Please make the Techtree UI smaller!

[:1]In my opinion SupCom2 was focused too much on the techtree. It's understandable, it was a new feature and you wanted to present it in a stylish manner. Still, I think less would have been more in this case...
Let's take a quick look at the UI first.
How it is planned:


How it would be better for gameplay:


How I would like it:

(Clicking on the button for Castle 1, 2, 3 opens the window, clicking outside the window closes it again.)
Basically, I don't want a screen filling window and fewer, more powerful upgrades.
The large window really annoyed me in SupCom2, it blocks the view and pulls you out of the game flow.

Fewer upgrades would mean you don't have to open it constantly. More powerful upgrades mean I have to make more important decisions. Why do I need to buff health and stats? HP and stat buffs could be integrated into other skills. The more research I spend in one particular tree, the more HP and mana I get for those units.
When I buy an upgrade for my wizard, all spellcasters get a small buff to their mana, knights add health/armor, archers add damage. Unlocking certain units could add buffs to other units: If you buy mages/alchemists your archers could get a small fire damage buff and so on.

That was all, thanks for your attention. |||I approve of this idea.|||Would also be awesome if there was an option for the research window to be placed on the 2nd monitor for people who are using one. ^^|||How about an option for pre-build options so you don't waste time at the beginning of the match ordering each unit to do something but rather, have a preset option of at least 1 to a max of 5 different options one can go with.
E.g.: Preset options one; Let's just go with SupCom2 options right now, 4 mex, 2 power, 1 land fac, radar and a research station. (probably either pre-game or in game pop-up)
5 mex's become difficult because of the location of the mex (including 3 mex for the training centre). Just something I thought of due to people's complaints of not having enough time or wanting more time at the beginning of matches. ANother option could be a timer, it counts you on like 5 sec count-down or a 10 sec count down.
Yes...? No...? Maybe so...?
EDIT: yes I know there's preset buildings, though I think personalization would be a nice touch... would make the matches even shorter. |||i agree with this idea, one thing that really annoyed me greatly from supcom2 was how the tech tree blocked virtually my entire view of the battlefield.|||I really like your ida. The Techtree shold be smaller.
Have you already sent an E-mail?|||non-obstrusive Tech-Tree would be really nice. That thing annoyed the hell out of me in SupCom2, it just breaks the gameflow having a full screen tech tree open every minute|||Col. Jessep, that's probably one of the best ideas I've ever seen!
Please make sure GPG sees this!
gsusfrk|||Ohmega|||This is a tough call imo.
I agree that blocking the main/battlefield view is bad, no question.
But it seems like GPG is really going down a Sins-of-a-Solar-Empire esque route with their tech trees. I think they want them to be big and complex because they want that to be a big part of the strategic layer for the game..
I'm not sure they need to use a research tree at all. The hidden tech trees in a game like Starcraft II work ok as well, with some basic prerequisites for all advanced buildings and units.
But if they are going to use an external research tree that needs its own screen, I want them to focus more on what it offers in terms of good strategic choices rather than what will fit and look best in a slick little UI panel on the edge of the screen.
So you're right, smaller UI would be better, but that should definitely be a secondary priority to the goal of making a good tech tree. You're kind of wrapping two ideas into one here, because you're saying that you want fewer but more powerful upgrades. That's a separate discussion in some ways, and I'm not sure I agree with that idea since fewer upgrades means less stuff. SupCom2 had a big tech tree and it still had too little strategic depth imo, so I'm not ready to call for a smaller tech tree until I see how their tiers and economy and units and buildings all fit together.|||Mr Pinguin|||Col. Jessep|||You forgot T3 air spam as one of the late-game Setons strategies, but perhaps you knew it was a given.
I agree mostly with Pinguin. I think the tech tree should be arranged with most of the normal units first, then the upgrades like +20% firepower, then the Legendaries sprinkled in between the upgrades. This way, in smaller games more units can be unlocked and used while in longer and larger games, the upgrades will have more of an effect and will not be made obsolete so easily. The upgrades should also be more expensive cost-wise in addition to being further into the tree. That way in small, less research-intensive games the major choices will be which unit will you unlock. In larger games with faster
RP/resource acquisition, the cost of the upgrades will make the decision more difficult for the reasons that Pinguin outlined (in a battle with hundreds of units, a 10% damage boost can make a difference).|||Hehe.. I didn't suggest that exactly, but that's an interesting idea X-cubed.
Personally, I like the idea of some units being relatively rare, and I'm fine with not seeing mega legendary game enders in 1v1s and 2v2s, or even many 4v4s.
However, I think it's clear that GPG condensed SupCom2's scale precisely because they wanted to make all of the cool late game units more accessible, rather than leaving them as a rarity for extra big/long games. So what you're suggesting is a bit of a compromise between the two, with the possibility to research most (or all?) units in shorter games, but room for some other upgrades in the long term.
That said, the tree would be kind of boring if it all ended it simple +X% passive bonuses, they need to save some epic cool stuff for the end.
I think one solution is to design it kind of like they did with SupCom2's separation between land, air, naval, structures and ACU. I don't completely like that in SupCom2, but I do think there needs to be a way to rush through the tech tree for a narrow goal, while sacrificing versatility. So if you want to rush for a Monkeylord/Dragon, it's always an option, but you'll hopefully be vulnerable because you've skipped most of the tree and gimped your ability to adapt to more divers threats.|||Definitely a smaller tech tree. Love this idea!|||I would like to see all stat buffs integrated into unit unlocks. Something like this:

It's not balanced, just to show you the general idea. Unit unlocks are important choices and they will become even more important when you unlock stat buffs at the same time.|||Col. Jessep|||How about instead of fitting the unit and stat upgrades into eachother, we use the units as the pre-req to the stat upgrades. AKA, you need to grab the P-shield before you can grab trainings, you grab the sharpshooter before you can get sight/radar upgrades.
Make the unit unlocks themselves costly enough, and you add a lot of choice into how you need to spend your research and what unit composition your army's going to be made of. You can have tons of units and be extremely versatile, or you can focus deeply on one type of unit, and the upgrades for that until will tend to support the role it fulfills, so your army is more specialized at the cost of versaitility.
I very, very, very much agree that even in longer games, the tech tree should have some very deep and meaningful choices to be made past the 30-min mark. It's pretty boring when all you have left to decide is, "Would I rather dump my spare 2573.8 RP into the air or naval trees even though I'm still mainly land, maybe make a random scout plane or radar ship?" You should be able to focus in one single area, and still have enough diversity towards the end of a big game that what you pick will have a meaningful effect on how the game turns out.|||All good ideas. I like these a lot.
Having a relatively expensive unit be the first unlockable for each individual tree actually seems like a brilliant idea.
you could even spread the concept between the "tiers" of the castle. i.e. t1 has 3 unlockable units & tech trees. t2 has 4 unlockable units & tech trees. T3 castle gives us 3 unlockable units & tech trees.
picture later.|||We considered and even mocked-up a collapsible UI for SC2 similar to what you're showing here. We just didn't have the time to prototype and iterate.
Also, we didn't receive too many complaints from testers about the UI blocking the screen. It's not ideal, for sure, but after a while players found themselves spending very little time in it. Tab, click, tab. It was up for like 2-3 seconds.|||Thanks for responding!
Maybe you can consider putting the techtree in the corner of the screen, please? Or you could make it a freely movable UI part, like a minimap, if that doesn't take too much time.|||the tech tree should be part of the terrain.
you buy stuff by sending your monarch out to the upgrade with a shovel and you dig it up.|||Cybran Freedom Fighter|||Maybe a smaller tech tree window with some sort of lense effect for when you hover on an icon.
I think this might be a good improvement. Although I'm hearing someone up there yelling at me because of this .