Impro suggestion to UI for better Situtational Awareness

[[RGG]Firefokker]

Hey folks,

A few months back I put some effort into describing a few UI changes that would in my humble opinion significantly improve situational awareness in the game. I discussed it with a few people but never really followed it up, but the recent discusions about the lack of player numbers and what could be done to improve things made me think of it again.

Speaking from my own experience in both BF2 and ARMA2 PR, many new players find the lack of situational awareness and resulting fog or war extremely irritating and/or offputting.

Discarding the gripe that you get shot a lot without knowing where from and why (which is just an occupational hazard in PR), continuously not knowing who is where in your immediate vicinity can lead to tunnel vision, confusion and, ultimately, the 'bollocks to this' syndrome that simply pisses the casual player off so much that he does not see any reason for giving the mod a chance and getting used to the way things work.

I fear we might be losing a lot of potential players during the initial 'honeymoon' phase of first trying PR where they get frustrated that the mod won't just drop its knickers and make it easy for them.

That said, I still find the 'anonymous' squad radar and cumbersome way of accessing the squad management menu infuriating in certain situations, so I think everyone would benefit from the suggestion.

I am not talking about making things unrealistically easy; just to provide enough information to compensate for the shortcomings of being disconnected from the action by a monitor/keyboard and counteracting the senory deprivation that comes with that.

Please check out the attached PDF with all the details, and let me know what you think...

Cheers...

[[R-DEV]epoch]

Thanks for your suggestion. We're currently re-coding a lot of content, starting with squad management, so I'll pass on your PDF and we'll see what's feasible. Some stuff isn't - either because it's not possible, or because it's something we've already considered and decided against implementing.

However, I agree with your sentiment that we need to ensure we don't make things so difficult that we drive new players away (without sacrificing too much the 'reality' aspect of the mod).


Cheers

[[RGG]Firefokker]

Thanks for the feedback Epoch, much appreciated!

[martinhjerpe]

Yes, a little more user friendliness would be great.
I really like this mod and I do belive the lack of players and sometimes teamwork is due to the fact that people are confused as to what is going on.

[Dogged]

Love the idea for the pop up box which shows all the name of the squad members and there kits. I find when squad leading that it takes way too long to work out who has the mg, medic etc and order him even when you are not under direct fire. It's even worse when you find out that he actually left the game or you didn't even have that kit in your squad.

[xatu miller]

Great work on those suggestions Firefokker! Agree with you on every aspect. IMO the current problem is that the game does not represent well spacial awareness and info you would have IRL. However if implemented, your ideas would solve that.

[[R-DEV]Deadfast]

Thank you for taking your time to put this together, it really makes a difference.

As Epoch said, we'll certainly take it into consideration.

[Atkinson]

Looks good and I agree. Thanks for putting so much effort in the presentation.

[[RGG]Firefokker]

Thanks for the positive feedback guys; was worth the effort then (especially if some of the stuff ends up being implemented)

Personally I'd be happy to sacrifice a little realism if it improves the ability to teamwork with your squad mates...

Teamwork is why I play PR, realism comes a close but less significant second.

[doveman]

Great ideas Firefokker and nice job on the presentation as well. I hope we see at least some of these implemented

Regarding 4.3 Squad Information Window, I wonder if it wouldn't be good if that could be on a toggle, like the GPS, so that it stay on screen. I think having the numbers on the squad radar might be a good idea permanantly instead of dots, even when the popup isn't visible, as it gives the player a far better idea of who is where.

I also have a suggestion to make nearby squad members names show permanently instead of only when pointing your gun at them and pressing 'display player name'. IRL you would have trained with your squad for some time and got to know them on sight instantly, whereas in PR it's very hard (if not impossible) to tell who's who by looking at them and whilst your ideas will greatly help, the player still has to look at the squad radar and see that the player to their front-left is 4 and then look at the popup to see who 4 is, whereas if their names were permanently visible I think it would be a lot easier for players to remember "Filou is our medic", etc avoiding the need to take their eye off the ball so to speak and cross-reference the various data. Maybe this could be toggled with the Squad Information popup, so that if some users dislike having the names permanently shown they don't have to.

I find the player names rather hard to see at the moment as well, partly because the text is too small and partly because of the (light) colour used, so if that could be improved that'd be great.

Perhaps Blake's PRADAR might have some features that will help as well, although it requires CBA and I don't know if that's something that PR supports Blake's PRADAR