General Interface Feedback From A New Player

[Jytra]

Hey guys, just found out about this game a few days ago, and I'm really enjoing it. However, while playing, I've noticed quite a few things about the general interface that could use some major tweaking before a full official launch of the game.

Display Support

Currently, with Fullscreen enabled, only 4:3, 5:4, 16:9, and 16:10 aspects are selectable, but the game's engine displays just fine with aspects beyond those four in a Borderless Windowed mode. I personally game on a 21:9 aspect screen, and Warframe looks and performs perfectly on it, thanks to the game engine having a native Horizontal + method of scaling. The map interface on the other hand, is designed with 16:9 in mind, and stretches to accomidate, causing distortion on the mission dialogue. In-mission HUD elements are properly scaled and in their respective corners, but for 21:9 and Eyefinity/NVSurround support, it would be nice to have the HUD locked at a 16:9 aspect.

System Mission Map

Currently, this map has a few flaws that new players will certainly have trouble with, mainly involving how you interact with the missions and the map itself. When Solo is selected, "back" exits out of the map completely, making planet selection easier, and shows your Tenno and the map in front of them...but this function doesn't work when you're with your team, who appear on the other cardinal directions of the map. Instead, during a team game, you have to navigate all around the system, mission chain to mission chain, trying to remember which paths lead to what. It's a bit of an annoyance for the newer players.

A second issue is related to mission selection. Currently, the only way to get statistics on a mission is to roll over with the mouse, and when clicked, the countdown timer begins immediately. Even worse, if you're in the mission map where the alert is, and click the "!" on the map instead of the "Alerts", you don't get any indicator of enemy level or reward. This was something I found on complete accident during my first few hours of gameplay, something which really bugged me. A lot of other games generally have a two-stage process with their mission selection: 1) Select Mission 2) Confirm Choice. Something like this would be really beneficial for team play, as well as having an option to cancel the countdown completely if the wrong mission is selected.

Clearer Indication of Requirements

This is somewhat of an annoyance I've been having with the game, mainly in relation to how new weapons and warframes are aquired. My main gripe is that there's no general indication for what sort of requirements an item or weapon has, often leading to bad purchase decisions and wasted credits. If I'm buying a blueprint, I'd like to know what the blueprint will require, rather than having to either A) Go to a Wiki or B) Find out the hard way. I recently picked up a Trinity blueprint, thinking that the materials needed to make it were rather generalized, only to find out after checking the Foundry (and the wiki after) that the list of materials for a new warframe were staggeringly high.

There also needs to be a visual cue to indicate the level requirement, or "kind" or purchase options are available to you. For items that have an account level, they need to indicate it as such on their card, such as being greyed out with "Rank X Required", but still displaying their Credit/Platinum cost. Furthermore, items that need a blueprint to be constructed should also indicate as such, as many players will simply navigate to the weapons list from your customization menu, see a "platinum only" price, and be disappointed, rather than going to the Market to check the materials cost.

XInput/Controler Support

Pretty basic: Give us the ability to rebind buttons on the controller, and allow for some level of stock navigation through the menus using a controller. As it stands currently, there's no indication of what buttons on the controller do what, unless you come to the fourms. I do understand that some options can get mixed up in the translation, like Run and Combat Roll being on the same key, so maybe for controllers, there can be a "Dodge" button of sorts.

Levels

This is another thing that had me a bit confused at first. Missions have a level range indicated, meaning that's what level you'll encounter when you're on the mission...but what does that actually relate to? Warframe level? Weapon level? Skill level? Something else? If I'm doing a mission with a level range of 22-30, does that mean my warframe needs to be that level, or could a full party of level 10 frames do that mission? There's no indication as to what purpose the level range has...and there is no feedback given to the player on their choice in level other than the amount of damage the enemies can soak up, and a slight XP bump.

That's just a short list so far. I'm really liking this game, but I think for new players to stick with it, these need to be addressed in some way.

[ChoGGi]

Display Support

Currently, with Fullscreen enabled, only 4:3, 5:4, 16:9, and 16:10 aspects are selectable, but the game's engine displays just fine with aspects beyond those four in a Borderless Windowed mode. I personally game on a 21:9 aspect screen, and Warframe looks and performs perfectly on it, thanks to the game engine having a native Horizontal + method of scaling. The map interface on the other hand, is designed with 16:9 in mind, and stretches to accomidate, causing distortion on the mission dialogue. In-mission HUD elements are properly scaled and in their respective corners, but for 21:9 and Eyefinity/NVSurround support, it would be nice to have the HUD locked at a 16:9 aspect.

 

 

 

 

 

Anybody have word on multi-monitor support :)

(bumpity bump bump bump)

Edited April 13, 2013 by ChoGGi

[The_Metal]

Resurrecting thread by way of bump.

[epicmonster]

Just been testing today, still no progress - what I've found is the game allows up to about 4500 pixels wide (about 2 1/2 screens) before black screen of death. The height isn't an issue (I went down to about 500pix high even at ~4500 wide) - only the width.

would be super sweet to see wider support, even just to 6500 wide.

I for one, will 'buy' this game as soon as it supports eyefinity/surround :D

[gaurdianaq]

Well in terms of the mission map, when you're in a team use the zoom out button rather than the back button. And the level range indicates enemy level, what you deem you can handle is solely based on your own ability of skills and such.