1095 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

Where is the new thread??

[Furanofsky]

You guys did 3rd person to help new players and make the game more accessible for newbies. But now you did UI 2.0 and you did the opposite of it. So overcomplicated, unintuitive. Even for me, playing this game a long time the mech loadout screen is a frustrating mess. How you could miss everything that was great about the old ui and improve on that is beyond me. Full screen is fine, changing the mechs name is fine but everything else makes me a little bit sad, knowing how much time went into programming something that makes the game not better.

[Julian Langsdorf III]

I'm not a typical griper. I rarely gripe, complain...etc. My point is, it takes a lot to make me take the time to go complain about something to the developers of a game.

So with that in mind....I'm really not a fan of at least a couple aspects of the new UI.

1. As someone else mentioned, the text looks like an old DOS font. Very retro, not in a cool way. At first I thought it was just my computer, perhaps a graphics setting issue, but it seems to be more than "just me" as I read others posts. Instead of making MWO feel new, it now feels like an old DOS game that has been repackaged to work on a modern operating system.

2. I can't make heads or tails or the mechbay. Its not intuitive at all. The old one was much much much better and easier to learn. In particular the loadout and camospecs section bug me the most. To offer a specific example, I used to just play around with camospecs, trying out different "looks" on a mech. Achieving the same thing seems SOOO much harder now.

The attempt to add a visual graphic to all weapons/ammo/equipment was a decent idea. Yet it comes across as overwhelming to look at, and sometimes difficult to find what you are looking for. Most importantly, the graphical representation of a particular part of a mech (like an arm) and what's in its slots, is less user friendly to my eyes than it was before.

Let me be clear, I don't feel like the game is broken. I'm not that dramatic. But I think UI 2.0 represents a "two steps forward...one step back". Some of the changes were good, others....really feel inferior, or at least less intuitive and user friendly than what we had before.

Edited by Julian Langsdorf III, 04 February 2014 - 04:37 PM.

[Kroxloq]

I did not participate in the public test realm beta stuff, so here is input from first time user:

1. Please remove the "select mode" pop up box when I hit launch. It is annoying, just make it a tick box like it was before ui2

2. It took me 5 minutes to figure out how to save my mech load out. The button to save the mech load out is now called "check out" which I find very misleading. I was not purchasing anything with Cbills or MC, having a button called "check out" makes me feel like I shouldn't press it unless I am performing a microtransaction. Please relabel this button "save mech config" or something. Seriously, "check out" does not convey the intended meaning.

3. I love the charts/readouts on perks acceleration/arm swing/torso twist. that said, it is kind of information overload, and having the pop up window versus a more permanent fixed/static window/display area is confusing. Also, I do not believe the diagrams are accurate. My KTO-20 has incredible torso twist, but the diagram only shows 180 degrees.

4. Why are all my weapon groupings destroyed? this is minor, but cmon!

5. The filters are non functional. I do not want to see champion/trial mechs showing up in "owned." I have no interest in them, I do not "own" them per se, and can't configure them. To me, that is not "owning" them.

Edited by Kroxloq, 04 February 2014 - 04:41 PM.

[overwraith]

Being that this is a "mechwarrior" game wouldn't it make more sense for the "Play Now" button to be labeled "Launch", as in launch from your dropship?

[Jolly Llama]

Junktastic! If you have modules loaded and own more than four mechs, you will quit MWO for good before you find them.

[Kanatta Jing]

I accidentally bought speed tweak with GXP. It wasn't exceedingly clear.

[Dymlos2003]

Kanatta Jing, on 04 February 2014 - 05:34 PM, said:

I accidentally bought speed tweak with GXP. It wasn't exceedingly clear.

How isn't this clear enough?

[Victor Morson]

Dymlos2003, on 04 February 2014 - 05:40 PM, said:

How isn't this clear enough?

If you don't have enough Mech XP, but enough GXP, that dialogue won't pop up. That's how.

[Lorehunter]

On the new UI:

Likes -
1) Pretty, better rendering both front end and ingame. That is all so far. Maybe after I get more practice working it I will like it better. Will see.

Dislikes -
1) Tunneling up and down through sub-menus. Could be fixed with buttons being active in more menus.
2) Grouping (larger or better indicated Social button) and getting into ready (maybe a "Ready" button on Home Menu).
3) Locating equipment (modules and Mechs). This can be fixed mostly with more filters I think. It is unpleasant in my opinion to have all the mechs I do not own thrown in with the ones I do own and not have a way to filter them out until such a time as I am ready to buy a new mech. I am also having trouble locating variants of different mechs.
4) Understanding graphs on the info pop pages (most likely a personal problem that I will have to get over).
5) No listing of Hard-points for mechs anywhere that I could find.

Conclusions - at the moment I like the old UI. I can see possibilities for this UI though and have high hopes for it.

Edited by Lorehunter, 04 February 2014 - 05:51 PM.

[Macksheen]

Ok so - UI update related or not ... I can't space-bar through the splash screens anymore?

[Dymlos2003]

Victor Morson, on 04 February 2014 - 05:46 PM, said:

If you don't have enough Mech XP, but enough GXP, that dialogue won't pop up. That's how.

Once again, how is this not clear enough?

[FactorlanP]

Macksheen, on 04 February 2014 - 05:54 PM, said:

Ok so - UI update related or not ... I can't space-bar through the splash screens anymore?

Use Esc instead

[ChuChuRo]

UI 2.0 has got some nice little features like grouping weapons in mechlab, renaming mechs and some new info on twist- and turnspeed and -ranges. That's nice. But honestly, apart from that...

It's really a lot less intuitive and that's not just an issue of 'getting used to it'. As it is now, everything is just way too much convoluted. Too many unnecessary sub-menus hiding information from you until you actually get there. I feel like the old Interface had a lot more information displayed right away in just one click. While this one's just a pain to get around in. Like, going into every single 'Mech to find those modules or engines, going into every limb to allocate armor...

Right when you enter it... I won't comment on every option of the new 'Home' menu but most of them are kinda useless and/or could've been put somewhere else. This could've saved us 1 click to begin with and also some screen space by instead showing us the main thing that's primarily interesting right away: Our list of mechs.
Next, why do trial mechs show up in there and why is it a 4 column vertical list blocking half of my screen? While the right side is going mainly unused except for the new pop-up information, which is nice but really just some secondary details. Instead I'd like to be shown more important info first, like the Mech's actual loadout. No, for this we have to click 'configure' on each Mech individually. This will take you to a complete new screen where everything is again only accessible click by click by click...

I could continue this list forever but I think I made my point that the new UI can still learn a whole lot from the old one when it comes to an intuitive layout.

TL;DR:

UI 2.0 could be greatly improved by mainly two things:
1) Maximize the amount of information shown at a time, thus less sub-menus.
2) Order of Information. Show the most interesting things immediately, then go from there...

[Delta503rd]

Loading out mech is clumsy - no "open slots" or "modules" status is reported when a mech is selected and there is no longer a "check mark" option to show that the mech is readied up.

[Itsalrightwithme]

If you have chosen one mech, say after you exit a mech, it will be great to be able to immediately access the mechbay editing screen of that mech, say for re-loading modules.

Instead of having to again click "select mech", find that mech on the list, and then hit "customize" yet again.

I mean, the mech you just used is already RIGHT there displayed in its huge glory in front you.

[Ransack]

After playing with this Edsel of a UI for a few hours. I think I will be taking another break. The UI is not ready for prime time, neither are the other changes that came along with it. I'm sorry PGI, I tried to get off the bash bus, but after seeing all the lag, and getting stuck in places that were fixed in closed beta, my confidence is has dwindled to where the game isn't fun for me right now.

[Xenon Codex]

geodeath, on 04 February 2014 - 05:31 PM, said:

Junktastic! If you have modules loaded and own more than four mechs, you will quit MWO for good before you find them.

Yeah, even in the old UI I learned long time ago to un-equip all modules when switching to different mech if I was to ever have hope of finding them quickly. Now I'm going to have to start doing that with my engines as well. <sigh>

Originally I thought PGI did this intentionally with the new UI just to try and get us to buy more equipment, spend more C-bills, and grind out more battles. But as I've watched the latest public tests and the lack of improvements to very basic flaws from months ago, I don't believe it's intentional. Their programmers are just really that slow, or their managers are beating them with chains and whips to prioritize other things instead.

[Dymlos2003]

Ransack, on 04 February 2014 - 06:30 PM, said:

After playing with this Edsel of a UI for a few hours. I think I will be taking another break. The UI is not ready for prime time, neither are the other changes that came along with it. I'm sorry PGI, I tried to get off the bash bus, but after seeing all the lag, and getting stuck in places that were fixed in closed beta, my confidence is has dwindled to where the game isn't fun for me right now.

But the game runs better than ever? The UI is just new and rough around the edges.

[Nastyogre]

I hate this. Tunneling in submenus, how time counsuming and tedious

Why is the save button called "check out" I didn't buy anything, why is it so damn small?

Why do I have still pull a weapon off of a mech to put it on another? If I own it, since I can't play with more than 1, I should always have it available.

The old UI was superior in function, this one is prettier. I like function over pretty.

The selecting noises are annoying.

I hate this. If the UI was like this when I started I would have quit as soon as my premium time was done. ICK!