (apart from the first one), but dabbled in the first few rooms of the Tower of Despair a few weeks ago (and had a lot of fun!).

Today I was playing some "The Raid" as my first real mission and really got exposed to the inventory system. I'll keep this feedback mostly orientated towards the UI, since I had a very negative experience and got frustrated.

Slow and non-skippable Dialogs
It started off with the dialog system. I missed being able to skip dialog, especially as I read relatively fast. The timing seemed a little to slow to be just about annoying.

Dialogs don't stop the Clonk
Okay, this is not really a UI issue, but it was annoying enough: whenever I talked to someone while walking, the Clonk would continue to walk until the dialog ended. I'd expect the Clonk to stop.

Picking up items from the lorry
Using the elevator and holding the lorry is fine - but what then? Most of the game thus far prompted me actively to press buttons do things - stuff like [ Space ] for dialog, or calling the elevator. After I was holding the lorry, I was stumped. What now? I only then really discovered the inventory screen and started to get a feel for how items are transferred.

Large items
The barrel for the loam really confused me - so I accidentally took it out of the building because I thought I would have to combine them in hand. *Somehow* I dropped it, and then had to try for minutes to pick it up again. I know from the Tower that boompacks are also a "large item", and I remember picking them up and flying with them, but the barrel really confused me.
The vizualisation in the inventory screen also confused my - I saw water under the barrel and first assumed, it got unloaded into the building. The I figured it's more likely a view of what's inside the barrel? I didn't know what was going on, the information also seemed to be duplicated somewhat by the barrel tooltip.

Inventory screen/Game Menu
Oh boy, this was the big one. I *hated* the usability of the inventory menu screen. I had struggle transferring things from the ground to a specific slot, and the whole left part for my Clonk felt somewhat redundant with the slots at the top. I appreciate the idea of wanting to make this a generic
"transfer objects between two arbitrary containers" screen, but using it just didn't really feel helpful.

Having played a lot of smaller indie games recently, I also kept trying to hit "Escape" to exit the menu. Obviously, it kept opening the "Leave game?" screen. I think this is a common enough pattern for modals nowadays that we might want to support this directly. I think having Escape as a generic "just take me back to the" game is a useful functionality, especially as windows and modals get more complex. Often enough, the actual game menus end up on one of the other F keys nowadays.

The final straw in my session today was me hitting the Respawn button accidentally while struggeling with my inventory. I think respawning is such 4th wall action that breaks me out of the game, that it shouldn't be in the same menu as the inventory management. The hierarchy and separation just didn't make sense to me, and I got really frustrated by this.

In conclusion:
All in all I did have some I think I should probably spend some more time with the tutorials and see whether this helps me, but I wanted to share this experience as as an unexperienced player (once again). I definitely want to play a bit more if time permits, and am looking forward to some more Tower sessions and playing some Arena's again. I really don't fancy settling after having touched the inventory system, but would like to see if I can think of some imporvements. Maybe we could start a bit of discussion here?

Hope this helps!
Parent - - By Clonkonaut Date 2018-03-17 23:37
You've seem to have dropped a few words here and there. ;)

Not playing the Tutorials did probably turn out badly for you there! Because stuff like the inventory menu or how to make loam is explicitly explained during these. The Raid is the first mission and should be played after finishing the Tutorials in order to get the feel of the game.

But yes, the menu is not great at conveying information. I guess since its creation we haven't really spent much more time with the overall looks of it. Visuals and iconography could be improved and parts of it that were kind of intended as temporary solutions became permanent. We have to think about it more.
The escape button stuff is very true, yeah.
Reply
Parent - By B_E Date 2018-03-17 23:46

>You've seem to have dropped a few words here and there. ;)


Whoops, thanks!

> Not playing the Tutorials did probably turn out badly for you there! Because stuff like the inventory menu or how to make loam is explicitly explained during these. The Raid is the first mission and should be played after finishing the Tutorials in order to get the feel of the game.


Yeah, I'll definitely try them out. I've never really been a huge fan of tutorials and tend to skip over them, so obviously the experience might not be representative. I might check back once I've had a chance to get the official introduction to the menu.
Parent - - By Sven2 [us] Date 2018-03-18 01:43 Edited 2018-03-18 03:00
Thanks for the feedback!

> Oh boy, this was the big one. I *hated* the usability of the inventory menu screen. I had struggle transferring things from the ground to a specific slot, and the whole left part for my Clonk felt somewhat redundant with the slots at the top. I appreciate the idea of wanting to make this a generic  "transfer objects between two arbitrary containers" screen, but using it just didn't really feel helpful.


I agree. The big menus are pretty cumbersome to use; especially in a melee (By the way, you can reduce the size to be non-screen-filling).

Maybe it would help if you could control the menu by keyboard.

> The final straw in my session today was me hitting the Respawn button accidentally while struggeling with my inventory. I think respawning is such 4th wall action that breaks me out of the game, that it shouldn't be in the same menu as the inventory management. The hierarchy and separation just didn't make sense to me, and I got really frustrated by this.


I'm not aware of a respawn button in the interaction menu. How did you find that?
Parent - - By Clonkonaut Date 2018-03-18 01:48
Oh, right. Yeah, I wanted to ask about that relaunch, too. There is no relaunch button in the inventory menu but in the F menu :o
(maybe B_E actually died?)
Reply
Parent - By B_E Date 2018-03-18 15:47
Huuh, taking a look again now I have no idea. I guess I might've died while clicking around in the window open, and then checked the menu assuming that the X over the Clonk means respawn. I thought I vaguely remembered another column to the right of that, but really not sure. Either way, obviously the feedback doesn't apply then.
Parent - - By Zapper [de] Date 2018-03-18 11:32

>Slow and non-skippable Dialogs


True. Added to the bugtracker http://bugs.openclonk.org/view.php?id=2013

>Okay, this is not really a UI issue, but it was annoying enough: whenever I talked to someone while walking, the Clonk would continue to walk until the dialog ended. I'd expect the Clonk to stop.


Sounds good, too. Care must be taken to also continue moving when the button is still held down after the dialog.
Added to the BT http://bugs.openclonk.org/view.php?id=2014

>Using the elevator and holding the lorry is fine - but what then? Most of the game thus far prompted me actively to press buttons do things - stuff like [ Space ] for dialog, or calling the elevator. After I was holding the lorry, I was stumped. What now? I only then really discovered the inventory screen and started to get a feel for how items are transferred.


I can feel the frustration, but I don't really know how to change it. Players must, at some point, know that [E] and [Space] are the main ways to interact with things and, in doubt, try both

>I had struggle transferring things from the ground to a specific slot


Yeah, that's really an open question about how that should be solved.. idk
Probably drag&drop in the top bar (once implemented); but that would mean enabling mouse interaction, which is atm disabled on purpose (e.g. to allow aiming in that area)

>I saw water under the barrel and first assumed, it got unloaded into the building.


Hm, yeah. I am also not 100% happy with that but I am not quite sure about how to do (or just display) that differently. But I totally agree that the communication about that it's an extra-slot is a bit awkward there

>Having played a lot of smaller indie games recently, I also kept trying to hit "Escape" to exit the menu


That happens to me all the time, as well. I would love being able to close menus with [Escape], but the engine doesn't support that atm :(
Sveeeen
Parent - - By Caesar [jp] Date 2018-03-18 13:11

>>I had struggle transferring things from the ground to a specific slot
>Yeah, that's really an open question about how that should be solved.. idk


Hm, how about making slots in the menu that you can move things into? Many MMOs have that, where you can drag your items around in the inventory… (Dunno if I'm explaining this meaningfully…)
Parent - - By Clonkonaut Date 2018-03-18 13:16
Drag & Drop is a missing feature in the GUI. :/
Reply
Parent - - By Caesar [jp] Date 2018-03-18 13:28
Oh.
Parent - By Clonkonaut Date 2018-03-18 13:33
Yeah. If the GUI supported that, we could do a few nice things.
Reply
Parent - - By Caesar [jp] Date 2018-03-18 13:28

>I also kept trying to hit "Escape" to exit the menu.


Hm, guess we make our lives easy, move the current function of Escape to Alt+F4 (I think, under windows, it's already there?) or whatever WM_EXIT-events the respective system has, and just allow to use Esc like a normal game key?
Parent - - By Zapper [de] Date 2018-03-18 13:48
That would really be the easiest solution.

But I guess people also expect to be able to get out of the game somehow? I doubt that Alt+F4 is so intuitive.
We could put it to one of the F-keys (like WC3 did)?

Also, I guess people expect software to immediately shut down when pressing Alt+F4
Parent - - By Clonkonaut Date 2018-03-18 13:50
Isn't F10 used by many games nowadays for the game menu?
Reply
Parent - By Zapper [de] Date 2018-03-18 14:12
idk, maybe?
Parent - - By Pyrit Date 2018-03-18 14:38
Why can't esc close menus and open the end the game dialog?
Parent - By Clonkonaut Date 2018-03-18 14:39
Because then you can only quit the game after you closed all the menus and maybe have to wait for all unskippable sequences to end. ;)
Reply
Parent - - By Zapper [de] Date 2018-03-18 14:49
To extent Clonkonaut's answer:
Closing menus has to be synchronized through the network. That means you cannot close a menu when the game lags (like you also cannot walk).
If escape would try to close all menus before offering to exit the game, you could not exit the game when the network would hang
Parent - - By Caesar [jp] Date 2018-03-18 14:52
I mean, you could, with some extra logic. Mark the menu as closed, and ignore marked menus. Or can scripts prevent menus from closing?

It does sound like it could have some funny side-effects if you're not careful, though…
Parent - By Clonkonaut Date 2018-03-18 15:00

> Or can scripts prevent menus from closing?


There is no 'close all menus' buttons as of now, there was no need to think about this so far (menus decided for themselves how they close). But yes, probably menus should be able to do that. Sometimes you just want a situation in which a player has to select something or else the scenario just fails. Things like: "Please select playstyle for the scenario: A/B" where it is completely nonsensical to not select anything.
Reply
Parent - By Zapper [de] Date 2018-03-18 15:08

>Or can scripts prevent menus from closing?


Yes; you cannot and should not "close" the HP bar or the inventory slots, for example.

The menu logic happens in script. You can close menus with E that register themselves with the Clonk (via SetMenu), which also has a "permanent"/"unclosable" flag
Parent - - By Sven2 [us] Date 2018-03-19 02:55
It has many side-effects and I would really like to prevent that.

Game End on F10/F12/Alt+F4 sounds fine to me. In addition, maybe we can have a small button in the top right corner (like [Menu (F10)]).
Parent - - By Caesar Date 2018-03-19 04:47
That's one thing I'd like to avoid, as I just violently move my mouse into a corner when I want to boompack/windbag into a certain direction...
Parent - By Clonkonaut Date 2018-03-19 11:06
Your muscle memory will quickly learn not to move as far!
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Parent - - By Zapper [de] Date 2018-03-19 13:34
That's also the very reason why I disallowed mouse interaction for the inventory bar
Parent - - By Mupf Date 2018-03-20 13:29
On a side note, I'd love mouse interaction with the inventory bar once the E-Menu is opened.
Parent - - By Zapper Date 2018-03-20 14:07
Oh, that's a pretty good idea. Hm. There still is no drag & drop yet, though :/
Parent - By Clonkonaut Date 2018-03-20 14:15
It is amongst the features I miss most.
Reply
Parent - - By Mupf Date 2018-03-20 16:46
There was drag and drop in the old inventory bar though, wasn't there?
Parent - By Maikel Date 2018-03-20 17:09
Yes, based on a different system using objects and C4D_Mouse*, so we need to wait until the new script GUIs can do drag and drop.
Parent - By Pyrit Date 2018-03-21 13:22
About what kind of drag&drop are we talking about?

I find d&d where you actually have to keep the mouse button pressed very uncomfortable.
Then there is the other kind of d&d where you click on the item once and the item sticks to the mouse cursor. Clicking again drops off the item.

Minecraft and Factorio for example all use the latter one (with an additional option of shift+click for insant transfer) and I think there is a good reason for why these games are not using a d&d where you have to keep the mouse button pressed.
Parent - - By Sven2 [us] Date 2018-03-19 16:11
Good point. What about top center? Or what about a simple label that doesn't allow interaction (and just shows you the key)?
Parent - By Zapper [de] Date 2018-03-19 16:27
A simple label would be fine
Parent - - By Maikel Date 2018-03-19 16:37
I would prefer a label that disappears after some time.
Parent - By Zapper [de] Date 2018-03-19 16:53
Once you hit F10 10 times :D
Up Topic General / Feedback and Ideas / UI Feedback (Inventory screen & more)

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