Developers Requesting Feedback: Tooltip default behavior.

[x4000]

4. Regarding the tooltips on left click thing, I've not read the arguments as I just skimmed here.  But I am unlikely to change this, as it's a game where I think tooltips are not appropriate to have.  Similar games do not in my experience, and having a tooltip of any merit here causes waaaay too much of the screen to get blocked.  It feels terrible.  Think of these tooltips not as tooltips, but rather as a super-quick reference that you can get just by left clicking and holding on an enemy.  This does not impact your normal experience when you are not wanting a tooltip, it doesn't affect your ability to get the tooltip, and clearly you found the function given that you used it (and it says in a real tooltip at the bottom of the screen, a very small one, where this function is). 

So in other words, yeah it's different, but it's something that is different because normally this game would not have tooltips at all: there would be a reference that you'd have to click into a menu and then find the enemy in and all that.  Or you'd have to go to a wiki, depending on the game.  In this case we cut out the middle man and you just left click and hold on a tile to get that info.  Super handy!

I don't get this at all. The information is already there, and you're already showing it to me. You're just making me hold down the left mouse button first. When I point at a unit, I only want to do one of two things:

1. Shoot it
2. See that information

So, letting me shoot it and then bringing up a tooltip telling me that I can do #2 if I hold down the button doesn't make sense compared to just doing #2 immediately. It's an extra step between me and the thing I want to do that doesn't accomplish anything.

edit - Actually I'm having the same problem with the other stuff on the map too. I need to hold down the button to see what a computer terminal is, which objects are cover, etc. It's a hassle compared to just telling me without holding down the button.

edit 2 - What I'm finding myself doing now is just holding down the left mouse button all the time. That gives me the effect I want, where I can move the mouse around and be told what things are. I don't understand why I should have to do that.

I have no problem whatsoever making tooltips show on hover for those people that want it.  I'll just make an option in settings, and that's that -- no problem.  The question, though, is whether or not that should always happen.

Personally, I think no: having tooltips flash by as you mouse over the board seems frankly annoying to me.  Particularly because a lot of the information on these is not something you want or need to see most of the time, if you know what a bot does or just read what it does. 

It also can make targeting annoying if you are trying to target a guy in the bottom left corner of your screen but a tooltip pops up in the way.  We could solve that by having the tooltip move around the screen, but there's usually a section in the middle of the screen where that can't be solved depending on the width of the tooltip.

Also bear in mind that you may be basing your impression of how much screen space there is on a pretty large monitor.

THAT SAID, if it's that confusing for a new player -- aka, if they aren't finding these tooltips at all, or it just seems counter-intuitive or frustrating or whatever, then I will simply make a settings option that does the reverse: makes the game work like it does now, where the default is to have the tooltips always there.

The question is, what would people prefer?  If it just "feels wrong," I guess I ultimately would have no choice but to switch the default, because press and players would ream me for it.  But I do think it is frankly better this way.

[madcow]

I would like a hover option (toggle-able).

Additionally, if you're getting the tooltip on an enemy, it would be nice if it highlighted their range. I know there's the targeting laser when they're in range, already but that would be a nice addition as well.

[mrhanman]

Hover toggle would be nice for n00bs, but i would prefer click-and-hold to be default. Once you get familiar with everything, it would be annoying, i think.

[Tridus]

Personally, I think no: having tooltips flash by as you mouse over the board seems frankly annoying to me.  Particularly because a lot of the information on these is not something you want or need to see most of the time, if you know what a bot does or just read what it does.

It also can make targeting annoying if you are trying to target a guy in the bottom left corner of your screen but a tooltip pops up in the way.  We could solve that by having the tooltip move around the screen, but there's usually a section in the middle of the screen where that can't be solved depending on the width of the tooltip.

Also bear in mind that you may be basing your impression of how much screen space there is on a pretty large monitor.

Simplest solution would be to add the name of the thing into the default one, so it'd look like this:

Death Bot
Right click to shoot, hold left click for more information

That only adds one line to the existing hover tooltip (or no lines if you put it inline with the current instruction text), which shouldn't be enough to impede vision. It also tells me what I want to know 90% of the time, since a lot of the time I'm holding the button down it's to see if this tile is cover, or a consumable, or a trap, etc. You can tell those things from the name usually, particularly once you've played a bit and know what the names mean. At that point I only need to hold down the button to get the full details, which will happen far less often.

THAT SAID, if it's that confusing for a new player -- aka, if they aren't finding these tooltips at all, or it just seems counter-intuitive or frustrating or whatever, then I will simply make a settings option that does the reverse: makes the game work like it does now, where the default is to have the tooltips always there.

The question is, what would people prefer?  If it just "feels wrong," I guess I ultimately would have no choice but to switch the default, because press and players would ream me for it.  But I do think it is frankly better this way.

I don't find it intuitive at all how it works right now, but you know that.

[nas1m]

Disclaimer: Having played the game only for a very short time yet, so I might be missing something, especially as far as late game and "experienced play" are concerned.

As a fresh player I have to agree with Tridus here, though.
I was able to "find" the tooltips quickly using the current system but it indeed felt counter-intuitive to me, i.e. subconciously I *was* expecting the "thumbnails on hover" and felt myself stumbling over the fact that there were none this every second time.

This is exactly the kind of interface decision that is well-justified and thought out if you go through the effort of learning it that reviewers and commenters will tear their hair over (see the Valley 2 mouse controls incident) no matter how convenient it turns out after some time with (and investment in) the game. They will say: "See that's Arcen again making players jump through design hoops" - no matter how objectively unjustified.
So you really might want to give your view on this point a second look.

For what it is worth, Dredmor does it this way (i.e. the hover way) and it never felt bad.

Personally, I think no: having tooltips flash by as you mouse over the board seems frankly annoying to me.  Particularly because a lot of the information on these is not something you want or need to see most of the time, if you know what a bot does or just read what it does.

It also can make targeting annoying if you are trying to target a guy in the bottom left corner of your screen but a tooltip pops up in the way.  We could solve that by having the tooltip move around the screen, but there's usually a section in the middle of the screen where that can't be solved depending on the width of the tooltip.

Also bear in mind that you may be basing your impression of how much screen space there is on a pretty large monitor.

As I am playing  on a laptop I can see your screen estate concerns, though.
My proposed solution would be to add thumbnails on hover, make them the default and add an accelerator to suppress thumbnails if the
respective key is held (CTRL maybe?). This seems to me the most standard way to handle this stuff.

Simplest solution would be to add the name of the thing into the default one, so it'd look like this:

Death Bot
Right click to shoot, hold left click for more information

That only adds one line to the existing hover tooltip (or no lines if you put it inline with the current instruction text), which shouldn't be enough to impede vision. It also tells me what I want to know 90% of the time, since a lot of the time I'm holding the button down it's to see if this tile is cover, or a consumable, or a trap, etc. You can tell those things from the name usually, particularly once you've played a bit and know what the names mean. At that point I only need to hold down the button to get the full details, which will happen far less often.

This seems like a good compromise to me if you don't want to go the route I proposed above.

[Misery]

Actually they already altered this, you just hover over things now to get the same display in the lower corner as before.   Just no holding mouse button anymore, other than that it's unchanged.

[nas1m]

Actually they already altered this, you just hover over things now to get the same display in the lower corner as before.   Just no holding mouse button anymore, other than that it's unchanged.

Yeah, I just noticed this in the patch notes as well. I try to stay clear of the big Alpha thread until I have had my first proprr play session to not spoil my initial impressions too much, so I didn't notice the new version before posting .

Thanks for the heads-up , though.