UX FEEDBACK: using the commorose with the controller

I wanted to give my personal feedback to the user experience I am having with the commorose on my PS5. If you need a refresher, see it working (on a PC) here: Battlefield 2042 Gameplay | Commorose Below I have some example pictures and videos from the PS5 build with the patch from November 18.

Preface

As a console owner and a mostly squad oriented player, I really love the commorose. I used it very often in all BF games since BF4 and if it works, it can be a valuable and fun tool. I genuinely made PlayStation friends with a Japanese BF4 tanker only communicating via the commorose. Fun times.

Note: I am aware of all the other issues, but I want to give focused, constructive feedback. 🙂

Part 1 - general layout and options

Commorose page 1

Commorose page 2

The layout is fine, even though it looks like it is made for touch controls - a simple line of text would suffice. But I get the art direction choice and the addition of icons - albeit unnecessary - is fun and as a former graphic artist I do appreciate that.

Content wise, I am generally happy that we have more variety of options again. BF1 and BFV both got rid of more and more options, making it harder for console players to engage with random squad mates. The actual choices you have are hit and miss.

Here is, which options I would definitely keep and what page they should be on (regardless of whether the amount of options fit the current layout):

Page 1 - Very necessary and used a lot:

• Thank you

• Need Healing

• Need Ammo

• Copy That

• Good Work

• Need Backup

• Change Order/Request Order

Page 2 - Very situational and almost never needed by me:

• Follow Me

• Push Forward

• Do Not Engage

• Hold Position

• Fall Back

• Cover Me

Unnecessary:

• Need Pickup (I can "spot" a vehicle for that)

• Need Spotting (why?!)

• Call-Ins Available (I would use L1+R1 for that)

There are a few differences when in a vehicle (e.g. "get in" and "get out"), but I'll ignore that for now.

Part 2 - Usability

Video 2: real life scenario during a public match

When you watch my two example clips above, you can see one thing happen quite often: as I give a commorose response, my camera goes all over the place. This is super disruptive and makes me not want to use the commorose. But, let's look at this in detail.

How does giving an order/response actually work on consoles (L2 is LT on Xbox):

• hold R1 the whole time

• hit L2 to swap pages

• highlight an option using the right thumbstick and hold the thumbstick there (if you let go, it will return to the "neutral" stage, not highlighting anything)

• let go of R1

That sounds straight forward and worked like that before, but I have two main issues with that and I want to get into some more detail on both.

Problem 1 - selecting an option, especially selecting a flag to attack:

• going from one option to another is very direct, taking the thumbstick input on face value

• since the thumbstick is not the most precise tool, I get why they made the majority of the selections this huge

• it gets problematic when trying to select a flag to attack, which becomes very finicky

• especially doing this while in combat or running around, I often select the wrong flag by accident

• also, as soon as you move the stick a bit too far, it jumps out of the flag selection an to "I need ammo" or "I need spotting"

Problem 2 - camera jerking:

• as soon as you let go of R1, the input of the right thumbstick - controlling the aim - takes over again

• remember: you need to have your thumbstick tilted in the direction of the command/response and then let go

• this means, more often than not, your camera/aim is moved in that direction as soon as you let go of R1

Possible solution:

• don't make me have to keep the thumbstick tilted in the direction of the command/response until letting go of R1

• rather accept the first input and stay there, allowing me to change my mind while still holding R1

• selecting a flag would be much easier: hold R1, move thumbstick down once and then choose one by flicking the thumbstick

• of course, the current way to use it would also be viable, allowing to real quick responses

• if I change my mind, hitting R3 (pressing down on the thumbstick) could reset the choice

Alternative solution:

• if this is not possible, at least make the selection of the maps a bit more sticky aka. have a bigger input threshold to move from one option to another

• or slow down the selection a bit, so it does not feel like I use my menu with a sense of 90 (which I use in game, but it is not tied to that, which I tested)

This whole system might work great with mouse and keyboard, but with controller it leaves me to desire more. Especially in the heat of battle, like you can see in video 2.

In general, this worked really well in BF4 (and BFH as far as I remember), it was okay in BF1 but with BFV similar issues came up. Especially selecting a flag to attack was similarly frustrating.

Thanks for sticking with me. Feel free to add your thoughts.

P.S.: there also seems to be an issue, where the commorose will also just close, even if I hold R1 down. I don't have a video, but it would also just show a commorose open and close. I hope this gets fixed soon.