User Interface Takedown: Gundam Battle Operation 2
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Today I’m not going to talk about Gundam Battle Operation 2 the video game, I’m going to talk about its menus. You deal with menus constantly in video games, and lousy, unintuitive user interface can bog down a whole experience. That goes double when you’re fumbling with menus online, in real time, with nine other players.
Matches in Gundam Battle Operation 2 take just seven or eight minutes to play, but starting one can take much longer. This isn’t because of a low player population; it’s because of the game’s incompetent interface.
The job of the ready screen in an online game is to get players’ options settled and ready to go. In GBO2 this involves choosing a Mobile Suit to pilot and indicating that one is ready so the game can start. We take for granted how streamlined this process is in most shooter games, and it takes a Battle Operation 2 every once in a while to remind us of that.
To select a unit, players have to use the same RPG-style menu screen (the H.A.R.O.) that they use for customization, equipping new weapons, and all of their other management tasks.
Options in this UI have unclear names in general. If you don’t remember the Gundam universe name “HARO” or the abbreviation MS, then you might not be sure where you’re supposed to choose a Mobile Suit. It’s common for first-time players to get stuck at this point. Not everyone playing a Gundam game is necessarily going to be a Gundam geek — particularly in the West — and vital stuff like this has to be clearer.
Disappear into the menu, bring up your list of Mobile Suits, select your unit, and then set it as your deployed unit for ground or space missions. Players are meant to painlessly establish a “main” MS before the battle starts, but this is a game where you find yourself needing to switch quite often, and the sequence isn’t smooth when you have to do it over and over again.
Oh, and make sure the unit you set is within the points range of the game you’re playing, or you’ll have to repeat the whole process to pick another one.
All kinds of things can go wrong here, holding up the game. Maybe the player gets lost in the menu. Maybe they start doing something else, like checking their quests or suddenly deciding on a change of outfits. Most commonly, new players don’t understand the cost mechanic, and everyone has to watch as they switch from one Mobile Suit that can’t play in the match to another, over and over again.
None of this red tape is necessary at this phase of the game. At this point, the full HARO interface is a hindrance. The only thing players should need at this point is a quick list of the units they own — and only those they are actually allowed to use in the coming battle — and a single button to select one, followed by an equipment loadout screen.
It gets worse because unit selection and team balance are really important in this game. Each unit has one of three roles — general, support, or raid — that have a rock-paper-scissors relationship. General units cover for long-range Support units, who need to be protected from the fast-moving Raid units. A team entirely composed of the same type of unit runs the risk of being directly countered. (So pick Support against newbies and you’ll have an easy time.)
Since the right unit for the right moment is so important, players will probably want to switch on the fly when they see their team lineup. But this itself is an ordeal, because you’re switching units on a different screen and can’t see if your teammate is also switching. Organizing a team with random people in the lobby is like playing musical chairs blindfolded.
Players are given two minutes to ready up. Between ten players and this terrible interface, so much can go wrong in that time. And if something does, everybody is screwed. If a player isn’t ready by the two-minute mark, they’re ejected and everybody gets booted out back into the queue. Imagine sitting through this process multiple times in a row and you’ll start to get a picture of what’s wrong with the lobby process in this game.
I will never really get into Gundam Battle Operation 2 on account of its gacha/lootbox-driven payment model, but I have to admit the slow-paced, chunky, tactical Mobile Suit combat has an appeal all its own. The user interface, on the other hand, could use a full redo.
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