Proposal for more managed (elite-) replacements

huertgenwald · Post by **huertgenwald** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 6:07 pm

As of v1.04 things are handled like this:

normal replacement : all losses are filled up with one click
elite Replacement : under 10 -> all losses filled up
10-14 -> single step fill up

my suggestion: simple click (normal + elite ): fill up 1 step
shift click: under 10 -> fill up to 10
10-14 -> fill up to MAX

i think that would make it easier to handle things, especially if you're low on prestige.

your opinions

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 7:39 pm

This was discussed during the beta (the threads should still be in the Open Beta forum) but I think it was decided against. There are a number of advocates, including me, but some thought it was too complicated or different to the nature of PzC (micro-managing was the term used).

jokerrr88 · Post by **jokerrr88** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 3:10 pm

I wouldn't want it because I see people wanting to then start adding 1 109 to a 110 formation and the likes. I'll pass on the Micro Manage stuff.

impar · Post by **impar** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 3:18 pm

jokerrr88 wrote:I wouldn't want it because I see people wanting to then start adding 1 109 to a 110 formation and the likes. I'll pass on the Micro Manage stuff.

???
The idea is that you would reinforce the units one strength at a time, not that you would mix diferent units.

huertgenwald · Post by **huertgenwald** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 4:29 pm

You completely puzzled me, Joker

jokerrr88 · Post by **jokerrr88** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 4:57 pm

Trust me you add the 1 Unit at a time button you will sooner or later have someone post "Hey can you guys let us mix and match units" ....100000% Guarantee that.

Why you ask?

Because you already have a button that allows you to add 1 Unit at a time (if added as you want) then why not use the same button to allow a person to add a single unit of there liking to any unit then. Now not to say I know better (by no means am I saying that) but as a programmer myself I know when you add one feature to something you tend to lead to places where you where not intended on going, trust me when I say this it happens ALLLLL the time, hell I could write a book on some of the silly requests I have had. They can do as they want I would rather see programing time used on projects more useful (Pacific Theatre) then adding another button to the game.

huertgenwald · Post by **huertgenwald** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 9:01 pm

I believe, i'm not getting your point, Joker ?

What i'd like is :

a) beef up my top unit in end game (for they are usually beaten up pretty badly)
---> so i can more easily conquer the more distant (and mostly more important) cities on the map.

b) have more control over how to replenish a unit, especially if i'm low on prestige.

And i can't see how that could be silly

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 9:05 pm

I think he is saying that guys won't stop with asking for things if this were to be implemented. However, if every good request was not implemented because of fear of a subsequent bad one, nothing good would be done! Merging units has been raised in the past, but the simple answer was 'no'.

huertgenwald · Post by **huertgenwald** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 9:58 pm

I'm talking about a more refined method of loss replacement.

Never thought about MERGING anything, that (as i understand it) was brought up by "Joker" alone

jokerrr88 · Post by **jokerrr88** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 10:07 pm

Trust me from a programmers perspective not all good idea's go unnoticed, but not all good idea's are easily implemented and if you have something hard coded as a basis of a program and then someone wants to (as they percieve) add a simple feature it effects alot of things in your program more then just a +1 to a little sprite on your screen.

Its like this lets say your car needs a oil change so you roll your car up on some ramps and crawl underneath the car and change the oil. Under there you think man it would be awesome to have your oil drain and filter at a spot where you could easily get to while standing up looking at your engine. Now to do this would it be a simple fix or would you have to do ALOT of changes to the engine? Trust me programming is the same you have to pick and chose your battles and some codes are easier to adjust then others and some things are simple fixes.

If I had coded 3 Tanks and said here is the stats for tanks T1,T2, and T3 and all tanks have a strength of 10 and then have battles between tanks T1,T2 and T3 well thats pretty simple because the base stats always stay the same with some bonuses adding to the numbers here and there but for the most part my base numbers are the same. Now lets say I have a tank that has 5 strength of T1 and 4 strength of T2 and 1 strength T3 for a total of 10 strength but its a mix bagged of everything so what does the program think when it does battle its looking for Tank 1,2, and 3 not some mixed bag tank so I then have to go recode the program to make it add up individual ratings, but before that I have to program individual ratings, and before that I have to code how it does battle because it will now destroy different strengths not all the same tank strength, then I have to code how it decides which unit it decides to destroy in combat and so on and so on and so on until the base program you had is not the same as it was.

Yes a button to add just 1 Unit would be nice but I promise you the buck would not stop there with that feature, that is a very slippery slope to walk down (as a programmer speaking) and I can understand 1000000000000000% why they would not add that. If you do not understand what I am talking about well put it this way: "I want sharks with freaking lasers on there heads to fight Battleships with"

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 10:21 pm

That seems like a lot of words to say 'ridiculous requests will not be implemented'. Just because a request is made doesn't mean it has to be implemented - just look at the long list of change requests for the Editor.

(Passive-aggressive smiley icon!)

soldier · Post by **soldier** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 10:30 pm

I think Huertgenwald has made a fair suggestion. The developers have not been afraid to say if something is too difficult to program in so I'd leave it to them to make the call. Discounting a suggestion because someone might then request something else makes no sense to me.

jokerrr88 · Post by **jokerrr88** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 10:56 pm

Not a ridiculos request, in fact I like it just....well whatever not waisting any more of my time

Razz1 · Post by **Razz1** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 2:58 am

jokerrr88 wrote:I wouldn't want it because I see people wanting to then start adding 1 109 to a 110 formation and the likes. I'll pass on the Micro Manage stuff.

This has been discussed and for a programmer you completely misunderstood the request and dynamics of the game.

1) Only way to go from 109 to 110 is with experience and you earn that.
2) We are talking about strength
3) It gives the player the ability to allocate their prestige as they desire. A commander should be able to order what reinforcements he wants where, not all or none as it is now.
4) There is no micromanaging, again you misunderstood. Nothing changes from the current play, only another click is added if a player wants to allocate prestige when resources are constrained.

rezaf · Post by **rezaf** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 6:47 am

Yeah, I can totally understand the urge to avoid adding superficial stuff, but this isn't even a new gameplay mechanic or something - in some circumstances it's already "possible" to add less than maximum reinforcements to a unit - in combat, when there's an enemy unit next to it.
All that'd be needed would be a "advanced reinforcements" button allowing you to use a slider with plus and minus buttons next to it for each unit. Pretty easy.
Now, in this case, personally I NEVER had the urge to do that, so it'd be 99.9% useless to me, but it's not a game-changing thing, just an UI improvement.

I'd rather have buttons to "Reinforce all", "Reinforce all (Elite)" and "Reinforce all (Elite) + max. overstrength)" during deployment, though - those would save me hundreds of mouseclicks over the course of a campaign...
_____
rezaf

Kerensky · Post by **Kerensky** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 6:50 am

rezaf wrote:
I'd rather have buttons to "Reinforce all", "Reinforce all (Elite)" and "Reinforce all (Elite) + max. overstrength)" during deployment, though - those would save me hundreds of mouseclicks over the course of a campaign...
_____
rezaf

Yea all those mouseclicks can be an irritation... But if you hold down the hot key, that works really well. Try it out during the deploy phase. Just hold down SHIFT+R and click on your units one after another. Works like a charm.

rezaf · Post by **rezaf** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 7:04 am

Kerensky wrote:Yea all those mouseclicks can be an irritation... But if you hold down the hot key, that works really well. Try it out during the deploy phase. Just hold down SHIFT+R and click on your units one after another. Works like a charm.

But I still need to click on each individual unit. There should be ONE button I have to press and I'm done. It's simple and easy to do and to code, so adding it would be a triviality.
However, I'm starting to believe that the reasoning at Slitherine goes along the lines that, if something is easy to implement, and reduces workload on the player, possibly even makes the game more fun to play by reducing tedium - then it clearly doesn't belong in a wargame, and Slitherine is a wargame company, darn it - so go eat your pants, player.

Seriously, one one hand, the entire system was set up in a way that seems to be designed to allow for those changes AND make them easy to implement - most of the UI being made of HTML snippets and so on.
On the other hand, you guys are reasoning away even the simplest UI improvement suggestions, even if they could probably be implemented in an hour or less, given the modular approach.

Same goes for feature and modding suggestions and wishes, but at least in the former case you can argue that it might have unwanted effects on gameplay and in the latter case that it takes considerable amounts of time to implement them (though I don't believe that's actually the case).
_____
rezaf

Kerensky · Post by **Kerensky** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 7:11 am

We've been down this road before though...

To reiterate:

If one button auto elited all units to fully overstrength status... what happens if your prestige runs out half way through? What about people who want to auto elite units in a certain order? Will it always just be infantry, then tank, then so on and so on down the list? How does the game communicate the cost of this? When you mouse over the elite button, it shows you exact costs in the tooltip. What if this button is pressed by accident? It's a whole different situation than accidentally hitting elite on one unit too many times then if you accidentally elite your entire core. Also, management of forces is supposed to be an involved process. If you have so much prestige you blindly auto elite every unit to full... maybe you would be better off playing on a harder difficulty setting? And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

rezaf · Post by **rezaf** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 7:21 am

Kerensky wrote:We've been down this road before though...

To reiterate:

If one button auto elited all units to fully overstrength status... what happens if your prestige runs out half way through? What about people who want to auto elite units in a certain order? Will it always just be infantry, then tank, then so on and so on down the list? How does the game communicate the cost of this? When you mouse over the elite button, it shows you exact costs in the tooltip. What if this button is pressed by accident? It's a whole different situation than accidentally hitting elite on one unit too many times then if you accidentally elite your entire core. Also, management of forces is supposed to be an involved process. If you have so much prestige you blindly auto elite every unit to full... maybe you would be better off playing on a harder difficulty setting? And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

See what I mean? You're venturing the "reasoning away" path I outlined above.

If you're prestige is insufficient to auto-elite and overstrength all units, that button is greyed out / cannot be pressed.
Auto-eliting units in a certain order? Are you kidding me? If they want to do the gruntwork of doing it manually, they can already do it in the way it's currently done...
The whole Infantry then Tank then so on part doesn't make sense - either all or nothing (button unavailable). No logic involved here.
If this button is pressed by accident? Tough luck. Reload the last savegame. What if I accidentally clicked on that IS2 with my recon car?
And the point about "If you even have the chance to reinforce/OS everything, you're playing the wrong difficulty" is downright silly.

That's not the tip of an iceberg, it's a whole lot of coming up with unlikely scenarios and points that are irrelevant. Exactly my point in the post above.

Edit: You know what you guys should do? Just expose a few variables and enable JavaScript in your HTML engine. You'd be AMAZED on what brilliant UI improvements were possible without overanalyzing potential results - and you wouldn't have to do ANY of the work yourself. Win win.
_____
rezaf

VPaulus · Post by **VPaulus** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:09 am

rezaf wrote:I'd rather have buttons to "Reinforce all", "Reinforce all (Elite)" and "Reinforce all (Elite) + max. overstrength)" during deployment, though - those would save me hundreds of mouseclicks over the course of a campaign...

Where would you insert the icon/button?
For players which play in lower resolutions could turn the UI bar more hard to use, if you and an extra line of icons.