[Suggestion] My List of Priority fixes for the UI

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Cyridius, Jan 10, 2013.

  1. Cyridius

    tl;dr at the bottom

    Hey guys this is just my thoughts on parts of the UI I think really need changing not only to be more user friendly, but to be generally more informative and to add to the general quality and polish of this great game.

    Population Display

    On the world population and continent population you have a % for each population. The problem is that a % value is almost useless to us. I don't know what 33% is in terms of a number of people. It could be 33% of 50, or 33% of 2000. How am I meant to know? That needs to be fixed. If anything, calculating the % will have added more work in the code for the UI(Barely, but still). Just display the actual numbers.

    I want to look at Esamir and see there are 200 NC, 100 TR an 150 VS on that continent. If you think that is giving away too much information about other factions, there's an easier fix. Simply say there is 450 people on the continent, 45% is NC, 22% is TR and 33% is VS.


    Weapon Statistics

    I know you said you're working on weapons stats, but I want to talk a bit about this.

    Instead of the bars, show the actual numbers.

    I wanna see that the Gauss SAW has 200 damage and a ROF of 500 RPM. I want to know my T9 CARV has 0.4 Vertical and Horizontal Recoil. I want to know the COF on the Orion is tighter than the T9 CARV's when I'm moving.
    All of this needs to be made available in intricate detail. There's nothing a player appreciates more than a clear and concise UI that gives you all the information you need at a glance, especially when we're number crunching. Right now before I buy a weapon I have to go to ps2.dynet.com to find out any information on weapons.
    And that doesn't even include every value. For example it doesn't have MAX or Vehicle weapons. It can't tell me one pellet from the Scattercannon does the same damage as one bullet from a Mercy. And it shouldn't have to. All of this information should be right in front of my ingame at a glance.

    Weapons should have a compare function. I want to compare my T9 CARV to the T32 Bull, and see every statistic for that gun there right infront of me. What is my K/D Ratio(KDR actually matters in this case seeing as when picking a weapon and comparing them I want to see what I'm better with) using the T32 Bull as opposed to the T9 CARV? Is the T32 Bull more accurate than the T9 CARV? What's the bullet velocity like when I compare them? Not only should the numbers be there, but where one weapon beats the other there should be a colour notification - high light, let's say reload speed on the T32 Bull - high light that reload speed as green to show that it is faster at reloading than the T9 CARV, but also show me the numbers.
    And to add to that, I should be able to compare weapons against weapons of the opposing factions aswell. And this should apply to vehicle weapons.

    Vehicles

    There is alot of contention when it comes to vehicles here, and I believe alot of places where the UI can be improved.
    When I look at the Vanguard, I should see it's specific trait clearly - it has a 15% Bonus Defense to the front armour. I should be able to look at the Prowler and see its top speed instantly - and this should be updated when I add a chassis. I should be able to compare that to the Magrider and see that the FOV on the Magrider's frontal turret is worse than that of a Prowler(Obvious, but just an example of use).

    I want to be able to click on a High Explosive Turret upgrade and see its damage per shot against all targets - that it does bonus damage to infantry and what that bonus damage is and I should know it does 87.5% damage to vehicles. I should be shown the radius of the explosion displaying the points of damage drop off.

    I should be able to compare the Prowler and Lightning the same way I was able to with the T9 CARV and T32 Bull and I should be able to see the Top Speeds, the Defense, the Turn Speed, the FOV of the main turret. All of this information should be right up in my face.

    I should be able to compare a Vulkan and a Saron and see that the Saron matches the Vulkan in DPS but has more Burst Damage, I should be able to see the Vulkan has a large COF, I should be able to compare the FOV and Projectile Speed. These are important stats.

    Populations in Territories and Base Control

    This is to add to the population paragraphs I had at the start of this post. I should be able to go look at the Crown and see there are approximately 3 platoons of enemies there - Rounded off so that if there is say 3 platoons and 23 people it shows 3 platoons, and if there are 3 platoons and 24 people it says 4 platoons(Same principal with squads) - and I should know close to the exact number of friendlies present. This helps in letting organised platoon leaders plan their attack and defense. If I see the Vanu are pushing Indar Excavation with 2 platoons, but I had 197 friendlies in the area, I'm going to prioritise a different region of the map.

    In terms of Base Control, this is a peeve of alot of people in my outfit. The problem is that not only do bases flip quickly(Unrelated to this thread but supporting following statement), but we don't know how long left it has until the base flips. It's the bar issue all over again. I should be able to see that Crimson Bluff Tower has 1 minute and 48 seconds until it flips over to NC control, so I know that I either go in hard now with my full company of troops, or I decide that the hex is lost and to prioritise elsewhere.
    To add, a nice one I'd like to have is the "Enemies Detected" to show precisely now many enemies are there. It's different when we're talking squad and platoon strengths, but when I see a territory being taken with just "Enemies Detected" I want to see if it's just one guy and if it's worth dedicating a squad to go retake.

    I should be able to click on a contested hex, see there are 2 enemy platoons there, 36 friendlies, and 2 minutes and 13 seconds until the hex flips owner, and when I look on the map I should be shown how Influence effects the region. I want to see if I want to take Allatum Bio Lab, what surrounding territories have the greatest effect in terms of influence on how long it takes to capture Allatum. I want to know that one territory will shorten the cap by 30 seconds, or 1 minute, and so on. And this will help in aggressive defense. If I see Allatum is being heavily attacked, what territories can I prioritise now to have the greatest actual effect on the speed of capture. It's easy to say "More adjacent hexes more influence" but that doesn't tell me anything. I want to see if it is worth sending 3 squads to capture these territories instead of committing to the main attack force.

    Outfit and Platoon UI

    I'm pleased to hear that "Last Online" has been planned to be added to the UI for Outfits. It'll help alot of outfits in terms of checking activity. To expand on that, I'd like to see an extention of that functionality to be able to check how many unique members have been online in say the past week. I want to be able to see how many were online this day last week. Those kind of things to keep track of member activity.

    For Platoon UI, there's a few things I'd mention. Firstly is to be able to see the names of all the squads in your platoon, and exactly how many people are in them. Example "Dagger 3 - 9/12". I know if you just look you'll be able to see with some quick arithmetic how many are in the squad, but that takes too long, simply put.

    To add to this, Platoons should be able to join together to make a Company the same way Squads join to make a Platoon. There are several large outfits that do have multiple platoons. This would just add a bit of UI for them. Unlike Platoons you shouldn't have to see the members of all the other squads and so on - though you should definitely keep that for your own platoon - but again just show the names of all the squads and how many people are in them. That way you can see if there are many under strength squads and order other squads to collapse into them to put them up to full strength.

    Just a thought, that would be a cool function to have. Just as a Platoon or Company leader click on a squad and click the "Collapse" function and disband the squad whilst filling the other squads with the displaced members.

    It's also great that you're implementing customisable colours in the UI so we don't have to deal with the crappily identical colours some of the squads have. Just try make it so there are a large variety of colours to choose from.

    I know it's not adding to the UI, but try and get the squad and platoon set ownership options to be less... unweildly. Right now, say I was Platoon Leader and Squad Leader. I log off, log back on, rejoin squad. The guy that gets Platoon Leader gives me the Platoon Leader back. But the guy in my squad can no longer give me the Squad Leader because I am now Platoon Leader, yet I can't set myself to be Squad Leader either because the only option I have is to leave squad. See the prediciment? Everybody has to leave squad ahead of me until I am Squad Leader again. Usually it's only just one or two people, but it's an inconvieneince. Try make it so the only option I have to perform on myself is not "Leave Squad".

    There are also great UI changes for Platoons posted regularly around here and, primarily, on reddit that I'm not going to touch on. I'm sure you've seen them, SOE.

    Thanks for reading.


    tl;dr For those of you too lazy to read the whole thing, I'll just say this.

    Scroll back up to the top of my post and read the ******* thing. I took time to write this, you read it.
    • Up x 3
  2. Cyridius

  3. Cyridius

  4. Jester7x

    I would just like to be able to move some of the information around. Like the cooldown on an ability up higher so i dont have to look in the corner. Also ammo info should be moveable.
  5. Autarkis

    I desperately want a few UI fixes but you didn't cover them except for the weapon stats and SOE has already said that they intend to go toward richer weapon stats and hard numbers.

    Not sure I'd rate the others as priorities.
  6. Cyridius

    There are one or two more things I'd add, but they weren't at the top of my list and might require more work to boot.

    I just consider these to be a combo of the things I'd like to see, being in a member of a large outfit, and things I'd like to see as a player who likes to make informed purchases.
  7. PresidentFreeman

    Basically everything you just mentioned I agree with, UI is one the things I dislike about the game at the moment and you made some very good points. Every time I look at a hex I think of exactly what you mentioned and wish it was displayed (how long till flip, how many friendlies on site, just how big is the enemy force?)

    Good post.
  8. Gary


    Not a complete fix but have you tried turning on the Centralized hud? basically brings everything into the middle and get bars that go around your character to display important info. The Bars can be difficult to read in some areas but you still get the ammo and grenade count shifted into the bottom of the screen. You can turn this on by going into the options and simply ticking the the box named "Centralized HUD"
  9. Jeslis

    I want to know my vehicle COOLDOWN without having to go to the console and trying to buy it with 3 minutes left on its timer.
  10. Cyridius

  11. Maniaboo

    Turn on off friendly names icons.
    keep nme on.

    was on a bridge earlier i couldnt see through all the names on screen to shoot at nme .
  12. tigerchips

    (copied and pasted from elseware but in my own words...)

    Regarding the squad page...

    I keep joining squads and they have no waypoints in place. I was thinking wouldn't it be a good idea to put a waypoint beacon icon on this page depending on whether they have one deployed or not?

    They could also stick an icon on that page indicating if a friend or outfit member is in the squad. Would be nice to see who is in the squad before i join aswell, perhaps with a pull down menu or something.

    Needs something to show which map the squad leader is on as i prefer playing on maps that i'm already on.

    Oh yeah, and when the squad/platoon leader logs off, make the next outfit member the squad/platoon leader.
  13. TintaBux

    You can allready check this by pressing squad leader on the map page it will switch to what map they are on, you can deploy if on the same map, if not you go to warpgate.
  14. Jester7x

    I havent tried that, i'll give it a shot. Thanks for the tip!
  15. DNSCRASH

    There is no need to show any population numbers at all. Just show the bonuses and make the bonuses 3 or 5x bigger since everyone wants more XP, that's the incentive to re-balance populations.
  16. Cyridius

    For solo play and XP whorring you have a case.

    When your outfit is so big it changes the cont population % whenever it switches it's useless. We need to know the numbers if we're going to be doing anything other than mindlessly zerging.
  17. tigerchips

    Yeah but that's only when you are in a squad. Before i join any squad i want to know which map the squad are playing on. I might want to play on Amerish but if the squad is on another map i just don't want to join them.
  18. DNSCRASH

    TE doesn't mindlessly zerg now and there are no numbers, only the %s. The %s are misleading and stupid. Show me the bonuses. If we drop on a continent and it tips the XP to our disadvantage, then we'll drop somewhere else. During OPs we usually fight on 2+ continents most days anyway.
    The game needs to be about fighting, and creating incentives to fight. Not incentives to zerg ghost cap.
    You're looking at the numbers from the perspective of TE, I am looking at the bonuses wrt the guys we want to fight, and incentivizing them to fight us.
  19. Cyridius

    I'm sorry, what are you even talking about?

    You're discussing bonuses that aren't in the game. When they finally add continent bonuses it'll be obvious what they are. I don't need to remove vital information so I can see I have hurr durr 2% extra XP on this continent.

    No, we don't zerg. That is the point I am making. For you who wants nothing more than to maximize XP, you don't need the UI I'm suggesting. We do. Because we play this game strategically, not zerging after the XP bonuses.

    There is no need to remove vital strategic information so we can see what the XP bonus is, of all things.

    I honestly don't get the point you are making.

    For an organised group, these numbers are needed. You're saying not to add them and to show XP bonuses instead. Why remove one totally unrelated stat so you can see XP bonuses? What kind of logic is that?

    You're saying you want to get into a fight. Displaying the XP Bonus of a continent does not do anything towards that. Showing where the enemy is and how much enemy is there to fight does.

    Also, do not bring in increasing XP bonuses into this thread. This thread is about UI, and only UI, and how it can be used to improve this game. That is it.
  20. Ryekir

    I think that this would be a great addition. I suspect that they are hesitant to display hard numbers because whenever they change the values for balance reasons, it'll be immediately obvious and people will freak the hell out, but the dedicated people will figure out the numbers anyway, so that's just delaying the inevitable.

    I would love this feature as well, though I do think that it should show all of the members of the other platoons/squads in the UI, but have them be individually toggleable options in the map (just like the territory control, grid overlay, etc) so that each player can see as much or as little of that as they want

    Also, make the colors of vehicles on the map match the color of the squad (instead of being all green) and add their squad number over it just like on the little dots when not in a vehicle (this of course would only apply to the driver of multi-person vehicles).

    Platoon leaders should also be able to set individual way-points for each squad to be able to task each one to a different location. This would allow him/her to better keep track of where he/she sent those forces, and frees up the individual squad leader waypoints for potentially other things like smaller objectives.

    I would also like to see an optional 49th slot available for the platoon leader so that he/she can command the forces without necessarily being in one of the squads (and potentially making it less effective). While in this slot, the platoon leader would gain some portion (probably not the full amount) of XP from objectives and base captures that his squads accomplished when he is not in the area. I think this would add more incentive for people to take up the mantle of platoon lead which often means staring at the map and dying a lot.

    The easiest way I have found to deal with this problem is to promote someone else to the platoon leader and then have that person promote me first to squad leader and then platoon leader.