Highest Priority Fix [Updated for 1.012]

[GC13]

Alright, I clarify my question: what is a text hover? Because right now I'm getting tooltipception in my head and can't think of anywhere I've seen a tooltip on a tooltip.

[lifehole]

It essentially means that for now, because of the way the game engine and GUI and whatever work, coding that in would be difficult and take more time than is usual for most things.  I know it kinda sounds like it should be a simple addition, but programming can be that way.... supposedly simple things end up taking like 20 hours of coding to implement properly.

Worth the effort though, I think.

Oh yeah, I can't imagine all the time it would take to link all those things together, but I think maybe having current planetary RCI modifiers/effects presented somewhere (anywhere) could be something that could be done. Maybe not in a day, but eventually, I hope.

[lifehole]

Alright, I clarify my question: what is a text hover? Because right now I'm getting tooltipception in my head and can't think of anywhere I've seen a tooltip on a tooltip.

I think he meant programming percentages/dynamic/changing modifiers into the text tooltips would be hard? dunno. (shoot doublepost, forgot I wasn't on a different forum, this doesn't have automerge. My bad.)

[ptarth]

requests for doing things like tooltips over text hovers

From a strict literal interpretation it means no hovering your mouse over something to get a popup explaining how it works. For example, place your cursor over any icon and wait n seconds. Yeah. None of that. I'm thinking GC13 has it right and that they would have to add it into the engine and don't want to spend the time on it. Let's face it, while the tLF fanatics think it is vital, the regular people may not even notice. (I still want them).

So putting that on a back burner, what we can do would be to go ahead and "I just need lists of what you guys want to know... but developers in general are bad judges of what is being conveyed well versus not.  Ideally a single ticket in mantis for each thing or tightly related group of things you want to have more info on, and I'll figure out the best way to get it in there."

The caveat being that we need to explain what is desired in a clear and concise fashion. I contrast to the desired list format, I would also suggest an image before/after example of each modification would also be very useful. Misunderstandings are very easy to create when talking loosely about technical details. I think my mock-up of the planetary screen is a reasonable example how to propose the changes that we would like.

[Misery]

Well, if it helps, I dont think they need to do all of the information stuff all at once.

Give us some extra info on the most critical things.... which to me are the RCI values, just pointing out what each one is impacting at the time and how much.... and do more of the non-critical ones over time as patching continues.

[lifehole]

Well, if it helps, I dont think they need to do all of the information stuff all at once.

Give us some extra info on the most critical things.... which to me are the RCI values, just pointing out what each one is impacting at the time and how much.... and do more of the non-critical ones over time as patching continues.

Pretty much this. We just need RCI info. Maybe not a hover-over-and wait, but more detail on what exactly RCI is doing (e.g if you're at 50 medical rci it increases maximum birth rate by x, decreases death rate by x) or something similar, rather than just a text description. I'd appreciate these rates even outside of the game itself on a wiki or something.

Also I'm pretty sure that majority of players would appreciate exact effects here, not just vets or anything. Heck I would've never learned how to play the majority of strategy games I play today if I didn't have info on the whats and why's.

[nas1m]

Good one. Kudos for setting up the poll!

My votes:
1) Tooltips
2) Information Screens
3) Race AI

NOTE:
I just added a request for clarification on why a specific race is no valid target for a specific political deal at a specific to Mantis. I think this is one of the most pressing issues in terms of UI clarity / information opacity.

So, just in case you feel inclined vote: Please do so here: 0014867: Solar Map: Add Some Way To Find Out Why A Race Is No Valid Target For A Political Deal

[Misery]

Hm, thinking about it further, wars are a pretty huge thing, so showing the reason on WHY they're happening would be good.

Currently I've got the Thoraxians suddenly declaring war on the Andors (early in the game) and I'm not really sure WHY.  When it happened, there wasnt bad relations, they were pretty much neutral, and the Hive Queen's mood was "neutral".   And then very suddenly "Argh, you're all metallic and stuff, PREPARE FOR FACE MELTING!".  I've no idea why. 

It's often been the Skylaxians doing it too.  They'll just sit there, minding their own business, when suddenly "MWA HA HAAAAAA!!!  TIME TO BLOW UP THE SOLAR SYSTEM!!!!!" and then they just go nuts like a swarm of crazed wasps.  Supposed to be honorable, too...

[PokerChen]

This game being an Arcen game title, I couldn't help voting for MOAR AI.

[nas1m]

Hm, thinking about it further, wars are a pretty huge thing, so showing the reason on WHY they're happening would be good.

Currently I've got the Thoraxians suddenly declaring war on the Andors (early in the game) and I'm not really sure WHY.  When it happened, there wasnt bad relations, they were pretty much neutral, and the Hive Queen's mood was "neutral".   And then very suddenly "Argh, you're all metallic and stuff, PREPARE FOR FACE MELTING!".  I've no idea why. 

It's often been the Skylaxians doing it too.  They'll just sit there, minding their own business, when suddenly "MWA HA HAAAAAA!!!  TIME TO BLOW UP THE SOLAR SYSTEM!!!!!" and then they just go nuts like a swarm of crazed wasps.  Supposed to be honorable, too...

Mantis? I would vote for this ...

[I-KP]

What do we need to see?  For starters, a list of current modifiers that are influencing…

-   All RCI stats;
-   Planet suitability;
-   Birth/death rates;
-   Science power;
-   Soldier power;
-   Ship power

If dynamic info can’t be displayed in tooltips perhaps make them clickable to spawn an overlay that shows the list of modifiers?

Presently the only thing that you can drill down on to see how a number is arrived at is the diplomatic relations number.  If we could have something similar for the above numbers the game would become that much more transparent.

In the meantime perhaps tooltips could show a short table of likely values and their contextual ‘worth’; generic terms  like ‘bad’ and ‘awesome’ mean little when I don’t know what the full gamut of these terms is (does ‘super-uber-mega-awesome’ feature on that list..?).  Until I read the patch notes I had no idea that RCI could go so far into the low thousands.

And another sneaky but no less vital one: finding out WHY a race is at war.

[Naz]

Hm, thinking about it further, wars are a pretty huge thing, so showing the reason on WHY they're happening would be good.

Currently I've got the Thoraxians suddenly declaring war on the Andors (early in the game) and I'm not really sure WHY.  When it happened, there wasnt bad relations, they were pretty much neutral, and the Hive Queen's mood was "neutral".   And then very suddenly "Argh, you're all metallic and stuff, PREPARE FOR FACE MELTING!".  I've no idea why. 

It's often been the Skylaxians doing it too.  They'll just sit there, minding their own business, when suddenly "MWA HA HAAAAAA!!!  TIME TO BLOW UP THE SOLAR SYSTEM!!!!!" and then they just go nuts like a swarm of crazed wasps.  Supposed to be honorable, too...

In the 1.007-1.008 release thread, Chris made a quick comment regarding possible reasons for something like that happening:

In the same game the Thoraxians respect the Andors +30 yet they are attacking them. The Andors meanwhile are friendly with the Thoraxians +52.2. The Thoraxians and Andors are not at war.

Respect has little to do with it in terms of attacks of opportunity, if the race's military power is 4x that of the defender.  Only the aggressive races like Thoraxians will do that, even if they like someone.  That said, if there are attacks happening outside of war, it's probably just skirmishers.

Plenty to discuss about balance and clarity in terms of documenting mechanics vs. exposing specific values, but I lost most of it and I need sleep.

[Mick]

Tooltip vs text hover sounds like a distinction without a difference to me. What's important to me is that I can figure out what different RCI values mean in terms of numbers, not hand-wavy flavor text.

[lifehole]

Tooltip vs text hover sounds like a distinction without a difference to me. What's important to me is that I can figure out what different RCI values mean in terms of numbers, not hand-wavy flavor text.

Precisely this. If they're so important, and if they're tweaked so much, and if so much feeds into them, why does the player not know their current effects?

[ptarth]

It's been roughly 3 hours since a post has been made, so I reset the poll from last week. We had 32 voters which isn't bad for a forum this active. I've added some new options to the poll and recorded the final tally in the initial post. Please consider the 1.012 and where you think effort would be best spent in the upcoming week.

If you want me to add options, tell me (You might have to be specific, I'm sometimes very dense). I'll continue to monitor and update this thread to give Arcen an idea of where the community stands. As always, consider reading and voting on the Mantis bugtracker to give another source of focused feedback to Arcen.