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Changes I would like to see on the Boards to improve overall user experience

IonCannonKarthus·7/16/2014, 3:52:07 AM·41 votes·4,914 views

Hello, I thought I'd make a post detailing what changes and future features I'd like to see implemented on the boards in order to be able to attract a wider audience, such as GD, and have a clearly defined setup.

  1. Clarity on certain Board uses. The issue of not knowing where to post threads is something that can plague many forums and having a mod team that is prone to deletion generally leads to hurt feelings and confusion on the users part. That being said, I'd like for certain boards to be changed and new ones created:
    • Champions & Skins renamed to Champion & Skin Concepts or a title that encompasses the Champion and Skins Concepts with overall game artwork
    • Maps and Modes broken into Twisted Treeline, Summoners Rift, Howling Abyss, and Dominion. Especially Dominion, they have their own full on community and deserves recognition for what they do.
    • A Bug Report board
    • Live Gameplay Balance to be turned into the board used for all balance discussions regardless of whether it focuses on a single champion or entire system in the game
    • A Lore Discussion board, or turn Community Creations into Fan Creations & Lore or something to that effect
    • A Roleplaying board, it may seem silly but if you have ever visited the Role Playing forums, you would know that people use it quite often and enjoy it.
    • A New Player board, it would be easier to access than the current New Player forum
    • Change "Esports" to "Esports & Tournaments" because there will always been fan run tournaments and they need a place.
  • Champion Guides board, similar to Mobafire and Solomid, will need better formatting options.
  1. Better support and implementation of Chronological View. Chronological View is the closest thing the boards will probably come to having a standard forum like appearance and since a large portion of the community uses and is used to this setup and in fact prefer it over Discussion View, supporting it should be a major priority.
  • The addition of a "Recently Updated" thread sorter to go along with "Hot, Best, Recent" that would have the threads listed based on whichever has the newest reply, similar to how a current forum works.
  • The addition of voting on Chronological View
  • The ability to see what post someone is replying to in Chronological View, I'd advise have a link to the parent post after the date the comment was posted. For example: "Shenron (NA) - 3 days ago" is the current format of information about a post in Chronological View under the proposed format if "Shenron" had posted in reply to someone in Discussion View then it would show up in Chronological View as "Shenron (NA) - 3 days ago, in response to ####" The "####" would be a link to the post that is being replied to and would also show that post in Chronological View on mouse-over of the link, similar to how the current forums show a teaser of the OP if you hover over the thread title.
  • Shrink large posts. Posts over a certain line limit are shrunk to a certain size and given a scroll bar so the user can scroll through it or scroll past it easier if they have already read it. Fek has a similar feature, if I haven't explained it well enough perhaps Frosthaven can in the comments.
  1. Overall feature improvements * The ability to swap color schemes between the current scheme and the old color scheme to accommodate the people who are having difficulties reading it. * More formatting options such as colored text, ability icons, mastery icons and runes and what not. Also improve current formatting options, such as using normal bullets within numbered lists, like this post * Disable voting from the threads page, force people to actually open the thread to vote on the OP * Increase minimum voting level on the OP to 5, not sure why this was ever overlooked * Player created sub-boards, think Pendragon said these were a WIP, still listed here for reasons * Boards listed in Alphabetically order, it just bugs me that they aren't >_> * If an "update" notification is received and you view the post that it is for, have the notification automatically go away * Rename it to something other than "Boards", seriously, we have GDers and Redditors, I refuse to be called a "Boarder" * A notification, similar to the Riot one, that tells you if someone on your friends list has posted in a thread and on mouse-over it'd list their name, or names if there was more than one friend. Just a suggestion

If I think of anything else I'll either add it later or post it in a comment. What do you guys think?

Obligatory Thread Thumbnail http://videomatic3.diskstation.me/~worreh/avatar/na/IonCannonKarthus.jpg

29 Comments

ModCaptainMårvelous7/16/2014, 3:57:12 AM7 votes

Thumbs up for a well thought out and non-abusive post.

Jean Never Wins7/16/2014, 3:57:50 AM4 votes

this is beautiful, ya'll better not bury it

mfw http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/masonry/000/791/048/5ab.png

MaknBacnPancakes7/16/2014, 4:45:12 AM3 votes

I like the overall feel of the boards. Would it be overkill or to much to ask that each champion get their own sub-forum under the champion & skin forum? While making it may be an issue or time consuming, I believe it would reduce the overall repetitive nature of repeat posts (through ignorance or laziness), plus I believe it would bring more individual sense of "champion pride".

Snailed7/16/2014, 9:35:47 AM3 votes

Also Where is the Light theme. This theme is too dark.

Ad Astra per Asp7/16/2014, 2:35:06 PM3 votes

Chronological view should also be renamed Discussion View since it's the one that actually has you know, discussion rather than replies to one post.

In Chronological view the Discuss header should be removed completely, we aren't dumb and no forum has a giant discuss header separating the first post from the rest, it's unnatural and clumsy.

And lastly, Chronological view not being default will cause a lot of people to not view or reply or discuss posts. Back and forth discussion will be rare if not totally killed.

Sir ArmaMalum7/16/2014, 4:48:35 AM3 votes

I like most of these, but I'll throw in my $0.02 on some alterations. Naturally this is just my individual opinion so take from it what you will.

  • Combine the new player board and the guides forums (Possibly -Teaching- or -Coaching-?), imho they cater to about the same audience. Of course proper labeling of [Beginner] and [Advanced] guides and discussions would be key but I feel it could work well

  • As far as a Bug Report thread, would simply re-naming Help & Support work in your opinion? I love the idea don't get me wrong, but I don't feel it requires an entirely new board.

  • When it comes to the C&S and LGB confusion I think changing C&S to "Champion and Skin Aesthetics" and having a clear cut line of "Does it have numbers? Then LGB". It's kinda how I assumed it was at the start and I don't believe I was the only one.

  • What's wrong with being called a Boarder? Gangplank prepare to be boarded!! Yar-har-fiddely-dee!

Good post, good feedback, well done.

RiotIronStylus7/16/2014, 6:15:48 AM3 votes

Speaking specifically about the "Champions and Skins" section, I actually specifically asked for that category to be added. I felt as though a) having a thread/sub-forum/whatever for each individual champion would be impossible, and b) the previous "Gameplay" umbrella was too broad.

When think of champions I think of questions that might arise, or discussions that might pop up along the lines of gameplay, theme and art. Those three chunks of questions I feel should live in the same place. Also, instead of splitting things up between let's say.. Champions, Skins, Champion Update, would also be cumbersome because.. well.. maybe a current champion is going to get an update for example. I think it'll work as a good catch-all for champions as chunks of content in and of themselves.

You want to talk Sion? Cool. Whether you're talking about his current state, a skin you have a question about or his eventual VGU, you've got the right place.

It's not going to be about the meta as a whole, it's not going to be map specific, it's not going to be off-topic or jokey (well.. can't guarantee that!), it'll generally be where we can dig into any aspect of a specific character. Art, theme, gameplay and personalized content.

Good list here, though. There's a few features that you've put down that I'd also like to see. Keep the suggestions and feedback coming.

The mods are watching O_O

AntiSkillshot7/16/2014, 6:15:06 AM2 votes

I'll agree on just about everything you said, Ion. Especially the improvements on the Chronological order bit.

Then again. Attachments on this new forums are confusing the hell out of me...

LastProtagonist7/16/2014, 4:01:20 AM2 votes

Nice post. I don't know if it's because I'm using firefox, but I can't always get mouse over text to pop up over a thread when I want to read it. It's pretty annoying.

PaperMache77/16/2014, 4:34:39 AM2 votes

Well written post, I agree.

Goddie Boy7/16/2014, 5:43:11 AM2 votes

How about a save draft when starting a topic?

Privet7/16/2014, 5:44:09 AM2 votes

Maybe when you click the new button it doesn't smooth scroll down to the new comments and just loads at the comments.

ProfDrDeath7/16/2014, 6:59:23 AM2 votes

For nested view:

Automatically hide full quotes of a higher-tiered post. Like, with the answer of AntiSkillshot to Ironstylus in this very thread/board/discussion.

Colonel J7/16/2014, 1:04:16 PM2 votes

I'd like a "Views" inclusion like they have on gee dee.

J is for Jhin7/16/2014, 7:22:02 PM1 votes

Love it

DeathToEcchi7/16/2014, 11:49:47 PM1 votes

TBH, I'm not a huge fan of the new color scheme myself

Eleshakai7/18/2014, 2:09:34 AM1 votes

I agree with prettymuch everything you said here. I'll also suggest that they should have multiple skins for the boards for people to pick between.