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I've run into a few aspects of the game that feel like they must have just been forgotten about. Somebody forgot to program them in, or just built a quick placeholder that never got replaced. A lot of it has to do with the UI. While MWO has a lot of things that could stand to be tweaked, a lot of them are complicated game balance decisions or would involve many, many programmer-hours to implement.
EVE Online has, in recent times, started releasing what they call "Little Things" patches, which include small tweaks that don't necessarily consume large amounts of programmer time, or impact gameplay balance in any way. Quick, (relatively) easy-to-make changes that improve quality of life for the players. These patches have proven to be wildly popular in EVE because the little things that frustrate you just a little bit, several dozen times per gaming session, add up quickly.
I've been browsing through the forums here, and I know many of these things have been asked for before, but they're always mixed in with the cries of "Completely rebuild the EWAR mechanics!" or "Rescale the Kit Fox!" I thought it might be useful to filter some of them out, and make a thread for those little things that, if implemented, would just make your day.
My "Little Things" wishlist thus far:
MECH LAB and Social Aspects
- A clock! It can be linked to the server time or based on my computers local time. Either way is fine for me! Nothing in MWO really requires you to know what time it is. It'd just be a nice thing to have.
- Increased character limit for chat messages. I can undertand if the in-match chat has a shorter limit due to a lack of scrolling or screen real estate, but the chat system in the Home screen should allow for something at least the size of this entry.
- The ability to use the UI while searching for a match. I'd prefer to be able to browse the mech lab or the store while waiting in the queue as well, though I'd understand if I couldn't finalize any purchases or mech fittings due to technical reasons. At the very least, however, I should be able to continue using the chat window.
- The ability to create chat channels that aren't limited to unit or current group affiliations. Being able to make a channel just for discussing 'mech builds would be a great way to foster more community interaction, and provide a fertile breeding ground for trolls.
- On the subject of searching... Before the EU server update, it used to be the case that when you clicked the "Play Now" button, the little dialog box that showed the active 'mech weight ratios would stay open in the background, and update while you waited. Now, that dialog closes. It should be part of the Searching display, and for everyone in your group even if they aren't the leader.
- The ability to invite someone to join your group without adding them as a friend first. I imagine there's a need to prevent blind group spamming, but there has to be a solution that allows a friend of a friend to join without bloating the Friends List of everyone involved. Maybe allow non-leaders to extend invitations?
- On that subject, allow us to change the group leader. As it stands now, the group leader has to leave the group for the position to change hands... And (s)he doesn't get to pick the successor.
- Name and tag for unit invitations, at least. This confused me somewhat. When I was invited to join RaCS, all I got was an alert that said "Unit Invitation". No details at all. I didn't even know the unit was called Thunder at Dawn until I hopped on our third-party voip server.
- A counter somewhere in the CW map screen that shows the number of pilots in your faction who are deployed, and the number of pilots that are currently browsing as well. When I queue up for a planet and call out for reinforcements, I'd like to know if I'm by myself because nobody is there to hear me, or they're just jerks who don't care.
While Deployed
- Continuing the social thread from above... I'd like to be able to add a friend from the in-game scoreboard. After my first CW match, I wanted to add about five people to my friends list so we could queue up together again. Unfortunately, I had to find a piece of paper and just write their names down by hand... And I only got three of them before the match automatically shut down.
- Which would have been okay if there were some way to look up a previous match to get the names! (This part maybe belongs in the Mech Lab section, but whatever). I'm not saying MWO needs to dedicate the database records to keep the scoreboard of every single match that gets played, but could you at least keep my most recent one for me?
- Add BAP to the weapons list on the HUD. I know I can't actually fiddle with any of the settings, but I'd kinda like to know if and when it gets critted. And lore-wise, I'm pretty sure it should notify me when it's suppressing an ECM.
- A separate push-to-talk button for just your lance, hopefully with a distinctive little beep or buzz to let you know the incomming transmission is limited to your lance. It'd a lot more convenient when we run a lance in PUG games.
- The ability to change the base HUD color. Some of the colors are informational, like the paper doll armor info, but the baseline color should be modifiable. I bet people would pay c-bills to unlock new colors, and I know having more unlockables in a free-to-play game is a definite bonus!
I'd also love the ability to save 'mech configurations for later quick loading, but I imagine that falls a bit outside the scope of "Little Things". Anyone else have relatively minor changes they'd want to see implemented? What would make MWO feel more convenient?
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EDIT: Allow us to copy to and paste from the clipboard in MWO! What I said above about third-party voip servers? It was a pain in the ass for the unit leader to manually type in the address with all the ports and fiddly details, and I bet it's been a frustration for plenty of others too!
Edited by OmniscientQ, 29 July 2015 - 01:43 PM.
