UI Breakdown and Comparison

Created a video that compares the UI from CoH1 to CoH2, and alpha to beta. Hopefully it creates some discussion.

My opinion has become a lot more positive compared to Alpha - here's the video I did in January.

I'll be creating a lot more smaller videos such as this one for Company of Heroes 2, analysis, strategies and hilights. Subscribe to see more.

Album of stills used

Why not embed it?

Why not embed it?

Good idea!

Click the youtube button in the editor and put 5MDSE0hCFp4 between the tags.

I definitely disagree about the horizontal resource placement being as easy to see as the vertical one. I have played coh2 for about 40h now and I am constantly floating because I just can't focus on the resource bar. The ability to see how much resources you need for a unit is cool though.

I'd argue that's more about what your eyes are accustomed to. The focus will come eventually. It's no more intuitive to not float in CoH1 vs. CoH2, after 1000 game hours I can attest to that!

*cough* ...that must be way you floated about 1.5k manpower about 10 minutes into your first game yesterday, right? :-D

it's not as much about getting accustomed to something that is just designed badly. in case you know south park, just think of the "it" Mr. Garrison built. of course, ppl may get accustomed to having to insert a dildo into their anus, while sucking on another one and jerking off two other dildos to operate a vehicle... but you could have just used the regular controls (i.e. steering wheel, pedals).

the only "contestable" fact is whether it is easier to read the resources from left to right or from top to bottom, and i find it very easy to prove that reading them from left to right is a lot harder:

take for example a simple numbered list... which is easier to read?

1. blablablabla 2. blablablabla 3. blablablbalb 4. fu bitch 5. blablablalbal

or

1. blablablabla
2. blablablabla
3. blablablbalb
4. fu bitch
5. blablablalbal

also: in a horizontal alignment, the pictorials for the resources take up additional horizontal space, spreading the resource layout out even farther. on top of that, the resources are at a totally insignifcant location, UI wise, requiring a lot more eye movement (you can read this wikipedia article, especially the part that i linked to directly for a little more in depth info about design principles).

the resource positioning is just one other point among many showing that the game has been "casualized" beyond recognition (the reasoning behind the horizontal layout being that it is easier to check whether you have enough resources for a certain unit/ability/upgrade when hovering over the icon to purchase it).

"the only "contestable" fact is whether it is easier to read the resources from left to right or from top to bottom, and i find it very easy to prove that reading them from left to right is a lot harder:"

Haha! you're wrong Crawler, you never need to read all four resources at once, they're largely independent of each other. You need to reference one at a time at very specific points in a game. Not sit back and think... hmmm it's time to take stock of all four resources and compare them to each other!

No! - you think hmm do I have enough munitions..? yes. Later. Do I have enough fuel... no.

So your argument doesn't hold up. The main point I make in that video is that they've made it better overall, because the tool tip info now lines up perfectly with the resources so you can see how much you need for what, and if you've got it. So all the information is in one area.

This is great for new players but also as experienced players we can still see at a glance how much of a specific resource we have.

not quite though... if i want to build an M8 i need to check:
do i have 280 MP? do i have 30 fuel? do i have 50 munitions for the skirts? this is true for most units that require more than 1 resource.

as for the costs lining up with resources: after playing a few games, you will have memorized most unit costs anyway, rendering the feature mostly obsolete (and even if you do not know exactly, as in, "was the sniper 330mp? 340? maybe 350?" you will still have a pretty rough idea, so pressing F2 and hammering S (or whatever the hotkey for sniper is) for 2 seconds will queue it up with almost 100% certainty)

the point about the positioning (far from any other relevant information) still stands too.

I'm going to have to massively disagree with your exaggerations there dude. It takes way, way, way longer than a few games to memorise that kind of information, even then patches come and go and the information changes. Plus there's countless units in the game.

There's only a hardcore minority of die hards that are going to have all those figures memorised a few weeks after release, and to them the argument of horizontal vs. vertical is negated anyway. As they've played so much their eyes are used to the locations of the numbers.

Well over 90% of players are casual once a week players, to them the unit cost being exactly next to the resources is extremely intuitive. It's bad design to have them on the other side of the screen.

i've played probably five to ten games in coh2 after alpha... dozens of patches and months of not playing later i could still name a rough range (price wise) for every unit in the game. i MIGHT be an exception, but honestly, i'm not that good ;-) i can't be the only one that has the unit prices memorized (at least for the units you regularly build) after a few games at the latest.

as for having the information next to the resources... ever thought about the coh1 resource layout and having the info pop up to the right of that? the so called "bridge" in coh2 is incredibly huge and contains close to 0 useful information... taking a bit of that space away and reserving it for that OnMouseOver effect would be a piece of cake and would satisfy both casual (who can still access the information easily) and hardcore players (who can still easily check their resources).

this is not a either or thing (catering to casuals/pros), you can actually do both. my problem with coh2 is that relic never really bothered to check/ask what the more experienced players would have liked to see and how that could be incorporated into what they envisioned coh2 to be like. (sorry for going on a not strictly UI only tangent here)

"i MIGHT be an exception, but honestly, i'm not that good"

You're the worst example to use ever! You bloody dredge through the stats files and analyse it! Dear God....

"ever thought about the coh1 resource layout and having the info pop up to the right of that? the so called bridge"

Yes that would be even better! But as it is, it's still better.

"my problem with coh2 is that relic never really bothered to check/ask what the more experienced players would have liked to see"

Tbh I'm glad they didn't take stock in experience of 'pro players', after reading most of the forum comments. I think you'd get just as much insight and worthwhile opinion from asking the YouTube comments section of a Krebs video! (Not really).

Ideally though yeah, the resources could have kept the vertical layout and still incorporated the cool functionality of the hover over allignment. That would have been best.

As it is though, I still think it's an overall net positive effect.

hehe, i guess you could say that i do like numbers ;-)
and the krebs youtube comment part made me laugh :-P

Ta-da! There you go everyone, a forum debate over a game that ended amicably! Thank you.. thank you...

I memorize the numbers pretty quickly and I'm a fucking idiot so I'm with cr4wler on this one.

Also with Cr4wler. Just because you might look to your resources to find one of them doesn't mean you don't benefit from getting all three at a glance.

I'm with Cr4wler as well. You can read a vertical list next to your map quicker and more often (since you should be watching the minimap at least half of the time anyway).

Great video! Thank you for putting this together. Two things you missed:

1) The task-bar (big space with unit text displayed) is meant to be an isolated /clean place for you to view all unit icons in a multi-selection.

2) The Global Unit Control in the top right of the HUD can be hidden using the arrow to the left of each icon row

You totally nailed the horizontal resource layout.

Great work

Rob (UI lead)

Some of you I think are over analyzing the UI.

Great video! Thank you for putting this together. Two things you missed:

1) The task-bar (big space with unit text displayed) is meant to be an isolated /clean place for you to view all unit icons in a multi-selection.

2) The Global Unit Control in the top right of the HUD can be hidden using the arrow to the left of each icon row

You totally nailed the horizontal resource layout.

Great work

Rob (UI lead)

Thanks Rob, good to know I was along the right lines.

Yeah I thought about the multi selection in the bottom tab after I made it, haha!