Marcelloz Curator Backer Posts: 277 Registered: 9/14/2014
Marcelloz071
# 1 - Posted on 2/17/2019 9:05:47

I have some idea's about playthrough pages that i would like to share.

First of all the reduced size, i'm not a fan of it. This has already been mentioned by another user, but as this is the part of the site I spend 80% of my time and it now feels a bit tiny. I like the page as an overview page \ quick update page.

Perhaps you could create a detail page for playthrough where you have all info. Don't know if you keep track of it, but I would also like to see all my thoughts I had during that playthrough.

Perhaps also add some stats about the page like average hours and number of completions would be nice.

On a more positive side:I noticed that with the new layout I enter playtime a lot more often. It would be nice if I could also add a gameplay thought specific for that time entry.

moho_00 Curator Backer Posts: 6844 Registered: 6/10/2011
moho_00
# 2 - Posted on 2/17/2019 12:32:05

I agree that the height should probably be increased a bit. I don't have as many goals as @merph518 had mentioned, but even on Heretic where I have 40, I find myself constantly having to collapse the groups to find the one I'm after quickly. I haven't had any issues with time entries so far, but I will say I keep wanting to click on the "Finish Playthrough" button to add a time entry, presumably because it's the most common action I take and it's the largest UI element. It's gotten better through repetition though.

To keep things simple, I would prefer to tweak the current UI, rather than having a separate / standalone UI for a single playthrough, but we can go down that road, if necessary. For now, I went ahead and pushed out an update that increases the height of each playthrough card by about 100px, which should hopefully help a bit.

I've also had some issues with game name wrapping for larger titles, such as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game". That one in particular is exacerbated by the fact that it's for "Nintendo Entertainment System" haha! I know we tinkered with having the box art, game name, and platform as more of a "header" row on each card, but that might be something worth exploring again, especially with the additional whitespace I created by increasing the height. I like the idea of pulling in the average community completion times somehow, but it can get a little tricky due to completion "types", platform variations, etc. Another stat that might be neat would be a "duration", which would basically be how long you've been playing the game in actual days or something.

As for thoughts, I can definitely pull in thoughts you've posted about a particular game, but I don't think I actually tie them to individual playthroughs. So if you play the game multiple times, you would see thoughts across all playthroughs. For these, I think maybe having an icon on the Overview tab could pop open a modal or something where you could view your previous posts.

Another possible change that might help would be to collapse goal groups by default.

Post Edited on 2/17/2019 12:47:36
Marcelloz Curator Backer Posts: 277 Registered: 9/14/2014
Marcelloz071
# 3 - Posted on 2/19/2019 20:54:33

Thanks for the quick reply, and the increased height definitely helps!
I can see the challenge fitting a larger title below the box yea, a title header might help but then the box image would be a bit floaty. Moving it to the right would make it unbalanced I think. But you never know what tinkering might do.

and perhaps tying thoughts to a playthrough is something for a future feature, would love to see it. really would like the idea of some sort of play log.

About the group goals, don't they already collapse? At least that's what I see... on that thought, you might auto-scroll the list to the first goal not completed. Saves some scrolling :)