God man, how long did it take you to make that? +1 For Making Painstakingly good feedback.


Peace, Godin

They should ask you for your resume.

Thanks for taking the time to make those. Especially the visuals. Nothing aids a discussion better than something that gets all parties on the same page.

Some of the strongest suggestions (imo)

- Unifying grenades and equipment - Treating grenades special is fine, but its not that important for all classes. Logi in particular would jump for joy for being able to have some other piece of equipment keyed up for instant use. I think it also opens up the door for some more unique fits. Have an assault with two equipment slots. They can do grenade / hive like they do now, or they could do double grenades, or forgo grenades and do hive uplink. That sounds like a win for everyone.

- Equipment management bar (i too have an unhealthy dislike for the radial menu of doom). Having your equipment on screen at all times would be priceless (do i have any hives left or can i just not select them with this radial menu...) and being able to select any of it for instant use would be perfect.

- Hud health bar relocation / squad info - it moves health to a better location (keeping it in your field of view) while at the same time creating the room for a squad status panel (love the squad wp counter - guesswork = bad)

- Optimize neocom/map for speedy load - how slow these are to load is just silly. I should be able to open the map in a split second, see where the baddies are, and close it, all without standing around for 20 seconds waiting to get sniped.

Plenty more excellent suggestions but those were my favorites.

I did want to bring up your placement of the target stats (shield, suit, etc). The problem with the current one is that its location is out of the way (bottom middle/left) and so you don't see the stats while your trying to get your crosshairs on a target. Have you considered moving the stats somewhere closer to the crosshairs? Perhaps an info block to the left of the crosshairs.

Take it a step further than just stats though. If i was designing a battle support hud i would have it show the stats and then call out dangers / weaknesses. For example, i target someone and their stats show up. Their shields get highlighted and it calls my attention to their 600 shields, their armor is highlighted in a different color and i see how little they have. Noticing that i adjust my tactics and pull out a flux.

Different scenario the stats come up and it highlights their weapon as a shotgun and their speed as wicked fast. Good to know, time to backpeddle.

Theres lots of things it could show. Dangerous targets (3+ kill streek) should get a nice warning indicator mid screen above the crosshairs.

I guess right now I just feel information starved. The info is there, its just not where we need it, or sometimes even shown at all.

Thanks for the feedback!

I can't really give you an exact timeframe, because I never really sat down and made it. I just thought it up and took notes over the course of many months. As for the presentation itself, I typed that up in a week.


Ha, I wish. Unfortunately I am still in school, but maybe one day.

I see what your saying for the snipers, when you're looking for a head you don't want anything right over the target. Its something that will require some testing for sure.

The positioning i was thinking would be outside your health ring, outside the effects tabs. That should be far enough away to keep it from covering anything vital and yet keep it closer to your field of view.

Thinking about it some more, your role almost dictates your prefered location. If you go close range with a shotgun, you are aiming for faster run and gun gameplay. Get in, blast someone down and get out. You would probably only want minimal stats and closer to center would be fine, you don't have precise aiming. An AR role is mid range, more tactical, more precise. That role would probably want stats where I suggested, mid left or right, perhaps more detailed than close range. A sniper though values field of view, and has the luxury of time. For them moving the stats out towards the edge would make sense. The scout role would probably want all the info they could get at this point.

Dynamic huds are probably a bit much to ask of CCP at this time. Perhaps a compromise would be to bring it down to mid screen (so you only have to snap your eyes right) and then play around with brining it in a touch. See if bringing it in becomes distracting or if it becomes useful.

They hire any player who knows more about the game than they do. They have done it before with Eve Online and often still do. They will probably do the same for Dust.

Very good points raised. +1
Could the chat menu still be on screen so you won't have to press a button to view it when in battle to improve on your mock up hud as shown on slide 15 like in the merc quarters mock up in slide 4?

+1 to your post.

One thing I believe also needs an improvement besides the HUD and Merc Quarters HUD, is the sniper scope. I find it hard not just to land precise shots with that scope.

Thanks a lot for bringing these up.

I actually have issues with the sniper scope (and most other optics also) but was planning on covering it in my weapon specific section. Keep your eyes peeled, I may actually end up posting it one of these days. It is quite a process to make the presentations, and I need to be in 'the mood' to work on it.

Thanks for your feedback, glad you enjoyed the presentation.

One thing I think you forgot, or didn't notice to add was the objectives in Skirmish modes, as you see in-game ontop of the radar "A, B, C, D, & E".

I couldn't find it in the 'Infantry HUD' : http://i.imgur.com/pmAanXX.jpg

You know, for some reason I just did not think of this. Typing while in the middle of battle would be a bad idea, but being able to be kept up to date on the going-ons of the people who are not currently in your battle would be very useful (especially with greater levels of EVE integration).

I took a look at the mockups you pointed out, and see no reason why the chat cannot be placed on the in-battle hud as well. It is possible that it could get in the way, but only in rare situations.

Thanks for your feedback. I will make a note to myself and see what I can come up with for chat placement.

I was looking up a chat menu and remembered that Battlefield 3 (PC) has a notable chat menu that is faded slightly to not get in the way.
What about this?
From looking at the mock up this could be placed next to the kill feed and could implement the use of the controller keyboard and the keyboard and mouse as well.

I see what your saying for the snipers, when you're looking for a head you don't want anything right over the target. Its something that will require some testing for sure.

The positioning i was thinking would be outside your health ring, outside the effects tabs. That should be far enough away to keep it from covering anything vital and yet keep it closer to your field of view.

Thinking about it some more, your role almost dictates your prefered location. If you go close range with a shotgun, you are aiming for faster run and gun gameplay. Get in, blast someone down and get out. You would probably only want minimal stats and closer to center would be fine, you don't have precise aiming. An AR role is mid range, more tactical, more precise. That role would probably want stats where I suggested, mid left or right, perhaps more detailed than close range. A sniper though values field of view, and has the luxury of time. For them moving the stats out towards the edge would make sense. The scout role would probably want all the info they could get at this point.

Dynamic huds are probably a bit much to ask of CCP at this time. Perhaps a compromise would be to bring it down to mid screen (so you only have to snap your eyes right) and then play around with brining it in a touch. See if bringing it in becomes distracting or if it becomes useful.

"The Wheel" LOL so much hate.

It is, without a doubt, my worst enemy!

Also, to anyone who is interested: I was going to post the weapons edition of the presentation today, but instead decided to venture out into this thing called the real world, quite an experience.

Therefore, I am still putting the finishing touches on the presentation, but it will definitely be posted by this time tomorrow.

Thanks for the feedback everyone has given me, hope there is more coming!