Please stop assuming we are fortune tellers (requesting cleaner and more informative UI elements)

I’m going to start off by tagging in @den here as I feel this is one of those topics where the whip should be cracked a bit :slight_smile:

I think in software development the end-user interface is a crucial part of the equation… that’s sort of the “steering wheel” and it can very easily happen, that it won’t matter what you have under the hood… if it’s presented the wrong way…

A very common mistake for example is expecting the user to make choices, without actually presenting any information on said choices.

We have known about the very annoying nature of the armorer bench for example for a very long time… where the game fails to present the full item-card of the item, but expects the user to “guess” or “know” and craft the armor they need without giving them anything to go on.
Our solution has always been - in a very immersion breaking manner - to tab out… load up the wiki page… and search there then try to remember all the information we looked up till we get back to the game.

image
Based on the information there, how was I supposed to know this item is the one I needed to boost my agility weapon damage? I cannot see the future.
image

Now fair enough! I totally understand, because I remember that this has been put in place way back, when armors had one stat… armor… and it’s been like it ever since and I am sure you guys are sick and tired of reading about this and it’s on many internal task-lists etc.

So why am I making this post?..
As a warning… because it seems that even now despite being aware of this, you tend to repeat the same mistake on new interfaces.
What am I talking about?
Corrupted stats / perks for example…


I have certain attribute points allocated… I have corruption on me… and I’m presented with a simple purple plus button…

Short of seeing the future or having done so already in the past or yet again tabbing out and googling it… How is the player supposed to know what are the corrupted perks they can unlock and what benefits they provide? (the same way we can see them ahead of time for non-corrupted perks so that we may make a more informed choice).

It’s probably a good idea to keep this in mind with new interfaces, cuz while I get that the armor bench is still the same, it’s probably a good idea not to introduce more of the same :slight_smile:

Cheers!

19 Likes

Good points, in the case of armor and weapons I’d even go a step further. I’d suggest that all the weapons and armor that have learnable recipes that are built in those benches have their icon’s and stats shown- but are greyed out(or a locked out graphic). This would encourage players to find the means to unlock said item. Maybe a better means to categorize them in the benches instead of a huge wall of items. This would also have the benefit for Funcom when it comes to store items. People could click on the item and it takes you to the appropriate buy page. The UI’s definitely needs some serious TLC but with the construction hammer I have hopes this game may one day get there.

Next thing: Do we need an artisan bench anymore? Why not just transition everything that’s placeable to the construction hammer so it’s consistent? Also, can’t we merge construction hammer and repair hammers? Having the dual functionality would be really nice.

One last UI related request. Please for all that is holy increase the placeable map markers. More useful icons and a color swatch would be nice too, but only 25 markers on a PvP server get’s burned up really fast even if it’s a low pop server.

2 Likes

Agreed we should know what we are about to build something for no guess I run around seeing what who is wearing what and what it does I call BS.

At the very least, the previews should be accurate. Yet even the previewed temperature impacts are off.

If one knows how to make a thing, perhaps they would know what that thing does.
This one is not asking for a tool tip with Jeorg Sprave popping up with Let me show you it’s features!, But more info would definitely be appreciated.

Survival games are infamously opaque, but at this point it’s gotten a bit silly.

1 Like

Well i suppose they can.

Hardly game breaking.

I had a post i was going to put here but not going to bother.

Play the game and find out.

I’ve never been bothered by it. After thousands of hours, I may have to google something rarely, but not generally. Having it all spelled out just Means more clutter so… meh. One thing I really respect about this game is that it doesnt baby players with tutorials and guided quests.

2 Likes

I never said it is in any way game-breaking :slight_smile: In fact, we are not even in the bug-report section. We are in the feedback section.

What I did say is that it’s a software development “no-no” to put buttons on something and not have the user know why if even they should be pressing said buttons. - which is true.

I haven’t really been “bothered” by it either, why? Because I’m one of those people who have a fairly simple time tabbing out and looking it up, even have the page bookmarked…

That however does not mean I know what every armor has and still… after playing since early access… I still have to tab out every single time I craft armor in that bench unless it’s one of the couple of sets I definitely know because I used extensively.

Or can you randomly tell me that the Bear Shaman boots provide you with if I randomly ask without looking it up? And maybe you CAN tell me, but maybe you can’t tell me what another armor piece gives. And even if you’re one of those rare people who literally learned every single stat of every single item, most people aren’t.

Yea, but this is a different aspect :slight_smile: We’re not talking about hand-holding here. It’s not an exploration feature and if somebody is about to craft themselves some armor… they’re not going to farm the resources and then randomly press “one” of the many buttons to explore it. They are gonna tab out and google.
So what will this end up doing? The exact opposite of having the player “explore”… I know it from personal experience… whenever my thralls need strength armor… now with the illusion system I just craft the Guardian set, because that’s one of the few sets I remembered… In the past if I wanted to change it up a bit, I just spent like half an hour on the wiki trying to decide…

Like, do you get what I mean? There’s a massive difference between being “difficult” and not holding the player’s hand for example by not telling them that putting seeds and fiber in a fire makes gruel… and being a simple “nuisance” where you already have the materials to craft armor, so you already learned all that stuff and can see the actual recipe card… but you just keep having to tab out cuz it’s impossible to remember all of them.

Same goes with the corrupted perks, I kept having to tab out and google screenshots of other players corrupted stat pages just to figure out if I even want to press that purple plus :stuck_out_tongue:

My point is, I am okay when a game encourages exploration and discovery within the game… I don’t think the game should be played on google though.

6 Likes

Conan has an extremely lacking GUI in many areas. It needs an upgrade, and by upgrade I mean a complete overhaul.

One of my biggest gripes is the inability to customize the UI.

Where are the additional hot bars, or “utility” bars.

Why is the chat box so basic? How come when I am trying to read the chat, part of a conversation I partially missed out on… every time someone interjects the box scrolls back to the bottom and I can’t get a second to read through anything.

Damage numbers, optional or not, would be a nice addition.

How come they added a scalable “buff bar”, but nothing else was made scaleable? (Like the huge hotbar).

Why does every interactable item I look at have to be overlayed with a square box with big block print telling me I am looking at a Fluid Press, or a Fish Trap, or a insert this or that.

I would really appreciate the ability to minimize the GUI, and select elements of it that you did not want to see unless prompted.

And as the OP said there are numerous examples of information that is lacking…

These are all minor inconveniences, but each add up to an unfinished, unimpressive GUI.

Game looks pretty, now make the GUI look pretty. Please. At least tell us that is your intention.

9 Likes

So much this. c:

I’m not a veteran Conan Exiles player as many here are, my friends and I have spent much of our game time on the Wiki. (Thank you to all who partake in updating that font of information by the way). Out of date information too abounds on google. At minimum it would be nice having the armour display the stats before crafting.

~Cinna

2 Likes

I agree very much with the @Xevyr here. It’s no secret that I don’t personally subscribe to the ‘hiding critical information is good game design’ school of thought, so I guess that’s no surprise. It may have worked back before the Internet, but now it just ends up taking me out of the game. I know it’s considered part of the genre for survival games, but my hot take is that CE is a survival game mostly in name, at least on vanilla baseline (‘official’) settings and/or below level 20. And that’s fine, it was never the best part of it anyway.

Now I know I could just ‘not use the Wiki’ (obligatory :heart: for it and its editors btw), but it’d just lead to me keeping a notepad with the same information in it.

4 Likes

Armor stats and what it does is my biggest concern

Frankly, the crafting benches for gear should show us the exact same tooltip information we see when looking at it in our inventory.

To say we don’t need that is just wrong. New players are going to be turned off by this kind of annoyance. Especially when you’re using harder to obtain materials and you can end up wasting them on something you can’t use, because of this lack of information.

Survival game or not, it’s pretty crappy if you have to tab out of game to use internet resources to learn this information. That is definitely bad game design.

Nobody wants a game where you’re presented with options and basically told “hey craft it if you wanna know what it’s stats are”

And reason enough for fewer stars or poor reviews.

2 Likes

I think this is a fantastic idea. However, I do also respect Funcoms design decision for how it currently is. Some players, like myself and others in this thread will simply opt into the Wikia, and funcom obviously knows this is always going to be a possibility.
I believe its currently designed in this way to generate traffic and player activity in game. Many players that don’t even visit gaming forums or communities might play this much differently, as in they don’t look up any of these stats on the wiki. Funcom (I believe) tries to find a delicate balance for all. By leaving this information hidden, it requires the player to craft and discover. (Again, many of us use the wikia, there are also many who don’t)

In saying this, I have a compromise. While having these stats in game at this point since their redesign seems almost a requirement for gearing at max level (at the same time, most content is perfectly doable without min/max’ing to the point of no return from my experience) there is also Funcoms design choices to be considered.
As such, it is my suggestion that T4 Armorers (one of the specializations or all) grant the ability to display which attribute armor pieces grant. I believe this is a fine balance between requiring player activity and making the information not simply presented.
However, once getting the Thrall itself, one may argue that you’ll always have this information available and thus it would require no player activity. While correct, it is my thought that this compromise will assist players who do not use online resources frequently for the attributes while also making it more convenient for those who do.

I do not think this is in any way a design decision though :slight_smile: Like I mentioned in the OP, this crafting interface was implemented when in-game armors simply did not have any stats, except armor value… which is visible on that crafting interface. Later on as the game evolved armors got additional features like temperature protection, attributes and now various percentage based stat increases.

I am 99% sure they intended to upgrade this interface, but since it’s not a critical issue, it’s been sitting there on their todo list for years, being pushed back every time by more pressing matters. So I do not think this was in any way a feature designed to direct people towards the wiki. While the wiki is a very valuable resource and I use it a lot too, I don’t think anybody would want to purposely design a game that encourages you to stop playing the game and go browse the internet for information instead :slight_smile:

Typically in games where you craft/discover, once you discover it, the knowledge is available. You don’t have to recraft/discover it again to see stats in the future.

It’s unreasonable to expect players to remember all this stuff off-hand.
It’s also unreasonable for us to have to go to a wiki to find this information when it should be available in game.

But there is just no valid reason why this information should be hidden from us to begin with.

Yeah, that’s a game most people would drop pretty readily. It’s just irritating.

2 Likes

Imho if you ask players to alt tab out of a game to get information on how the game operates or works you’ve failed no matter the reasons.

When Conan was first built the contractors put effort into the user experience for the game … subsequently since the caretakers of the product have done what is called “good enough” which is below reasonable standard of quality … as who cares except those who are passionate and want more success from the game.

If we could only bottle the passion and attitude shown in threads like this and inject the folks behind it in order to nudge them to take ownership we’d all enjoy the outcome.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.