CMIII - a few random UI suggestions

[Matias]

For what its worth, very possibly already disscussed, and certainly the thoughts of one non-groggy newbie. Please read, respond, flame, and BTS if they're of any use consider as a small contribution to flat out the best value for entertainment I've ever come across in my entire life! (It'd still be totally worth it at twice the price actually.)

1) More visualization toggles avalible in the main botom panel interface rather than as hot keys. Given the increasing trend towards larger monitors I think its possible to add a section to the main controls which allows the user to more quickly toggle some of the display parameters which affect gameplay (as opposed to the visual/performance or preference parameters). For example I'm fine leaving tree density, weather, sound on/off, detailed armor hits, etc. as keyboard settings, but it would add a lot of convinience if I could have buttons to toggle trees at all, bases, firing lines, movement orders, arcs, etc. right on the screen instead of as hot keys.

2) An option to make vehicles and trees when toggles 'off' display transparent instead of fully gone. Again nice to have and possibly feasible now that video cards are better.

3) Display LOS status at the point at which a Seek Hull Down order point may be placed. In other words as you scan over the terrain with your SHD order, display the LOS indicator just as normal. This allows you to know that if the point is in LOS then the vehicle will only stop short of that final point if there is a depression in the ground. A minor thing since an experienced player will LOS first then use the key to swithc to SHD and click, but it saves a few actions and allows newbies to have a little more visibility into the working of that command.

4) Display a vehicle's actual path as orders are plotted. This would work by drawing a curve interpolated from the points laid down in the order - again, more CPU load but hopefully possible given the creeping rise in quality of a standard machine. This would in many ways eliminate some of the recent concerns people have been expressing over their units turning instead of shooting by letting them see before when they are asking their vehicles to make turns so tight that they have to scootch back and forth in place. It would also make visible to newbies the turn radii that the vehicles require with out having to open up the detail panel.

5) Display a turn vs scroll indicator on the screen and make it variable depending on the camera position. Basically I'm talking about how when your mouse hits the edge of the screen the view moves - the point on the side of the screen at which the behavior changes from 'side step' to rotate is invisible - having even a small HUD like hash mark would help with fine control. Additonally changing the position of that point based on the camera angle would have the benefit of biasing 'high views' - that is the top down map-like ones - to be more tracking based, and the 'low' - first person-like ones - would be more rotation biased.

That's it. Let the carnage begin!

[Matias]

<double post>

[ March 10, 2003, 11:02 PM: Message edited by: Matias Duarte ]

[Matias]

Were my suggestions really that blindingly obvious? Or did nobody care? Or do you all like the UI, just like it is thank you very much!?

I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing...

[dieseltaylor]

Oh! User interface. Silly me I am obviously the wrong kind of grog

[dieseltaylor]

I like your first paragraph - totally agree.

1. I think the bottom of the screen is cluttered enough already.

2&3 I really do not have strong feelings about

4. Battlefront at various times have made the point that they do not want too much micro-management possible [i agree with them] and I think your suggestion though logical and user friendly does border the micro-management fringe.

5. Nice tweak but my thoughts as per 2 and 3 apply

It's nice to know you are thinking about it. The CMBB interface was designed by a enthusiast from France who designed a very accepted substitute to the one shipped in CMBO. What a way to get immortalised!

Regards,

[ March 11, 2003, 02:41 AM: Message edited by: dieseltaylor ]

[jKMkIII]

I really don't care for idea 1. But second one is excellent, actually I have been wondering if it would be good idea to make tree mod where they would be partly transparent because I always have to play with trees ..even with lowest option there are too many (or they are just too big, whatever) for me to see what is happening in forest. It would be great to have more trees (more realistic view) and have trees transparent, perhaps only area where are troops just like buildings.

4th is also good one. I like it, have been hoping for it earlier..

[mchlstrt]

I've wished for #5 before.

strt

[Other Means]

when i'm plotting a movement order, i like to get down to level 1 - 2 and plot from there. what i'd really like is to be able to keep, say shift or alt down & be able to click to a portion of the map & be taken there with the movement order unplaced but still active. that way i can jump around the map & put waypoints where i need them.

i quite like having everything hotkey. it's got a nice unixy feel to it.

the variable scroll/rotate speed is a big yes. also, i never use any of the buttons on the bottom bar. maybe have the bottom bar info in floating windows? if we get 1 for 1 soldier sprites then a lot of the info wouldn't be needed. or not needed as prominantly.

also when i press for an elevation level i'd like it to zoom the way it does when you click the interface button.

i think the tree on-off as well as density is good. i'd also like to be able to toggle different types of unit on-off, not just vehicles.

i'm of the camp that doesn't want a LOS anywhere tool. i believe that it's more realistic to have to go to a place to be sure of LOS.

not a very structured response but work beckons. screams, really.

[xerxes]

Trees w/ transparency just like buildings have, now that is one darn fine idea. I'm alway shift-T'ing back and forth. Trees look great, but they hide too much important stuff. Transparency would be great.

[Patrick Moore]

Good suggestions, Matias! I like your recommendations because I'm an infrequent player.

Being the perennial newb here is a question...

Does anyone know if there is an OOB option during gameplay? It would also be nice to see what forces I have on the map and their status (e.g. 1 x T34 (v-1), 1 x T34 (v-2) Knocked out, and on).

[TexasToast]

1) I agree with the previous comment that the bottom area is already cluttered, and would only be in favor of more controls if they were optional. In fact, I would prefer an option that allows you to hide the whole interface bar for FULL SCREEN ACTION!

2) An option for transparent trees would be cool. Not sure that I would care as much about vehicles.

3) Sounds like a cheap way to check LOS from uncharted territory, definitely a no-no.

4) I haven't noticed vehicles moving in arcs at all - the only time the move orders are changed is when the path goes over impassible terrain. It could conceivably replot intermediate waypoints for you as you drop your waypoints, but considering that orders delay is affected by number of waypoints, that might introduce complications.

5) Interesting, but I still use the Shift key to toggle this most of the time, so I don't care so much.

I'm just happy that you can see out of the inside of buildings now...

[moneymaxx]

Well, just my two cents:

1) I wouldn´t like that, there are too many buttons already, that I hardly ever use. I would prefer a pop-up menu to change certain settings and keep the hotkeys because many players got so used to it. Even in MS Word you can still use hotkeys.

2) Great idea transparent trees during the orders phase. I would like to go even further, I suggest different settings for the orders phase and the movie, like tranparent trees, magnified vehicles unit bases on in the orders phase and full trees, no unit bases and original sized vehicles in the movie.

3) A LOS-tool, no.

4) A much needed improvement indeed. I hate to see my tanks making suicidal moves just because I overlooked that tiny bit of unpassable terrain.

5) I don´t have much of an opinion.

To answer Patrick Moore, there is no OOB option during gameplay. Many players argued, that you have too much control over your troops already. Therefore the game doesn´t reflect the confusion that was always present on the battlefield. An OOB option would give you even more control (If you want to read for hours search for the related subject of BORG spotting, there are some threads concerning the OOB option too). If you want to keep track of your troops, maybe turning on unit bases and displaying them bigger could help. Otherwise, use the '+' and '-' button to cycle through your units.

[Makes The Jelly Judder]

Maybe for no1 you could have a button that flips the interface into another mode, say an options mode or a unit info mode? Or you could have a button that made the interface panel take up more room and show more data.

Or you could add to the gound conditons thingy that when you mouse over it, it changes to some stats. You could have the same effect when you mouse over the unit icon, it might flip the image with some unit stats.

What I would really like though is a change to the target command. Currently you get a single coloured line from the unit to the pointer/target, what I would like to see is this line to have different colours/brightnes depending on firepower or armour penatration. Like going from bright red down to a dull red or striped with the amour penatration colours.

Also is there any reason why the video playback and camera movement controls are so large? Do the camera movement controls really need to be there at all(well except for elavation)?

[ March 11, 2003, 07:08 PM: Message edited by: Makes The Jelly Judder ]

[Patrick Moore]

Originally posted by moneymaxx:

To answer Patrick Moore, there is no OOB option during gameplay. Many players argued, that you have too much control over your troops already. Therefore the game doesn´t reflect the confusion that was always present on the battlefield. An OOB option would give you even more control (If you want to read for hours search for the related subject of BORG spotting, there are some threads concerning the OOB option too). If you want to keep track of your troops, maybe turning on unit bases and displaying them bigger could help. Otherwise, use the '+' and '-' button to cycle through your units.

Thanks for the reply.

Yup, I thought I read that in another post but couldn't find with the search I used this forum. I'll try again to find those threads.

Yes, this is a "game." I would still like to see the option to have access to a battle OOB (only for his forces). No one would force the player to use this OOB. I don't see how having an OOB for a player can be any less realistic than the ability for a player to turn off the fog of war to obtain detailed info on enemy units.

[Wicky]

Expanded 'Weather Factor'

Not quite a UI suggestion. But i would like variable weather conditions within a battle/operation. i.e In a 30 turn game at dawn 8+ moves in, a change from mist/fog to clear for the remainder. Or for intance, in a midday setting clear for the first third in a battle, then overcast, then in the last rain third. (great for scenario creators but would be difficult for AI random settings to do in a natural/logical kind of way)

From a UK all year round biker

link

[Auggy]

I don't know if it would be possible, but the 30 turns are 30 actual minutes. Not too much of a weather change in that time span can occur.

[Matias]

Well I'm gratified people *do* care about the interface (Its my job in RL so its always nice to feel like one's marginally useful ).

Here's a clarification to my two 'unpopular' ideas:

1) I agree more clutter is bad and often prefer using the hot keys. However I bet most people never use the camera control buttons (they just don't give you as much control as the direct manipulation of the view) which would easilly give enough space for a button or two. Also you could have two sets of hotkeys, one for cycling tree density and a different one of hiding / transparency / showing (keeping it just as unix-y as possible!) in addition to the buttons.

I do love the idea of hiding the controls entirely too! In Photoshop for example all the tools can be hidden while working and then toggled on quickly by pressing TAB. One could imagine the unit display being a small two line bar at the bottom of the screen (maybe only appears when the unit is selected) and the rest of the controls could slide up (like the windows task bar) when the space bar or tab key is pressed)

3) I totally miss-comunicated here! I didn't mean "show what LOS would be like if/when the tank reaches the point at the end of a SHD order", but rather "when plotting SHD, let me know if I already have LOS to that point". The latter is interesting because if you CAN already see that point (although the graphical terrain might make you think its behind a hill) your tank will drive all the way to it. With prevous LOS the only time it won't treat that order like Move is if there's a gully in between.

In summary the my propsal is exactly the same as slectinf the LOS tool, choosing a point, hitting the SHD tool without moving the mouse and clicking. No new functions, just saves prudent users a click and makes the SHD act more intelligeble to newbies.

Thanks for paying attention to the obbessions of a UI grog!

[Madmatt]

I like all the suggestions except #3 which gives the player a little too much automation/control with that command. We want the player do have to do a little work themselves and getting down in level 1 with the camera and scanning about is essential and something we don't want to automate away from.

The other suggestions are all pretty good.

Madmatt

[Eric Alkema]

I, for one use the on screen movement buttons. The movement speed is fast which helps for large movements. You knew about that, right?

I use the control-click for truely huge movements.

At first I hated the use of the mouse to rotate or scroll. Later I went back and played CMBO and found I hated doing without it.

I like your #3 idea. Making good decisions is enough work for me.

[Matias]

Maddmatt,

Gald you liked some! I only hope they'll be of some use - I sure know all too well how something that seems like a good idea can turn into to much work, or worse have a really nasty unforeseen side effect.

Regarding #3 - I totally understand you. The extra 'leg work' the player must to to verify prexsiting LOS is part of the simulation and balance against the God's eye view of the battle.

It's just like the Order of Battle issue isn't it? At first I was going to chime in on that one, thinking that is the information was avalible in the game why not summarize it for the player? After all it's not like there is a fog of war simulated between the player-as-commander and the micro-management of individual units. That's when I realized that the very absance of an Order of Battle served the role of simulating that particular effect. It keeps the player from having an unrealistically effecient level of control over his troop!

Here's two more small ones for the grist mill:

7) Animated camera movements between the zoom levels. That is when you press one of the number keys to change camera level, instead of instantly snapping to the new view, quickly animating the camera movement so that the view flies smoothly up or down. (there's a subtle wrinkle in implementing this - you want to make the transition time constant regardless of the distance the camera has to travel or elese more drastic level changes take annoyingly long) Insanely cool in a gimmicky way? Yes (as anyone who has ever used pro-engineer will tell you). A time waster? Not really. In Pro-E users keep this feature on because the eye and the mind can maintain an aweareness of the model and their relation to it whenever the view changes. In other words, while the view change takes more time, there is no pause in the user's mind as he reorients himself to the new view. The same principle would apply here - the animated view change would eat up half a second, but you'd gain in back in not having to reorient yourself in regards to your troops and the terrain. And did I mention it would be insanely cool?

8) Just a nit really - have a Cancel button during each step of the battle setup process - I think you can Abort out if you go past the briefing stage (say to check out the force composition for one side in a scenario) but this just makes it obvious for newbies and provides a level of comfort in being able to reverse their actions and recover from accidental clicks that most users are used to in other programs.

Hope some of this of use... I still feel vaugely guilty each time I think about how much I've gotten out of this game!

[Jack Ryan]

CM3 could be set in N.africa and italy and that would be the majority of the second world war covered by battlefront

[Count Zero]

Originally posted by Matias Duarte:

7) Animated camera movements between the zoom levels. That is when you press one of the number keys to change camera level, instead of instantly snapping to the new view, quickly animating the camera movement so that the view flies smoothly up or down. (there's a subtle wrinkle in implementing this - you want to make the transition time constant regardless of the distance the camera has to travel or elese more drastic level changes take annoyingly long) Insanely cool in a gimmicky way? Yes (as anyone who has ever used pro-engineer will tell you). A time waster? Not really. In Pro-E users keep this feature on because the eye and the mind can maintain an aweareness of the model and their relation to it whenever the view changes. In other words, while the view change takes more time, there is no pause in the user's mind as he reorients himself to the new view. The same principle would apply here - the animated view change would eat up half a second, but you'd gain in back in not having to reorient yourself in regards to your troops and the terrain. And did I mention it would be insanely cool?

Have you tried using the interface buttons instead of the number keys to change viewpoint?

You might like it

[Hans]

Comment on changable weather in North Africa

Living in a sandblown nation myself I can assure you a wicked and blinding sandstorm can blow up and end within 30 minutes-not to mention. Sudden (in season) and rare thunderstorms that would change a nice defendable gulley in to a water gutter. Not to mention the effects of common "wind devils" wirl winds that sweep thru an area.

The change from dark to dawn and dusk to night would be good as would variable weather effects. In the desert that would mean two main factors

Wind (and how much dust was whipping up)

Heat (how much distortion (mirage) you'd have) plus the glare effect of where the sun was rising or setting (the sun in your eyes was devasting in the desert)

Another aspect of the changability will be night illumination-which should be modelled to change (as a scenario designer I'd like to specify a moonless or full moon night)-or the moon starting to come up after 30 minutes etc....etc

Hey Madmatt I'm already collecting material for Italian scenarios.....for CM III

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Matias Duarte:

Well I'm gratified people *do* care about the interface (Its my job in RL so its always nice to feel like one's marginally useful ).

Not that I wouldn't respect your choice, but how did you become an interface???

About OOB. I really like the unit roster in Steel Panthers, but if BFC is adamant about it, okay. Still I wonder, what else could be done to improve this issue. Just cycling through all units can take a long time in some cases, and is annoying when you want to see where that one tank hunter or FO team is. Maybe certain unit types could be highlighted or shown with different bases (with CMBB one nice thing is the cover arc command - if you have given your AT units those blue armour arcs, then they're easy to find).

It would be nice if the graphics told you more about your infantry, like right now if you look at them you can see (some of) their weaponry. But this could be taken further! I'd be thrilled if I could see my squads carrying Panzerfausts, satchel charges, grenades etc. as an indicator that they have those weapons. And maybe you could also have some way of showing their ammo situation, with many or few clips on the belt? Similarly, crew served weapons could have boxes of ammunition next to them. I once for a second thought that my Russian officer's medals on his chest were a graphical representation of his commander attributes! And why not? Also, you could differentiate pussies from seasoned veterans just by their looks (in the case of a tank, maybe by the rings on their gun/markings on their turret).

Of course alot of this wouldn't be realistic and many of these might take too much effort to implement compared to what else could be put into the game. But still, maybe something?

[moneymaxx]

Well, I forgot to mention one thing, that I always wanted in CM. A way to see all the movies after the battle from both sides, or even better joining them to make one big movie out of it, of course with free camara movement.

Speaking of it, a VCR function would be the best. Making movies like "My best flamethrower attacks Part 1" or "Cm's funniest homemovies" would be a dream come true.

Luckily I don't have to program all this