These are the issues I have with the new interface, and the things I miss most from the old:
1. Unit details.
In both versions, you click on an element to see its stats and details. The new version requires no less than four separate clicks to see everything.
Pon required only one click, and you could see every stat, beautiful artwork of the unit, and a chart to the right that told you the exact combat stats for your unit at various ranges.
The new system does not even have the detailed range information, and is much more cumbersome to use. I request that using the PON single click system be resumed.
2. Message organization.
In the new version, the buttons to see messages of a particular category are far to the right, on the bottom of the screen, in a single horizontal line, in red.
In PON, the buttons were on the left, in two vertical rows, in the center, right next to the message window.
The new system requires you to look to the far lower right to find the right button, then turn your vision back to the left center of the screen to read the messages, which is burdensome and tedious, after awhile.
The PON system did not require any vision shifting or head turning, as the buttons were on the left, right next to the window, and you never had to shift your vision, and only had to read from left to right, which is natural, rather than turn to the right to find thebutton, then turn to the left to read the message. I request that the message buttons be placed tot he left center, as they are in PON, as this is much faster and easier to use.
3. Placement of diplomacy and tech interfaces on terra incognita, in the far upper right of the map.
In the new system, you have to find the right place on the map to click on, with a whole bunch of nations and techs right next to eac other, and I find this time consuming and clumsy.
In PON, both Diplomacy and Tech had their own ledger page, which made them easy to find, and buttons that could sort the various techs and nations in a very useful filtering process.
The new system has no filtering at all.
I requat that both tech and diplomacy have their own ledger page, with filters, similar to PON, with adjustments for the great differences in the games.
4. Finding units in the ledger.
The new system requires you to click and hold a very narrow yellow line to scroll up and down among the unit lists, which is absolutely necessary. I often lose hold of it during the process, and it seems jerky and hard to hold. I can never get it to show the first two or three units, no matter how hard I push it up.
Pon had a much wider, easier to see brown bar which was easy to click and hold on, and moved easily up and down. I had no trouble getting it to show the first units. It is smooth, not jerky, and I do not lose hold of it.
The new system gives you only 11 options for filtering units.
PON gives you 14, and I miss the 3 options that have been left out, which I found useful.
I request that the PON bar be instituted, as it saves so much time and is not frustrating at all, and that we have the same 14 filtering options we had in PON.
5. Moving to different pates in the ledger.
PON had a list of buttons at the top that would take you to the exact section you wanted. It did not matter if you clicked more than once.
The new interface has the buttons at the bottom of the ledger, which is harder to see, and if you click more than once, you get dumped off the ledger, back to the map. Often a single click has no effect, and you get dumped to the map when you click again Very frustrating and time consuming.
I request that the PON system be instituted in the ledger, as it worked and was easy to use. No frustration.
6. Posture buttons.
In the new system, there is only one posture button showing at a time,and you have to do multiple clicking to get the button you want. This is a lot of work when you are setting postures for a lot of units.
In PON, all the posture buttons were shown and available, in full color, and all you needed was asingle click.
An option was included in a TOAW patch to show all the posture buttons, but only the current selection was shown in color. This is acceptable, but I prefer having all the buttons shown in color, as it makes them easier to find and select.
I request that the PON posture buttons be restored, or, if that is not possible, that the option to have four buttons showing be applied to this game as well.
There other issues, but these are the ones that are most important to me. I invite all to submit their ideas for things from the old interface that they prefer. Pocus said they were very open to considering our comments on this issue, which is yet another great thing about Ageod, my favorite company.
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Taillebois
- General of the Army
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Most of the remarks are valid indeed but should be amended in the next game. For example the too thin scroll bar in the ledger or that the alternate posture buttons are not colored (this was because I did the graphics as no artist were available and I'm not very good!).
Some points, I'm not sure we will change them though. For example the unit detail (which is in fact an element detail, if we use the proper wording). We don't want to throw in the face of a player the 60 parameters of an element at once, we prefer to have a summary screen where you see that this unit move fast and is deadly or on the contrary that it is slow. If you want to dig into that, you check the proper section (combat, move, etc.). There are also 3 tabs now because we added more infos and they simply don't fit in a single screen anymore!!
As for the ranges table, there is none because only PON have various statistics per range, the others game have the same values, so there is no need for a table.
Some points, I'm not sure we will change them though. For example the unit detail (which is in fact an element detail, if we use the proper wording). We don't want to throw in the face of a player the 60 parameters of an element at once, we prefer to have a summary screen where you see that this unit move fast and is deadly or on the contrary that it is slow. If you want to dig into that, you check the proper section (combat, move, etc.). There are also 3 tabs now because we added more infos and they simply don't fit in a single screen anymore!!
As for the ranges table, there is none because only PON have various statistics per range, the others game have the same values, so there is no need for a table.
Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."
Pocus wrote:Most of the remarks are valid indeed but should be amended in the next game. For example the too thin scroll bar in the ledger or that the alternate posture buttons are not colored (this was because I did the graphics as no artist were available and I'm not very good!).
Some points, I'm not sure we will change them though. For example the unit detail (which is in fact an element detail, if we use the proper wording). We don't want to throw in the face of a player the 60 parameters of an element at once, we prefer to have a summary screen where you see that this unit move fast and is deadly or on the contrary that it is slow. If you want to dig into that, you check the proper section (combat, move, etc.). There are also 3 tabs now because we added more infos and they simply don't fit in a single screen anymore!!
As for the ranges table, there is none because only PON have various statistics per range, the others game have the same values, so there is no need for a table.
I am relieved to hear that many of the issues will be changed for the new games. That too thin scroll bar can be maddening.
As for the element detail, I understand your point, which is perfectly valid, yet I am wondering if a compromise is feasible and acceptable. I have seen other interfaces where you click on a unit and get basic data, yet have the option to get all the detailed data in one place with another click. In other words, two clicks instead of four, which would be a vast improvement. I understand the difficulty of showing sixty values at once. I will look carefully at the values , and provide a proposal for your consideration.
Of course there is no point to showing a range chart in this situation. The different values at different ranges was one of the many magnificent aspects of PON, and added to the immersion, but that is PON, which is unique.
Again, I want to thank you for considering my concerns, and for being willing to make things better, which is typical of you guys.
I have to say that I fully agree with Vaalen! Perhaps the main reason I don't spend so much time with the newest releases (which is very bad!) like CW 2 or TEAW is because I find the new interface, changing stance of the unit, unit details etc. so much complicated and cumbersome. The user interface of AJE or PON does it perfectly for me!
Just my 2cents
Just my 2cents
cwegsche wrote:I have to say that I fully agree with Vaalen! Perhaps the main reason I don't spend so much time with the newest releases (which is very bad!) like CW 2 or TEAW is because I find the new interface, changing stance of the unit, unit details etc. so much complicated and cumbersome. The user interface of AJE or PON does it perfectly for me!
Just my 2cents
Cwegsche, your comment has helped me realize something important. i also spend very little time with TOEW anc Civil War 2 because of the frustrations I have with the interface, for the reasons I mentioned. That is truly a shame, as so much work has gone into both games, and I love both periods.
If it is that frustrating for some of us Ageod veterans, how is it for someone whose first experience with an Ageod game is with the new interface?
At this point, I submit that these issues need to be fixed not only in the new game, but in TOEW and CW2.
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Franciscus
- Posts: 4571
- Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2007 8:31 pm
- Location: Portugal
I must say I also almost fully agree. IMHO there is nothing the new interface does better from a player's point of view than the old one. Even the load game screen - the new one is prettier but the old just did the job.
Nevertheless there will be no coming back, as the new interface has advantages, to the programmers, if I understand correctly: more stramlined and efficient, and more customizable.
The solution: customize the "new" interface to make it look and work as close as possible to the old one
My 2 cents...
Nevertheless there will be no coming back, as the new interface has advantages, to the programmers, if I understand correctly: more stramlined and efficient, and more customizable.
The solution: customize the "new" interface to make it look and work as close as possible to the old one
My 2 cents...
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The new interface is working 95% of the time as the old one, except it is much more user friendly for developers (less development time) and uses much less CPU also. I really don't see what is that different except minor things like the postures buttons ('fixed' with an optional setting where you can use the old layout).
Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."
[quote="Pocus"]The new interface is working 95% of the time as the old one, except it is much more user friendly for developers (less development time) and uses much less CPU also. I really don't see what is that different except minor things like the postures buttons ('fixed' with an optional setting where you can use the old layout).[/QUOT
I have only six issues, as detailed above, which means that I have no problem with over ninety five percent of the interface.
And I am delighted that the new system is so much easier for the developer to work with, which makes it worth keeping.
All I am asking is that you address these issues, which may seem minor to the developer who deals with so much more than the player, and sees the whole picture, but are very important to me because they make the game much more burdensome to play, and less enjoyable, especially in a game of this size and scope.
Trust me, when you cannot find the first two or three units listed on the ledger, even when you can keep hold of the scroll bar, and have to search for them manually all over the huge map among hundreds of other units, with much clicking when there is more than one unit in an area, when you are not even sure of what they are, that is no fun.
I have only six issues, as detailed above, which means that I have no problem with over ninety five percent of the interface.
And I am delighted that the new system is so much easier for the developer to work with, which makes it worth keeping.
All I am asking is that you address these issues, which may seem minor to the developer who deals with so much more than the player, and sees the whole picture, but are very important to me because they make the game much more burdensome to play, and less enjoyable, especially in a game of this size and scope.
Trust me, when you cannot find the first two or three units listed on the ledger, even when you can keep hold of the scroll bar, and have to search for them manually all over the huge map among hundreds of other units, with much clicking when there is more than one unit in an area, when you are not even sure of what they are, that is no fun.
As a new AGEOD player, I must disagree if find AJE and ROP much hard to navigate, heck it took me reading an AAR to find the decision and recruitment buttons. (Yes I don't really read the manuals)
I would appreciate a little spiel for each unit just to note what the unit is designed to do, I still have no idea what the Batt. unit in TEAW does. I would appreciate that the best units for recruitment be first though as these are the ones you generally use and I don't want to have to scroll past 300 other units to get to them. Looking at you CW2.
Apart from that the new interface is much cleaner for me anyway.
I would appreciate a little spiel for each unit just to note what the unit is designed to do, I still have no idea what the Batt. unit in TEAW does. I would appreciate that the best units for recruitment be first though as these are the ones you generally use and I don't want to have to scroll past 300 other units to get to them. Looking at you CW2.
Apart from that the new interface is much cleaner for me anyway.
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