Author Topic: Helmic's infallible list of UI tweaks that you should implement like right now  (Read 9754 times)

Offline Helmic

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  • Quick chat commands - Whether voice or text, there needs to be some way for players without a mic or that don't speak the same language as the rest of the crew to communicate quickly and effectively.  There must be some way to point in a direction and quickly say "X degrees to starboard/port!"
  • Kicking - Could theoretically affect the tone of the game if it's easier to just kick someone rather than coach them into being a better crewmate, but there needs to be some way of dealing with people who want to do nothing but grief other than wait for moderator to come along.
  • Red X's - If you open one of the tabs while waiting in the lobby, say to check out your progress towards the next level or adjust your loadout, you need to hit the Back button in the bottom left corner.  Anyone that's ever used Windows is going to look in the upper right corner for that familiar red X.  Dogearing the page and revealing an X-shaped gear could work too, just something that gels better than the oddly placed back button.
  • Waiting room/match lobby tab - An alternative to hitting back, I often find myself wanting a tab up top to return to the waiting room immediately.
  • Individual player volume control - To adjust certain people's voices to your own comfort.
  • Joining/quickjoining a game as a crew - Having to wait for the captain to PM you is a pain in the ass and often results in someone taking a spot before everyoen can get in.  It'd be great if it was possible to search and join games as a crew (with the captain making the decisions, of course).
  • Inviting players to a game - "Click here to join Captain Dumbass's game!"
  • Visual indicator of the ammo loaded in a gun - So the engineer doesn't accidentally unload all the Hwachas the gunner spent forever loading with heavy rounds.
  • A quick rundown of nautical terms in the tutorial messages - Port has the same number of letters as left, starboard and right both have r's in them, et cetera.  It's more fun when everyone can say port and starboard and expect everyone to know exactly what they mean.
  • An on-screen notification of when the Captain has lost connection - So everyone knows that the captain doesn't have some brilliant plan that involves smashing full speed into a wall.
  • System messages show up in a different location than chat messages - I don't care if the other ship's crew is ragequitting, I want to know what the silly fuck the captain just told me to do.
  • A way to pass captain rank to another player - The original captain's left and the level 1 engineer is now the captain.  It should be easy for him to pass that on to whoever's taking over piloting so that they can communicate with the other captains.
  • Option to turn off swear filter, even if it's on by default - It's not like I haven't said worse myself.
  • Option to replace swearing with silly, made-up steampunk swears - I SWEAR TO H.G. Wells IF ONE OF YOU LAZY cogS DON'T REPAIR THE HULL RIGHT NOW I WILL IMPALE YOUR poop deckS ON THE PROW AND RAM YOU INTO THE NEAREST SHIP'S MOTHERcogING ENGINES

Offline Jazzza

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  • Quick chat commands - Whether voice or text, there needs to be some way for players without a mic or that don't speak the same language as the rest of the crew to communicate quickly and effectively.  There must be some way to point in a direction and quickly say "X degrees to starboard/port!"

Someone's already suggested that in another topic and I completely agree. The language barrier is annoying and mics just sometimes don't cut it.

  • Kicking - Could theoretically affect the tone of the game if it's easier to just kick someone rather than coach them into being a better crewmate, but there needs to be some way of dealing with people who want to do nothing but grief other than wait for moderator to come along.

Many people want that, including myself.

  • Red X's - If you open one of the tabs while waiting in the lobby, say to check out your progress towards the next level or adjust your loadout, you need to hit the Back button in the bottom left corner.  Anyone that's ever used Windows is going to look in the upper right corner for that familiar red X.  Dogearing the page and revealing an X-shaped gear could work too, just something that gels better than the oddly placed back button.
  • Waiting room/match lobby tab - An alternative to hitting back, I often find myself wanting a tab up top to return to the waiting room immediately.

You get used to the menu system quickly, but I guess some cleaning up/small UI changes would be neat. The devs are working on it (they've been changing things in patches).

  • Individual player volume control - To adjust certain people's voices to your own comfort.

Most games don't have that feature. Although it would be nice.

  • Joining/quickjoining a game as a crew - Having to wait for the captain to PM you is a pain in the ass and often results in someone taking a spot before everyoen can get in.  It'd be great if it was possible to search and join games as a crew (with the captain making the decisions, of course).

Nice idea. I've resorted to telling people to join a new game I create in X seconds so as to prevent other people from (hopefully) stealing spots.

  • Inviting players to a game - "Click here to join Captain Dumbass's game!"

Steam -> Friends List -> Invite To Game.

  • Visual indicator of the ammo loaded in a gun - So the engineer doesn't accidentally unload all the Hwachas the gunner spent forever loading with heavy rounds.

If I remember correctly there's an ammo indicator at the bottom right of the screen. I main pilot so I may be wrong.

  • A quick rundown of nautical terms in the tutorial messages - Port has the same number of letters as left, starboard and right both have r's in them, et cetera.  It's more fun when everyone can say port and starboard and expect everyone to know exactly what they mean.

It's fun to use those terms but in the end I just say left or right. People are more familiar with them, especially in other languages.

  • An on-screen notification of when the Captain has lost connection - So everyone knows that the captain doesn't have some brilliant plan that involves smashing full speed into a wall.

I'd love this. Even better if he's lagging. I've had many times when I've been lagging heavily and after a few seconds I've hit a wall, damaging our hull severely.

  • System messages show up in a different location than chat messages - I don't care if the other ship's crew is ragequitting, I want to know what the silly fuck the captain just told me to do.

I hear the devs are going to implement a better chat system soon. Hopefully with at least tabs.

  • A way to pass captain rank to another player - The original captain's left and the level 1 engineer is now the captain.  It should be easy for him to pass that on to whoever's taking over piloting so that they can communicate with the other captains.

I don't see many captains leaving but I guess this could be useful.

  • Option to turn off swear filter, even if it's on by default - It's not like I haven't said worse myself.

This.

  • Option to replace swearing with silly, made-up steampunk swears - I SWEAR TO H.G. Wells IF ONE OF YOU LAZY cogS DON'T REPAIR THE HULL RIGHT NOW I WILL IMPALE YOUR poop deckS ON THE PROW AND RAM YOU INTO THE NEAREST SHIP'S MOTHERcogING ENGINES

Eh, would be fun, but I'd get bored of it quickly.

---

All in all, not bad suggestions.

Offline Helmic

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Steam -> Friends List -> Invite To Game.

From what I can tell this does not work, and most of the people I want to invite into a game are on my GoI friendlist and not Steam's.

Offline N-Sunderland

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If you want somebody to join your match, just PM them and ask them to join. They can join in by clicking your name and selecting "join match".

Offline Helmic

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If you want somebody to join your match, just PM them and ask them to join. They can join in by clicking your name and selecting "join match".

Yes, I know that, but you have to explain that to someone first.  It'd be better to be able to invite someone explicitly and make it a one-click deal for the other party, who often isn't familiar enough with the UI to know how to do crap like that.  This is from my experience trying to show one of my friends the game yesterday.

Offline Jazzza

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Steam -> Friends List -> Invite To Game.

From what I can tell this does not work, and most of the people I want to invite into a game are on my GoI friendlist and not Steam's.

Works for me! As for inviting from your in-game friends list, that's a good idea.

Offline Mattilald Anguisad

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Quick voice commands in various languages (each person would hear the clip in the language the have set) to mittigate language barriers issues.

As for Kicking: MUSE have considered it and thought about it, and then decided against Kisk option.

ALSO: lol Port And Starboard - I'll likely never use them, becouse I'm sort dyslectic when it comes left and right, and sometimes i have problems even with that.