Welcome to World War II online - Battleground Europe : Free community contributions to a new User Interface design

Oct. 2009

Please sit back, relax, throw some food to the fishes, and take a hour to discover the content of this blog.

The purpose of this input is to introduce new gameplay concepts that could contribute to a fix of persistent issues highlighted during the last couples of years, with a special focus on the User Interface (UI).
Though it will confuse established players, I believe it will be alot easier for new players to understand.

The blog (creative) layout has been designed to make the reading more comfortable (you can easily pause your reading thanks to feature #IDs) as to make search & discuss easier. Use the labels to select a single part, or use the tree on the right to find a specific feature back.
If you are in a hurry, you may just have an attentive look at the screenshots which should be intuitive to understand. The text is just pointing out drawn features or detailing the context.

All opinions and suggestions are welcome. Please, provide feedback (here) in the official forum . Remind that the whole content is a free gift to Playnet.

Since English isn't my main language, please apologize for the mistakes. I hope you will still enjoy the reading.

ZEB
-Un0fficial gameplay architect, advises concepts since 2002-

1.7. Brigade HQ


[SIDE HQ]
    - Welcome screen
   - Squad selected
   - Town selected
   - Platoon selected 
[PLATOON HQ]
   - Mission member display
   - Mission leader display 
[BRIGADE HQ]

____________________________________________________________


   With the current design, the information that can be found on the main brigade screen or in the "communications" tab, is limited, unclear or not very useful. Furthermore you can no longer access some needed information once you joined a mission.
The new design tries to give more useful information to brigade members and leaders, makes it available everywhere it's needed, and tries to make coordination and organization much easier thanks to this. Many features contained in the next sreenshot have already been introduced in previous topics.


 
Typical brigade HQ display


#51. The same list of active missions ordered by category then the one that can be found in the side HQ (topic 1.1) is displayed on the left of the screen.

#52. When selecting a platoon or a squad mission, a zoom is performed on its target in the little map on the right. At the same time, extra information can be found bellow the left screen :
  • Target;
  • Current orders; (only available if selecting a platoon)
  • Countdown status;
  • List of current mission members, ordered by unit type. Unit type, spawn status and last selected origin are displayed as well. Note that somehow multicrewed vehicles should be announced;
  • Platoon stats (duration of platoon's existence, number of kills, number of deaths);
  • Platoon specialization displayed with an image, if any;
#53. The OIC name tag is reminded;

#54. Current AO(s) status are displayed, showing for how long they have been active.

#55. The supply status is displayed as well. Note that at this level a distinction is made between light units (infantry icon) and heavy units (tank icon) to allow leaders to better establish a supply awareness;

#56. As introduced in feature #38, a list of MSPs currently available for the brigade is displayed at this level as well;

#57. A mission display filter allows to find a specific mission in the list.

#58. A part of the screen now displays all units that don't belong to this brigade (ground, air, naval), but which are currently also involved in the same areas (home town and target). It would actually just gather missions filtered when selecting the towns on map in the side HQ (feature #29).
Selecting one of these platoons would also display its details on the map and on the left. This becomes valid for squad mission as well, in opposition to the side HQ level where you read squad informations instead. Note that mercenaries are not taken into account.

This important feature would allow brigade members and leaders to get an excellent situational awareness of available troops, allow easier coordination with air/naval units and other ground forces, and allow players to more easily know if there's another more pertinent brigade to join then the one they're currently in.

#59. In the chat window you'll notice notifications about the membership candidature being approved by the leader (feature #46), and a change of the platoon status which means an automatic spawn signal is imminent (feature #48).

#60. When leaving the platoon thanks to the "leave platoon icon", you would land in the brigade HQ and be allowed to join another mission.


Note : Some feedbacks pointed out that the information displayed in this screen is very useful, but is a bit too much because of spying issues. Therefore, some of the information could eventually be filtered and displayed only for MLs and OICs.

2 comments:

  1. Is there a way to incorporate the status of Axis/enemy supply status based on rough info? Incorporate KFS1 info as well?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like it too but I'm still concerned about the information that can be exploited by spies. Maybe don't share that much details.

    It could also be interesting to get a K/D ratio of all involved forces on an AO.

    ReplyDelete