I wanted to pull out a comment from the new support feature page to make into a full discussion to see if we can get a response to this particular question. Aesthetocyst asked a relevant question for all of the Steam users:
I think a large number of Steam players have been trying to make the best of a bad situation while waiting for the new “feature” that necessitated the UI change. Is this what we have been waiting for? because if it is, there is no indication it was necessary.
Please let us know if there is a large UI change in addition to the supports feature so we can determine if this “new” UI layout is permanent.
As a final note I think Aestetocyst last point on migrating the Steam UI to mobile is spot on. All of the mobile users should be pushing for that. Phones can easily handle it now.
Will actually commented a bit on that further down the thread, but I wanted to share it over in this thread, as well.
Demiurge_Will:
Yeah, this feature is the reason why we changed the character info UI on PC. From a character’s info, you need to be able to see details on what Support they have equipped, and you need to be able to equip a Support or swap one out. It’s straightforward to add this to the paged version of the character info UI - we add a ‘page’ for Supports - but the earlier single-screen PC-style character info page would require a completely independent design. It wouldn’t be helpful to use that as the foundation of the mobile version because there are too many tappable areas to fit on one mobile screen (otherwise we’d probably already have just one version of that screen).
Inside-the-sausage-factory fact: UI work is usually the limiting factor in feature development. It’s almost always vastly faster to get code to do a thing than it is to make it clear what’s happening and let you interact with it in a learn-able, efficient way.
Just give us a timeframe for when you can spare some “dev power” and rework your changes into what we had before (or better, whatever we got now from the mobile version is a disgrace for UI PC games all around) so most of us (?) can stop asking/complaining.
Don’t bring that Steam UI drama to Mobile. I play on mobile and never had an issue with the UI. I have been enjoying the game as is for a while now. The only thing I would want is a drop down Star rank menu like the one we have on the extra cover queue, but added to the screen where we pick our characters for battle. With so many characters available now, it is getting really hard to find the ones you need for a specific fight.
But nobody understands why it requires scrapping the existing PC UI. What we all imagine:
Add a button to the single screen, in any empty space.
The button opens a window for Supports.
Use the mobile “page” UI for the Supports window.
That’s it. It’s very similar to the way changes were made to cover distributions (i.e. pop-up window to apply changes). We understand that every UI change has a cost, but it seems like the cost is pretty low here. The pain caused by the full mobile-on-PC UI, however, is pretty high.
No thanks to a scrolling screen and in landscape mode I’d have to play with both hands. One of the best things about this game on mobile gameplay wise is that you can play with one hand while you’re doing something else. That text is so small when I full screen your screen shot. I’d rather have bigger text and have to tap a few more times to get around than have what you’re suggesting. I really don’t mind everything having its own screen on mobile to make it more easily viewable.
Actually, on the STEAM screens previously, it DIDN’T get all of the text for the powers on the screen. You could never see what a power did if it “flipped” (as in Mile’s Purple power, etc).
This was a big disadvantage, because you couldn’t see what the power did, outside of combat and actually using the power.
I so far don’t see why they needed to change the entire character details section when you could have just added a big blue button that said “SUPPORTS” somewhere.
As a Steam player I have found the new UI to be a massive downgrade in my gaming experience. It now takes me several clicks and re-clicks just to look for a character’s information when it used to all be laid out nicely on a one screen. I really do hope the new feature is worth the retrograde UI. I would have never played this game if I had to use the mobile UI from the start. I remember laughing at how bad the game looked on mobile the first time I watched my friend play on his phone. The superior UI really is the only advantage to playing the game on Steam.
It would’ve been a lot more palatable if the level up or upgrade covers page had been first when selecting a character. In my experience, the sell character page is my least used screen, yet it is the first to appear. This means 2 clicks to get to level-up, or 3 clicks to the upgrade covers page.
A bit of a re-jig to put the sell character page to the back would streamline things a bit. All I want is an efficient and quick to use interface with a minimum required clicks to get to the required screens.
The UI change led to me dropping VIP subscription at renewal time though, until I see how things pan out.
The most cynical part of me thinks that’s all part of the plan. Make the experience poor enough, and people will stop putting time and money into the PC version. Then they can point to the falling numbers and say it’s just not worth supporting at all anymore. A premeditated death spiral.
I wish there was an advocate for the PC inside Demi. I think there are/were so many good qualities to the PC version, but it’s been a second-class citizen for years now.
All I know is my VIP just expired today and it’s not getting renewed until the Steam UI is passable again. If it stays broken then so does my VIP status. No more sales, no more VIP, I’m now free to play until the Steam UI stops being poo.
And even if that WERE the goal, to shut down the Steam client without being honest about the motives for it, those are however many people who either wouldn’t bother trying to transition their account to mobile (and would find something else to play), or who would maintain the addiction, but would remember how they were treated and wouldn’t spend on mobile.
Deliberate alienation of any part of one’s userbase doesn’t seem like the greatest move; whatever my opinions of the motives behind this change, deliberate alienation is further than I’m willing to charge.
Will was completely honest: Whatever it costs to maintain two diferent UIs for Steam and mobile, it’s too much compared to the revenue gained from Steam.
Simple as that.
