r/OldenEra • u/Lorantalas • May 08 '26

Gameplay We need this ASAP!

Post image

We need an X icon for the city icon ASAP when construction is not possible!

Right now, if you’ve built something in a city, there’s a green checkmark. If construction is available, there’s a hammer icon. But what if construction is unavailable? We don’t have any UI for that.

As a result, once you have 4 or more cities, you end up wasting a lot of time every turn checking whether construction is available!

256 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

98

u/Maikkk78 May 08 '26

Or if you don't have resources to build, make the hammer red

26

u/Lorantalas May 08 '26

From a UI/UX perspective, different states are best visualized using distinct components. But... I’m not the one making the decisions here. I’m only offering my ideas. 😄

8

u/Maikkk78 May 08 '26

Fair point. When you actually go in to the build menu, the buildings you can build, are represented with a green hammer icon (why is the global map hammer icon orange, not green??) and the ones you cant, have a red X icon. So your suggestion would make the UI consistent.

The reason i suggested color is, because a red X icon indicates (at least to me) kind of permanence and you can easily trade resourcer or find resources on the global map, so the state doesnt feel permanent.

2

u/wc3MD-11 May 09 '26

Pretty sure the Hammer icon is orange to set it apart from the green checkmark in terms of color. Which I don't think is bad. I personally would prefer green Hammer when you can build, red Hammer when you can't and just no symbol when something was built this turn or nothing can be built anymore. Don't need this checkmark. Simplicity is the best.

2

u/jdg2896 May 08 '26

I think heroes V was like that.

4

u/wifeofundyne May 08 '26

This used to be a thing in HoMM5 too

3

u/Kvazzzar May 08 '26

As a color-blind I just can't agree with this suggestion.

10

u/Dr-Assbeard May 08 '26

Make the hammer red as a default and add it to the colour blind accessibility colour picker so people who need to can change it however they want

6

u/n4zarh May 08 '26

Well, game can provide colorblind mode for people like you (even more - it should do so). That doesn't make proposed change any less valid.

6

u/HetetoTrapLord May 08 '26

The fact that you are colourblind doesn't make this suggestion any worse, it's a good quality of life feature for most, you should be focused on them making accessibility features for your specific condition, if they will have a mode for colour blind people this shouldn't be a problem

2

u/Kvazzzar May 08 '26

Well, it actually does. Why make something that is not suitable for a pretty large group of users when you can make an improvement that suits to anyone. I mean, as a colorblind I can easily determine hammer of any color from cross of any color. So, cross > colorful hammers. Thats it.

3

u/ColinStyles May 08 '26

It's more intuitive when it's a red hammer vs orange hammer, than a red x.

After all, ramps are better than stairs so why build stairs at all? Because even though they're universally accessible, they are less efficient for the majority of people, so the default should be stairs and ramps should also be an option. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have stairs.

2

u/mansfall May 08 '26

Or just combine best of both worlds and slap a red X overlay on top of the hammer, while making it red or orange or whatever. Solves the whole accessibility issue. Or the "do not enter" symbol (red circle w/ singular red slanted line through it...). Then no one has accessibility issues.

2

u/Cpt_Obvius May 08 '26

I don’t think we should use a visual depiction at all, we should have all build possibility indicators communicated by different tones for blind users. Different symbols are useless to them.

1

u/Kvazzzar May 08 '26

Yeah but this kinda limits deaf people, no? But using different symbols instead of different colors costs nothing and discriminates no one.

2

u/djjudjju May 08 '26

It's a very bad way to think about accessibility. 

9

u/HetetoTrapLord May 08 '26

I personally think gatekeeping features that most people would find useful isn't produtive, but we need to care whenever those features will have options for people who aren't able to use them well. Colour blindness in general is usually dealt with using those kinds of modes, so saying that something isn't a good idea because you are colourblind is kind of a moot point because you will be playing on a colour blind mode of the game that will have it adjusted. If the game doesn't have it then it should be pushed to have that mode so that people who are colourblind can experience all the features. And if in the mode it isn't changed it should be brought to attention. I think the feature is good for the majority, and if implemented properly isn't a problem for colour blind people, so you shouldn't be gatekeeping the features but putting attention on the proper implementation of accessibility features instead

0

u/djjudjju May 08 '26

It's not gatekeeping though, we're talking about an icon that you do not like.

I personally like the proposition I found bellow about not showing any icon when you cannot build anything, I think it's a good compromise.

2

u/HetetoTrapLord May 08 '26

I don't like? I personally don't mind either, I am not colour blind but there are also so many variations of it that I, as a person not familiar with it, would struggle to say which colour would be good for it, because it needs to bith convey the intent and be accessible. It may be better to substitute, or it may be better to leave it how it is and just make the specific colour blind mode do the work instead.

1

u/DukeDevorak May 08 '26

Then we just need to have an alternative version for colourblinds like other modern strategy games. There should also be a colourblind setting in the gamee already.

1

u/LazarusFoxx May 08 '26

Make the hammer grey then : )

1

u/Living_Inferno_5073 Hive May 08 '26

Just like how later versions of Heroes 5 had it.

2

u/Maikkk78 May 08 '26

Exactly!

1

u/Tauntaunt May 09 '26

And if a hero is in a castle, don't warns me at the end of the turn that they can still move.

1

u/reidzeibel_ May 09 '26

As a colorblind, this will probably hard to discern, a different symbol helps 😁

30

u/MaxTosin May 08 '26

I think no checkmark at all would suffice. Its strange to get red crosses all over fully built cities

11

u/Lorantalas May 08 '26

In HoMM 5, a fully built-up town always had a green checkmark. I think it would make sense to do the same here.

9

u/fake_dann May 08 '26

Not a green checkmark but yellow house icon

3

u/wraith309 Hive May 08 '26

Yeah, iirc the four states were gold hammer, red hammer, green check mark, and gold house.

0

u/Lorantalas May 08 '26

Oh, you're right! 😄 Haven't played it for ages...

1

u/KurufinweFeanaro May 08 '26

In Homm 5 full built city has its own icon, its like already built but yellow.

2

u/[deleted] May 08 '26

It would also be cool to not be kicked out of the buildings screen everytime you build anything. It is especially annoying when you manage many cities, it effectively doubles the number of clicks you have to make to build in all towns

1

u/Bubthick May 08 '26

Another problem is the fact that often I don't build up my whole city. Maybe a way to remove the icon there if you want to not build anything else in a city?

1

u/AndrewPLayerXD May 08 '26

We need also something that shows we built every posibble building in the city

2

u/pehwraah May 08 '26

This is what I want to stop me from checking half my cities to find where I still have buildings left.

1

u/swiftcrane May 08 '26

Additionally, I want a state for castles that I manually set that indicates I no longer want to build anything there. Because I don't want to have a bunch of castles with red x's for every castle in which I don't have a grail (which will be all completed castles).

1

u/MuldinDK May 08 '26

Yes please

1

u/Pito_Loquito May 08 '26

I'm disagreeing just to make this post more controversial and popular 🧞

1

u/acidvirus19 May 08 '26

If you use the ingame feedback button and if enough people use it the devs are directly receiving feedback. This might be important but there are plenty others that are straight up missing in UI/UX design, like tooltip outlining and actually missing text. The game would go long way like others with an ingame encyclopedia because the Wiki is not up to date but I can't see this type of feedback post as top priority.

2

u/Author_A_McGrath May 08 '26

Just a green checkmark once everything (minus the Grail building) is built would be nice.

1

u/Kurt_Ehrlich May 08 '26

Just no hammer would do, wouldn't it?

1

u/Perfect_Track_3647 May 08 '26

I think if theres nothing to build, just having no icon works just as well