Slitherine

Here are my first impressions. The real meat of this post is in the "Usability and UI" section below so make sure to take a look at my issues and suggestions there.

First impressions. What were your impression after 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 15 minutes and an hour. If you could write these down and post them to the forum it would be very useful.

Overall, I think this looks really great. I am able to see lots of 'beta' in the game, but it is visually very impressive and you have done a great job of taking the best of Panzer General and giving it a modern look and feel. The movement indicators (circles and trucks to show movement capabilities) are fantastic! Very easy to understand. The appearance of the right-side control panel is very nice and looks well thought-out.

The "New Game Screen" is a little too spread out. The Play/Cancel buttons should be closer to the Options listed at the top of the screen. I'm guessing this will be improved since it looks very sparse right now so it is probably already on your to-do list.


Performance. Is the game too slow on your PC? If yes, what problems exactly you experience, and what system configuration do you have?

Performance is very good. Does not feel slow at all. Nice and responsive.


Map graphics: the terrain map and the units. What did you like or not like. What could be improved?

Very nice and clean. I do agree with the other posters that an effort should be made to get the units to stand out more from the background, especially when the unit is sitting over a city or some terrain with lots of visual details.


Usability and UI of the main screen. Is it intuitively clear how to control the game? Is the UI convenient? Do you like the existing mouse interface, or would you prefer a different one? What useful information do you miss in the UI sidebar or the main map view?

Here is where I think it needs some work:

Problem 1: Moving around the screen is VERY difficult (at least for me). I use a very large monitor (23'' with 2560x1400 resolution) and I love the fact that the maps scale very nicely in full screen mode. However, when the map is clipped, it is a pain to find the "sweet spot" near the map's edge to get it to scroll.
SUGGESTION: I think it would be ideal to allow the user to "grab" the map by doing a click+hold and then dragging the map around. To differentiate between a unit selection and map-scroll action you could use logic to select a unit only when the mouse is clicked but not held, or you could only begin scrolling when the mouse is pressed and then dragged beyond a pixel-distance threshold. Also, an overview-navigation mini-map in the corner would be a great addition!

Problem 2: It would be great to have contextual options on the units themselves for common actions such as "upgrade unit", "unit details", "resupply" and "replacements". It becomes tedious to select a unit, and then mouse all the way across the screen to the right side to click a button to resupply.
SUGGESTION: It would be cool to have a right-click radial menu that appears around the selected unit that lists the most common actions.

Problem 3: I really hope that the reason there is no animation is because you have not gotten to it yet. This is a must-have feature. When I click a destination for a unit and it just jumps to that hex, I get lost on what has just happened, particularly if there are lots of other units is nearby hexes. The animation from start-hex to end-hex REALLY helps out. Also, when units attack, the attacker and the attackee should rotate to face each other like in PG2. This too is a must-have feature. It really brings things to life and keeps the user updated as to what is happening.

Problem 4: The zooming in and out of the map is very clunky. Scrolling the mouse wheel makes the map jump back and forth between zoomed-in and zoomed-out and it is hard to select the one you want.
SUGGESTION: As far as I can tell, it appears that scrolling in either direction just toggles between the two zoomed states and continues to toggle with successive scrolls in the same direction. I think it would work better if scroll-up only zooms in and scroll-down only zooms out. (I'm using a Logitech MX1100 with a notched mouse wheel). Also, adding more than just two zoom levels would be nice rather than just jumping back and forth.

Problem 5: I agree with the other posters that the casualty estimates are hard to read and understand. I'm a sports-junkie too but the enemy estimates being on the left side confused me as well. I would like to see the unit flags return to help determine which side is which.

Problem 6: When an air unit attacks a ground unit, you cannot see how much damage the ground unit has sustained because the air unit blocks the view.

Sorry if this is overload. I'm a UI designer in my day job so I have lots of opinions and ideas about how things might be improved.


Game rules. Please note that at this point game rules are not final. We are still thinking about some aspects, and we'll change and tweak some things as we test the game. However, any opinions on what you see in the game now, and what could be improved, are very much welcome.

All looks good. I'm not as much of a stickler for the game rules as some of the other posters. The rules are similar enough to PG that I was able to jump right in.


Tutorial campaign. The first beta includes the six tutorial scenarios from the tutorial campaign. Currently they have no real tutorial help but are just there to show the difficulty. It would be good if we knew which areas of the game needed the most helpers and prompts so can you tell us which parts you did not understand so we can focus on explaining those.

These work good but will need some tooltips and animations to really help new users understand what is going on. The biggest need for help is figuring out what the right hand buttons are and how they are used. As a PG player for many years, I was able to pick them up pretty quickly, but others may find them a mystery at first.

Great start overall!
-TripleToe

I think it would be ideal to allow the user to "grab" the map by doing a click+hold and then dragging the map around.

We recently added this to the CTGW engine and I must admit it becomes "addictive" once you get used to it.

If we do change to a "left click = select, right click = action" interface (like CTGW) it would make things easier: just don't drag on top of a unit (unless you don't mind selecting it). There are no left-click events on empty or invisible hexes.

"left click = select, right click = action"

It is one of those improvements that will make the game feel better and more modern, I surely hope we switch to it in one of the next Beta`s.

If I might chime in...

TripleToe wrote:Problem 2: It would be great to have contextual options on the units themselves for common actions such as "upgrade unit", "unit details", "resupply" and "replacements". It becomes tedious to select a unit, and then mouse all the way across the screen to the right side to click a button to resupply.
SUGGESTION: It would be cool to have a right-click radial menu that appears around the selected unit that lists the most common actions.

I agree to an extent, and so do they. I'm not a fan of radial mini menus personally, but there are at least hot keys that allow for circumventing excessive mouse movement as you've described them.

Rudankort wrote:There are many hot keys in the game already, just no documentation on them yet. Wink

Here is a quick list:

Esc Undo move
E Embark/disembark
M Mount/unmount
S Supply
R Replacements
Shift+R Elite replacements
U Upgrade
Z Sleep one turn*
Shift+Z Sleep always*
Alt+N Rename
Ctrl+Click Extended combat prediction
Tab Toggle ground/air mode
N Next unit
P Purchase unit
Alt+E End turn
F Toggle fullscreen mode
L Last combat log

TripleToe wrote:Problem 3: I really hope that the reason there is no animation is because you have not gotten to it yet. This is a must-have feature. When I click a destination for a unit and it just jumps to that hex, I get lost on what has just happened, particularly if there are lots of other units is nearby hexes. The animation from start-hex to end-hex REALLY helps out. Also, when units attack, the attacker and the attackee should rotate to face each other like in PG2. This too is a must-have feature. It really brings things to life and keeps the user updated as to what is happening.

This, totally this. They haven't come outright and said they won't have units rotate to face each other, but it seems to me they do not plan to have that. For example, in the editor there's an option to align the facing of the two sides, options of facing left or right.

TripleToe wrote: Problem 5: I agree with the other posters that the casualty estimates are hard to read and understand. I'm a sports-junkie too but the enemy estimates being on the left side confused me as well. I would like to see the unit flags return to help determine which side is which.

I made a separate thread for this topic, because there are parties on both sides, and it's also something they specifically requested feedback and opinions on. You're more than welcome to join the discussion.
viewtopic.php?t=22330

Kerensky wrote:This, totally this. They haven't come outright and said they won't have units rotate to face each other, but it seems to me they do not plan to have that. For example, in the editor there's an option to align the facing of the two sides, options of facing left or right.

Indeed, I'm afraid that there are no plans currently to make PG2-like pseudo-3D units. As I said somewhere before, we consider the units more as chess pieces, not gigantic tanks which actually do realistic-looking movement and fighting.

Ah well, there you go.

However, I would hope that there are plans to add some more visual and animated aspects to the game. For example, even the original PG had little explosions appear on units that were linked to the explosion sound to inform the player where the explosion was being applied to.

With enough cues like that, more modernized though, I think people can forgive the lack of facing combat.

More modernized as in:
Different sounds for different unit types/weapon types. Explosion from 20mm unit firing different from explosion of a Jagdtiger's 128mm.
Explosion graphics are different when displayed on a light tank, heavy tank, infantry unit, airplane. Not just the same universal graphic for every single unit.
Animated start-hex and end-hex movement, not necessarily rolling wheels or walking feet(though it would be nice), but certainly not the current teleporting.
Floating damage text, or damage text displays somewhere other than the detailed log. I think PG had it at the bottom of the screen, and PG2 had it somewhere at the very top.

Yes, combat animations is something we definitely plan to add.

TripleToe wrote:
Here is where I think it needs some work:

Problem 1: Moving around the screen is VERY difficult (at least for me). I use a very large monitor (23'' with 2560x1400 resolution) and I love the fact that the maps scale very nicely in full screen mode. However, when the map is clipped, it is a pain to find the "sweet spot" near the map's edge to get it to scroll.
SUGGESTION: I think it would be ideal to allow the user to "grab" the map by doing a click+hold and then dragging the map around. To differentiate between a unit selection and map-scroll action you could use logic to select a unit only when the mouse is clicked but not held, or you could only begin scrolling when the mouse is pressed and then dragged beyond a pixel-distance threshold. Also, an overview-navigation mini-map in the corner would be a great addition!

Problem 2: It would be great to have contextual options on the units themselves for common actions such as "upgrade unit", "unit details", "resupply" and "replacements". It becomes tedious to select a unit, and then mouse all the way across the screen to the right side to click a button to resupply.
SUGGESTION: It would be cool to have a right-click radial menu that appears around the selected unit that lists the most common actions.

Problem 3: I really hope that the reason there is no animation is because you have not gotten to it yet. This is a must-have feature. When I click a destination for a unit and it just jumps to that hex, I get lost on what has just happened, particularly if there are lots of other units is nearby hexes. The animation from start-hex to end-hex REALLY helps out. Also, when units attack, the attacker and the attackee should rotate to face each other like in PG2. This too is a must-have feature. It really brings things to life and keeps the user updated as to what is happening.

Problem 4: The zooming in and out of the map is very clunky. Scrolling the mouse wheel makes the map jump back and forth between zoomed-in and zoomed-out and it is hard to select the one you want.
SUGGESTION: As far as I can tell, it appears that scrolling in either direction just toggles between the two zoomed states and continues to toggle with successive scrolls in the same direction. I think it would work better if scroll-up only zooms in and scroll-down only zooms out. (I'm using a Logitech MX1100 with a notched mouse wheel). Also, adding more than just two zoom levels would be nice rather than just jumping back and forth.

Problem 5: I agree with the other posters that the casualty estimates are hard to read and understand. I'm a sports-junkie too but the enemy estimates being on the left side confused me as well. I would like to see the unit flags return to help determine which side is which.

Problem 6: When an air unit attacks a ground unit, you cannot see how much damage the ground unit has sustained because the air unit blocks the view.

Thanks for putting together this list, this is very useful. Some quick comments.

Problem 1: dragging the map is an interesting suggestion. However, I didn't quite understand the comment about a "sweatspot". Scrolling the map is triedto the edges of the screen, so just move the mouse to one of the edges, and it will scroll in that direction. Minimap will be added, there is space reserved for it already.

Problem 2: I thought about showing some action buttons when you hover selected unit, and then you can click them to invoke the commands. Not sure it is needed in addition to hotkeys though...

Problem 4: what you say sounds more as a bug, because for me rotating in one direction does not toggle zoom level. Anyone else has the same problem? Also: do we need a zoom level between "normal" and "2 times smaller" as it is now? Making more zoom out levels might make the map too unreadable, I'm afraid. In the editor we have 33% and 25% zoom levels, and they do not look all that well to my eyes...

Problem 6: we'll definitely find a way to solve this. For now, I plan to have some number shown on the unit when it takes damage (like red "-2"), together with an explosion animation or whatever we'll come up with to indicate damage.

Rudankort wrote: Problem 1: dragging the map is an interesting suggestion. However, I didn't quite understand the comment about a "sweatspot". Scrolling the map is triedto the edges of the screen, so just move the mouse to one of the edges, and it will scroll in that direction. Minimap will be added, there is space reserved for it already.

What I was referring to by "sweet-spot" was that movement to the edge to make things scroll. In your code I am assuming that you are monitoring the mousemove event and when the x/y position of the mouse is within a given number of pixels of the border, you scroll the screen in the opposite direction of that border. That threshhold of pixels that triggers the scrolling to pretty small. When I want to scroll right, for example, I move the mouse to the right trying to "find" that edge to get the map to scroll. Half the time I mouse right past it, then I have to go back and forth trying to find that boundary to get the scrolling to happen. That is the "sweet-spot" and it basically feels like I am hunting for invisible scrollbars.

I really think that dragging the map around would be much easier, more intuitive, and most importantly, I would be in full control of the actual scroll movement. When you use a scrollbar in a common application like a web browser, you have control of the scrolling with great precision when you grasp the scrollbar. With the way the game handles scrolling, the player is at the mercy of the scrolling algorithm that is doing the scrolling for you as long as you hover the mouse over that boundary, and this is too much work for the player IMHO.

Problem 2: I thought about showing some action buttons when you hover selected unit, and then you can click them to invoke the commands. Not sure it is needed in addition to hotkeys though...

I was not aware of the hotkeys. I play mostly with the mouse so I was looking for a mouse-based solution. But hotkeys are better than nothing.

Problem 4: what you say sounds more as a bug, because for me rotating in one direction does not toggle zoom level. Anyone else has the same problem? Also: do we need a zoom level between "normal" and "2 times smaller" as it is now? Making more zoom out levels might make the map too unreadable, I'm afraid. In the editor we have 33% and 25% zoom levels, and they do not look all that well to my eyes...

It could be a bug or just a bad interaction between my mousedriver and the game. I wanted you to know the mouse I was using (Logitech MX1100) in case anyone else was using that one (or one like it) and found this to also be the case. That particular mouse has two-mode scroll wheel. It can scroll smoothly, or you can set it to use a 'notched' feel. In this 'notched' mode, when I scroll in either direction, the game map zooms in/out repeatedly. It could be that the mouse is the problem since the way Logitech has implemented the 'notched' feel could be accidentally sending + and - positions to the application (ie. it sends mousewheelup events until it hits the physical notch mechanism and then inadvertently sends a mousewheeldown event due to the sudden stopping of the wheel against the notch mechanism; just a wild guess on my part)

As for the zoom levels, I was thinking that it might be cool to have zoom levels like 200% down to 20% with 10% increments (with the 20% zoom-out sizing based on the size of the map when it is fully visible within the boundaries of the screen's viewport; effectively a fit-all view). The user would zoom through them fairly quickly but they would be able to get a maps size that works best for them rather than settling for one of the two pre-determined sizes.


TripleToe

When I want to scroll right, for example, I move the mouse to the right trying to "find" that edge to get the map to scroll. Half the time I mouse right past it, then I have to go back and forth trying to find that boundary to get the scrolling to happen.

I suppose you are using windowed mode. Makes sense to make the "sweet spot" big enough, although I tend to use arrow key scrolling in most windowed games. Keeps the mouse reserved for point & click actions.