Inventions: the best change since 1.2, but...

[alexti]

Sorry mate, I cannot agree with you at all.
Improving UX and accessibility is never a bad thing as long as it manages to keep at least the same depth.

Giving out all information easily is not necessarily UX/accessibility issue. It applies less to strategy games, but it's not uncommon for the games to intentionally keep information away from the player and let the player discover it gradually. They do it to create a sense of exploration and surprise. I don't think this is the design goal of Imperator, so I totally agree that this game should present information better, but I think it's wrong to generalize it for all games or say that it's a universally good thing.

 

[Bovrick]

Giving out all information easily is not necessarily UX/accessibility issue. It applies less to strategy games, but it's not uncommon for the games to intentionally keep information away from the player and let the player discover it gradually. They do it to create a sense of exploration and surprise. I don't think this is the design goal of Imperator, so I totally agree that this game should present information better, but I think it's wrong to generalize it for all games or say that it's a universally good thing.

It makes sense on occasions where information is inentionally obfuscated, for sure, but this is an occasion where the information is all available and intentionally so. Offering a condensed/understandable format of information otherwise readily available shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Vohen]

Giving out all information easily is not necessarily UX/accessibility issue. It applies less to strategy games, but it's not uncommon for the games to intentionally keep information away from the player and let the player discover it gradually. They do it to create a sense of exploration and surprise. I don't think this is the design goal of Imperator, so I totally agree that this game should present information better, but I think it's wrong to generalize it for all games or say that it's a universally good thing.

Sure, but that's moving the goalpost far away from the topic at hand.
Some information can be obfuscated (like health), but that is not the case for modifiers and tech trees.
As far as that goes, presenting information in a clearer and more concise way to the player is always an objective to strive for, and will make for better UX.

 

[alexti]

Sure, but that's moving the goalpost far away from the topic at hand.
Some information can be obfuscated (like health), but that is not the case for modifiers and tech trees.

I don't think it's a clear cut case. Obfuscating health seems to be of little use, but obfuscating tech trees can be interesting. Aside from being more realistic, it has potential to create more variety in the games by making it impossible to follow exactly the same optimal path every time. It's difficult to get right though, because you probably want significant variance without too much luck involved.

However, I agree that after the design decision is made about what information should be presented and what information should be hidden, UX should facilitate access to the public information.

 

[Vohen]

However, I agree that after the design decision is made about what information should be presented and what information should be hidden, UX should facilitate access to the public information.

Since the decision has been made, I take it we can agree once and for all that the player having better access to information regarding tech trees is a good thing then.

 

[alexti]

Since the decision has been made, I take it we can agree once and for all that the player having better access to information regarding tech trees is a good thing then.

I don't think we had disagreement on that, but we don't seem to agree (at least partially) on what's the best way to do that and whether the same mechanism should also cover other sources of modifiers (such as traditions).

 

[Vohen]

I don't think we had disagreement on that, but we don't seem to agree (at least partially) on what's the best way to do that and whether the same mechanism should also cover other sources of modifiers (such as traditions).

Heh, it seems like we can't agree even on what we agree.

It looks like we already agreed on most of the relevant UI improvements already:

having UI that could show all possible sources of a specified modifier

Well, as I said previously, this is supposed to work together with the search bar.
Or even better, using nested tooltips, when you hover over a modifier in the info tooltip, it could automatically search for that modifier, highlighting the exact inventions which gives them.

In practice, better UI would be to display the list from UI where it would apply. So for cities, when hovering over the "found the city" button one would get a tooltip listing various sources of cost reduction.

But really, the point of the thread before this massive derailment was on arguing for either images in the OP.
The second one I figured would be quite controversial, and it was, so it isn't hard to make peace with the disagreements.
The first one though, seems to have no controversies, and no reasons for it, as it changes absolutely nothing for anyone who doesn't feel like it's helpful, it's merely a visual aid.
That same visual aid and other ones could surely be implemented in other places, that's something I definitely agree on, but would still argue that inventions simply needs it the most.