by GFD » Fri May 18, 2018 10:03 pm
Yes, while I haven't made a post about it yet, this is actually one of the changes I've already made locally, for the same reasons. I realized it ended up being more confusing without the distinction between "level" and "map" (something I realized while using the 'map' CCMD and being like "hmm, hold up").
Gez wrote:GFD wrote:"Dead players lose" does not currently function, but would be a lot less confusing to use than the current system of 7 separate menu items for controlling what's lost upon death.
You could have a "Player lose upon dying" header with the items grouped below.
The problem is that, from what I can tell, with 7 options there are 128 possible combinations, but only 48 of them aren't redundant. Many combinations also seem very unlikely to be used, so I thought the best solution might be to just give a couple "presets".
It could still work well as you said, with all the options under a header to offer more flexibility. It's not like there's a whole lot else in my "Cooperative Options" menu anyway. But I'd need more clarity on how exactly all these options actually work, since they seem pretty confusing as they are.
- Wouldn't "lose entire inventory" make every other option have no effect at all? In which case, why not leave it out and let this functionality be accomplished by setting all the other "keep" options to "no"?
- Does having "keep ammo" off make "lose half ammo" have no effect? In this case, they should become a single option, perhaps "keep ammo" with settings like "yes", "only half", and "no".
- Does "keep powerups" even do anything...? Stuff like invisibility or berserk seem to reset as soon as the player dies anyway, so I don't know what this is meant to do.
Gez wrote:GFD wrote:- the "advanced options", "midi player options", "module replayer options", and "reverb environment editor" submenus are all things that would go straight over the heads of most users.
Then they don't need to enter these menus.
The whole idea is to offer a version of the menus with reduced complexity. Leaving these submenu entries intact means the user has to scan over more items to find the ones they want, and makes the menu more imposing/intimidating, while not offering enough benefit for non-power users.
Of course, one approach to this whole thing would be to have an "advanced options" menu at the bottom of every single "simplified" menu. I went with the idea of having a global toggle between "simple" and "advanced" to more easily preserve the current option menu structure for users more familiar with it, and reduce unnecessary navigations for power users. You could have it both ways, though, by keeping the global toggle while adding an "advanced options" shortcut to the bottom of simple options menus that have an advanced counterpart. With the way my simple menus have been restructured, though, not every simple menu has a direct advanced counterpart now.
Gez wrote:GFD wrote:[*]"icon's death kills its spawn" is very niche and also uh doom 2 spoiler warning much????
[*]"end sector counts for kill %", [...] are pretty niche.
Perfectionists like to have those.
Wouldn't these perfectionists be the sorts of power users accustomed to the inner workings Doom engine that would be using the advanced menus anyway?
Graf Zahl wrote:How often have we seen that somebody 'optimized' their product by dumbing down the user interface and in the process the old power users lost their flexibility.
Again, my vision is to preserve the existing menu structure separately for power users like you and me. They can completely ignore this simplified version I'm building for less advanced users. I don't see any downside to offering this as an optional option.
[quote="Gez"]I strongly disagree with this. Automap isn't confusing. Map, however, is confusing because it's a synonym for level. I mean, we have the MAPINFO lump and all.
[url=https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Automap]Automap is what it's called in Doom[/url] and [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-map#Automap]other games[/url].[/quote]Yes, while I haven't made a post about it yet, this is actually one of the changes I've already made locally, for the same reasons. I realized it ended up being more confusing without the distinction between "level" and "map" (something I realized while using the 'map' CCMD and being like "hmm, hold up").
[quote="Gez"][quote="GFD"]"Dead players lose" does not currently function, but would be a lot less confusing to use than the current system of 7 separate menu items for controlling what's lost upon death.[/quote]You could have a "Player lose upon dying" header with the items grouped below.[/quote]The problem is that, from what I can tell, with 7 options there are 128 possible combinations, but only 48 of them aren't redundant. Many combinations also seem very unlikely to be used, so I thought the best solution might be to just give a couple "presets".
It could still work well as you said, with all the options under a header to offer more flexibility. It's not like there's a whole lot else in my "Cooperative Options" menu anyway. But I'd need more clarity on how exactly all these options actually work, since they seem pretty confusing as they are.[list][*]Wouldn't "lose entire inventory" make every other option have no effect at all? In which case, why not leave it out and let this functionality be accomplished by setting all the other "keep" options to "no"?
[*]Does having "keep ammo" off make "lose half ammo" have no effect? In this case, they should become a single option, perhaps "keep ammo" with settings like "yes", "only half", and "no".
[*]Does "keep powerups" even do anything...? Stuff like invisibility or berserk seem to reset as soon as the player dies anyway, so I don't know what this is meant to do.[/list]
[quote="Gez"][quote="GFD"][list][*]the "advanced options", "midi player options", "module replayer options", and "reverb environment editor" submenus are all things that would go straight over the heads of most users.[/list][/quote]Then they don't need to enter these menus.[/quote]The whole idea is to offer a version of the menus with reduced complexity. Leaving these submenu entries intact means the user has to scan over more items to find the ones they want, and makes the menu more imposing/intimidating, while not offering enough benefit for non-power users.
Of course, one approach to this whole thing would be to have an "advanced options" menu at the bottom of every single "simplified" menu. I went with the idea of having a global toggle between "simple" and "advanced" to more easily preserve the current option menu structure for users more familiar with it, and reduce unnecessary navigations for power users. You could have it both ways, though, by keeping the global toggle while adding an "advanced options" shortcut to the bottom of simple options menus that have an advanced counterpart. With the way my simple menus have been restructured, though, not every simple menu has a direct advanced counterpart now.
[quote="Gez"][quote="GFD"][*]"icon's death kills its spawn" is very niche and also uh doom 2 spoiler warning much????
[*]"end sector counts for kill %", [...] are pretty niche.[/quote]
Perfectionists like to have those.[/quote]Wouldn't these perfectionists be the sorts of power users accustomed to the inner workings Doom engine that would be using the advanced menus anyway?
[quote="Graf Zahl"]How often have we seen that somebody 'optimized' their product by dumbing down the user interface and in the process the old power users lost their flexibility.[/quote]Again, my vision is to preserve the existing menu structure separately for power users like you and me. They can completely ignore this simplified version I'm building for less advanced users. I don't see any downside to offering this as an optional option.