[Suggestion] Comments and Suggestions regarding the menus and UI

Uber is working to improve the menus, UI and the player experience in general, I quote @jables :

"This will be a first pass at updating tutorials and general menu flow to make it more intuitive for new players to get into the game as well as make it easier to get info from Uber to players."

So here is a compilation of things I have thought of during the last few weeks playing PA regularly. This is, intentionally, a long post, so I have sorted the issues, comments and suggestions under different topics:

• Ranked Matchmaking (menus and process involved in playing ranked games)
  • Every time I queue for a ranked match using the button in the leaderboards I get the screen attached below for a few seconds and about 70% of the times it stays like that indefinitely and I have to force-close PA in order to restart.

• • The "VS" screen showing the player's names and commander models right before jumping into the game could be reworked to look more engaging and exciting: show the commander models facing each other and display them with the color patterns chosen by the players, show an icon in the centre of the screen (between the two commander models) with the name and picture of the system from the map pool that is being loaded and only jump into the actual system once it is fully redered and available for players to navigate.
  • The "match found" sound effect is quite cool already but it will be nice to have a special bit of soudtrack that builds up the tension and aticipation before the game starts (during the lobby and loading "VS" screens). At the moment having complete silence in those moments before a ranked game feels a bit dry.
  • If after a game you change rank level there could be a screen-wide animation with the appropriate sound effects and music that reflect the change of league. Stepping up a rank level could use a triumphal animation and music, maybe together with a voice notification (like the ones in-game) that says something like "Congratulations commader your rank is now Silver/Gold/Platinum/Uber" and stepping down could show an animation that conveys a feeling of mild failure to make the player want to improve.
• Player Profiles (part of the main menu, currently missing, that allows players to see all the info about themselves and other players)
  • Suggestions of things that are interesting to show in a player profile: name, rank, stats, replays of recent games (more on replays below), purchased commanders, badges, achievements...
  • Individual Aspect: Being able to track your own progress is key for keeping players interested in a game whose competitive side (at the moment) offers nothing but the satisfaction of mastering the game mechanics and improving as a player. Players should be able to check their recent (last ~10 games) ranked history, both in terms of replays and stats, to see what they should focus on to improve or to simply confirm that their efforts are paying off by showing the rank progression of the last few games. Some stats that are useful and representative: position in rank level, win/loss ratio, total ranked games played, average APM, average game time for each system of the ladder pool...
  • Social Aspect:The competitive scene of PA is clearly expanding and recent developments (symmetrical planets, leaderboards with replays, etc.) aim in the right direction for making PA into a well-established competitive RTS. What really drives this development though, once the basic aspects of the game itself are covered (balance, unit diversity, in-game UI...), is the player base. Implementing a feature that allows players to look at their own profile, as well as other players', will have a dramatic impact in the player experience since they will feel as part of a big community of players that have "personality". Let me explain this idea a bit: at the moment, you log in to PA only to play games and occasionally design systems or watch replays and other players are just a name and a commander model; with player profiles, and a good implementation of the game chat, you would have the opportunity to navigate the community, checking top player profiles to look at their stats or watch some raplays, you could look for that friendly player you just met in an enjoyable game and send him/her a message and friend request, etc. Altogether, effectively crating a community inside the game.
  • Having the top players in the ladder displayed in the main menu is an excellent idea as it is now, although I would suggest to visually enhance it a bit, just for cosmetic reasons. Implementing a player profile feature would work perfectly with this feature as you could click the top player's names in the main menu and access their profile, making them visible (with all the impressive stats) for the entire player base and hence providing a motivation in itself for being a top player: the renoun of being displayed at the very opening screen of the game.
• Custom Games Menu and Lobbies
  • Showing the player rank level with a small icon besides the player name in game lobbies can be very useful to balance skill level between random teams.
• In-Game UI and Hotkeys
  • Issues with the select iddle fabber hotkey as exposed here: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/idle-fabber-hotkey-is-bugged.66129/#post-1038484
  • It would be nice to have hotkeys to select all factories of each kind.
  • The current in-game timer is too simplistic as it only shows the time since the system was loaded, not the actual game time, so it provides only approximate information about the stage of the game, specially during the first minutes. My suggestion would be to have a -2:00 countdown for the time when players are choosing the spawn point that stops when all players are ready (as it is now), then a -0:05 countdown for the commanders to spawn (as it is now) with a sound effect that alerts the players for each second of the count down, then the commanders spawn and the timer starts at 0:00 when commanders first hit the ground, the timer pauses when the game ends.
• Armory
  • Change the images that are displayed for the commanders, adding more diversity but mainly avoiding the overall dull and dry look it has now. Notice that commanders are always facing the same direction and are rendered with the same blue-yellow colour pattern, the menu's windows are blue too so the whole enviroment has a bland touch that would be overcome by adding more varied colour patterns for the commander models or by replacing the current commander images with some new art.
  • Eventually add more commander models.
  • Add cosmetic items that can be purchased like weapons or banners (or hats).
  • Add cosmetic items/badges that can be obtained by completing some requisites: special items for each of the rank levels, items that show a player's seniority (e.g. after the first 20, 100, 1000... games), items that show the player's achievements...
  • Again, several fuctionalities that are currently implemented in the armory, such as looking at your commander model collection or setting your default commander, could be implemented much more nicely and intuitively in the Player Profile feature described above (currently the armory is confusing for new players since it is a shop and a collection room at the same time).
• Replays
  • Replays should be accessed both from a main menu section (as it is now) or from the Player Profiles, but if the Player Profile feature is well-implemented enough, access to replays could be confined to players' profiles. There is bug that stops the replay browser from displaying replays under the "my games only" filter so adequately implementing the Player Profile feature will solve this issue.
  • Is very important that each replay shows the following information before it is loaded (as loading some replays could take a considerable amount of time): players, ranked/unraked, system, date and game duration.
• Tutorials
  • Explain controls and game mechanics as well as the foundations of good play giving hints on the roles and porpuses of the different units.
• Other
  • Provide in-game info about player communities outside the game: Exodus Esports, twitch channels, clans...