Observer mode feedback

Observer mode is here (in the beta, anyway), so I figured we'd better have a thread to discuss it!

UI stuff
I very much like the UI changes. I've only seen some 1v1s with it, and will be curious to see how cluttered it looks with a bigger match.
I had some trouble selecting the base buildings for the correct player when using the shortcuts; it was not so easy to tell when I was following Player A and when I was following Player B. Also, if I'm following Player A and then select one of Player B's units, there is an annoying split-second hiccup.

With regard to observing live games
When looking for live games to watch, it would be very, very nice to know if the game has just started and that you'll need to wait 8 minutes in-game before anything starts happening.
I would like it if there was an option to immediately jump to the "current" time in the game. Or, you know, the most recent point allowed by the delay. I haven't tried out the Observer Party thingy, which might make this moot in any conceivable situation.
When the game ends, the replay progress bar suddenly jumps forward. This is like an "8 minutes remaining!" warning. Maybe make it possible to switch off the replay progress bar?

Also, no rewinding makes me sad, but otherwise I like the observer mode quite a bit

I agree with you. A "jump to live"-butto would be nice and also if you could somehow see how long the game's going on already. But other to that, if pretty much works perfectly for me.

Again: The delay is to prevent abusing obs mode for telling mine placements/buildorders

personally id like to see the minimap be bigger. right now its kind of small, so its kinda hard to see whats going on sometimes.

Again: The delay is to prevent abusing obs mode for telling mine placements/buildorders

To clarify: an option to jump to the furthest point allowed by the delay. I think the delay is a good idea. As it is, when you obs a match-in-progress, you start at the beginning and you can catch up (to the point of the delay) only by fast-forwarding. All that said, I actually can't think of any reason why a "jump" button would be useful that isn't already covered by observer parties, so this is really just moot anyway

Oh, another thing: switching from the Observer UI to the "normal" UI is really, really slow.

Observer mode is here (in the beta, anyway), so I figured we'd better have a thread to discuss it!

UI stuff
I very much like the UI changes. I've only seen some 1v1s with it, and will be curious to see how cluttered it looks with a bigger match.
I had some trouble selecting the base buildings for the correct player when using the shortcuts; it was not so easy to tell when I was following Player A and when I was following Player B. Also, if I'm following Player A and then select one of Player B's units, there is an annoying split-second hiccup.

With regard to observing live games
When looking for live games to watch, it would be very, very nice to know if the game has just started and that you'll need to wait 8 minutes in-game before anything starts happening.
I would like it if there was an option to immediately jump to the "current" time in the game. Or, you know, the most recent point allowed by the delay. I haven't tried out the Observer Party thingy, which might make this moot in any conceivable situation.
When the game ends, the replay progress bar suddenly jumps forward. This is like an "8 minutes remaining!" warning. Maybe make it possible to switch off the replay progress bar?

Also, no rewinding makes me sad, but otherwise I like the observer mode quite a bit

About UI stuff, we have already reported the small stuttering issue when switching players and I know Relic is working on that. That said tho, the ultimate goal should be that as an Observer you should not be following anyone in specific but just be a "third" person being able to watch everything without having to necessarly "select" a player.

About point 2, I would like a timer in the live games menu that shows from how long the game has started in order for me to decide if I want to join or not. I know some more info about the way the replay system works but I am not sure I am allowed to talk about the tech Relic uses and the capabilities of the Observer mode feature, especially related to the "jump to x minute" or "jump to live" (where "live" would be exactly 8 minutes behind the real live when we talk about automatching or a different amount of minutes when we talk about custom games). I'll point some Relic dev right here tho so they can eventually answer you better

I just finished watching a 3vs3 and observer hud is... inadequate.

1) The minimap is far too small to make out what is going on.
2) Unused buttons around minimap.
3) The whole middle section with replay controls is to tinny, I suggest make the buttons bigger and place them around minimap. As the minimap window is circular while all maps are square, so there is a lot of dead space you can cover up with buttons.
4) The player rectangles are large and blocking off a lot of the view. They should be main streamed with new design where main philosophy is "less is more". Do we need to see the bulletins when we can check them out during loading?
5) The games seemed to pause for 5-6 minutes before live broadcast can actually begin, meanwhile you have to wait and stare at frozen units. I would suggest to stop the game for observers at loading screen, but replace the bar with a countdown and once countdown is over, replace it with button like "Start watching". This way casters can look at the map, look at the player loadout and speculate over avaliable commanders and selected bulletins.
6) You can toggle selected players above the rectangle which will collapse amount of rectangles to 1. In team games with over 2 players per side it is rather difficult to see other players and the only way I can see them is by scrolling, which results in zooming.

Suggestion: Event log.
A log of events running on right or left side where actions players take is registered, similar to any chat logs, transparent background, events older than 5 minutes become transparent unless log (but can be made visible again by selecting the log, then you can also scroll up and down to view previous events, clicking on event does not select the log). Log should contain stuff like unit production, off map artillery, off map unit call ins, unit loss (aka squad wipes)... You can click on these events and be immediately taken to the location, all events should include a time stamp.
I see for me that unit production queue can be moved entirely to the log, freeing more space in the interface.
Off map unit call in looks like unit production queue except no progress bar.
It should look like: Game time stamp: player name (in player color): <Unit Icon> progress bar.
Unit wipe should look like: Time stamp: Killers name (in player color) <killed icon/unit icon with red contour> Unit owner (in player color).
Off map artillery: Time stamp: Player name (who activated ability, name displayed in player color) <Ability icon/name>

Clicking on the events leads you to event location. Adding a feature to right click on unit wipes and replay the event with -5,-10, -15 setback is also welcome. So in case if observer/caster missed event he can review how it happened.
NOTE: Player names should probably have own shader with outer stroke which can inverse color based on the background. Aka, white background = black stroke around text, dark background = white stroke around text. That's in order to make text in the log more readable.

P.S. On unrelated note, opacity slider for match maker GUI in mine menu is really cool.

Is it just me, that the Observer mode is a complete slideshow fest?

personally id like to see the minimap be bigger. right now its kind of small, so its kinda hard to see whats going on sometimes.

It can be enlarged....or did you mean even the largest size is not big enough?

(Also, you can switch to old fashioned player mode to watch from)

In cinematic mode the rotating repair icon remains visible during repairs. I'm not sure if other similar buff icons behave the same

Match chat is currently missing in obs mode; also perhaps a chat channel amongst the spectators (not just the observer party) could be good? Although it might just be bad with everyone displaying such high interest in gardening

I really hate how minimap is so small, in 4v4 games it's useless

I think its awesome.

These are the notes I took today while streaming obsmode

More feedback after today's stream:

scale-able XP flowers pls. The XP kickers at my resolution are far too small. Remember, the XP kickers are hugely important and I would love them to be bigger and easier to see.

Off-map abiilties should generate XP kickers. When a huge offmap artillery lands, I want to see XP kickers over every soldier or unit that dies.

remove ALL ui w ctrl-U (including hold fire symbols, medic icons etc). It's odd to have everything gone but those few icons remain.

progress bar/number color weirdness (screenshotted). There was a time when the VP counter numbers were red but their associated progress bar was blue and vice versa.

red hover on units gets stuck? A tank will stay red-colored even when it's not selected and you're not hovering on it.

name of player on personal matchstats w. dropdown to change to other players?

show games before they go live? when they're in lobby?

scalable tac map PLS

observers need to see player chat (refs, ggs, abuse)

BUG: when looking at endgame graphs, it shows graph from last view instead of endgame. cyclying to
resources and then back to points held helps update the graph.

remember my selected HUD size please

show unit abilities and cooldowns when they're selected when they're in a building

slide the "Points held" graph max up to at least 16 points (right now maxes at 10), and army value to ~5000 or so (now maxes at 3500)

Pls color code the names in the load-in screen, right now they are both always red

Hover area for kill count seems to be misplaced (too far to right) and hard to activate

Here's the vod of my stream today: http://www.twitch.tv/sundaynightfights/b/580666581 where I noted all of those issues.

Is it just me, that the Observer mode is a complete slideshow fest?

Yay ! I'm not the only one. The performance of the OBS mode is awful for me and the general performance when playing beta myself is also worse than the live version.

Yay ! I'm not the only one. The performance of the OBS mode is awful for me and the general performance when playing beta myself is also worse than the live version.

For me it seems much better in fact!

Another point, would be nice to be able to use the observer party feature with replays as well

you can't do "jump-to-live" because the game has no way of knowing in which state it will be at the "live" time, you have to make all the events happen to get to that state. they could of course increase the top speed from 8x.

Anyway, I've found myself fast forwarding to "live" a lot but actually, thinking about it, that's just because I was testing OBS, when you'll be genuinly watching a game what's the importance of getting to "live" (which isn't even live since it happened 8mins ago, so "live" is just an arbitrary point in time with no importance), you sure won't wanna miss all the early game

For me it seems much better in fact!

Another point, would be nice to be able to use the observer party feature with replays as well

I find it also faster en it seems responding better when using tactical map. Also when fast forwarding a replay and using the tactical map before I really had lag. Now it is very fast and no lag at all. I didnt play the game yet though, I only used obs.

I want to test it too but I have so bad internet...
I'm loading for about a day now and yet no end in sight...

These are the notes I took today while streaming obsmode
Here's the vod of my stream today: http://www.twitch.tv/sundaynightfights/b/580666581 where I noted all of those issues.

Ami, cool that you're back! I watched your show ;-).