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Button Creep


trombonaught

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Further to my post in Pea Super, I included some thoughts below on how to reduce some clicks in the game and make some interactions more intuitive.

 

TLDR; My humble vision would say to keep the game down to three possible player actions:

Right click to open menus/options.

Left click to execute.

Space to cancel execution.

 

1. Change the default ESC to cancel actions in cars:

Is this indicated in the game anyplace? I think it's more intuitive to hook this function to the spacebar/shove action, which is likely what 90% of players use to cancel actions outside of vehicles.

 

2. Radial menu access when in cars:

What if the vehicle action radial menu were made accessible by right clicking a car while inside of it? Pressing "V" is fine, but most of the game's interaction is "right click" or "E" as a substitute. Consistency here could keep button creep to a minimum.

 

3. Device interactions:

Similar to #2. Could devices be set so that right clicking on them opens the device menu instantly? The character would still have to walk over to execute actions, but this saves us a click. Similarly, it would be lovely if clicking outside of these menus closed them, much as context menus or pinned inventory menus close when clicke out of. Finding that tiny little close X can be life or death sometimes.

 

Anything else that could be trimmed down?

Edited by trombonaught
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4. Cooking is a clicking-marathon.

 

I never ever cook anything special in this game. Too much clicking for too little gain. I only go as far as cooking animals I trapped.

 

Having the game check a nearby vicinity (25x25 area would suffice I reckon) for cooking utensils and ingredients in containers and on the ground would be sooo much better. Also adding ingredients one by one is a nightmare that you need to get through every-single-time.

 

Someone suggested the ability to save custom cooking recipes. That with vicinity search would help to reduce the cooking hassle.

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8 hours ago, Geras said:

Having the game check a nearby vicinity (25x25 area would suffice I reckon) for cooking utensils and ingredients in containers and on the ground would be sooo much better. Also adding ingredients one by one is a nightmare that you need to get through every-single-time.

Maybe one solution could be for that 25x25 scan to be summarized in a checklist, and after selecting a dish (eg. Bowl) you could just tick off ingredient options, with options becoming greyed out if they're incompatible (eg. After clicking strawberries with bowl, carrots grey out because you can't make a fruit salad out of them).

Then you click "done" and voilà.

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I have to agree that cooking is about the most boring thing to do in PZ. I don't mind grinding, otherwise I would not be playing this game, but cooking is the worst after you 100th+ play through.

 

It would be nice if making the choice of a fruit or vegie salad that you could click on random and it just grabs what is needed. In the long run it really matters little on what you add. Some are better some worse but 99% don't care about that little extra that could be had.

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5. Turning off alarm set on a watch could be easier as well.

 

Now it's like:

- alarm rings

- open inventory

- right click watch

- click turn off alarm (and be careful not to disassemble it for parts if you have a screwdriver in main inventory)

 

How it could be:

- alarm rings

- popup window appears "clock alarm" or sth

- press space or E to turn off

Edited by Geras
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12 hours ago, Geras said:

5. Turning off alarm set on a watch could be easier as well.

 

Now it's like:

- alarm rings

- open inventory

- right click watch

- click turn off alarm (and be careful not to disassemble it for parts if you have a screwdriver in main inventory)

 

How it could be:

- alarm rings

- popup window appears "clock alarm" or sth

- press space or E to turn off

I'm not a fan of forced popups, but maybe leftclicking on the time could open the alarm screen in the same way that left clicking a mearby device opens the device interface

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5 hours ago, trombonaught said:

I'm not a fan of forced popups, but maybe leftclicking on the time could open the alarm screen in the same way that left clicking a mearby device opens the device interface

 

True, maybe the popup was not the best idea.

 

Maybe then simply pressing E or space while your alarm is set off would disable it?

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5 hours ago, Geras said:

 

True, maybe the popup was not the best idea.

 

Maybe then simply pressing E or space while your alarm is set off would disable it?

I think I'd be more for just having the alarm clock interface extend it to its logical conclusion.

 

Add a mode button. Switch to alarm. Change it there. Or, if we use the radial menus, and the alarm is going off, show me the option do turn it off there.

 

Lots of good thoughts, everyone. Keep it up. :)

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On 2018-11-06 at 4:02 AM, Geras said:

4. Cooking is a clicking-marathon.

 

I never ever cook anything special in this game. Too much clicking for too little gain. I only go as far as cooking animals I trapped.

 

Having the game check a nearby vicinity (25x25 area would suffice I reckon) for cooking utensils and ingredients in containers and on the ground would be sooo much better. Also adding ingredients one by one is a nightmare that you need to get through every-single-time.

 

Someone suggested the ability to save custom cooking recipes. That with vicinity search would help to reduce the cooking hassle.

 

agreed. saving a recipe after cooking it once and just applying it would be amazing. a dedicated cook basically spends all his time cooking

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On 11/6/2018 at 7:02 AM, Geras said:

4. Cooking is a clicking-marathon.

 

I never ever cook anything special in this game. Too much clicking for too little gain. I only go as far as cooking animals I trapped.

 

Having the game check a nearby vicinity (25x25 area would suffice I reckon) for cooking utensils and ingredients in containers and on the ground would be sooo much better. Also adding ingredients one by one is a nightmare that you need to get through every-single-time.

 

Someone suggested the ability to save custom cooking recipes. That with vicinity search would help to reduce the cooking hassle.

I agree. I love cooking and I love how much love and detail indiestone devs put into the cooking portion of the game, but It makes me really sad that it's so annoying. It needs a special GUI that shows an oven pan or cooking pot and lets you add things in while your character mixes it or something so it feels like you're really there cooking and making things is easy. I don't like that I have to find a thousand different pots and pans just to cook different things, bowls too. maybe make those items "fake" items so you collect them once and then you automatically "have this- upgrade/type of pot" as needed from them on until you die? that way you can just "COOK" and be making whatever you want right away. I love the idea of can opener though, which makes sense and feels fun.

 

I don't like how cooking so so complicated because I have to somehow know all these complicated secret ways of moving things around my inventory to just make something I could easily make if I was actually standing there. it's click-hell to be honest. my hands hurt to make any recipe in PZ. I love the ingredients and the creativity and the detail though. I would love to be able to make a fully custom pie or stew where I just throw in whatever the !@#$% I want haha just make some awesome stew or something.


Have no cheese? Custom cheese recipe. Uhhh... let me see grab some avocado and put some nutritional yeast and uhh other stuff? throw it all together and force the game to accept your special cheese as "Cheese" and make a pizza even if all the cheese in the game rotted away years ago. vegans do this all the time. pizza recipe is great to have in game, but you can't really grow your own wheat or cows, only tomato. so how do you make pizza? never again?

 

I get very sad when games get dumbed down, but this needs to be severely simplified, without ruining the detail and dumbing it down. if only to make my hands hurt less.

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On 11/8/2018 at 8:20 AM, Geras said:

5. Turning off alarm set on a watch could be easier as well.

 

Now it's like:

- alarm rings

- open inventory

- right click watch

- click turn off alarm (and be careful not to disassemble it for parts if you have a screwdriver in main inventory)

 

How it could be:

- alarm rings

- popup window appears "clock alarm" or sth

- press space or E to turn off

I'm disappointed I can't just hit any alarm clock with a baseball bat or axe and smash it to pieces. I have died from zombies hearing a rogue clock go off so many times I RAGE

Edited by bobthejob
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