Spiral Knights - Feedback: General UI and &c

Feedback: General UI and &c

5 replies [Last post]

Fri, 02/10/2012 - 01:09

Aylnine

-The Missions button is hard to find again if a mission is left before it is completed.

-Can't stack heat amplifiers... intentional?

-There should be more of a notification or a bigger hullabaloo when another rank is reached. If the game can't make a big deal out of it, then I don't feel like I should.

-COMMAS. They want to be used!

-Conversation with Feron: Clockworks is plural or singular? I thought "the Clockworks" referred to the entirety of the dungeon "crust" of the planet, as a whole. So, if singular, "the Clockworks itself seems" instead of "the Clockworks themselves seem".

-Completed missions should have a more obvious "done" visual, like a differently colored border.

-My aqua-blue pigtails have purple colored flecks when viewed up close (may just be a testing server bug).

-Skins are low quality when viewed up close (which I think should be fixed if we're getting really close and personal with our knights near the console in the mission lobby).

-Specify how much energy it takes to complete a mission, if someone is running on mist they may be unable to complete a mission if they are not informed of costs ahead of time.

-Missions that require you to gather materials or craft items do not specify that you have to go into the gates/Clockworks (especially the first Hot Edge/Frost Gun mission), though maybe that is obvious to players at that point. Also, since bosses are now part of the mission/story system, forcing players to run gates for materials may be spoilerific and counterproductive. To solve this, some of the earlier missions should have (many) enemies that will definitely drop enough materials, or rigged boxes/drops.

ETA:

-My partner and I feel it a bit too hand-holdy to give out 2* gear in the missions. We think maybe after giving out the 1* gear the missions should give out recipes.

-It is a bit weird not to be able to buy 2* recipes at the starting lobby Basil and not knowing why, even after being able to get 2* gear from the missions.

More to come as I find them.

Fri, 02/10/2012 - 02:03

Aylnine

-Another general and

-Another general and pervasive problem is redundancy between the old system of walking and talking or walking to the gate with what the missions do. I'm sure the team has thought of this before, but it is rather confusing to be able to defeat Snarbolax in a gate and then have to beat him again in a storyline mission, or talk to an NPC/get mail that says exactly the same thing as the dialogue in a mission.

Fri, 02/10/2012 - 12:14

Culture

More general feedback

The new "Join a party" dialog is text-heavy. What is it trying to tell you? Some graphics/icons/coloring can be understood at a glance.

Will we be able to do the starting missions on the production server since they need access to the rescue camp?

Basil in the mission lobby is selling 2* recipes with quantities of 0. This is going to be confusing for starting knights. Can you just not include Basil there or only list 1*? Even people that run into Basil in the Clockworks ask why the quantities are all 0 (they joined the floor before, derp.)

Bug - UI issue in Finished Mission Dialog
After I finished the Prestige - Devilite mission, I returned to Haven, clicked Accept and the mission dialog reappeared. But both Rank and Prestige buttons were highlighted, and neither responded to clicking. Only closing and reopening the Mission dialog reset the button state to normal.

I'm somewhat concerned about giving starting knights Cobalt armor and the Defender shield. These are some of the worst items to upgrade since they are quickly outclassed by similar items. I'm worried that people will upgrade them because they have them and skip doing research to see what is worthwhile. Maybe it is a good time to fix lackluster armors? :3

Some general feedback, not testing-server specific - Monsters that die near barriers will sometimes drop mats on the other side, can't reach them.

Fri, 02/10/2012 - 14:05

Aylnine

-Generally, any of the "click

-Generally, any of the "click and talk" or "click and give mats/gear/etc" missions are really lackluster. There should be:

---more guidance on how to gain mats in the first few missions, and where to gain them. If they are specific mats, tell players they need to defeat specific enemies for those mats.
---a mission down to a level or something to deliver these things, not just *click* "here's all my stuff!" ... no sense of accomplishment that way
---like what a lot of other people have said on the forum, have players actually walk to talk to NPCs instead of click-and-talk, and maybe give some indication as to what they look like in the briefing.

-Similarly, more interactivity is good! Point and click is boring and unfulfilling. Make us walk. Make us do stuff. We like it.

-Let players really feel like they've accomplished something. This can be done by a) really jacking up the achievements ("YAY!!! YOU GAINED A RANK!! CONFETTI FIREWORKS CAKE DISNEYLAND!!!") and b) making minibosses a little harder... if I'm confusedly hacking away and the boss just seems to blow up by itself, I don't feel like I've done anything.

-Similar to another point in my previous post, the walk-and-talk mini-missions from pre-mission game with Feron and Wegner should be integrated better into the new mission interface. For example, instead of click and talk, accepting the mission should make you have to walk yourself to go talk to Wegner and then add a new mineral depositing mission into your missions menu.

-Have talking to NPCs (in person) add extra bonus missions into the missions interface. They don't even have to be missions that are out of the ordinary, just have something like talking to Brinks will add a Token Trading mission where players will have to trade for a Frumious Fang item, or talking to Bechamel will give you a free accessory (bound, yadda yadda) that you will have to put on something.

Sat, 02/11/2012 - 00:44

Culture

More general feedback

What Alynine said:
> a mission down to a level or something to deliver these things, not just *click* "here's all my stuff!" ... no sense of accomplishment that way
Yes, please.

Supply Depot - Cannot purchase Shadowtech Alchemer Mk II
When purchasing the Shadowtech Alchemer Mk II it says "An unexpected error occurred on the" in the dialog box.
Other Mk II items such as Fiery and Freezing Vaporizor work for me though.

The Snarby gate in the arcade is missing the Tier 1/2/3 buttons at the top. Not really sure why.

Sat, 02/11/2012 - 10:19

Retoran

General Feedback

Hud and UI:

Hud- Found no real changes to the hud and ui especially a let down. Why is their no hot key or the ability to assign one for the spiral uplink? What's more, the amount of buttons just seems to clutter it all. This can be fixed with the obligatory telescoping button with all the rest of them on it.

Windows- Oh how I find the amount of separate windows for everything and its mother annoying. Kill the separate window for the character outright and tack that feature onto the arsenal section. It would also be nice to be able to simply click on one of the items in your inventory and have the preview option with it as well as the actual numerical stats to be able to be visible.

Loadout window- This one I find especially odd. It is really only for just your load outs right? So why have it in it's own window? Put a tab in both your arsenal and the coliseum windows for it and ditch the independent window.

Mission Button- Why is it in the middle of the top of the screen? Stack it with the rest of the interface buttons in the left and keep it there. That is your preassigned system buttons is it not? You can also make it smaller by assigning a symbol to it as well. The now obligatory exclamation point wouldn't be a bad one.

General game play:
Town- Haven is still rather lack luster and the environment doesn't really give you any reason to look around. This obviously defeated the purpose of all the hard work you all put into the town. Simple fix for this would be to add in or change around the npc's and give them daily optional missions so that one does in fact look around or has a reason to do so.

Missions and rewards- The mission rewards do in fact feel to hand-holdy as stated above. Giving out gear is just to easy and especially so when that gear isn't worth the crowns that you can buy it for. Personally, I find that I want to be able to choose my rewards. The gear is... exceptable... for vender trash for the crowns. To bad the pay out on them isn't better. What's more, I think if you gave out mist tank refills more often as a reward you would find the demand for crystal energy far more in demand, and their for a boost to the actual on line sales.

Recipes and the town venders- I love the fact that Vatel in town has a rotating inventory of recipes.... the problem is that most of them become useless very quickly as you progress on to better quality and higher star gear. I know that that is what Basil is supposed to be for, but I can't tell you how badly that has ruined my day to get to him and most of the recipes he has are bought out or unavailable. Simple fix for this is to give Kozma of the spiral knights some recipes that change out for each player daily like Vatel. This would ensure that players actually have a chance to find or purchase a higher than two star item that has some kind of special property to it rather than the bland basic stuff that's already available.

Guns- Oh guns, how I love them... except the one shot guns that have been FUBARed. Those need to undergo some serious tweaking. They're one shot guns. They need to be far more distinctly powerful in their own right. After all, they are the only weapon besides bombs that you can't combo with to at least some extent. This line of guns has been shafted like no other in more than that way. I see no guns that can lay on any kind of status in this. The existence of the Faust and Grand Faust swords proves that one can in fact make curse a usable and viable status with out being completely over powered. Since this line of guns only does single fire, they would be a good candidate for making a Faust like gun that had a respectable amount of damage coming out of it as well. This line also needs guns that pull of the other status effects as well, but with better chances to apply them.

Accessory vendor- Why you no accessory vendor? Bechamel is right there in the bazaar, but she doesn't actually sell any accessories at all? WTF? Come on guys... I'm begging you... I have seven silver keys to use and no crates to use them on. Can you at least add crates to her inventory so they can be purchased? Heck, I'd even take them from Boost the specialty items vender.

Well, guess that's my list for now..... for now!

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Feedback: General UI and &c