SP - UI Personal comments about characters and settlements in the encyclopedia

[krafttomten]

Hello,
I am sure that I am not the only player having issues with planning things like trade routes and attack routes. My method is that I first gather information about each settlement, then I plan the route in accordance with my findings. However, this leads to a couple of problems.

My problem is that I cannot store information about settlements or characters in-game. I have to use external programs (or simply a piece of paper) to store information like where to buy wood to make charcoal or who it was that killed my first born son. I strongly believe that the game would benefit from giving the player the ability to leave such written comments. I'm thinking that the encyclopedia would be the best place to write and read these comments because it is easy to just right click the name of the settlement or the character during interaction, to get access to my comments.

 

[MRay]

I think the approach should be improving the situational information shown, rather than adding a generic notes section. Since that itself brings it's own problems like maintaining that notes section, keeping it up to date etc.

My problem is that I cannot store information about settlements or characters in-game. I have to use external programs (or simply a piece of paper) to store information like where to buy wood to make charcoal

UI improvements like the one we've introduced in 1.6, production icons next to the village settlement nameplates is a good example/solution for this. More changes like that should be the way instead of adding a generic textbox imo.

 

[krafttomten]

I think the approach should be improving the situational information shown, rather than adding a generic notes section. Since that itself brings it's own problems like maintaining that notes section, keeping it up to date etc.

UI improvements like the one we've introduced in 1.6, production icons next to the village settlement nameplates is a good example/solution for this. More changes like that should be the way instead of adding a generic textbox imo.

These two changes/improvements are not mutually exclusive, so why not have both? Do you mean that it is better if player use external programs until bannerlord brings the best solution for every thinkable piece of information that the player might have a need to store? I agree with you that it would be better if the program would provide such features like you say, but until then (which presumably is far from now) a system like the one I suggested would improve the gameplay for some players

 

[MRay]

Do you mean that it is better if player use external programs until bannerlord brings the best solution for every thinkable piece of information that the player might have a need to store?

Yes. In my opinion a notes section is not elegant. We should rather talk about use cases for a notes section and try to improve the UI/UX for those problems instead of introducing an "in the meantime" fix. So far you've suggested two use cases, "where to buy hardwood" and "who it was that killed my first born son". We can return to "where to buy hardwood" after 1.6 goes to live to see if it's required to supplement the village nameplates. For "who it was that killed my first born son", maybe we can improve the history feed on the hero encyclopedia page to see who he was battling against when he fell?

 

[Apocal]

For "who it was that killed my first born son", maybe we can improve the history feed on the hero encyclopedia page to see who he was battling against when he fell?

Yes, yes, yes.

 

[krafttomten]

Yes. In my opinion a notes section is not elegant. We should rather talk about use cases for a notes section and try to improve the UI/UX for those problems instead of introducing an "in the meantime" fix. So far you've suggested two use cases, "where to buy hardwood" and "who it was that killed my first born son". We can return to "where to buy hardwood" after 1.6 goes to live to see if it's required to supplement the village nameplates. For "who it was that killed my first born son", maybe we can improve the history feed on the hero encyclopedia page to see who he was battling against when he fell?

Thank you for your response MRay, you are the proffessional, not me, so if you believe that you can pull this off, I believe in you and will do my best to support you! Go TaleWorlds!

About your solution:
"Who killed my son": Yes this seems like a great way to implement it!

"Where to buy hardwood": Could be improved through an indication, colour maybe?, of the price of hardwood in the settlement in question. (maybe unlocked through trading perk?)

Another thing that I would write down in my notes would be which settlement that has --special troops-- availible, like the khergit noble sons or the imperial cataphract guys. I don't think this information should be visible directly through the map screen unless the player holds down the ALT-key. Or maybe there is another smoother way to implement this to prevent the UI from getting cluttered over time..