Feedback on the New HotS Battle.net

Here's a list of other good points from this thread, which I'll try to keep up to date.
+ Show Spoiler +

Unable to start a game or kick people stuck on pending: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=387109&currentpage=5#83
Inconsistency in loading screen: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=387109&currentpage=5#90
Unable to create 2-player maps in a party with more than 2 players: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=387109&currentpage=7#124
Further thoughts on leave league and suggestions to deal with ladder anxiety: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=387109&currentpage=8#145
Add a view replay button on the score screen: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=387109&currentpage=10#183

The original post follows below.

This post is to point out bad, redundant or inconsistent UI in the new HotS Battle.net and to suggest some improvements and extra features. The TLDR version is reading the bold parts which gives a summary of the suggestions. The Battle.net thread links here.

Profile Page

1. Use more iconic units in the banner art.
[image loading]

The banner art is ineffective in depicting the 3 races. For example, shown above is an unusual picture of a dark Templar, which few players would recognize. Artwork of more prominent and iconic units should be used instead. Perhaps also put a race-theme background on the profile page, like the old profiles.

There’s also a large gap shown in the screenshot. This gap wasn’t there in patch 2.0.1, why is it there now? Unless there is a reason for it, this gap should be removed.

2. Either use the bar in the season snapshop to display the win ratio or remove it.
The progress bar under the season snapshot is always full. Use it to represent win ratio, global rank as a percentile or something else. Otherwise, there’s no point, so the bar should be removed.

Ladder Page (in Profile)

3a. Streamline the Ladder page by removing the showcase boxes and change the Ladder Summary page to list each ladder that the player is in for the current season, which directly links to the division ladder list.
3b. Remove the Current Ladder page, since the summary page would now directly link to the division ladder list.
3c. Remove general information pages like the Grandmaster and Current Season pages from the profile and put it into a Community page, which includes other general information like news, profile search and a global ladder.
[image loading]

The 3 boxes where players can showcase the ladder they’re in looks awful. The boxes are huge, devoid of information, and have a tacky icon of Kerrigan on the top right corner. Remove this icon and instead use the text “Heart of the Swarm ladder” (or “Wings of Liberty ladder” depending on the expansion the player has), and include useful information, such as expansion, league, wins, losses, points, division, division rank, global rank (as a percentile) in a rectangular box similar to the one at the top of the screenshot.

In fact, this whole Ladder page should be redesigned. Currently, to view a team that isn’t showcased you would need to go: Profile > Ladders > Current Season > Heart of the Swarm > <ladder mode>. This is excessive. The Ladder Summary page should put all ladder modes (not just 3) in a list like the one on the top of the screenshot, allowing for scrolling if needed. For each ladder mode (1v1, 2v2, etc.) that the player is ranked in, it should display the information listed above, reducing this from being 5 pages away to 3.

The Grandmaster and Current Season page should be removed from the profile and put elsewhere. It’s got nothing to do with the player’s profile. It’s general and universal information. It should be grouped with other general information like the news and put into a community page. A global ladder and profile search should be included here too. The Previous Season page can also be deleted because it’s already covered by the Career Summary page.
[image loading]

Alternatively, group all of these items, excluding the news, and call it a ladder information page. WC3 had one on the internet. It’s awesome: http://classic.battle.net/war3/ladder/w3xp-ladders.aspx?Gateway=Lordaeron

Please borrow some ideas from the WC3 ladder page.

4. Change the color used to display the division name so that it is readable.
[image loading]

5. Remove the Leave League option.
[image loading]

This option allows a player to leave their league. This is a very bad feature. There is no legitimate use of this feature. Players with MMR near the boundary of promotion could abuse this feature to make it easier to get promoted. If the goal is to make promotions easier, then do this by increasing the uncertainty threshold of MMR required for promotion.

If instead the goal is to make it easier to change divisions, there is no point in changing divisions. Divisions are already meaningless. Allowing division hopping would make the division rank even more meaningless for absolutely no reason at all, since players could “choose” newer and easier divisions.

Allowing people to leave their league also resets their points to 0 and refunds their entire bonus pool. So this hurts casuals who aren’t aware that using this option requires them to start from scratch.

Moreover, it makes points a worse measure of skill, because the player would have to use up their entire bonus pool again in order for points to correctly measure skill, even if the system already has an accurate MMR for players who were active enough to use up their previous bonus pool. This wouldn’t be an issue if joining a new league after leaving a league retained the player’s previous points and bonus pool, accounting for time elapsed. But then, players could abuse this as a way of hiding their stats and ladder standing by leaving their league after each game.

So this introduces many abuses, changes points from a “skill+time” measure to a “skill+(highly weighted time)” measure, and there is no legitimate use for this feature.

However, the change where points for losing are absorbed from bonus pool is excellent, because it doesn’t affect the legitimacy of points.

Match History

6. Remember the filter that is applied to Match History when navigating back to it after viewing a score screen.
Currently, if the player filters the match history (1v1, 2v2, custom, etc), views a score screen, then goes back to the match history, the filter isn’t saved.

Matchmaking Page

7. Add pictures for each race when they’re selected in the Matchmaking page.
It would be good for new players to see what the races look like. Use iconic and very recognizable units, such as the Marine, Hydralisk and Zealot.

8. Separate unranked and ranked matchmaking queues.
Players who queue using unranked can be matched with ranked players. This has been described as working as intended to reduce queue times. But queues should be separated to prevent abuse. Here are some possible abuses:
-Deliberately lowering your MMR to bronze level to beat up on low skill players, with no consequence to your ladder standing.
-Leave or backstab in team games, also with no consequence to your ladder standing.
-If you're losing, you can even ask the opponent very nicely to give you a free win by leaving, and if your opponent is playing unranked, there's no reason for the opponent to say no.
-If you want to practice TvZ with unranked, then you should leave every game which is not TvZ, thereby giving your opponents free wins.

While it’s possible to do these things now, it would stuff up your ladder standing. Pooling rank and unranked games in HotS will mean that there's no incentive to stop anyone from doing this. Everyone would be able to freely smurf with no consequence, which was a major problem with multiple accounts in WC3. This is an error that should not be repeated.

9. Allow players to choose the match-up in unranked play.
Sometimes players want to practice a particular match-up. It’s unranked, there’s no reason not to do this. It would prevent the fourth abuse in the above list.

10. Add a global ladder and use a percentile to make it more easily readable.
A global ladder should be added because division ranks are meaningless. There is no point in ranking against 100 arbitrary and faceless players. As Blizzard says, “Players who play competitively on the ladder can now better track their progress regardless of which league they’re in. And those players that would like to enjoy the benefits of matchmaking, but are not interested in the pressure of being ranked can now use the unranked play mode.” This quote is from: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/7634957/

11. Fix the favored system or simply stop displaying whether a player is favored.
The favored indicator basically compares your points to your opponent’s MMR. This is why your opponent is nearly always favored until you have played for a few dozen games. Both players can both be favored because it isn't actually measuring who is favored to win. The reason for the current system is to "explain" to players why they get so many points for winning: you beat a favored opponent so here are a lot of points. But the real reason for rewarding lots of points at the start is to move the player's points minus bonus pool towards their MMR, so that better players can be ranked higher. Thus, the current system is deceptive.

Either change it to display who is more likely to win, (which means it would no longer be possible for both players to be favored in the same game), or simply stop displaying it altogether. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the second option.

12. Allow more colors instead of just red and blue for ladder play.
Seeing only red and blue for 1v1 games is getting to be an eyesore. Colors should be randomly assigned out of the first 8, like in WC3.

Custom Games Page

13. In the Browse and Bookmarks tab, list maps instead of listing map by mode to prevent duplicate entries. Remove the Mode column.
[image loading]

As the above screenshot shows, the maps Hunting Grounds and Korhal City are both repeated 3 times, because of different modes. In fact, Hunting Grounds 2v2 is repeated twice, even though they are the exact same modes, because one has a Blizzard rating and another doesn’t. There should be 1 entry per map, neither the mode nor Blizzard rating should matter.

If a player wants to play a map in a particular mode, they could either join a game or create a game. For the former, they could go to the Open Games page where the mode is displayed. For the latter, they could find the map, create the game and choose the mode in the game lobby. Therefore, it is superfluous and a waste of space to list a map 5 times just because it has 5 modes.

14. Fix the Category drop-down menu to correctly filter by Category.
The screenshot in 13 shows that I’ve filtered by Co-op vs AI, yet melee maps where the game mode is 1v1 appears. If I filter by Miscellaneous (described as “Unclassified game type”) to find unit tester maps, then maps that are classified as Melee still show up. So the filter is clearly not working properly.
[image loading]

This is partly because melee maps are oxymoronically classified as Miscellaneous, but as I’ll explain in 15d, they shouldn’t be.

15a. Keep only melee maps in Custom Games by moving all non-melee maps to the Arcade, so that the Category drop-down menu can be removed.
Custom Games should only contain melee maps, not maps like HOTS Unit Tester Online or Starcraft Master. Are these maps in Custom Games instead of the Arcade because they only use units in the melee game? If I create a Nexus War map with only units in the melee game should it go in Custom Games and not the Arcade? Why are some unit testers and micro training maps in the Arcade instead? The line shouldn’t be so blurred. All non-melee maps should be in the Arcade. In this case, the Category drop-down menu would be redundant and should be removed as explained in 15b to 15e.

15b. Remove the Co-op vs AI category.
Co-op vs AI is just melee. This category is redundant. If people want to add AIs they can already do so. In addition, filtering by Co-op vs AI doesn’t even work, as explained in 13.

15c. Remove the Melee Spectator category. Allow spectator functionality in public custom games.
Melee Spectator is baffling, because you can already spectate any private game. While it's not currently possible to spectate public custom games, Melee Spectator doesn’t solve this because there are virtually no maps in this category and it doesn’t work unless someone uploads a specific map. It should be possible to spectate all maps, rather than only having a restrictive set of player published maps that can be publicly spectated being dumped into this category.

Hence, this category should be removed and spectator functionality should be added to public custom games, like WC3 and Dota 2. This is a very fun and relaxing feature in these games.

15d. Remove the Miscellaneous category. Add Custom Teams as a mode for Melee. Move legitimately miscellaneous maps, such as unit tester maps, to the Arcade.
Miscellaneous is the same thing as Melee. The only difference is you can make custom sized teams (e.g. 1v4v2) using Miscellaneous, but this feature can simply be folded into Melee by adding Custom Teams as an additional mode for melee maps. As explained above, the fact that melee maps are classified as Miscellaneous is bad UI designed because it makes filtering by Miscellaneous quite useless since it returns mostly melee maps, instead of legitimately miscellaneous maps.

Furthermore, the screenshot below shows that there’s another category, Other, which doesn’t appear in the drop-down menu and is superfluous because it should be the same thing as Miscellaneous.
[image loading]

There shouldn’t be 3 melee categories, there should just be 1: melee. The miscellaneous category should be removed, melee maps should not be classified as Miscellaneous, Custom Teams should be folded into melee, and legitimately miscellaneous maps, like the unit tester maps highlighted above, should be moved to the Arcade and properly classified there.

15e. Remove the Monobattle and Trainer category. Move maps with these categories (there are virtually none) to the Arcade.
The Monobattle and Trainer categories are redundant and should be removed from the Custom Games page. These maps virtually don’t exist, with the exception of Blizzard’s SC2 Master. The Monobattle and Trainer categories should be put in the Arcade, since these aren’t the standard melee game, as explained in 15a.

16. Remove the Play Offline tick box by making it automatic for 1 human player games.
Every game with 1 human player can automatically be offline, and every game with more than 1 human player can only be online. So the Play Offline tick box (next to the Create Game button in the screenshot in 13) is completely unnecessary. The choice should be automatic. Currently there are some minor differences between online and offline games. For example in the offline game, you currently don’t earn XP points. But you can still earn online achievements for your Battle.net account (as long as you don’t use a cheat code). Yes, I’ve checked that it works. So there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to earn XP points too, given that what happens in an offline game is still tracked by Battle.net.

17. Add the Has High Rating tick box to the other options in the Show drop-down menu or remove it from the Newest option.
[image loading]

The Has High Rating tick box only appears for Newest. But this is an inconsistency, because there’s no reason why that tick box shouldn’t be added for the other options like Top Played or Up & Coming (it might not be needed for Top Rated).

But then there’s also no reason why a Has High Popularity tick box can’t be added for all the categories except Top Played. Fix this inconsistency.

18. When showing Blizzard Maps, remove the Author column and add back the Rating column
[image loading]

When showing Blizzard Maps, this is the only option where the columns Mode and Rating aren’t shown, and the Author column is added. This is an inconsistency. There is no point in displaying the Author column because it’s only showing Blizzard maps, it conveys zero information (the author is Blizzard). Make it show Name, Category and Rating like all the other show options such as Top Played and Top Rated (I’ve suggested in 13 to remove the Mode column).

19. Add a load game button to the Custom Game page
Currently, it’s possible to save an offline game, but this is not so useful because there’s no way to load a saved game without first entering another offline game. Either:
(1) Remove the option to save offline games. Is there any conceivable reason to save games against a computer?
(2) Add a load saved game option to the custom game page.
(3) Allow online custom games (with multiple players) to be saved and do (2). This feature is in WC3.

20. In publicly open games, allow the settings to be changed. Remove Locked Alliance for melee maps because it can’t be turned off or allow it to be turned off.
[image loading]

When joining a custom game, often there are no open games, so a new lobby is made. In these cases, I don’t see why the settings can’t be changed. I suspect it is because the game mode is listed in the Open Games page but there’s no reason why that can’t be updated when the host changes it.

Also, before the game is open to public (when the settings can be changed), the Locked Alliance setting cannot be changed when the Category is Melee. So either remove this setting for melee games or allow it to be changed. There’s no point in displaying a setting with a drop down menu that cannot be changed.

21. Use the same settings display in the lobby for the host and other players.
[image loading]

There is no reason why the player shouldn’t be able to see the Game Privacy setting. Make the player’s view consistent with the host’s.

22. Abort the countdown if someone leaves.
There is no point in starting the game if someone leaves during the countdown.

23. Streamline the pages and buttons you’re blocked from while in a game lobby, in particular allow entry into the Replay and Campaign page, but disallow starting a replay or the campaign.
When in a lobby, the pages that you are blocked going into are illogical. For example, you can go into the Matchmaking page and the Arcade, but can’t start a game there. This makes sense. But then why can’t you go into the Replay page? In WoL, you also can’t go into the Campaign page. To be consistent, it should be possible to go into these pages, but be unable to start a replay or load the campaign.

24. Automatically publish all melee maps globally.
There is no reason not to do this as there’s no language or translation needed for melee maps, and it ensures the latest maps in Korea or tournaments are promptly made available to everyone around the world.

25. In the Custom Games page, move the map preview from mouse-over to a side bar, similar to the Replays page.
[image loading]

Arcade Page

26. Add Blizzard Maps to the Show drop-down menu in the Browse page in the Arcade.
In the Browse page in the Arcade, the Show drop-down menu has the same options as the menu in the Custom Games page, except it is missing Blizzard Maps, despite there being several Blizzard maps in the Arcade, for example StarJeweled and Left 2 Die.

27. For consistency, remove the Arcade Chat button from the Arcade page since it’s in the Chat Channel list.
Before patch 2.0.2, there were buttons to enter General Chat, Looking for Team Chat, and Strategy Chat throughout the various pages in the UI. However, in 2.0.2 these buttons have been removed and consolidated in the Chat Channels list on the main page. To be consistent with this change, the Arcade Chat button should be removed. It’s the only one left, and it’s already on the Chat Channels list.

Chat functionality

28. Truncate the map name of the lobby that the player is in using “…” instead of using a tiny font size.
[image loading]

29. Display the map name in the tooltip of the button used to join the game lobby from a chat channel.
[image loading]

It is a useful feature that we can now join a game lobby through private chat channels by clicking the button shown. However, it doesn’t say what map we’ll be entering. The tooltip should say “Join <map name>” instead of “Join Game”.

30. Add chat options for time stamps and disabling automated messages like “Last Message <time>”, “<Player> has joined chat”, “<Player> has disconnected”.

31. Allow whisper functionality, including /w and /r in Battle.net, instead of only in-game.

32. Add an option to consolidate all chat, including channels, clans, groups, and whispers into one window, like WoW.

Groups and Clan

33. Allow clan and group channels to be auto-joined on login, like chat channels. Allow clan channels, group channels and public channels to be shown in-game.
There’s an “Auto-join channels” option to join chat channels on login, but it doesn’t work for groups and clan channels. There’s also a “Show chat channel messages in-game” option, which also doesn’t work for clan, group and public channels. These issues should be fixed.

34. Add the options Invite to Chat, Undock Window, Maximize Window, which are found in the cogwheel in the usual chat channels, to the cogwheel in group and clan chat channels.

35. Add extra features to groups, such as forums.
There’s no reason to join a group. It’s exactly the same as a chat channel. Add a forum, since that’s a useful way to discuss things with a group. If groups just have a chat, then how’s that different from a chat channel?

36. Add some more group categories such as Gaming, (TV and Movies), Music and Books.

37. Add a clan recruitment channel or a public channel for each clan.

38. Add a clan ladder, like the one in WC3.

UI Inconsistencies

39. Fix the UI inconsistencies shown below.
There are tons of inconsistencies throughout the UI. It’s as if the UI was haphazardly created by several people, without talking to each other and on an ad hoc basis. The UI is seemingly designed without any standard elements, such as standard windows, lists, and boxes that can be continually reused. There’s clearly no documented style guide. Why can’t be have a nice and consistent UI like WC3?

39a. Name of AI or Computer

Enlarge picture: http://i.imgur.com/RwWWU.png

Note that all these screenshots (except the lobby) are of the same game. The screenshots shows that the AI or Computer is named:
-Computer 1, 2, 3 on the score screen
-A.I. 2, 3, 4 in the game and on the replay summary screen
-Player 2, 3, 4 on the vision drop-down menu inside replays
-Computer in a game lobby.

Why does the computer have so many different names? For consistency I suggest calling them A.I. 1, 2, 3, etc, everywhere.

Also, in the game lobby the difficulty can be set as “Level 1 (Very Easy)”, “Level 2 (Easy)”, etc. This naming convention looks bad. Either use “Level 1” or use “Very Easy”, don’t use “Level 1 (Very Easy)”, etc.

39b. List Styles
Fix the inconsistencies with the various styles of lists shown below, by updating the Replay list, Match History list and Division Ladder list to the style of the Custom Games list (highlighted in orange).
[image loading]

There are inconsistencies in the Statistics screen. Using the Custom Games list as the standard would mean that the column names in the race matchup stats should use a larger font and not be bold (like the column names in the map stats), and the row names, e.g. “Vs Protoss”, should use font B, not font A. In addition, numbers should use font B, but not be bold, the right menu should be named “Expansion:”, and there should probably be borders For each row.
[image loading]

39c. Right-Click Menus
[image loading]

39d. Buttons in menus
[image loading]

For consistency, I suggest keeping the menu and Battle.net main page using upper case, centered. Then change the other menu buttons, including the side bar in the options to lower case, left-aligned. And remove Credits from the menu.

Also, the in-game menu includes lower case, whereas the Battle.net menu is all upper case. I suggest changing the in-game menu to use only upper case.

39f. Other Buttons
[image loading]

39g. Save Replay Box

Enlarge picture: http://i.imgur.com/Kiq1O.png

39h. Groups List
[image loading]

39i. Bookmark Icon
[image loading]

39j. Battle.net boxes

Enlarge picture: http://i.imgur.com/BTryu.png

The first 4 boxes should be the new style for dialog boxes. The title is in upper case and the message is in a text box with a scroll bar. The dialog boxes highlighted in red should be changed to this style.

Enlarge picture: http://i.imgur.com/Xc0Df.jpg

There are many inconsistencies here. The 3 boxes in the top row, and the Players Near You boxes are the most consistent with the new style dialog boxes shown in the previous screenshot. For consistency all these boxes should be changed to use:
-Title with large font, upper case, centered.
-Big buttons with button text in upper case.
-Scroll bars for text boxes with multiple lines (while it can be argued that the boxes with no scroll bars above can’t be filled by player entered text, so that it can’t be scrolled, neither can the Report Content box in the previous screenshot, yet it still has a scroll bar).

The other boxes are an inconsistent hybrid between the style used in patch 2.0.1 (shown below for reference) and the new style.
[image loading]

The Find Groups box is a mess. It shows group icons, yet groups cannot choose an icon, so they’re all the same. This means that displaying the icon conveys zero information, so it’s pointless. If the icons are removed, the groups can even be put into a list.

In addition, this box has no button except Close, so it’s not immediately clear what the user should do. If you use the right-click menu or double click a group, it will bring you to the chat channel for the group, so that appears to be the primary function. Thus, a button should be added to enter the chat room of the selected group. Buttons should be centered.

The space to the left of the title is a back “<” icon for when the search is used. But this looks awkward and tacky. For other search functions in the UI, a large button is used for back, not a small, out-of-place “<” icon on the corner. The cog on the right corner also looks bad and does nothing when clicked. It should be removed.

It’s possible for search results to fill the space and in this case the results are scrollable despite there being no scroll bar. The "Browse Group:" text should be bold and white to be consistent with the boxes shown above.

39k. Error Messages
[image loading]

39l. In-game UI

Enlarge picture: http://i.imgur.com/0yEkB.jpg

In Windows 7, if I resize a window, the thickness of the border doesn’t change. So the border for the Help and Hotkeys windows should be changed to be the same thickness as the Options and Message Log windows. I suggest changing “Cancel” and “Accept” to “ACCEPT” and “CANCEL” so that it is consistent with the Battle.net style boxes in 39j, bold all text highlighted in yellow, use lower case to be consistent with the suggestion in 39d, and extend the length of the buttons in the side bar of the Hotkeys window.

It needs to be decided that either the buttons always go inside the frame (e.g. the Confirm Exit box) or always go on the corners of the frame (e.g. the Options window). Then I suggest completely redoing the boxes highlighted in black, the alliance and resource trading windows and the disconnect windows to be consistent, because they currently look very amateurish and tacky.

In fact, the whole race themed UI looks really bad in my opinion and should be completely revamped.

Miscellaneous

40. Add an option that allows players to not see decals and alternative unit models on their screen. Add alternative unit models as rewards for playing.
[image loading]

The giant decals in HotS look bad and they risk turning the game into a joke, when all sorts of goofy decals that are from Blizzcons, collector's editions and other exclusives can now be very prominently displayed. To prevent the game from looking like a pop culture joke, there should be an option to turn them all off from the viewer’s perspective.

[image loading]

Rewarding bonus unit models, even joke models like the tauren marine, through levelling for example, will be good for casuals. But only as long as there’s an option to turn it off so that units remain perfectly recognizable, gameplay is fully readable and so that I can avoid seeing the game look like a joke.

42. Make the “faster” game speed the default (including for Campaign and Challenge) and have an option to display times in real time, not normal speed time.
Having slower speed options doesn’t help casuals. It just makes them unprepared for playing ladder, custom games, and even arcade games. If the game defaults to fastest, especially for the campaign and challenges, it won’t hurt them by making the game harder to play. Instead they’ll just get used to it like everyone else. Challenges are not helpful and even painful to play because they can only be played in normal.

All times, on tooltips, on the score screen, on the in-game clock, should be displayed in real time, not normal speed time, or at least this should be an option. Under the current system, a 30 minute game is more like a 20 real minute game, and 200 APM is more like 300 real APM.

43. Add a button on the bottom left of the Battle.net UI that minimizes all windows and shows the Battle.net main page.
It’s possible to minimize all windows by right-clicking the bottom bar, but it doesn’t also go to the Battle.net main menu. This suggestion is to copy the show desktop button on the bottom left of Windows 7.

44. Add the following features: From WC3, automated tournaments. From Dota 2, reconnect functionality after being dropped from a game, and watching any ladder game streamed via the client (delayed or after they’ve ended).

Feedback on the New HotS Battle.net

Completed

Ongoing

Upcoming