Tinan
Veteran
Sorry for the long title but this is kind of a specific request for enchancement.
The situation is this:
1) I'm at one end of the map. I have maybe five troops with me, and they're armed with water pistols.
2) I wish to traverse to the other end of the map. This is some distance away.
3) I am fully aware that the pathfinding algorithm used by the game is a good thing (TM). Therefore, ideally I should like to click on my destination, to move there via the best route. If I should decide to make stop-offs, and/or evade enemies along the way (which is absolutely vital, please refer to point 1 above), I would like to do that on an ad hoc basis - but I'd like the computer/game to work out my basic trajectory for me.
4) So, having scrolled all the way down to my target destination, I click. However, for a good amount of time while I am moving (that's the important bit, while I am moving), I am completely unaware of my own surroundings, because the albeit very nice scrolling back to myself on screen takes a good few seconds to actually arrive at my position.
5) During this time, I find that I have been ambushed by some twenty mountain bandits, against whom I face certain capture. This would not normally have happened, given that I have adequate pathfinding and spotting skills to be able to evade them indefinitely.
In other words, I'm losing not through my own fault or even game mechanics, but because of an unwanted effect of the GUI.
Proposed Solution:
Keep the scrolling effect. It's very nice and is far preferable to nasty jolts around the map. However, either:
a) Add a confirmation dialogue saying "click to confirm move" or similar when the player is out of screen. This allows the player to wait until he can see himself before commencing travel.
b) In addition to the "show on map" option in the locations menu via the quest tab, add a "go here" option. This would call the equivalent function that is currently used when clicking on the location's icon on the map.
Caveats: Yes, I know I could put in a tiny bit of effort as a player and work out my own damn route. That's not the point. The point is that the GUI currently offers functionality that turns out to be potentially (and, in my opinion, unjustly) suicidal, especially at early stages of the game, which is where, let's face it, newbies start out. It's like a double-whammy of gotcha, and is probably not good for the player's enjoyment.
Now that the map is huge, which is great, I can't help but feel that this is an issue that wants to be addressed and is one, I hope, which is reasonably easy to address (given that the two suggestions I have made are, hopefully, just expansions on already existing and coded game features).
The situation is this:
1) I'm at one end of the map. I have maybe five troops with me, and they're armed with water pistols.
2) I wish to traverse to the other end of the map. This is some distance away.
3) I am fully aware that the pathfinding algorithm used by the game is a good thing (TM). Therefore, ideally I should like to click on my destination, to move there via the best route. If I should decide to make stop-offs, and/or evade enemies along the way (which is absolutely vital, please refer to point 1 above), I would like to do that on an ad hoc basis - but I'd like the computer/game to work out my basic trajectory for me.
4) So, having scrolled all the way down to my target destination, I click. However, for a good amount of time while I am moving (that's the important bit, while I am moving), I am completely unaware of my own surroundings, because the albeit very nice scrolling back to myself on screen takes a good few seconds to actually arrive at my position.
5) During this time, I find that I have been ambushed by some twenty mountain bandits, against whom I face certain capture. This would not normally have happened, given that I have adequate pathfinding and spotting skills to be able to evade them indefinitely.
In other words, I'm losing not through my own fault or even game mechanics, but because of an unwanted effect of the GUI.
Proposed Solution:
Keep the scrolling effect. It's very nice and is far preferable to nasty jolts around the map. However, either:
a) Add a confirmation dialogue saying "click to confirm move" or similar when the player is out of screen. This allows the player to wait until he can see himself before commencing travel.
b) In addition to the "show on map" option in the locations menu via the quest tab, add a "go here" option. This would call the equivalent function that is currently used when clicking on the location's icon on the map.
Caveats: Yes, I know I could put in a tiny bit of effort as a player and work out my own damn route. That's not the point. The point is that the GUI currently offers functionality that turns out to be potentially (and, in my opinion, unjustly) suicidal, especially at early stages of the game, which is where, let's face it, newbies start out. It's like a double-whammy of gotcha, and is probably not good for the player's enjoyment.
Now that the map is huge, which is great, I can't help but feel that this is an issue that wants to be addressed and is one, I hope, which is reasonably easy to address (given that the two suggestions I have made are, hopefully, just expansions on already existing and coded game features).
