6 replies to this topic

[Hauptmann Reinhardt]

Currently in Mechwarrior, the friends list is a little wonky when it comes to playing with other people. I have a few simple suggestions that make it easier to use, and will give it a better first impression. After all, you never get a second chance to ... well, you get it.


1) Being able to invite people to your group directly from viewing the friends list.

The lack of an invite function when right-clicking someone's name in your friends list is just odd. Instinctively it is the first thing most of us are bound to try. Instead, we have to manually enter in everyone's name that we plan to invite. This adds an extra menu that the leader has to navigate, decreasing the GUI efficiency.


2) The player launching the group into combat should not have to ready up before doing so.

Why would I need to ready up before clicking launch as the group owner? If I click launch, I am obviously aware that I am ready, otherwise I wouldn't be clicking the button. This wouldn't be a problem if the ready button wasn't inside another menu. Again, another issue of entering too many menus.


3) Too many menus. There are just too many menus in the social tabs. The friends list, and group list can be consolidated to one screen, along with a couple of other options.

I forget what this is called in GUI design, but if you can have the user perform the same actions with less clicks or searching, then you have improved the efficiency of the GUI, and in general can improve the user experience. They layman may not think menu navigation matters much in a mechwarrior game, but the front-end user interface is directly how the player will interface with the game. There have been games in history which were good, but were just ruined through bad UIs. This really just sums up the general issues with the social tab.


4) Group Mech previews.

Take it from World of Tanks' GUI. You should be able to see what people are using when they ready up. That way the leader doesn't have to make the recurring "are you ready? what are you using?" speech. Take it a step further, bring in right-click context menus to preview their loadouts if need be. Yes, this adds another menu, but at the same time, it isn't a necessary menu to have open. Or, if you prefer to have it, allow the Social tab to go "full-screen" and give a static display of the group while you are in the social tab, that way you do not need to enter a menu. It will take a lot of UI testing and design to figure out which is more appealing.

5) Lastly, this is a great game. Developers, I am extremely grateful for the game you have made. It is a great addition so far to the Battletech universe. I just didn't want you to think this was all about problems. This is going to be a great game.

Edited by Kale Sedero, 11 December 2012 - 02:52 PM.

[Sky walker]

More:

- Give an option to easily upgrade or downgrade group type down to 4 man or up to 8 man (if downgrading - kick last people from the list automatically if it's over 4 ppl)
- Give an option to pass group leadership onto another player
- Give an option to "poke" member (eg. bring a popup in the middle of his screen)
- Give a more clear, and visible notification when chatting with another person. Right now noone ever can see he got a message in chat
- Create a group chat, not only P2P chat (use this empty space below a list of 8 group members)
- Give an option to invite a person to the group by nickname. Even if he isn't on a friends list.
- Let everyone in the group see the amount of people in group (will be helpful to stop folks asking over and over again if we have a full group or not)
- If no person is a leader in the group - randomly pick one (right now game bugs a lot into the state where group has no leader, because, for example, he crashed in game).

[Alfred VonGunn]

Huh? YOu don;t have to manually type in names of people on your friends list to get them in a group you have already started? You just click on their name an dteh choice of invite to group or Block or unfriend comes up

[Hauptmann Reinhardt]

Pretty much Everything you said Sky Walker I agree with.

In general, I feel like they are working on getting a balanced game down and set, and then they will work on the goodies that make it a user friendly "vidya gaem". But I really do hope they implement something along these lines sooner rather than later. New mechs are nice, but a clean and responsive user interface is nicer in my opinion.

Alfred VonGunn, on 11 December 2012 - 03:21 PM, said:

Huh? YOu don;t have to manually type in names of people on your friends list to get them in a group you have already started? You just click on their name an dteh choice of invite to group or Block or unfriend comes up

mine just says report, block, remove. Even when I have a group created....maybe I should submit a bug report?

[Alfred VonGunn]

Kale Sedero, on 11 December 2012 - 03:22 PM, said:

mine just says report, block, remove. Even when I have a group created....maybe I should submit a bug report?

Yes if you have Started a group and still can't do direct invites there is a issue...

[Sky walker]

Kale Sedero, on 11 December 2012 - 03:22 PM, said:

In general, I feel like they are working on getting a balanced game down and set

If they are in did then it's not going very well . For last 6 months we haven't seen any change to PPCs or mGuns while players complain about them constantly. Hopefully it'll change but... I'm not filled with optimism about that.

Edited by Sky walker, 13 December 2012 - 07:40 AM.

[ZeMouseKillU]

Agreed on most points. I do think that the social tab makes sense, but you should absolutely be able to see your teammate's mech loadout when they choose "ready". I think everyone needs to ready up... THEN the leader's "ready" button just becomes a launch button.

Another frustrating point in this game is that when you lock onto an enemy mech, you see their weapons. Why on earth can we not see our teammate information the same way? Maybe a "lock onto Friendly" button... so that you can track/follow/view friendly mechs?

Also, to expand on this post a bit... anyone playing together should be clearly denoted in the player list. Take another note from WoT... put a group number next to each name so you know the layout... both friendly and enemy.

And put the darn mech types in the player list as well!