Topic: Perpetuum usability fixes and necessary balance changes
There are my notes from first three days playing release version of the game (I've played during beta too).
Feel free to comment or suggest your thoughts about usability. (Please post in this topic about usability only)
Please also remember that bad interface not equals hardcoredness of the game: the game UI can be pleasant to interact with the game itself remaining hardcore and intricane.
USABILITY
1. If no targets are locked, first locked target must become primary, but in that case all shooting guns must become inactive (to prevent occasional shooting friends or plants). It is needed to minimize pointless and boring doubleclicking on next target in targeting computer when previous target is destroyed.
2. Doubleclicking on non-locked entity in "Landmarks" window should not make it primary target if there is already one. If there is no primary or that entity is locked, it must become primary target.
3. Make item icons visually smaller in all inventory windows or give us alternative inventory view. Currently inventory is cluttered and almost unusable when there is large number of items.
4. For each container give us filter search in it with filter string (like in market).
5. When market window is opened with something entered in filter string and player presses "Market information" button on some item in his inventory, market filter string must be cleared. Currently if market window is opened with something entered in filter string, "market infomation" for any item in inventory doesn't work.
6. There must be "All items" category in market, located first in list and selected by default. It is needed for player to be able to just open market window, enter filter string and see all found items - not just robots, as currently.
7. When viewing extensions outside of terminal, their NIC install price and EP cost must be displayed. It is needed for player to be able to plan (in his mind) his extension installation even outside terminal - not guess how some extension WILL cost.
8. Remove "Assignment completed" popup window and replace it with self-removing background notification text.
9. Private converstaion chat dialogs must work as unnamed private rooms: there must be list who is in conversation. If someone closes private chat, he must leave that room list for other participants. It is needed to be able directly signal participants when you leaved conversation. Currently if I close private chat, other participants don't know that and if they write something to me, that private chat appears again in opened channel list.
10. Name of player(agent) near each message in chat/conversation must be the link to his agent profile, like in channel list. That is needed to not search for interesting player in large channel list (or in global search in case of private convo, which doesn't have channel list at all).
11. It must be possible to invite other players in private conversations.
12. Double-clicking player in channel list MUST open his agent profile, NOT private conversation. Nuff said.
13. Remove Squad name setting window when creating a squad, squad invintation confirmation, and also "player joined the squad" notification for joined player.
14. Add buyer/seller name to market transactions window.
15. There must be no "Repair robot" or "Repair" menu item for robot or item if it is at full health. Menu cluttering is bad.
16. "Recycle" and "Destroy" in item context menu must be visually maximally separated from "Sell", "Repair" and "Market information" items. Currently they are mixed with them.
17. When any container or inventory is focused, Ctrl+A must select all items in it.
18. Robot Equip window must have button "strip ammo", which places ammo in bot cargohold.
19. When drag'n'dropping items to "Cargo" button in "Equip" window, they must be placed in robot cargo.
20. In game world, weapon module pop-up menu must have "Ammo/charge for all" menu item, which allows to select and reload ammo for all weapons of that type (after all, we already have "reload all" button).
21. If module is active and player clicked on it to stop, he must be able to click on it second time to cancel the "stopping" of the module.
BALANCE
1. There must be no "destroy item" option when outside of terminal, because such an option allows a victim in pvp to instantly destroy all valuable loot before death or just before he is attacked. Currently prohibiting item destroy during combat doesn't help: victim can destroy valuable item when it saw on radar that enemies are approaching.
2. If player is logged off and his robot is attacked after that, it must receive X minute aggro timer (10 mins, for example) during which his bot will not disappear and can be destroyed.
3. Artifacts must not be instanced for player - their spawns must be shared among all players. That way it will be possible to hunt artifact diggers and then dig what they searched for. Or to search for the same artifact together with corpmate (or girl) - that way it will boost social cooperation a bit.