Just take a look at this two pictures. When equipping an eneqa wing, you look at the weapons and just scrolling the cursor over them, you can easily compare and have an idea of the difference, making your choose quick.

When you look at the armours is all mixed: helmets, boots, armours. After some gameplays I know what to look for, as I made my ideal composition for units of factions I use more often. But for factions I din't play often, or may be first time you get into the game, after researching new metals, all gets a bit confusing.



I have three possible suggestions to make it easier:



- More specific filters, like boots/armours/... instead of a mix of different elements.

- Put an Endlesspaedia section. Ideally with tables comparing the different items in a comprehensive way.

- A link to Endless Wikia (although I would prefer avoid this one, because I play almost always offline, and suspect I'm not the only one).

You know, even just organizing by material rather than slot would go a long ways.

lo_fabre wrote:
More specific filters, like boots/armours/... instead of a mix of different elements.

natev wrote:
You know, even just organizing by material rather than slot would go a long ways.

Yes, this is something that is becoming a concern as we add more and more items. We're not entirely sure how to fit it into the interface though, and since nice interfaces are kind of our thing adding more UI elements is never taken lightly. If you guys and girls have any specific suggestions we're all ears

Well, for me the idea is simple, the qüestion you're asking whan comparing weapons is: what is the best material for my (sword, cuirass, or what you're looking)?

Making more specific filters will make it easier. If when you clic over the sword icon it deploys a menu with a filter for all weapons that this unit can equip and allow you to choos only swords or claymores as example, then you can compare easily the value for each material for the same icon, just scrolling the cursor over it.

If someone has a doubt about what weapon is better, you can just put a filter by material.



And of course have a comparative table somwhere will be a lot useful if you're new to this game and don't have a planned strategy.



Said before, but I think you only have this ways.



Happy to see it in next patch or DLC (even if I have to purchase)

My suggestion would be to have a tooltip which shows the DELTAS between the currently equipped item and the one I'm looking at.

This way I can easily see what I'm trading (e.g. some extra attack for some initiative).

wilbefast wrote:
Yes, this is something that is becoming a concern as we add more and more items. We're not entirely sure how to fit it into the interface though, and nice interfaces are kind of our thing adding things is never taken lightly. If you guys and girls have any specific suggestions we're all ears

I'm not sure if you're looking for suggestions that could be generalized, ambitious suggestions, or easily implemented suggestions.



Generalizable suggestions are hard to come by; making ideal interface depends on game specifics. For instance, ES probably had the most easily navigated interface of any 4x I've ever played, but those same techniques used in EL frequently don't work, because it's a different game with different specifics.



However, consider how the tech selection screen works: everything is in a consistent location, regardless of how the game has progressed; all options are shown and relatively easily found by scrolling and zooming; it's unnecessary to click on any tiny sliders or buttons, nor is it necessary to do any precision dragging or any double clicking. This is an example of a good interface that could be generalized to more systems.



If you're looking for the most ambitious suggestions, then consider that the retrofit system itself is one of these things that was imported from ES and doesn't work well for EL. It leads to a lot of repeated data entry, difficult to access information, and Endless Templates.



If you're looking for simple suggestions, then organizing the armor lists by slot -> tier -> material would simplify finding relevant options. As an example, the list might be in this order:



Dust Curaiss 3, Dust Helmet 3, Adamantium Cuirass 1, Adamantium Helmet 1, Iron Cuirass 2, Iron Helmet 2



This puts the most likely choices (strat-free, current tier) at the top, and puts choices likely to be chosen together next to each other.



As a further idea, if you made the number of columns in the selection box equal to the number of slots (which depends on the particular unit being modified), then it would further ease finding the option desired-- in this case, the cuirass would always be on the left margin, the helmet on the right margin. If you were to make the number of columns equal to the number of slots times 2 (4, in this case, but 6 in others), it would still make it easier to find the relevant option, helmets would always be in the second or fourth column.



The accessory window wouldn't benefit as much from this as armor or weapons would-- maybe not at all. But it wouldn't hurt either.

My suggestion would be to have a tooltip which shows the DELTAS between the currently equipped item and the one I'm looking at.

This way I can easily see what I'm trading (e.g. some extra attack for some initiative).

As a further idea, if you made the number of columns in the selection box equal to the number of slots (which depends on the particular unit being modified), then it would further ease finding the option desired-- in this case, the cuirass would always be on the left margin, the helmet on the right margin. If you were to make the number of columns equal to the number of slots times 2 (4, in this case, but 6 in others), it would still make it easier to find the relevant option, helmets would always be in the second or fourth column.

+1 to icarus86 and natev

wilbefast wrote:
Yes, this is something that is becoming a concern as we add more and more items. We're not entirely sure how to fit it into the interface though, and nice interfaces are kind of our thing adding things is never taken lightly. If you guys and girls have any specific suggestions we're all ears

I think that adding a feature to save template would solve most of the problems about equipement management.



Templates need to be saved between games, been auto upgraped too.

May be this picture is the way for an improvement on items management:







Moving your cursor up and down you can compare item values and abilities, and moving left-right you can compare the values of different materials for the same item.

I understand that in this picture there are only three items (two if you think that the one-handed hammer is always with the shield) and only four materials, but maybe making a deployable bigger square for items or just taking a bit of the unit image space, you'll have enough room to achieve a similar distribution for items, and make it easily comparable.



Just an image of natev proposition.

icarus86 wrote:
My suggestion would be to have a tooltip which shows the DELTAS between the currently equipped item and the one I'm looking at.

This way I can easily see what I'm trading (e.g. some extra attack for some initiative).

This definitely corresponds to how I shop for equipment--select a "baseline" option, then try to figure out what the deltas are between that and another option. If hovering over an item (or maybe clicking it once) showed a bunch of +/- modifiers in the main unit stat display (including for cost), that would greatly simplify things for me.



Currently, even when the units I want to compare are next to each other in the list, comparing them can be difficult because they each boost 3 different stats, and not necessarily the same stats, so I have to look back and forth several times to make sure that the second number on item A really corresponds to the second number on item B.

natev wrote:
If you're looking for the most ambitious suggestions, then consider that the retrofit system itself is one of these things that was imported from ES and doesn't work well for EL. It leads to a lot of repeated data entry, difficult to access information, and Endless Templates.

I've always wanted an option to retrofit my unit into ANY template based on the same underlying unit type, rather than only into new versions of the same template. I have the de facto ability to do this anyway (edit that unit's template to whatever gear I want, retrofit, then edit it back), but it's hugely cumbersome, and then I need to keep track of the fact that "unitname 7" and "unitname 8" actually have wildly different gear and design goals. It would be much easier if I could make a few templates optimized for different things (offense, defense, scouting, different strategic resources...) with clear names and consistent philosophies, and then have the same unit retrofit back and forth between them.