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Topic: A bunch of suggestions

blind3rdeye
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Posted at: 2020-03-29, 13:26

I just download this game a few days ago, and I've been playing a lot. I was a great fan of Settlers 2; and I recently tried Settlers 4 to see if it could improve on some of the weaknesses of S2 - but it didn't take long for me to conclude that S4 is not at all what I was hoping to play... so I did a brief internet search and found Widelands. It's just what I was looking for; ie. a game in the style of Settlers 2, but better. I've enjoyed playing it a lot so far. face-smile.png

Now I've got some suggestions that I'd like to share:

Firstly, there are some things that I found a bit uncomfortable / unintuitive in the user-interface...

  • I think right click or the esc key should end road-building mode. There have been lots of times when I've accidentally built roads just while trying to select something else. It isn't always obvious to me that I'm in road-building mode, and I sometimes find it a bit fiddly to get out of.
  • Scrolling with the keyboard arrows should be much faster; and ideally should have an adjustable speed in the options menu.
  • When I toggle the options in the 'watch' menu, I'd like the menu to stay open. That way I could turn both things on without have to reopen the menu; and I could also turn things on and off quickly if I just want to check something.
  • I'm not really sure why the 'watch' menu and the 'manage economy' are accessed by clicking a flag. As far as I can tell, they are global options with nothing to do with the flag; so I suggest either moving those menus or duplicating them on the bottom menu bar.
  • Apparently resources in a building are lost if a building is disassembled or upgraded. In my view, if the building has a worker inside, then the worker should unload the building automatically before upgrading or disassembling the building. The instant "destroy" command would still destroy the resources though. (Although, I have started getting use to manually unloading the buildings first... and perhaps there is some strategic tradeoff if you need a fast upgrade - unload first vs upgrade faster)
  • I'd like to be able to place flags with a single click; perhaps ctrl+click should place a flag, or something like that.
  • I was a bit puzzled for awhile when no trainer went to one of my military upgrade buildings. I was producing tools and such, but no one was getting recruited as a trainer. Eventually I worked out that it was because the trainer needed two tools, and whenever either one was produced, the barracks would consume it - and so I never had both in stock at once. It's wasn't a big deal once I understood what was going on. It's easy to work around; but it wasn't obvious to me what was going on... Perhaps if a building is vacant for 5 minutes or so, the player could get a notification saying that the building needs a worker, and what tools they need.

I just played a 'collectors' game vs the AI, and I have a couple of quick suggestions about that too:

  • The end-of game notification should include a detailed score break-down like the near end-of-game notifications to.
  • The end-of-game leader-board should show each player's score more prominently, and have an option to sort by score.
  • It should be possible to change the 4 hour time-limit to something else. (For example, people will probably want a longer time-limit for larger maps.)

Regarding the campaigns...

I realise that the campaigns are unfinished; but can I just say that after playing through them in order, the Atlanteans first stage is excellent. It has lore, clear tutorial of what the buildings do, an interesting island to explore (both in its terrain and in story); and a novel twist. Its a low-stakes introduction, but it is very well done. The down-side was that playing the first mission of the Frisian campaign immediately afterwards felt a bit less polished. The flat featureless island; no significant story (the characters basically just say what each building does); and then the same sinking-island gimmick that I'd just seen. It was pretty fun; and I like the gameplay design of the Frisian economy; but I found the contrast in campaign styles a bit jarring; I kind of felt like all of the campaigns were in the same universe until then. (Also the Frisian sinking island felt way less 'fair' than the Atlanteans, because the HQ goes under almost straight away.) In any case, I look forward to each of the campaigns being complete.

That's about it for now.

I'll just say again that the game is really good. I've enjoyed it a lot, and I'm intending to play a fair bit more.

Edited: 2020-03-29, 13:27

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2020-03-29, 14:09

Moin blind3rdeye and welcome to the forums face-smile.png

I assume you are playing b20? Keyboard scrolling is much faster already in the current development version.

I'm not really sure why the 'watch' menu and the 'manage economy' are accessed by clicking a flag. As far as I can tell, they are global options with nothing to do with the flag; so I suggest either moving those menus or duplicating them on the bottom menu bar.

The census/stats buttons have been moved to the bottom toolbar already. Economy options are done per economy – if you have multiple unconnected road networks (not connected via ports either), each one of them has its own set of economy targets.

Apparently resources in a building are lost if a building is disassembled or upgraded

Every new user comes up with this face-smile.png We should definitely try to agree on a solution for this many-years-old problem at last face-grin.png

I'd like to be able to place flags with a single click; perhaps ctrl+click should place a flag, or something like that.

+½. But it currently takes two clicks and often you don't even need to move the mouse between them which is pretty fast already.

Perhaps if a building is vacant for 5 minutes or so, the player could get a notification saying that the building needs a worker, and what tools they need.

-1 from me. You can find out which workers and tools are needed with a few clicks in the in-game encyclopedia, and use the stock menu to find out whether you have those tools in warehouses or not. This is also explained in the economy tutorial.

I just played a 'collectors' game vs the AI, and I have a couple of quick suggestions about that too: […]

+1 for all three suggestions

The down-side was that playing the first mission of the Frisian campaign immediately afterwards felt a bit less polished. The flat featureless island;

Based 100% on real-life geometry. Not my fault that Lungnees/De Neeß/Hallig Nordmarsch-Langeneß is a bit flat face-wink.png

no significant story (the characters basically just say what each building does);

Did you play until the end?

and then the same sinking-island gimmick that I'd just seen.

Sorry, it is a bit poorly placed directly after a similar campaign. When the atlantean campaign has more missions (hessenfarmer is working on a second scenario currently) this will be mitigated.

It was pretty fun; and I like the gameplay design of the Frisian economy; but I found the contrast in campaign styles a bit jarring; I kind of felt like all of the campaigns were in the same universe until then.

They are, as will be apparent in fri04 – this universe, which is pretty small for now, is expanding face-wink.png

(Also the Frisian sinking island felt way less 'fair' than the Atlanteans, because the HQ goes under

It does that there as well…

Edited: 2020-03-29, 14:17

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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2020-03-29, 16:59

How about placing the headquarters a little bit further to the northeast for Fri01? This would give the player a few more seconds before it goes under.

Also, the brand-new difficulty setting might influence the speed of the flood.


Busy indexing nil values

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2020-03-29, 17:09

How about placing the headquarters a little bit further to the northeast for Fri01? This would give the player a few more seconds before it goes under.

But it would also make it take longer to get to the build spots for the initial rock mines, and the game is already very slow-paced in the beginning, so -1. Besides by the time the flood starts the player was already told to build a new warehouse further east and move construction materials there.

Also, the brand-new difficulty setting might influence the speed of the flood.

Yep, at the easiest level the flood is way slower than before (500 vs 430 ms per field). (By the way I did not see the strings for the difficulty stages on transifex yet…)


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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2020-03-29, 19:25

Nordfriese wrote:

Yep, at the easiest level the flood is way slower than before (500 vs 430 ms per field). (By the way I did not see the strings for the difficulty stages on transifex yet…)

I run the translation update about 1/week.


Busy indexing nil values

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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2020-03-29, 19:27

But it already ran since then (3 commits after the difficulty stages)…


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GunChleoc
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Posted at: 2020-03-29, 19:37

You could double-check if the file that includes the strings that you are missing are being picked up by utils/buildcat.py.


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2020-03-29, 19:42

Checked and found the reason face-smile.png
https://github.com/widelands/widelands/pull/3814


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simplypeachy

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Posted at: 2020-03-29, 20:14

blind3rdeye wrote:

  • I'm not really sure why the 'watch' menu and the 'manage economy' are accessed by clicking a flag. As far as I can tell, they are global options with nothing to do with the flag; so I suggest either moving those menus or duplicating them on the bottom menu bar.

Each set of unconnected flags is its own economy, making them the go-to point to change an economy's targets.


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2020-03-29, 20:18

GunChleoc wrote:

How about placing the headquarters a little bit further to the northeast for Fri01? This would give the player a few more seconds before it goes under.

That won't help, as even if you start moving goods early the road network will be jammed a lot. so the few seconds gained by such a move won't help.


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