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CoH2 - my review of the alpha level UI

A_E
8 Jan 2013, 16:23 PM
#1
avatar of A_E
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Donator 11

Posts: 2439 | Subs: 6

The video only uses materials made publicly available by Relic/THQ themselves.

Link to video - In this I go over various stills and give my impression and analysis of the UI as it stands in Alpha. Hopefully it opens up a bit of discussion.
8 Jan 2013, 17:19 PM
#2
avatar of Qvazar

Posts: 881

Nice one, I totally agree with you, except I like the unit icons in the top right, you can quickly see the status of all your units; in combat, suppressed, idle, etc., and I don't think it'll take up too much space, you don't usually have 12 infantry units like in that screenshot.

Regarding the green color; yes, it should be blue or at least more saturated, I find it difficult to see the territory borders on the minimap. And it's a green map, I somehow subconsciously expect the minimap to be green already before I've capped it..
8 Jan 2013, 17:35 PM
#3
avatar of Trainzz

Posts: 332 | Subs: 1

Nice one, have to watch it when I got more time again. Looks cool tho!
8 Jan 2013, 17:58 PM
#4
avatar of Sturmovik

Posts: 838

nice review ! job well done mate :)
9 Jan 2013, 22:45 PM
#5
avatar of pathfindergold

Posts: 82

I think there should be a setting to make the unit display in the corner hover or permanently open/close. Maybe make it so if the bar is closed, hovering over the arrow will make it expand like it was in vCoH? I think the icons are also too big and should take up less of the screen, but I do like how you are displayed a little more information about each unit now. I also agree that the color pallet needs to be changed.

One thing I have a question on is how will control groups work? Obviously click on units then hit ctrl+1 and it makes control group 1, but how will that be shown on the right side? From the pictures shown, there is no space left for a control group to go without it pushing more into the center of the screen because of the new boxes there for the abilities.

The whole dynamic interface thing about the picture to the unit is really dumb also. Kill count and things like that is more important to me than what seems to be a little animated portrait of the unit I'm selected. I'd rather see information at a glance than have to scroll over it. (This is where I ran out of time to stop watching the video, but very good job reviewing it.)
9 Jan 2013, 23:33 PM
#6
avatar of Symbiosis

Posts: 862

The green is horrible, especially since I'm a bit colourblind, I can barely see my units and my territory.. :(
10 Jan 2013, 06:05 AM
#7
avatar of FlyingPrius

Posts: 11

Good review! Brought up a lot of good points. While red vs blue feels a bit cliche IMO, issues with colorblindness would be worse, maybe a setting to adjust saturation and color would help. Also hoping the resources gets tweaked more compact horizontally somehow, but we may just need to get used to it.
10 Jan 2013, 06:56 AM
#8
avatar of Polonium210

Posts: 28

The green is horrible, especially since I'm a bit colourblind, I can barely see my units and my territory.. :(



Indeed, should be Blue and Red.

Green isn't even something that you'd associate with the Ostheer or the Wehrmacht.
10 Jan 2013, 18:57 PM
#9
avatar of peruci

Posts: 217

The old UI is so much more pleasent to look at. Theres to much 'going on' in the new one. I also dont like the colours. It will take some time to get used to it.

Also, where is the the tactical map?
10 Jan 2013, 19:04 PM
#10
avatar of peruci

Posts: 217

Oh and i agree about the resources overlay, the horizontal overlay is much more difficult to read.

I can imagine you would have to double take to get all the resource information you need during a game.
10 Jan 2013, 22:27 PM
#11
avatar of Rogers

Posts: 1210 | Subs: 1

Cool stuff dude.
11 Jan 2013, 23:12 PM
#12
avatar of ThisIsKindergarten

Posts: 14

Thanks for the analysis. While I agree with your points I'm not sure about Relic changing the alpha UI for the better:
  • CoH's UI is not very intuitive and sometimes awkward to use. For example you have to go to the game starting screen to watch a replay. For basic matches, both "Main menu" and "Leave game" buttons lead to the same screen. No information design whatsoever.
  • Relic generally favors a short-lived wow-moment - or what they dream up to be one - over long time usability. That's their reasoning behind ToV units. And the convoluted level names still make me cringe.


BTW: am I the only one whom the new UI reminds of the Total War series UI?
14 Jan 2013, 15:08 PM
#13
avatar of uberCY

Posts: 1

Great review! Pretty much agree on all points.

Biggest areas for improvement are:

• Change map color from green to red.
• Change resource display from horizontal to vertical.

Both changes seem pretty easy and would make a big difference.
14 Jan 2013, 16:41 PM
#14
avatar of Black Hawk

Posts: 27

Good review
The green colour needs to be changed
14 Jan 2013, 17:05 PM
#15
avatar of Waffleticket

Posts: 65

yea the green is horrible
14 Jan 2013, 17:23 PM
#16
avatar of Mortality

Posts: 255

an excellent review - devs really should take a look at this, +1 to everything pointed out
15 Jan 2013, 03:26 AM
#17
avatar of 12ocky

Posts: 508 | Subs: 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF9_HXZfFrY

Anybody else who thinks it looks like this? (it's a MOW video from our very own TychoCelChuu)

I just feel it's terrible overall, with the horizontal resources being the worst part.
15 Jan 2013, 10:21 AM
#18
avatar of RsvT

Posts: 117

Nice video, also agree everything you said in there...
Hux
15 Jan 2013, 18:01 PM
#19
avatar of Hux
Patrion 14

Posts: 505

15 Jan 2013, 18:36 PM
#20
avatar of sluzbenik

Posts: 879

Totally agree on blue/red. This is standard in most military games, including actual real-life war-gaming. Blue=Friendly, Red=Enemy.

Also, I do not think the resource panel should be horizontal either. It's much easier to take in vertical information when there are separate categories. There's a reason you almost never see tickboxes in software arranged horizontally. Bulleted lists are also never horizontally arranged. It would be ugly and hard to read. Note that they also used a serif rather than san-serif font for the income numbers. Sans-serif is much easier to read on computer screens.

Overall I also think it's much too busy in the color scheme. It's not totally garish, but I think they need to reduce their palette a bit.

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