What do YOU want to see improved?

Brainstorm ideas of possible additions to the game. Read this before posting!

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What aspects of the game would you most like to see improved?

Mainline campaign quality (means both improving the writing and improving the WML scripting)
9
8%
Graphics and animation speed and smoothness (means transitioning to hardware accelerated graphics)
6
5%
3D graphics
1
1%
Quality of mainline sprites and animations (means making new animations / replacing weak sprites)
9
8%
Quality of terrain graphics (means both the content and terrain graphics system)
2
2%
Sound and Music (means both quality of the content and quality of the playback system)
1
1%
Quality of the AI
17
14%
Quality of the GUI (means fixing bugs related to the UI, also introducing fancier / better user interface elements both in-game and out-of-game)
22
18%
Improved support for touch screens and joysticks
0
No votes
Quality of the addon server system (means, introducing a rating system or a recommender system based on likes. For UI select earlier option)
8
7%
General reliability and stability of the program (means rewriting parts of the program to make them more rigorous and avoid crashes, and improve testing)
8
7%
Improved data structures for game content (means trying to improve the loading times of the game esp. when you have lots of content)
8
7%
Improved networking code (means trying to improve the performance of the game in mp when connections are spotty, also server improvements)
6
5%
Improvements to WML / lua API (means adding more language features)
18
15%
Improvements to balance of mainline MP eras
5
4%
 
Total votes: 120

User avatar
iceiceice
Posts: 1056
Joined: August 23rd, 2013, 2:10 am

What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by iceiceice »

Most posts on these forums are along the lines:
- I love this game!
- I have the following bug.
- I have the following idea to improve the game.

It's pretty uncommon for users to speak in broad strokes about what direction they want to see development move in. Instead the developers have their own views, and they have maybe a few topics they personally want to work on.

This poll is an opportunity for YOU to say what aspects of the game you would like to see improvements on in future versions!
  • This does not mean that anyone will listen to you, as wesnoth is a do-ocracy! However, I am personally curious what among these things you the forum users will select as adding the most value for you.
  • I have also added some things to this list that I think are duds, just to see if people select them anyways.
  • You can select two things. Feel free to make comments.
  • If you think I left out a good category, make a comment, I can perhaps edit it into the poll if you speak quickly.
User avatar
Xudo
Posts: 563
Joined: April 3rd, 2009, 5:26 pm

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by Xudo »

Also I wanted to check "Improved networking code" and "Quality of the addon server system"
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Ravana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 2950
Joined: January 29th, 2012, 12:49 am
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Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by Ravana »

I think during summer I need to learn how to compile wesnoth myself as I dont think anyone else is interesting in fixing the UI bugs I reported months ago. I indeed believe compiling wesnoth is more difficult that fixing bug, at least the most important of them.

Still nice to see this kind of thread. For me it was quite easy to choose(GUI as it has problems and API since no other option was interesting) as I do not use core content or sounds.
User avatar
tekelili
Posts: 1039
Joined: August 19th, 2009, 9:28 pm

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by tekelili »

I would like improvements in several areas described in the poll, but my bigger desire: "Improvement in multiplayer scenarios, removing obsolte ones, adding high-quality ones from add-on server, and improvements in create new game UI flexibility", looks like dont have an appropiate field in the poll.
Be aware English is not my first language and I could have explained bad myself using wrong or just invented words.
World Conquest II
User avatar
iceiceice
Posts: 1056
Joined: August 23rd, 2013, 2:10 am

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by iceiceice »

Yeah in retrospect the poll is too specific. It should have been slightly more general areas of improvement :hmm: and I cannot edit it anymore.

I wish that MP Eras had said "MP Maps and Eras".
The one tekelili is suggesting is like "more mp modification and custom game possibilities".
I also didn't have one about "ladder integration / mp server bots", that would have been a reasonable item.
User avatar
lipk
Posts: 637
Joined: July 18th, 2011, 1:42 pm

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by lipk »

Sprites!
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doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by doofus-01 »

Could you give an example of what you meant by "Improvements to WML / lua API (means adding more language features)"?
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
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Elvish_Hunter
Posts: 1575
Joined: September 4th, 2009, 2:39 pm
Location: Lintanir Forest...

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by Elvish_Hunter »

lipk wrote:Sprites!
I know, right? UtBS is (and always was) in dire need of new sprites and portraits... Then again, such wish directly translates as "we need more blue names..." :P
doofus-01 wrote:Could you give an example of what you meant by "Improvements to WML / lua API (means adding more language features)"?
For example, on the 1.13 series I introduced the new [elseif] tag, so one can do multiple checks withouth nesting several [if] blocks, thus drastically improving the code readability. In past, I was always surprised that WML (unlike almost all other languages) didn't have such statement or a similar one, so as soon as I got the right idea I implemented it.

By the way, one thing that is missing from the poll is "quality of the map editor": currently, our editor has some usability problems, like reported by Dret in this feature request. In this specific case, one can hover on the Unit tool (or other scenario specific tools), and get a tooltip stating "Needs a defined side". Yes, but the next logical question is: how does one define a side? :? I know that I need to create a new scenario first, then I need to create a new side, but this isn't obvious at all for new users :(
Current maintainer of these add-ons, all on 1.16:
The Sojournings of Grog, Children of Dragons, A Rough Life, Wesnoth Lua Pack, The White Troll (co-author)
Anonymissimus
Inactive Developer
Posts: 2461
Joined: August 15th, 2008, 8:46 pm
Location: Germany

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by Anonymissimus »

"General reliability and stability" and "Improved data structures" of course.

Developers like to code features instead of valgrinding. Too bad.
On my ubuntu I see wesnoth consume more than 1 GB of memory when connected to multiplayer. I don't know whether it has always been that way or whether it's somehow related to my machine or settings or way of building, but it's ridiculous.

EDIT
Need to check deleting mp addons.
projects (BfW 1.12):
A Simple Campaign: campaign draft for wml startersPlan Your Advancements: mp mod
The Earth's Gut: sp campaignSettlers of Wesnoth: mp scenarioWesnoth Lua Pack: lua tags and utils
updated to 1.8 and handed over: A Gryphon's Tale: sp campaign
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nuorc
Forum Regular
Posts: 582
Joined: September 3rd, 2009, 2:25 pm
Location: Barag Gor

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by nuorc »

Wesnoth is an amazing game with ever increasing quality. I'm not afraid of a lack of good content.

As I know nothing about the code I don't have an opinion on that. ¯\(°_o)/¯

My votes reflect my gaming experience. I voted for quality of AI (I think especially AI leaders do incredibly stupid things).

And second I voted for GUI.
Spoiler:

If there is a general feeling the questions of the poll should have been different, we might consider this a pilot study?
I have a cunning plan.
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GunChleoc
Translator
Posts: 506
Joined: September 28th, 2012, 7:35 am
Contact:

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by GunChleoc »

I voted for:
  • GUI: I still have some truncation issues with my translation,
  • General code stability - clean code is always good, and in a project that has been going on this long, there is bound to be room for improvement. Also, less and more consistent code will make it easier for new developers to join the project.
User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by doofus-01 »

Elvish_Hunter, explaining the WML/Lua API option, wrote:For example, on the 1.13 series I introduced the new [elseif] tag, so one can do multiple checks withouth nesting several [if] blocks, thus drastically improving the code readability...
OK, thanks. That's cool, but seems like it would only be noticed by (some) add-on authors/maintainers.

The GUI has issues, and more customization than what is possible with ThemeWML would be nice, so I'm voting for that.

The terrain graphics have issues, and so does the AI, so I'm tempted to vote for one of them, but they are both pretty good despite their flaws. I'd say the jerky or goofy sprite animations are a bigger problem. I don't know the extent to which that requires hardware acceleration to fix, and if it does whether that makes it a "dud". Why does fog-of-war cause glitches, is it expensive for some reason? And if there is something that requires hardware acceleration, can it be optional? If there is hardware acceleration, does that mean there can be new things like simultaneous movement animations and parallax scrolling? So many questions... I'm voting for it too.
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
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Implementor37
Posts: 121
Joined: February 22nd, 2015, 12:41 am
Location: The Internet

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by Implementor37 »

For wml improvements, the only thing id really like to see is increased functionality in the editor. While I personally enjoyutting the code together with the Wesnoth UMC Dev (eclipse.wesnoth.org), it is my belief that there are many potential UMC creators out there who are scared by the idea of needing to learn wml. Allowing the editor to create even just simple events such as moveto, enemies defeated, and attack and use the [message] tag would IMHO drastically increase the number of UMC campaigns as those who enjoy creating maps but not code would be able to create campaigns with much more ease. The current editor is starting to get there, but could use some improvement.
Author of End of the Legion, available now on the 1.12 and 1.13 servers!
Supporter of the addition of the Aragwaithi into mainline.
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Kwandulin
Art Contributor
Posts: 362
Joined: March 30th, 2014, 7:35 am
Location: Germany

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by Kwandulin »

I'd love to see more customization possibilities regarding the user interface, especially wml tags to add scenario-bound buttons or the like. I tried to sketch some possible usecases for those:

For instance, the first scenario of The Legend Begins has a rightclick-option to incite slaves to revolt. That could be handled with a button instead:
Spoiler:
Or a scenario, where the player has to defeat a certain amount of enemy units. A more feedback-orientated (not-clickable) button might be useful:
Spoiler:
Other than that, I agree with nuorc and lipk.
gfgtdf
Developer
Posts: 1432
Joined: February 10th, 2013, 2:25 pm

Re: What do YOU want to see improved?

Post by gfgtdf »

@Sulfur
This is already mostly possible with theme wml. In 1.12 you can 'bind' Theme buttons to right click menu actions. See this feature request: https://gna.org/bugs/index.php?19768.

If you dont want to have the menu items anymore you can hide then for example with [show_if]. 'use_hotkey=only' might also work for that.
Scenario with Robots SP scenario (1.11/1.12), allows you to build your units with components, PYR No preperation turn 1.12 mp-mod that allows you to select your units immideately after the game begins.
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