Two clicks for the price of one, please.

[Submarine]

Individual programmers may want to take pride in their product but when bound by an employment contract developing company owned IP they are constrained in what they may work on and the decision about what that is lies with other personnel also employed by the company to get the best return on investment and development will proceed based on what they believe will bring that about.

Some managers seem to believe publicity is more important and thereby sales than looking after playability and garnering a reputation through gamer to gamer recommendation, which can be significant on the web.

The question becomes how does one convince decision makers that the interface is letting the game down and makes it very annoying to play.

I would point out two things to them.

Mixed recent reviews on Steam (at the time of writing) are a direct result of annoyance felt by players and hurt sales.

Ignoring playability and qol works least well for returning customers which is the nature of the DLC customer base, which is a subset of the original player base. If the game is frustrating to play and stays frustrating to play, that subset will be smaller.

That to my mind is the math which demonstrates playability has to be addressed if you care about X4's success.

[jlehtone]

... the worst interface I've ever seen in a game. in 30 years.

I can think of many from that time period. Perhaps our definition of "good interface" differs drastically?

[Maebius]

People are too quick to defend existing UI design decisions that, if changed, will be better suited for 99% of your interactions.

I'm sure if that one time you need to do that semi-rare thing, an extra click on the "usual action", to do that "other thing" can be added somehow.

Not talking just about keeping the chair empty. Almost every proposal has such replies and it's pretty annoying to observe.

[Submarine]

Its not just about two clicks where one would do, that is the tip of the iceberg, its about lack of ergonomic refinement relating to the tasks players want to carry out when playing.

If egosoft are willing to give it the attention it deserves then I would be willing to make more of an effort to point these out and help them refine the interface as an unpaid beta tester and I am sure I am not alone in being willing to help. Its just not worth it if they are unwilling to engage.

e.g. I previously posted to ask for two additional improvements, which I first did for Split Vendetta feedback and recently rerequested for ToA because the X4 interface has not changed at all regarding these needs.

• Please add shift click to move order to top or bottom.

viewtopic.php?f=146&t=449829&p=5146708#p5146474

• Please provide global and ship setting to disallow boost in attack.

viewtopic.php?f=146&t=449827&p=5146438#p5146438

These I think are an absolute minimum necessity and to my mind act as something of a litmus test for egosoft's awareness of this kind of issue and more to the point their willingness and ability to engage with the much needed refinement of the interface.

Interface has been a big hurdle for X games since at least X2 and is part of the reason the niche appeal of the game is restricted because it adds to the barrier to entry which adds to the pile of disgruntled negative reviews. IMHO rather than giving up on it and leaving it with unrefined minimum functionality, as it has been, it needs to be addressed as a priority because it does matter and will make a difference.

[Endealon]

... the worst interface I've ever seen in a game. in 30 years.

I can think of many from that time period. Perhaps our definition of "good interface" differs drastically?

It's very easy to answer: if you consider that X4 has a "good interface", yes, of course, we have radically different opinions about what is (and what should be) a "good interface".