QoL improvements for next patches

[imp44791]

I suspect I shouldn't be bothering, considering the reception that suggestions/bug reports tend to have had in the past, but let's assume the best. I think I echo the sentiments of at least the Steam discussion boards in some of the points below. Some are mine.

1. In Captain's mode (only), if we reload at night/bad visibility, please don't revert manual squadrons to AI control. If the human wanted them manual in the first place, perhaps they were after something. Don't force us to click every bleeding squadron to untick the AI box/replot courses/reset speed. Easy thing to program: IF (Captain's Mode) AND (squadron human controlled) THEN (leave well alone). Please?

2. Speaking of mid-battle reload: can you PLEASE save the grid of detections for all players (human and AI) together with the rest of the information you do? It's absurd to reload only to find that the ships you had perfectly sighted before you needed to go to sleep/eat/visit the loo are now invisible or unidentified.

3. Really revisit some event probabilities. I've mentioned the high probability of "turret jammed" effects in battles, but I don't want to revert to that. The absurd frequency of budget cut events is perhaps the #1 complaint in the Steam forum, however. I get it that the whims of politicians are part of the gameplay, but it is incredibly tedious to have them occur so frequently and often serially. This can be easily fixed, I think. One easy way is tone down the probability of events where the player has no power over: the random "With tensions low, the Diet/Parliament/Duma cuts spending" one basically. To compensate, tone UP the probability of events where the player at least has some choice to trade prestige for saving money, and for events that are linked to unrest - at least that one isn't random, people are unhappy so politicians cut spending to humour them. Make this something where the player has some limited agency, not just a lightning strike that hits randomly and incentivises save scumming. Another easy way to limit the frustration is have a flag: If and unavoidable budget cut event hits, flip a flag not to rerun it for 12-24, or (better) 24-36 months. Even the silliest politicians don't adjust state budgets every month (and often not even every year for defence). Battleship scares too, though these seem to be rarer.

4. Speaking of events more generally. Some events are not properly thought out in the tradeoffs that are presented to the player. My favourite example is the Chinese/Balkan upheaval where the three options given are: a little tension, medium tension, or a lot of tension. All choices pointing to the same direction. Players should be given some genuinely hard choices, not just moan/rejoice when an pops up event that (in this case) only gives tension. What's the point of giving choice then? I'm not saying to make the game easier or tougher, just give players more agency. The funny thing is that quite a few events are properly balanced with tradeoffs etc.

5. Officer retirements/replacements. I have read the post with the rationale about the autoreplacing algorithm. Fine with that, but you should allow people the option to micromanage without wanting to cut their veins in frustration. The easy and realistic way is to gather all promotion/retirements into ONE MONTH PER YEAR. In real niavies (and indeed most large businesses), people don't just get randomly bumped up or retire any time they wish. There is a time where officers are reviewed, transferred, promotions awarded, and retirements allowed (or indeed, imposed). There are ceremonies for handing over units/ships, you just don't do those randomly at the drop of the hat just because someone was offered a job at the private sector or was promoted. Pick a month every year and make it officer mobility month. Keep cases of vacancies appearing randomly through people dropping dead of course, but handle it with a pop-up like the existing cases when officers get into woman trouble/shoot each other/strain the engines/etc. Pop out a window saying that "the commander of ship X has unexpectedly kicked the bucket. Do you want (A) to search a replacement yourself, (B) assign the next most senior unassigned officer (automatically)? Then if you want to be really nice with players, for the retirement/promotion month you can have a table with all the openings (so, all ship, area and division vacancies) TOGETHER. Right now when there is an opening at division level but you are monitoring the ship list, the way you learn about it is through the error message (or the other way round). Same thing with area vacancies. Put all vacancies in one place and don't make people search for them,

6. Improve the incredibly tedious "defend coastal raid" battles. Right now the player gets one strategy: point somewhere random and hope to bump into the enemy. If you have enough squadrons, point to more than one random directions otherwise tough cookies. Not really strategic. Perhaps spice it up a bit by providing some intelligence, perhaps linked to the quality of the region admiral to reflect the efficiency of the reconnaissance network (down to coastwatchers). Also link to the spy budget vs the opponent. If a player has a crappy/unlucky admiral and/or insufficient intelligence investment, then the roll of getting useful information is really penalised and he either gets no intelligence, or even misleading one. Make the report a simple one liner: "our information points to the possibility of the enemy coming against port X/from the NE".

OK, enough. Let's hope I'm not just waving my fist at clouds and that someone at least considers the deeper motivations of these suggestions. I do like the game, but I do not always like the attitude of the developers.

[EvanJones]

Extremely Helpful Easy Fix:

Allow the history tab for prestige/battles to scroll.

It is very important to be able to track the ups and downs. And with prestige flatlining at 70, that becomes impossible by 1920. Even the battles are eventually pushed off the chart.

P.S., for the coastal raids, go to the OB chart and click on all the merchants they assign you. It gives you at least a general idea of their locations. That tells you what area you need to patrol and makes it far more likely you will intercept. Just heading off in the original direction will (likely) take you out of that area.