UI Discussion: Dino Inventory & Overlay, Engram Page, Player HUD, + Multi Wheel

[Jatheish]

We received a lot of feedback regarding our previous discussion on Player's Inventory screen. We're now looking to collect feedback and suggestions from the community regarding the; Dino Inventory & Overlay, Engram Page, Player HUD, and Multi Wheel.

• What do you like about the current system?
• What sort of problems do you face with the current system?
• What do you dislike about the current system?
• Are there any examples of systems you would prefer?

Any feedback you can provide would be great! It doesn't have to be limited to these points above, but keep in mind this discussion is directly about the Dino Inventory & Overlay, Engram Page, Player HUD, and Multi Wheel .

[CyanicEmber]

Well for my part, simply being able to see a dino's gender in their inventory screen would be a nice addition, as well as being able to see a 360 degree view like in their Warpaint interface.

For something more in depth... I would honestly love to be able to re-map their abilities to different keys and see them perform those animations inside a 3D viewport... But that's probably a bit too fancy for a U.I Overhaul... 

I'll try to think of some other ideas.

[Sweetsouthrngal]

Ok first off. Dino buttons: the open door and jump off bird needs to be a different button. I don't know how many times I have gotten off a bird when trying to open a door. Or the spyglass button needs to be where the auto is spyglass is down and a button to hold up while on Dino. Because god knows I get stuck with the spyglass on and i'm unable to fly with spyglass vision. Especially when in a dire situation where you need a quick getaway. Also if we could get a button to allow us to access multiple Dino inventories so we can move from one to the other or Dino to chest. That would be awesome as well. It sucks trying to move items from Dino to a chest but you can't carry it all or opening and closing multiple inventories over and over. Not sure if these options are doable but that would be wonderful if it was. 

With player wheel I try not to use it. I have gotten stuck with it on a couple times and had to hard shut off the game which is a pain and dangerous depending on where I am. 

[Sweetsouthrngal]

I agree with Cyanic that it would be nice to see the Dinos gender in the overlay without having to click on inventory to tell. That would also be a nice touch 

[rororoxor]

"neutral upon death" option for dinos. Dinos are passive until all nearby tribemembers die, in which case it will become neutral.

[Briggs9990]

Xbox)   jump off bird open doors same button is an issue,  saddle equip unequip is a little wonky saddle sometimes disappear,  I like the current inventory system except piece count limit even thought weight limit hasnt been reached,   Id like to be able to craft out of their inventory without having to switch the stuff to my inventory.  Thats pretty much all I got Im pretty used to the system as it is.   

[Rapterex]

I'm fine with the cure system, but I don't like the screen spam when killing or gathering a lot. Possibly make it so the text doesn't cover the entire screen. And also when there is a level up avilible it covers lots of information on the screen, who joined, helpful tips, what you've gathered. Please fix that it's vey annoying.

 

[Marksman00048]

I would like to be able to set my dinos to flee when attacked.  Like go go go run Jesus ruuuuun! rather than either face your doom or stand. if you attacked a base and most of the tames ran out of the base and into the woods  it would make fully wiping a tribe more difficult.  

If you went to a farm and started killing lIvestock they surely wouldn't stand in place and get killed. they would run for their lives.

 

I would like to have a way to hot key whistles on xbox.  even if only just one whistle,  being able to set it would be tops. I hate accidentally whistling all trying to whistle one. 

[Damothe4th]

Xbox player,

1st off I think the ui has most things but it would be nice to be over hauled and updated. more info on dinos when in there inventory being able to set there commands wilst on it via the inventory scream would be really useful, player inventory is good for the most part but again could do with a better layout (maybe rather than having a large character in the center use that for the inventory and have player stats down the side....) maybe it's just me but some times selecting the icon you want is really tricky so maybe the other side have all the option in a list.

Another thing I would like to see is a more in depth admin screen,(Showmyadminmanager) as atm on xbox is not that grate, alot of unelectable thing, can't scroll through pages well.

As for the hud it's really annoying when u have 4 or 5 layers of text overlapping each other i.e, player joined/ left, level up, resources gathered/spoiled/used, death messages ect. Maybe an option to remap/move around the hud in game could see the user place things best suited for them. 

Sounds like I'm just moaning but a year on and the current system just seams to be getting more and more cluttered

[jimmy]

The PGM extinction is a waste of time really its like SE hard to find resources you get killed everywhere you go by wild Dino's I had a full stone boat allosaurus show up and trap me and destroyed everything including the boat. Spent 6 hours doing that put the island extinction back.

[waterKeeper]

Include the base damage of tames by their stats. Toggle between % modifiers and actual damage output. Same for guns.

 

Show your tames breeding stats somewhere. Being able to toggle the stats on tames between what we currently have and the number of level ups in each stat. 

 

Let me change the font color of floating names above tames. 

 

Maybe a system to help your tribe mates know what you want leveled up on one of your tames while u let them use it. Idk, like a preset leveling path.

 

Isn't it about time you incorporate dododex into the game?

 

Same for breeding stats extractor.

 

The engram page feels like a wall of text. It's an ordeal when you just want to unlock one engram, and have to hunt down all of its prerequisite engrams first. One option should be to automatically filter all prerequisite engrams to one selected.

 

About the player HUD, I have found that if for whatever reason your game volume is ever low, it's really easy to not know your character is starving or freezing to death, even though we have the visual icon like the ice cube. So that could be visually more obvious or significant. I almost died in hardcore mode once, I was freezing to death and didn't notice because my volume was way down.

 

I Want a way to transfer prime from tame directly to tame without it spending one second in my 4x spoilage hands

[Soulyouth]

A branching engram tree could be cool, like you learn the smithy, you see the fab connected to it, etc. would help ppl understand the flow of them a lot better and learning pre reqs easier too 

[Bacon8RColby]

My biggest issue with the current UI is the small text.  I luckily have the advantage of having a larger TV, but even then it can be tricky at times to actually read the small text.  This is obviously amplified in splitscreen.  An idea that could potentially help would be creating a more icon based system in place of a lot of the text.  This would be similar to the direction that mobile device UI is going.  I know this is easier said than done, but maybe you also remove some of the elements (example, the screen that displays the player character)  in the interface or break them into different "pages" that the player would swipe through. Again, I know that this is all easier said then done but those are my thoughts. 

[Bacon8RColby]

10 minutes ago, Soulyouth said:

A branching engram tree could be cool, like you learn the smithy, you see the fab connected to it, etc. would help ppl understand the flow of them a lot better and learning pre reqs easier too 

A more visual branching system like this would be awesome! This would help individuals on servers be able to easily specialize 

[Devildog75]

I think it would be really nice to have like a "lock Item" option on dinos or a hot bar like the player has to place items in so that way when you are transfer all from the dino those stay put. It is a hassle to have to remember to put food back in their Inventory when you are out exploring or simply so they don't drop valuable items like 50 metal walls but you do want them to drop all the berries or meat they picked up along the way, Same thing could work initially for the player like being able to lock their ammo, tranq darts, saddles, etc. but still be able to transfer all the materials they collected (wood, metal, stone, thatch etc.)   

[Zurar]

Forgive me for the wall of text, I tend to try and over-explain things (and believe me, I'm holding back here... lol).  Doesn't help I'm also half-asleep...

With dino inventory, the biggest issues I have are: clearing out what I don't need, while gathering; and transferring what I do need to a crafting station or storage box back at base, or even to another dino (such as a following pack-mule).  It's kind of an odd comparison, but I'd like to see something where you can link dinos together so that materials can be transferred, similar to how a combine transfers its harvest to a transport truck that pulls up alongside while the combine keeps on harvesting.  It would be really cool to see something like this, visually, as a sort of special saddle.  That might be a bit excessive, but just being able to transfer stuff to a following mule, easier, would be nice.

As for the overlay/hud, in general... It kinda feels out of place, currently.  The player holds up their arm and beams of light come out of the gem, to suggest a hologram is displaying the inventory, but the actual inventory view takes up the whole screen, kind of taking the immersion away as it looks more like a computer UI.  I'd like to see something that's more like a hologram coming from your wrist-gem, hovering over your wrist.  It would also be kinda nice to be able to have this up and still perform other actions while its open (move/look around/harvest materials).  This could be done by requiring the player to toggle a mode or hold a certain key down to use the mouse as a pointer instead of for movement/attack.  The data being displayed could also be "tabified" so that it takes up a smaller area of the screen. I don't always need to see my character and equipped gear when I check my inventory or go to craft an item.

As for the Engram list; I'd kinda like to see a view similar to the research tree in Civ 5, where you can see what engrams have what pre-requisites via a line coming from the pre-req to the engram you're looking at, and then (like Civ V's "Eras") it could also be split up based on level, so there aren't a bunch of things clumped together.  Maybe split these up into categories, too, to keep it a little cleaner; categories like tools, structures, saddles, misc, etc.  Maybe have these categories setup as tabs/sub-tabs at the top to make it easier to switch between them.  And lastly, adding an option to "learn all required pre-requisites" as an option (if you have enough EP) so you don't have to go back and manually grab every pre-req.

Things I like about the current interface:

• The search functions for every section make finding specific things, by name, fast and easy
• Transferring everything that's showing (if used in conjunction with the search option/folders)
• Organization categories (aka folders)

Things I DON'T like about the current interface:

• Scroll bars are really hard to grab for fast scrolling
• The current inventory windows seem very cluttered with everything that's being displayed (maybe tabify things a little more?)
  • Opening inventory should open just inventory, not character and equipped items, as well (ie: tabify things a little better).
  • This could also be due to item stacks, resulting in massive, scrolling inventory lists.
    • Maybe eliminate stacks for resources and just have weight and units instead? (obviously spoilage would need a rework, then).
    • Alternatively, instead of one inventory for everything, if you tabify and put equipable and consumable items on the equipment tab and crafting resources in their own tab.
• Inventory management is more tedious than fun, especially when using dinos that harvest multiple resources/resource types.
• Doesn't match the game world/lore; too much like a weird computer UI, right now, and not like a holographic alien interface spewing from a wrist-gem
  • This includes the floating dino names, which also seem to cause significant lag when there are a large number of dinos in an area.
    • Maybe have dinos highlight with a glow and floating info, when you look directly at them; almost like you have an implant in your eye, too.
      • This way the UI only has to grab a dino's info, for display, when you look at it, eliminating the lag that currently comes when name tags are turned on.
      • Would still want some way to easily tell the difference between a tame dino and untamed one, when NOT looking directly at it.
• The radial-wheel is nice, but very cluttered and slow to use when changing states; cycling follow distance, for example.
  • Instead of cycling, maybe have the center of the wheel show all the options when you mouse over a category on the outer ring.

Kind of related ideas:

• Would love to see dinos changed so that you "train" them to harvest, similar to how the Moschops is trained to harvest, better
  • When trained this way, they won't harvest anything they aren't trained to.
  • Unlike the Moschops, this isn't a bonus, just what they're taught to harvest
  • Some dinos should receive Moschops-like bonuses for some harvests.
    • These bonuses should not overlap with Moschops to prevent the issue with other dinosaurs being "obsolete/useless" from happening to the Moschops.
      • Example: Anklyo training for better metal, crystal, or obsidian harvesting (or more dinos that specialize in these).
• Alternatively, have an engram-like system for dinos, except focused on harvesting instead of crafting.
  • Each level allows for a new engram unlock, either to increase the harvest rate or yield of an existing resource, or to harvest an additional, different resource.
    • This could be used to completely remove the link between attack damage and harvesting, if desired.
    • This could also allow for the addition of "weight reduction engrams" for specific resources, like how the beaver works, right now.
    • This could be used to "re-specialize" dinos by giving some dinos engrams that similar dinos don't, to make them better in some way for certain resources.
      • Example: Raptor could learn to harvest meat faster than terror bird, but terror bird could learn to carry it more efficiently (reduce weight).

Anyway, just a few of my ideas, lol.  So many neat things that can still be done to further enhance the game...

If I think of it, and get time, I'll try to create some mock-up images for some of this stuff... the holidays are keeping me busy, atm.

[thedogowl]

A simple text/icon size scaling method would be a good start, just saw someone say they're playing on a big TV and find the text too small, I also play on a big TV but would say I have the opposite problem, so probably a way to enable people to customise it, even just to a certain degree would probably solve a lot of size related issues!

[xSERIOUSxBLACKx]

It would be awesome if the UI was similar to Destiny where the left joystick (on xbox) is used highlight items like a mouse and press A select items, also mutiselect would be great, maybe if we hold A on an item it hightlights it for multi select, a use 5 or 10 button would be soooooooooo useful, and if you hit transfer all it only transfers whats in the root folder and not whats in your personal folders. Keep up the good work Wildcard, anxious to see what u guys come up with next ?

[Zurar]

2 minutes ago, xSERIOUSxBLACKx said:

It would be awesome if the UI was similar to Destiny where the left joystick (on xbox) is used like a mouse to select items, also mutiselect would be great, a use 5 or 10 button

Multi-select kind of exists with the search option, but only works for "transfer all" or "drop all" (all being only what's showing from the search result).  That said, a true multi-select would be easier to use on a console, and still handy on PC.

I see the "use 5 or 10 button" suggestion, a lot.  It would be a lot easier to just have it so holding shift when you click the use button, uses 5 like when you double-click to move items.

[Neizan]

 

I found this in Youtube a few months ago, and I love it
:

especially I love in this video:

-the blue color and the design

-inventory at center

-equipment at side of the player

-engrams sort by categories

-all the concept xP

 

Credits: http://tai-doan.tumblr.com/

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tai-doan-170088ba

 

[Neizan]

hello, one question. Can you add folders in "Engrams" to sort all engrams? This is a idea of engrams by folders and subfolders made fast with Paint:

 

[Grognak]

How about an auto loot for our personal bodies?

Today I lost several journeyman weapons/tools and Apprentice Flak armor due to the server crashing.

When I logged back in, it shows me dead, I fly to where I was at and of coarse the game had took about a 20 min hiccup backwards, where I just finished killing a whole school of piranha, and was gathering the pearls.

Long story short: The piranha had respawned, I had no weapons/armor and couldn't retrieve my gear, both attempts to open my body and move the clunky xbox option selection to click the "take all inventory" button failed due to the piranha pushing me to far away from my body... lost everything...

It would be nice to have a checkbox "Auto-Loot Own Corpse" so all I have to do it open the inventory to have it all transferred.

[m4Marci]

Just now, Neizan said:

hello, one question. Can you add folders in "Engrams" to sort all engrams? This is a idea of engrams by folders and subfolders made fast with Paint:

 

A sorting option already exists.. if you uncheck the "show all" box on the upper left hand side of the inventory, near the crafting queue, it'll sort the engrams by type. 

This option is also available in crafting structures as well as Dino inventory.

[Malrama]

The most important thing for me in this case: Learn multiple Engrams at once!!!

When you play on a modded server or even vanilla, you just stand there and learn engrams for 30 minutes! Add a button, that learns multiple engrams at once (If enough points are available ofc). Stating from the first available and then go along the lines until all points are unsed. Currently it really is a pain!

[Smithey1985]

I would like to have an option to choose what my dino gathers, so i could set my Bronto to only pick up Narcoberry or set my Anky to only pick up Flint.

also having Floating Names on a toggle so I can switch it on/off on the fly would be good, annoying having to go into options everytime I enter our base with 100+ dinosaurs in it.