what's wrong with FoW and concealing specials

[turin]

This was originally a post in a thread locked for reasons irrelevant to this discussion, but I decided to split it off and see what people thought about it...


The main problem I have with FoW (which is the same as the one I have with ambush and night-stalk) is that it makes it so that HOW you get to your destination matters, as opposed to having all that matters be where you are, where you're going to end up, and the fact that there's a path between them (any path). Which makes it so that it's a good idea to choose the exact path your unit takes from point A to point B - but it's rather difficult to do this with the current interface, since unless you move a unit multiple times you can't determine exactly how the unit gets where its going, it just follows whatever the computer determines is the "preferred" path.

It would be much better if, when you select a unit and try to move it, how the unit gets to its destination is determined by how you move your mouse to the destination - so, by moving your mouse from starting point to finish point, you drag out a curve from point A to point B, and the unit follows that curve, rather than the path prescribed by the movement algorithm. I've seen this used in other games, and it works fairly well there.

[Aethaeryn]

Maybe instead have checkpoints. Basically, when you right click while still having the path being made, you say that the path must move through that hex. That way you don't have to move your mouse fancily, which could be bad especially if you have to scroll the screen.

[megane]

Maybe instead have checkpoints. Basically, when you right click while still having the path being made, you say that the path must move through that hex. That way you don't have to move your mouse fancily, which could be bad especially if you have to scroll the screen.

I agree completely, except that it would probably be better to have it be a shift-click -- I often use right-click to deselect a unit so as not to accidentally send it off somewhere untoward, and there'd probably be a bit of confusion with the context menu. Shift-click (IIRC) does nothing special at the moment, and (again, IIRC) has a precedent of being the "waypoint" action in Starcraft for example.

[Aethaeryn]

Maybe instead have checkpoints. Basically, when you right click while still having the path being made, you say that the path must move through that hex. That way you don't have to move your mouse fancily, which could be bad especially if you have to scroll the screen.

I agree completely, except that it would probably be better to have it be a shift-click -- I often use right-click to deselect a unit so as not to accidentally send it off somewhere untoward, and there'd probably be a bit of confusion with the context menu. Shift-click (IIRC) does nothing special at the moment, and (again, IIRC) has a precedent of being the "waypoint" action in Starcraft for example.

Yeah, I think you're right. I think that was the waypoint action in AoE 2 as well.

[Lorbi]

Enable delayed shroud update and move your unit hex per hex when needed. There are very few times when it really does matter what path the unit takes and for those cases. Move it by hand.

[zookeeper]

It would be much better if, when you select a unit and try to move it, how the unit gets to its destination is determined by how you move your mouse to the destination - so, by moving your mouse from starting point to finish point, you drag out a curve from point A to point B, and the unit follows that curve, rather than the path prescribed by the movement algorithm. I've seen this used in other games, and it works fairly well there.

Uh. That sounds like it'd get really, really annoying really, really quick. What you're describing would require you to trace the exact path, touching each hex on that path and no others. I'd certainly struggle to get it right most of the time even if I took a second or two per every hex! If units would usually move max 3 hexes, then sure, that'd work. But unfortunately, most units move 4-7 hexes, which would make tracing the route incredibly cumbersome.

Now, I wouldn't mind if dragging the movement pointer used the path tracing mode.

[turin]

Enable delayed shroud update and move your unit hex per hex when needed. There are very few times when it really does matter what path the unit takes and for those cases. Move it by hand.

Delaying shroud updates wouldn't help anything. Huh?

Now, I wouldn't mind if dragging the movement pointer used the path tracing mode.

That sounds fine to me too, though I think if it was implemented well how I suggested it wouldn't be particularly annoying.

[irrevenant]

Shift-click waypoints sound like the best option to me. That way you wouldn't have to hit every hex on the path, and it's a lot less fidgety in general. Maybe you could even shift-drag waypoints to adjust them.

[Dave]

It would be much better if, when you select a unit and try to move it, how the unit gets to its destination is determined by how you move your mouse to the destination - so, by moving your mouse from starting point to finish point, you drag out a curve from point A to point B, and the unit follows that curve, rather than the path prescribed by the movement algorithm. I've seen this used in other games, and it works fairly well there.

This would result in some problems though...

What if the movement path you drag with your mouse resulted in you using more mp than the shortest path? This would be bad if you then decided you wanted to move your unit again.

What if the movement path you drag used more movement points than you have? Should it then revert to a movement path that's actually feasible?

There is already a solution for situations where you want to choose the movement path (which I don't think is incredibly common, even in FoW games): move in small increments.

David