III (interface improvement ideas)

[Chorus]

I am a Heroes player with red/green color blindness, so here're my suggestions:

When the player holds the cursor over an object, a text bubble pops up. Can you guys modify the text bubble so that when a player holds the cursor over a flagged map object, it tells who the owner is?

For example, if I hold the cursor over an AI saw mill, it'll read, "Sawmill: owned by green player." That'd make my life a whole lot easier.

Also, I take it the theives guild screen can't be similarly modified to show which player's info I'm viewing.

[eekstah]

Interesting choise of avatar then, Chorus (no offense).

I'm sure I've seen this "owned by [color] player" thing in some previous HoMM. When did that actually disappear?


I just wanted to ask if it's possible to make it so that you can watch a ongoing combat between a ally and an enemy, espeacially in multiplayer.

[Dalai]

I split two posts above to create a new topic where you can post your ideas on interface improvement.

Although improving interface has nothing to do with game balancing, we think interface is way too important to ignore. Interface in strategy game is like weapon in first-person-shooter game.

I'll search old forums and repost some of great ideas from there.

2 Chorus
Yes, it can be done. Your request is not the only one of this kind.

[theGryphon]

Hey Dalai,
Is it possible to get rid of the window after collecting resources. A short indicator that would vanish itself would be very nice. You know where this comes from , but it doesn't have to be fancy at all. It could be a text-only thing saying e.g. "You find 5 gems!", and it doesn't have to appear "on the spot". If you can add a console-type stationary text area that's fine for me

Edit: Btw, the window after collecting artifacts may stay IMO. It's not that annoying.

[okrane]

Heroes 5 has some really nice interface improvements. What I would really like to see the number of kills a unit can do.... if it can be done... when placing your cursor on a stack you can attack, the damage and kills appear on a pop-up...

[Dalai]

I'm reposting Artighel's ideas from old forum for you to discuss:

Now let's talk about mouse wheel support and buttons improvements.

Mouse wheel and wheel button support

Actually the game doesn't support mouse wheel. But now 99% of people have a mouse equipped with a wheel. Because the game uses a lot of lifts and sliders, mouse wheel support would bring a new interface comfort to the player.
Here are a suggestion to usefully support it.

If the mouve is located in a contextual zone of the screen and the wheel is used, then we can control the lift/slider.

Examples :
- main game screen
mouse on towns list = scroll the towns list (if slider is present...)
mouse anywhere except on towns list = scroll the heroes list
- army dialog
mouse anywhere on the screen = scroll the inventory
- spell book
mouse anywhere on the screen = cycle pages
- mage guild
mouse anywhere on the screen = scroll the spells
- split units dialog
mouse anywhere on the screen = move the slider (can be VERY usefull to quickly split units to the wished ratio)
- recruit dialogs
mouse anywhere on the screen = move the slider (can be VERY usefull to quickly set to number of creature to purchase)
- armory
mouse on a particular object (object is highlighted) = change the number of such objects to buy
- etc.

Now we can also efficienly use the mouse wheel button (middle button).
For each situation where we can use the wheel to scroll a slider, one first click on the middle button put the slider to the maximum (end of list for a list; maximum possible value for a numeric slider). One other click on the middle button put the slider to the minimum (start of list for a list ; minimum value for a numeric slider). We could cycle between minimum or maximum with a single click. The benefits of such a feature is obvious. For instance, when we want to recruit every creature in a recruit dialog (this action is done VERY often when playing H4), just a middle button click is needed, before accepting the purchase.


Mouse buttons improvements

Just a little suggestion here. When we click-and-hold the left button on the adventure map, it is possible to scroll the map which is usefull for some players. But the annoying thing is : the selected hero path is displayed. So it sometimes happens we move our hero without wanting to do that (because we click on the green hero path, by mistake).

So the request is : is it possible to use the right button instead of the left one to scroll the map ? If it's technically possible to not display the help-texts when HOLDING the right button, it would be perfect. A alternate solution could be to keep the left button, but to deactivate the "hero path display" when HOLDING the left button (holding means keeping clicked during more than 1 second for instance).


_________________________________

Now after a short discussion with Dalai, I've got ideas to improve splitting units system.

Easy splitting units

Here again, middle (wheel) button could be used to slip units more easily.

From army dialog screen

Just drag and drop a units stack USING MIDDLE BUTTON from one slot to another slot, to make appear the splitting screen.
It would be an alternate (and simpler) way to current SHIFT + left button drag-&-drop method. Obviously we have to keep SHIFT + left button method ;-)

From currently selected army display (bottom right of main screen)

Just drag a units stack USING MIDDLE BUTTON from one slot to the ADVENTURE MAP area, to make appear the splitting screen.
After choosing the correct number (or not, to have only one creature) and validating, a NEW ARMY is created on the map, containing the wished number of creatures placed on slot 1.
Could be very usefull to create spy-armies on the map, or to detach one powerfull hero from its army before a battle he can win on his own. These single stack detaching operations occurs quite often when playing H4, forcing the player to use the army dialog screen, which is quite painfull.
To finish, this drag on drop method could be done with SHIFT + Left button too, as the usual technic.

[theLuckyDragon]

The mouse-wheel would be extremely useful in scrolling long text messages. Is it possible?

[theGryphon]

I loved the mouse-wheel-in-action idea! On top of those suggestions what about:

- Enabling the mouse-wheel-tilt function as well, as an alternative to mouse-scroll.
- Using click-and-hold-both-buttons to scroll the map.
- Using left+right buttons for shift+left. This helps those users without a middle button.
- Making a UI to choose enabled actions.

[TheUndeadKing]

Q: Could the mouse wheel be used to scroll up/down while in the map selection screen?

(This is just a trivial request. If it's something hard to implement, then don't bother with it.)

[Chorus]

Mouse Scrolling is a good idea, and it should be implemented in all the circumstances Dalai noted.

Also, could the text bubble pop up and give info on border gates, specifically their color and whether the player has visited the appropriate tent.

Thirdly, there's a bug with quest gates. Whenever the quest requires the player to produce a certain number of items (e.g. 3 potions of acid), only one of those items is sufficient to open the gate. Can this be corrected?

One more thing, can the inventory screen be streamlined so potions can stack up. Dealing with pages of potions is a real pain.

[Crusard]

Thirdly, there's a bug with quest gates. Whenever the quest requires the player to produce a certain number of items (e.g. 3 potions of acid), only one of those items is sufficient to open the gate. Can this be corrected?

One more thing, can the inventory screen be streamlined so potions can stack up. Dealing with pages of potions is a real pain.

Quest objects demanding multiple objects can be done via simple scriptwork (just take one, and check for the next, if they don't have it, return what was taken, etc.).

Though it would be nice to see stackable items, I think this has been mentioned before...

[Aqarius]

As long as we're talking about mouse wheel utilization, can you jam it into the Map Editor somehow? I got used to everything by now, bit it would still be easier to roll instead of pulling slidebars.

[Chorus]

I'm tired of flipping through potions in the spellbook, can those be...uncluttered?

[eekstah]

I'm tired of flipping through potions in the spellbook, can those be...uncluttered?

Yeah, I agree. They're all available in the "potions" tab anyways, so they could be removed from the regular view.

[okrane]

I believe this has been asked before, but what about replays of HOMM games.

I realise recording the entire developement on the adventure map is impossible but I was thinking at least about an option that would allow you to record the final battle for example.

Maybe in an .avi format or something like that, that you would turn on before the battle starts... or I don't know...

EDIT: come to think of it, heroes 3 had a nice option about replaying the last turn. I am not sure if H4 has it, but if so, if all those turns recorded were to be saved someplace, it would make a good substitute for a replay of a match.

[Black Ghost]

In H4 there's option to replay turn but only adv. map moves.

IMO your proposal to save battle replays is very good.
As for format I'd prefere not .avi, because converting extracted standard intro made it 1GB size And some battles are sure longer.

Let's wait what Eq Team will say.

[Dalai]

Let's wait what Eq Team will say.

Replay introduction is not even planned. Good idea, but too complex to implement.

[okrane]

[okrane]

Got another small interface option improvement...

When in the adventure map screen, if at a higher resolution, in the bottom left corner of the screen you can see the army you're having and you can change the position of different creatures.

The addition I am suggesting is: make it possible to split armies from that screen. I mean, when holding SHIFT and dragging a creature onto an empty slot you should get the split army dialog. This would be useful especially for the 1 creature stack abuses and would save a lot of time by not having to enter the army screen every time you wanna do this.

EDIT: no need... it actually works in the game