SP - UI OoB Suggestion maybe question.

[RoamingCharges]

Is it possible to filter units for Oob based on the pictures for units in the encyclopedia? I think this would be the best solution so that everyone is happy. What I mean is that instead of using the buttons to filter different types of units like shields, polearms, etc. instead you use the way governors are selected but with units. Castles and towns have the + ui that gives you a menu to cycle the different companions you have for governers, why not use the same way for units in Oob. Some mods have alot of troops on the same tier so selecting by percentage is a problem . But by selecting units by the unit pictures you have in the encyclopedia you don't run into this problem since you sort the units based on what is there. I think for this to work, you may also need to filter by tier aswell so you don't have to move through alot of unit pictures.


Say you had Battanian Trained warriors, Raiders and Skirmishers here in your army.

You'd want to separate them and have them doing different things like the warriors as shield wall, Skirmishers doing their namesake and raiders bolstering your line of Trained warriors. In the current system you can separate them but not 100%. There would be units that overlap.

-My Proposal-

You click on the + there to select what you want in that formation.


And then you get this.

Here would be the troops you'd want instead of the companions seen here. You set the trained warriors in one formation, add the other two battanian troop types to other formations and arrange the troops the way you want with the sliders and etc.


This would help, especially for mods that have multiple types of troops that share the same type of equipment and tier but with differences in skills or slight equipment differences.


The rest of the ui would remain the same except for the way I suggested.

Something like that.

 

[MRay]

There are so many types of troops, it's not really possible to do this but thank you for the suggestion.

 

[Nodice83]

There are so many types of troops, it's not really possible to do this but thank you for the suggestion.

Hi @MRay

Ok, I didn't read all that was said about this topic recently but would it be at least possible to somehow combine old and new OoB features?
Example: Add chosen soldiers to e.g. group 6 and see them grouped pre-battle under our companion friend?

 

[MRay]

would it be at least possible to somehow combine old and new OoB features?

Not possible sadly.

---

Being able to assign troops to different formations would break the saved values and how the percentage sliders/filters work. If you could assign a horse archer to an infantry formation, you couldn't get him out of the infantry formation in current implementation of the OoB. Zeroing the Infantry slider in that formation would still keep the horse archer you put in there. OR we disregard the horse archer assigned there are, move him back to a horse archer formation when the slider value changes. Formations would be a mishmash of troops and it's not possible to represent that with sliders.

If we add all 4 troop type sliders to all of the cards then one of the problems is, "when do we remove the troops assign from party screen?". Player changed the filter, do we remove them? Player set the slider to zero, do we remove them? I'm not even going into AI problems with having 8 different mishmash formations.

Now one way to overcome that can be locking each formation's troop type from the get go and not letting the player change them. Formation I-II is Infantry, Formation III-IV is Ranged, Formation V-VI is Cavalry and Formation VII-VIII is Horse Archer and you can only assign a troop to a formation that is related to their equipment. But we didn't want to restrict the player to these pre selections.

All in all, assigning formations to normal troops in the party screen is conflicting with changes made in OoB that's why it's removed.

 

[RoamingCharges]

Gotcha.

@MRay
How about troop tiers? I did hear talks about a filter for unit tiers. Is it possible to create more than the base amount of tiers for troops and use the higher tiers with some type of filter? I think the highest tier ingame is 6 for noble troops. So is creating tiers 7+ and up and creating a filter to sort them into formations feasible?

 

[ESFAndy011]

Not possible sadly.

---

Hello, new here in the forums but not new to the franchise.

I'd like to apologize in advance if I'm maybe necroing this thread (not sure what the threshold is), but maybe I could throw in a suggestion loosely similar to the one RoamingCharges made.

Basically, subtypes. In this example, that button used to pick between types could, if you right clicked it, be used to pick between subtypes (actual troops) through a drop-down that would allow you to check or uncheck one or more of them at a time, preferably with a "toggle check all" on the top of it. So left click would still switch between types, right click would go for subtypes.

So let's say I had the following infantry:
Imperial Recruits
Vlandian Recruits
Sturgian Linebreakers
Battanian Falxmen
Sergeants
Legionaries

I go to group 5, I pick infantry. I right click the sword icon I picked, a different dropdown appears. I check Imperial Recruits and Vlandian Recruits, click "Done".
I go to 6, Infantry again. I right click and check Linebreakers and Falxmen. I now have my formation intended to break a shield wall or circle formation.

So in the end, 1 is left alone as a general-purpose/shield-wall infantry formation with the Sergeants and Legionaries, 5 is my Recruits group I may wanna back away and save for looters and 6 is for shield breaking.

So instead of being able to mix horses with infantry or anything similar like you were saying in that quote above (and potentially breaking the game), I am branching out a type into subtypes through a dropdown list that's only as long as the existing number of troop types in the party.

I think there's definitely a place for the current OoB and I don't think it's a bad system. It's simply missing troop type formations, which makes a lot of people (myself included) feel rather blue-balled over a cherished feature that existed ever since the Warband days, maybe even earlier than that.

Apologies for the wall of text and thank you for taking the time to read this. Eager to hear your thoughts!

 

[MRay]

So let's say I had the following infantry:
Imperial Recruits
Vlandian Recruits
Sturgian Linebreakers
Battanian Falxmen
Sergeants
Legionaries

This becomes impractical for big parties and armies. Out of thousands of troops, both spawned and not spawned(reinforcements) players would see too many troops for a dropdown. For example worst case for cavalry is 52 different troops, for Infantry it is 422(granted not all are recruitable but even half is 200+). So 200+ possible troops in a dropdown is not feasible. I'm not even going into modded in troops that would need to be supported.

 

[guiskj]

@MRay I understand that, with the new design of the OOB, we may not attain a good user experience for those of us that want this level of granular control. However, please understand, removing this control from players is extremely damaging to our ability to enjoy the game.

Coming up with different ways to tactically use our troops is one of the things that keeps the replay value up for this game, but what TW is doing is normalising the experience in favour of ease-of-use.

Take for example crossbow troops vs archer troops. The former have less ammo but they have a shield. This changes how I want to use them.
In one playthrough, I want to go archer-heavy and use them in concert with my infantry.
In another, I want to go crossbow heavy and use them as a secondary infantry line that is able to sort-of do a musket volley fire technique, while still having my archers in another formation.

Things like this keeps the game fresh! I'll take a crappy UI if it means I can get this type of control back.

 

[ESFAndy011]

@MRay Fair point, I may have underestimated that detail.

Alright, different approach:

From what I understood, the problem that was making the custom groups and the OoB conflict was the fact that a number was assigned before the OoB loaded up, correct? Then let's make a sub-type.

Have expandable lists in the Party Screen (like how one can compress/expand troops or prisoners in the screen and such) per type, with the ability to create a new expandable list and then drag and drop the units in the new list. But just in case the list is long (and to help console players), there would be a new button below the yellow bar when clicking on the unit. Pressing it lowers the view to the area where the new list(s) are located in the interface. Now it's just a matter of selecting it.

The new list will also have a small colored indicator/arrow on it, or maybe be colored differently altogether. Asking for a name of the new sub-type would be desirable, but I feel like a virtual keyboard for console players every time they try this would perhaps be frustrating. Maybe just name it as the type, with the color distinguishing it, or "Type Custom X", X being the number of instances for that type (for example, Cavalry Type 2 if it's the second cav sub-type). Dry example, but you get the idea.

In the OoB, this sub-type will appear once I try to assign it to a number (I am assigning the desired number during the OoB, not before). I click on the + and I can find it below all the defaults, in order of creation. It looks like the default type of which the units came from, but with a small arrow with the same color we found on the list in the party screen.

There would also be a detection in the game so that the player doesn't just scramble cav and archers in the new list and cause issues for the new OoB. Companions, however, should be exempt from this detection, assuming the game thinks of them as this or that when reading into their equipment or main proficiencies (unsure).

 

[MRay]

@ESFAndy011 Let's say I've moved all my recruits to group 1. On Order of Battle, I've created an infantry formation and applied group 1. Now all recruits are in there.

The slider and filter needs to stay enabled even if the group selection is applied because of army encounters. Even if the player has assigned a group to all of their troops, army troops need to go somewhere and if the slider and filters are not available when the group is applied, the player will have no control over the army troops. So in this case,

• What happens if I select Heavy filter selection?
  • Does it do nothing and have no effect?
  • Or do we try to add Heavy units?
• What happens if I move the slider to %5?
  • Do we move the recruits and spread them to other infantry formations?
  • Or we keep all the units assigned to group 1 together?
• What happens if I'm in an Army and other lords have 3 times the recruits that I had?
  • Do we move their recruits to group 1 by assuming that's what the player tried to do in the party screen?
  • Or we don't try to include and not try to apply player's selections in the party screen to other lords' troops? Resulting in not all recruits being in the same formation.
• If I lose some recruits, and on the next army encounter do I need to adjust the sliders to keep that formation to only Recruits?
  • If yes that would mean the player has to fiddle with the sliders for some time to get their desired effect.
  • If no that would mean the saved OoB data is now irrelevant.

 

[guiskj]

@MRay, instead of all of us going back and forth on how it could be done and how it couldn't be done, may I suggest you do the following:

1. Confirm that TW recognises there is a need for what is being asked here
2. List the things that a potential solve for this issue would need to take into account (this is important for the next point)
3. Open a friendly competition that allows our modding community to come up with proof-of-concepts that fulfil the requirements on item 2
4. Profit?

TW has an incredibly dedicated modding community, leveraging them to quickly iterate through potential solution designs is a great way to both engage the community, show that TW cares about the issues put forth by them and get free work!

There is no reason to at least try something unless TW thinks what is being asked here is against its design, in which case I would like that clearly stated. However, if addressing this need is not being done because it is difficult or time intensive, then please leverage your community to help you guys.

 

[MRay]

@guiskj I'm trying to show that, supporting both systems at the same time is not as clean as one might think. I've already said that we have no plans to support the previous design, because of the reasons I've mentioned many times. Both in this thread and other threads. Here and reddit. I personally can't say "we will never add feature X" because I'm not the person that makes those decisions.

This of course doesn't mean mods can't or shouldn't do it. Even the first example you shared, troops dropdown, might not be what we want to do but a mod can certainly do it. The difference is the user would choose that design and play with it.

 

[guiskj]

Thank you for the response, @MRay. Even if I don't like the answer, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.

 

[ESFAndy011]

@ESFAndy011 Let's say I've moved all my recruits to group 1. On Order of Battle, I've created an infantry formation and applied group 1. Now all recruits are in there.

The slider and filter needs to stay enabled even if the group selection is applied because of army encounters. Even if the player has assigned a group to all of their troops, army troops need to go somewhere and if the slider and filters are not available when the group is applied, the player will have no control over the army troops. So in this case,

• What happens if I select Heavy filter selection?
  • Does it do nothing and have no effect?
  • Or do we try to add Heavy units?
• What happens if I move the slider to %5?
  • Do we move the recruits and spread them to other infantry formations?
  • Or we keep all the units assigned to group 1 together?
• What happens if I'm in an Army and other lords have 3 times the recruits that I had?
  • Do we move their recruits to group 1 by assuming that's what the player tried to do in the party screen?
  • Or we don't try to include and not try to apply player's selections in the party screen to other lords' troops? Resulting in not all recruits being in the same formation.
• If I lose some recruits, and on the next army encounter do I need to adjust the sliders to keep that formation to only Recruits?
  • If yes that would mean the player has to fiddle with the sliders for some time to get their desired effect.
  • If no that would mean the saved OoB data is now irrelevant.

Okay, I think I see where this is going. No, groups 1 through 4 should not be fiddled with. 4 groups ( 5 through 8 ) is enough for custom formations and the limitation avoids unpredictable behaviour. I'm not trying to convince you guys to fit a square peg in a round hole here.

So with that aside, the answer to all those questions would just end up being "just like with default behaviour". Shrinking the amount of custom formations would send them back to their default unless there are two formations for that sub-type. If you're the army commander, the groups take in all troops with the fitting criteria. If not, limited to your party. Making a formation with the sub-type is an immediate 100% size.

As for waiting for a mod, well... yeah, always an option. But then the next vital update comes in and we all know how that song and dance goes. It just seems better to count on something official.