Improve reserve box display

[squatter]

The most intuitive way to manage reserves between the theatre boxes is the on-map screen where you can see all the units available and assign them from there.

The problem is readability- which units are highest TOE etc. Currently its a swamp of numbers that don't scan. It's unreadable at a glance.

Currently it's a game of Where's Wally to locate the unit that's 100% TOE and ready to roll. Yes there's the CR but thats laborious. This screen should be the go-to for managing the SR TB box.

Could at least there be the option to sort units in this display by TOE or CV or EXP so the player can see more easily which units are ready to deploy to the map? Put the units in a hierarchy of readiness.

Also, the more you zoom in to the TBs, the more unreadable the unit displays become, just a bigger jumble of icons and numbers. Please just display the info the player needs: essentially %TOE/EXP/MOR

[Dreamslayer]

How about to divide the "ground" box by adding the "support units" box. Because atm "ground" boxes are too large.

[carlkay58]

I think it is actually intended to use the Commander's Report to do all of the maintenance in the Theater Boxes. You can sort by location (Reserves) then by type then by TOE and do a mass transfer to the MAP. All of this is possible in the CR rather than the individual Theater Boxes.

[squatter]

Thanks Carlkay. That's a shame to hear. I had perhaps got overly excited at the prospect of using a GUI that wasn't a huge list on a spreadsheet.

So what we are saying is that not only is the 'go to TB' box completely redundant, but the right click 'map info - show TB boxes' is also rendered redundant due to its number/icon salad? (The former is especially misleading and should be removed from the main GUI btw.)

So the new player who wants to get to grips with TB management first has to dodge these two red herrings thrown at him that suggest they will allow TB management, and instead somehow realise that TB management is counter-intuitively not managed by either of the options labelled TB, but rather is buried deep in the dark arts of the CR uber-spreadsheet. I mean where do the devs imagine players will expect the management of TBs to lurk, if not at the end of the options labelled 'TB'? It's painfully badly signposted.

Ok, that being so, what is the series of clicks that will allow me to choose three of the divisions below and assign them to the map?

[loki100]

well we do try to signpost the CR as the management tool for this area - 35.2.3.

so go to the TB if you want to check the garrison values or to do one or two transfers.

In fact 35.2.3 is an excellent place to answer your question [8D]

Anyway, lets take the 3 most experienced divisions?

a) select exp, set a filter to 47-49
b) that will leave you with 3 divisions
c) click on Transfer, select the map option

You could then go to the map and select a new arrival hex and maybe reframe the filter.

But that is the key, use the filters, show the batch you want to send, send them.

Sometimes that can be as simple as just all those hordes of Soviet construction units, select construction and send the lot

[squatter]

Thanks Loki. Nothing I'm moaning about here is directed at the manual btw, which as I have said elsewhere is perhaps the best written such game manual I've ever encountered. Also to say that I hope none of my carping comes across as directed at you or any of the other testers/staff that answer questions here because your support is first class. I have nothing but gratitude for the way you guys engage on here. My moans - as ever - are directed at the GUI, which so often makes the new player experience of this exceptional game so painful.

But since we're talking about the manual in this instance: The manual's advice under 4.14.1 as to how to move units between SR and map is "Ground units are moved from the reserve to the map first by accessing the reserve (either via the Commander’s Report 35.2.3 or the on-map display 13.2)"

Firstly, unless I'm wrong, 35.2.3 doesn't exist. Secondly, I think we can agree that the reader can make a reasonable assumption reading the excerpt above that the on-map display is a viable tool for the transfer of units. True - It is viable up to a point, but its made redundant by the number/icon salad as was the point of this thread in the first place. So in order for the player to discover that the 'preferred' method of TB management is the CR, he has to come on here and post to be given that information.

I don't point this out to have a dig at the manual, but to illustrate that manuals need to be supported by the GUI, as much as vice versa. This manual is a gargantuan 500 pages. With the best will in the world, not every detail will be digested or remembered. 35.2.3 is would notionally be on page 395 of 500. What players want and expect is that when they miss a detail in the manual, at least the GUI will guide them in the right directions as to what they want to achieve. In the case of TB transfer, I'm sorry but the GUI doesn't guide, it misguides.

Now coming to the CR use for reserve management. Yes I thought it would be the way you explain, and my heart sinks to think this is the 'preferred' method.

So I want to send two inf divisions from the SR to a map hex. Let's say I have 10 inf divs on 100% TOE. I go to the CR. I filter for SR. I filter for inf. I filter for 100% TOE. Now I have 10 inf divs on 100%TOE. I can't click on any of them individually to transfer (am I correct in this, if so just 'sigh'). I can't click tick boxes next to two divs, for example. Instead I have to look at the EXP or the MOR of the 10 divs and come up with a number range that will filter my search down to two units. Finally I can transfer those two units. If I had wanted a single inf div to transfer, unless I'm missing something the process would be potentially even more fiddly given that several of my 100%TOE divs may share the same EXP/MOR.

This is a lot of clicks just to fish a couple of my best divisions out of the SR. This is not a good interface. It may be the interface we have, and may be the 'preferred' interface, but it is not a good interface.

Now going back to the TB box display that was the subject of the thread. The tragedy here is that this does have the makings of a good interface, but is scuppered by a) the number/icon salad, b) the inability to sort/filter, and to a lesser extent c) the inability to select multiple units.

I genuinely wonder why there wouldn't be a desire to improve the TB box display having gone to the trouble of constructing it? Reserve management is something players do every turn. But as it stands it's basically half finished. Perhaps the desire exists but the means/resources don't? Or is the consensus that I'm talking crap? Difficult to know because the devs don't seem to engage with user suggestions.

[loki100]

2 parts to an answer. For a long time the draft manual used (000) for cross-refs so they wouldn't get missed.

late in the development we had to fill these in, we then created extra features/rules/clarification. With the best will in the world, some of the links got disrupted. Some of the playtesters spent an age double checking and we caught most of them - unfortunately some slipped through.

Now:

ORIGINAL: squatter

....

Firstly, unless I'm wrong, 35.2.3 doesn't exist. ...

Since I am often working on the Living Manual so I do tend to use that when answering questions but I think it does:

edit: spotted what you mean and you are right, for some reason the manual setting missed that particular section heading

Now I personally use the CR/TB options in a variety of ways.

If I am playing the axis I will use the CR to check if I have units to move (usually as part of my start of game turn review for low TOE formations etc), I then tend to click through to the TB display to make the move - not worth setting filters. With the Soviets post-43 I tend to something similar as the reserve becomes less a standard part of my OOB

So yes you can click on the individual unit if that is all you want to send out of a group.

With the Soviets in 41-43 I tend to use the CR as my tool of choice. I am constantly using the filters to pick up on blocks of units (both on map and in reserve) that I wish to move/re-use what ever. So there it is simply a case of pressing the transfer button when I have a batch for the map.

The point is - that is my management approach, it makes sense to me and fits around how I use the CR more widely. We offer both, the manual points you to both, I think both have situations when they are the way to go and situations when they are more trouble than they are worth?

Its not a case of seeing any comments here as 'carping', these are issues that people think should be clearer. But its sort of the reverse of the issue that sometimes comes up in the 'quick questions thread' - where its less a case of being able to answer as to how it works and more someone suggesting it should all be different. Here, some of the posts can be (at least initially and partially) answered by pointing to how it does work. If that still doesn't meet the desired outcome then it becomes a perfectly legitimate request for the (usually) UI to be reworked in a different manner.

[squatter]

Thanks Loki.

Appreciate the advice on how to manage TBs through the CR. I'm sure it will become second nature to me too as I keep playing.

I just feel its important to feedback the experience of a player picking up WitE2 for the first time. A lot of things that long term players/testers/devs have just accepted as the way they are can feel extremely unintuitive, and TB management is one of them.