Uber, do you agree PA needs a huge UI update?

Dear Uber.

First, let me say I backed PA and I don't regret it. At best it will be the game I dreamt of. At worse it will still be a message to say I expect to have more TA/SupCom-like RTS games. And what you did on so short time is amazing.

But.

When I saw the PA project (and decided to back it), I was both very excited and doubtful. I imagined that the choice of having 3D planets instead of flat maps would bring its big share of tricky UI issues, but I was confident that given your experience in great RTS games, you guys had thought of smooth solutions. I began to be worried when discussions for a minimap arised, and you didn't even agree that the absence of a minimap was a problem in a multiple-3D-planets games where you barely see a third of the "map" on the strategic view. I even thought at one point that if the game had been financed through a regular publisher, you would have given second thoughts to the original idea, but that you had been "trapped" in the promises of the Kickstarter. But still, I had faith.

Now I'm getting really worried because, unless I missed something, the game is still announced for a final release in December, and as has been pointed out in different threads, we are quite a few players who consider the current UI will prevent many (most?) of us from really enjoying the game if it's not thoroughly re-made. When I say UI, it is vast : graphic interface, strategic icons, units/buildings design, etc.

It's harsh to say, but the overall feeling I have now on PA is worse than I excepted because on top of the expected gameplay issues due to the 3D planet design choice, I find the graphics to be sad and annoying, it lacks colours, contrast, units and buildings are hard to distinguish/recognize,... I can't put words on this, but I feel like TA and SupCom had some fun that PA lost on its way (again, sorry for comparing, but who won't?).

The more it goes, the more it looks like things are being rushed right now because you want to/need to meet the announced deadline, and the UI will just have fixes here and there. Not the overall remake it requires. Of course we saw in the past that Uber can push deadlines, but we also saw that it was not so much the case with the Beta phase, with even core features (e.g. multiple planets) not having been tested during the Alpha phase.

Most of all, I am worried that Uber might not see there is this big problem with the UI, because people who've played and tested the game so far were mostly dedicated fans, hardcore players, patient testers, who are forgiving customers who themselves got used to the UI and would certainly even dislike big changes.

Thus this (long) message. Do you agree there is still a lot more work to be done to make this game really fun to play, and that the UI needs a big remake?

In before "It's only BETA"

For what its worth I think a complete remake is unnecessary... needs some work though....

They have barely even started making a UI.

Everything is virtually still first pass. Look at the first version of a metal planet and look at it now. That's how far we have to go.

Mavor has said he will be trying something akin to a minimap ' but different'.

No, they don't need any more major updates, lets release right now! /snark off

This isn't Uber rushing, this is how they normally operate. With their dev cycle it will feel at times nothing is happening and others like a million things are coming all at once, depending on what their goals are. One of the things they're working(or going to work) on is UI, and on top of that the UI is absurdly modable (it's literally as editable as a webpage).

You can't GUI functions that aren't in the game yet.
They have building bits and pieces of the GUI as game functions are added.

When it's closer to completion, they will skin the GUI so it's very pretty.
My concern is ensuring the requested features are implemented.
How it looks afterwards is a lot easier to fix.

Come add your voice here
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/unofficial-official-gui-discussion-thread.52055/

You're more than welcome to keep making suggestions.

I'm extremely underwhelmed at the moment but I'm still keeping faith that they will sift through all the quality suggestions that are floating around implement the best ones into the game.

I am a bit worried about the December release date though. Hopefully it's enough time to round out what could potentially be a legendary pillar of the RTS genre.

Uber probably agrees on that UI not beeing finished. Yes the UI is "bad" in it's current state. Yes it will be improved. A lot.

Not to mention that the work won't stop at release, it will be on going and I'm sure UI mods will be a big driver in that regard.

Mike

The question is: how much is possible within 2 months? I look at the game then the release date and can't see how they will finish it

When Uber start making noises about missing the "deadline", that's the time to start worrying.
It's a good job they don't answer these types of query themselves, or they'd never get anything done.

How much is possible in 2 months? No idea.
Some devs can't get anything done. Uber seems very technically competent.
While they have their own idea, they also seem rather responsive to the community as well.
Some of us have really high hopes for the GUI, and I get the sense Uber does too.

That's why I'm trying to catalog all the community requested features an suggestions.
If I can draw it all out, make it very plain and easy for them to understand.
Then maybe they will see the merit of our ideas and keep GUI a priority.

Look at all the stuff they've done in the last 12 months, everything you see in PA was essentially created from scratch, from what I've seen they haven't licensed anything.

They have an industry leader in Neural Nets working on the AI and other aspects of the game, they have the Industry Leader in Flowfields working on the pathfinding. Guys like Jon and Steve are teh people that created this RTS sub-genre over 15 years ago.

While they still have a few things left to "create" they've getting to the stage where it's a lot of refinement and bug fixing, the Art it is starting to ramp up for fleshing out the units and environments.

2 Month's on it's own doesn't sound like much, but when you realize it's only really been in development for 12 months so far it doesn't sound nearly as short of time frame compared to other larger(in budget at least) games that take 2-3 years on average.

Mike

First off I stand behind the game we've created in the last 12 months.

Yes the UI and a lot of other things need a ton of work. I do want to caution that if you are expecting a UI that utterly destroys games that had a multiple of our budget that your expectations are out of whack.

Some of the major things coming down the pipe:
- area commands!
- building things in lines for those that make sense (e.g. walls)
- better integration between celestial and regular views (e.g. the planet menu available when zoomed in and being able to issue orders in celestial view)
- better art for most stuff (for example the lines showing orders are super temp but at least the data is there)
- notification system (e.g. commander under attack)
- actual visible orbital shell to help visualize what's happening on that layer better

There are already things in there like saving camera locations (shift-number to set alt-number to recall) that I want to ingrate with more on-screen stuff.

Oh and don't forget multiple windows. We've been doing a lot of the rendering groundwork for PIP etc .

Also this thread is mostly about UI but there are graphics improvements coming as well. For example the first pass at the HDR pipeline has been checked in so we can do more interesting stuff with contrast. I want to push the backside lighting and have darkness have more impact on the game.

In addition we are growing the team fairly quickly. We just hired 2 more very senior developers starting in the next couple of weeks to help us get this out the door so expect the pace to continue to increase.

A lot of the features in the game require an insane amount of "behind the scenes" engineering to get finished. As those behind the scene pieces get finished more stuff will magically show up

I am very impressed with the game you have made in 12 months!

haters will hate.

Y'all are doing an awesome job and PA is amazing despite how far it has to go. Y'all rock!

No one is hating. Just curious at how much is possible.

Noted.I must apologize if my expectations sound a bit over excited about the UI.
I work with really expensive software all day.

I play and watch Forged Alliance casts. I also watch SC2 replays and see how a simple "production manager" changes a caster's tracking ability tremendously. If only that could make it into the player hands.....


PA's engine seems like unlimited potential. (multiple windows, save camera locations, this is professional software tech you are bringing to gaming!)

Unfortunately, I really don't know what's possible in GUI programming and creation so sometimes, it might seem like I'm asking dumb requests and asking for the moon.

Again, sorry if I sound a little obsessed about this...

I think something that's gonna help a lot is if UI mods get promoted to users a lot, as of now it's likely that many people don't realize they're out there, but once modding installing and discovery are in the game, people will be able to quickly find and add the features they want.

simple, they will move the release date back, like any reasonable man would.

Supcom/FA has camera saves too.
You didn't know that? That's because it's completely useless because of the great overview of the battlefield.

I feel things kind of things (that and alerts mostly, but also PIP to some extend) to be quick patches to big problems. I was hoping a solution to these problems (they both have the same source: There is no strategic view) will come instead of some stacraft UI functions rip-off.

What specifically are you wanting in regards to a strategic view?