Early impressions - can map scroll be improved?

[squatter]

One of the first thing that strikes me as a new user is wishing for better scroll functionality. With such a huge play area, scrolling around the map is pretty much the most used function of the entire game and immediately I'm wanting for ways to make this quicker and slicker...

So I've set the scroll speed in preferences to increase the speed when I push the edge of the screen with the mouse - that's good.

But:

1 - is there a way to increase the scroll speed when using the cursor keys? This is really slow by default

2 - I guess this is wish list, but it would be really great and intuitive to be able to hold left click and drag the map

As I say, scrolling around this expanse of a play area is perhaps THE primary function of the UI, any ways of making this slicker would be great

[pbrowne]

This was one of my gripes when first playing WITW. I expected to left click the map and drag. As it is, I agree that the scrolling of the map by moving the cursor to the edges is kind of clunky. I think there should be a left click to drag the map...

[VonWulfen]

+1 for click and drag [:)]

[LarryP]

Me too!

[jacktimes2]

Ditto.

[Joel Billings]

I'll have to ask Pavel if a hold left scroll and drag is possible given the engine. As for the scroll speed, sounds like you've already reduced the scroll speed to 1 in preferences right, and still too slow? One option is to click on the jump map to go where you want to go immediately. What conditions/zoom levels are you finding using the keys are a problem? With scroll speed set to 1 when I go to the edge the scrolling is often too fast for me, but I don't use the keys myself.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

I'll have to ask Pavel if a hold left scroll and drag is possible given the engine. As for the scroll speed, sounds like you've already reduced the scroll speed to 1 in preferences right, and still too slow? One option is to click on the jump map to go where you want to go immediately. What conditions/zoom levels are you finding using the keys are a problem? With scroll speed set to 1 when I go to the edge the scrolling is often too fast for me, but I don't use the keys myself.

To me it seems like the scroll speed is fine when zoomed in, but it is too slow when zoomed out. It seems like each scroll iteration is probably set up to move something like a similar amount of distance regardless of how far you are zoomed in/out? If so, it might be easier if it were set up to move the same amount of screen-size per iteration of scrolling instead.

[robinsa]

I agree that the scroll speed feels very different depending on Zoom level. Zoomed out feels way slower.

[Helpless]

Short answer is yes, it can be improved.

Long answer, it is not so easy, as on low zoom level and high res game needs to render way more tiles, which significantly slows it down. Whole map rendering process was rewritten to make it smoother and now it does batch sprite processing, so GPU is getting some load. Unfortunately, due to the old nature of DX9, it is not possible to offload rendering to GPU and lots of preprocessing needs to be done on CPU. IOW, it will never fill the same on various zoom levels. But some improvement could be done.

As for drag scrolling, technically it is possible, but it comes into conflict with existing mouse map click routines.

[squatter]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

I'll have to ask Pavel if a hold left scroll and drag is possible given the engine. As for the scroll speed, sounds like you've already reduced the scroll speed to 1 in preferences right, and still too slow? One option is to click on the jump map to go where you want to go immediately. What conditions/zoom levels are you finding using the keys are a problem? With scroll speed set to 1 when I go to the edge the scrolling is often too fast for me, but I don't use the keys myself.

Thanks - yes I've adjusted speed so map-edge mouse scroll is a good speed when zoomed in. But as others have mentioned, this speed slows to a crawl when zoomed out.

Also, adjusting scroll speed options don't seem to relate to the cursor keys, which are constantly slow. Plus, they make a constant 'clicking' sound when you hold them down, which is really unnecessary!

In sum, the wish-list is:

1 Click and drag scroll
2 Make map-edge scroll consistent across map zoom levels
3 Make keyboard scroll same speed as map-edge scroll, preferably without clicking sounds, and without judder

[timmyab]

I wonder if it's possible to have the map scroll speed set automatically according to the current zoom level. On my pc scroll speed 2 is good for the first two zoom levels and then 4, 6 and 8 as it zooms in to level 5.
Scroll speed 2 is way too fast at zoom level 5 for example.

[Searry]

I've wished since WITW that the arrow keys scroll speed could be a lot faster or adjustable. I think I got used to it in the end in WITW and forgot to complain about it during the WITE2 beta.

[Erik Rutins]

We'll look at the arrow key scroll speed as well to see what we can do.