Aight, Razen's first look honest impression:
To start off, congrat to PGI on the new Frozen City. Will I miss the tunnel surprise? Heck yea. But the new Frozen City capture the desolate isolated feel of an abandoned great city covered in snow. The aesthetic is beautiful beyond belief. Thumbs up for that.
This is the new loading screen to show the general layout:
And this is the actual in game Frozen City... Stunning:
With that said, here is the new minimap:
And here and lies the problem... can you tell how many blue and red there is?
That's an expected problem that we've addressed all along. It is simply ridiculous to try to fit that many stuff in the tiny screen. With the diamonds being the size it is, it's almost like they are occupying an entire 1/4 of a grid.
Second tier problems that many people like Theaus already pointed out:
The none-centric orientation is simply too much to adjust. The whole point of a centric radar is so that you can orient yourself and respond quickly to whatever that's happening surrounding you. For example, in the old radar (map, whatever), you can see a red dot on the left, you turn left, with turning degrees according to how it reflects on the radar in a 1 to 1 manner. It's easy and intuitive. Now, there's a second layer of cognitive response. You have to orient yourself on the map, then figure out the right orientation, THEN have to figure out how much to turn because of how grand the map is, it's not a 1 to 1 aspect ratio anymore.
Third observation is that, people are not calling better because the entire grid map is displayed. Look, information prioritization is important, not just on a "what's next to me" manner, but helps in limiting information. Before, if there is trouble in the vicinity, I can quickly call out a grid location, and the team can respond accordingly. Now, with the bigger map, I have to align all the numbers and letter and figure out if that line is B or G or E, then figure out if it's 6, 7, or 8. Where before, because the battle grid is focused, it's easy to call quickly without doubting yourself on whether you are calling the right grid.
Fourth observation, because the whole map is fitted, the immediacy of the action is gone. Where as you used to see a red next to you, you know it's within a certain distance. Now? That red is about 2.5 km from me. In the old system, it wouldn't even be on my radar. I can no longer judge whether something is happening appropriately around me.
It's beyond the realm of hilarious and into absurdity when literally, in my match, everyone turns around all confused because they couldn't figure out what's going on. The minimap is not correlating to what you are seeing in a very intuitive manner. (I bring back the point of why 90% of the games... ALL genre of games including first person, RPG, adventure, hello kitty adventure, WHATEVER... all do a centric radar system. It's intuitive and it works.)
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Again, with the screencap I provided earlier from MW4: MekTek edition, I hope PGI sees it and realize that they can do it like that, and honestly, there would be no problem.
I mean, where there are credit, I give due. The rescale is nice. Lights are much easier to hit. The command wheel might be good on capacity, as I am fairly sure I hear someone on the team responded "affirmative" from the command wheel, which is refreshing. The amazing new map is breath taking.
But PGI, give us our radar back. This is not working as intended. It's not making people's lives easier, and it's not making coordination any easier.
Edited by razenWing, 21 June 2016 - 12:04 PM.
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Marco Bolo, on 21 June 2016 - 11:50 AM, said:
