I'm in the middle of the Lucy OpenDev and am greatly enjoying. I have a bunch of nitpicks over unclear concepts and UI but I'll leave that to others. My only main comment that's really hindering my enjoyment of this game is that the map is visually overwhelming. I feel like I am looking at a Magic Eye. The landscape is blanketed in tiny little details I cannot easily find where my city, units, or districts are (I later learned you can toggle something to see the districts).  I can't tell where anything is. And I still cannot tell easily whether something is 1 level higher or 2 levels higher so I cannot easily plan out how a unit is going to move. 

The only way I can play this game right now without getting a headache is if I zoom out to the point where everything is gray and all you see are the basic icons. But then it is extraordinarily drab and depressing. So I'm basically zooming in and out repeatedly during the game.

The other problem is that I cannot easily tell what's my territory and what's not my territory. I'm squinting to trace the borders to see what starts and stops. It's maddening.

I vaguely recall that the look is a lot like Endless Legend but for some reason I don't recall having this much visual difficulty with Endless Legend. Then again, I've gotten a lot older! (I'm 40 now.)

Contrast this with Civ VI, where, for the most part, it is pretty clear where things are and what they are. Please help!

I second this. This is common problem with Amplitude games and one of the reasons I could never get into Endless Legend as much as I wanted. Humankind is certainly visually cleaner, but there are still too many high-contrast details on the map. On my first playthrough yesterday I have put an outpost in the wrong region twice - because I didn’t properly see where the borders are. 

Me too. There's a unnecessary need to zoom in zoom out. Border is not clear since territory is in random shape. This is both for our own territory and our and neighboring civ.

Elevation is also not clear. Movement in exploring is hard to predict since i can't see the cliff especially when the lower elevation is the northern-side. On combat i can't see hills clearly so i need to zoom in or else i get wrong combat bonuses.

City view is full with info but not intuitive. Thank god i played Endless Legend and Space so I know where to look but i imagine it's hard for new players.

For a clear UI reference, i would say Civilization series and Stellaris are good examples. Stellaris has a lot of info but still can put all of them in nice uncluttered way, but it is of a bit different genre. Civ is a simpler game than humankind but they have their UI well developed aside from color scheme.

yep they said it all :D

Upvote the idea if you agree :)

There is a reason NATO uses abstract symbols in military maps if they are actually fighting a war: they deliver the most information immediately that is relevant to responding to the situation.

This is a lesson that seems to fall on deaf ears with every strategy game I have played in the past 5-10 years -- they use "photographic" realism for the wow factor in a way that makes the actual important information extremely difficult to digest.

It's not that complicated, just look at some reproductions of NATO military maps as they are used in the real world, tweak the look for the setting of the game to up the immersion but in a way that doesn't massively hinder digesting the necessary strategic information, etc.

I feel the same, there's something about it that really kind-of makes me dizzy. It's too much and the zooming effect makes it even worse, plus it looks kinda shitty with just a bland grey layer on top. And it particularly make me feel unconfortable when you engage in a battle, you get this horrible VERY neutral grey on top of everything and its supposedly meant to make the terrain more readable but actually i find it makes it even harder to read particularlly the height of the terrain. I very much hope this gets addressed because it really detracts from the experience. When it comes to UI, everything is very neat and is readable but It has this very prototype feel. I hope that the devs add a touch more flare and possibly consider making the background gradient a bit darker giving it more contrast. 

Agreed, I also felt that on Endless Legend. There was an improvement by adding resource icons at least, but an "Strategic View" alternate UI is necessary in this game.

I had this problem with EL, but so far haven’t with Humankind. The exception is borders - those could be a bit more clear. 

mqpiffle wrote:
1) 360 degree rotation camera.

That would be interesting actually, I play Cities:Skylines and having the ability to do that is very intuitive, it would be interesting on a 4X game perhaps - *Upvote* :)

Maybe they should just as an experiment exaggerating the elevation levels like crazy, maybe by 3x and 4x, just to see how it looks. I'd turn that mode on in a heartbeat even if it looks ridiculous. 

Wolvski wrote:
And it particularly make me feel unconfortable when you engage in a battle, you get this horrible VERY neutral grey on top of everything

Interesting, I thought at first that it would be awful to do this, when devs spent so much time on creating this beautiful, lush world, but, in a couple of battles I played, I found it not bothering me in the slightest and actually helping to focus on the action. Much less intrusive and much more helpful than I anticipated, to be honest.

Just have a toggle overlay the color coats elevations.

Rotating map would be great to see elevation/cliff. Not necessary 360° but enough to see from different angle

Part of my wants to say that I agree because this is objectively true, but the other part really loves how beautiful and detailed the map is. I've found that I either zoom in REALLY close, or am zoomed out REALLY far away depending upon the situation in order to solve this for myself. 

A couple of notes about visuals though that definitely need to be addressed:

-The territory borders need to be much darker and more obvious

-The battle zone grayness needs to go. That's been a consisten piece of feedback since the first OpenDev, I'm surprised it's still being used. If anything, gray out the whole world that isn't involved in the battle and light the battle up as normal. 

-Without reducing the scale of the UI in the settings, the UI takes up way too much room on the screen, and the city production UI is huge in areas that aren't significant while sacrificing space that could be used to present more production options

I wholeheartedly agree. 

I agree too. I also found this a problem with EL but somehow find that it is worse in humankind.

I am starting to get used to it (with the exception of the borders issues which we have all agreed is a mess). And I've learned now to hold down the right click when moving units to look at the pathway before just clicking. I still have to zoom out and zoom in a lot though which is tiresome, and I still hate how the influence and religion views zoom out and force you to zoom back in.

If they are finding trouble finding a balance, why don't they just make an "old people mode" where the units and cities are like gigantic and bright and the topographical differences exaggerated by 200%? LOL joking not joking

I agree with the border issue. Maybe if they had system like in EL where the territory is shaded in color of the empire (could even be a toggle on/off thing at the higher levels of the map)

Hmm this is tough, it's a solid point but I wouldn't want the map to be less artistically gorgeous.  I would suggest overlays that we can toggle, that leaves the style of the map in the player preferences instead of changing the map for everyone.  I have trouble seeing borders sometimes but the map overall I really enjoy.  I also play with tile yield and district overlays always on though, that helped me a ton.