Zetheros
Developer
Hey Exanimates,
This week we've been trying to finalise the new arena systems, and most of this is defining the user interfaces and how players interact with them. These are pretty complicated and clunky in the current arena, and while we can't remove all the complexity, there's a lot we're doing to make them more intuitive and nicer to use.
We realised there's a lot of difficult layout issues that could be easily solved with the proposed visual overhaul to the GUI, and also that it would make a lot of sense to develop these large and complex UIs with the new system in mind so we don't have to do it again later. Because of this we decided to prioritise the visual overhaul, so we've been designing all the graphical elements and figuring out how it all works. We had a few false starts, but we're pretty happy with the whole design and function now, so we've started actually implementing this new UI system.
The most troublesome aspect of the arena management systems are the loadouts and arsenal, which we know people find quite uncomfortable to use. The arsenal will now basically be a huge container that you can access independently. Each category will be split into 5 space / tabs and you can manually arrange your items. You can take items in the arsenal and use them in your hub or decorate with them, but they also remain accessible in the arsenal for loadouts and other uses and won't be lost if the hub changes for whatever reason.
The loadout screen will be simplified. There's no more need for inventories here, so there will be just one large space showing all items used by the character. Items used in the current loadout will be highlighted with a coloured outline so you can easily tell what's equipped. The tabbed arsenal will also still display items that are in use by other characters, but highlighted, so you can easily equip them on a different character without having to move them back and forth. There's a few other changes, but basically it will be a lot less confusing and fiddly.
We've also fully migrated our whole procedural weapon workflow to the new system, which really has improved it dramatically and allows us to very easily use the same components in many factories. This should allows us to make the bulk of major weapon types quite quickly. Combined with various new armours and new arenas this will be quite a substantial content addition.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
This week we've been trying to finalise the new arena systems, and most of this is defining the user interfaces and how players interact with them. These are pretty complicated and clunky in the current arena, and while we can't remove all the complexity, there's a lot we're doing to make them more intuitive and nicer to use.
We realised there's a lot of difficult layout issues that could be easily solved with the proposed visual overhaul to the GUI, and also that it would make a lot of sense to develop these large and complex UIs with the new system in mind so we don't have to do it again later. Because of this we decided to prioritise the visual overhaul, so we've been designing all the graphical elements and figuring out how it all works. We had a few false starts, but we're pretty happy with the whole design and function now, so we've started actually implementing this new UI system.
The most troublesome aspect of the arena management systems are the loadouts and arsenal, which we know people find quite uncomfortable to use. The arsenal will now basically be a huge container that you can access independently. Each category will be split into 5 space / tabs and you can manually arrange your items. You can take items in the arsenal and use them in your hub or decorate with them, but they also remain accessible in the arsenal for loadouts and other uses and won't be lost if the hub changes for whatever reason.
The loadout screen will be simplified. There's no more need for inventories here, so there will be just one large space showing all items used by the character. Items used in the current loadout will be highlighted with a coloured outline so you can easily tell what's equipped. The tabbed arsenal will also still display items that are in use by other characters, but highlighted, so you can easily equip them on a different character without having to move them back and forth. There's a few other changes, but basically it will be a lot less confusing and fiddly.
We've also fully migrated our whole procedural weapon workflow to the new system, which really has improved it dramatically and allows us to very easily use the same components in many factories. This should allows us to make the bulk of major weapon types quite quickly. Combined with various new armours and new arenas this will be quite a substantial content addition.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
