174 replies to this topic

[SpajN]

I like the potential in UI 2.0 but i didnt like the current state. Among reason were small font, it was hard to see in mechlab what weapon I was selecting. I think you are making a big mistake having the red colour as invalid item.. You should have it grayed if its invalid and base different weapon tech with different colours (as in lasers red, missiles green, balistic yellow). I also didnt like the ping sound on every button.

The worst part in UI 2.0 is there is NO PAPERDOLL during mechlab..
Why?? it has been in every mechwarrior game because it works and is the easiest and quickest way to see your mech loudout and get the big picture how your mech is built. The poor design in UI 1.0 in mechlab gave me such a headache when building new mechs that i simply stopped playing and UI 2.0 has no improvements in this area so i hope you still are making changes.

I like the images on effective range on weapons but i wish you could expand it to see more in detail the distance and damage dropoff.. right now it more feels like "ok i guess this is a short range weapon" than accurate data on the weapon.

[LegoPirate]

sometimes when you open up the skill trees, the window opens partially, obstructing the ability to actually enter the skill tree for a given mech. you have to reopen it to fix this.

[Leigus]

Niko Snow, on 28 October 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

Please answer the following questions in your response.

1) What is it that you like about the UI 2.0 Preview? Please enter as many items as you wish.

2) What do you like least about the UI 2.0 Preview?

3) In what ways does the UI 2.0 Preview appear to be superior to the previous UI?

4) Any new issues encountered?

5) Any other comments or concerns?

1) I like the potential I see in it. The aesthetic is a nice change and just needs a bit of improvement. The new style of text is nice as well.

2) The biggest thing that stuck out to me is scaling: all the icons were way too small to be ergonomic and I couldn't find a GUI scale setting. A close second is how choppy rotating your mech model is.

3) It's definitely much more organized.

4) None that stuck out.

5) The organization/layout needs to be communicated more clearly. This would probably be improved with better scaling of the icons, but use of space is also an issue. I shouldn't be able to see an empty garage -- either center the mech when nothing's selected or keep some kind of menu/other information in that space at all times (I recognize this may be what you have planned). The last thing is that mech modification in general needs a lot of tuning. The mechlab in UI 1.5 is probably its best feature, and UI 2.0 makes it incredibly difficult to use (it took me ages to figure out that the critical slots were located off to the right in an incredibly small box and it was frustrating to see "INVALID" on all items without understanding why).

[Kell Morgan]

Ok there are many things I like and dislike about this build. I dislike how items and mechs are organized. Trial mechs and owned mechs should be seperate filters.

When viewing or buying a mech Hard points MUST be listed some place when viewing the mech. Dont assume people already know the loadouts.

I was unable to change any weapons on a owned mech (battle master was tried) let alone have a close understanding of what was already on the mech. Also while trying to config the battle master my client crashed to desktop.

New UI is VERY hungry on resources. I was lagging between almost every screen.

over all more info can be displayed in the total amount of space given using full screen mode just make that info available and also a collapse feature to view mechs by chassis type (catapult, atlas, ect) instead of seeing every variant at once. I was unable to use the list view,

[Wintersdark]

Niko Snow, on 28 October 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

Please answer the following questions in your response.

1) What is it that you like about the UI 2.0 Preview? Please enter as many items as you wish.

I like the new layouts, overall appearance. It's a strong step in the right direction, but needs a lot of work.

Quote

2) What do you like least about the UI 2.0 Preview?

Click, click, click, drag, drag, drag. There's so much clicking required, and a lot of unnecessary selections to click through.

For example, in mech configuration, you can't just doubleclick an object to unequip it, and there's no "Strip Mech" button. So, to strip a mech down (something you need to do often) you need to move back and forth between the menu on the left side of the screen, then dragging items out on the little display to the right. Then you need to step through those sections again, back and forth, to build your mech. It's tedious.

Likewise, with armor - it's a pain in the *** to see where your armor is. I really, REALLY miss the armor editting page from UI1.5 already.

Lets say you want to shave back your leg armor, to an even tonnage level. You have to keep clicking back and forth between the two legs and making small adjustments until you end up where you want to be, rather than just clicking a couple arrows.

In all honestly, mech configuration editting is substantially worse than in UI1.5.

Quote

3) In what ways does the UI 2.0 Preview appear to be superior to the previous UI?

First and foremost, it's sexy, looks much more polished and professional.

Quote

4) Any new issues encountered?

None that I noticed, other than loss of functionality we had in UI1.5 - doubleclick to install/remove, for example.

Quote

5) Any other comments or concerns?

In the main home menu, having two buttons alongside and identical to UI buttons, but which open web pages is really annoying. Move them, make them look different, or integrate the functionality into the user interface (preferable).

[Madd Dawg]

Please answer the following questions in your response.

1) What is it that you like about the UI 2.0 Preview? Please enter as many items as you wish.
Easy to find mechs using the filter. Mech bay is now full screen. Faster to use.
2) What do you like least about the UI 2.0 Preview?
Could not find how to upgrade armor and heat sinks. Add more armor is a pain because you have to click on each section on the left then ad or subtract armor.

3) In what ways does the UI 2.0 Preview appear to be superior to the previous UI?
Faster and easier to find mech.

4) Any new issues encountered?
No

5) Any other comments or concerns?
Please add a seprate armor module. Full armor button will be nice as well. Plus Strip mech of all items. This would remove all weapons, equipment, ammo etc.

Thanks for the preview

[Jacob Roamer]

1) What is it that you like about the UI 2.0 Preview? Please enter as many items as you wish.

Sleeker, like the music. Much more friendly to finding your mechs. Easy to see if ECM and other items are included.

2) What do you like least about the UI 2.0 Preview?

Biggest issue for me was "overall" listing of the weapons on the mech. I had no idea what was on each mech when I clicked it armament wise. If I click a mech I would like to see what she's bringing to the fight.
No modules listed. I assume its coming?
THe giant red sashes that say invalid are a bit intrusive. When I cliked on the Torso it looked like something was wrong
No idea where my "Empty" mech bays where. I saw I had them but didnt know if it was there or if I had to click it.


3) In what ways does the UI 2.0 Preview appear to be superior to the previous UI?
Graphically superior to old version. Easier to find my owned mechs

4) Any new issues encountered?
Lots of crashes to Desktop

5) Any other comments or concerns?

Its a decent start but no where close to being ready. Looking forward to new versions soon that are more complete.

[Veranova]

Niko Snow, on 28 October 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

Please answer the following questions in your response.

1) What is it that you like about the UI 2.0 Preview? Please enter as many items as you wish.

2) What do you like least about the UI 2.0 Preview?

3) In what ways does the UI 2.0 Preview appear to be superior to the previous UI?

4) Any new issues encountered?

5) Any other comments or concerns?

1. It's got slightly better organisation than previously.
2. It doesn't look like a Battletech interface, it looks like a F2P interface.
3. The extra features it will bring
4.
5. It crashes a LOT, about 50% of the time when entering the Skills list, and lots when doing almost anything. About 50% of times when launched it crashed immediately.
I gave up in the end.

Edited by Veranova, 29 October 2013 - 03:51 PM.

[mariomanz28]

'MechLab Section

Sorting of the mechs is not changeable and default sorting is kind of off. For example with the mechs given to us the Phoenix Shadow Hawk, Founder’s Hunchback, and Champion Centurion were grouped together while after those the regular SHD variants were grouped together. Champion/Founder’s/Phoenix mechs should not, from my point of view, count as a separate grouping. Also, unless I missed it, I couldn't find any way to change sorting options.

No mech renaming? I couldn't figure out a way to rename my mechs. This is definitely something we need.

Cannot double click to remove components. Must have feature. Having to drag/drop everything off the mech is just unnecessary work.

There are no ammo or slot count readouts. Ideally it should tell you both ammo and slot count both inside and outside of the Loadout editor.

Weight seems to have some inaccuracies. I noticed while trying to fit a heatsink on a Battlemaster that I had to lower the tonnage down to 83.9 to fit on a heatsink. Afterwards I was able to add back armor to equal out 85 tons. However it WOULD NOT let me add in the last heatsink even though it read 84 tons.

The View button is supposed to do what? The View button above the Checkout button when editing mech load out doesn’t seem to do anything at all.

No strip mech function. Pretty sure this was something that was supposed to be included?

Home Section

Select Mech and MechLab Button redundancy. The Select Mech button on the Home screen and the MechLab button next to the Home button both do pretty much the exact same thing which seems pretty redundant and a waste of space.

Stats linking to external website. With a new UI we should be able to see those stats IN THE GAME. It shouldn't be hard to pull the data itself from the website and use the new UI to display them.

Skills Section

Some of the colors used in the new Mech Skills screens are very inconsistent. You have, in the skill trees themselves, Gray for Basic, Green for Elite, and Yellow for Master. However this doesn't follow the same line elsewhere. You have the little banner that shows over the icon displays BLUE and not GREEN for Elite while the Master indicator shows GREEN which should be YELLOW. Also the colored icons you have the colors for Elite and Master switched. The icon for Elite displays Yellow while the icon for Master displays Green.

Quickly purchasing skills. There should be Purchase All Basic Skills and Purchase All Elite Skills buttons.

General Feedback

Locked into full screen mode. At no point was I able to switch from Full Screen to Windowed using ALT+ENTER. The screen would just flash and stay in full screen.

Haziness around/over the mechs displayed to the right of the information on the screen. The mech that you have selected appears hazy or blurry. This just doesn't feel right and it actually bothers me. Almost makes me feel the whole screen is blurry or hazy when it's not.

Overall there seems to be significantly more clicking. While the whole UI may look better it “feels” like I have to do more work to accomplish the same things. I like the UI, it looks nice, but it doesn't seem to improve on a lot of the issues with the current one, like ammo load out. In the current UI there is no way to tell how much ammo you have unless you go to each section of the mech count each ton and calculate the shots for each ton. Yet you haven't improved this in the new UI. You really should take advantage of making the new UI to improve upon every aspect that is lacking in the current one.

[Rhaythe]

The Good

• Artistically, this client is much more immersive.
  
• The level of information concerning any particular item is satisfying.
  
• Background music is well chosen; does not overwhelm you during your work in the mechbay

The So-So

• The flow of the application is rather stale.
  
• Mech weight is not in a good location, especially in higher resolutions; at 1980x1020, I have to drop the item onto the mech, then look down to see my weight in tiny print. Might just be due to resolution scaling, but wasn't ideal.
  
• Weapon icons don't really show any difference in weapon classes. An AC2 looks just as impressive as an AC20. Are these the final art assets?

The Bad

• The mouse feels like it's going all over the screen to do something as simple as unlock a mech skill
  
• Hovering over a weapon will sometimes bring up an info screen that blocks the mech and may not go away satisfactorily. This can be worked around by highlighting a weapon further to left, but is noticeably annoying.
  
• Click. Click. Click. Click. Double-click. Click. Click. Click.
  
• Nearly every action includes an "Are You Sure?" popup. This gets old quickly.

The Wants

• A "Strip All X" button, where X is armor, weapons, equipment, etc. Navigating from section to section is tedious.
  
• Tooltips for certain icons, such as hardpoint icons in the mechbay
  
• A mechbay tutorial
  
• Get rid of the "You don't have this; do you want to buy this" notification in the mechbay. We get this information in checkout.

[SirLANsalot]

Ran it in fullscreen 1920x1080. Smooth, full settings on max game looked and ran very well.

As the post above me stated, missing the double click remove and be good for a strip button. Armor management is about the same as before, would be nice to have a seporate window that shows all armor at once and buttons that allow you to remove/add armor in pairs (like arms/legs)

[JDH4mm3r]

Niko Snow, on 28 October 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

Please answer the following questions in your response.

1) What is it that you like about the UI 2.0 Preview? Please enter as many items as you wish.

2) What do you like least about the UI 2.0 Preview?

3) In what ways does the UI 2.0 Preview appear to be superior to the previous UI?

4) Any new issues encountered?

5) Any other comments or concerns?

Let me be blunt and to the point:

1: the new UI looks like its something old fashioned. Ditch the full screen mode, the current UI window was fine as we are able to multi task. The only think I liked about it was just the start up screen. Everything else had a big wtf factor surrounding it.

2: See #1.

3: It is bloated and time consuming. Old UI is more simpler and easier to use, should work on improving THAT rather than coming up with something .... like MS windows 8.0.

4: it doesn't close when you exit.

5: This UI LACKS THE SOCIAL BUTTON like the current UI, so therefore we cannot test how the new chat system there works... or see who is playing.

You guys can do better than this. The new UI looks like something out of StarTrek: TOS. While it is sorta functional, and i mean SORTA, PGI gets a failing grade on the UI 2.0 attempt.

I also did not see any armor upgrades / DHS upgrades / atremis upgrades, and such like the current UI has.

[Dracol]

Great look. Was responsive and quick.

What stood out for me:

Mech Lab - When I quickly clicked a mech while another mech's info was up on the right side, the new mech's roll over info would not appear. I would have to move off then back on for the mech's details to pop up

Weapon groups - when setting weapons, I realized the weapon info all have nice graphs, but I didn't exact ranges. Would be nice to have at least the range displayed in the cockpit when in a drop available when pre setting weapon groups.

Skills page / mech tree - the little arrow to expand a mechs skill info feels like it should be on the left side of the emblem. Nice and easy to move from choosing a weight class to choosing a specific mech

Mech lab / customizing mech wording - Save config instead of Check out
- Cost of modifications instead of Cart Total
(felt like I was buying something with real money)

Great job, moving in the right direction IMHO.

[Traceroute]

1) What is it that you like about the UI 2.0 Preview? Please enter as many items as you wish.
The atmosphere. The UI feels much more suited to a game set in the far future.

2) What do you like least about the UI 2.0 Preview?
1. Travel distance. I don't know if this layout is the best choice. I'm using a 24" monitor at 1920 x 1080, and I am spending a lot of time just moving around the screen. It feels like it takes a long time to get from the part selection to the hardpoints.
2. Font size. All the labels are TINY at 1080p. It takes a lot of mental effort to see the labels of the equipment I want to purchase. I'm sure this would ease with time, but an option to increase the font size would be welcome.
3. Drag & drop for equipment removal.
4. Mech stats placement. I'd prefer a large, high-contrast number for current tonnage.
5. Contrast on the weapon group selection. The highlighted row and selected groups are very nearly the same color. It's tough to tell what's selected at a glance.
6. I can't find the upgrades section! That might be intentional though.

3) In what ways does the UI 2.0 Preview appear to be superior to the previous UI?
Single click equip, more filters to find mechs. Search would be handy.

4) Any new issues encountered?
Not particularly.

5) Any other comments or concerns?
The distance for each click is really rough. I'd recommend getting an ergonomic consultant; that sounds silly, but finding great ways to minimize click & travel is tough and would go a long way towards improving the usability.

[MechHeffa]

Not sure if someone else got this problem but, I have a 3 screens setup and the UI seem to try to adjust to it but it scale it in only the cenrtal screen making it unreadable so unusable :-(

[Moe Zart]

Hi folks,
You did a great job with UI 2.0. However, some potential remains.

• What is it that you like about the UI 2.0 Preview? Please enter as many items as you wish.
  
  • Backgroud music
    
  • Fullscreen
    
  • More mechs displayed
    
  • Filter
    
  • Detailed information about mech quirks, like torso twist capabilities, acceleration and turning speeds
• What do you like least about the UI 2.0 Preview?
  
  • I am missing summarized and detailed mech information utmost. If I am browsing through my hangar, looking for modules or engines, I want to find the desired items quickly. The summary on the lower right could use more information like
    
    • Engine used, e.g. XL 280
      
    • Number of Heatsinks, e.g. 15 DHS
      
    • Weapons, e.g. 2ER LL, AC20, AC2
      
    • Ammunition, e.g. 21 AC20, 300 AC2
      
    • Modules
      
    • Free slots
  • I am missing highlighted hitzones in configuration mode, especially when I am distributing armor.
• In what ways does the UI 2.0 Preview appear to be superior to the previous UI?

The visuals are great, not only because of fullscreen. Good navigation and structure of elements.

• Any new issues encountered?

Apart from client crashes, I encountered no issues.

• Any other comments or concerns?

I would like to ask for a “strip mech” button. If one wants to get the gear out of the mech, it is not as comfortable to get in all all locations, especially when they are on opposite parts of the – now full – screen.

I am concerned that the new UI gets annoying for long-term players. It may be less complex and thus be user friendly for new players. However, if one is familiar with mechs, it cost too much time to set up the desired config for a mech.

Best regards,
Moe

[Dadrick]

1) What is it that you like about the UI 2.0 Preview? Please enter as many items as you wish.

• New aesthetic is a definite improvement over the current UI.
  
• Browsing mechs in the mechlab is much easier now thanks to the addition of filters
  
• Background Music

2) What do you like least about the UI 2.0 Preview?

• The mechlab is more difficult to use and needs improvement.
  
• While browsing mechs you should be able to view what weapons they have equipped.

3) In what ways does the UI 2.0 Preview appear to be superior to the previous UI?

• Better art direction.
  
• Appears to be more adaptable.

4) Any new issues encountered?

• Can't save altered mech loadouts.

5) Any other comments or concerns?

• Suggestions for the mechlab;
  
  • It would be nice if information was managed through filters in the mechlab, rather than menus. Let the user decide how much or how little information they want to see on the screen.
    
  • General information regarding the mech (Armor, crit space, etc.) seems to be marginalized by the equipment window. This window does not need to occupy 40% of the available screen.
    
  • I would like to see the mech paper doll return or a system like mwo-smurfy be implemented.

Edited by Dadrick, 29 October 2013 - 05:33 PM.

[joedawg39s]

Please answer the following questions in your response.

1) What is it that you like about the UI 2.0 Preview? Please enter as many items as you wish.
Looks great, I like how mechs are to scale, they also look a-lot nicer to me.

2) What do you like least about the UI 2.0 Preview?
font size is hard to read, cant see a mechs hard point layout without going into the mechlab.


3) In what ways does the UI 2.0 Preview appear to be superior to the previous UI?
looks, can see more then 4 mechs when selecting one.

4) Any new issues encountered?
had a few random crashes with no error messages. default setting is full window had really low resolution on my monitor until i set it to full screen.

Found a bug with selecting an unowned mech. I selected the Boars head from un-owned mech filter. With it still selected it changed the filter to heavy and owned. I then tried to configure the CTF-1X I bought (was selected by default) and the atlas still showed up in the mech lab. It also got the name i gave my CTF. PIcs in the spoiler

Spoiler

started here and clicked configure on the CTF (this is after leaving the mechlab, the mech is named vanguard, my CTF.)

as a ctf-1x (couldn't replicate this)

with half stats and Varaint as a name(after editing mechlab)

no clue why only the last one is big

5) Any other comments or concerns?
Looks good so far

Edited by joedawg39s, 29 October 2013 - 04:29 PM.

[Parmeggido]

Hmm, I suppose I was hoping for a bit more from the preview, but, here I go.

Pros:
It looks better. I certainly like the new color scheme, being rather partial to the blue end of the spectrum myself. The seperation of engines in the mechlab into their own category is a definite plus, and it's much easier to see large amounts of items etc. with the expanded inventory area.

Cons:
It seems like information and useability has taken a bit of a back see to all the pretty. The mechlab keeps mech information such as speed and current tonnage in the bottom right of the screen while working on a mech, with current stats in a hard to see (for me) gray text, and the max stats in a nice bright yellow. I would love to see a color change to make the current tonnage etc easier to spot, as well as putting it in a more prominent place, instead of hiding in the corner. It would also be nice to still be able to click on the various parts of a mech to access them in the mechlab. Finally, in the skill trees, there are nice big bars for each of the mech chassis, so to select a set of chassis, please let us click the entire bar instead of just a little arrow at the far end.

Bugs:
Testing grounds maps seemed to be off by one, for example, picking canyon network launched me to terra therma, the next one down on the list.

Overall:
It's a start, and in time I could certainly get used to it, but it feels like there is still quite a bit of work to go. I want information front and center when working in the mechlab, I want intuitive control such as being able to click on a section of the mech to be able to access it, and I want everything to be easy to see and read. It's hard to really say much else when so much of the functionality still isn't implemented yet.

[Colddawg]

1) What is it that you like about the UI 2.0 Preview? Please enter as many items as you wish.

2) What do you like least about the UI 2.0 Preview?

3) In what ways does the UI 2.0 Preview appear to be superior to the previous UI?

4) Any new issues encountered?

5) Any other comments or concerns?[color=#959595] [/color]



1. Clean and concise. It takes a little time to get use to from a first time use perspective.

2. No overall 'Mech loadout window/screen.
-Armor modifications seem hidden-when weapons and equipment are listed out on the left side per section the armor loadout is hidden on the right.
-The models need to be cleaned up. Rotating the Stalker at all reveals the missile bays below the missile bay doors. Any model that has missile doors closed does this and all of the models when rotated are jerking instead of being smooth.
-The "Owned/Unowned" option needs to be more noticeable.

3. Organization.

4. This might be a new issue, but I believe that when I modified a 'Mech's loadout and weapon grouping that if any of the original weapons remain after modification their default weapon grouping remains too. I am not sure about how the weapon grouping issue arose because I can't recreate it with the same parameters each time.

5. Needs an overall 'Mech loadout chart because there's no way to see what weapons are on which 'Mech. The "Owned/Unowned" option needs to be more noticeable.

Edited by Colddawg, 29 October 2013 - 05:28 PM.