SO I introduced a load of my friends to ZK at a lan. After the first 2 games I had to do the following for everyone: turn off bubble chat lua (SO ugly) turn on the grid edge effect (otherwise the land flies in space) set icon distance to 100 (otherwise the game is basically unplayable) turn off the gesture menu (everyone had enough trouble figuring out what was going on without that spamming everywhere) Any possibility we could make these the defaults? my friends represent a pretty standard cross section of gamers and these changes were unanimously considered compulsory once they had seen the before/after.
+0 / -0
|
Exposing newbs to ZK and observing their first hand experiences is very important. I agree with IK on pretty much all accounts. Most importantly, there should be only one chat, and the console is currently the better one, so bubbles should be done away with, at least until it's good enough to replace the console as the default chat. In any case, having two chats is unnecessary UI clutter. I can also see gestures being annoying to newbs. I use gestures and love em, but that should definitely be in the non-default advanced user category.
+0 / -0
|
|
|
Wasn't the grid edge thing turned off because of performance problems? And yeah, while I still use the gesture menu out of force of habit, it seems like the tabbed menu has prettymuch won the war and the gesture menu can be deprecated.
+0 / -0
|
Grid should still be default on ZKL's high (and ultra) settings. It's possible that engine changes mean the config settings are no longer being read correctly, or that ZKL default settings are no longer high for whatever reason.
+0 / -0
|
of the mentioned, the icon distance is by far the most important change to make. on big, high res screens it is impossible for new players to distinguish units when zoomed out to macro distances. more than anything icons NEED to appear at the right distance for new players. 100 seems workable, maybe 90.
+0 / -0
|
The solution I use to keep icon distance high is Outline + XrayShader (note that the Xray effect only starts at a set minimum distance), or TeamPlatter + XrayShader for lower-end machines. Outline and TeamPlatter help differentiate from ground, while XrayShader helps identify units at long distance.
+0 / -0
|
Agreeing that default icon distance is the biggest problem, 100 sounds fine. I'm using almost the same settings you suggested IK. The only except are gestures. They're a huge help. I don't think the gesture menu causes any error spam, does it?
+0 / -0
|
It's not error spam, it's that every time you right-click with the builder or commander the menu pops up. Since right-click is the standard way to order units, this would get annoying fast. I have Gesture turned off because it is redundant with Integral for me. When I try it on, I only have it start on 'b', not right-click. I like the idea of it (on-demand UI), but it doesn't replace Integral for me, so it ends up just causing more space to be taken up.
+0 / -0
|
The only reason I use the integral menu is morphing, unit states, terraform and a building or two not showing up in gestures. Gestures don't show up by just right-clicking, you have to move the mouse (or hold the button down super long). Anyway, how about replacing right-click-gestures with middle mouse? I think not many people use it for moving the camera. Personally I just scroll out and then scroll in again (zooming to mouse cursor) to reposition the cam. Scrap that.
+0 / -0
|
gestures did annoy when I started to play ZK, I use keyboard only build meniu. -> B to popup that meniu and other keys to make specific building.
+0 / -0
|
100% agree with disabling ultra-ugly and redundant chat bubbles and icon distance. No opinion on grid edge (land not flying in space is meh and eye candy, mostly).
+0 / -0
|
I think what is most frustrating for newbs when they download game and when map switched they have to download more and more maps and it happens very often if some nab has slow connection he is basically doomed, so some most popular map pack autodownload in background would help newbs a lot.
+0 / -0
|
I'm sure that's doable with ZKL. Lichooooo I call thee!
+0 / -0
|
The thing is, all the suggestions in Ivory's OP are very simple changes, that would still improve the game a lot for newbies. I'm not against making ZKL download a mappack, but sounds like some actual work is involved in the implementation, unlike in Ivory's suggestions.
+0 / -0
|
agreed with bubble chat and icon range.
+0 / -0
|
I am not sure if I agree with the icon distance being set to 100. I have it set as high as it goes and can still recognize my units when zoomed all the way out on small divide. It may be best for people learning the game to not have to know a glaive when it is 4 pixels wide though. Either way, those of us who want it at maximum can always set it so. I agree with the rest though.
+0 / -0
|
|
|
i play with icondistance = 70 ;)
+0 / -0
|
quote:
gestures did annoy when I started to play ZK, I use keyboard only build meniu. -> B to popup that meniu and other keys to make specific building. |
this. when you are trying to figure out how to give basic line-move commands etc, the menu constantly opening by accident drove everyone mad. imo off by default.
+0 / -0
|
