Integrating UI Upgrades as Earnable Game Elements

[eternal compass]

Concept Overview
What if every UI upgrade developed by the team was something that needed to be earned within the game? Moving away from a model of uniform, immediate upgrades, we could make each UI enhancement an integral part of the game's lore—earned through completing specific tasks or challenges and integrated as a base upgrade, drone enhancement, or visor improvement.

Current Situation and Motivation
Currently, the overworld loop is perceived as repetitive and lacks engagement. The strategy to launch with significant, universally available UI upgrades makes sense from a developmental standpoint, but it doesn't capitalize on ongoing player engagement or game depth. Here’s a typical scenario illustrating the existing frustrations:

Inefficient Crafting Loop: Players experience an annoying cycle at the forge—flipping back and forth between crafting and inventory screens, forgetting item counts, and aimlessly gathering resources in the overworld. This leads to a tedious and disconnected gameplay experience, summarized by mindless resource collection and inefficient item management.

Proposed Shift in Development
Shift development to integrate UI upgrades into the lore and gameplay mechanics. For example, a base upgrade could streamline the crafting process by allowing inventory access without exiting the forge screen. This would not only enhance gameplay efficiency but also deepen the narrative integration of game mechanics.

Detailed UI Enhancement Strategy
Priority Crafting UI: Enable players to seamlessly add items they wish to craft or acquire to a dynamic list, which aids in tracking desired items and their components.

Automated Crafting Integration: Allow players to craft necessary components directly from the main list with minimal clicks, using an interface that organizes and lists all required materials and steps efficiently.

Integration with Drones or Visual Mods: Post-crafting, components automatically load into drones or visual mods like visors or HUDs, which then assist players by highlighting and pinpointing needed resources in the game world.

Resource Management and Cost: This streamlined process would consume significant in-game resources, requiring players to strategically manage their assets to gain and maintain these advanced UI capabilities.

Efficiency and Gameplay Enhancement: Simplify the preparation process, allowing for more time exploring and engaging with other gameplay aspects, making resource-gathering runs more effective and less time-consuming.

Benefits of the Proposed Approach
Increased Player Investment: Players would feel a greater sense of achievement and attachment to their in-game progress.

Extended Gameplay: Encourages extended engagement by integrating UI upgrades as goals within the game’s lore.

Development Flexibility: Allows the development team more room to think ahead and implement features that add depth and strategic value to gameplay.

Conclusion
This approach would deeply integrate the community into the development process, ensuring that every update adds substantial value to the game. By making each UI upgrade an earnable part of the game, we can enhance player attachment and satisfaction while providing a more immersive and engaging gameplay experience.

This would be a development lift to lay this foundation. Still, I think we are going to have this endless UI and gameplay experience push and pull with development, and this integrates that process deeply into the game experience, which could be insanely valuable. @timber orbit

This is only the second time I've tagged you. Think this one is worth consideration.

@lucid topaz

[timber orbit]

Supporting a system that keep bad UI in the game is a lot of work. It's better to just fix the issues with the UI. There are many other ways that player will be able to progress that don't involve them being punished by having a suboptimal UI experience.

Remember that some of these things were put in quickly just to get the functionality.

[little lark]

Yea i think any UI improvement the team does should be given to all to raise the experience from the start

[eternal compass]

It's a question of scoop imho. The visor upgrades are an example of where the player does work and buys a better UI.

The argument here is why not fold all the work the team is doing and have it be credited to lore and gameplay.

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But yeah, it would require thinking about building an upgrade system and logic, which would require lots of upfront work.

Last think I'll say is this will remove the current perception of 'bad ui' to oh this is part of the game and I'm working for an upgrade that will make my base and hunting more efficient with is something that has to happen.

[sly rivet]

this might not be a good example... The visor ain't a UI upgrade it's a game progression feature. UI stands for user interface. And I agree with Aaron I don't like the idea of giving sub-optimal UI experience. I do think there could be upgraded features you could pay to get though.

[eternal compass]

okay, what I'm saying is - ultimately - put the entire development process into an in-game progress process.

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down the line, this could also help direct development based on data or player action in the game.

Once the development cycles become more standardized for exsisting game loops the future development roadmap options could be shown in the game and players could 'pay' for what they want to happen first and affect the development cycle.

thats a way way way down the line idea, but one way integrating this process deeply into the game lore could payoff.