Okay, this is a list of little interface problems I’ve had:
[ul][li]Some storylets send you back when you take certain options. The most common example is the admiralty. When I turn in Strat. Int. I want to get my next commission, not have to click back in! Some port reports do this do.[/li][li]Curiosities, circumstances, and accomplishments seem utterly random. Why is being a cannibal an item, but being soulless a quality? Why are the items for the Neathbow treasure hunt presented as items, but the principles acomplishments? This could really be straightened out.[/li][li]Fallen London’s stores need a scroll bar. In addition, could the interface be rejiggered so that we can read the whole message on shops. And can it be made impossible to sell things for no money?[/li][/ul]If anyone else has interface niggles, feel free to add them.
Ooh, UX polish thread! Here are a few things I’ve noticed:
[ul][li]Important things on the main map (such as the pirate ship that is currently shooting at you) can get hidden under the "chrome". Just yesterday, the pirate ship that was shooting at me was under the combat toolbar, which is extra irritating.[/li][li]There are lots of places where text gets cut off because it’s too long for the box it’s in. It’s not just a problem with the shops. Please go through everything and make sure that never happens.[/li][li]Right now, in some ports (it is most obvious with the Iron Republic; I’ve also noticed it with Gaider’s Mourn and the Principles of Coral) you have to cut your engines immediately after pressing E to undock, in order to make the hard turn necessary to not run into something. This is clumsy and slow. Please make sure that the undocking orientation for each port faces toward open water. Being allowed to pivot the ship before undocking would also be nice.
[/li][li]I’ve mentioned this before; please add a "save and exit" button on the ESC menu, usable in unforgiving mode, so that one may save and quit after doing things in a port.
[/li][/ul]
[quote=zwol]
There are lots of places where text gets cut off because it’s too long for the box it’s in. It’s not just a problem with the shops. Please go through everything and make sure that never happens.[/quote]
Can you flag up an example (not a shop one)? Would be useful …
[quote=babelfishwars][quote=zwol]
There are lots of places where text gets cut off because it’s too long for the box it’s in.[/quote]
Can you flag up an example (not a shop one)? Would be useful …[/quote]
I believe I saw it on a storylet in London but can’t remember for certain. I’ll try to remember to note it the next time I see it.
Some of the ship upgrades in the Fallen London shops don’t have tooltips. I think this may be a problem with items at the very bottom of a list that is so long it has a scrollbar. Relatedly, the Aft cannons don’t tell you their stats.[/li][li]Things getting hidden under the "chrome" would be much less of a problem if you could collapse the journal in the lower left-hand corner, and if you could completely remove the "All at sea?" help tag in the lower right. (In general, the fact that storylet tags appear both in a column at the right of the screen and within the journal is a little weird.)
Seconding everything said so far, especially the undocking at iron republic thing. It always takes me out of it to have to do like a 5 point turn just to leave the area. Some kind of description on the shipyard panel (or under help) of what exactly the different stats of different ships do would be nice. Does weight effect speed and how much fuel you use, for instance? By how much? Does anything affect turning radius? More tutorial help in general would be great. I was terrible at combat until I saw here in the forums that you can click an enemy to target them. That seems obvious now, but besides that clicking isn’t used outside of menus and buttons so it’s not intuitive enough to not be in the instructions.
I once believed turn radius was affected by the Mirrors stat, but lately I’ve begun to believe it is affected only by the framerate, as evidenced by the multiple machines I’ve used to run the game. Higher-end machines I’ve used have had better turn radius, and as the updates have become less smooth, one machine of mine in particular has begun to get worse and worse in terms of turn-speed, though even my more modern one seems affected by recent updates. I’d like to hear from other users to see if they’ve had similar experiences.
They work for me - you need to choose the Market day storylet before they show up though or you just get the buy fuel option. I suppose that is a bit like entering the Nephrite Quarter in the Khanate … you actively have to choose to visit the shops.
If the shops don’t appear, try exiting the game and restarting it and then picking the option. This fixes it for me every time. It seems that shops stop showing up when you use the storylet if you have loaded a save since you started the game. IE: Start game, play a bit, make a mistake or run into a bug, reload previous save. Since you reloaded a save, the storylets to open shops will no longer work.
My problem seemed to be when I did a Port Report. When I don’t get a Port Report, the shops (mostly) act as expected. When I do a Port Report first, it get all f’d up, restarts or no.
I once believed turn radius was affected by the Mirrors stat, but lately I’ve begun to believe it is affected only by the framerate, as evidenced by the multiple machines I’ve used to run the game. Higher-end machines I’ve used have had better turn radius, and as the updates have become less smooth, one machine of mine in particular has begun to get worse and worse in terms of turn-speed, though even my more modern one seems affected by recent updates. I’d like to hear from other users to see if they’ve had similar experiences.
[li][/quote][/li][li]
[/li][li]Seconded, I’ve had exactly the same experience, when framerate drops, turn rate drops drastically as well.
Seconding all previous nitpicks, I have an additional nitpick to add: After I oh-so-magnanimously sacrificed my irrepressible cannoneer to Lady Zaira on the Isle of Cats, I was surprised to be given the option to sign him on again as a new recruit! An easy oversight to make, I’m sure.
Seconding the part on getting to read all the descriptions of the shops and the scroll bar.[li]
With the port reports, sometimes I simply can’t turn them in to the admiral - I had a polythreme one that was visible in my inventory that I had never given him before, but there was no option for that no matter how many trips out I took.