I don't RANT often, but this just has to be said

[unmerged(11763)]

Vulture has oft repeated that the difficulty in locking the sliders at 0 is not a bug but is "works as designed" because it is possible, if you hit just the right spot, to make it work. Well, that's BS. It is one of the most frustrating elements of the game and there is no way the design document stated "We'll make the controls overlap at places so that it is nearly impossible to activate the desired effect and absolutely impossible to tell whether or not you are pointing at the right location for either control."

USER INTERFACE IS IMPORTANT! I don't know how to say that strongly enough. USER INTERFACE IS IMPORTANT! A great game is useless if I cannot actually play it. If I know what I want to do, but cannot do it, then that is a bad design. If I know what I want to do and how to do it, but it doesn't work correctly with any regularity, then that is a bug.

Let's put it another way. What if the little box with the X to close a window only worked if you hit a few random pixels and it often took 6 and 7 tries to make it work? Would that be a "works as designed"? No. What if clicking in a cell in excel only selected the cell if you happened to hit a few random unidentified spots within the cell. Works as designed? No. Even Microsoft would call those bugs and they would fix them. When you start producing software worse than what Microsoft would accept, you should be ashamed of yourselves. When you are even more insistant than Microsoft that everything is OK when it is clearly not, you should be doubly ashamed.

I like the game. I am generally very supportive of you guys. But in this one case, I think you are stark raving mad. The slider problems are a giant pain in the arse and they seriously detract from the game by increasing my frustration level over something that is absolutely stupid. USER INTERFACE IS IMPORTANT. Now fix the damn sliders. Please.

 

[Minodrin]

Well, one another small problem I might like to talk about. The fan's defense of Paradox. I mean, if someone complains about something there have been occasions where everyone has said that "No-one but Paradox makes these huge world-scale strategic games, so stop complaining about small things as they have worked long and hard to bring us this game. Yes, you have no idea how hard they have worked"... and then there is the famous "Sure, you needed EU 2 to actually have the full complete game, as EU 1 wasn't all that great, but Paradox games are so rare it's worth paying two times".
This hame has some serious flaws, stupid design decisions (Can you say naval combat) and an AI not up to the task (although I would assume rather advanced).

Does anyone here have experience about AI coding. I mean let's take France for example. Give the French AI the goal of "Not losing French provinces or as few as possible", then make it start putting units in locations and for it to combine the setting, and enemy units and how it's troops deployments work to further the goal. Say Spain, Germany and Italy are Axis, Axis is at war with France. All troops on the magnitot cause an Axis victory in southern France, moving units to southern France causes more provinces to remain French = Move units to the south (doing this many times will eventually make the French AI balance it's troops placement. No Axis Spain = No need for units there and so on). And this would work for the rest of the AI too in theory, wouldn't it?

 

[unmerged(5553)]

I agree jchastain

The sliders are a PITA and cause me more frustration than almost any other part of the game. Some of the suggestions I have heard would be good ones.

 

[unmerged(13582)]

Yes, I agree that the clicking of buttons and locking of sliders are a few of the most annoying and gameplay-lowering experiences in the game, although the fact that the game-time is only 12 yrs makes it feel like youre playing a demo, especially if youre playing Russia since the game ends once youre at top and defeated Germany...unless theres a way of turning that limitation off?
Another patch could perhaps adress issues like the buttons and sliders?

 

[unmerged(1641)]

Can't agree more...

It's 2003 and HoI uses in many cases (the sliders in particculare) an interface who not had been acceppted in my old C64 wargames.

And as said "The interface is VERY important", in a RT game u can't have sliders like that. Have better things to do (play EU2 for example, just love that game) then check them once a minute and pause the game spending 5-10 minutes of frustrating to get them correcct then wait a minute to start over again.

It's just ruin the fun, HoI can and will be an very good game if Paradox fix many interface "bugs" in a patch or revised functions for many thing's about the interface.

At last, can HoI be named as a RT game when u have to pause it so often ? Had been better in my opinion if it had been a simulated RT turnbased game as Combat Mission.

 

[Maximilian I]

the slider problem should be fixed with 1.03

 

[unmerged(1641)]

I hold my thumb's for that.... one step in right direction.

 

[unmerged(11763)]

Originally posted by Maximilian I
the slider problem should be fixed with 1.03

And the crowd goes wild!

/cheer

OK, I officially love you guys again. Sure, I might be easy. But at least I know what I want.

 

[King of Men]

Originally posted by Minodrin
Say Spain, Germany and Italy are Axis, Axis is at war with France.

Well, yes. That's where your theory of AI development goes haywire. There are just so many combinations of alliances, available troops, responses to events etc that it is very difficult to do this sort of genetic algorithm. You have to go for much more general responses to situations like 'I am at war with country X, which borders me in provinces Y - Z."
This is much more difficult, and is why it took about five million years for the human brain to become the flexible precision instrument that it is - it can even play HoI better than AIs expressly designed for the task. But I assure you, the AI would beat our chimplike ancestors hands down.

 

[unmerged(12685)]

Personally, what I would like to see is the ability to enter in a number from the keyboard by actually typing it, in addition to using the sliders. Same goes for convoys though, as making a large convoy can get remarkably tedious. It's most likely a pipe dream, but it would still be nice to have.

 

[swilhelm73]

Originally posted by Stigger
Personally, what I would like to see is the ability to enter in a number from the keyboard by actually typing it, in addition to using the sliders. Same goes for convoys though, as making a large convoy can get remarkably tedious. It's most likely a pipe dream, but it would still be nice to have.

And with the world market too - As a major, setting up a half dozen one hundred unit trades is a minor (wrist) pain!

 

[unmerged(2810)]

Originally posted by King of Men
Well, yes. That's where your theory of AI development goes haywire. There are just so many combinations of alliances, available troops, responses to events etc that it is very difficult to do this sort of genetic algorithm.

Oh yeah! I have to second that. I work with the latest cutting-edge specially-designed phylogenesis analysis software around. In a nutshell, it looks at a group of whatevers (structures, sequences, etc.) and then determines which ones are more closely related to others, linking them all eventually together (evolution need not be presumed--one can merely look for similarity).

Many are the times when I run, look at a result, and go "That's just plain screwy." I go in and change one tiny thing (like move a single character one space left), and the outcome changes dramatically--all because one has to make compromises in the algorithms.

 

[unmerged(7638)]

Originally posted by First Surprise

At last, can HoI be named as a RT game when u have to pause it so often ? Had been better in my opinion if it had been a simulated RT turnbased game as Combat Mission.

I wouldn't want to play it in real time. 11 years to finish a game, no way!

 

[unmerged(485)]

Originally posted by Marty
I wouldn't want to play it in real time. 11 years to finish a game, no way!

Just think of all the real micro-management you would get to do!

 

[King]

Originally posted by Sonny
Just think of all the real micro-management you would get to do!

Well as Churchill you micromanage your drinks cabinet.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

I agree that the sliders are a bad user interface.

But I don't get the point of where the problem is. So you can't lock them at 0? Who cares, if it is 0 or 0.7.

Same with consumer production - cannot hit exactly 100%? Bah just give 'em a bit more or less, unless dissens is effected it doesn't matter.

You could call this loss of IC "friction in administration".

 

[unmerged(11567)]

Yes Isebrand - I don't understand the outcry of emotion for the sliders myself.

IRL, How could you ever hit something on the nose like this at 100% anyway.

 

[unmerged(13538)]

What about deploying troops?

The sliders are annoying - often it is nigh impossible to lock something at 0.00.

Another UI issue I have is deploying troops; now unless I've missed something, there doesn't seem to be a way to deploy multiple units all at once. Talk about a PITA - especially when I have a massive flotilla returning from repairs at once - dozens of ships that all have to be individually clicked and deployed to a given province. How come I can't highlet 20 ships in a row and deploy them all.

I have to agree that UI is killing HOI for me - it makes things tedious. And why won't 1296x mode work??

It's damned frustrating - it's like there's this great game in there, but you just can't get at it.

 

[Kashluk]

Well it's real frustrating while playing with minor countries, where even the smallest bit of IC is worth the fuss. You need exactly 120 for production because you NEED 120 for production. Every overleft piece on this slider means useless decrease on other slider.

 

[unmerged(485)]

For the sliders either another button to click for locking/unlocking or have the ability to use the fine adjustment arrows to move the slider even when it is locked (the program would not ba able to move the locked sliders however). That way you cold make the gross adjustment, double-click to lock it (which makes it jump to some value you don't want) and then you adjust it back to the value you do want.