I've redesigned the resource bar widget, with some input from     GoogleFrog, in order to make the important parts of the economy more obvious. Here's a screenshot (from GoogleFrog): Large Version The basic idea is that the data on the resource widget that is most relevant is the income, followed by spending. These numbers are most important because they tell the player at what stage the game is, what their economy is doing right now, and are also the things they most directly influence through their actions. As such, for a new player, they are an obvious focus. I removed net income as a number, because it doesn't give a lot of information beyond "build caretaker/build mexes&power", which doesn't need to be that precise nor that prominent. The arrows on the resource bars indicate the current rate of change of storage, and I will be setting up images to fade in as that rate changes, so a pictorial representation of net income is planned. At present it just shows positive/negative rate of change. I also removed the storage maximum from the main display. Hovering over the bar, current storage number, or resource image will show the maximum in the tooltip, or it can be roughly determined by how full the bar is and looking at the current storage number. The bar in the middle is income balance. If the blue and yellow parts are even at the center, then metal and energy incomes are even, otherwise the bar shows which is dominating. If metal is dominating, then the portion by which it is dominating flashes in red to indicate to the player what needs to be reduced. This can be tested in the latest stable by going into the F11 menu, turning off "Chili Resource Bars" and turning on "Chili Economy Panel".
+5 / -0
|
Net gain/loss is the single most important stat to display. You look up, and you see one number for each resource, positive or negative, that tells you how much E, M, or BP to make.
+3 / -0
|
Net gain/loss tells you nothing about how much economy you have, how much spending you have going on, or at what proportion of ideal your economy is running at. (+10/-20 is very different from +50/-60). It also fluctuates a lot, so it is hard for a new player to feel like they are really doing anything to it, which is confusing. As I mentioned, I plan to show net as a set of arrows pointing up or down on the resource bar. To clarify, it will be one (fully opaque and coloured) arrow per +/- 5 resource to storage.
+0 / -0
|
Well I want see net income
+1 / -0
|
I already said, it will show up pictographically later on. The only time net income is relevant is at intervals of +/- 5 anyway, as that's when the player needs to think about another/one fewer engineer or (at +/- 10) caretaker/factory.
+0 / -1
|
How will the pictographical representation fare with the potentially humongous incomes of ffa games? 100+ is common there, 200+ tends to happen as well. Edit: And I was talking about metal there. Energy can reach thousands when the singuspam starts.
+0 / -0
|
I presume this is an old screenshot and new one has brighter colors?
+0 / -0
|
Your "build caretaker/build mexes & power" is precisely the moment-to-moment decision I need to constantly be making, and thus at a glance what the resource bar needs to tell me. I don't need to know my total income or spending, because the proportion that is already being spent is basically irrelevant. Its non-actionable, already dealt with, I don't need to do anything with that number: I only need the actionable info. If I only have totals, I need to maff a lot of numbers every time I look at my eco to figure out if I have BP problems or an E/M disparity (E drain and M drain are not always the same, E powers other things). I know you have other mechanisms for displaying E/M disparity but they are non-numeric. You also seem to be seriously missing a visual indicator for 'make bp' other than your storage being full. I'd also say you should make the lesser value flash red to show what needs to be INCREASED, not the higher value to show what needs to be reduced: You don't reduce your income to keep parity unless you're pulling cons off reclaim or something. We've experimented with dozens of resource bars that would show flow or income visually, rather than total storage. There was even a version that showed your sources of income (mex, reclaim, solar, wind, etc) by breaking down the bars into different sub-categories, and all sorts of things. It's not a bad idea, I'm just saying, it's hard to do right.
+2 / -0
|
Current bar that zk has is still best
+0 / -0
|
While I like the buckets (similar to an old resource window we had) I don't like the middle part. The reason is, I did not easily deduce what it does. There are several stages: at first glance, after contemplation, and after reading your description. I still don't completely understand it. At first glance I thought it was a multibar that begins on the left, with a green bar extending right, and a red bar extending further right. I had no idea what the little triangle is. My eyes don't even relate that the green income numbers have anything to do with the bar, because my eyes are grouping the left bucket, left green number and left red number as one entity of information. Same with the right. Then the bar in the middle is a third. And it's only by coincidence that there's some overlap. After contemplation I think maybe the green numbers, unlike the red numbers below, are indicating something on the bar. After reading your description I think you're saying that there are two bars, both which have the center triangle as the origin, going left, and right, respectively (is that correct?). Still, I'm not sure what the colors represent or what I should do with the information that the colors are telling me. The energy half (right) is red so I need more of it? But you claim the portion that is "dominating" is flashing red. That makes no sense to my eyes because I'm seeing the smaller part red. Maybe if I saw this bar in action I'd understand it better, but it should be understandable even in a still image, like the current one. I recommend a thick white bar in the center instead of that arrow if that arrow is indeed representing the origin of the bars. quote:
The arrows on the resource bars indicate the current rate of change of storage |
This took me several reads to understand because when I hear "storage" I think of the unit, which gives you "storage capacity." I assume that specifically you're saying the amount of the resource you have in storage. In that case it sounds like the arrows are a great addition to the buckets.
+0 / -0
|
|
|
I have to side with   Saktoth on the point of showing net gain. quote:
how much economy you have, how much spending you have going on, or at what proportion of ideal your economy is running at. (+10/-20 is very different from +50/-60). |
All of these are things that you will intuitively know. I mean, 4 minutes in you will know that your economy is likely not +50/-60 but +20/-30. "what stage the game is" would be important to show if you would be thrown into the middle of the game. But since you must (or should) continuously manage your economy anyway and that "stage" doesn't change all of a sudden (well, aside from your first singu), I can't agree to your argument there. If you want to eliminate a number, kill current stored value (or make it very transparent). Or can you tell me a single situation where the exact stored value is required because "empty, full or half full" isn't enough information to act on? On another note, you don't want to have energy income equal to metal income but rather slightly more. Repair, cloak, radar, overdrive and rez all need energy. For new players, the message should be "your metal should always be empty, your energy should never be empty". As such, the important numbers are if your net metal income is negative (or 0) and your net energy income is positive. If that's not the case, it needs to be fixed or you're going to stall (energy)/excess (metal).
+0 / -0
|
quote:
All of these are things that you will intuitively know. I mean, 4 minutes in you will know that your economy is likely not +50/-60 but +20/-30. "what stage the game is" would be important to show if you would be thrown into the middle of the game. But since you must (or should) continuously manage your economy anyway and that "stage" doesn't change all of a sudden (well, aside from your first singu), I can't agree to your argument there. |
Raids. Also, this is designed so that a new player doesn't feel overwhelmed. Also, at +10/-20 your economy is operating at half of what you expect (remember new players tend to spam caretakers assuming it will magically produce), while at +50/-60 it's 5/6ths of what you expect, and probably 3x normal on any given factory. As far as game stage number goes, Supply Count in StarCraft is pretty much the same idea. The number should be intuitive by time, but the exact number is quite important to determine that the next stage of the game should be entered. quote:
If you want to eliminate a number, kill current stored value (or make it very transparent). Or can you tell me a single situation where the exact stored value is required because "empty, full or half full" isn't enough information to act on? |
I'm okay with this, I was just concerned that it would get a major outcry if all storage numbers were removed, outside of hover tooltips. I'm sure the counter will be "how will we know how much time is left before e-stall at game start?", which is a valid point. quote:
On another note, you don't want to have energy income equal to metal income but rather slightly more. Repair, cloak, radar, overdrive and rez all need energy. For new players, the message should be "your metal should always be empty, your energy should never be empty" |
True, which is the hardest thing to represent. This is why it only flashes on energy stall and metal excess, and not energy excess (there's an advanced option for this) or metal stall. I know that's not enough, I'm not sure at the moment what to do. The proportion bar also only flashes when metal income is greater than energy income, not the other way around.
+0 / -0
|
Imo, gross gives more info, and people who can't run a "lesser than" comparison in their heads are not likely to be interested in ZK at all. If they even exist in any notable nimbers.
+0 / -0
|
The question is not if you can run a "lesser than" comparison in your head, the question is if I (or you) would use resource bar where one would have to parse two numbers (in different colors), then compare them and act on the result, instead of having this information readily available in exactly one number, with additional color coding that gives you this information at just a glance without having to spend a few extra "brain cycles". (This is not about comparing metal and energy incomes,   Anarchid talked about using gross values.)
+0 / -0
|
Ok, i looked at it "chilli economy panel" just now. it a bit confusing. Especially the metal to energy ratio. o.0 What wrong with having so much energy? xD. What do you mean by stage of game? 0.9
+0 / -0
|
AnarchidIdunno, seeing the delta tells me exactly how many more working cons or caretakers I can support, or how many I have working that are excess and should be tasked on something non-consuming. Obviously I can figure it in my head, but just seeing the delta upfront is faster. This is hard. Instinctively my reaction is the start was good - income, outflow, balance as a bar, and an arrow giving a qualitative (not quantitative) at-a-glance display of how big your deficit/profit is. But there's so much more that could be done, and yet it would get cluttered so quickly. Probably the best approach is just two designs - the minimalist view (income/outflow + buckets + arrow) with some sort of expand to show a full ledger.
+0 / -0
|
The "net only" version doesn't tell you if you can afford a Det in 10 seconds, but tells you you need one more con. The "gross only" tells you you have the eco for a Det, and you can also see that you need a con.
+0 / -0
|
Well, in that regard, the current resource bars seem just fine. I mean, you can't tell me any newbie is confused by what those numbers mean (and if they are, ZK is not the game they should be playing). You have the big "net" number and the two smaller "gross" numbers. With the buckets and arrows, it would feel more like a black box (at least to me if I was a new player again), which makes understanding the economy ever so slightly more difficult. Heck, if you wanted, you could just make a widget that tells a player what to do based on his income numbers. Like "build more energy" or "build more units/buildpower". Talk about helping new players...
+1 / -0
|
The current resource bars are, in fact, just fine. Any replacement, imo, should show more info, or the same amount of info in a better way. But not less. My point is that removing information is just bad. I don't know about newbies, but i wouldn't use a widget that shows me less info. If there's a big net number and small gross numbers, that's fine, but i kinda thought people wanted to get rid of gross. As for the calculation costs of comparing numbers... quote:
All of these are things that you will intuitively know. I mean, 4 minutes in you will know that your economy is likely not +50/-60 but +20/-30. |
Guess which is cheaper, more reliable, and easier to learn: a "lesser than", or a hidden markov model. However, quote:
If you want to eliminate a number, kill current stored value (or make it very transparent). Or can you tell me a single situation where the exact stored value is required because "empty, full or half full" isn't enough information to act on? |
Aside from having no trouble picturing situations where exact storage amount would matter, i have to agree with this. Storage is least important -- but it also seems it's significantly nerfed on the screenshot.
+2 / -0
|
