Gamer advice required

[Welshieinnz]

Hi all,

I work in the games industry and i'm just gathering opinions about a certain design issue we have.

If you have a game whereby you have a technology tree, how would you prefer to read it? Would you like to view it from the Top-down, so the first thing you research is displayed at the top and you work down OR, would you like to view it whereby the first thing you research is at the bottom and you work upwards.

Your opinions and thoughts are greatly welcomed.

 

[Skrying]

Top down, easily.

 

[Welshieinnz]

Top down, easily.

Hi, thanks for your input.

Can you give me a reason as to why?

 

[Skrying]

Hi, thanks for your input.

Can you give me a reason as to why?

In a book, do you read from bottom to top or top to bottom? Where do your eyes naturally rest, top or bottom of screen? To me its about the little comforts like that. Its just more natural when looking over something to either work from top to bottom or left to right, if you've been reading a language all your life that's structured in such a manner I would assume you tend to be quicker at this way and your brain finds this pattern much more normal and easier to grasp quickly.

 

[Welshieinnz]

In a book, do you read from bottom to top or top to bottom? Where do your eyes naturally rest, top or bottom of screen? To me its about the little comforts like that. Its just more natural when looking over something to either work from top to bottom or left to right, if you've been reading a language all your life that's structured in such a manner I would assume you tend to be quicker at this way and your brain finds this pattern much more normal and easier to grasp quickly.

That's great! Thanks for that!!

 

[Mordecaii]

I can definately see where Skyring is coming from, however I'd have to say the opposite. When a tree is organized, the lower goals are almost always located at the bottom with the final goals being at the top. This is pretty standard convention for any sort of organizational tree, and I'd think that seeing it reversed would confuse some people. I've seen it done both ways, I'm just giving my personal opinion on the matter.

One way to think of it is like climbing a mountain... you start off at the bottom, and as you climb the width of the mountain gets smaller until eventually reach a peak... The bottom is where you'd have most of your seperate and smaller projects, and as you went up higher it would thin out until you had a completed project. Another way to think of it is that you're working from "the ground up", etc... It also can have psychological effects if people see that they're working their way up and trying to reach the top, which tends to motivate people more than working their way down. (It may not seem like much, but it can have some impact.)

Again, this is purely my opinion, however most of the trees I've seen tend to be built so the basic levels are on the bottom and they expand up. I do have to say, though, that if this was anything else I'd definately agree with Skyring that it should start at the top since the language is based on starting at the top of a page and reading down.

 

[Welshieinnz]

I can definately see where Skyring is coming from, however I'd have to say the opposite. When a tree is organized, the lower goals are almost always located at the bottom with the final goals being at the top. This is pretty standard convention for any sort of organizational tree, and I'd think that seeing it reversed would confuse some people. I've seen it done both ways, I'm just giving my personal opinion on the matter.

One way to think of it is like climbing a mountain... you start off at the bottom, and as you climb the width of the mountain gets smaller until eventually reach a peak... The bottom is where you'd have most of your seperate and smaller projects, and as you went up higher it would thin out until you had a completed project. Another way to think of it is that you're working from "the ground up", etc... It also can have psychological effects if people see that they're working their way up and trying to reach the top, which tends to motivate people more than working their way down. (It may not seem like much, but it can have some impact.)

Again, this is purely my opinion, however most of the trees I've seen tend to be built so the basic levels are on the bottom and they expand up. I do have to say, though, that if this was anything else I'd definately agree with Skyring that it should start at the top since the language is based on starting at the top of a page and reading down.

Brilliant! Thanks so much for your input. The mountain analogy makes sense too. And thanks for tkaing the time to write it up. Much appreciated!

 

[Skrying]

A few examples that come to mind in tree organization are mainly RPGs for me. World of Warcraft for instance has its talent trees front top to bottom, bottom being the "best" abilities. Diablo (another Blizzard game) also used top to bottom skill trees.

I agree that working bottom to top can offer motivation, but this will tend to wear off. Over time I believe a user would appreciate a natural feel rather than the motivational boost from top to bottom. I can see why you would look outside of a development group on such an issue though, there's many aspects to the question. Feel, motivation, ease of use, etc.

 

[Rolf N]

Add another vote for top down.

It's best to avoid scrolling. If the tree is too complex to display in whole, try if you can use zooming, or "multi-tabbing" it by ripping it apart into multiple views (ala Diablo 2's three skill paths per character), or inventing a different kind of hierarchy -- anything that allows users to hide a bulk of currently unwanted information is usually a good idea. Apropos Diablo 2, it is very much recommended to have icons for the nodes, simply due to more practical width:height ratios in limited resolutions, and because it keeps the door open wide for zooming. Icons can go places where text usually cannot. But do provide tooltips.

Looking at something not to imitate, Galactic Civilization II has a really complex tech-tree (more a list of chains actually) that is presented left-to-right with (only) long text labels at the nodes plus a little color-coding. All in all it doesn't work all that well in practice. The "tree" is huge, in both dimensions, and far too little of the structure can be visible at a time, making it rather hard to find your way around.

Screenshot at IGN:
http://media.pc.ign.com/media/724/724223/img_3441391.html

For kicks, just count how many items fit on the width vs on the height.
It would work so much better if it was one pane/tab/whatever for each major chain (identified by the the colors in the screenshot), turned around 90 degrees. Users could go in "I want to look at weapons tech now", and, even with the text labels sized and spaced exactly as they are in the screenshot, have 150% more relevant items in front of them.

edit:

A few examples that come to mind in tree organization are mainly RPGs for me. World of Warcraft for instance has its talent trees front top to bottom, bottom being the "best" abilities. Diablo (another Blizzard game) also used top to bottom skill trees.

FWIW skill "trees" in Diablo 2 are displayed top-down, i.e. the skills you can acquire early in the game are at the top, and farther down are skills with gradually increasing level requirements.

I agree that working bottom to top can offer motivation, but this will tend to wear off. Over time I believe a user would appreciate a natural feel rather than the motivational boost from top to bottom. I can see why you would look outside of a development group on such an issue though, there's many aspects to the question. Feel, motivation, ease of use, etc.

Agreed. It's the standard flow of reading.

I don't share the sentiment of bottom-up trees being the "usual" way. That may be the case for organizational structure, like "the man at the top there is your boss" etc, but for data that represents a chronological order, like e.g. a family tree, it is commonplace to follow top-down. Here it is the flow of events that is important.

 

[Mordecaii]

I definately agree that there are a lot of different aspects to consider. For example, how will it be viewed? If it's on some sort of poster that hangs at eye level, for example, then the bottom-to-top organization would probably be better overall, however if it's viewed on a computer screen (and especially if scrolling the page up/down is needed) or if the tree is viewed below eye-level, then the top-to-bottom approach would be better. Of course, motivational and natural tendency factors have already been pointed out.

Like Skyring said, there are games that use the top-to-bottom approach, and there are ones that use the opposite. It really depends on so many different factors as to which is the best for your situation that giving a simple answer is nearly impossible. I'd suggest you decide how it's to be presented, and decide whether people would have a difficult time following it from the bottom to the top, or if they would get more out of seeing their ultimate goal at the "peak". I'd say once you are able to decide that, then it will give a better answer than I could give.

Edit: I've decided that I need to make sure to read a post that I'm replying to twice before I make a reply to it, because I usually end up getting one point stuck in my head and I kind of tune out the rest of the post. Since I just realized that this is a tech tree for a game, then the most important factor is whether you would have to scroll down to see the bottom of the tree. If so, then you should absolutely organize it top-to-bottom. People will not like having to scroll down in order to find their first skill, and it has the potential to confuse new players. If you can fit the entire tree on the screen at one time, then it can go either way. I do agree with scooby that the most important thing is to hide the majority of the tree, however I do like the idea of giving people little hints as to what's coming up. Being able to see the nodes that you have left to work towards is definately great motivation, especially if the icon for them goes from being completely blacked out to partially visible the closer you get to the skill in the tree. This could encourage guessing and speculation as to what's coming next, which definately increases the fun factor. A bottom-to-top organization would definately work well for this, so I'd recommend it in this particular case.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Honestly it does not matter, it's not something that will affect the quality of the game one way or another.

I think more importantly is to keep parts of the technology tree hidden, I hate it when games show you the entire technology tree, take all the fun out of finding out what the next set of available upgrades will be.

 

[Crayon]

Honestly it does not matter, it's not something that will affect the quality of the game one way or another.

I think more importantly is to keep parts of the technology tree hidden, I hate it when games show you the entire technology tree, take all the fun out of finding out what the next set of available upgrades will be.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

I think there are valid arguments for both, so...

How about left to right? Make it like blades in the 360 OS or something. Or just turn all the text 90 degrees... who cares if our eyes don't like that.

 

[V3]

Hi all,

I work in the games industry and i'm just gathering opinions about a certain design issue we have.

If you have a game whereby you have a technology tree, how would you prefer to read it? Would you like to view it from the Top-down, so the first thing you research is displayed at the top and you work down OR, would you like to view it whereby the first thing you research is at the bottom and you work upwards.

Your opinions and thoughts are greatly welcomed.

Top down. I am so used to read it bottom up, that is I looked at the destination and traced my way back to find the path I need to take. Its like a family tree, and most tree topologies are generally top down.

Though in the end it doesn't really matter, I'll work it out what's what.

 

[Farid]

Hi, Welshieinnz, welcome to the forums.

If you plan on releasing a PC version of your game, I can copy this thread to the PC Games forum, where you'll get more PC-centric opinions. The more information, the better.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I vote for top down, it's just easier for my brain to sort the data that way.

 

[Silenti]

Another vote for top down. My eyes naturally trace top down - reading as mentioned above. Bottom up seems counterintuitive. Unlike Scooby however, I damned well want to have some idea of what comes next in the tech trees. I hate researching tech trees and finding garbage that I have no use for and spent time/energy/position/etc to obtain.

 

[ban25]

Hi all,

I work in the games industry and i'm just gathering opinions about a certain design issue we have.

If you have a game whereby you have a technology tree, how would you prefer to read it? Would you like to view it from the Top-down, so the first thing you research is displayed at the top and you work down OR, would you like to view it whereby the first thing you research is at the bottom and you work upwards.

Your opinions and thoughts are greatly welcomed.

Our game uses a top down approach, and I think that's probably the most common. I know there are a few games that have gone the other way, but I can't think of their names off the top of my head.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Top down unless your representation is like a tree. Or you go left to right. Or all-over-the-shop like FFX . Top-down is the norm and expected though. Like the internet, most data pages start at the top of the page and scroll down to read/see more because most languages read top top bottom. There's no logistical reason to go bottom-up, except as a design decision. It won't confuse anyone, and TBH I doubt anyone would notice. Perhaps Eurogamer would grumble a bit if they're having one of their miserable days, but seriously, I think that's the least of your concerns. A varied skill tree that's well balanced is far more important!

 

[nelg]

Top Down. For the reasons already stated.