Wow what a mixed bag.
-The noises as I mouse over every single button need to be reduced... by like 75%. The whine of the mouseover is really overpowering.
-The entire interface needs a whole lot more thought about how much wasted clicking there is. On the upside the drastic reduction in time I waste looking at "loading" (or just the random waiting for things like the homescreen to be ready) is very nice.
-The whole interface is much more responsive.
I see at the top of many of the tabs it looks like an option for a list instead of thumbnails, would really like to have been able to try that out.
Store:
-doesn't let me sort mechs by weight or chassis like I can in the mechlab
--Should also have a search option in the store
--If I try to buy a mech and I need a mechbay, it should just prompt me right there, not make me leave the screen to go get one.
--When I buy something (mech bay in this case) I don't need the "Ok" at the end, just let me move on. The whole interface (and this is the same as the current UI) takes too many clicks to do things.
--Store doesn't show the hardpoints at all or even what's currently equipped.
Mech Lab:
(you guys should send whoever makes Smurfy a call and ask him to design your mechlab, currently I would WAY rather use smurfys than the in game lab)
-Hate that when I look at any given mech I can't see what is loaded onto it without actually entering the "configure" screen.
-While configuring it should stay in the same tab as I change locations. IE if I put some ammo in my Right Leg and then switch to my left, it should be in the Ammo tab still. There's just tons of extra clicking required that could really be cleaned up.
-Armor should also have its own tab where I can mess with all the different components quickly and easily. Having to click from section to section is just a ton of wasted clicking especially when trying to balance something like getting rid of that last .1t one point off your legs at a time and going back and forth between legs is just irritating.
-You removed being able to double-click components on and off the mech... why?
-When I cannot install a component into a location it should say why not just "Invalid". Tell me if I'm out of hardpoints, out of crit slots, out of tonnage, whatever not just a giant "Invalid" tag.
-Should also have somewhere that shows things like how many heatsinks I have installed, how many free crit slots I have left, etc.
Overall in the mechlab I found it WAY easier and quicker to do a build in Smurfy and then copy it over into the client than to bother trying to figure it out while inside. (also a fun thought would be to let us copy the link to a smurfy build and have the client automatically build the mech, although I'm sure that's not a small request)
Camo Section
--Oh wow so many steps backwards. Do you guys only play with console controllers or something? I mean this is horrible that I don't just have a big block of colors to the side (and same with the different patterns). This is a computer game, I have a mouse and large monitor, why am I slowly scrolling through colors one at a time?
-Inventory tab - Useless. I can scan through my mechs and sell them, why in the world would I not be able to double click and enter the mech lab?
--Modules tab - I only see unmounted modules, would be glorious to get a list of where all my modules are located so I don't have to go hunting through all my mechs to find that missing Target Decay.
Social:
-It take two clicks to open the social menu, why?
-With the social menu open, the only way to close it is to click the "X", clicking off to the side like before was much better.
-Chat is still pretty lousy, there should be separate windows for each conversation I have like any other instant messaging program on the planet. If I'm talking with someone and I join a group, the window gets overridden, and in order to get it back I have to go back to my list, click the person, and click chat. To just get back to a window that should never have gone anywhere, plus now I can't see the group chat window.
-You made the social part completely block out the rest of the interface, but then put minimal things into the Social AND made it much harder to go back to the rest of the interface. Makes way way more sense to allow me to continue to mess with the mechlab or whatever while having the chat screen off to the side so I can see if my group is talking to me, if they're all ready and waiting on me, etc.
-Really other than being a bit prettier the Social system doesn't seem very different at all (and that's a pretty bad thing). Minor changes here and there but still (like just about everything else) takes way too many clicking through different menus and stuff to do things that should be (and are in other games) much simpler.
-Only did two drops but both times 1 person in my group didn't get included in the drop, they never got "searching" or anything.
Tons of the stuff that I listed above is not huge game changing things. BUT it is irritating. And as a microtransaction game you should want me as relaxed and sucked in as possible. Instead as I sat and messed with much of this interface there were several times where I got frustrated and thought man I'd rather just go play "xyz" game.
Things like the Camo Section should be polished until they are a thing of beauty so that I want to go in there and constantly tweak the appearance of my mechs with so much coolness. Instead with the version that you showed today I would go in, set my clan colors, and then NEVER use that horrible console inspired {Scrap} ever again.
PS sorry this wasn't in the format the of the listed questions but I wrote this up as I tried stuff and only afterwards saw the list.
Edited by Flushot, 16 January 2014 - 12:24 PM.