[Suggestions][.86]What polish does FE still need?

FE has improved a lot, but what's missing?

from Elemental Forums

What UI/interface/visuals is FE still missing? Post your ideas here.

Here's my list so far:

Strategic

*When a unit finds something or an event occurs, the camera jumps to the next unit, rather than finishing with the original unit that triggered that event. Very annoying.

*Path finding should have a draggable path to change the path a unit takes. That and/or way points, where you can select points you want a unit to visit. For now this would help address the poor pathing problem, but either of those would be good UI elements to controlling unit paths.

*Rally points. The AI gets rally points! (and Brad told me to say this).

*Better prestige visibility. Right now my cities' zone of control just somewhat randomly increases. I can't predict when it might happen, and I also can't tell how much more is needed for it to increase or the impact different buildings/items/spells might have on that. One idea might be for it to have a progress bar for each city, similar to Civilization games' culture. I could tell how much was being produced and predict when it might increase next.

*Locations you capture, like mana shards, mines, horses, etc. need to tell you in advance their benefit, construction time and maintenance costs (if any). Right now, you click Build, it gets inserted into your city's build queue, and you have to go there to find out how long it takes to produce.

*An idle city's ZZZzzz... notice is too easily missed. It needs a notice on the right side or some other visual identifier, just like other notifications.

*The fog of war is a bit too thick, making it difficult to remember where a discovered resource was located. There's a menu option in the UI for Fog of War brightness, but only on the cloth map (not 3D view) and even that doesn't seem to do anything right now. How about an option for this in 3D?

*Special damage types (elemental, piercing, etc.) for enemy units should be identified easily, perhaps through icons for each type. If there's going to be a system of bonuses/weaknesses, it needs to be displayed easily so we can tailor our attacks based on that information.

Tactical

*Display of terrain bonuses (if they exist) in tactical combat, and not just as tooltips. If terrain will give an advantage/disadvantage, terrain needs to display those bonuses.

*The types of damage/defense and how they factor in. For instance, if I have a piercing weapon and I can attack two enemies, one with a vulnerability to piercing and one without, I'd like to see that displayed other than just the end result.

*I can't tell approximately how much damage a specific enemy might cause a specific unit. I should be able to select that unit and then select my unit to tell how much it might get hit for.

*After combat or upon an event, the mouse cursor stays as the previous pointer type (movement, attack, etc.) instead of being a regular pointer cursor.

*After winning a tactical battle, I should be able to highlight my spoils of war to view info about each item. Instead, I can only click OK.

What are your ideas for info/polish?

2,184 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

  • I've been meaning to start a thread with this kinda input but I've been putting it off, thanks.

One of the most annoying things is your first bullet. I hate when I'm attacked and I get a popup in the middle of the battle. Not only is it annoying, it also ruins the battle for me and I end up having to autoresolve it.

Heres a list of suggestions I've been writing since I've started playing the Beta:

UI Suggestions

  • No quick/easy/intuitive way to access your current enchantments. I would like a shortcut in my spellbook that would take me to my current upkeep spells. Right now you got to go to "Govern > Ledger > Enchantments". Imo this isn't logical and would make a lot more sense if it was in your spellbook as a tab or button.When city levels up you can't see the city details. This one has been bugging me since EWOM. And no idc if you can see something in the left bottom corner. I want to see all my buildings :P! Also i wouldn't mind being able to minimize that screen in someway.

 

  • When in the Diplomacy screen, if you click "Declare War" there is no confirmation if you really want to do that. So if you misclick, bamm you're gona be at war. Please add a "Are you sure you want to declare War on X" dialogue.

 

  • Another annoying thing is how you might sell your good items by mistake and there is no way of buying them back. Yes I could be more careful but sometimes you're sleepy/tired/orjustplaindumb and you end up selling them by mistake and the item is lost forever. Buyback tab would fix this or a confirmation dialogue for rare items (Or both :D).

 

  • No Idle Unit/Next Unit button. For this i wasn't aware that Tab worked somewhat like that, but from what I've read some people claim that it doesn't work half the time. I haven't tried using tab yet but I think a button wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

  • Sortable spells. I would like to sort my spells by elements/cost/damage. Example I want to look up which water spells I own, or I want to look up my cheaper spells.

 

  • Show Enemy moves option. Although the turns are so fast Idk how this would work, but sometimes I miss enemy movement near my borders and seeing what they are doing would be nice.

Misc Suggestions

  • Let me see the path my units will take before I move him. You guys added the path to the units and thats awesome, but you can't actually see the path they will take till you right click/move. Hovering your mouse should show you the path they will take, which most likely would be through that damn forest instead of the plains :(.

 

  • Pathfinding needs work. Units sometimes choose the least effective routes, like going into a forest instead of plains to maximize their movement. This can be annoying as you get a bunch of armies (This has been around since EWOM).

 

  • I would like it if my units rate of healing while stationed in a city increased slightly with time. Right now I think its just 4 health per turn? I would like it if every turn idle increased this regen per 1 or some other number.
Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Couldn't add this in the previous reply cause the forum wanted to eat my post. Heres what I missed:

Future Suggestions

  • Implement Line of Sight (LoS) in tactical battles.

 

  • Create traits that are something like the footment from HoMM. If your "Footmen" is in front of your Archer, and the archer gets shot, they will use their shields to cover them.

 

  • Multi-level tactical maps with walls, gates, stairs, turrets and ponies.

 

  • Path of the governor traits that give your champion XP for constructing buildings. Depending on the turns he was stationed while it was being constructed.

Thats it for now, thanks for reading.

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


*What I would really want to see is the implementation of city fights... I know it has been said a thousand times that it would be no but I still want to say it one more time !

City fights with walls and houses, so if you hit the houses, it would affect the city in strategic mode so the city would be less productive for a couple turns or something like this that would force the player to repair the damaged city.

Or if the opponent takes the city, if the fights was severe enough and the combattants were wrecking havocs with spells, that he would have a hard time rebuilding it.

That would make city fights more strategic and maybe it would be a "wreck attack" for the ennemy, damaging the city as much as he can knowing he will die and the defender would need to think more about protecting his city and inhabitants =D And the firewall spell would be amazing during those fights !

I think I'm dreaming but that's something I am dreaming of !

*Anyway, I didn't see the spell list yet but it still seems to me that earth magic is WAY under what it could be... earth could build walls around the city or using the landscape to make a wall (not a mountain, which is way different and thiner, that would make the earth disciple more of a protective mage) wherever he wants to force the ennemy to take one and only one path to him.

In the same topic, still more spells to afflict the battlefield in strategic and tactical screen.

*My last suggestion would only be flying and aquatic units... like griffins, ... or giant octopuses etc.

 

There, I know I won't see that but I can't help saying it !