My Feedback On The Current Ui

[Huryiade]

So, after all those hours using the mew UI, there are a few things that bother me, and that i (obviously) think can be improved.

 

1) "apply" when upgrading a weapon/warframe/sentinel. It automatically exits the upgrade window....why? Many times when i put a new mod i'd want to upgrade it. And it's much faster clicking on the "mods" button in the upgrade window so i can find it in a split second in "installed" tab, rather than searching trough all the mods in it's category. In the same way, when we changed mods, and click on "modules" why not ask if we want to apply before continuing rather than just force us to cancel? You're doing illogical things there.

 

2) Still in the arsenal, why not add skill stats for items that have skills? Seeing only names doesn't help much, and even knowing what each does doesn't tell us the specific stats of each one.

 

3) In the mods window : sometimes the sorting is completely random. It retains sorting by "name", or "recent" but When on "rarity" it comes back on "rating". Probably a bug. Thought it doesn't seem to retain those after a game relaunch.

 

4)  The forge : the only thing i'm bothered by is the fact that we can't craft several copies of an item at same time. It's ok to ask us to wait 3 days for a warframe, but when we need forma, especially when we can level up a weapon several times in a day with defense missions, it would be really helpful to be able to craft more than 1 at a time. I don't craft all forma as soon as i get the bp since i might need the resources for other bps, so it becomes annoying when i have to wait multiple days for each forma. I'm using forma as an example, the same can be said for any other items that we might need in multiple copies, such as 2 side weapons that can be combined as one (Aklato, Dual Cestra....), or even keys (i usually craft a batch of 10 ODE keys when farming, but i have to make them one by one).

 

5) I like the new "friends" and "clan" windows, i wonder if you're making an "alliance" window too. It would be nice to be able to see what missions other alliance members are in, and possibly join them. Speaking of which, a "Private" mission allows friends and clan members to join only, does it allow alliance members too?

 

6) Speaking about "private", is there a possibility to add a "cancel countdown" button? Sometimes the host launches a mission right after people join, without letting them get ready. There are also times when i clicked on a wrong mission (delay in game catching my mouse's movement), so i get in a normal mission instead of an alert or invasion, and i get sucked in the mission. Would be nice to have some button or something allowing us to avoid that.

 

7) The mailbox. Till recently i kept all, and i really mean all of the mails i received. Even the ones from invasions. So i decided to clean it up a bit. I had to manually delete them, ONE BY ONE. Have you ever tried deleting 200+ mails with your UI? Tedious, and time consuming. At least add a possibility to select multiple mails at once please.

 

8) The codex. There is only one thing i think might be improved : adding a check-box that allows to see only the mods we don't have. It would greatly improve our search for the mods if we don;t have to scroll all over just to find the few mods we have not yet acquired.

 

9) The keys window : can you add a sorting menu? Like showing only T1 keys, only Derelict, or only Special keys?

 

10) Retrieving data online : this is a bit...technical. As far as i've seen, each window that requires the client to retrieve data from an online server, freezes the game till the data is retrieved. If i refer to my programming knowledge, i'd say it's because retrieving data uses the main game thread. Is it possible to put it in another thread? That would avoid cases where my client crashes with low internet speed and trying to retrieve alliance data (with their emblems and all). I think it would also improve overall game performance.

 

11) The invasion/infestation mission information. Basically, going on a planet, and selecting a mission that has an ongoing invasion/infestation displays a percentage that is not obvious to understand. Yes many understand it...maybe. But it's not obvious to me, and i think it's safe to assume that there are others like me. I understand the displayed information about an invasion/infestation of the whole planet, but once zoomed in, it's not as clear. Is it possible to keep the color coded display instead of percentage in numbers only?

For example, at the moment, there is a Grineer invasion on Pluto:Regna. The relevant information to my explanation is the Faction line, and Status line. Faction says Grineer, so it means that Grineer are invading. Then status says 85%, but what does that mean? That they already conquered 85% or that there is 85% left to kill to thwart their invasion? As i said, it's not so obvious understanding it, which is why i prefer the color coded bar used in the planetary description.

Also, it would help if we could see how much missions were done for each faction, it would help us choose the winning faction in the case that both have the same reward (since we get no rewards if the ones we supported don't win).

 

12) The chat. This need more than a few tweaks to become something good, but at the moment it's doing it's job more or less properly. There are 2 things i think might be great additions for the chat.

The first being a possibility to right click on names in the message part, instead of only being able on names in the users list part. That way we wouldn't have to type manually, or search in the user list,  the names of people we want to PM, be it for trading or recruiting.

The second thing would be being able to link items in the chat, and obviously, being able to view the links. What i mean is something akin to items linking in WoW or Eve Online, or many other MMO games.

 

13) The fitting manager. This follows the previous point. It's nice to be able to have several mod fits for any item. I'm not asking for more than 3 different fits, however, i think there might be a nice feature to be added to it making that awesome. In Guild Wars, there were thousands of fits possible, so the developers made a system that loads/saves fits in strings. Each fit could be saves as a string, sent to other players, previewed and eventually equipped. The same exists in Eve Online. I think that since this game offers the same amount of possible fits (all warframes and all corresponding mods included), it would be a nice powerful feature.

 

14) The mission end window. Not the one after exiting the mission, the one where we see the warframes being extracted. The first thing i find missing is the Sentinel and it's weapon xp reward. It seems as if there is enough space for 2 more lines, and i've seen some posts asking for that too, so why not add them? Another feature that i find might be usefull, is the preferential display of items picked up. What i mean is that the items that earned in the mission that show up seems to be random. Even the rewards earned in survival/defense are not always all displayedm though most of the times they're the first. So i think a preferential system might be beneficial. Something like assigning a number on each items that shows it's importance to the player, and the items displayed in the end-mission screen would be sorted by importance. For example, all items are ranked 0 by default, then the player can change that rank manually. In my case, i don't care about seeing a control module, since i got around 500 of them, but i do care about modules that i don't have and am farming in the current mission (for example one of the new stances). So i will set the control modules rank to 0, if it isn't 0 already, and put rank 1 on one of the searched modules. This way, if you add an event with some new modules to be earned, i could add a higher rank to the new modules, while retaining the higher than default rank of the stances. All this seems simple, but requires one new thing in the game : a list of everything that could be dropped in a mission. The codex only contains info on modules, weapons and warframes, but there are bps, bp parts and resources. I could be farming a specific resource that i'm short of (such as a crystal, or neural sensors), and nothing else. At the moment, i have to go to the inventory to check how much of those i have, or if i earned any. Most of the time it makes my squad wait. This system could speed up squad preparations and eliminate waiting when farming specific items.

 

15) Last but not least : the mini map. Is it possible to add a button that shows the level map in it's big size instead in the small size in the corner of the hud by default? Yes i like to have my map in a big version, but when i'm downed and die, it returns to it's small state, and on each mission i have to press the shortcut to make it bigger. I'm not lazy, but when playing with pickups, they tend to run off as soon as they get controls of their warframes, and playing on a keyboard, it takes time to setup the warframe + hud (switching weapons, skills and map size, and maybe some other things). This all makes me drag behind them usually and i miss all the action. It's not much but not having to do this each time would reduce the preparation time i need at the beginning of each mission.

 

I think i haven't forgotten anything. If i did, i'll just edit this post to add it.

[egregiousRac]

I agree with most of these things. I would like to comment on a few things however:

10) Retrieving data online : this is a bit...technical. As far as i've seen, each window that requires the client to retrieve data from an online server, freezes the game till the data is retrieved. If i refer to my programming knowledge, i'd say it's because retrieving data uses the main game thread. Is it possible to put it in another thread? That would avoid cases where my client crashes with low internet speed and trying to retrieve alliance data (with their emblems and all). I think it would also improve overall game performance.

Clan emblems are actually stored in the data files, which is why you have to wait until the next patch after one is approved before it  appears ingame. This means that they would not be the issue when loading alliance data. The freeze when loading data from the server is a big problem, I am just correcting your information.

 

 

11) The invasion/infestation mission information. Basically, going on a planet, and selecting a mission that has an ongoing invasion/infestation displays a percentage that is not obvious to understand. Yes many understand it...maybe. But it's not obvious to me, and i think it's safe to assume that there are others like me. I understand the displayed information about an invasion/infestation of the whole planet, but once zoomed in, it's not as clear. Is it possible to keep the color coded display instead of percentage in numbers only?

For example, at the moment, there is a Grineer invasion on Pluto:Regna. The relevant information to my explanation is the Faction line, and Status line. Faction says Grineer, so it means that Grineer are invading. Then status says 85%, but what does that mean? That they already conquered 85% or that there is 85% left to kill to thwart their invasion? As i said, it's not so obvious understanding it, which is why i prefer the color coded bar used in the planetary description.

Also, it would help if we could see how much missions were done for each faction, it would help us choose the winning faction in the case that both have the same reward (since we get no rewards if the ones we supported don't win).

You get the reward whether the side you choose wins or not.

 

 

12) The chat. This need more than a few tweaks to become something good, but at the moment it's doing it's job more or less properly. There are 2 things i think might be great additions for the chat.

The first being a possibility to right click on names in the message part, instead of only being able on names in the users list part. That way we wouldn't have to type manually, or search in the user list,  the names of people we want to PM, be it for trading or recruiting.

The second thing would be being able to link items in the chat, and obviously, being able to view the links. What i mean is something akin to items linking in WoW or Eve Online, or many other MMO games.

The chat is a pretty standard IRC client. It would probably require a lot of work to add item links.

 

 

13) The fitting manager. This follows the previous point. It's nice to be able to have several mod fits for any item. I'm not asking for more than 3 different fits, however, i think there might be a nice feature to be added to it making that awesome. In Guild Wars, there were thousands of fits possible, so the developers made a system that loads/saves fits in strings. Each fit could be saves as a string, sent to other players, previewed and eventually equipped. The same exists in Eve Online. I think that since this game offers the same amount of possible fits (all warframes and all corresponding mods included), it would be a nice powerful feature.

This game has polarity slots though, so it would have to adapt the mod layout to match the users polarity layout. Additionally, it would have issues if you don't have enough points to fit on a mod due to less or different polarities. I do like the idea though.

 

 

14) -snip-

The UI team is redoing both results screens right now, in addition to adding a way to see the results of past missions in a log.

 

 

15) Last but not least : the mini map. Is it possible to add a button that shows the level map in it's big size instead in the small size in the corner of the hud by default? Yes i like to have my map in a big version, but when i'm downed and die, it returns to it's small state, and on each mission i have to press the shortcut to make it bigger. I'm not lazy, but when playing with pickups, they tend to run off as soon as they get controls of their warframes, and playing on a keyboard, it takes time to setup the warframe + hud (switching weapons, skills and map size, and maybe some other things). This all makes me drag behind them usually and i miss all the action. It's not much but not having to do this each time would reduce the preparation time i need at the beginning of each mission.

This is my second most wanted option since the overlay map was added, just behind the ability to lock map rotation. That was added quite a while ago, so now this is my most wanted option.

Edited May 4, 2014 by egregiousRac

[Huryiade]

Hi, i indeed have some information inaccurate, however each point talks about things i've experienced. So for point 10 for example, when my client froze, it was after it got the list of clans in the alliance, but before it displayed the emblems, which made me think that they are loaded. But, in this case the emblems are just an example, if your connection is slow, you just have to open the profile window (the button with the mastery rank line in the main window) to see the freeze when it loads data. This kind of things happen to me when i'm working on a new project and i'm adding data loading functions using the main thread of the project. Since it's the only occurrence i know of that does that kind of freeze, i talked about that. But if it's something else, and there is another way of correcting that, i'm all for it.

 

For the point 11, i do remember one time doing a few invasion missions, and not receiving a reward. Since the side i supported didn't win, i supposed it was intended that way. But if what you say is true, then that must have been a bug. In any case, my point still stand about the reading not being clear.

 

For point 12, it goes with point 13 : if you can't have special links, making strings for a fit would have to be passed outside the game since the chat doesn't offer copy paste, which most players would probably find tedious to copy manually. Though as you said the chat is basic, if it's based on IRC, it is quite easy to add custom commands that the client will display in an appropriate way. The only difficulty is encoding the messages.

 

For point 13, the way polarities are handled...well since the power needed for a fit is easy to calculate, there would be a simple alert saying that the fit that the player wants to equip can't be equipped because it doesn't have enough power, or the right mods. Would be able to do it if the player has mods with rank low enough to fit in.

 

For point 14 : i wasn't aware that that part was being worked on, but it's great news. Though what i said still stands : being able to check past mission rewards is great, but it's the same as wasting squad's time by checking in the forge how much material is left to collect. Adding the preferential display will make counting those much more fluid and allow players to reduce the time they spend outside the mission.

 

For point 15 : yes, i find this very important. But i think there are more important things to fix in this game. All the points i talked about are just possible improvements, that will add to the quality of the game. But none fix game breaking problems, which i think have the highest priority.

[K_Shiro]

1) "apply"

Yep, usually the "apply and exit" is presented by an "OK" button and not an "Apply" one. There are quite a few places where such a problem is present - namely the shortage of buttons. I accept that the game is on consoles now too but I doubt that gamepad users have a problem pressing the "left" or "right" button one more time (or how the menu works for them).

 

The customize controls menu was a real annoyance to me. I've set up my controls and reflexively pressed "OK". Problem is there is no such button, where all other games and stuff has apply or ok button, this game has a "Default" one. I can't even cancel it. Seriously?

 

4)  The forge

You wish to hate the "rush" option. SInce that costs plat, DE would lose money if you could start crafting multiple pieces of the same item (especially those that can be used as material in crafting other stuff, like fieldron, forma, etc.). Numerous people frequently rush their stuff, especially things like these.

 

6) Speaking about "private"

You can cancel your own vote by pressing esc but yes, you can't stop the whole countdown as long as someone is still in the "voted" state.

"clicked on wrong mission"

This actually happened a few times already, but it shines brightest in online mode. You press the mission and just realize you don't want to go right in. Good luck, if there is someone already inside, high chance you can't stop, even smashing the esc through the desk won't save you. Good job.

 

7) The mailbox.

The mail system is overall young. I like the trade kiosk but honestly, it would be logical to forget it altogether and provide a mail option towards any and all players including a "Cash on delivery" mode where you can practically sell your stuff. You can recall that mail any time as long as the other did not accept it (or it will return in X days). Again, it would need a proper sorting and selection mechanic that you yourself already mentioned (since managing mails one-by-one is... ).

Spam mail wouldn't be a problem since "ignore" would work here too - and the chat window is already a ground for spams and ads yet we are doing fine. Mostly. This is actually a nice surprise.