Lack of proper information brokerage is hurting this game big time!

Frog

Frog
I think the game right now does a very poor job at feeding the player with the information he needs, and I'm afraid that a lot of potentially interested players will get turned away from the game because of this.

Just try to look at the game with the eyes of someone who is completely new to it. I showed the game to such people, gamers who enjoy hardcore flightsims, mind you, and this is some feedback I got.

In travel you have just a mess of lines and shiny objects on the main screen, with an endless list of objects to the left and a system overview map where you can't even chose a destination for travel. Nothing helps you to get any perspective, and nothing is self explanatory.
To help the player gaining awareness of his situation, the game should make every effort to feed him the most vital information, i.e. "where am I", "what is around me", "how can I interact with it".

Same in station. The menus are convoluted and fail to present clear options. Plus the user interface is just horrible at the moment. You dock, you see a menu with 3 options. The average player now reaches for the mouse, expecting to see a mouse pointer. The moment he realizes that he now needs to use the keyboard he has already got a bad first impression about the state of the game.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want the game to be watered down, I just want it to be interesting, but not confusing.
 

ste

S
I think the game is pretty straight forward, I'm not understanding how some are having such a hard time getting their head around it.

I have played games where I need a manual. This isnt one of them.
 

BBcokeley

BBcokeley
I use the mouse in menu's at station, there is an option to turn this on, as for the lines in flight, I agree it looks messy like a child has gone wild with the crayons.
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if the lines could be switched off I would do it, some times its helpful to know planetary paths, but mostly useless other than that.
 

BillD

BillD
ste said:
I think the game is pretty straight forward, I'm not understanding how some are having such a hard time getting their head around it.

I have played games where I need a manual. This isnt one of them.
Click to expand...

Straight forward is such an interesting and misleading concept to ASSUME that people understand concepts that have not even been hinted at is very common.
As a usability engineer I am often surprised at what "straight forward" concepts, actions or consequences can stump some people while others don't even blink.

I have no problems with the concepts in ED but I have several friends that come over that actually play ED and when I do stuff they go: "what the? I didn't know you could do that", or "Why do that", or "Aah that's what that means" etc.
I totally agree with the original poster, that ED requires a lot of assumed knowledge. With it you are invincible and there is so much more depth in the game, the less you understand the more difficult and confusing the universe is. If it wasn't for some of the Youtube vids posted there would be a lot of depth that is present, that would be totally missed, flattening the experience.

Bill D
 

TimYersidies

TimYersidies
If you want the cursor in the station menu you need to turn mouse look off. If you are already in the menu without the mouse you can:

1) Press 1 to look at your left menu
2) Turn mouse look off
3) Press 1 again to return to the station menu
4) Your mouse is now visible.

... Ooops I have just your point for you haven't I :)
 
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