Unit names in help not alphabetised

[irrevenant]

The Unit names in the in-game Help don't appear to be alphabetised. This makes it hard to find the unit I'm looking for (in this case Goblin Spearman).

If it's categorised in some other way (eg. by faction) it would be best to have the faction names as 'folders'. However, I think this is an inferior approach as new players often won't be familiar with the names of factions.

[Soliton]

It is sorted by race then by name.

[zookeeper]

I agree, this behaviour is confusing and ackward at best, especially since at least half of the units seem to be in alphabetical order (because of race prefixes). Please, someone change it back to a sane way of sorting before 1.2. When the player can choose how to sort and when the different ways are displayed in a sane way (there's no point in sorting by race if the player can't always see what the unit's race is!*) sortings other than alphabetical could be considered. Now, it's simply annoying.

* How the heck should the player know where to look for a gryphon, or a skeleton, since the race is not mentioned anywhere in-game? Duh.

[Viliam]

The Unit names in the in-game Help don't appear to be alphabetised.

It this in English or in translated version?

Because when things are ordered alphabetically in English, they will appear in "random order" when translated. In many languages that could be prevented by using a rather simple algorithm (the algorithm does not have to be 100% correct, even imperfect approximation will make it much easier for player).

[Viliam]

there's no point in sorting by race if the player can't always see what the unit's race is!

For which units it is difficult to say a race? I think only undeads would be non-obvious; Dark Adept is the only unit which belongs to one race (human), but its higher levels to another (undead).

However, a "race" is something that has completely no role in Wesnoth game rules (except that units of the same race are designed to share some characteristics), so it probably is not a good primary sorting criterium.

[zookeeper]

there's no point in sorting by race if the player can't always see what the unit's race is!

For which units it is difficult to say a race? I think only undeads would be non-obvious; Dark Adept is the only unit which belongs to one race (human), but its higher levels to another (undead).

It wouldn't be difficult for many races, but the player must still only guess. Monster units are an obvious problem. Several undead units (are they undead, skeleton, ghost, human or what?) or wolf riders (goblin? wolf? beast?) aren't clear either. Subtitles would solve most of this easily:

Code: Select all

-- Elf ---
* Elvish Avenger
* Elvish Captain
* ...
-- Goblin --
* Direwolf Rider
* Goblin Knight
* ...
-- Human --
* Assassin
* Arch Mage
* ...

Also, even if it's not difficult to know what the race of the unit that you're looking for is, you still have to look for other units, since nothing in the unit list tells you that "Goblin units are here!". You have to wonder what "goblins" might come after...well, they'll be after "elves" probably, and before "humans"...so let's find a human unit and scroll up until I see something familiar...instead of just looking for "goblins".

Very ackward.

[tsr]

related to this, I would like to see the faction of a unit in-game. I also would like to have two different listings:
- by name
- by faction and name, this is especially useful for MP for new players, since otherwise it's impossible to find out wich units the opponent can recruit.

/tsr

[JW]

Perhaps collapsable tabs for all factions the user has in his folders?
(After and in addition to the alphabetized unit list for all mainline units)

[bruno]

Currently units are sorted by race and then alphabetically.
The races are ordered by there name in English, since there isn't a translatable version of race names for all races and the ones that exist aren't stored in a way that they can be tied by to their race.
It is possible to change the config file to change them to be sorted just alphabetically.
The plan is to provide a list sorted by faction, then race, then unit name. But when I was working on this I thought we had gotten too close to feature freeze to do that. As it turns out, the freeze was a bit fuzzy, and I probably could have snuck something in, but it is too late now.
If people prefer the old way rather than the partially completed move toward sorting by faction, then for 1.2 we should make the one line change in the config file to give the old behavior.

[Viliam]

IMHO races -- if they are used for sorting -- should be used like subfolders in help tree:

Code: Select all

Help
* Units
  * Elves
    * Elvish Avenger
    * Elvish Captain
  * Goblins
    * Direwolf Rider
    * Goblin Knight
  * Humans
    * Assassin
    * Arch Mage

Sorting by faction... well, the problem is that in campaign there are no factions. Do thieves belong to the "Rebel" faction in HTTT? Does Li'sar (when)?

[bruno]

My plan is to have subfolders for factions and to have a catch all for units not in any faction.
Note that factions are not fixed. So that there will probably be a top level set of folders to select an era or not to group by faction (all units ordered by name) and probably one just to group by race.
Within factions, I have a feeling that grouping by race inside of factions won't be very desirable. The lists should be small enough that that isn't needed.
For 1.2 the old behavior will be restored. I will be checkung that change in shortly.

[turin]

Wouldn't it make more sense to sort it by race, since race is defined in the unit file while faction is not? In fact, some units are in multiple factions. Also, it sounds like if you sort by faction UMCs like the IE will not get sorted correctly...

[Viliam]

So that there will probably be a top level set of folders to select an era or not to group by faction (all units ordered by name) and probably one just to group by race.

In multiplayer, just use factions from the current era.

In single player... technically you could for each side make a set consisting of (a) units they can recruit, (b) units they can recall, (c) units they have now, and (d) all their possible upgrades. Please note that these sets may overlap for different sides -- scenario author can let play e.g. Orcs + Goblins vs Humans + Goblins. And when you receive new units, e.g. via event, this set must be re-calculated.

[Noyga]

It looks they are not sorted at all, just appearing in the same order they load, e.g. alphabetical order of the path of their .cfg.

[turin]

In multiplayer, just use factions from the current era.

In single player... technically you could for each side make a set consisting of (a) units they can recruit, (b) units they can recall, (c) units they have now, and (d) all their possible upgrades. Please note that these sets may overlap for different sides -- scenario author can let play e.g. Orcs + Goblins vs Humans + Goblins. And when you receive new units, e.g. via event, this set must be re-calculated.

Why is it better to do this than to just do it by races?

(I agree it might be nice to list the different factions in the game IN ADDITION TO sorting it by races, but that should be done separately from the unit description...)


Races seems more... natural, anyhow. Sorting it into factions seems contrived.