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Topic: Bugs between build20 and build21

Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2020-06-26, 21:48

WorldSavior wrote:

Nordfriese wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Lerxst wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Nordfriese wrote: Using Ctrl for anything is always a modifier that modifies the default behaviour in some non-default way.

With default behaviour I mean what the player does. Ctrl+klick is also the default behaviour for building roads or for changing priority in training buildings, for example.

I beg to differ. Ctrl+something (or Alt or Shift, for that matter) is always a modifier, as Nordfriese correctly points out. If for you Ctrl+click is a default action it's because you've grown accustomed to it, but from a general user experience standpoint it's definitely not a default behaviour.

This discussion goes away from it's purpose now. It's not so important what is called default or not.

It is very important. The default action is what happens normally, obviously. Modifiers provide a way to save yourself one or more clicks, at the cost of giving you less control about the details of the effect. They are an offer for your convenience, which you can accept by using the modifier or decline by not using it.
If the default action is inconvenient for some reason, that's a strong argument for changing it. If you dislike a modifier, you just don't have to use it.

I could also say "if someone wouldn't like it that wares survive if he uses ctrl, he just doesn't have to use it".

Following your logic one should change it that way, because the modifier saves then as much clicks as possible.

No, it's an argument for letting the developers decide the behaviour – we just pick one and stick with it. The current behaviour feels more intuitive to me; to you it would feel more intuitive if it was the other way around. We have to agree to disagree on that. And as a rule we try to avoid changing the behaviour of modifiers without real need – and this detail is definitely not of outstanding importance – as that forces people to unlearn accustomed click-routines.

WorldSavior wrote:

I bring very good news: The bug could not be reproduced in 7461 anymore. In 6762 I could reproduce it.

No surprise there, I basically rewrote the entire scheduling stuff face-wink.png

Thanks

You're welcome

I'm wondering: Why are ships patroulling between ports when nothing has to be shipped? (7461) Wouldn't it be smarter if they would just wait at the ports until something's happening?

This is to ensure that ships are always ± evenly distributed among ports. Since goods are typically shipped asymetrically, letting ships wait until they're needed would eventually result in delays which are prevented by this patrolling. E.g. if many goods are sent from A to B but none from B to A, then we would eventually have lots of ships around B, and wares from A have to wait a long time, which is why a fresh ship is sent to A every time a ship departs from A.
(Btw I am already working on a follow-up branch that will differentiate the "shipping" state into "shipping" and "roaming" so you can see how busy your fleet really is).

Edited: 2020-06-26, 21:54

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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2020-06-26, 22:06

I just checked the behaviour of ctrl + Upgrade to undertand what the discussion is all about.
Now that I saw that the wares are not preserved if ctrl is used this is different behaviour then I would expect.
Ctrl normally just skips the "are you sure" dialog in building interaction. so as the default settin in this dialog is preserve wares I would have expected that the result is the same as just clicking ok without any modification.
So the current behaviour is not what I have expected due to long time experience in the game.

By this I strongly support to change this to keep the wares if ctrl + enhance or ctrl + dismantle is pressed.
Sorry for not particiapting in the discussion earlier. I didn't get the point, cause I couldn't imagine that the wares were discarded in this case.


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2020-06-26, 22:16

Nordfriese wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Nordfriese wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Lerxst wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

Nordfriese wrote: Using Ctrl for anything is always a modifier that modifies the default behaviour in some non-default way.

With default behaviour I mean what the player does. Ctrl+klick is also the default behaviour for building roads or for changing priority in training buildings, for example.

I beg to differ. Ctrl+something (or Alt or Shift, for that matter) is always a modifier, as Nordfriese correctly points out. If for you Ctrl+click is a default action it's because you've grown accustomed to it, but from a general user experience standpoint it's definitely not a default behaviour.

This discussion goes away from it's purpose now. It's not so important what is called default or not.

It is very important. The default action is what happens normally, obviously. Modifiers provide a way to save yourself one or more clicks, at the cost of giving you less control about the details of the effect. They are an offer for your convenience, which you can accept by using the modifier or decline by not using it.
If the default action is inconvenient for some reason, that's a strong argument for changing it. If you dislike a modifier, you just don't have to use it.

I could also say "if someone wouldn't like it that wares survive if he uses ctrl, he just doesn't have to use it".

Following your logic one should change it that way, because the modifier saves then as much clicks as possible.

No, it's an argument for letting the developers decide the behaviour – we just pick one and stick with it.

However - the argument that the modifier should save as much clicks as possible is still there. And niektory also voted for changing it.

One does not have to stick with some behavior if the alternative is better. At the other hand I would wish that we would stick with the behavior that a flag at a coast can be dismantled by a double click (on ferry map), if you know what I mean face-wink.png Couldn't a modifier be used for building waterways by a double cklick? Shift, for example.

The current behaviour feels more intuitive to me; to you it would feel more intuitive if it was the other way around.

Yes, it would, and I have also rational arguments for it.

We have to agree to disagree on that. And as a rule we try to avoid changing the behaviour of modifiers without real need – and this detail is definitely not of outstanding importance – as that forces people to unlearn accustomed click-routines.

This feature is very young, it's still in the testing phase. The testing phase is good for recognizing how a feature works, after the phase it can be reconsidered.

WorldSavior wrote:

I bring very good news: The bug could not be reproduced in 7461 anymore. In 6762 I could reproduce it.

No surprise there, I basically rewrote the entire scheduling stuff face-wink.png

Thanks

You're welcome

I'm wondering: Why are ships patroulling between ports when nothing has to be shipped? (7461) Wouldn't it be smarter if they would just wait at the ports until something's happening?

This is to ensure that ships are always ± evenly distributed among ports.

This could also be done by some extra code, but maybe this is not worth the effort. (see below)

Since goods are typically shipped asymetrically, letting ships wait until they're needed would eventually result in delays which are prevented by this patrolling. E.g. if many goods are sent from A to B but none from B to A, then we would eventually have lots of ships around B, and wares from A have to wait a long time, which is why a fresh ship is sent to A every time a ship departs from A.

Unless there are so many wares that every ship returns immediately.

But however, the current state might be even better than my idea. One weakness of my idea is the following: Lets assume that suddenly a stream of wares goes to a port which has been doing nothing before. Then a ship would take some wares and depart, shortly after it another one and so on. So the whole fleet might move more or less at once, which is not always good.

(Btw I am already working on a follow-up branch that will differentiate the "shipping" state into "shipping" and "roaming" so you can see how busy your fleet really is).

Good


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2020-06-26, 22:30

There is a majority for changing the ctrl-click behaviour, but. The current behaviour is what will be in b21 (because we're in winter time freeze already), so it is not true that it's still in testing phase. In b22, everyone will have become accustomed to this behaviour so seeing it changed there to its opposite will confuse everyone. And in my opinion, that is a stronger argument than the perception of what is more intuitive in a modifier while the feature is still fairly new.

At the other hand I would wish that we would stick with the behavior that a flag at a coast can be dismantled by a double click (on ferry map), if you know what I mean face-wink.png Couldn't a modifier be used for building waterways by a double cklick? Shift, for example.

A very strong -1 for having a modifier for that. Basic actions have to have a button.
Also again the problem with click memory that does not allow us to rearrange the buttons as we would like. I could imagine swapping the BuildRoad and BuildWW buttons while keeping the Road button the fastclick target; then the mouse pointer would be at a different location but the distance to move it to get the DestroyFlag button would be always the same – but then, it is likely that in the next couple of months we all may get accustomed to the new button layout of shore flags. Let's discuss this again around b22 first snow freeze…

Edited: 2020-06-26, 22:40

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JanO
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Posted at: 2020-06-27, 07:53

Has the crtl+click a hardcoded behaviour or is it acting like automatically pressing the ok-button in the keep-and-discard-window? If second one is the case, all you would need to fulfil all desires is a remember-last-decision functionality for this window, right?


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2020-06-27, 11:31

No, it's hardcoded.

And btw, with the current behaviour, anyone who does not like the ctrl-click behaviour needs only one click extra, because all they have to do is to click OK. If the ctrl-click bevaiour was changed, anyone who doesn't like the new behaviour needs two clicks extra: one to uncheck the checkbox and another to click OK. So the current behaviour is the better clicks-saver.


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teppo

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Posted at: 2020-06-28, 18:34

Nordfriese wrote:

(Btw I am already working on a follow-up branch that will differentiate the "shipping" state into "shipping" and "roaming" so you can see how busy your fleet really is).

I have been toying of the idea that "roaming" ships would go to explore the unknown,until no more unknowns. Would such a change be welcome if done?

A side-effect would be that in the beginning of seafaring (unknown exists) the ships tend to go away from all the ports, and thus transportation temporarily slows down.


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2020-06-28, 19:56

JanO wrote:

all you would need to fulfil all desires is a remember-last-decision functionality for this window, right?

Yes, very good idea. But it could also be enough to just implement the suggestion which is favored by niektory and me (;

Nordfriese wrote:

And btw, with the current behaviour, anyone who does not like the ctrl-click behaviour needs only one click extra, because all they have to do is to click OK. If the ctrl-click bevaiour was changed, anyone who doesn't like the new behaviour needs two clicks extra: one to uncheck the checkbox and another to click OK. So the current behaviour is the better clicks-saver.

That's not true: Destroying the wares is only a very rare cornercase. So all what really matters is other case. It doesn't matter for everyone who doesn't use ctrl what happens if ctrl is used, so all what really matters is what happens when ctrl is used. The current behavior requires not only a an additional click, but also two location changes of the cursor. With my suggestion, only a click is required instead. So this is objectively better.

Nordfriese wrote:

There is a majority for changing the ctrl-click behaviour, but. The current behaviour is what will be in b21 (because we're in winter time freeze already), so it is not true that it's still in testing phase.

So the testing phase would have been close to non-existend, which is not so good.

In b22, everyone will have become accustomed to this behaviour so seeing it changed there to its opposite will confuse everyone.

That's still better than keeping it forever the wrong way. Currently, the feature can be easily overlooked anyway, because anybody who always uses crtl will not even discover this feature in the game. And always using ctrl makes perfectly sense.

At the other hand I would wish that we would stick with the behavior that a flag at a coast can be dismantled by a double click (on ferry map), if you know what I mean face-wink.png Couldn't a modifier be used for building waterways by a double cklick? Shift, for example.

A very strong -1 for having a modifier for that. Basic actions have to have a button.

I didn't say that the button should be removed. It should just be moved to another location.

(by the way, not the double click dismantles a flag, but click+move+click, but it matters if a waterway can be build a flag or not - if one tries to destroy such a flag one is going to build a waterway instead, that's the problem)

Also again the problem with click memory that does not allow us to rearrange the buttons as we would like. I could imagine swapping the BuildRoad and BuildWW buttons while keeping the Road button the fastclick target; then the mouse pointer would be at a different location but the distance to move it to get the DestroyFlag button would be always the same –

Good idea

but then, it is likely that in the next couple of months we all may get accustomed to the new button layout of shore flags.

another case where re-accustoming would make sense. If we have do it once (now) we can also do it twice (then)

Let's discuss this again around b22 first snow freeze…

or before

Edited: 2020-06-28, 19:57

Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2020-06-28, 20:46

WorldSavior wrote:

[…]

I disagree with each statement in this post. Besides this is not a big feature, there is no need to have a long testing period for such a small change. A remember-last-decision option for such a small effect would definitely overload the UI. And if you always use Ctrl and never discard wares, then this is only your personal playing style which is not representative for other users.

teppo wrote:

Nordfriese wrote:

(Btw I am already working on a follow-up branch that will differentiate the "shipping" state into "shipping" and "roaming" so you can see how busy your fleet really is).

I have been toying of the idea that "roaming" ships would go to explore the unknown,until no more unknowns. Would such a change be welcome if done?

A side-effect would be that in the beginning of seafaring (unknown exists) the ships tend to go away from all the ports, and thus transportation temporarily slows down.

Forcing players to allow their ships to do that would mean an unnecessary increase in shipping delays, so -1. But I am experimenting with a possible implementation for naval warfare that will allow something quite similar with ships refitted for non-peaceful explorations…


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2020-06-28, 21:25

Nordfriese wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

[…]

I disagree with each statement in this post. Besides this is not a big feature, there is no need to have a long testing period for such a small change. A remember-last-decision option for such a small effect would definitely overload the UI. And if you always use Ctrl and never discard wares, then this is only your personal playing style which is not representative for other users.

Well, personally I believe the feature is to new to have already enough feedback to claim what is representative. So in this thread at least I count WorldSavior, Niektory and me who would expect the behaviour to be different. So it is definitly not a peronal playing style only.
So my vote is clearly to change this for b22 to preserve wares if ctrl+dismantle or ctrl+enhance is pressed.


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