No offense, "Scumbag509",
But that's utter nonsense.
Plenty of other games are not clear about htings, it's just what people are used to. They aren't "correct" any more than I'm "correct". We aren't debating facts. We are debating preferences.
Different people have different ideas on how a computer game's economic system should work. There is no single "Correct" one.
There are plenty of people who have posted over the months that the only "correct" design is the one that mimics their favorite game, be that MOO, CIV, STARS, whatever.
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I'm confused here. Are you arguing that unintended obfuscation of the game's mechanics and inaccurate information being presented to the player is somehow a good thing or that it's somehow a matter of opinion? How can this
ever be up for debate? If at any time a game is unclear, confusing, or flat out presenting wrong information, it's a poor design choice and needs to be changed.
What he's arguing is that he believes the game is not presenting information appropriately/accurately/concisely to the player, not that Galciv's system is 'not right' in comparison to another game. He's using the comparison of another game to illustrate a point about clarity.
Perhaps I missed several unclear aspects of some other games, but I've never had any difficulty understanding that building/project X produces such and such effect in Civ1/2/3/4, MoO1/2/3, etc, so I'd like to hear what unclear aspects of other games you refer to here. The problem with Galciv is that what's being presented to the player says one thing, but the result can be ENTIRELY different, but what makes it worse, is there is no consistancy in it's application. Sometimes an effect is a direct percentage, other times it's applied as a secondary variable after an initial calculation (which we aren't privvy to), and yet others it appears wildly random.
Couple this with the myriad of presentation errors with regards to data such as build times being different within different screens for the same project/building, as well as screen data refreshing being haphazaard, and the player is left with the sensation of not just being confused, but not knowing whether they can trust or believe what they're seeing being presented to them as accurate.
The issue isn't whether the system is complex (it isn't complex), the issue is clarity and precision. There will always be elements which are going to be fuzzy for the player, especially when you get down into some of the complex interactions of formulae, which is simply unavoidable and we understand that. The design decision that must be made is at what level do you draw the line of acceptable clarity, and many people are trying to tell you that such a level of fuzziness should never be at the surface layer for the player.
At the very least, there needs to be a revamp of descriptions so that effects are adequately explained. I realize that's something of a large undertaking at this stage of the 'game', but when after playing Galciv2 for over 30-40 hours in multiple scenarios and I STILL don't know if adding a Multimedia Center is going to give me a 30% morale boost to the base morale or that it's going to be an adjusted percentage before or after other percentages, it speaks volumes on the clarity of information being presented to the player. Not because it's complex and I'm just ignorant of how the game is calculating things, but because there's not enough discernible consistancy in the presentation, making gleaning such information almost impossible, especially when the result can come out drastically different in (what would appear to be) identical situations.
I'm not saying that X game does it better, nor am I saying "THIS is how you should do it", in fact, I honestly don't know HOW you can do it. All I'm saying is that the game is simply not clear and precise enough. Whether that's a product of overly complex methods of trying to implement game aspects, or perhaps poor decisions on how to handle presentation elements, the problem needs to be addressed and acknowledged first, before any possible solution can be considered let alone accomplished.
I realize this is your baby, and you've invested a LOT of yourself in it, but that shouldn't sway your defensive mechanism to automatically dismiss something as fundamental as clarity to the player just because you feel protective of your work. It's the mark of a great engineer/programmer to realize when something just isn't working, no matter the man hours already spent on it.
And lastly, if you REALLY want to improve things about the game, start with the very beginning. Revamp the UI,
PLEASE. I'm not talking about widgets and screens and such, I'm referring primarily to the input/control schematics of the UI. I realize you didn't ask for this and that this thread is primarily geared towards improving commerce and economics, but before you can even begin considering higher level adjustments/refinements, you need to address the fundamental shortcomings first, which is the UI. As it is right now, it's WAY too mouse task intensive. Simple suggestions to make the game more UI intuitive:
1. Fix the ESC functionality to act as the manual states, by backing out of the top most screen and then successive screens until you reach the base layer, before bringing up the menu screen.
2. Allow map scrolling with the arrow keys, while allowing ship control with the keypad.
3. Change all the scroll title items with drop down menus.
4. Implement a key activated tooltip to allow the player to trigger a tooltip on demand rather than having to hover.
5. Revamp data information refreshing so that it's immediate rather than requiring some form of action on the player's part to initiate the refresh.
6. Change the scrollwheel behaviour so that scrolling takes place over the appropriate window rather than just the scrollbars.
7. Add custom key triggered pan/tilt functionality instead of/as well as the middle mouse button.
8. Have automated units move at the start of the turn, rather than after the current turn, or at least have some way to force the unit to move to the predefined destination manually without having to click the destination again (say via a 'Continue Move' command/key).
9. Display unit path to destination as well as displaying move requirement to reach destination, ideally with colour coding to indicate how far the unit would travel this turn, next turn, and more than two turns (ie. green, yellow, red).
10. When tabbing from unit to unit, also cycle through units with destinations (ie. as long as they have moves remaining, Tab should include them in the cycle).
11. Add arrow key functionality in the planet view to scroll through planets. Also, add arrow key functionality to any screen which has multiple tabs.
12. Allow clicking the entire large box instead of the tiny icon to select planetary production focus.
13. Give the option to disable auto centering on unit selection.
14. Assign Enter to have a confirmation action on any screen that asks a yes/no type question, as well as acting in the same fashion as ESC on screens without a confirmation dialogue.
There's much more, but those are the ones that I can think of, off the top of my head. Hope you'll at least consider them, as the game right now is actually causing some minor fatigue in my arm believe it or not
Jebus
