INTRODUCTION TLDR; In my opinion, the user experience in Star Citizen is its greatest weakness. People complain about gameplay loops missing and server stability, and clearly, it also has a PR issue. The thing is, those are improving. The UX isn't - and I've been playing since we could finally walk around our hangar. Those working on UX need to invest some hours into playing the game - and playing it with friends who haven't touched the game. This post lists a few issues as an example. ALSO; If you're using the "it will be replaced" or "it's still in development" argument. Remember, Star Citizen and SQ42 share a codebase. There will come a day when SQ42 releases (soon tm), and the final product might end up being what you thought was a temporary solution. Assumptions are dangerous for expectations. These issues need to be addressed and visible. So I don't want this to come across as a rant post. I'm a game developer by trade with over five years in the industry; written a book on the subject - and more importantly, I've played games for the large majority of my life. I know how disheartening it can be when a community gets vocal. I want someone on the CIG team to look at this post and be like, "You know what, these are some great points, all in one place - I can pass this on to the relevant teams without them feeling attacked." So please, keep the comments as constructive as possible. Some of the phrasings will be strong - I have an RSI Orion and a MISC Expanse. I've put money into the development, so I want this to be the best damn space sim ever. Star Citizen's user experience goals focus on creating visually appealing experiences rather than practical ones, but it fails horribly with both in many situations. A game needs to be fun and intuitive - I'm not saying easy, I'm saying intuitive. We want a game that we can play, not an interactive movie that only looks good at just the right angle or in the perfect condition. The star citizen UI has a lot of potential but lacks usability. The issues listed below outline some of the problems that I have. Of course, I can't speak on behalf of the community. However, I can speak on behalf of myself and the many friends I've introduced to the game. I've found the following general user experience issues with the game. Some of them will involve UI; others are just experiences. Some of these are bugs; many are not. I've been playing this game for a long time. These issues have been neglected and swept under the rug. It's a culmination of many minor issues that you become blind to as you play, frustrating you enough to be annoying - but just small enough that it's not worth the effort reporting. ISSUES • Ammo is under the attachments category of the weapons terminal. WHY? There is no reason why categories are hardcoded. Having functional code would mean having an Ammo category, or any future needed categories. The UI should be dynamic from a programming perspective - collecting all item categories from the respective item metadata. • Angled drop shadows on ship UI text is near useless. The community asked for drop shadows as an easy way to add contrast to the UI - allowing us to read the microscopic light text on a snowy backdrop. A designer completely missed the point here as they added the drop shadows with an angle and offset distance. • Area too cluttered issue when trying to work with loot. Sure, I'm praying that the introduction of PES in 3.18 will improve this, but someone will forget to update the clutter amount. Engineering or design should already adjust the clutter value to allow slightly more things to be on the floor or even dynamically add nearby objects to a single crate. This issue is noticeable, particularly in bunker missions, as well as in caves. • Artists LOVE their grunge maps too much. Grunge maps are fantastic if used in modesty, but they are the biggest giveaway in CG when overused. I've never seen grunge maps so overused that it affects usability. I'm looking at you, Greycat ROC, and Argo Mole's front turret when you can barely peek out of the window or read the UI. I'm hoping the artists fixed this in 3.17.x - but given that the mole doesn't work, I'll bother testing this in a future patch. Please, tone down the grunge unless it makes sense. I expect grim hex to be filthy - but orison's railings are dirtier than a mud pit in Africa. • Buying items through counter displays doesn't always register correctly. I love that items are physicalized and shown off at stores - but items in display cases? They highlight when you hover over them, and unless you have the perfect angle, you won't be buying it. • Can't buy multiple food/drink items at a time. You make eating and drinking a requirement for being not dead. Yet make it as painful of a process as possible to buy food and drink. I live in a third-world country, yet I can still grab my phone and order bags of food that will arrive at my door in less than 60 minutes. Let us buy multiple food-and-drink items at a time, PLEASE. • Can't early exit animations. Ahhhh, busy climbing out of your mustang mid quantum, I see. Misclicked on exit ship, I see. I see that the terminal takes too long, but you can't walk away. Seriously, why are we locked in such torturously long animations? They're pretty the first time, but they get old when you force us to watch them. • Can't easily swap items in inventory, Oh, old inventory system, how I miss you. The new physicalized inventory has so much potential for good, but it misses the mark on so many things. Some might argue for realism here, but I'm sure this is a case where usability should prioritize realism. See my comment regarding switching between flight and casual wear. • Contextual actions do not work well on moving/jittering objects. Have you ever tried picking up a gun that is jittering around? Or ever tried grabbing your friend's body to pull them to cover while they're bleeding out in a high-intensity situation? Seriously, the inner thought system needs serious work for usability. • Elevator UI doesn't indicate that you can scroll to additional floors. UX cannot possibly be this bad in the year 29xx. The elevator panels are unintuitive for new players who don't have guidance. Add some dots or an arrow pointing down at the bottom of the panel to indicate additional information offscreen. If you know how to do this, someone told you how, or you work on the game, and someone at work told you how - that should not be the case. • Filters cause items to be lost when transferring to an active filter. Resetting filters doesn't make the item visible again. It gets lost in 3.17.2. So sure, this is a bug - but filters could use some TLC. • Gun customization menu is offscreen. Whoever built this system has not tried their work out in the game. The menu is responsive and feels fantastic, except that the menus bleed offscreen on anything larger than a pistol. • Gun shop terminals are wrinkly? Have you looked at these terminals? They look almost wrinkly from the dents on the screen. I'm surprised they work. • Gun shop terminals are black before used. Gun shop terminals being black has got to be a bug - the terminals show no indication of power. What screams bad UX? Yes, this. • Gun shop terminals have no icons. Yup, let's break the previews again. Make it even harder to find the ammo we're looking for in an unrelated category, seemingly random order. • Hospital room check-in has needlessly long animation. The hospital terminals are a funny one. The slow "waiting" and fade-in animation at hospitals is not the server looking for your room. The room is decided almost immediately and flashes the room number before going into the most extended fade-in animation I have ever seen. Let's assume 45,000 DAU of Star Citizens visiting a hospital terminal at least once per day, with an animation time of 4 seconds. That's 180,000 seconds of humanity wasted every day. That's two cumulative days wasted every day, watching a damn fade-in animation. • Lights reflect on some terminals, making them unreadable. I'm looking at you, grim hex pharmacy terminal. "But screens have glare. It's immersive.". I get glare is a real-life issue with our current screens, but 900 years of technology? Come on. • Long animations which are useless during high-intensity moments. My issue here goes back to my comment regarding the early canceling of animations but takes it further. If someone breaks into my room, will I take 10 seconds to climb out of my seat slowly? No, I'm going to haul my butt out of the chair. Why are animations so long, especially in high-intensity situations? • Medical gun interface is not fully visible when held up. Seriously? You can see about half of the interface. You made an excellent interface. Let us use it. • More info doesn't let you buy multiple. Buying items from physicalized displays doesn't allow for multi-purchasing. Why not? • New inventory system does not make it easy to switch between flight and casual wear. You have hundreds of fantastic clothing items, which I loved to spend the time going through - customizing my character. It was great with the old inventory system where unequipping and reequipping my undersuit would switch between flight wear and casual wear. Why are you making this as hard as humanly possible? • No search bar in terminals. Go to Amazon, now pretend the search bar doesn't exist. Please find me a pink shirt and time how long it takes. Point proven. • No auto refuel/restock toggle Refueling and restocking are excellent for the first few times you do it. Fantastic work on the new interface too. Does that mean I want to stare at it every few minutes? No. The year is 29xx. Add a toggle that allows us to mark our ship to prefer auto refueling and auto restocking. So that when we land or request our ship, the station knows to do it. Deduct the money, and move on. ... Part 2 in the comments ...