UI Improvements

First of all, I want to say one of the first things I noticed about the game was how compact and intuitive the UI is. There are a lot of controls to tuck away somewhere and for the most part they are remarkably well organized. That said, there are a few times the UI itself has gotten in the way of playing the game.

1) Literally in the way - the inability to resize the Park Management window like the other bottom tabs. I know I'm not the first to mention it, but I didn't want to ignore that elephant in the room.

2) Finance tab history - this is when I first decided the sizing on the Park Management tab was off. The table overview of the current month, previous two months, and average month are all much wider than necessary. I'd like to be able to either resize the display or see more months listed. Likewise in the chart display, I'd like the option of showing more time on the graph, especially for long-term games.

3) Staff employment/training tabs - since wages are tied to training level, I don't see why those tabs wouldn't be combined. Pay rate is the only field on the Employment tab anyway, and the graphic for Training level takes up a lot of visual real estate. Playing through the Shops 'N' Drops map led me to feel like training and giving raises to a large number of vendors involved way too much back-and-forth menu clicking.

4) Hire staff subgroup - this one is partially my own inability to learn, but I can't be the only one who keeps misclicking in this menu. I keep expecting there to be a "hire new" button in the Entertainer, Janitor, and Mechanic subsections, and I keep thinking the "hire new" buttons are links to those other subsections. In retrospect, while playing the game I'm usually only considering Entertainers, Janitors, and Mechanics individually. I wouldn't ever need the hire buttons all on the same page since the only time I would hire another, say, janitor would be if I were looking at the current janitors and decided they couldn't handle the workload.

5) Back to the subject of resizing - Blueprint thumbnails don't have a display size toggle like the custom thumbnails do. They don't necessarily need it, but the inconsistency does lead to me constantly having to resize the window to see what I want to see.

6) Finally, this one isn't actually a problem, but it's worth mentioning for humor's sake since I was confused at first. I feel like Career Mode and Challenge Mode are backwards. When I hear a game has a career mode, I expect it to be starting from scratch and building your way up, earning money and unlocking things as you go. When I think about a challenge map, I expect it to be a custom scenario with unique constraints and problems to solve, which is what the Career Mode maps actually are.

Anyhow, that was more than two cents' worth, but thank you, Frontier, for making an awesome game!
 
Career & Challange Modes

Yep I also thought challenge and career should be switched. Each scenario is a challenge mode. The career should be starting a fresh, it could then be fleshed out more with things like how theme hospital does it where there are AI opponents and targets (goals) that you aim for. You get yearly rewards and VIP visits, park inspections etc that further your career and then could unlock a different biome. Depending on what you unlocked in your first park and your funds depends on what you start with in your next park.

The company CEO (your boss) then gives you the next targets at said park. This would add much more to career and work as expected where you improve. I would say the unlock and research side would be better then if it was a tech tree with much more detailed specifics to unlock and work towards and aim your management/design at as you move through from park to park.

However in regards to the UI

This I don't find at all compact or really that intuitive at times either. There was a great thread on the UI and a new design that I really hope Frontier look at and realise what it could be with some pretty simple changes.
 
One more suggestion I have is to add a tab in the My Blueprints section that can separate the blueprints you createdfrom all the others you subscribed to. After you've made a bunch of blueprints and subscribed to a bunch it can get pretty confusing.
 
One more suggestion I have is to add a tab in the My Blueprints section that can separate the blueprints you createdfrom all the others you subscribed to. After you've made a bunch of blueprints and subscribed to a bunch it can get pretty confusing.

Honestly I would like the ones that are downloaded to filter into the blueprints tabs in the UI already there where Frontier place them rather than in "My Blueprints" which would be specific to our stuff. That would be my personal preference as a quick fix.

It could be that the Blueprint section however has tabs as;

Frontier Blueprints
Workshop Blueprints
Personal Blueprints

That way they are easy to get too, you can flick through your stuff and then if you want to do something custom that is when you go to scenery/building tabs rather than having the blueprints there.
 
Exactly, I already have run into confusion as I have quite a few items I made during the Alphas that I want to upload and they are mixed in with things I subscribed to. The only way I can see to solve this problem is to unsubscribe to everything on the workshop, upload my stuff and then resubscribe all over again.
 
Top Bottom