I’m pleased to introduce the first ever guest post on my blog, and I hope it may spark those of you who have a great idea, but don’t want to set up a blog just for it, to consider doing them as a guest post as well. Though any kind of topic goes, as long as it makes for an interesting read. If you enjoyed reading this, consider subscribing to his recently founded blog The Goblin’s Cave. Feedback to this guest post is especially welcome. Now without further ado, here’s Northern Goblin‘s (ingame Caellach Marellus) post about ideas on how to improve EVE’s user interface.
Hi, I’m Northern Goblin. My first experience with video games came when I was three, sat on my older brother’s knee playing “Oh Mummy” on his ZX Spectrum, and I’ve been a gamer ever since. I’ve started playing EVE back in July 2009 on my main character, Caellach Marellus (picking up an alt or two along the way). After trying out different aspects of the game I’ve found myself leaning strongly towards the Carebear side, whether that’s farming L4 Missions, doing W-Space Exploration or mining on my Hulk alt. Outside of EVE I enjoy playing various genres of games, I won’t go into listing details but they all share a similarity, as soon as I start playing any game I customise the UI looks and control system as much as the game allows me, till I’ve a setup that best suits me. While EVE’s UI allows me to do what I need to, at times the interaction can be cumbersome, or the amount of screen space required to run an effective UI excessive.
I’ve spoken several times with Myrhial on this subject to the point where she twisted my arm (Myrhial: Lies and slander!) and said that I should write a guest blog about it. After initially saying yes, I ummed and ahh’d a little more when CCP Punkturis said on Twitter that if I wrote it she’d read it. A member of CCP’s UI team promises to read my first guest post, on a subject that she spends every day working with? No pressure there >.>
However, this is a subject of great personal interest, so I handled my nerves with a big cup of Chamomile tea and got to writing, enjoy!
Disclaimer
I would like to say at this point that if anyone from CCP does read this, I hope this article doesn’t come across as too critical or harsh of something you personally feel may be a great feature and works perfectly. There are lots of great things about the EVE UI (especially after Crucible where many changes have come in and enhanced the gaming experience) and this post is merely one person’s thoughts on how to further improve them.
I suppose I should say for those who read this and wonder by the end of it “How come he never mentioned x? That totally needs fixing!” Chances are I haven’t been involved as much in that side of gaming to really pay any attention or notice it. However while these suggestions have their roots in one carebear’s gaming, many will hopefully be of interest to people who play other aspects of EVE.
What is a UI?
User Interfaces (or UI’s) have become a key part in modern day gaming, the level of interaction and control that the system gives the player has become as important as elements such as graphics and NPC Artificial Intelligence (or AI). A game with great graphics, storyline and AI can be ruined by a terrible and/or clunky interface, which the user finds overly frustrating and/or completely non rewarding.
It’s also a constantly changing and evolving element, that developers seek to improve on with every subsequent title release, or in MMO’s as future content patches are released. A personal example would to compare the UI in the classic RTS Dune 2 and compare it to the remake Dune 2000, and then compare that to a modern RTS such as Starcraft 2. Many elements improve, allowing for better control of buildings, units, the camera and other command abilities. However there is always one important constant, the interaction is still simple to learn and understand for the first time gamer. In the later games in the comparison however, for more advanced players, the UI accommodates for more manual control style gameplay.
Some games have the option to mod the UI, allowing players to change (to various degrees on game to game) not only what the UI can allow them to do, but also what it displays, how it displays it, and even the UI artwork in general. This leads to whole sub communities within a game dedicated to creating custom UI programs allowing players more choice. This is one of the things I wish CCP would do, allow giving players the chance to create custom UIs. However I can see their reasons for deciding against it, putting aside the insane amount of time and resources this would require (which can be spent far better on doing many other things to improve the game) not every game is coded to support custom modification, also it can also lead to loopholes where programs are created that go against the ToU which ruins the gameplay of others.
Freeing up space … in Space.
First point I’d like to make is that the UI in general covers far too much of the game screen. This is more of a problem on smaller screens and laptops, but still somewhat of a gripe with bigger monitors. The biggest criminals to this I feel are the chat windows, Directional Scanner and Overview. Admittedly the UI scaling option that’s come into Crucible (huge thanks for that by the way <3) has resolved this to some degree, but there are other things that can clear up screen space to see the game (which is a huge must do, now that space is 20% cooler!).
Seperate the directional scanner from the rest of the scanning UI
The D-Scanner is pretty much useful to everyone, in null and lowsec it’s an essential tool. In highsec it’s a notification that you’re going to have a ninja salvager or loot thief drop into your mission (or if you fly shiny stuff, gank fleets) or if you see a Destroyer fleet on scan, it’s time to align that Hulk out of the belt.
The scanning UI however is larger than the D-Scan requires it to be (Range/Degree and a Scan button can be fit into something the width of the minimal settings for the Overview or Cargo Hold). Separating it and allowing it to be shrunk further than the current scanning window allows it to fit better in the overall UI.
The Overview needs a sidescroll as well as a vertical scroll
Unless you have the Overview go 1/3rd of the way into your screen it’s not possible for some players to have all the information available that they require, unless you crush it into a small unreadable mush which serves little purpose. Personally when I’m gaming I want as much necessary information available to me at any one time, yet as it stands the Overview is so stretched out that it covers half the buttons on my ship modules when I fly my Noctis. (Which then means placing modules on the second bar, which then means it’s no longer a cycle of F1 to F8 unless I reconfigure my general UI every time I swap ships, which really isn’t viable.)
A simple option to cycle through various information tabs (and allowing the player to choose them and the order of appearance) would be a step in reining in the size of the Overview.
Also on a related note, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t pair the Overview with the selected target interface bar, if there are people who don’t I apologise and your the first I know of. I would like to see an option to condense this into the Overview tab, with simply the target’s name and the command buttons on a single line. Removing the graphic and border space would free up more space for a longer Overview without taking up space for other things.
Furthermore, this option could extend to the following other UI’s. Fleet watch, Drones and Cargo Bay (and the D-Scanner if you do separate the two) Removing the borders creates more window space for text and information.
The chat UI is clunky and has been for the longest time
I’m lucky to only have ten or so channels over two tabs. I’ve had several thoughts here but the concept I liked the most is being able to have a set of pre-defined chat groups that you can customise dependent on situation. All channels that aren’t in that group are hidden completely, however each channel can have a set of customised notification keywords (such as your character name or nickname) and should they flash up in a channel a red light on the chat’s top bar lights up, clicking it pops the channel which triggered the notification up. So if you’re docked up somewhere and RPing and a channel you’ve hidden suddenly requires your immediate attention, you’ll know about it.
Keybinding (Also known as push button, recieve bacon)
I’m keybind obsessive, and most of my early PvE experience in EVE was flying Drone Ships. These two things do not go together well, so I’d like to propose the following changes:
- The option to keybind the launching of specific Drone groups (further more on this point. Right clicking the “Drones in Dronebay” bar should give you a list of Drone groups as well as the generic “Launch Drones” command)
- A keybind option to set Mining Drones to mine repeatedly the current target Asteroid. Not sure why this one doesn’t already exist, and my Hulk alt would love you for it.
- Keybinds to recall individual Drones, their number going in the order they’re displayed in the “Drones in Space” UI. When a single Drone is being shot having to fiddle with the right click dropdown menus is annoying, recalling all Drones is even worse, especially when they’re Heavy Drones.
General Quality of Life suggestions
A few QoL improvements I’d really love to see:
- The option to link things in Secured Containers from the Personal Assets UI. The number of times I’ve wanted to link people RP related items that I keep in a Container just to keep my Homebase Station Hangar clean and can’t because I’m not in that Station is frustrating.
- Overheating needs to be visibly clearer, as does the amount of damage currently taken by each module. The Green light and Red ring are both on the squinty side when trying to see, especially on smaller monitors.
- I’d like alternative layout choices for the ship HUD (HP and Velocity), preferably with horizontal bars, offering larger text within the bar itself, displaying the Shield/Armour/Structure current/total amounts and the current HP in %. There are various HUD’s used for showing “health” amounts and other similar factors in various genres of gaming, I encourage CCP to try experimenting with them as the current HUD personally feels both small and ugly.
- Previewing Ship Information (such as inspecting a ship in space or on the Market) should offer you the choice of the default specs of a hull, and in brackets the specifications with the skills you’ve learned (Cap size, HP amounts, Velocity etc.)
- The LP store to save specific filters for next time you visit. I’m not sure if it’s already intended to do this as it loads a “preset” setting when I next open it, but it certainly doesn’t seem to work. Personally I use a lot of Faction Ammo, I buy or make the T1 and convert from the LP store. Having to open the ammo filter every time to save scrolling through skillbooks and implants gets tedious.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, feedback and opinions are welcome, as well as suggestions of your own from your own gaming experience.
And lastly a big thank you to Myrhial for letting me take up some of her webspace, and motivating me into writing this in the first place.
Northern Goblin.
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