Black Market Blues

Or, "How I haven't yet learned to stop worrying and love the F3"

from Sins Forums
Okay, so my biggest complaint so far -- and it's a testament to the great work you guys at Ironclad have done that this is my biggest complaint so far! -- is everything tucked behind the F3 key. Bounty and the black market are both really cool features. The black market is very much like the typical market function in other RTSs, but with the twist that you can put up resources for other players to buy. The bounty is a great bit of innovation, and I can't think of any counterpart in other RTSs.

However, both features are buried behind -- and I'm going to be candid here -- an absolutely wretched F3 screen. It's a big fat waste of screen real estate that gets all up in my face and shuts me out of the rest of the game. You guys at Ironclad have done a truly stellar job making use of the screen real estate, so what's the deal with this eyesore? I understand that the tech tree needs to jump out at me. That's a given. It's a big slab of techs and I need to see how they relate to each other. But the black market is a huge PITA when I can do nearly everything else -- build up a planets, divert my fleets, and even manage battles -- without pulling my focus from whatever I'm looking at.

The market stuff needs to sit discreetly on the main screen somewhere. A game like Age of Empires III has the exchange of goods tied to a building, so the interface sits in the main panel when you select that building. But you can hotkey the market and sell food and wood to your heart's content while managing a battle. Even better, Rise of Nations has the market stuff in the upper left hand corner. It's a set of simple buttons you press, each listing the price to buy or sell a given good.

I'm surprised Sins doesn't have some way to let me buy and sell goods without having to press F3 and then maybe tab past a giant useless picture of a scowling pirate. What's worse, I've totally lost track of whatever it is I need to buy or build, which is why I was going to the black market in the first place. While I'm in the F3 screen, I can't interact with the empire tree or the action panel. In fact, most of the time, I don't bother with the black market because I've forgotten about it. I haven't seen how the player-posted goods work, but I can't imagine it's a very effective game feature if it relies on us periodically leaving the game to visit the F3 screen. If metal or crystals have been posted for sale, that deserves some prominent placement on the game screen.

Similarly, I love the idea of last-minute bounty bidding, but it sucks that you have to leave the game and go to F3 to play. C'mon, Ironclad, you guys should know better. Sins shows every sign of being carefully streamlined and lovingly honed over the course of its long beta. The features tucked onto the F3 screen deserve better!

So there's my two peeved cents. But I only whinge because I care.

-Tom
61,335 views 42 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Despite having not played the game I must agree with the poster. I absolutely love the basic idea of the black market, to the point that I would prefer it over the more common market mechanic found in those RTS that use it. Similarly, I think the bounty system is a great addition, especially as tied in with the pirate game mechanic. All that aside, though, I think that these systems need to be pretty easily accessible. I suspect that people will be deterred from using the black market by the simple fact that one usually makes decisions based on how much resources one has on hand and does not want to open up a screen to check whats available on the market before making every decision. In the early game, I don't expect most players will have the credits to throw around at the market and so won't bother checking it, and in the mid-to-late game player attention is, in any game, a valuable resource not to be squandered on anything. perhaps something like the empire tree would be in order, providing the player with a basic idea of what's available in the market at all times with the option to expand and show more detailed information without obscuring the screen entirely?
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
it doesn't even give a global message when somebody puts something up for sale?

You have to remember to check that screen constantly if you wnat to particpate in the black market? Sounds a little sketchy to me. The RoN system was the best.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Tom, and I dont mean to be argumentative, but I think your analysis forgets one simple point:
buttons on the mainscreen are there for flash or repeated, common use. if you think "damn, I need to buff my shields" you hit the appropriate buttons, need frigates? pump them out.

the black market and the bounties are not at all related to that whatsover, those are periodic events in which you have a planned idea of what you need (200 crystal, bounty on Hack, sell most of my metal stash) and you make the appropriate clicks within 5 seconds of pulling up the screen, then you're outta there. If you need to gather more info you do so, but thats rare.

if you were to needlessly clutter the main bar with all that important info you would be BURIED under half a screen of crap. part of what makes sins's streamlining impressive is that whats nescessary is at your hands, but only whats necessary. its simply neither feasible nor managable to move such a massive ammount of info down to where its not going to be used very commonly anyway.

to put it simply: its very important information, but its used very scarcely, and it takes up a huge amount of space. keeping it in a seperate window is a good idea because it makes sure you can access it when nescessary, but wont have to bother with it otherwise.

Besides, I think you'll find that if you continue playing sins you barely glance at that screen. you open it, click on it once, and then drop it like a bad habit. after a time you know where and what you have to look at and click on then you dont bother with staring at it anymore.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Schod, thanks for the reply, but I couldn't disagree more. RTSs are primarily about economy, and if Ironclad wants the Black Market to be an element of the economy, they need to make it convenient and easily accessible. That goes for the information about goods, as well as the process to buy and sell those goods.

You're grossly overstating the situation when you talk about a "massive amount of info". As I mentioned in my initial post, Rise of Nations is a good model for how it could work. There's a lot of Rise of Nations in Sins, so I don't see any reason the market interface couldn't also make an appearance.

You also mention that the Black Market and Bounty are used scarcely, but I would argue that's largely because they're so freakin' inconvenient! The Black Market can actually be a very important part of the early game. Ask anyone who invests early in an ice planet to convert a glut of crystal into cash or metal. Ask anyone who needs to jigger his resource just so in order to afford a particular building or tech.

Also, bounty bidding would be a bigger part of the game -- as it deserves to be! -- if it were more easily accessible. Imagine being able to see bids real time, as they occur. Imagine the temptation to click away a handful of credit if you didn't have to park on the F3 screen to do it. Imagine constantly seeing the totals listed as the pirate clock ticks down. Imagine watching that bounty tick down and knowing someone's taking a beating!

What I suspect happened is that these features were folded into the game later in the development process, and were therefore shoved inelegantly onto a separate screen. In a lesser game, I wouldn't mind so much. But Sins is so sweetly sleek that the F3 screen sticks out like a sore thumb.

Ironclad has talked about how moddable Sins is, and I hope that goes for the interface. Because if they're not going to address the F3 screen, hopefully some enterprising modder can do it for them. :)

-Tom
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Tom I'll be frank with you. you have the gamma, so you know more about its precise layout, however I've been here since beta 1 and have gotten very cozy with the current system, so for all I know we may be talking on two completely seperate levels of two completely different menus.

however I would seriously disagree if you were to tell me that these features were ever impeded because the use is in another screen. I've seen battles where the bounty swells up into thousands of credits within the first 10 minutes, and hits tens of thousands by midgame! (admittedly we dont have the timer yet, so I havent experienced that sort of rush, but I look forward to it :d)

black market is more or less an as-appropriate thing. if you are constantly selling and buying off you're making a bad investment as money goes into the nice sinkhole that is middleman transaction ;) . if someone makes their investment in an eclectic planet I still doubt the time they would spend inside the menu would exceed half a minute within the early game.

I have played rise of nations, and I would contend that the system is slightly less complex than Sins's, and that given the condition of Sins's current layout those buttons wouldnt be nearly as neat or discrete as in RoN.

finally, and i think this is the kicker: I tend to discretely segment my time, I rarely if ever go into blackmarket while I'm micro-intensively handling a battle or zoom in on a battle when I'm planning upgrades for my planets. going in and out of one menu is less disorienting to me than going between two consecutive planets.

I know it takes some getting used to, but its in my own personal opinion that taking something that has uses as eclectic the black market and bounty board and putting them where they would clog other functions, or worse, replace more important functions would be unhelpful and at the very least, mildly irritating.
(think of how much space the pirate bar would be! even baring the visuals and the timer it would have to accomodate 10 decently sized buttons with big, clear numbers that range into 5 digits!)

maybe its just a matter of preference, but this is my own personal belief on the issue. obviously its not optimal, but until we all have 30" computer monitors I dont think it can be handled

Edit: as for your modding concerns, I'm sure the interface will be adjustable.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
*eats popcorn*
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
[I] have gotten very cozy with the current system


I rest my case. :)

-Tom

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Oh this is a complicated one and while I know not everyone is going to like the design, we did give it the same level of attention and love that everything else got. The best defense I can think of is Sins is streamlined because we spent a lot of time debating, testing, and seeking feedback on what needed to be shown when, where, and how. Those screens just didn't meet our criteria for main view prominency. The result was emergeant from these primary considerations, feedback, symmetry, immersion, future planning, real-estate and usage frequency.

Our general UI philosophy is that if doesn't tie into the main view, it doesn't get shown on the main view unless absolutely neccessary. Therefore, research, diplomacy, pirates, and market are skewed towards not being shown on the main view. Next, there are other planned "Underground" screens and they will be placed into the same system. There definately won't be room for those on the main view too. The scowling pirate does serve a purpose :) -> We also wanted to keep the screens immersive so there is nice picture of some shady dealings in the alley, a cool graph showing the rise and fall of prices (which is also useful for gameplay) and a scary looking pirate character that also suggests you are dealing with him ala the diplomacy screen (more symmetry). Whenever possible we want to show the "who". As a hardcore rts gamer myself I don't care about these when I'm playing as I just want the quickest, most efficient way to do something but I recognize these elements are important to a lot of other people.

Next, the frequency of usage of these screens is generally rather low based on our playtesting and beta feedback and I don't remember too many requests to have them on the main view (Edit: after reading the posts that occured while I was typing, this could be infact due to them being too inaccessible). Certainly the pirate screen doesn't need to be up much at all since the raid frequency isn't that high (~10-15 minutes). If you do need to be in any F-button screen, the appropriate button will flash or change state in some way drawing your attention to it (in particular the pirate and research screen - which actually has several different states). There is no need to draw your attention into the market screen for player sold resources because this will automatically be handled when you decide to buy resources - the system is smart enough to buy from the lowest seller. Finally, there is simply too much information to be shown (esp at 1024x768). We did used to have the market info on the main view but at the default resolution it was just to cluttered with numbers. There is no hope of showing all the pirate info.

So there is a quick summary of the points against moving them into the main view and you've already pointed out the advantages of having them in the main view. So what would be an improvement? 

Pirates/Bounty:
I can't think of an easy way to show all the pirate info - you would need to show at the very minimum 10 seperate buttons and bounty amounts. Even if we could I would still say that something you should only *have* to interact with every ~10-15 minutes shouldn't clutter the main view at all.

Black Market:
I think this deserves a bit of improvement as for some players this could be a more common operation and a little rule breaking might help out. I would still keep the main Black Market screen but perhaps add a user interface option that places 4 small buy/sell/buy/sell buttons somewhere on the main view (ala Rise of Nations or our previous implementation). This wouldn't be all the information but it would be enough for the most common activities. Alternatively, or in conjunction with this, we should set up hot keys for buying and selling.

Just like in beta, Sins development will continue to roll and will be based everyone's feedback - if anyone has cool ideas on how to make these screens better, just type away and we'll see what we can do to make it happen :)

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I'm defently going to be a pirate when I get the game in the mail.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Blair, thanks for the comments! That's some nice director's commentary.

As a hardcore RTSer, I guess I'm using Rise of Nations as my model for how it lets the user decide how much info he wants on the main screen. For instance, you can set up a variety of lists in the lower left corner and F12 through them. I'm imagining something like that for the bounty. But it's ultimately a minor issue. And good point about the glow effect on those screens. To Sin's credit, it does give a last minute warning before the pirates make their choice. And I was delighted to find that I could see progress on research as well as my queued techs in the tooltip for the research button. You guys made great use of those infocards!

The main issue for me is that sometimes I want to build something quickly and I just want to dash off a hundred credits for however much metal or crystal that will get me, or vice versa. The F3 screen comes between me and the game at that point, blocking the view and locking me out of any other interaction. I feel this marginalizes the Black Market* and it hurts the flow of gameplay. BTW, this is partly because you guys have done such a great job of maintaining that flow (You have only yourselves to blame!).

Anyway, thanks for the comments. You guys will make my day if Black Market buttons find their way back onto the main screen. I'll come out there to Ironclad and personally wash each and every one of your cars**!

-Tom

* To be fair, I shouldn't single you guys out for this. Market buying/selling is kind of a poweruser tactic in RTSs, and it's traditionally been buried in the interface. Which keeps it a poweruser tactic by making it effectively invisible to casual players...

** Offer not valid in some states.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks for the great feedback - you've already covered a few issues that haven't come up in public before (and I expect to hear more!). Why weren't you in the beta!!! We'll do what we can to get it in there, we just need to come up with a good, clean way to do it. Surely the Qt3 or Sins Forum think tank can give us something!

(Oh and we had to sell our cars to make this game, how about washing our backs instead??) :P

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Blair, we would all give u with much joy feedback on a gamma as soon as we would get one. ;)
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
Not having played the game I am just guessing, but perhaps a small popup infotab which gave the current exchange rate when the metal/crystal counters are mousedover in combination with hotkeys would suffice. Not always onscreen, but wouldn't interfere with current ship selection and could be checked with just a wave of the mouse.

Of course there do seem to be a number of buildings with no discernable buttons that have a lot of free menu space, like Trade Ports, where 4 buy/sell/buy/sell icons could go. Not quite the always onscreen display being asked for, but since such icons would cover the asdf keys (if I am understanding unit hotkeys correctly) it would be another option for players to avoid the fullscreen Black Market Menu.

If some form of market info really is needed at a glance with no units selected or tabs popped up maybe a few little green/red led pips could be added under/next to the metal and crystal counters to indicate the approximate exchange rate. Dunno what kind of variance there is on the rate so maybe this is not practical.

I'm sure you have all considered such things already though, and will wow us with something elegant but intuitive eventually.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
but perhaps add a user interface option that places 4 small buy/sell/buy/sell buttons somewhere on the main view

chaching!  ;p 
user interface option sounds good. I have no reason to oppose what I can turn off anyway :P
I rest my case.

hang in there. it gets so easy that you wont even notice that you've entered, bought/sold stuff and exited the screen until your already done. like walking up the stairs only to think "wait, how did I get here???"

at least, it does for me *shrug*
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
why not only have two buttons?
a buy button, and a sell button.

when your mouse rolls over one, anouther two button menu pops up, one with crystal, one with metal. with numbers overlaid on the buttons to see how much it is worth.

Would be simple, take up little room, and easy to impliment.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
1. Mouse over resource amount indicator
2. Right click and select buy or sell
3. Type a number in the little box that pops up and smash enter.

?
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
all of that is way too point and click intensive, the current system is better because it only removes your attention from the game for 1/2 a sec, and you only need to click twice. as opposed to both of your options which either
1) include a preponderance of clicking, which I cannot abide
or
2) is likely to have popups that I simply dont want in my way at times

seriously, mouse-over popup systems are unabidable, if I want to click for my cap and instead spend 700 on 100 metal I will be pee-ee-eeved.
the other option is far too click-intensive and consumes too much room.
1. Mouse over resource amount indicator
2. Right click and select buy or sell
3. Type a number in the little box that pops up and smash enter.

yeah, hate to say it but thats a bunch of disjoint motions (mouse click mouse numberpad enter mouse, as opposed to mouse click mouse click mouse click) and the numberpad! ew gross :P.

do people really have that much distaste for the current system? I thought it was pretty good for something thats used 1/5 minutes at hard pressed times.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
gotta agree with schod, it's pretty easy to become accustomed to, and very rarely called on on a whim, so there isn't a huge reason to make it take up screen real estate, or include popups, which take the same effort to purposely open, but are easier to make mistakes on. The current system reflects the lesser need for trading compared to maximum visibility. If too many things are added on, the UI will quickly lose its streamlined efficiency and large viewing area, which more than negates the advantages presented by making trading such a modicum easier.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
I don't care, I like the current system.

I just thought my idea was good too.

I have ANOUTHER idea

when nothing is selected four buttons apear where the build/move/attack normaly are.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
now there's an interesting idea that removes many of my objections, but makes the probability of mistakes a bit too high for my comfort. Other than the risk of accidents, I like that idea, because it uses otherwise unused real estate. Good thinking, even though I might want to turn it off to avoid putting my civ into debt while trying to manage a battle.
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
yeah, that idea is rather innovative and interesting... I'm impressed

but there are still the grave risk of mistakes (you go to tell your fleet to group up, instead selling half your stockpile of crystal) which is my largest objections for all of this, its simply too important to your empire to risk putting it someplace you're likely to muss it up.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
exactly my objection. It's inventive, novel, and very easy to use, but that ease of use carries on to when you don't want it. I wonder if there is any other real estate that occasionally isn't used, but I doubt it.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
how about make it shift+Q/W/E/R to buy and sell? or just turn off the hotkeys for it altogether
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
might help, but there's still the risk of misclicking... But doing something like that might make it easy to not accidentally sell my civ instead of winning the battle, and I would not object one bit.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
I don't remember too many requests to have them on the main view


Well, I haven't been frothing at the mouth about it, but I did request (a few times early on... before I got used to just hitting "F1") the ability to right / left click on metal / crystal to buy and sell it. Include the black market pricing for buy / sell as part of the pop-up info. (And yeah, someone else in this thread agreed with me... but thats what I suggested waaaay back when in early and late beta 2)