15 replies to this topic

[Veritae]

FFS!

This has already been addressed, albeit not in the forums.

This was a mechlab pass. This has NOTHING to do with mech select. This is not a new UI.

https://mobile.twitt...739512950886401

This was never about making mech selection better. Only about actually building a mech.

Russ has confirmed that mech select will be getting a fresh pass, as it is a separate and important feature, but has NOTHING to do with actually building mechs.

Please. If you dislike how the actual lab works, give criticism. But be fair.

Many of us HATED looking at a screen full of invalid or useless old mechs. They will be giving ya a new mech select tool. Be patient and have fun in the lab.

[Glaive-]

But then the question remains: why did they change the mech selection screen so drastically?
I know there were some back end reasons, but I don't see why they would have to ditch the old design.

That said, I personally don't mind the new mech selection screen. It's not perfect, but nothing to cry about IMO.

Edited by armyunit, 02 June 2015 - 02:56 PM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Idk, the mech selection, its kinda the right direction, you can sort your mechs by Faction, Class, weight....trial, non trial....its a bit clunky at first, but it works in the end. Once you figure it out.

THe actual mech lab though. Idk, ill have to figure it out. It so seems a little clunky and colorful, but it might work in the end.

[Big Tin Man]

[shrug]

I would have been happy waiting with the mechlab we had for months, than a better loadout screen coupled with an very poor mech selection screen. Then PGI would have had one single thing that would have been lauded as a complete success all around. Instead it's two steps forward, one backward, again. It is progress, but frustrating to see it come like this.

Yeah, they are 'evaluating' options for mech selection. Who wants to start the betting pool on WHEN it will actually come?

[Alistair Winter]

I think everyone understands the issue quite well.

They had a new Mechlab and a new Mech selection screen. The feedback for the former was good, with some significant reservations. The feedback for the latter was quite bad. Now, many players felt that PGI should, if pressed for time, implement the changes to the Mechlab and keep using the old Mechlab mech grid as an alternative to the unwieldy Mech selection screen. They felt that it was unwise to remove a widely used feature without a better feature in place.

Russ explained that it was important to get people using the Mech selection screen now, and then make further updates later. I don't fully understand why, and he said directly he couldn't explain it. It may be because PGI is in a hurry to move on and, hopefully, work on new content. So a compromise between old and new would have taken time, and they don't have time. So people are upset.

But I don't think there's any kind of widespread misunderstanding. Just discontent.

[Veritae]

Russ said there is a reason. What is it? I do not know. Do I like the current mech selection? No?

He said it is going to be addressed. BEFORE the patch launched. Good enough for me.

Here's what I will say tho. For Private Matches or CW drop decks, we already were unable to use the tile view. Unifying the mech select across all facets of the game is the right direction. Making it sortable by weight, faction, chassis or category is all a no brainer. Having your top 10 favorites in a quick select ready list would be PERFECT!

So guess what? Start a feature selection thread. Do mockups. PM or tweet Russ or Tina. All good things.

But please, think of the children, and don't confuse the mechlab with the mech select tool.

[Veritae]

Alistair Winter, on 02 June 2015 - 03:05 PM, said:

I think everyone understands the issue quite well.

They had a new Mechlab and a new Mech selection screen. The feedback for the former was good, with some significant reservations. The feedback for the latter was quite bad. Now, many players felt that PGI should, if pressed for time, implement the changes to the Mechlab and keep using the old Mechlab mech grid as an alternative to the unwieldy Mech selection screen. They felt that it was unwise to remove a widely used feature without a better feature in place.

Russ explained that it was important to get people using the Mech selection screen now, and then make further updates later. I don't fully understand why, and he said directly he couldn't explain it. It may be because PGI is in a hurry to move on and, hopefully, work on new content. So a compromise between old and new would have taken time, and they don't have time. So people are upset.

But I don't think there's any kind of widespread misunderstanding. Just discontent.

You are dead wrong. This was not a mech select improvement. People are posting hysterical threads saying that they need to roll back the mechlab, and saying that there are too many clicks in mech select.

This is not the new mech select system. Getting the mechlab on live while they build the selection tool allows us to give feedback on the mechlab while they work on the next piece. The can tweak mechlab while building mech select.

But, SO MANY THREADS saying mechlab sucks while griping about selection means that they missed the point.

YES! PGI should have made this clear on the forums. But I entirely disagree that they shouldn't roll out new features until the form warriors give their blessings. This is a new lab. Let's be fair about how much better it is.

[Big Tin Man]

Veritae, the mechlab is tied to mech select due to backend reasons. Russ told me this on twitter, so you can't fix one part with a rollback, it's all or nothing. Mech select IS part of mechlab due to the functional relationship, just not the part that they were working on improving at this time, so in my mind, the forum warriors are technically correct.

Call it mech select, call it mechlab, the fact is this patch made one thing significantly better, while making another somewhat worse and they're joined at the hip. Russ could have delayed it until it made both things better, but decided to push forward as it was. People don't like that. PGI will fix it, sometime. Hopefully before summer is over...

And would it make you feel better if the forumwarriors said "New mechlab is great, new mech select is bad?" Is that fair?

[Alistair Winter]

Veritae, on 02 June 2015 - 03:14 PM, said:

You are dead wrong. This was not a mech select improvement. People are posting hysterical threads saying that they need to roll back the mechlab, and saying that there are too many clicks in mech select.

The old mechlab had a mech grid feature that made it far, far easier to look over your collection of mechs.

As an analogy, imagine that your iPhone has a video player that plays both mp3s and videos and can also be used to view pictures. It also has a dedicated mp3 player app, but it's really bad and no one ever uses it. Now, if Apple updates the video player app so it can no longer play mp3s or view pictures, then it may very well still be a better video player... but the iPhone would lack a decent mp3 player.

To be blunt... by removing the mech grid from the Mechlab, the UI now lacks a decent mech selection tool, because the designated mech selection tool doesn't do the job.

I do think we all understand each other. To pretend otherwise seems like an exercise in semantics.

[Flutterguy]

I'm gonna be in the minority opinion on this, but I like the new mech select. It makes it way easier to sort and find a specific mech that I'm looking for. I don't mind the few extra clicks since I'm not usually constantly switching mechs in a short amount of time. Maybe I'm just not feeling the pain since I don't hoard mechs and open up the mech select to bathe in them like Scrooge McDuck.

[Madcap72]

Funny how the mech select now, has been in place for a hot minute, and is VERY similar to the mech select for CW drop decks.


If Russ stated that there was a reason to implement this style of mech select for some important reason, it would follow that the reason is there is something coming down the pipeline that might require the ability to quickly select mechs from the inventory in a logical manner. The wall of mechs from the mechlab would be a terrible way to find a mech to drop in quickly if something like respawn was added to the pug side. Yet, being able to slam though your entire field of mechs in a few clicks to exactly the faction, weight, and chassis you want would make sense for that.


That's my guess.

[Veritae]

Alistair Winter, on 02 June 2015 - 03:30 PM, said:

The old mechlab had a mech grid feature that made it far, far easier to look over your collection of mechs.

As an analogy, imagine that your iPhone has a video player that plays both mp3s and videos and can also be used to view pictures. It also has a dedicated mp3 player app, but it's really bad and no one ever uses it. Now, if Apple updates the video player app so it can no longer play mp3s or view pictures, then it may very well still be a better video player... but the iPhone would lack a decent mp3 player.

To be blunt... by removing the mech grid from the Mechlab, the UI now lacks a decent mech selection tool, because the designated mech selection tool doesn't do the job.

I do think we all understand each other. To pretend otherwise seems like an exercise in semantics.

I have agreed that mech select sucks. That's not what all the other threads are saying. Give credit where credit is do. Evaluate mech select when they launch it. Russ status they had to remove the tile view. They knew they would get flack. It's the people pretending that the current mech select is add pgi intended that really brass me off.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

New mechlab is better than the old one, but have some stupid features (hidden quirks, hidden strip mech option, hidden reset option, expandable drop lists everywhere, etc.)

New mech selection sucks rear central torso, they should've add new features to the old one instead building new one from scratch. Was anybody complaining about the old mech selection menu? Ever?

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 02 June 2015 - 03:53 PM.

[Madcap72]

Prof RJ Gumby, on 02 June 2015 - 03:52 PM, said:

New mechlab is better than the old one, but have some stupid features (hidden quirks, hidden strip mech option, hidden reset option, expandable drop lists everywhere, etc.)

New mech selection sucks rear central torso, they should've add new features to the old one instead building new one from scratch. Was anybody complaining about the old mech selection menu? Ever?

The old mech selection menu didn't have as much flexibility as the new one, so I among many others just used the mechlab grid.

[Xetelian]

I prefer the old mech selection to the current.

[Tennex]

If this was just a mech lab pass then why did they ruin the old mech select we had ?