For the love of God do something about notifications

[maggiecow]

Currently an inbound attack fleet to my homeworld has exactly the same urgency as a freighter having a scuffle with a pirate.

Conquering a world is just as relevant as capturing an Escort.

Discovering an ancient fortress? Right up there with finding some umpa lumpa fruit, or whatever the spurious luxury resource is called.

I appreciate that you don't want to muss up the UI with more, broad stroke, buttons in the messages area, but how about you have a Notifications sub-heading in the Policy screen?

Do you want to hear about attacks on ships (and attacks on ships in a fleet should probably count as attacks on the fleet and be flagged as such, you'll see why in a moment), yes/no? Yes? All ships or go ahead and select the minimum size ship you care about.

Want to hear about new resource discoveries? No, okay but how about those messages about Demolished Vaults that might be more important than a banana? We can tick box that for you!

Finesse in the policy screen, override on the main interface.

Two effing years of right-click right-click right-click.

[rxnnxs]

yes, well said. I also find it annoying as hell. No fun this is.
And as in DW1 a one liner would be nice. Disable the icons/pictures as a toggle.

[Nightskies]

Already on the roadmap! Huzzah?

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Currently an inbound attack fleet to my homeworld has exactly the same urgency as a freighter having a scuffle with a pirate.

Conquering a world is just as relevant as capturing an Escort.

Discovering an ancient fortress? Right up there with finding some umpa lumpa fruit, or whatever the spurious luxury resource is called.

AFAIK, all notifications to date are of the same urgency. Unless you have some clever idea regarding notification tiers (which companies like Google are yet to come up with), that is unlikely to change.

Want to hear about new resource discoveries? No, okay but how about those messages about Demolished Vaults that might be more important than a banana? We can tick box that for you!

To be fair, you can actually have that: disable exploration notifications, but leave exploration popups in policy screen. Not an option if you can't stomach popups, but it is possible.

While I agree that fine-tuning message groups would only be an improvement, what we already have kind of works for me: either entire group is irrelevant (so I can safely turn it off) or a mix that is not too spamy (so I can keep it and my sanity).

[OrnluWolfjarl]

AFAIK, all notifications to date are of the same urgency. Unless you have some clever idea regarding notification tiers (which companies like Google are yet to come up with), that is unlikely to change.

Paradox has a pretty nifty system for its games. Every type of message is its own category, and how you want it to interrupt your game (or not) is adjustable. That's how it should be here. Not options on broad categories, but options on specific messages.

Discovered a new resource? Nope, don't want to hear about it.
Discovered a new rare resource? Yup, throw me a notification and play a sound while you are at it.
Attack on a Freighter by pirate? Nope
Attack on a Freighter by someone who has declared war on us? Nope
Attack on a Freighter by someone who has not declared war on us? Pause the game, give me a pop-up message and flash it on my map.

Also, the way the notifications are triggered needs to be tuned. If the same pirate faction has attacked the same freighter, in the same system, then I don't need a second notification for it. But the game swarms you with it anyway.

An even better substitute to notifications would be to have an option to "pin" notifications on the map. i.e. instead of a pop-up, just place an icon next to the system's star where the deed has been done. When I hover on it, I can see what happened. When I right-click it, I can dismiss it. When I left-click it, I zoom in on the location of the event.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Paradox has a pretty nifty system for its games. Every type of message is its own category, and how you want it to interrupt your game (or not) is adjustable.

Older games - sure. They kind of moved away from that concept 5 years back or so (and seemingly revising that decision due to popular demand).

If you thinking current Stellaris - yes, there's ton of settings (which gets pretty overwhelming), but notifications themselves (when shown) are essentially of the same priority - some linger, some do not; separation by space only increases potential for information overload because now every corner of your screen can say "look here! it's important!" instead of just one (which is easier to keep track of). Also, not true for every type of message - there is a reason I stopped playing Stellaris: they made a certain blunder a few years back by disabling exploration popups for a few "update" patches; not that it did not bother me before, but after it was returned I had enough.

[OrnluWolfjarl]

Older games - sure. They kind of moved away from that concept 5 years back or so (and seemingly revising that decision due to popular demand).

Sure, I was thinking more about EU4's message system. I've also quit Paradox games due to various reasons. But a good idea is a good idea, and DW2 is a game with a lot of information. Presenting that information in an efficient manner without overwhelming a user is a challenge for sure. Giving options to the player would help a lot. I've played DW1 a lot, but my experience was that whenever I reached a certain size, then I would either turn off all notifications or quit the game and start all over again due to the massive influx of notifications slowing down my game to a crawl. This has been my experience with DW2 as well. I've always felt that having more control over my notification settings would help remedy this situation massively.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Agreed. Even if I'm fine with what we have, splitting categories into individual messages would only be a good thing. Having notification show on the map would also help a lot: if it's important enough to bother you, why not be able to tell at a glance where it is?

Or who actually finds "go to location" even remotely useful in its current state? If it would zoom out to galaxy map to include both systems, then zoom in to location - slowly enough for player to note the relative position - then it would be somewhat fine (if slow). Besides, it's not like you can interact with most ruins anyway - why even go there? Just add a button to queue up research station instead (with an option to automate it).

[maggiecow]

AFAIK, all notifications to date are of the same urgency. Unless you have some clever idea regarding notification tiers (which companies like Google are yet to come up with), that is unlikely to change.

Well, yeah. The clever idea in my original message which you must have skimmed.

[U235]

I'd settle for the 'same message' spam being eliminated. If I read and decline taking action on a message, I don't want it popping up again every <5 minutes. Why get messages for resources in AI owned space, that I can't exploit unless I attack them? Or worse, planets outside of my colonization range?

Also, some messages have a 'show me' button that takes you to the location, while others don't. Those that don't are often about wanting me to send a fleet to attack some threat or the location of a threat. I DO want to know where these are, so I'm not sending my fleets across the galaxy, or to fight monsters in AI controlled space.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

AFAIK, all notifications to date are of the same urgency. Unless you have some clever idea regarding notification tiers (which companies like Google are yet to come up with), that is unlikely to change.

Well, yeah. The clever idea in my original message which you must have skimmed.

Which one? Not showing some of them? That's disabling: all notifications will still be of the same urgency.

Besides, most of your examples belong to different notification categories, so can be turned off independently - it's fairly easy to assume you meant something else.

[Xmudder]

Older games - sure. They kind of moved away from that concept 5 years back or so (and seemingly revising that decision due to popular demand).

Sure, I was thinking more about EU4's message system. I've also quit Paradox games due to various reasons. But a good idea is a good idea, and DW2 is a game with a lot of information. Presenting that information in an efficient manner without overwhelming a user is a challenge for sure. Giving options to the player would help a lot. I've played DW1 a lot, but my experience was that whenever I reached a certain size, then I would either turn off all notifications or quit the game and start all over again due to the massive influx of notifications slowing down my game to a crawl. This has been my experience with DW2 as well. I've always felt that having more control over my notification settings would help remedy this situation massively.

I have also abandoned Paradox games for various reasons.

I would also like to see customized settings on notifications. I have no interest in being told that there is something on a planet every 5 survey levels, especially as I auto survey everything. I would like to know what was found, however.

I have no interest on being informed that a military vessel was completed, but I like to know when construction ships, colony ships, and explorers are completed. Also spaceports.

That kind of customization I would like.

And 2 follow ups to every gift to a minor and 1 to every time I buy something from a pirate? no thanks.

I would like to be able to turn off the notifications I don't care about and keep the ones I do.