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Overall it's a step in the right direction. Just at the weekend I thought the UI really needs an overhaul. It's just bad...

I really like the character window with the background. It adds a lot of immersion.
The topbar god icons were a pain from the beginning. I still can't really remember which icon opens which window.

But still one aspect I like to get addressed is the low resolution of the graphics (character, icons, events,...).
In times of 4k I think the resolution is quite poor. I don't want to say the resolution should be 4k but much better than what it is now.
You already implemented new graphics with better resolution in the previews. I hope the "old" graphics will also get touched.


Best regards
 
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Oh, god, finally. I've been waiting for the UI to be overhauled since the game came out, looking like Office 97.
 
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One minor UI/UX quality of life improvement would be the ability to tick which decisions get a notification when available. Like we already have in EU4, CK2, HoI4 and even Vic2. I mean yeah, it's nice to know I can turn Rome into a plutocratic republic but I'd to reserve the notification for things I actually want to do.
 
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I'll leave my few pennies here on the UI rework:

-First of all, it looks so much better now that it has something more to it than the bland marble background. The addition of textiles, character backgrounds and just more colors in general to emphasize parts of the UI makes for good clutter that doesn't feel too invasive.

-As some others mentioned, I hope we'll have, either now or in the future, UI variations in accordance to culture.

-Again, as others have mentioned, the new province screen is so much better (the one before this was horrible at organizing information), but the number of pops should be given more priority, while the summary and terrain type could be diminished, or be put into one of those tabs at the right. The top and bottom right also seem to be rather empty.

-Changing the God icons was a good decision (few people knew exactly which gods were being represented, much less so what they were supposed to represent), moving the tabs to the left of the screen is something I'm still iffy about, but I'm willing to see how it works.

-Nation decisions being moved was a good decision as well, the tab it used felt very much like an outlier from a beta version of the game. The overview in general looks great too. Perhaps the Provinces tab should be the default one, as decisions aren't often taken.

-Character UI looks great, but I'd like it if the family screen still kept words such as "Parents" "Siblings" "Children" "Friends" and "Rivals". Using only icons to represent may be fancy, but it makes the screen more convoluted for newer players.

-Outliner is great.

And for the rest of the Imperator team: Please work on easing up trade/pop movement micro! It's seriously one of the bigger pains of this game right now.
 
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-Character UI looks great, but I'd like it if the family screen still kept words such as "Parents" "Siblings" "Children" "Friends" and "Rivals". Using only icons to represent may be fancy, but it makes the screen more convoluted for newer players.

Agree with every other point you made and on the one hand I understand, that you have to look twice or as starter even more with these icons/pictures from the family/character screen, but on the other hand they look really beautiful. Maybe the devs can keep them and adding the words in a fitting way --> would be the best solution.
 
The topbar god icons were a pain from the beginning. I still can't really remember which icon opens which window.

I forgot to mention that it would be nice to see the god icons won't be scrapped at all.
As someone already mentioned it would be nice to see these gods as top bar background banners in the windows. This way these gods will "stay alive" and could be redone in a higher / sharper resolution.

Edit:

Just as a simple question:

Did you try to use a darker base window color?
In my opinion the base window color now is a bit too bright and keeps getting my eyes tired quickly.
That's the reason why I am using NERO's dark UI. I don't want to say to switch to a black UI version but a darker version would be worth a try.
 
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I am very interested in the reason why everything clickable needs a new own color

and

why this color has to be teal in combination with the major red.


thanks & greetings
 
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I am very interested in the reason why everything clickable needs a new own color

You wouldn't believe the number of times I have seen non-veteran players play the game oblivious of fundamental game-features because they never noticed the buttons in the province UI and other places. (also, inconsistency in the terms used, like "martial/finesse/oratory/religious province investment cost" in inventions, instead of the investments actual names that is used in province UI)
 
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You wouldn't believe the number of times I have seen non-veteran players play the game oblivious of fundamental game-features because they never noticed the buttons in the province UI and other places. (also, inconsistency in the terms used, like "martial/finesse/oratory/religious province investment cost" in inventions, instead of the investments actual names that is used in province UI)
It took me embarrassingly long to notice the province development buttons in the current version, and I have followed every single dev diary since dev diary 1.
 
You wouldn't believe the number of times I have seen non-veteran players play the game oblivious of fundamental game-features because they never noticed the buttons in the province UI and other places. (also, inconsistency in the terms used, like "martial/finesse/oratory/religious province investment cost" in inventions, instead of the investments actual names that is used in province UI)
It took me embarrassingly long to notice the province development buttons in the current version, and I have followed every single dev diary since dev diary 1.

Oo

Seriously?

Okay - hard to believe for me but if you say so.
Seems like most of us need that teal to find the buttons.

For me it feels kind of unbelieveable - love the simplicity in the current UI Style.


greetings
 
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Firstly, something I've been using Agamidae's mod for a long time for; the % of pops following your religion/part of your primary or integrated culture shown as a number, not just a piece of pie, right there on the province view. If I am to decide what governor policy to use, that info is really quite paramount, and I don't want it to be hidden beneath a tooltip (or make a guess on some pie chart)
I think the donut chart with the embedded icon is an improvement on the pie chart + icon next to it. What would you think if the donut had a shiny gold border frame that represented the % of your primary culture/religion. When it is 100% you have a full gold ring framing the donut chart and anything less is a partial ring. (I added a rough yellow ring in my example below)

-will the the trade goods part of the ui have a scroll bar? Otherwise I can't see how they would be displayed.
I am a smudge worried about the trade situation too, right now you show 8 trade goods, and we all know that a late game empire can have a province with dozens upon dozens of seperate goods being imported. How does that scale in the new UI?
If they just smash all of the trade goods on top of each other like the current design I will be disappointed. Maybe if they cropped the vertical edges of each trade good icon so you could just see the center of the icon and the count beneath it we could still see all 34 trade goods but I'm not confident. I'd personally love a grid pattern so you could quickly look in the same spot to see if you have Iron in each province but the real estate they have available makes that impossible. With the limited space I think the settlement window should summarize the province trade goods. This is what I came up with. I would show all of the strategic resources in a consistent order then sort the others by count. That way you don't have to show every single resource. Food growth counter with trade route food growth effects shown so you know how dependent on trade you are and when you are trading away food. Pop population counts with happiness and the trade goods buff for happiness shown (Nobles +4 for cloth, etc.). Show the manpower and research point production for the province. This is definitely crowded but it was the best I could come up with.

New Province Window in IR 2.0.png


- I'd like to talk about a menu that hasn't been shown but could use some improvement in the current version of the game, the province "Import" menu. This menu is missing some key functionality:
The province Trade Goods "Import" window absolutely needs an overhaul. I would change the 'Import' button into 'Province Detail' which opens a window that give you full info on Pops, production, trade routes, etc. This tiny space above the settlement is too small to show everything. My SPQR entry 'Improve the trade goods import window (with example UI)' shows some initial ideas that I had. I would expand it to a full Province Detail window and show all the info for the province in one location. You need to know existing trade goods counts and province population and happiness info when you choose trade routes. It should also have a settlements tab that would give you details on each settlement. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have done to redesign this.

There is no way to see [export routes] from the province interface (including the "Import" auxiliary tab) other than hovering the mouse over each of the arrows that appear in the map to indicate exports, which is not ideal. Once you have figured out that the province is exporting food, you need to open the "Trade" national tab, search for the province in question and then search for the specific trade good you want to cancel, making this process unnecessarily cumbersome.
The bottom section of the Trade Goods window should show "Current Exports" next to the existing "Current Imports" list. The current buttons are exhorbitantly wide and it could easily be split in half. I should have included that in my SPQR mockup. Great suggestion.
 
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Okay - hard to believe for me but if you say so.
Seems like most of us need that teal to find the buttons.

Maybe it was hyperbolic to say people don't notice the buttons, but when a UI doesn't make abundantly clear what is interactable and what isn't, it can easily come across as information overflow, difficult to sift through with nothing that sticks out as an easy entry point for interactions.
 
Maybe it was hyperbolic to say people don't notice the buttons, but when a UI doesn't make abundantly clear what is interactable and what isn't, it can easily come across as information overflow, difficult to sift through with nothing that sticks out as an easy entry point for interactions.

I am absolutly on your side with that - no question about.

I just see this drafts - especially the coloring - and asked myself what this is all about? And honestly been a bit shocked about these - in my eyes over the edge - striking button markment.

Yes, of course different UI elements needs to be different in visual to let the user "read", understand and work with the UI to play the game (or use a website, an app etc) but this way sems for me pretty exaggerated and has no sense for the UI as a whole.

To explain my irritating - I personally experienced PDX games always with a "good taste" for UI style. Yes, they are complex but always possible to understand when you take your time to get through it.

And I do not critize the new UI in general - I see there a lot of new and good development in terms of layout and logic. But to mark every clickable element with the complementary color that the UI is generally using feels for me like a punch in the face.

I try to get used to it but everytime I see it, its just strange xD


greetings
 
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I think the donut chart with the embedded icon is an improvement on the pie chart + icon next to it. What would you think if the donut had a shiny gold border frame that represented the % of your primary culture/religion. When it is 100% you have a full gold ring framing the donut chart and anything less is a partial ring. (I added a rough yellow ring in my example below)
Honestly.. terrible. Pie charts are just not a good way of representing accurate information. They'd decent for an overview... but when I look at these charts what I want to know is the % of people who I need to forcefully recognise the superiority of my culture and a pie just ain't up to scratch on that one.
 
@htimsnivek @Lord Lambert some people just hate pie i guess.


As someone OK with pies, I think the golden border is a neat idea, with the caviat that a yellow or gold border may not be sufficiently distinguishable f the background white marble texture.
1602158495295.png


(edit: muh fatfinger-typing)
 
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I just see this drafts - especially the coloring - and asked myself what this is all about? And honestly been a bit shocked about these - in my eyes over the edge - striking button markment.
I'm just curious, is there a reason why you don't like the teal? Are there some visibility issued with white on teal or something like that or is it just that you're not particularly fond of the chosen color? It might be just a preference thing but I actually like it a lot. It gives a lot of life to the ui, in my opinion. I'm just curious :)
 
I think the donut chart with the embedded icon is an improvement on the pie chart + icon next to it. What would you think if the donut had a shiny gold border frame that represented the % of your primary culture/religion. When it is 100% you have a full gold ring framing the donut chart and anything less is a partial ring. (I added a rough yellow ring in my example below)

Honestly.. terrible. Pie charts are just not a good way of representing accurate information. They'd decent for an overview... but when I look at these charts what I want to know is the % of people who I need to forcefully recognise the superiority of my culture and a pie just ain't up to scratch on that one.

I like pie charts, including the ones in IR. But even if one don't like them for whatever reason, I'm not sure if replacing them with a donut + icon inside is any improvement. You save space for sure, but beyond that I don't see the improvement - on the contrary, seeing very small fractions in the small ring and hovering over them is even harder then doing so on a small piece of the pie.
 
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I'm just curious, is there a reason why you don't like the teal? Are there some visibility issued with white on teal or something like that or is it just that you're not particularly fond of the chosen color? It might be just a preference thing but I actually like it a lot. It gives a lot of life to the ui, in my opinion. I'm just curious :)

In my eyes its looks displaced. I like the color but the use of it is a pain ;D I look at the UI as a whole and asked myself why its that teal there? For which reason must it be teal? The only thing I see is that it breaks the UI to make that point - to seperate clickable buttons. Which is a weak one - to seperate UI elements you do not need a new color - especially one that breaks harmony.

With all the other elements - portraits etc. and the world map in the background the game looks like palette not like a picture.

I do not like to be the nagger - maybe I get it when I see it in the running game but right now it dont feels like an improvement for me.


greetings
 
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In my eyes its looks displaced. I like the color but the use of it is a pain ;D I look at the UI as a whole and asked myself why its that teal there? For which reason must it be teal? The only thing I see is that it breaks the UI to make that point - to seperate clickable buttons. Which is a weak one - to seperate UI elements you do not need a new color - especially one that breaks harmony.

With all the other elements - portraits etc. and the world map in the background the game looks like palette not like a picture.

I do not like to be the nagger - maybe I get it when I see it in the running game but right now it dont feels like an improvement for me.


greetings
Hey that's fair enough, thanks for explaining. I guess we'll see how it all ends up.
 
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