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Default zero k widget and setup not user friendly at all

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It terrible. Old one was better. Metal Bars are gone, replaced by some wtf shit. Chat in terrible place...at bottom of screen....I could go on.

also default unit icons should be around 80-100 mark, not 150.

Currently i have this setup. but man wtf the default one is SO BAD, I think this current setup is much better then the wtf shit displayed by default and why is crude still the default. it a terrible piece of ulgy **

+1 / -0


9 years ago

Are you sure?
+4 / -2
Look at the default setup.

+0 / -0
He used a really weird upload site but it works for me: http://imgur.com/cdDQrZS

Princey is right though, recently I was just randomly googling things like "springrts" or "zero-k rts" etc to see if the internet ever took notice. It was kind of funny how every single mention of it gave the same type of feedback like "unpolished", "terrible first impression", "messy & obnoxious GUI"

It's kind of sad that so many people never did or will get to notice that there is actually a good game behind the terrible first impressions. Even more sad that the visual issues aren't even that hard to fix but the only person who seems to want to do any graphical work is Googlefrog and he always goes over the top with the cheesy photoshop fx (just look at the amount of times bevel is used in Princey's picture), I even saw one reddit post which made exact same comment.

The lobby skin is not such a difficult fix either, Anarchid did a great skin makeover for weblobby on a whim, albeit it is easier to do with CSS but still, it's surprising nobody cares enough to get rid of that ugly grey, white & cyan mix we currently use.
+0 / -0
Anyway I think even something like this is much better looking.



Currently the default setup looks very unpolished and it not friendly at all. Re arrange some stuff.

Also new resource bar is way 2 complex for newbies to understand fully. There 2 much infomation compressed that they can truly understand wtf is going on. It just comes across as confusing.

Simplexity is the way forward.

edit: replaced uploader for anachid cause he can't see pics cause he got pirate internet.
+0 / -0
...well, you do have the power to arrange your hud however you like, so I'm not seeing the problem here. Of all of the above I would find the last one utterly unplayable and wouldn't really mind any of the rest, personally. Then again I use the starcraft-type default (being what I am mostly familiar with) so there's that.

Regarding the resource bar... while I acknowledge there are problems with the plain resource bar I've never been sold on any fancier improvements I've seen, including the current one. I'm giving it some more time to see if I can get to the necessary "understand at a glance" stage, but I'm unconvinced that it's necessarily an improvement.

I imagine the problem with upgrading the GUI is finding somebody with the knowhow to do a good job and the interest in doing it. Is there such a person in the ZK player base? I for one know I don't have the artistic expertise to do a good job of such a thing.
+0 / -0
Yeah just giving better ideas. I would perfer the hud background to be less of a strain on the eyes and have the opacity changed so that the background is nearly invisible.



I was thinking maybe something like this would be much better.

+0 / -0
9 years ago
have have the map top-left, and unitspecs placed on top of the build menu at bottom left.
eco on top right with menu(sound,menu,time)below it, player list bottom right, chat top-center.
though it could be that I hadn't fully re-installed it for a while so everything on mine's been the same way for a while until whenever they re-arrange it themselves.
+0 / -0

9 years ago
I'm really not sure what your problem with the default setup is Princey. The resource bars I'll give you, but I quite like having the chat at the bottom. I'm not sure why you want to have the unit status box anywhere but at the bottom of the screen either.

tl;dr pretty much everything you've posted so far I would find less pleasant than the default or my starcraft-style layout.
+0 / -0
I think the basic changes needed are

1. Old resource bar for newbies
2. Option for vets to use the new resource bar.
3. Move chat to the top left/middle, away from the middle.
4. move the info box back to previous place or find a new place. Current position is just in a very bad spot in general.
5. Move resource bar back under the menu.
+0 / -0
Skasi
Yeah those UIs really suck..

I prefer the default setup over your last pic. Anyway since we're already spamming UI setup pics, here's what I made mine look like:


(larger version, soz for lossy quality)

Ignore the unit group widget on the top right and the different UI theme, I only use them for testing purpose.
+0 / -0
Ok

Here is my latest one.

Skasi, Your one looks very nice, how I get it like that?



edit: How i get the mex metal numbers?
+0 / -0
Having the power to change or re-arrange widgets is meaningless, devs always say that newbies aren't supposed to ever need to do this and realistically most gamers aren't going to do this before they've made their mind up about the game.

The default set up need to be perfect, I don't think it really gets tested enough tbh. I've done fresh install so many times and each time I find myself sighing about something or another. Quite often it is the chat being completely misaligned or out of shape (whoever codes this widget is lazy!). I think for the most part my current gripe is just with the incredibly amateur design, but I guess there's not a lot that can be done about that.

Spring engine is also super old now, I remember reading a fair amount of complaints about the visuals, tbh it's not surprising when the main maps haven't really changed in 10 years and the engine doesn't offer much by todays standards. I think the devs drastically under-appreciate xrayshader and outline widgets, which are basically like a cheap hotfix for the outdated graphics but are disregarded because of they have too much of a toll on framerate. It's kinda stupid because Spring really isn't considered taxing these days and I don't see why a different widget list can't be assigned when users select higher graphics.
+2 / -0
Skasi
quote:
Skasi, Your one looks very nice, how I get it like that?

1) Hold space while left-clicking the minimap. Disable minimap buttons there.
2) Press Ctrl+F11, move chat to the right, left of your playerlist.
3) Move command menu to bottom left corner.
4) Move selection menu right next to command menu.
5) Press F10, go to Settings/HUD Panels/Selected Unit Panel and lower Opacity
6) Press F11, disable Chili Core Selector (press Search and type "Core" to find), enable enable Chili FactoryPanel
(Optional) 7) Press F10, press Search, type "Skin", enable DarkHive, type "/luaui reload"

The map marker displayed on the right is my personal modified version of the Chat Bubbles widget

quote:
How i get the mex metal numbers?

Press F10, Search, type "income", click checkbox
+1 / -0
Here another setup i think is better.

+1 / -0
quote:
Having the power to change or re-arrange widgets is meaningless, devs always say that newbies aren't supposed to ever need to do this and realistically most gamers aren't going to do this before they've made their mind up about the game.

Changing widgets I quite agree with you (the list is rather imposing) but when it comes to rearranging them going to the settings menu and choosing whichever arrangement you like (there's a short list) doesn't seem like too much to ask. For that matter, pressing Ctrl-F11 and dragging around windows is also not really all that hard.
+0 / -0
I think we need some sort of "profiles" that we can choose between.

Maybe someone can make profiles for users to select?

is it even possible to upload a "profile" of your gui so that others can use it?

+0 / -1
Skasi
9 years ago
There you go:
+1 / -0

9 years ago
well i think first time users should get this as a popup and they can decide between different profiles.
+0 / -0
The whole point of the new resource widget is to make it newbie-friendly. Specifically, to improve the action-feedback loop. I have said this before: the main elements of the new bars are the gross income and spending, which users have direct control over. Unlike the bars, which are the integral over time of the difference between the elements users have direct control over, and thus do not provide immediate feedback to the user that their actions have done anything!

Income/Spending numbers are things the player has direct control over.

Storage bars are not!

Direct feedback on actions in UI is key to getting new users accustomed to a system, since the best most will do is experiment directly.


Unfortunately, in order to get it accepted at all I had to put in that balance bar at AUrankAdminGoogleFrog's insistence, since they figured that if the economy panel was going to teach newbies what is important in the economy system, it must show them that energy income should be higher than metal income. That really impinges on the design of the widget.

EDIT: However, I do agree that there are a lot of numbers. The most l can pare it down to without losing information that I have used for decision making is: net resources, storages (with small bars for reserve mechanic), current total BP, and either gross metal or min(gross metal, gross energy) (this gives a ceiling on BP before resources throttle, and it is important because one can get away with a lot more at +40 or +50 than +10 or +20). I may make a mode for the econ panel that shows only this data. It loses a bit of the directness of feedback and the ability to let the player actually be rewarded for making the numbers big, but that may be worth the reduction in data to parse.
+7 / -0
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