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Usability Improvements


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#1 Myke Pantera

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Posted 07 March 2017 - 12:08 AM

While the overall direction of the skill tree changes was good there are still a few usability issues I'd like to address:

Node Type Legend:
EQUIPPED: Currently equipped skill node
UNEQUIPPED: Skill node that can be bought to equip it (requires 800XP and 60k CBills)
AVAILABLE: Skill node that is currently not equipped, but was already bought once (only requires 400XP, and no CBills)
LOCKED: Skill nodes that are not adjacent to EQUIPPED nodes, and may or may not have been bought once already.

1) EQUIPPED same color as UNEQUIPPED/AVAILABLE
While UNEQUIPPED has the lock symbol on the top and AVAILABLE has the dashed outline it's really hard to see a difference between those and what's already EQUIPPED, especially when zoomed out. The first iteration had the equipped skills in green and the rest in blue, which was way more user-friendly. This change probably came with the colored weapon skills, but those I really don't need colored. They have the colored weapon specific symbol on them anyway, and if that's not enough give them a different bordercolor, but please make all the equipped skills green again.

2) Prevent buying nodes with experience points I don't have
It happened to me several times that I equipped a sub-tree with XP only to find out later, that I don't have enough XP left to apply the changes. Unequip, requip with GXP -> This is frustrating.

3) Remove the lock symbol from skills that have been bought already
Currently you only see if a skill node was already bought once, when it's AVAILABLE. But you can't see if a LOCKED skill is already paid for. So please remove the LOCK symbols from currently non-equipable (LOCKED) skills that don't require the 60k CBills anymore.

4) Transfer all HXP to XP
Please give us a transfer all button. 95% of the time I have to type the HXP amount and press transfer, instead of just clicking the arrow between HXP and XP field to just move all HXP to the selected variant.

5) Show number of equipped nodes per tree before apply changes
We currently see the amount of skill we've invested per tree only after apply changes has been pressed. It would be nice to see the amounts of skills invested per tree while we are still in the process of equipping. Top right corner of the tree border would be a good place to show that (15/25).

6) Agility Tree Structure
Why force Arm Pitch onto us? Arm Pitch is a useless skill that should not be shielding speed tweak, or anything for that matter. The agility tree eats up roughly one third of the available skill points, and if that wasn't bad enough we're forced to waste 2 points in arm pitch to get to speed tweak, and another 2 to reach early torso speed/anchor turn. Also why does speed tweak have to be at the bottom of the tree? Couldn't we have 2 of those nodes higher up, so people can decide to take some agility but not specialize in it? Currently this tree is all or nothing. I know there are voices out there who claim that the deeper you go the higher the benefit should be, but I totally disagree with this, because it again hurts those who want to go 'balance' instead of 'min/maxed'.
Let's look at the missile part of the weapon tree. You'll find High Explosive, Missile Rack and Missile Spread across all depths. That's good design. The deeper you go, the more you get, but not having enough points left to go deep, doesn't make the tree less viable. The gain is almost linear, as it should be.

P.S.: Good job on the economy changes. Works fine by me now!

#2 Nesutizale

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Posted 07 March 2017 - 01:00 AM

Except for the last point I completly agree. Please PGI do something about the "readability" of the skilltree.

Also add a "autoselect" option to the tree where I can simply select the node I want and the program selects every necessary node above.





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