Dev Discussion Looking for On Duty Menu Feedback

All categories in the On Duty page are toggleable/reversable as to what's on top/bottom.

Ideally, this should allow all possible numbers of players, down to admitting just a single player. Let the players decide.

I'm pretty sure this would be a super-popular feature.

It would be great if the feats you can achieve within the single instances are shown when on screen when you queue. Could be below the description of the instance as a scroll down. A lot of times it is hard to identiys where several feats could be achived by tje description shown in feat menu

I cant tell you the amount of times I have reset the raid at the top of the list cos the raid I am going in is highlighted but the menu has a mind of its own and has really selected the first in the list. That's another 87 badges wasted. It should automatically default to the event that your leader has queued you up for.

To be honest, as a long-time frequent user of the On-duty UI; it is already fairly straight forward, adequate and stream-lined. If you took the time to read through it, all the information you need to get into one is there. Probably, any additional changes made would end up "cluttering" it. At least, it would look like that for me.

So looking at it from a Noob eye.

After you select you're instance, Is it easily recognizable what you need to do next? I'm clicking "x" and nothing's happening. What's going on? Do you see that the window "My Status" has changed. It's flashing to attract the eye but does it? Why can't I click on Ready with a "?" on role selected. Ahh, you need to move the direction button to get to the "status" window and click "x". The center window changes. Easy enough to see, 3 clicks to get out of it and right into ready to enter "queue" annnnddddd.......

Now what? Say's it's "processing" Doing what? I don't know. How long? I dunno. Maybe if when you queue up for a 8-player alone, the group status should show your name and 7 slots that says "looking for players" BUT if a player is found replace that with a "player found" tag; Don't fill it with a player's name; I can just see trouble right there.

This should at least give some idea on how long a queue will take.

Looking at it from a Noob eye.

Why am I queuing for an instance? Specially when it says...CR>64...Wait, what does that even mean. Is a "smiley" face? An outdated emoji from Grandpapa's gen? Wait, what? That means CR "greater than" 64? Where did you get that? Math? WTF?!? Math, I can do 1 +1, does that count?

Anyway, why am I q'ing up for again? I'm not getting marks. What's Loot items, why do I want it. I run one and get some gear, whose level is anciently useless and a base item for what now? Gear has a style? Ok, styles are cool. Old Styles add to skill points? But you need to finish the Style? Where do I get that? I dunno? Nobody knows.

Anyway... time for breakfast. Hope this helps.

It would be nice to have this feature: Before attacking a boss, it would be nice to have a voting option to ask if all players are ready.

Rather than change the UI for this, is it not easier to fill the hangar in WT full of new walk-in teleporters?

In WT now there are walk ins for the likes of FOS and Batcave. Broken paradox (create a new one remove the old one etc).
In Gotham Wastelands you have a walk-in for 4 man trigon and all of the duos.

Going forward when creating new content and maps etc build the teleporters into the open worlds from scratch like wonderverse had solo walk in no need to que. Instead have them all in each open world it belongs to. ALL 1/2/4/8 player content for that episode have the teleporters there from beginning.

As I said for older content WT hangar perfect for walk-ins.

No UI change to ques is needed just add more of what already exist and what already work and have done for years! Teleporters in WT/Hall of Doom/Open World content.

5. Big one that is annoying as hell lol.
When you select a whole load of content to queue up for and play a raid/alert/duo/solo, you finish mission, comeback to menu and all of that region content has been reset and cleared. Example queue for x10 different 4 man raids. Play one of the selected 4 man raids. Menu has cleared all of what you queued for in 4 man raid list instead of just the one completed.

Firstly like to say new to the forum from a post standpoint but have read for a while and have been on DC for years. More than an option to Q for less I'd like to see walk in portals at the urgent warfront location. Might actually get more people playing older zones and content. Building a group of a couple players to walk in vs trying to find a full 8 to run the older stuff seems more "doable".

Would it be possible to have a new tab put along the top called "Favorites" and we could manually apply a favorite status to instances we enjoy the most and we'd have a tab where we can just go more readily to see just them?

How easy is it to use the On Duty menu?


~I've been playing DCUO for a long time so I am quite accustomed to the On Duty menu. However, I can sea a new player being overwhelmed with it.


Is all the information you need available?

~Generally, yes but missing details like currencies/prestige earned per instance. Would be a helpful QoL addition for new players who do not know.

Is there anything that you find helpful/unhelpful when interacting with the menu?

N/A


Is there anything you wish the On Duty menu did that it currently does not?

~The On Duty Menu could use some visual/cosmetic update. Instances should have an artwork or picture of the instance when you toggle on it so players can have an idea and feel of the content. Something similar to the Warp Menu with all the colourful background of places to teleport to would be ideal. New Players especially would have something to look forward to.


~Instances with Bonus Currencies/Raid the Universe/Events should have a highlight attached to them to attract more interest.

~Events tend to be cluttered at times especially when Legends PvE/Episode Event/Seasonal Event overlap each other. A separate tab for Legends PvE is needed.

~I second Proxy's request on a "Favourites" Tab. I would also suggest an Elite Content Tab just to further clean up the menu.

~Echoing everyone with the Force Que Option!!


Is there anything the On Duty menu currently does that you wish it didn’t?



~Hmm...Novice Raids are pretty redundant at this point and just adds clutter to the menu.

For reference, I use the PS4 controller and a keyboard; I play the game on the PS4 and access the Test Server on a PC (I still use the PS4 controller for the PC, as using a mouse for gameplay is not intuitive for me).

1. For a controller, circle menus can be a bit hard to use because you have to tap the option button and then use the left stick to navigate; if you go too fast you will miss the On-Duty block. If the game is lagging then that circle menu becomes more of a problem, because the options may not highlight when you move the left stick and/or tap the X button to choose that option. It would be nice to have in the settings the option to choose between the circle menu and the shoulder button menu to access the On-Duty Tab.

2. No, all of the information that I need is not there and some of it is outdated; it can use an overhaul as far as providing current and useful information. For example, using the > and < signs to indicate what level your character needs be at to receive certain rewards and loot is very, very, very outdated. Most games these days use more simple syntax; for example, "Level 40 and over grants platinum only." With the arrival of artifacts it seems that Dominance is no longer a factor for lower tier content (tier 7 and under). Perhaps it is time to consider removing it as a "suggested" requirement from some On-Duty missions.

3. It is helpful to know which instance tier has non elite or elite content. It is not helpful when finding the most current content to queue into, as those are on the bottom of the page.

4. (a) The On-Duty menu should allow players to sort instances from ascending to descending tiers and vice versa, just like the broker does with prices; the options should be a mini-sort menu that is easily seen just like the one in the broker.
(b) Each instance, when chosen, should show the number of how many players are also queued up for it AND how long that queue has had players waiting for the mission to start.
(c) Missions that are cross faction should have an indicator and/or syntax.

5. For the controller, it is a PAIN to remove and choose another instance to queue into; you have to go through too many steps in order to do so. You have to highlight the mission you want to stop queuing for and deselect it by using the directional buttons and then tap x. Then, you have to tap the square button to remove yourself from the queue. After that, you have to update removing yourself from the queue by tapping the triangle button; if you do not, then you are still queued for the mission you want to get out of. Then, you have to find the other instance you want to queue for and tap x to select it. After that, you have to tap the square button to add the mission and then tap the triangle button to queue for it. WHEW! I wish the On-Duty Tab didn't do that for the PS4 controller.

The On-Duty Menu does not allow you to hide PVP/PVE missions/ties/types and should allow players to do so. Some players do not like to play PVP and some players only want to play certain tiers of On-Duty missions; we should have that option to not see what we dont want to play.

You've gotten some good feedback already but I'd like to add in general that the OD menu is just too much. Yes, it does what it's supposed to do functionally but it's not friendly at all.

It's not intuitive, it's overwhelming. I remember when they first redid that menu and I thought it was obnoxious. I've used it for years now and still think so. It offers so much information upfront if you're not familiar with what's being offered it's just too much. And if you're coming back to the game after a while you don't know where to begin with all the content listed really. At least collapse all the menu options by default and so on if it's not already (I think most is). I haven't sat down to mockup anything myself but I feel like there's probably a lot of info that doesn't need to be thrown at the player upfront like that. It can hide the info and reveal it on demand/as needed using hoverovers and contextual menus etc somehow instead. For example, the menu opens with columns 2 and 3 being visible but they could and should be hidden until a selection on column 1 is made revealing column2, and then in turn column3 is visible when column2 is selected etc. Column3 is only necessary to see if you're waiting on someone anyhow so maybe just show the group's status if a player's response is pending. ie instead of a full dedicated 3rd column being used, a single popup/contextual menu could show the 1 or 2 players who haven't responded to the queue while the other 6/7 are hidden.

It also takes too many clicks. Ideally I'd like to be in an instance within 2 or 3 clicks. I'm pretty sure it's around 4 or 5.

It might also be nice if it remembered the last things we queued for so that if you run the same stuff all the time (cr relevancy leaves us few options) it's ready to go and we can just click "join queue" or something.

As others said already, the "force queue" function should be in there. It could easily be integrated with a simple "ready" button. When everyone responds to the menu, the ready button could become available and you instantly enter the instance regardless of how many people are queued with you. Keeping in mind, you're usually grouped with a premade team so just choosing a mission and pressing "ready/go" to enter should be all that's needed to start right away. I guess what I'm saying is the OD menu is designed around matchmaking right now when that should probably be the 2ndary functionality and players should be opting into matchmaking if they need it.

That's all I've got for now. Hopefully it was helpful.

Maybe by every mission information of what dlc belongs such mission?

What? NO OFFENSE at all but it absolutely not does give too mucn info, this is the OPPOSITE actually this is underwhelming and does not give enough info.

The tooltip for instances should say:

-The expected wait time or how many players are queued for it.

-From which DLC the instance is part of. THIS ESPECIALLY needs to happen, the feat menu is already very bad to navigate and on top of that you don't know from which DLC are the instances.

-It should have a nice appealing picture showing the instance like recent MMO like TESO for exemple.

None taken.

When doing UIs you don't want to overwhelm the user with unnecessary info. The info should be available if you need it and want to get it but it shouldn't be all communicated instantly (unless it can be communicated in a simple way like with basic icons) because it becomes overwhelming. So someone who does UIs' job is managing the amount of info presented with what is needed in that *moment* specifically.

The feedback I offered here has already been alluded to and implied by several earlier posts as well. I'm not alone in this position. The fact that we're having this exchange in a dev discussion is an acknowledgment the devs know this is a problem with the OD tab.

That said, there are certain types of personalities who want all information upfront and it sounds like you might be that type. In my experience programmers and engineers are often this type. But developing a UI around that mentality is what's wrong with the OD tab currently.

1) totally irrelevant. It's not a callcenter. The queue will match you as soon as someone enters it so the number is indefinite or 2 secs.
2) again irrelevant. Once a player learns the content it becomes useless noise on screen and until they learn it it would be overwhelming with unnecessary information they won't use anyhow. Your real issue is the feat menu (hopefully that will be the next UI thread) which obviously needs a lot of work but it's a mistake to design the OD tab around the failings of the feat menu when the solution to that is fixing the feat menu also.
3) sure. It'd be nice to use the DLC keyart again. it could be displayed in the 2 inactive columns you get back from the proposed changes I suggested. In fact, I had that in mind when I suggested it.

2) is absoluetely not irellevant it costs nothing to addd the info, what about returning players? what about casuals players who don't know all DLC, what about new players who have no idea wwich instance is from which dlc?

Let's say someone wants to do rise of the bat alert and would like to do some feats but you have not a single clue from which DLC it is.
Do i seriously want to 1- open feat menu, 2- gotto let's say 4th episode feats , 3- scroll down to all of the feats of the 4th episode, 4- realise it's not the right episode, 5- repeat it 40 times before there is 40 episodes and i have no idea where to find the feats for this alert.

No this is total non-sense and adding the info of which instance is from which dlc is not "totally irellevant" as you said.

Enough of this totally outdated UI and interface, we should aswell be able to see which feats we completed and which feats we need while inside an instance (duo/alerts/Raids)

^^^ THIS!!!

Yes, it's totally irrelevant. In fact, your #3 invalidated your #2 since the keyart communicates the DLC the instance is in. So, if the keyart is displayed on the right initially when you select an instance, this information is automatically communicated and it's redundant to list it again in a box somewhere where it takes up real estate and adds to screen clutter.

And again, you're describing a new feature/flaw with the feat menu. Ideally the feat menu should be updated to be more intuitive but it should also have a feat tracker functionality built into it. You look for X feat, find it in your list and instead of reading the ticker and going about your business, you click it and track the feat. That's a totally new feature / functionality. Also keep in mind, feats are not the primary focus of gameplay for many, if not most, players and especially not new players. It's not related to the On Duty menu and you're trying to jam it into the OD tab -- yes it costs onscreen real estate and creates unnecessary clutter on screen in a menu it has no relationship with. The OD tab's job is to get players into instances as quickly and easily as possible without being a barrier to gameplay and especially new players. Bombarding [especially new] players with unnecessary info for the most common use is not intuitive and prohibitive to fast and simple. It turns people away. In closed beta I use to avoid the OD menu like the plague because it always popped up and because it was overwhelming.

Your feat related concerns are valid. The way feats are handled is a problem, but this is not the place to have that discussion.

1. If you assign for 2 or more missions then you go in 1 then get done with that instance. The missions list that you had selected before don't reset just the 1 mission you just did wouldn't be selected.

2. Update the requirement & suggestion dominate, restoration, vitalization

3. Have a separate taps for elites