Jump to content
Domination: Earth

De-confusing DE


Mr. D

Recommended Posts

Hi all,

As mentioned in our recent News announcement we are currently working on the 2.0 version of "Domination: Earth", which is planned to perform better, look nicer and feel less confusing.

Making "the already incredibly confusing game" (TM @Republic of America :)) less confusing is one of our top priorities, but as the definition of "confusion" depends on your perspective and level of DE experience we really want to ask for your opinion on what you think the biggest problems are right now.

This may be the best opportunity to influence the direction in which the future DE is developed, as it will be late to change many aspects once we have a fully-functional beta in place. So please do not assume that we can read your thoughts and do share any thoughts on things you'd like to see changed; don't keep any rants to yourself. :)

However, please note that this is not a thread to suggest new features (i.e. no proposals for new buildings, additional diplomacy features etc.); I'd like to only discuss things that made it hard for you to start playing / understand the existing mechanics or UI elements, or complaints that you heard from other players on the same topics. :)
Any posts with ideas that are not related to "de-confusing DE" will be moved out of this thread.

Other than that... any feedback is very welcome! ;)

 

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's great that you are asking for input! There are some things which still bother me a bit UI wise:

  1. You added the buttons to directly go to the next base within the My Lands tab, however if I just want to restock all my soldiers or use all my assembly plants it's still confusing to do: load the base site, produce items, wait for base site to reload switch to next base site, wait for this base site to load and so on.
  2. As already mentioned somewhere else it's very disturbing sometimes when having many buildings on one land and want to upgrade/repair some of them. After each upgrade or repair (or canceled upgrade or repair) the list of constructed buildings totally reloads and sets you back to its top which is especially hard on lager building lists.
  3. I've never understood why the trading option is under the three dots instead of accessible via the sidebar menu.
  4. There is the totally unnecessary and even unusable button to upgrade a sandbag wall which still exists after you've established a new base from a land with a sandbag wall on.
  5. The somehow obvious information in the "resources collected"-toast stating that you have shared the resources with zero allies. Either you share your resources or you don't. I don't see the point of sharing with zero allies.
  6. Why do i have to confirm a second time that I really want to produce items when using the Assembly Plant? It's not like producing items would be such a critical thing. I can see the point of giving the information about the price and what will happen but that would be more meaningful within an information box or a tutorial but it's really nothing a player has to see every time when producing items.
  7. Before you read this one, I know that this is complaining on a very very high state. There is exactly one perk which is (at least in the English version) a little bit higher than the other so it leads to a small gap on the right side of the perks under the Focus: Metal perk.
  8. When clicking on the construction button I will first see the available new buildings and the option to see the existing buildings (another button). At least in my case I am using the existing buildings view much more often than the "buildings you could construct"-view so it would make more sense the other way round. Seeing the existing buildings first (if I want to upgrade my sandbag all to level 10 I'd have to visit this view 9 times plus every time I want to repair something or use an existing building somehow) and having there the option to construct new buildings (another button and another view which you would mostly visit one or two times (sandbag wall and guard tower)).
  9. Most of the time I see my current amount of resources in the upper right corner but it's a non-clickable item at the moment. If I want to buy Unobtainium or want to convert it I have to visit any construction view, have to click on the plus under a resource and would then be able to buy Unobtainium or convert it to resources. Just clicking on the displayed current amount of resources to get to some sort of "Unobtainium and resource conversion"-view would make more sense or be a nice addition in my eyes.
  10. The little i button for the current objective is nearly never used by "older" players since it serves no purpose for them. Only putting it under the three dots button directly (or after one has done all objectives) would leave more space in the Earth View. But I' nearly sure this was also mentioned sometime before here in the forum.
  11. In the side bar menu there is the point "My Profile". There is also a big domination logo within a circle with your player name below looking like there should have been a profile picture. Intuitively I'd click on that "profile picture" or my player name to access my profile.
  12. Within the war tab if you have one (even more confusing with more) pending offered truces you won't see which offer with how many days was issued to whom. Additionally I feel like there should be a button to withdraw the offer but that sounds like a new feature so just don't read that part.
  13. Again before you read this one, I know that this is complaining on a very very high state. In the war tab when switching between the active and ended and between the active and truce tab, the message that "You are not at war with anyone currently" is larger (to the sides) and starts a little bit higher than the messaged about ended wars and pending truces so it looks a little bit "wobbeling" when switching fast between those tabs.
  14. The back/return button (the native one of any device) will close pop ups like from the Assembly Plant or perks, will lead me back from the views like construction or existing buildings or upgrade but will not bring me back from the existing buildings view right after I upgraded a building or from the "transfer army" dialog.
  15. At the beginning no player knows by default that the "view radius" is 300 km. So if you capture one single land far away (more than 300 km away from any other land/base of yours) and won't be able to establish a base there and then get home, you will have no possibility to see this land from home which can be very confusing especially for new players. It's just a special scenario I described here but this point is more about the fact that new players have never an idea why lands more than 300 km away are not displayed by default. So they are confused by that mechanic.
  16. This one is definitely not your fault and is more about Math. But I have noticed an unbelievable amount of players being confused that their captured area is calculated "wrong". Maybe a little hint in the tutorial (just one line) about how circular area is calculated might prevent this kind of confusion.

I hope that's what you asked for :D  will edit this comment if more comes to my mind.

Edited by Ruvox
  • Thanks 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, Ruvox said:

I hope that's what you asked for :D 

This is exactly what I asked for and I'm glad to say that *some* of these items have already been addressed in the new designs.
We'll discuss the rest, so keep them coming if you have more comments! ;)

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey Mr D and Crew!

I don't remember the menus being so much of an issue when I was starting, as much I remember the strategy and placing of bases and flags being.. Unintuitive.  This, unfortunately, cannot be taught in a tutorial, it must be grokked!

One thing that can, however, is some clarification on buttons. I think it took me just over a week to figure out that the flag button on resource stations could be tapped once within 500m to claim it. I remember thinking I had to be within 50m to use the hand 😆. I still don't know what the camera button on flags and bases is for, it seems to be from the my lands menu, but.. Idk

I also agree with ruvox about the 3 dot menu, I've completely forgotten that it exists.

One thing that doesn't display very well is battle messaging. If there are concurrent battles at several of your bases its impossible to gather information in a post mortem, except for the last line summary. A battle "thread", like in a gmail would keep them sorted. Or maybe as a table? Rnd1-your kills-their kills, next round the table updates, Rnd 2 etc etc. I know you like small footprints but I haven't been in a war yet, and when that happens I'm likely going to be looking for info in the messaging.. That might mean I want the whole log. Wars at multiple bases could have something important be completely overlooked. (I mention this now because while I know that battles are pretty straight forward as the game is, I'm pretty sure other units or combat mechanics getting changed is going to be a thing.. It's a "better sooner than later" point)

Speaking of multiple bases, the game currently allows for multiple bases to overlap the same area. I have a couple of these spots and the problem I can't get around is attacking one FoT close to one base, and being unable to attack another FoT flag that is closer to another base, but still in that overlap zone because "your base is already engaged in combat" msg. I can only guess that this functionality extends to PvP, we need an "attack from base x, y or z" option to fix that please?

Also along those lines, I've thrown flags in the overlap while closer to the base I just built (we'll say it was 105km from initial base, very close) and thought I saw those flags working towards the base lvls for the initial base, and not the one that I was closer to. I can't really confirm this for 2 reasons, one being that those bases are 900 miles away and I don't have a similar setup here yet. The other being that the little msg in the grey window appears and disappears so quickly I couldn't be sure what I was reading.. If we could get another second or two it would help in other areas too.

Another thing that I know Ruvox has experienced as well is the difference between flags and collecting, or rather, lack thereof. When we load up 10 super magnets and go clean up the town, we'll get 2 magnets in and throw a flag and the flag acts as a pickup. I know there's a 50m pickup on flags but I don't think any of the powerups should increase it. To me, flags are flags, and mags are mags. I'd rather have their actions divorced as its messed up my planning before.

Lastly, the ability to delete a flag, a base or an account.. I know there're several points to this, for and against, I'm not going to argue any of them for anyone. It's your call.

I might also recommend one final thread for other questions that you don't even have to reply to. Just a space for us to post any last ditch questions, because like me, i have some other questions.. But I don't really know what's important at the coding lvl. So while I'm not really interested in the answers, since your changing the engine and I doubt they'll be the same question after 2.0, I would feel remiss if I didn't say something. (I said QUESTIONS not Ideas Griz! LoL)

As always, Keep Up the Good Fight!! 👊

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ruvox did pretty thorough job with listing most of current bugs in the UI area :)

Here are my few cents:

The main map display is very confusing due to following reasons:

  1. Icons for lands are displayed very inconsistently, like some sandbags not being displayed when actially present etc.
  2. Current display system allows for just one building to be displayed. If a tower of present, you don't see a wall and so on. It would be great for a display system to give a more elaborate, complete display of land contents. Even better, if the graphics were changing with building upgrades.
  3. Also, tower being present on land hides sandbag wall level from popup balloon. This makes recon harder.
  4. With every base there is a land attached. When you try to click it, it either displays menu as land or as base. This is really confusing and should be simplified. A base should just be a base, with all mechanics based on single UI object.
  5. As suggested elsewhere on forums, some way to adjust which elements you see at which zoom level would be great, especially for setting resources in a larger scale and also being able to see a nice overview of ones all lands and bases.
  6. A display of a current pick up range would be a nice UI feature, even if optional.

For other UI items:

  1. As ruvox mentioned, but maybe not clear enough, the back button feature is very inconsistent. For best UX, the back button should always work, up to the world map level (as a return from other tabs).
  2. While Android allows modifying a notification sound for each app, it's hard to find and most users won't know about it. Adding this option in the game settings will make it more accessible, and customizing notification sound for DE is gamechanger making it easier to notice the flow of timers.
  3. Message history is too short :(
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Олег Поленин said:

A display of a current pick up range would be a nice UI feature, even if optional.

You mean, you want the circle, that appears every time you press the Hand button, to be on permanently instead of the blue dot?

 

As for myself, I'd like to ask if some kind of a reminder can be put in place when you try to capture a land near a  resource station? I understand it's really my problem, but sometimes it takes me a couple of days to capture a station because I keep forgetting about it! (Although, items help a lot with it, which is amazing! :) )

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Few other issues:

  1. Base listing order is inconsistent, ie. main base list is ordered by distance from player (great) but the army transfer list is ordered by the creation date. I think I understand some rationale behind it, but an ability to change and unify this order would be great.
  2. Some elements of Night map style, most often the road numbers, have colors that mimic other game elements. This is causing noise when searching for resources. If possible, such elements should be toned down or removed.
  3. Hand and flag buttons are close to each other, sometimes this makes me clock the wrong button when eg. driving as passenger on an uneven ground.
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

(tl;dr: a message box to confirm land merging action would be lovely)

One annoying thing I've noticed on my latest trip:

In current game conditions, when travelling to remote locations, there is a useful scheme to build several lands, fill them up with structures and only then merge them to maximize the base level growth time-effectively. This works positively both for players, who are able to have more fun while travelling, and for game economy, as it forms a heavy, but positive resource sink, especially for more advanced gamers.

This scheme works both during trip (while you have resources) and after trip (when you manage to stage several lands in correct positions for future merger once resources are regained and structures built).

The problem is that staging such setups is really hard due to the way the merging tool behaves:

  • when lands are nearby, there is no way to tell if they are mergable (close enough) or not, when you click "merge", it's just either working or not
  • when you try to set new land really close, it's really easy to upgrade existing land by mistake (eg. by sudden GPS drift...), thus merging it with other already staged satellites and ruining the whole setup.

Since merge operation is not really that common action, I think it wouldn't suffer if an additional confirm questions was added here, or at least an opt-in for such message, configurable in the profile options.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...