Matrix Games Forums

Bunch of minor bugs and some suggestions for improvement of what I feel are really bad design flaws.

This is in no particular order and all off the top of my head from 2 days playing the game, so I'll probably forget some.

BUGS:

1. For starters, when I Alt-Tab out of the game it uses up way too much processor, around 30-40%. In itself that wouldn't be bad, since it isn't really noticeable, except for 1 small detail: the keyboard LAAAGS. Whatever you type, the keystrokes appear on the screen at about 1 per second. Just the subject of this post took over 10 seconds to appear. I had to wait it out, switch back to the game and actually exit it to be able to write this post. Not very important as bugs go, but still annoying.

2. The list of ships can't be ordered. For example, if I open the list of Units and see all the ships in the game, I'd like to be able to order that list, by fleet name or ship type for example.

3. When you repair a ship from a fleet, it resets to the 1st ship on that fleet. Annoying in big fleets where you need to repair multiple ships, since you need to keep scrolling to find the next one.

4. in the convoy status right after the AI turn, there's a minor bug with the scrollbar (think I seen this mentioned somewhere else): if you click on a convoy and DON'T scroll don't, then the next one you click on works fine. If you click on a convoy and DO scroll down, then the next one you click on will NOT have a scroll bar. You'll have to click it again or click another and then the one you wanted. Annoying and easy to fix.

5. This one is a bit nasty: imagine you have 1 unit adjacent to an enemy unit and another unit 1 hex away. You order the nearest unit to attack the enemy, then move the other to attack the enemy. While the 2 red attack arrows are showing and you still have the unit that moved selected, if you click on the undo move button it messes up everything: the red arrows are still there, even tho 1 of the units isn't (the one you did undo move), you can't move any unit and can't basically do anything. I always managed to get it working again without quitting the game, but am not sure exactly how, since I just started clicking on everything :p



Now for the design flaws (imo). This is actually the reason I made this post, it's really driving me crazy, especially since it was just about perfect in WW2:TOW, I can't imagine why you would change it for the worst.

1st and most annoying: the 4 panels... what the hell? Why doesn't it behave like it used to?
- If I click on an empty hex, it should show hex information automatically.
- If I click on a unit, it should show unit information automatically.
- If I start an attack on an enemy it should show the attack panel automatically.
Also, when it shows a new panel, it should hide the previous open panel automatically since they all overlap, and it doesn't bring the newly opened panel to the forefront.

I realize you need the 4 panels for all the info, but PLEASE make it more automatic, and leave the panels there so we can access the other information if we need to, but this is just maddening, especially if you're used to TOW where it worked just fine

2nd: the map colors. I realize that there's so many countries that you can't have enough easily distinguishable colors, but still, some changes need to be made: there's almost no diference between japan and the chinese nations. The only way to see who owns an hex is to click on it and.... click on the hex panel. Oh wait, now you must click on the other panel you had opened before to close it. So now you know who the hex belongs to, you must close the hex panel and open the other panel you had (most likely the unit panel. So, because the hex colors are just so hard to tell apart and the panels behave in a very unlogical way, you need 4 mouse clicks just to check hex ownership... I'm sorry, but this is bad design. And it annoys me more because it worked in TOW... it was fine, why change it?


3rd: the fonts on the units can only be read in near max zoom. You should do something like the city fonts, which get smaller as you zoom out, but past a certain zoom the font gets larger and easily read again, unless you zoom MUCH further out. The problem for me is that the only way to see if a unit has APs left is too zoom full in (or almost full), which is annoying since at close to full zoom you can see a very small part of the map. If I try to zoom out as far as possible while still being able to read the AP on the units, so as to be able to look at a larger part of the map, it kills my eyes (not as young as I used to be) and gives me a headache. So, because of this my gameplay is mostly zoming in and out. Annoying and avoidable if you make the unit fonts behave like the city fonts. As in the previous point, I didn't have this problem in TOW.


Sorry if I sounded a bit too aggressive but these 3 points are killing my will to play this game, which is otherwise amazing.

1. You know you can move those panels around and arrange them in a way that will fit your needs?

2. We will try to adjust those colors a little bit more diverse.

3. This can be done

On the mini map, there are three map selections. Using that, you can tell. Also go to preferances and you can change the color of the border.

For the panel icons, keep two or three open all the time. Move them where you want, top left or right side.

For action points, one can use the circles in place of the unit info panel.

Down load the picture icons under the Rising Sun, then when you zoom far out you can easily see what the units are by looking at the pictures.

http://www.humyo.com/10434129/SOP%20Uni ... TI5HpF3r7o


For Alt Tab, you can adjust the amount of processing power that SOP uses in preferences.

These suggestions should help you.

ORIGINAL: doomtrader
1. You know you can move those panels around and arrange them in a way that will fit your needs?

Didn't know that. Thanks, that changes things a bit.

ORIGINAL: Razz
On the mini map, there are three map selections. Using that, you can tell.

That I knew, and it doesn't really help. The color diference is minimal. Especially between Japan and all chinese factions, you just can't tell them apart by looking at the map.
Also, why is there no option to have the minimap with faction colors like in TOW? I think that was great, and really miss it here.

ORIGINAL: Razz
Also go to preferances and you can change the color of the border.

Had no problem seeing the borders, just which side of it belongs to who.

ORIGINAL: Razz
For the panel icons, keep two or three open all the time. Move them where you want, top left or right side.

That does work but there's a problem with it: the panel position doesn't get saved, so you need to set them up again everytime you restart the game (which happens a LOT, because of a bug I'll describe further down).

I realize this is how you designed the game, and you'll try to defend it's use and be reluctant to change it drastically, but have you considered docking the 4 panels in 1 single window? Using 4 tabs in a single window for the 4 panels? You could then easily automate most changes:
- clicking on an empty hex would should show hex information automatically.
- clicking on a unit, it would show unit information automatically.
- starting an attack on an enemy it would show the attack panel automatically.
I think this would be much more intuitive and easy to handle, and would also unclutter the screen. The other panels would be there, you just need to click on the appropriate tab.
Also, if people much prefer how it is now, they could undock the tabs.

ORIGINAL: Razz
For action points, one can use the circles in place of the unit info panel.
Down load the picture icons under the Rising Sun, then when you zoom far out you can easily see what the units are by looking at the pictures.
http://www.humyo.com/10434129/SOP%20Uni ... TI5HpF3r7o

Tried that and didn't like the pictures. I'd much prefer a font that can still be read if you zoom out a little bit, like the city name font that scales as you zoom.

ORIGINAL: Razz
For Alt Tab, you can adjust the amount of processing power that SOP uses in preferences.

Where exactly is that? I remember that from TOW, but can't find it anywhere here.


Finally, you replied to the 2nd part of my post, but apart from the 1st one, no mention of the 'bugs' I posted:

ORIGINAL: Harain
2. The list of ships can't be ordered. For example, if I open the list of Units and see all the ships in the game, I'd like to be able to order that list, by fleet name or ship type for example.

3. When you repair a ship from a fleet, it resets to the 1st ship on that fleet. Annoying in big fleets where you need to repair multiple ships, since you need to keep scrolling to find the next one.

4. in the convoy status right after the AI turn, there's a minor bug with the scrollbar (think I seen this mentioned somewhere else): if you click on a convoy and DON'T scroll don't, then the next one you click on works fine. If you click on a convoy and DO scroll down, then the next one you click on will NOT have a scroll bar. You'll have to click it again or click another and then the one you wanted. Annoying and easy to fix.

5. This one is a bit nasty: imagine you have 1 unit adjacent to an enemy unit and another unit 1 hex away. You order the nearest unit to attack the enemy, then move the other to attack the enemy. While the 2 red attack arrows are showing and you still have the unit that moved selected, if you click on the undo move button it messes up everything: the red arrows are still there, even tho 1 of the units isn't (the one you did undo move), you can't move any unit and can't basically do anything. I always managed to get it working again without quitting the game, but am not sure exactly how, since I just started clicking on everything :p

Would appreciate some feedback on these bugs please.


As I mentioned above, I noticed a very bad graphics bug which forces me to have to restart the game every 7 or 8 loads: basically, the background of the map is all black and all I can see is units and city/unit names and the UI. All else is black. Even the splash screen while loading will be black if I try to load a new game without quiting to desktop and restarting.
This only happens after loading a game 7 or 8 times. Doesn't feel time related, can happen in 5 minutes or in 5 hours of playing. it WILL happen after quiting to main menu and loading a game a few times (the times I counted were always 7 or 8). Feels like a memory overload


Just noticed a new bug of the annoying type: if you have a fleet with multiple carriers and are in a zone with multiple enemy bases (like the Marshall Islands for example), if you use recon from a carrier on an enemy base it will work the 1st time, but if you try to recon another enemy base WITHOUT CLOSING the fleet window, it will fail and freeze the game. Well, not exactly freeze, but you won't be able to do anything. The workaround I found is to open a window using the left menu, then close it. That will reopen the fleet window that was still there waiting for the recon to finish. Really annoying and should be easyish to fix.

Ok, that's it for now, thx in advance

EDIT: just noticed a new bug a couple of minutes after making this post so decided to add it here instead of making a new post about it:

the event for the USS Princeton for the USA is bugged: you lose the PP if you click on Comission Ship, but you don't actually receive it. Could you check it please?

EDIT 2: well, the Princeton was there a few turns later when next I checked... dunno, I was pretty sure they should appear in the ready to Deploy window after being comissioned, but I can't really remember, so, if it's supposed to not appear instantly, just ignore this.