saddened by poor interface

[Mike Scholl]

A game with this much scope, at this level of detail, crys out for an interface that
is as simple and intuitive as possible so that players can concentrate on learning
the tactics and strategy rather than spend days trying to get used to the interface.
Unfortunately, the best that can be said for WITP"s is that it isn't as bad as some
earlier efforts, and if you finally got the hang of clicking your way through the
earlier ones you have a "leg up" on learning this one. That doesn't make it good;
just less bad.

A perfect example of "kludge" is the "pop-up" control screens. Click on a base and
you bring up a lot of information concerning it..., but the "pop-up" blots out the area
of the screen containing the base and everything around it. Now you can control it,
but you can't see it! A small annoyance..., but repeated 10,000 times it is irritating.
Almost all of the interface's problems would be acceptable if only needed a few times
during a game..., but when you need to access them dozens of times every turn it's
"kludge". And having made the screen big enough to blot out the base and it's im-
mediate area, why not make it larger still and include more specific action choices
on the same screen (or even just make it easier to read for the 1,000th time?)?

[MadDawg]

ORIGINAL: myros

The things you mention are features not interface ... and sadly they are missing features

Actually no, they arent [:)]. If you study interface design you learn its not just about how the screen looks and reacts to the user, but its also about how the program delivers important information to the user and how easily the user can find the info when they need it. The information I mentioned is not just hard to find, its impossible.

The ship targetting thing is kinda a feature I must admit, but you can already target LR CAP onto a task force so it seems inconsistant that you cant actually tell air groups which one to attack.

You can see aircraft losses total for today or since the start on the "i" screen.

Yup, but if I have 10 squadrons flying nells then that information is useless with regards to an individual squadron.

For instance thi info could be provided as a second page for a land or air unit in their info screen that simply lists their combat report minus the heavy FOW for you side (as both players see the same movie playback). You click on your Nell squadron, click on their combat report and you see a report from each battle they had over the last 24 hours. You have a list of how many were lost by Air to Air and Flak, and what they attacked and hit. It doesnt need to be 100% accurate, but most commanders can count the amount of planes that didnt return without too much trouble. [:)]

Dawg

[siRkid]

There is a wish list pinned at the top. Specific recommendations on how to improve the interface will be looked at.

[Grotius]

Nihilimus, a few suggestions on things you may have overlooked:

If I open the menu to list all task forces, I can click on a task force, get its info but am not immediately taken to that portion of the map. Even if I did, I could see what was behind the menu without closing it.

If you click on the *coordinates* on the right side of the List-All-TF screen, you will be taken to the location of that TF. If instead you click on the TF number on the left of the List-All screen, you'll get more info on the TF itself. I like having both these options, and I hope this isn't changed. Yes, it might be nice to be able to minimize the See-All screen once you're taken to the TF in question, but in general I like the fact that it stays open.

Watching the battles is hokey to say the least – and time consuming. So I turn that off but have no visual way to go back and view where the battles occurred or with a quick click get a summary.

Hmm? If you hit ESC, you'll skip the visual and get to a combat summary report. Perhaps you have the reports turned off?

Also, for important battles, I find the air-to-air and air-to-naval and ship-to-ship battles quite fun to watch. Yes, I skip the routine stuff sometimes. My pet peeve is the ground combat battles, which seem to go on forever.

Why can’t a find arrival dates of aircraft in the database?

You can find these dates in the Replacement Pool screen, I think. And you can sort by date in that same screen. You can also sort by type here. I use this more than the database.

I must continually scan where they placed the “exit” button. Sometimes in the lower right. Sometimes on the top. Who knows? I’ll get used to that after awhile, but it is still power design.

I hadn't even noticed. I use ESC a lot. It always works.

I do have a few minor complaints about the interface myself, but none of the things you've mentioned bother me except the absence of a keyboard way to go through each TF. (There is a mouse way to go thru each base, but I never use it; I would use a keyboard method though.) I'd also like an option to make a base both my home port and destination hex; currently you can do that only with a major base like San Francisco. But I'm so busy having fun with this game that none of this really matters much to me. Maybe I'm also spoiled because it's such a big improvement in UI over UV and Pacwar.

[mogami]

Hi, It might be because I came from UV and have been using the interface for over 2 years but I've never had a problem in putting orders or finding what I wanted and compared to UV there have been many improvements making it easier. (I have a hard time playing UV now because I've been spoiled by WITP)
It takes a while to learn them all but there are many time savers. Almost every complaint I've read in this thread will go away once you learn the system.

I call up all land based air. Sort by type and then using that menu go down the line changing airgroups. I don't have to move from base to base. (you can sort the groups by base after you've selected the class (Fighter-Fighterbomber etc) sorted by model. You can find every thing in the same manner.

Actual loses suffered by particular units are not given. But if you assign a group of 27 Betties to a mission and next turn there are 24 left....... (Do you not look at airgroups that have been in combat the preceeding turn before deciding their current orders?) I suppose it will be easy for them (Mike Wood) to add this if enough people think it important and enough room can be found on the already crowded screen. (maybe there is a smaller font he can use)

[dinsdale]

Well if it's not 1995 does the UI utilize the mouse wheel? right clicking? configurable hotkeys? configurable macros? multiple pop-ups? re-positionable/re-sizable pop-ups? all information within 2 or preferably 1 screen of the main display? How about a custimizable menus and toolbars? resizable pop-ups, pop up position and size memory? Can different parts of the interface be moved, resized and anchored/unanchored? Does the interface do everything necessary to allow a player to feel comfortable and customize it for his benefit and intuitiveness?

[BartM]

1 ) make the group window transparent ie, when you click on a TF and the window comes up, clear that up like you do when you hover your mouse over a base.

2) loose the text reports. they're cute, but serve no real purpose other then bragging rights. If you want to make reports about combat, make them clickable so you can go to the hex the action took place. (this is for MANY of the "reports")... Coastwatchers, well, isn't a point really to even have that animation, or that turn, simply turn on TF's that are sighted, and skip the delay in turn. (again, I refer to PAC and the small black circles, which were easy to see, and a glance and a left click, brought up the entire battle be it land, sea or air). I really do mean please drop those silly text printouts... the so called AAR's really do nothing IN game. you have to left click on the map to get a hex number, then go from there (reguardless how long you play this game) it will be a pain to even bother looking up battles.

Signat, combat, coastwatchers, everything... really no need to have them visually in the game, since there is no real way to go to that area without drudging through the map. And would really cut down the turns.

3) in-game help. is none. should be. a simple F1 keystroke to give basic commands is very easy to add.

4) Loading costs. if your troops require loading cost of 17,832 APs, and you use 20,000 AP points, you EXPECT to load that group. not sit and calculate supply load, troop load and so forth. (too much detail is an over-kill). Loading troops in small groups of TFs, then having to go back and regroup those TF's into a main TF just to get the troops loaded is kinda silly. and very time consuming.

5) remove the auto-regrouping of AIR. the computer places parts of the Air Group in the weirdest places trying to get to the main group. If your smart enough to split up an air group, your smart enough to place them back together again (this leads into the next one)

6) LOCATE SHIP, LOCATE AIR GROUP, yadda yadda those simple buttons on top giving you a complete list of items, really is TOO simple (too simple is an under-kill) again refering back to PAC, locate what, CV's, ok list all CV's I own, ok, left click takes me to the CV I want to look at AT the dock it's at, or the sea hex it's currently in. (K.I.S.S.... keep it simple...) did I mention too simple is as bad ?

there is much much more, and I really am trying to make lite of some of these, but really if your expecting people to sit and play for hours at a time, then you need to offer SOME help, instead of just simply landing the entire Pacific war in their lap and say, "good luck".

[Mr.Frag]

Well if it's not 1995 does the UI utilize the mouse wheel? right clicking? configurable hotkeys? configurable macros? multiple pop-ups? re-positionable/re-sizable pop-ups? all information within 2 or preferably 1 screen of the main display? How about a custimizable menus and toolbars? resizable pop-ups, pop up position and size memory? Can different parts of the interface be moved, resized and anchored/unanchored? Does the interface do everything necessary to allow a player to feel comfortable and customize it for his benefit and intuitiveness?

I suppose they could have completely scrapped the UV UI and started from scratch with something more modern, but juding by the market segment, that would have ruled out about 80% of their customer base is is really not something you want to do with a specialty product. The footprint for this game with a Windows type GUI would kill them game completely from a performance standpoint. A lot of folks are borderline right now.

I've yet to see anyone post anything that would actually be a benefit to making the game easier to use. All click-spots let you jump around the map are record speed now. There are a few sort filter views that are not working quite right at the moment, but those are bugs, not lack of UI.

[MadDawg]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Actual loses suffered by particular units are not given. But if you assign a group of 27 Betties to a mission and next turn there are 24 left....... (Do you not look at airgroups that have been in combat the preceeding turn before deciding their current orders?) I suppose it will be easy for them (Mike Wood) to add this if enough people think it important and enough room can be found on the already crowded screen. (maybe there is a smaller font he can use)

Yup, you could do that, but the point is that the user inferface should display this critial information without me trying to remember what the value was of my 1000's of air and land groups from the previous turn (something you wont always check if they ar on naval attack).

Sure, I can take a guess at what it was previously, but seriously, *surely* something as important as actual ground losses or air losses in a battle should be recoded somewhere, shouldnt they? If it cant fit on the screen, add a second page as I suggest above or think of something else (I think we all know that there have been plenty of complaints about the font already).

Being able to have a land battle somewhere and examine each of your units losses the turn after seems critical in order to judge how your troops are performing in the battlefield and thus work out if they need more troops, more supplies, more artillery, air support, etc. Currently you are forced to guess at their performace by using your enemies FOW's battle reports which can vary wildly. If Im wrong, please correct me.

Guy, Im not trying to be a pain in the butt, I think that this game has a lot of potential and Im just trying to help. [:)] For a game of this price and scale though, I really expected some more polish than UV had. Having to guess at all of this critical info is something is expect from an RTS where I can just build more units, not a wargame where it is actually important. I am concerned that such things as those mentioned here are being swept under the carpet as unimportant as it really does hinder play at the moment.

Dawg

[FirstPappy]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

I've yet to see anyone post anything that would actually be a benefit to making the game easier to use

Well how about this suggestion:
A convoy screen with pull down menus and "fill-in-the-blanks" that lets you assign a "supply/resource/fuel/oil" convoy route between any two bases on the map. It would include capacity, escort, where to draw the empty AKs & TRs from, continous, one-time, etc., etc.

[Tactics]

The "no scroll wheel thing" is a major pain. You can only be zoomed all the way in or have a gigantic view of the entire Pacific. I agree with Dinsdale on many of this points. I dont know if I would wish my $80 back, but I am dissapointed with the UI. And yes, I did play UV.

[shoevarek]

How can I find my *true* battle losses for a battle? As both sides have fog or war applied to them during the turn playback I am left guessing as to what really happened with regards to my own troops, how many I lost, etc. I think the player needs to know an accurate account of the battle from his perspective.

Yes, I never could understand this one - it seems as if military guys could not count their own losses. After a while you just divide the numbers by 2 or 3. It is probably more like oversight or bad design decission - it should require small amount of programmers' job to change it.

All in all i think they improved the UI a little bit compared with UV, although there are still some problems with base screens (like showing the units from previously seen base in spite of selecting the new one), encyclopedia (you always have to scroll the list after seeing a unit info - it does not remember current selection) and others. There are probably too many pop up windows - especially when choosing TF destination. Pop up menus would be nice addition.

Other UI things that could be changed:
1) Resource/Production screens - no filtering/sorting of any kind
2) Aircraft Losses screen - try to seperate Japanese or US losses - same thing no filtering/sorting.
3) Aircraft Replacement Pool screen - would be probably nice to keep R/D and Current Production separately or again be able to filter/sort.
4) Ship Availability screen - sort by ship class name would be good addition.
4) Ship Information screen - it is done somehow inconsistently - sometimes the AA, ASW and ship class values are displayed sometimes not (ea in encyclopedia, through Ship Availability screen etc).
5) Ship Encyclopedia - it would be nice to display base ship armament and ugrades in a single screen (scrollable??) instead of listing virtual ship classes for every upgrade. Sorting would be nice also.
6) Combat Report screen - maybe breakdown into naval, air and ground - sometimes it gets huge and is difficult to look through.
7) OP Report screen - I don't know what is the purpose of this. Allies have ULTRA so at least they can get meaningfull messages. For Japanese, sighting report: Allied ships at 113, 49 Moving... has no value because there are no hyperlinks to the sighted TF. Moreover there are reports about what allied recons saw that clutter the screen.
8) SigInt screen - see 7.
9) Active Ships List creen - info about ship class should be there. Lets say i want to find out all ships from some class to prevent them from being upgraded. How can i do that?

All things mentioned above should be fairly easy to implement (as they are actually implemented in some screens). The most important would be hyperlinks from all the Report screens. When the location is a base, there should be possibility to go to that base info screen - now by pressing this it just sets this location as current one and shows it for a split of the second. Just making the UI more consistent would improve the feel.

As for the game play I would like to see following things:
1) Way points for the TF - human and AI managed.
2) Target selection for air groups (like merchant, career force, surface force) - range selection is nice but it does not prevent AI from attacking unimportant targets with too many planes. It is one more thing the player would need to remeber about but I don't have a hope AI will be improved to the extend that would solve that problem. Of course when career TF is in the range it should take all the attention - defence of the mother TF should be primary target. But for example for the Japan it would make a difference in the later stages of war - attack naval military ships (suicidal with Japanese planes) or merchant convoy?? It would just enable player to choose its own strategy.
3) We have something called airball for bases. Would it be possible to assign that value to the hexes rather than bases? AI screws things when it comes to escort assignments. Near PH my TF launched two air strikes - one against some merchant TF - this got huge escort, and the other against few ships in PH hex. 30 planes were sent without single escort and were killed by few Allied planes. It should be modified somehow - for example when TF is attacked only CAP and TF AA is counted to the airball etc. So the actual airball value would change between mission types and depending on that AI would make the decission about escort assignments. The actual strike force size would have secondary weight in the decission.
4) What is the upgrade path for? I should say why do we have it at all? Player has the controll over the production and R&D. Why can't he choose the planes for airgroups freely? Now I don't have the means to streamline the production - Ki61, Ki45, Ki84, Ki100, many strange recon planes and so on. Constraints such as naval and army planes seems enough to me.
5) True free ship production. It would be nice to have the possibility of adding new ships to the production que. I need more escorts of some type? If the design (its armament) was available I should be able to order additional ships. All I need is the required resources and production capacity.
6) Generally, game should avoid taking into account historic statistics values - if the player is doing great as Japanese he should not be penalized as historic statistics have nothing to do with his current situation. The pilot training levels is the example - lets say I care about the pilots and prevent excessive losses. Now it does not matter at all - you get crapy pilots no matter what. Maybe something like pilot instructor pool would be a solution. I think someone proposed this earlier - send experienced pilots to the pool (they can even loose some exp points as not beeing engaged in active combat duty) but in return get some training points and get fresh pilots with improved exp values.

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag
I suppose they could have completely scrapped the UV UI and started from scratch with something more modern, but juding by the market segment, that would have ruled out about 80% of their customer base is is really not something you want to do with a specialty product. The footprint for this game with a Windows type GUI would kill them game completely from a performance standpoint. A lot of folks are borderline right now.

Those interface conventions are not monopolies of a windows GUI though. Further, obviously you'd know better than me, but isn't performance hit most during AI and turn processing? It would seem to me that manipulating the UI is the period with the smallest resource footprint so enhancements in that area would not affect performance.

I've yet to see anyone post anything that would actually be a benefit to making the game easier to use.

Well, I'd say you're probably not the best person to judge anymore You've had UV and playtested WiTP, the game is second nature to you now so that you are completely immersed in the present control system. When one has such experience with a UI then it becomes very difficult to find fault with it.

[Arnir]

I must admit that I don't understand why the simple act of saving the game is such a clickfest. Click on the slot for the slave. The click on the save name and type in the name you want to use. Then click on the actual save button.

Most games I've played let you simply click where you want it saved, a box opens for you to type the name and then it is saved. Seems much simpler to me.

[MadDawg]

ORIGINAL: dinsdale

Those interface conventions are not monopolies of a windows GUI though. Further, obviously you'd know better than me, but isn't performance hit most during AI and turn processing? It would seem to me that manipulating the UI is the period with the smallest resource footprint so enhancements in that area would not affect performance.

Yup, basically if windows can runs fine on your system then any well coded 2D game should run just well (Ive run Rise of Nations, an RTS, on an old Celeron laptop with no problems at all). [:)] Calculating the AI is a different matter, but not one that is being discussed here.

Dawg

[MadDawg]

Shoevarek, some great suggestions there....have you added them to the wish list?

Dawg

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: nihilimus

My biggest concern when buying this game was whether the gaming interface would be cumbersome or intuitive. Unfortunately, it is the former.

Much like its difficult-to-use web site (with various popup windows, hidden and moving scroll bars, links to pages without content), Matrix Games has a game design that leaves much to be desired.

Before I get further into that criticism, I want to say that even with the shortcomings, the game is admirable in scope and depth. However, playability is hampered due to the frustrating and poorly implemented user interface.

A few notes:

· Why can’t a find arrival dates of aircraft in the database? Why doesn’t sorting by type work? (And various other issues here).
· Watching the battles is hokey to say the least – and time consuming. So I turn that off but have no visual way to go back and view where the battles occurred or with a quick click get a summary. Instead, I must be satisfied with a text display that gives me coordinates… Yet, there is no way to hover over the map and determine ones coordinates.
· Stepping through task forces is a pain. I can only “next task force” within a hex. If I open the menu to list all task forces, I can click on a task force, get its info but am not immediately taken to that portion of the map. Even if I did, I could see what was behind the menu without closing it. Same is true for airfields and air groups.
· Where can I find battle losses?
· I must continually scan where they placed the “exit” button. Sometimes in the lower right. Sometimes on the top. Who knows? I’ll get used to that after awhile, but it is still power design.

I’m sure I’ll find more to criticize after playing longer, but a poor UI is the death knell of game – or any software. I feel that those of us starved enough for a quality game with all of its historical glory will deal with these limitations, but I truly wish Matrix would work harder to get it right.

I have similar fears for other upcoming games that I’m eager for from a gaming perspective.

Been playing this game now for about a month, and I have to say, this is a GLARING weakness. Overall, I love the depth, and complexity and the combat resolution and attention to historical detail is excellent. But the UI, frankly SUCKS. I will NEVER understand why game developers refuse to adhere to standard WIN32 user interface standards. They continually insist on "rolling their own" when it comes to UI's and it never ceases to amazing how completely and utterly short sighted that is.

Just give us a standard Windows UI. What is so damned hard about that???? Dialog boxes with universal standard checklist style listboxes, combo boxes, pushbuttons, etc.... Sometimes I think the programers have never coded a Windows interface in their programming lives.

But inspite of the UI, this game is very good. Sadly, it could have been even better with standard, intuitive, Windows UI.

Hint, to the programmers......take a look at the wxWidgets toolkit. It works, it's easy to use. But it's C++, a seemingly forbidden ground for guys stuck in procedural antiquity....

[Marc von Martial]

Much like its difficult-to-use web site (with various popup windows, hidden and moving scroll bars, links to pages without content), Matrix Games

Care to elaborate? Where are the "various" popups? Where are "hidden" scroll bars? What are "moving" scroll bars ??? Which pages are without content? If you find a broken link then please report it to the webmaster.

[moonraker65]

ORIGINAL: Banquet

I must admit the interface isn't great in a lot of respects but it's not THAT bad!

I totally understand nihilimus's views - the exit button being placed in a different location on every screen is especially annoying - but it certainly isn't so bad as to ruin the game.

The worst interface I can think of is Harpoon III. That took me a while to get the hang of and still niggles me.. but sometimes u just gotta get used to something to find the gem of a game underneath. Working in government the computer interface I use at work often infuriates me.. I wouldn't be surprised if people working in the armed forces feel the same about their software.

It's a shame that sometimes the most infantile games have the best interface while the most complex have the worst.. one of life's paradox's.. but don't be put off WiTP because of that..

And this is a Gem of a Game without doubt. I do compare it with PacWar in some respects but this a much deeper game in many ways. You get used to the interface over time and it's not so bad. And as with so many games this will be improved over time I suspect. Having now played WitP for the past fortnight I can honestly say it was well worth the money. Well done Matrix & 2x3

[le Jason]

I have just the same problems with the interface, as nihilimus describes it:
I like the game as well, but I think that I can expect a userfriendly interface for a game/software worth 66 EURs/75 $.

My biggest concern is, that I have to browse through three different tables in order to get necessary information for deciding which aircraft I should produce/ research.

I need I button in the Unit detail window, which enables me to browse through all taskforce, ground units, bases, aircraft units and production plants (aircraft, engine, ...).

Then I like to have a shortcut/ key for the "done" and the "exit". These buttons are really hard to hit. So a key could solve the problem.

These Improvements would WITP life much easier !