20 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

I have some suggestions for changes to the mission summary screen.

• Make all the information fit on one page. No scrolling needed.
  
• Show how many times the player did whatever got him the bonus. How many mechs did I get scouting bonus for? How many savior kills? How many brawling bonuses?
  
• Show the amount of damage done to teammates via friendly fire.
  
• Punish players for friendly fire. Like, for reals.

I'd also suggest that you remove some of these bonuses, because I've been playing for 2 years and I have still no idea how they work. What the hell is protection proximity? I'm just shooting randomly at mechs right in front of me and I'm getting flanking bonus. What does that even mean? I'm not even flanking!








DISCLAIMER:
I am not a graphical designer. I do not know anything about fonts, colours, proportions, lines or kerning. Incidentally, this thread is not about any of those things.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 24 November 2014 - 04:35 PM.

[MadPanda]

Friendly fire? Oh get out .

[Mercules]

Alistair Winter, on 24 November 2014 - 04:24 PM, said:

What the hell is protection proximity? I'm just shooting randomly at mechs right in front of me and I'm getting flanking bonus. What does that even mean? I'm not even flanking!

It means go back and read the patch notes that explain rather clearly when those rewards trigger or live on in ignorance.

[Alistair Winter]

Mercules, on 24 November 2014 - 04:30 PM, said:

It means go back and read the patch notes that explain rather clearly when those rewards trigger or live on in ignorance.

Oh, that's cool. A game that relies on all the players searching up old patch notes in the forum archives.

Yep, that makes sense.

Totally.

[Mercules]

Alistair Winter, on 24 November 2014 - 04:31 PM, said:

Oh, that's cool. A game that relies on all the players searching up old patch notes in the forum archives.

Yep, that makes sense.

Totally.

Oh that's cool. People who haven't figured out that for 90% of the games out there there is a place to look crap up that isn't spoon fed to them in game... a magical place called "Patch notes". Seriously. I have yet to run into a game that is still changing that you DON'T get a ton of info from the patch notes every update that ends up being really useful in game.

Wait... Game I play that has been around of 8 years... NOPE patchnotes from last month still cover stuff not yet explained in game.

Ignorance is a willful state most of the time.

[Alistair Winter]

Mercules, on 24 November 2014 - 04:35 PM, said:

People who haven't figured out that for 90% of the games out there there is a place to look crap up that isn't spoon fed to them in game...

The whole point with Rewards 2.0 is to encourage players to do certain things to make the game more enjoyable. Rewarding stuff like TAG, NARCs, staying in formation, protecting damaged allies... that's there to promote teamwork and reward advanced gameplay. It's supposed to teach new players how to play, while giving a pat on the head to those who do it right.

However, rewarding someone is absolutely pointless if they're not aware of what they're being rewarded for. If a game just randomly gives you a pop-up message that says "Good job!", it has virtually no effect at all in terms of encouraging desirable behaviour. It doesn't teach the player anything, if the player doesn't understand what's going on.

Ugh... I could go on, but I guess I'm not getting through anyway. Just keep shaking your head and pretending this is only a problem because the players aren't taking enough responsibility to educate themselves, like we're all grad students or something.

[Troutmonkey]

Add a hover over that explains what each reward is for, and I'd be happy.
A scrolling view may still be required for being awarded with many rewards or for users running at lower resolutions.

Edited by Troutmonkey, 24 November 2014 - 05:52 PM.

[Alistair Winter]

Troutmonkey, on 24 November 2014 - 05:51 PM, said:

Add a hover over that explains what each reward is for, and I'd be happy.
A scrolling view may still be required for being awarded with many rewards or for users running at lower resolutions.

Brilliant idea. Such a simple way to do it.

[Mercules]

Alistair Winter, on 24 November 2014 - 04:45 PM, said:

Ugh... I could go on, but I guess I'm not getting through anyway. Just keep shaking your head and pretending this is only a problem because the players aren't taking enough responsibility to educate themselves, like we're all grad students or something.

Yes, reading:

Quote

Protect Proximity:
Staying in a radius of 150 meters to a damaged friendly 'Mech (critical damage).
Be engaged.
Reward occurs every 10 seconds if not interrupted.

Is the same as being a Grad Student.

Yes... so hard that... "reading"... Oh and to do it I have to open something and... ugh... look for it.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Good post! Good ideas here too. I think team damage should remove XP though. But 13,000 c-bill penality for 130 team damage is actually not that much either for how much damage that is haha. So I'd be cool with that too.

I like the tooltips when you hover the rewards and such to explain things, which is also part of that link I hyperlinked. I'm happy people are suggesting these things more openly now. I really hope PGI catches ON TO ALL OF THIS....

O____O


I hear their going to make a UI2.5, or UI3.0, a total revision of the current UI again, and bring in all the features of smurfy has for customizing mechs, and etc. I hope this all goes into their list though. Would really like what's been shown here.

[Viges]

They need to change the main window too. Because... what is the match score anyway?

Spoiler

More kills, assists, damage - lower match score, wat?

Edited by Viges, 24 November 2014 - 06:18 PM.

[Alistair Winter]

Mercules, on 24 November 2014 - 06:03 PM, said:

Yes, reading:
Is the same as being a Grad Student.
Yes... so hard that... "reading"... Oh and to do it I have to open something and... ugh... look for it.

I think we're done here.

Viges, on 24 November 2014 - 06:18 PM, said:

They need to change the main window too. Because... what is the match score anyway?

Yeah, that's something I've thought about as well. To give us a scoring system we don't understand makes no sense. It's kind of like Numberwang. I can't think of any good reason why the players shouldn't know why they're getting rewarded.

MoonUnitBeta, on 24 November 2014 - 06:14 PM, said:

Good post! Good ideas here too. I think team damage should remove XP though. But 13,000 c-bill penality for 130 team damage is actually not that much either for how much damage that is haha. So I'd be cool with that too.

Thanks! I actually had an XP penalty for damage and TK in my original version, but I removed it. Now that you bring it up, I'm warming to the idea again.

[Mercules]

Alistair Winter, on 24 November 2014 - 06:30 PM, said:

I think we're done here.


Yeah, that's something I've thought about as well. To give us a scoring system we don't understand makes no sense. It's kind of like Numberwang. I can't think of any good reason why the players shouldn't know why they're getting rewarded.

No, we are not done here. The scoring system is rather simple.

You are "engaged" in combat if you have been damaged or damaged someone recently. Various rewards are given for accomplishing X while being engaged or not being engaged.

Then they give you a simple list.

If you can't read it, that isn't a PGI thing, that is your issue.


Look, someday I am certain they will go back and put in descriptions of all the rewards somewhere in game. Why didn't they do that now? because it yet another thing that will delay more important things when anyone can simply look at the patch notes and figure it out in about 5 minutes.

[CDLord HHGD]

Girls, girls, you're both pretty.....

Alistair -- This is a neat suggestion and I too wish for more granularity in the post-match screen.

Mercules -- You are right, there is a lot of useful info in the patch notes that explains this game, which has pretty complex mechanics, even if the gameplay is rather simplistic.

[superteds]

No for xp loss with team damage. don't mind c-bill loss, but really just add a charge for knocking off components from a friendly mech. That way, the inevitable mlas into a friendly that you can't pull away from in time won't really do anything, but people who leg friendlies as a way to avoid a TK fine get caught. Probably increase the TK fine a bit, and perhaps give the victim of the TK the equal amount of c-bills.

[Alistair Winter]

cdlord, on 25 November 2014 - 05:26 AM, said:

Girls, girls, you're both pretty.....

Draw me like one of your french girls, Jack

cdlord, on 25 November 2014 - 05:26 AM, said:

Alistair -- This is a neat suggestion and I too wish for more granularity in the post-match screen.

Excellent.

superteds, on 25 November 2014 - 05:37 AM, said:

No for xp loss with team damage. don't mind c-bill loss, but really just add a charge for knocking off components from a friendly mech. That way, the inevitable mlas into a friendly that you can't pull away from in time won't really do anything, but people who leg friendlies as a way to avoid a TK fine get caught. Probably increase the TK fine a bit, and perhaps give the victim of the TK the equal amount of c-bills.

Good points. Especially friendly component destruction.

[Joseph Mallan]

Mercules, on 24 November 2014 - 04:35 PM, said:

Oh that's cool. People who haven't figured out that for 90% of the games out there there is a place to look crap up that isn't spoon fed to them in game... a magical place called "Patch notes". Seriously. I have yet to run into a game that is still changing that you DON'T get a ton of info from the patch notes every update that ends up being really useful in game.

Wait... Game I play that has been around of 8 years... NOPE patchnotes from last month still cover stuff not yet explained in game.

Ignorance is a willful state most of the time.

Actually, I'm with Alistair on this. All the rewards and info like that should be linked right to the game so we can refer to it without having to leave the MechBay.

I enjoy your snarkiness, but it is a good point, the data should be accessible on a terminal in the Mechbay.

[CDLord HHGD]

Joseph Mallan, on 25 November 2014 - 07:29 AM, said:

Actually, I'm with Alistair on this. All the rewards and info like that should be linked right to the game so we can refer to it without having to leave the MechBay.

I enjoy your snarkiness, but it is a good point, the data should be accessible on a terminal in the Mechbay.

If only we had a hangar to walk around in....

[MeiSooHaityu]

No c-bill or xp punishment for freindly fire damage. This is war and war is chaos. Friendly mechs will get by friendly fire all the time.

Punishing for even damage done is unfair because you can't always control the situation. A light mech face hugging your target while he gets dinged by your LRMs. A mech with blinders on running through your weapon fire, etc...

I agree with TKs (although that happens occasionally by accident too), and even part destruction I could see. Just not something as small as damage.

[Mercules]

Joseph Mallan, on 25 November 2014 - 07:29 AM, said:

Actually, I'm with Alistair on this. All the rewards and info like that should be linked right to the game so we can refer to it without having to leave the MechBay.

I enjoy your snarkiness, but it is a good point, the data should be accessible on a terminal in the Mechbay.

I'm not saying it should NEVER be there. Back in Closed Beta weapon stats were not available inside the game. However, to claim that you can't know what gets you the accomplishments is disingenuous. The knowledge is out there and eventually it will be built into the game, however it is a fairly new thing and is probably going to change so documenting it in game is going to take a bit of work, work that we don't want to redo any time soon.

My point is not that we should hide information but instead that saying we don't have information is basically -lying-. It's there, it's not hard to find, it will eventually be in game, but I'd rather they get CW done, and more maps, more mechs, tweak weapons, and more over adding information that can be readily looked up in patch notes or a wiki.