Quality of UI life

[volutar]

OpenXcom is famous for its QoL thing, which is essentally one of main goals of this project.
Visual scrollbars, mouse wheel scrolling lists, mouse wheel swithing battlescape levels, hotkeys, etc.

I have a list of another QoL UI adjustments and suggestions. And want to fill/remove/discuss it (it was taken from inner todo list).

=======================
1. "Manufacture categories" is not used by the most of players, but it steals list space and makes almost ZERO use, statistically speaking. So it should be disabled by default, but for those few who need it - leave it in the "advanced options" (off by default).

2. Make proper use of Shift/Ctrl as modifier keys, instead of "process as ordinary key". Tab/Shift-Tab is conventional way of switching between things, and we have tab/shift, which looks like it simply raw and unfinished thing. And previous unit should be as Shift-Tab, not just Shift. And inventory copy/paste should be not just C/V, but Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V, because it's CONVENTIONAL.

3. Implement proper drag'n'drop style for items and drop down menus (LMB down, moving to entry, and LMB up to switch). I don't think it worth discussion because it's conventional modern UI style. Item drag'n'drop tho is tricky, because classic xcom style also should be working "by default". It's better to make it autodetectable (by mouse moving beyond some threshold to "untie" and switch into d'n'd mode).

4.(easy) Make RMB for selling/transferring/buying screens work not as max/min but increasing/decreasing by 100. When you have 1000 alloys, it's pretty unhandy to scroll it to sell 500. Mouse wheel as increasing-decreasing values is not good advise, because it screws solid concept "scroll is always scroll", can cause accidental value changes, thus multiplies mess. It's bad to mix different things into single control. It's not how UI should work. As alternative - make Ctrl/Shift modifier key to work as scaler, i.e. change values by 10 instead of 1.

5.(easy) Add total expenditures into base info screen, showing expenditures of all project, not just selected base (there are plenty of space to add it without messing).

6.(easy) Make inventory screen "copy/paste" layout buttons static. Why? 1. Because there are no dynamic buttons in the Xcom UI. Making exception leading to mess. 2. There's no need to show either it filled or not, since it "saves" layout only during single equipment session, and there's no need to mix "paste" with "clear". Mixing things into single control is a bad UI design, as I said earlier, and it's not "my" vision, it's conventional QoL thing.

7. Need to add fast forward for walk animation. "RMB" as "fast forward" for firing was spontaneous choice, without consideration of the walk (RMB works as abort walk). Suggestion: Make "Space" button fast forwarding any animation - either firing (projectile, grenade throw), or walking (make walkers speedup their journey). RMB as cancel of long action - abort walking (as it was), and stop burst fire. Burst fire cancellation should work with the less impact on the gameplay, it shouldn't restore any TUs (it still will be spent), and perhaps, all bullets still gonna be spent. Cancelled bullets aren't gonna make any damage. The point of burst fire cancellation is to lessen "damaging" effect of fire misclick. Changing RMB behaviour for the fire is bad, but changing RMB for the walk is even worse, and leaving them not matching is bad too.

8. Make hint for each dropdown entry, not just single hint for the whole dropdown list. Because, obviously that 2 lines for 7 entries is not enough. Will need of translation work.

9. Mod descriptions (for EN-us by default and for each language optionally). Damage formula, as gameplay element, should be transferred from the advanced options to mods (because tftd has tftd formula and ufoeu has ufoeu, as default).

10. Make it possible to change unit positions during pre-battle equipment and show actual unit locations (small thumb-like top view) in the craft, considering tanks. Perhaps make tanks relocatable. For the base "craft eqipment" screen, and perhaps, for the pre-battle inventory too.

11. Fix the mess with fire/walk confirmation thing. Currently Path preview is tied to walk confirmation, and fire confirmation doesn't have any kind of preview. Need to split these options to "Confirmation"  and "Preview". Preview without confirmation should work in "hover" mode, with, like, 200ms delay if mouse is still or something (not to overload CPU when moving cursor around). Preview of fire can be done with using "projectile" rendering technique just with "dot sprites" spreaded through the trajectory, including throw parabola. Confirmation is needed thing for touch devices (walk preview, walk confirmation, fire preview fire confirmation).

12.(easy) Grenade indicator should blink not only in inventory screen, but in the battlescape panel as well (in hands).

13. Make it possible to drag item, and while holding it at the cursor, switch unit, and put at the other unit's slot, without using of ground. Also switch items if "dropped" one over another. Conventional inventory works like that. During actual battle these manipulation tweaks ain't gonna be working tho, it's only for pre-battle equipment, like copy/paste thing.

14. Add support of modular fonts (to make it possible to add extra alphabets without replacing "classic", and add exotic thai, japanese, korean and chinese "fonts" + make UI elements "rulesetted" (bigger line heights, etc).

15. Dynamic hint texts. Hint over the left/right hand slots of the panel should show item name and loaded ammo type/bullets left (instead of irrelevant Captain Obvious stuff like "Use Left Hand Item"/"Use Right Hand Item"). Also show grenade charging state/turns and Medikit P/S/H numbers. Kneel/unkneel hint of the respective button should show current state. Same for move up/down. It should show current level. Perhaps same for camera up/down. End turn button should show current turn number. Main purpose - is to make hints more indicative and useful.

16.(easy) During pre-battle equipment "unload" should work even if hand slots are occupied, and in this case spread ammo/weapon to the ground slots. When hovering over the weapon - it should show ammo type/bullets left within the hint (as with previous #15).

17.(easy) Ufopaedia available from the tactic screen (to see weapon/ammo/item properties). Perhaps replace "MultiLevel view" with ufopaedia button.

18.(easy) When moving items between slots in the combat mode (not pre-battle), it should show NUMBER (TU cost) at the corner of the cell you're trying to drop to (when hovering), with "dim", not contrast color.

19.(easy) In pre-battle screen (perhaps just at the base), when clicking into paper doll image (square area in the chest), it should allow to change armour. Also when moving mouse over the paperdoll, it should show armour type as HINT.

20.(unnecessary due to #15) Unhardcode selected unit arrow and animation, make it rendered from the spritesheet of 16 sprites (8 animated frames for standing and 8 for kneeling), similar to "pathfinder" sheets. And make "kneeled" arrow look slightly differently (either color or shape).

=======================

Any thoughts?
P.S. This thread is not about how to make game more moddable, or friendly to modders. It's entirely about user interface.
And it's not about "what should be done till next milestone". It's just list of things that should be achieved during project development. Some of them are easy-achievable, some are of pretty long-run.

UI rules:
- Not to make visual mess (not to overload interface with small elements), irrelevant chars or colored signs - they are simply not intuitive to decypher.
- Not to overload mouse/key actions with additional meaning for different screens, because that intuitively confuses and seeds wrong habit.
Gameplay rules:
- Any UI changes should be done in the a manner, minimizing implications on gameplay.

[bladum]

Great topic. My two cents.

1. If live alien is already researched then it can be displayed when looking at alien by updating red sign in the right lower corner of screen. Standard red = soldier / terror. Red with white envelope = medic. Red with blue envelope = navigator etc... This is not a mind probe as it just tells you the rank after you already fought it.

2. When firing a weapon it does not tell player which ammo is loaded into the weapon. This information is only available in inventory screen after. Still need to force player to go to inventory screen to check. I think displaying ammo is not needed. Would be nice to have damage type written on the below part of item in hand or at least small icon (colorful dot) on the right side of ammo counter says damage type. Again saving some clicks for checking this info in inventory screen.

3. What about weight information displayed in brackets after item name on inventory screen when mouse is over the item like "Pistol clip (3kg)" ? The only way to check this now is to take item to soldier inventory and check total encumbrance. This way we save some mouse clicks and TU.

4. Before battle it should be available to unload weapon without 2 hands free like right click on the weapon to remove its clip or so. Not possible during battle thou.

5. Scroll mouse assign to something during inventory screen before battle. Either to scroll soldiers or to scroll items on the ground. Also why only scroll via button is available to the right ? This is small issue as all items are now grouped anyway.

6. Indicator that weapon is two handed like in many other games like this. If one hand is taken then gray other hand to indicate that both hands are in use. Or change the white envelope of the hand inventory slot into other color to indicate this. 

7. Switch hands in inventory screen as they are reversed compared to battle.

8. When dragging items in inventory would be nice to display cost of move to particular inventory slot like from Ground to hand. It is sometimes a matter of single TU if soldier can survive or not and with this information not displayed it is always post factum. This feature could be activated when mouse is actually over a free inventory slot but mouse button is not yet released.

[volutar]

1. If live alien is already researched then it can be displayed when looking at alien by updating red sign in the right lower corner of screen. Standard red = soldier / terror. Red with white envelope = medic. Red with blue envelope = navigator etc... This is not a mind probe as it just tells you the rank after you already fought it.

That would add visual mess to the screen. All these "inconvenient" colorcoded signs (someone already posted real messy UI layout) doesn't make anything clear. Player will need "decyphering plates" to figure what is what. Why anyone would need to get these signs? You're playing this game. You know which you have already researched.

2. When firing a weapon it does not tell player which ammo is loaded into the weapon. This information is only available in inventory screen after. Still need to force player to go to inventory screen to check. I think displaying ammo is not needed. Would be nice to have damage type written on the below part of item in hand or at least small icon (colorful dot) on the right side of ammo counter says damage type. Again saving some clicks for checking this info in inventory screen.

Partially agreed, my suggestion is to show actual item name and ammo name as HINT, instead of dumb "left hand" or "right hand" when mouse is hovering over the hand slots of the panel.

3. What about weight information displayed in brackets after item name on inventory screen when mouse is over the item like "Pistol clip (3kg)" ? The only way to check this now is to take item to soldier inventory and check total encumbrance. This way we save some mouse clicks and TU.

Thing is, nobody needs to know how much KG is the blaster rifle weight. The only thing you need to know is either it make you overburden or not. There's no point to show exact numbers, it only confuses. Formulas aren't available anyways, and nobody will be calculating it. When you're in the battle, and need to pickup accidental heavy weapon, you still have to go to that item and try to pick it up. And actually it becomes irrelevant either it overburden or not. More imporatant things are at the stake.

4. Before battle it should be available to unload weapon without 2 hands free like right click on the weapon to remove its clip or so. Not possible during battle thou.

Partually agreed, but no "right click to unload" since it's rare action and shouldn't "noise up" hands memory with some extra things. Just using same classic "unload" button, but dropping ammo and weapon to the ground, if hands are occupied.

5. Scroll mouse assign to something during inventory screen before battle. Either to scroll soldiers or to scroll items on the ground. Also why only scroll via button is available to the right ? This is small issue as all items are now grouped anyway.

Exactly, after stacking implemented, this "scroll" become almost obsolete (there are rare cases when it still needed).
And again, overloading mouse actions with something new should be "almost" forbidden, unless it's totally convenient thing through different games or UIs.

6. Indicator that weapon is two handed like in many other games like this. If one hand is taken then gray other hand to indicate that both hands are in use. Or change the white envelope of the hand inventory slot into other color to indicate this. 

It's 320x200, checkered transparency woudn't look any good. You can use two-handed weapon with one hand, either left or right, there's no limitation. The game is well-known, you should be able to see if it one handed or two-handed in the ufopedia, which is BETTER to be available from the battle (at least its tactical part).

7. Switch hands in inventory screen as they are reversed compared to battle.

What?
In the inventory you're looking at the face of unit. Left is right and vice versa. In the tactic screen you see your left at left. Anyone knows that. Why whould this be changed because of some noobie?

8. When dragging items in inventory would be nice to display cost of move to particular inventory slot like from Ground to hand. It is sometimes a matter of single TU if soldier can survive or not and with this information not displayed it is always post factum. This feature could be activated when mouse is actually over a free inventory slot but mouse button is not yet released.

Yeah, pretty handy thing. I have idea how that can be visually implemented

PS. Updated 1st post.

[bladum]

no problem, just pick what ever you find valuable

just add to my point 1) this is what i had in mind.

[volutar]

Ok. I agree, it is possible to make some kind of colorcoding of alien TYPES (like mutons/celatids/silacoids), they are OBVIOUS, but ranks are not.
And in any case, I see no QoL reasoning behind that. It's a feature, but it doesn't make interaction much easier. This colorcoding concept is actually not intuitive, and unobvious. Color palette is limited, and it will require inventing of unique colors for each race (not saying about ranks). I think it would be more "modern" and intuitive to have some thumb images for each race, and instead of flashing numbers in the square use those tiny "head" images with flashing contours. They could be rendered tighter and more buttons can be fit. And no need of numbers. But this gonna go far from vanilla. Thus I wouldn't suggest that because it alters game look too much (not colors, nor head images).

There is, tho one thought about sorting of aliens for these buttons. It can be sorted by distance (the closer the lower the button will be placed), so closest alien will always get the lower button. Or by left-right position, like leftmost aliens are at the top, and right most at the bottom.
I'm inclined to use of distance sorting.

P.S. Please don't make that big screenshots. 800px as width should be max.

[robin]

cancel of long action - stop burst fire

(I must admit I read the whole thing pretty quickly, so forgive me if I misunderstood-missed some bits).

Interrupting the burst fire could easily be abused: your first shot kills the target so you just interrupt the whole thing, defeating the "ammo wasting" and "TU wasting" drawbacks inherent of that fire mode. In TFTD where the clip sizes are smaller, the incidence over the former drawback is even greater.
Misfiring autofire sucks but I'd still leave autofire uninterruptible; fire confirmation is enough to minimize misfiring risk.

On the other hand, if the purpose of making autofire interruptible is EXACLTY the one of making it "flexible to use", this goal can be achieved already by modding (adding "autoshots: 1" to all the automatic weapons). And I believe this kind of goal should be achieved that way, since it influences the gameplay as I described above.

[volutar]

Interrupting the burst fire could easily be abused: your first shot kills the target so you just interrupt the whole thing, defeating the "ammo wasting" and "TU wasting" drawbacks inherent of that fire mode. In TFTD where the clip sizes are smaller, the incidence over the former drawback is even greater.
Misfiring autofire sucks but I'd still leave autofire uninterruptible; fire confirmation is enough to minimize misfiring risk.

Zero thing, almost noone is using fire confirmation. It doesn't save you from misclicks, since single clicks are quickly turn into doubleclicks within a minutes. It only helps with touch device.
First thing, "TU wasting" is not possible, since it will still consume whole value at the beginning, no matter how many bullets it manage to fire.
Second thing, TFTD clips are small, but also there's almost no autofiring weapon. Sonic weapon have only snap and aim.
Third thing, there's already "not vanilla" terrain revealing with each step (in vanilla it reveals only after final stop), and thus you can interrupt walking when find something interesting. And save some TUs. It is abuse in your terms, and people actually enjoy this feature, and don't assume it as something "easing" life. Just as something easing the control.
Fourth thing, as with walk interruption, this acton is not very oftenly needed, thus does not affect gameplay the way you describe with word "abuse", but when it's available, it makes game more responsive, more interactive. Exactly the "quality of life" thing.
Fifth thing. If you try to abuse this "feature", you will have to know if this bullet kill the target BEFORE it kills it. You can't know if the damage is enough. You can cancel next bullet only during current fire animation, not during death animation. So you could avoid only third bullet fire. And does it really help you to abuse this feature?

There was lots of scenarios when you're mistargeting autoshot, and can't cancel until it make all shots. Wasted TUs. Wasted bullets. Wasted time. Mistargeting still gonna be possible, but at least we can ease its effect. And I believe it worth it.

"Autoshot:1" means no autoshot. It doesn't make any sense.

[bladum]

single particle per shot is by design ? i mean this is why shotgun pellets are not drawn few at the same time as there can be only one particle at the time ?

[robin]

"Autoshot:1" means no autoshot. It doesn't make any sense.

Have you ever played Apocalypse turn based? Autofire is a faster (less TUs, less accuracy) snap shot, which is exactly what you get with "autoshots: 1". An interruptible autofire is something between that "fast snap shot" and vanilla's fixed burst, that doesn't have the advantages of the former (you're still wasting all the TUs for it, while interrupting walking let's you save the TUs) and partially compromises the "stick and deal with it" (AKA ammo waste) aspect of the latter. If interruption saves TUs too, then.. then vanilla autofire almost turned into apocalypse's autofire, which is a bigger change than it seems.
If we want to make it properly, I think we should be enabled to control the minimum number of shots fired before interruption is possible (a moddable value), so that the "waste ammo" aspect is preserved.  Especially because while vanilla weapons fire only up to 3, in mods this is not the case anymore (my 4-shots machinegun is designed to shoot all of them, otherwise I'd just have given it a fast shot with "autoshots: 1"; IIRC Dioxine's Piratez has chainguns and miniguns that go up to 20-shots and maybe they're designed in the same way).
I don't want to sound like it's a BIIIGG DEEAAAL, just the the QoL gained is outweighed by the negative aspects. Improving fire preview-confirmation I'm totally for it.


Other things:

2. What you say it's true, but button combos like Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V are a convention more for productivity, in games usually you use single buttons to do things so C/V should be fine. Replacing Shift with Tab instead makes more sense (again I'd still avoid combos like "Shift+Tab").

7. Again in games I don't see an issue with same button doing different things depending of the context (like RMB interrupting walking during walking, and fast forwarding autofire during autofire), quite the common thing I'd say. For the rest see the beginning of the post.

13. Once you have proper drag&drop (as for point 3) I don't see passing trough ground as a problem anymore.

17. I always thought combat UI lacked the ufopaedia button.

And if I can add one:

19. (Don't know about feasibility but) add a button to change armor in the inventory screen (only available while at base; opening up the little window with the list of armors); this would be especially useful in mods which have lots of armors.

[volutar]

single particle per shot is by design ? i mean this is why shotgun pellets are not drawn few at the same time as there can be only one particle at the time ?

The engine is incapable of rendering multiple projectiles a time. Yet. Shotgun pellets are fired one after another, with infinite speed, thus it seems like they are "pellets" and not just autoshot.

Have you ever played Apocalypse turn based?

Couple of useless attempts. And I assume Apoc as awful game in terms of UI and design. The worst example ever. Don't refer to it please.

And it seems you slightly misunderstand the damaging/accuracy ariphmetics of xcom.
In case of snap with 60% accuracy for 15TUs VS auto (x3) with 40% accuracy for 20TUs, resulting chances will be 60/15 vs 78/20 (chance/tus), which is almost equal. In this case the only difference is ammo expending and more chances to cause "median" damage in case of auto.

Autofire is a faster (less TUs, less accuracy) snap shot, which is exactly what you get with "autoshots: 1".

I don't understand why you started this, and why did you even mentioned "autofire:1"(which doesn't make any sense). And really, it doesn't matter, because autoshot aborting is not meant to be gameplay thing, it's just to abort misclicks. You don't want to "attack" the ground or your troop - saving TUs is not even the question.

If we want to make it properly, I think we should be enabled to control the minimum number of shots fired before interruption is possible (a moddable value), so that the "waste ammo" aspect is preserved.

Mods are out of discussion. "minimum number"? WTF? You don't want to make friendly kill if misclicked, you don't care about TUs and AMMO. What are you even talking about?

2. What you say it's true, but button combos like Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V are a convention more for productivity, in games usually you use single buttons to do things so C/V should be fine. Replacing Shift with Tab instead makes more sense (again I'd still avoid combos like "Shift+Tab").

So you are trying to turn that into "productivity vs games" discussion? Tell me, why do we even need to worry about people who don't know what shift-tab, or ctrl+c is? Do we really need to preserve their IGNORANCE about how things are working on PCs? It's for their good, to get knowledge about these shortcuts.
BTW, could you pls remind me at least one game which uses c/v for copy/paste?

7. Again in games I don't see an issue with same button doing different things depending of the context (like RMB interrupting walking during walking, and fast forwarding autofire during autofire), quite the common thing I'd say. For the rest see the beginning of the post.

You see, ESC key is always cancelling things. Always. It never means "OK" or "Open Browser". It's really bad to mulitply ambiguity, and bind 100500 of things into one button.

13. Once you have proper drag&drop (as for point 3) I don't see passing trough ground as a problem anymore.

And I clearly see.

19. (Don't know about feasibility but) add a button to change armor in the inventory screen (only available while at base; opening up the little window with the list of armors); this would be especially useful in mods which have lots of armors.

XCom equipment screen is a practical mess initially. Row of soldier icons, row of "abstract" weaponry onboard, and row of EMPTYNESS for the armor. Clearly this part isn't even finished. Adding extra buttons here and there, overloading screen with interface elements, cloning UI elements, it doesn't make it any better. Inventory screen doesn't have enough place for the things which are more important than "change armour" already. It's not just "like that". And redesigning this part will make it not Xcom.
Visual interference should be as mild as possible. With this in mind, I assume this as almost impossible due to lack of any free place in the inventory screen.

Frankly, I would like to _remove_ copy/paste buttons entirely, leaving only keyboard shortcuts. It's not the thing which is used too often. We should stop confuse people with needless things. Same for  "categories" button in the manufacture. 0.1% of people are using this in 0.1% of times. I believe adding this was a mistake. The interface should stay as clear and empty, and intuitive, as possible.

[robin]

because autoshot aborting is not meant to be gameplay thing, it's just to abort misclicks.

My point is that it's going to be a gameplay thing, to preserve ammo, even if it's not meant to.

Why do we even need to worry about people who don't know what shift-tab, or ctrl+c is? Do we really need to preserve their IGNORANCE.

No we don't. In fact I'd be more comfortable with ctrl+c/ctrl+v; I was just saying that using only c/v was still ok.

XCom equipment screen is a practical mess initially. Row of soldier icons, row of "abstract" weaponry onboard, and row of EMPTYNESS for the armor. Clearly this part isn't even finished. Adding extra buttons here and there, overloading screen with interface elements, cloning UI elements, it doesn't make it any better. Inventory screen doesn't have enough place for the things which are more important than "change armour" already. It's not just "like that". And redesigning this part will make it not Xcom.
Visual interference should be as mild as possible. With this in mind, I assume this as almost impossible due to lack of any free place in the inventory screen.

I was thinking something like:
1-click on the paperdoll
2-it opens up the little window containing the list of the armors

1
https://a.pomf.se/sijijj.png
2
https://a.pomf.se/flxhen.png

[Hobbes]

And really, it doesn't matter, because autoshot aborting is not meant to be gameplay thing, it's just to abort misclicks. You don't want to "attack" the ground or your troop - saving TUs is not even the question.

Aborting misclicks has little to do with improving Quality of Life. Misclicking by accident is a player error, not a UI issue - in the original game if you are careless with clicks then you'll pay for it in the form of dead soldiers.

Even in the new version of Enemy Unknown you can't stop a unit movement after you give the command. Allowing to do so will be used by players to minimize the negative consequences of bad decisions on their part, which is not the spirit of the original game.

The rest of the ideas sound good to me, with the exception of this one:

1. If live alien is already researched then it can be displayed when looking at alien by updating red sign in the right lower corner of screen. Standard red = soldier / terror. Red with white envelope = medic. Red with blue envelope = navigator etc... This is not a mind probe as it just tells you the rank after you already fought it.

This makes the mind probe almost useless (except to verify if the alien still has TUs to shoot in reaction fire) and helps the player by pointing out to him/her which alien should be killed/stunned first at 0 TU cost.

[bladum]

@Hobbes

Please make a difference between UI stuff and gameplay stuff. This feature might be enabled when a) unit has rank at least squaddie OR b) player has research rank of this alien OR c) unit has mind probe in its hand. So there might be other rules that defines if color icon is displayed or not.

[volutar]

Aborting misclicks has little to do with improving Quality of Life. Misclicking by accident is a player error, not a UI issue - in the original game if you are careless with clicks then you'll pay for it in the form of dead soldiers.

Quality of life in this aspect is OVERALL feeling of GAME understanding what you want without lots of actions. Misclicks being not that "unforgivable" is also QoL thing. It is UI issue, since misclicks are the issues of user-interface interaction. In vanilla you were pushing mouse button down over the interface button, and that was enough to start action (mousedown handling), modern, and more friendly UI implies that you need to release mouse button over the same control to start the action. By this misclicks are avoided, since you have a time to change mind. It's the improvement implemented in the oxc over vanilla xcom. In some respect it also "contraverse" original spirit. The fact is that IT IS NOT. It's small UI improvement of QoL. Same with walk cancelling. Same will be with long burst shots cancelling (not to waste too much time watching all this unwanted animation). Same with "speedup" fire, and "speedup" walk.

Even in the new version of Enemy Unknown you can't stop a unit movement after you give the command. Allowing to do so will be used by players to minimize the negative consequences of bad decisions on their part, which is not the spirit of the original game.

Who said that new version is the god model of usability and QoL? I wouldn't refer to xcom2012 as like as to Apoc. They are not models.

[Hobbes]

Quality of life in this aspect is OVERALL feeling of GAME understanding what you want without lots of actions. Misclicks being not that "unforgivable" is also QoL thing. It is UI issue, since misclicks are the issues of user-interface interaction. In vanilla you were pushing mouse button down over the interface button, and that was enough to start action (mousedown handling), modern, and more friendly UI implies that you need to release mouse button over the same control to start the action. By this misclicks are avoided, since you have a time to change mind. It's the improvement implemented in the oxc over vanilla xcom. In some respect it also "contraverse" original spirit.
Who said that new version is the god model of usability and QoL? I wouldn't refer to xcom2012 as like as to Apoc. They are not models.

Can you please drop the caps? I'm not visually impaired, thanks.

Like you said, it contraverse the original spirit. XCOM2012 doesn't allow you to stop movement precisely to keep the original spirit. In this issue of  user-interface interaction, XCOM2012 is a model since it replicates the original behavior.

It's possible to add a ton of improvements to improve QoL. However, if you start adding them without considering the implications that they have on overall playing then you'll end up with a game that will be very different from the original in spirit.