So I managed to find a copy of my beta feedback thread on UI/UX issues. Unfortunately this is a slightly older version than what was on the beta forum when it was closed because I wasn't updating my copy on disk, but I figure this is better than nothing.
I'm going to go through this and indicate which issues have been addressed since beta because some have. Give me a little time to do this.
If you have anything to add, please post a reply and I'll update the first post.
Introduction
Sadly UI/UX is an area of game development often either overlooked or just shortchanged because its a complicated and deep subject and not many subject matter experts employed by smaller companies.
Overall Planet Zoo isn't too bad, but there are a few serious pain points that are already clear to me just from playing the tutorials. Things that are often not obvious when "testing" a game but become more obvious when you actually "play" it.
Player Contributions
While this list was originally started by me, it grew into a larger collection of common feedback given by many players. I troll through other threads looking for stuff to add on a semi-regular basis. If you have something to add, please post it in this thread below to make it easier on me
NOTE: This post is for suggestions and feedback for improving the user experience in the game, sometimes called Quality of Life (QoL) improvements. If you have what is straight up a bug, please report it on the Issue Tracker.
Feedback Address by Frontier is listed first, grouped by when it was addressed. Thanks Frontier!
Bear in mind that the vast majority of the feedback here is "It would be nice if", not "This is broken". In other words these aren't outright bugs (as far as we know) just user flow changes that would make the game more fun to play. It is up to Frontier to decide if they want to make changes or if the functionality as is meets their design goals.
If you see something listed here as having been addressed by Frontier but it is not working as expected for you then it is probably a bug and should be reported on the Issue Tracker.
Addressed on Release
I'm going to go through this and indicate which issues have been addressed since beta because some have. Give me a little time to do this.
If you have anything to add, please post a reply and I'll update the first post.
Introduction
Sadly UI/UX is an area of game development often either overlooked or just shortchanged because its a complicated and deep subject and not many subject matter experts employed by smaller companies.
Overall Planet Zoo isn't too bad, but there are a few serious pain points that are already clear to me just from playing the tutorials. Things that are often not obvious when "testing" a game but become more obvious when you actually "play" it.
Player Contributions
While this list was originally started by me, it grew into a larger collection of common feedback given by many players. I troll through other threads looking for stuff to add on a semi-regular basis. If you have something to add, please post it in this thread below to make it easier on me
NOTE: This post is for suggestions and feedback for improving the user experience in the game, sometimes called Quality of Life (QoL) improvements. If you have what is straight up a bug, please report it on the Issue Tracker.
Feedback Address by Frontier is listed first, grouped by when it was addressed. Thanks Frontier!
Bear in mind that the vast majority of the feedback here is "It would be nice if", not "This is broken". In other words these aren't outright bugs (as far as we know) just user flow changes that would make the game more fun to play. It is up to Frontier to decide if they want to make changes or if the functionality as is meets their design goals.
If you see something listed here as having been addressed by Frontier but it is not working as expected for you then it is probably a bug and should be reported on the Issue Tracker.
Addressed on Release
- When clicking the Zoopedia button on an animal in the Animal Trading window or Exhibit Market window, I want the Zoopedia to open with that animal selected
- When opening the Zoopedia manually by clicking on the UI button, I want the Zoopedia to open to the same page it was on when I closed it (Seems a tad buggy and doesn't always return to the same tab, but usually does. Need to open a ticket or find an existing one)
- I would like to be able to hire multiple staff members of varying types at once without having to re-open the Zoo -> Staff window each time (Doesn't ALWAYS return to the Zoo Staff screen, but usually does. Needs a ticket)
- When making color changes to an item, I would like to be able to see the item without the blue overlay interfering with my vision
- I want to receive an alert when my animals go from infant to adult state.
- I need to be able to filter and sort entries in the Trade History window. If this is not possible, then at the very least it needs to be listed in reverse chronological order, so that the last traded animals are at the top. Right now the window is unusable after you have traded a lot. (Would like to see a filter/column added for when the trade happened)
- I want to be able to sort any table of data by column, but currently some panels allow sorting and some don't
- When clicking the Zoopedia button on an animal in the Animal Trading window or Exhibit Market window, I want the Zoopedia to open with that animal selected
- I would like to be able to move multiple animals at once from my trading post to an enclosure (Added for Career, Challenge, and Sandbox Mode. Not for Franchise Mode)
- I want to receive an alert for each animal when they are ready to leave quarantine
- I would like to see an alert when an animal becomes pregnant
- When duplicating items with settings, the settings should also be duplicated
- Clicking on the locate button in the Zoo Overview Management animal list, habitat will now open the relevant info panel
- Won't Change
- I want to be able to shrink the panel size of the lower panels down to a single row of items to make more room for the main game window on smaller resolutions. - UI does not support this.
- I would like the Compare Mates window to remain open as a floating window alongside the Animal Market window so as to more easily compare different mates against market options. - UI does not support this.
- I want more to be able to pin windows as a floating window that stays open so that I can more easily compare data contained in different windows.- UI does not support this.
- I would like to see my CC price set for the trade, while the animal is on the auction (1 hour period). At the moment there is no possibility. If I noticed market price dropped or some species deficit appears, I would adjust my price immediately, if I knew what the price was. - By design.
- I want to be able to easily filter the Habitat and Nature tabs for the animals contained in the habitat using a Quick Filter button somewhere rather than having to open the filter, find the animal(s), select the animal(s), and close the filters window.
- When trying to manage the foliage in a habitat, finding the bad foliage is difficult. I would like to be able to click on the unwanted foliage icon in an animal's infopanel to automatically highlight that specific item in the habitat. UPDATE: This has changed somewhat after beta. Now you can hover over the icon and it will highlight. However once you move your mouse into the habitat the select and delete the item, the overlay goes away.
- There are many icons and UI infographics that are not intuitive or understood. I would like to see tooltips available for all icons and infographics that tell what they are, what they do, or why I should care.
- I should have a tooltip explaining each icon/badge in the Animal Market and Exhibit Trading panels
- I should have tooltips for the data graphics in the Zoopedia, such as required area sizes
- I want to be able to sort any table of data by column, but currently some panels allow sorting and some don't.
- I should be able to sort the items in the Exhbit Trading window by column
- I should like it to be clear what UI elements are interactable and which are not
- While viewing an animal's infopanel, I should be able to click on the icon for a Biome or Region and have that filter automatically set in the Nature tab's filter.
- As a player with bad eyesight, I want to be able to clearly see all UI elements, but some like the headers in many panels, have low contrast and are hard to read
- When purchasing multiple animals from the two trading windows, I would like to be able to select multiple animals for purchase as one transaction
- I would like to be able to easily select the entire barrier of a habitat for editing with one button, rather than having to drag the arrow icons all the way around
- I want to be able to bind keyboard keys for
Rotate Camera LeftandRotate Camera Right - When research is finished, I would like to be shown what has been unlocked
- I want to be able to set precise prices by number entry rather than trying to jiggle an imprecise slider
- In order to make selecting overlapping objects easier, a "selection filter" option should be added.
- I would like to see month/day of the event in the events timeline window
- Mousing over the timeline in the studbook should show a tooltip of the date the mouse is over. This is so that one can see when various events happened, or when fixed events like maturing will happen.
- When playing in localizations other then English, lists should sort alphabetically based on that language
- I would like an option to disable the auto-heatmap when placing certain items
- The heatmap view makes it extremely hard to see certain elements such as paths
- When duplicating items that show the heatmap, if I close the heatmap, don't keep reopening it on each duplication
- I want a button to buy an animal directly from the Compare Mates window when one of the mates is in the Market.
- I would like the Genetics tab in the animal infopanel to include the animal's gender.
- I need to be able to see a family tree or some other form of information indicating the animal's relationships to better plan breeding.
- As a disabled player, I need to be able to make use of Window's click-lock and StickyKeys features as well as the on screen keyboard inside the game or the game is unplayable for me.
- When filtering items, I expect items not to be filtered out if the tag does not apply to the item, such as Continent tags filtering out things like rocks which don't depend on continent.
- I need to be able to (clearly) (re)assign shortcuts to barrier placement options (length, curved/straight, etc).
- I want to rotate items using a dedicated keybind rather than toggling move/rotate with X
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