The biggest problem of this game: the User Interface.

[Player2]

 There are many problems in the current version of DB, and this is to be expected.  I can excuse almost any of the current problems, as they're being tweaked and the game is in beta.  However, any bugs that hinder the understanding of the intricacies of Dirty Bomb tarnish the first impression that new users will have.  Yes, the game is in beta.  But while this is not the release of DB, it is extremely important to capture the attention of new steam users.  Some examples of UI "features" that are confusing are below.

• The mission system. Missions are never really explained. Are they daily? When do they reset? Why do I sometimes immediately get new missions after completing the old? In addition to this vague game mechanic, there is a horrible UI bug that shows other players’ mission progress instead of your own in the post game screen. My current theory is that this happens when you have to wait for the “daily” to restart, but I have nothing but guesswork to base this on.
• The level system. The level system is misleading. At levels 2 and 4 you get 12000 credits. Personally I thought this trend would continue and spent mine freely, but have yet to get this award again from level 4-9. The UI part of this that bugs me is the levels are not explained. The only indicator on the main menu is a tiny level number with no context and no way to see progress towards your next level.
• The case system. Cases have been a source of contention in the community as they seem to be rather expensive for their mostly lead drops. Cases are currently broken in a different way, regardless of opinions about their contents. Buying and opening a case takes an excessive amount of clicking, especially when you are trying to buy more than just a few. Also, a case drop disrupts the “flow” of the game. Opening cases in a lobby would allow me to keep my binge playing going with fewer breaks.
• The experience divisions. Currently we have game xp, combat xp, and support xp. I have a rough idea of what these mean from the names, but it would be nice to have some sort of easy to understand differentiation between the three. Perhaps a color coding?
• The loadout card selection system is spread throughout three menus and a lobby. It’s more than a little bit crazy that I have to join a game to select a new loadout card. An inventory system without sorting is unacceptable in a modern game. What exactly is the point of the merc selection in the merc tab if I can’t pick a loadout card to go with it?
• Various polish things. Some people might think it’s early to work on polish, but I think it is important to treat this as a soft release. Get rid of the closed beta symbol. If those green codes were to prevent NDA violations then they are obsolete as well.

While I have many other suggestions on the future of Dirty Bomb, an intuitive UI seems to be the least polarizing idea. This forum is filled with suggestions for game balance and payment models, and the arguments that go with them. This is something that I think every Dirty Bomb player can agree on-and hopefully the devs as well.

[insaneCylinder]

The mission system. Missions are never really explained. Are they daily? When do they reset? Why do I sometimes immediately get new missions after completing the old? In addition to this vague game mechanic, there is a horrible UI bug that shows other players’ mission progress instead of your own in the post game screen. My current theory is that this happens when you have to wait for the “daily” to restart, but I have nothing but guesswork to base this on.

The missions are daily, however if you do not complete yesterdays missions until today, then today’s remaining mission will fill that slot. This way you don’t loose out on credits if you don’t manage to get a mission right away. Which is nice.

They could explain this better sure. But just as an FYI to you, that’s how it works.

The UI bug is a bug. This is closed beta, it’s a bug, it will be resolved.
It occurs, as you guessed, when you are out of missions.
It will probably be resolved in the next bigger patch because you can currently profit an extra 600 credits from it (if the random person you “mimic” completes one of their missions that game)

The level system. The level system is misleading. At levels 2 and 4 you get 12000 credits. Personally I thought this trend would continue and spent mine freely, but have yet to get this award again from level 4-9. The UI part of this that bugs me is the levels are not explained. The only indicator on the main menu is a tiny level number with no context and no way to see progress towards your next level.

I agree, was disappointed not to see another 12k bonus at either level 6 or 7, at level 7 you don’t even get anything other than unlocking MM which I would have seen as a perk, not a reward.

The case system. Cases have been a source of contention in the community as they seem to be rather expensive for their mostly lead drops. Cases are currently broken in a different way, regardless of opinions about their contents. Buying and opening a case takes an excessive amount of clicking, especially when you are trying to buy more than just a few. Also, a case drop disrupts the “flow” of the game. Opening cases in a lobby would allow me to keep my binge playing going with fewer breaks.

Their expense lies in the low credit rates. I think they fixed that quite okay, I now get about 250 credits a game so it would take me 40 minutes to get one crate. But I wouldn’t buy crates because they have also doubled the crate drops from completing games.

I don’t think the system for buying crates is too complicated. It will make more sense when they add different kinds of crates. That’s why you need a “cases” tab and a “shop” interface.
Not being able to buy crates from the lobby… how much can you really get done in 1 minute?
Buy a case, upgrade three cards, change your load out… it’s gonna take more than a minute.

The experience divisions. Currently we have game xp, combat xp, and support xp. I have a rough idea of what these mean from the names, but it would be nice to have some sort of easy to understand differentiation between the three. Perhaps a color coding?

Combat XP = Red - Game XP = Yellow - Support XP = Blue
It already is this way in the game.

The loadout card selection system is spread throughout three menus and a lobby. It’s more than a little bit crazy that I have to join a game to select a new loadout card. An inventory system without sorting is unacceptable in a modern game. What exactly is the point of the merc selection in the merc tab if I can’t pick a loadout card to go with it?

I agree, both sorting and being able to change loadouts outside of games should be fixed and it probably also will. The way the UI looks right now is different from the previous beta test in February so it is probably not completed.

Various polish things. Some people might think it’s early to work on polish, but I think it is important to treat this as a soft release. Get rid of the closed beta symbol. If those green codes were to prevent NDA violations then they are obsolete as well.

That Closed Beta symbol could probably be scaled down a bit, but to suggest that it should be removed all together is naive. This game certainly still is in closed beta and the devs want it to be known to anyone who watches recorded game play or who plays the game that the game shouldn’t be judged unfairly.

[Szakalot]

very good points all around, listen to the man!

On loadouts, would be nice to have them nicely sorted via class & rank, atm its a huge mess and I have very vague idea what loadouts I have

[Darkcola]

Cases and loadouts- whoohoo…

I’ve yet to see any game fully appreciate or measure the contribution of a player to the game. There are obvious points yes, but really- I’ve seen people with horrible k:ds in game but they were the most productive simply by always being in the right place, getting assists, supporting team by giving harassing fire, and so on (and not being a medic).

ah well.

[son]

I’ll just add what I’ve been saying since I first played DB (and still haven’t seen any progress with), time spent playing DB to time spent out of it dicking around with the interface is way too low. I have never played a game where servers just consistently empty after a map change only to find many of the players that left that game went into another server. To me this is saying it’s quicker to just leave games at the end and join another game in progress because that is much quicker than waiting for the next map to start in the same server.
Some things I’d like to see:

In server browser games, scrap the map vote screen and loadout screen. Have squad select available while playing, giving access to all mercs. (server browser games are more casual, squad selection/syncing with your team doesn’t make a lot of sense in non-competitive 6v6->8v8 games)

At the end map scoreboard, allow players to vote for the next map, the end map screen should be like 45s before the next map begins to load. Ready-up before match goes live is fine, but it should be like 50-75% of players from each team and not everyone on the server to start the game. (cuts down a few MINUTES in between games, considering the average objective/stopwatch half in my experience is like 7mins this is pretty huge)

Need to be able to open crates ingame. Having to give up your spot on a full server to open crates sucks.

[Amerika]

Do the missions reset for anybody else around ~7PM US Central? Or has it just been a coincidence that mine keep resetting around that time?

[appreciativeBuster]

Kill death ratio under tab would be nice
Mapvoting for nextmap indeed

“In server browser games, scrap the map vote screen and loadout screen. Have squad select available while playing, giving access to all mercs. (server browser games are more casual, squad selection/syncing with your team doesn’t make a lot of sense in 6v6->8v8 games)”

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