Zhohar

Have you ever been kicked from the Conquest server, only too see a generic, completely unrelated kick message? Have you ever wanted to turn up the volume of a squad mate's voice? Have you ever wanted to name your squad “Church Defense” and found out that you ran out of letters? Have you ever found it hard to catch the chat messages among other spam? And conversely, found it hard to catch who killed you and with what among the other chat spam?

This thread is to suggest improvements for the BF2142 User Interface – the way the game communicates information to you and the way you control ingame events. This thread is not for improvements on ingame issues such as weapon, item or map modifications – it is solely for the improvement of the way you receive information about ingame events.
Please note – we've all been annoyed by at least one of the game's peculiarities, true, but let's not turn this into a whining fest: recognize the UI mistake and suggest an improvement. This way, the conversation will move forward in a constructive manner.

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Uranium - 235

Tribes 2 was the "World of Warcraft" to FPS games, and while it did make cheating a little easier, it was the best game ever when it came to user-friendliness, because like WoW, anyone who knew a little xml or .lua scripting could DRAMATICALLY customize their game, even to the point where it'd emulate features like a fully-functional HUD in aircraft. It was all client-side and you wouldn't get kicked for it. Cheating be damned, I'd LOVE to have that ability back in my FPS games. You could change any aspect of the UI, separate messages you didn't like, even build scripts to increase your favorites list to 50 or more, auto-send important messages, etc.

It was truly the pinnacle of user-friendliness in any game. Like I said - think of the UI mods in WoW - Tribes 2 allowed that first (well actually T1 did, but T2 was what I played first, so nyah).

THAT BEING SAID, here's what was the most absolutely necessary part of any UI mod in that game was that SHOULD be in EVERY BF game, not just 2142.

Separate every type of message.

Kills should be tracked in an individual message window away from server messages. There's no reason admin warnings should be instantly scrolled off the page by a list of who killed whom.

Team messages and global chat should also be separate, in fact, even squad messages should be individualized. Furthermore, allow the users to set their own fonts and increase how many lines of text are VISIBLE.

Finally, remove, or again, separate, the text associated with radio chatter. There's absolutely not a single valid reason to having text of "HOSTILE FORCES IN THIS AREA" when I can hear the radio too.

Right now we have two chat boxes. One is 3 lines long, and has server and kill messages in it. The second is 3 lines long and has team, commander, squad, and global messages both typed and radioed crammed into it.

The UI has annoyed me more than anything else in the BF games. That DICE never got a clue and fixed it is beyond me, as UI is usually one of the easiest things to change.

So yeah. What it really needs first is to separate every type of text coming in into its own boxes, and allow us to customize them. Either let us, or by default find a new font that isn't HUGE and BLOCKY even at 1920x1200, and change it from 3 lines to 6, or 9, or whatever. And remove the radio spam.

Also, I love the idea of being able to add db boost to certain players. There's always some clown who has his mic gain turned off. Fun fact for everyone - being too loud is a lot better than being too quiet. I'd rather yell at you to shut up then simply never hear you at all.

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jazy2

Something I had to put up with for waaay to long, and I know it is supid and obvious but there you go.......Go to the audio options and set game sounds to about 60%. It is unbelievable the difference it makes to the sound level for other players chat.

As I said, for way too long I had all sound settings to the max! Sweet jeepers it was loud, but it had to be so I could hear the voip! I tried before to make the voip louder but it was maxed out, I never thought to lower the game sounds! *smacks head* Now with the setting at 60% I can still hear shots and explosions etc but the voip is clearer and my ears don't ache when I turn the game off.

Seriously I think I may have damaged my hearing!!

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Augustus Gloop

I would create a separate transparent chat box that filled the entire screen and only showed messages when I pwnd Crux.

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austforbeer

Tribes 2 was IMO the best FPS game ever created! It gets a lot of hate from the T1 crowd but compared to Vengeance it was a fantastic sequel. I'm also surprised that other games haven't really learned from the great UI improvements made in Tribes 1 and 2.

For one the communication style of Tribes with key combinations was effective and quick. While using the rose can be quick having key combo's to relay messages allows for much more types of communication and it can be just as quick when memorized. Instead of just pointing something out you could say what class the player is or point out mines to people. Not to mention allow custom voice packs that could be fun to play with. ;D

Also, I feel multiple chat windows are needed. Having deaths and talk in a small box which I hardly have time to look at is almost pointless. Not to mention that by default if I die it can be very hard to see what weapon it was that killed me.

Being able to filter information like other people's kills.

Augustus Gloop

God I would love to be able to flag enemy apm's or enemy motion mines for the whole team.

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pred011586

Maybe a possible upgrade to the Engineer NetBat system? Make the kit more useful than "They got vehicles, we need engies!" It would also make more engies carry around that Dystek Dyfuser thing, you don't know how many times I've been able to cap flags covered in C4 because I pack one of those when I'm an engie, and know I might be capping a flag/silo.


I'd like to see the Commander interface un-bugged. There are times where kits are messed up and squads that don't exist appear to have members, and squads that exist appear empty. Granted, when you mouse over the squads it shows the correct information, so this would be a minor fix, but I'm sure anyone who commands would appreciate not having to always mouse over a squad just to see if they're equipped for the objective at hand.


Also, agreed with the individual volume control for VoIP, and customizable chat boxes.

Arithea

I'm with everyone else who has posted, so far--I'd like to see "X killed Y [Voss]" in a totally different place on the screen. Sometimes it's useful, as when you're Rorsch sniped, to tell what actually just pwned you totally. However, it's very difficult to see admin messages and actual chat from the people in your squad who might not have VoIP usage.

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Lorax74

I would like the choice to enable or disable the kill messages (I really don't care who gets killed by who or how). Admin/Server messages should be somewhere other than in the general text scroll we have now and squad, team and global chat should be separated as well.

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MDFubar

I would like to see the chat limited to the squad and admins.

SM's see only SL chat to them, admin chat, and who killed them.(who killed you only)

SL's see only CO chat, admin chat, Sm chat, and who killed them(who killed you only)

Co's see only admin chat, SL chat, and who killed them(who killed you only)

This would limit the amount of chat seen on each individuals' screen.

I would also like to have the option to turn in game chat off(other than admin), if we are all using Voip then I don't need to see it......but I wouldlike to know who killed me.

Sometimes I think we get too much information from the chat. At least that way, when the chat appeared..you would know if was for you.

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"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
- General George Patton Jr

daithi1

A game that works would be a lovely change .


Although updating the favourites list of servers would be a nice step in the right direction.
The huge X PWNED Y HEADSHOT! thing in Clanmod is nice too. Being able to see what killed you without having to resort to the console would be brilliant. Although I'd like to see DICE actually get rid of the various bugs in the game before worrying about UI (even though they're both quiet important).

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Uranium - 235

DICE? Fixing bugs?

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Uranium - 235

Another note to bring this back up, I'd love to have the gunship gunner cam have an indicator for where the front of the gunship is. Having to look at my minimap is a pain.

Just horizontal offset would be nice, but vertical tilt would be great too. BF2 had this, why they removed it is beyond me.

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fuzzhead

best HUD is no HUD at all

daithi1

Damn you PR players.

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