Here is what i think they should do to the menus:
Accessing the menu:
The button should say “Increase Mastery” or “Increase Mastery by sacrificing weapons”.
The option is called “Sacrifice Weapons”, but in the next menu, the player selects the weapon to boost, not the weapon to sacrifice.
Sacrificing weapons is just the means to an end. The player uses this menu in order to boost mastery, so the button should say “Increase Mastery” instead.
It would immediately tell the player, what function they access by pressing the button. It would also cause less confusion to those who do not read, when the next menu asks you to select a weapon to boost.
Select a weapon to boost:
The box with the selected weapon is displayed in the top right corner, in the next menu.
Add a transition animation that moves the box there, when switching to the next menu.
Change the text.
Again, we are not here to sacrifice weapons. We are here to boost mastery.
A player who does not read properly, might not understand that they are currently selecting a weapon to boost.
Change the text to:
"Increase Mastery
One way to increase Mastery, is to offer weapons as a sacrifice.
Sacrifices of the same weapon type will yield more mastery experience.
Only weapons of Redeemed Quality and above can be sacrificed."
Select weapons to sacrifice:
This is the current selection menu:
Suggestions:
- Separate the inventory and the weapons that have been selected for sacrifice (see image below).
It provides a better overview and the player does not needlessly have to scroll past selected weapons, when wanting to select another, or scroll past unselected weapons, when trying to find a weapon that is selected (in order to remove it from selection). - Add headers for obvious reasons (see image below)
Improved menu (the headers should be a bit larger than i made them, so they might need some extra space):
Confirm the action:
This is the current confirmation menu:
Unless you basically close your eyes, you already can not misunderstand, what is going to happen, when you press confirm.
However, there is something that is not great, regarding the design:
The positions of both boxes (selected weapons, boosted weapon) stay exactly in place, when compared to the previous menu.
In case of the selected weapons, there is some visual change, because instead of the full inventory, now only the selected weapons are displayed.
In case of the boosted weapon, there is absolutely no change in comparison to the previous menu.
It is generally a good thing for continuously displayed things to stay in the same place, because it does not needlessly draw your attention to them. However, in case of a confirmation screen, you want to draw attention to the important parts on screen, even if there are only two things displayed.
The same headers that i added to the selection menu, should also be added to the confirmation menu.
Additionally, the mastery box could be moved towards the center of the screen (perhaps even with an animation; as in actually moving the box, instead of just immediately displaying it at the new location), so that attention is drawn to the box that shows what is going to happen.
Improved menu:
Alternatively
change the existing confirmation menu, by adding a pop up:
„completing this action will grant the following amount of mastery to weapon xy“
Confirm. Cancel. (hold, not click)
Check box: do not show this again
This would also not completely prevent people from just clicking through without reading, but it might catch a few extra people who previously just clicked through the menu, without seeing anything.