Interface Feature Request: Hard Pause

[Weijun]

I humbly request that the devs incorporate into Victoria 2 one of the most useful functions for Victoria, EU2, and the other games on the same engine: the hard pause.

What do I mean by hard pause? That is when the pause key does not unpause autopause, and can only be unpaused by hitting the pause key again.

To clarify, in the original Victoria, when the game autopaused (through an event set to pop-up and pause), it could be unpaused by clicking the confirmation or hitting the Enter key. I call this a soft pause. Hitting the pause key only paused the game, and it could only be unpaused by hitting the pause key again. I call this a hard pause.

With EU3, when there are a number of pop-up events, I find that hitting pause often unpauses autopaused pop-ups rather than pausing the game. If there are enough pop-ups and my luck is bad enough, I can go through over a month of game time repeatedly attempting to pause, but unpausing autopause instead. This was never a problem in the original Victoria. While I do find having pause mapped to the space bar more comfortable, overall I find the new pause settings somewhat frustrating.

I realize that this is a consequence of my gameplay style, i.e. I run the game on the highest speed, but set almost every notification to pop-up and pause. Nevertheless, given that the hard pause was of a feature of previous Paradox games, I hope you will bring it back for Victoria 2.

I hope this makes sense. I have repeated the word pause to the point that it has almost lost all meaning. :wacko:

 

[Trin Tragula]

As far as I know what you call soft pause isn't in eu3 though. Clicking a popup will never unpause the game in eu3, the only way to do so is manually.
So basically it sounds a bit like you have too many popups set to autopause to me.
The requested feature would be to reintroduce the "soft pause" rather than the "hard pause" as I understand it (as of now there's only one pause in eu3 and it's total regardless of if it's triggered via popups or the player).

 

[Weijun]

As far as I know what you call soft pause isn't in eu3 though. Clicking a popup will never unpause the game in eu3, the only way to do so is manually.
So basically it sounds a bit like you have too many popups set to autopause to me.
The requested feature would be to reintroduce the "soft pause" rather than the "hard pause" as I understand it (as of now there's only one pause in eu3 and it's total regardless of if it's triggered via popups or the player).

In EU3, confirming autopaused events does not unpause them, but unlike Victoria, hitting the pause key does.

Perhaps hard and soft is not the best way to phrase it. I would like to go back to having two independent pause toggles: one from the pause key alone and a separate one for autopause.

 

[telesien]

In EU3, confirming autopaused events does not unpause them, but unlike Victoria, hitting the pause key does.

Perhaps hard and soft is not the best way to phrase it. I would like to go back to having two independent pause toggles: one from the pause key alone and a separate one for autopause.

The same is in HoI3 and I don't like it. I used to keep research completation reports on auto-pause so I won't loose time when it is finished, but when it poped-up, I instinctively hit pause again.

So definite +1 here

 

[unmerged(84406)]

+1
I have had this problem in EU3, Rome, and HoI3.
It is especially bad when the game is busy as you may press pause, only to have an autopause subsequently appear and pause the game before the game notices your pressing the space bar - which as the game is now paused resumes the game, the exact opposite of what you want.

Having a single interface do two diametrically opposed functions is bad design - doing it when the function changes outside the user's action just makes it worse.

The solution is to have separate pause and resume buttons, & keys, thus when you press pause it will be paused.

At the same time it would be useful to be able to see the game speed while the game is paused. With separate pause and resume buttons these can be used to indicate the state instead of replacing the speed indicator.

A alternative might be to ignore resume within a short interval of an autopause. However if the system is lagging (common unless on high end systems, or using the final patch) this might have to be quite high, and would cause problems for the occasions where you have read the popup and resumed the game.

 

[Gwalcmai]

Just as long as action in the windows that autopaused the game doesn't unpause it... One of the most annoying things in the old games was getting two game-pausing pop-ups, and then dealing with the first unpausing before you could deal with the second. Also, having the game on auto-pause would lock you out of everything, which can be very annoying when you need to get some information before you decide on how to act on the event which paused the game.

This, of course, raises the issue of how to unpause an auto-paused game. If Paradox decides to go with "the first hit on pause while auto-paused takes the game into another pause state", to unpause an auto-pause you would have to "hard-pause" the game to be able to unpause it. Two hits on the same key: silly. On the other hand, having two different pause keys with slightly different forms of pausing the game would be confusing.

Seeing as people have been asking for the current way of doing pause for quite some time because of the problems raised by the old way, it would be nice if you could propose solutions to the problems created by reverting instead of just asking PI to revert.

 

[Lloyien]

Probably the best solution to this problem would be to have autopausing events pause only so long as the event is active. Answering the event (either its one option or its multiple options) would resume the game, with the possibility of manually pausing while the event is up to keep the game in a paused state if you so desire.

 

[Evans]

I'd echo the OP, I like to control my pause function and I do feel I can do so better in the Vicky/Eu2 older style method It's not a huge thing, but the status of pause/unpause is a semi-conscious thing related to my hand that hovers over the key specifically tied to controlling the flow of the game. When certain events throw the cycle of pause and unpause out by changing the overall status without my say-so it can confuse me... o

 

[Red_Communist]

The same is in HoI3 and I don't like it. I used to keep research completation reports on auto-pause so I won't loose time when it is finished, but when it poped-up, I instinctively hit pause again.

So definite +1 here

Yeah same here. It kinda pissed me off while playing HoI3.

+1

 

[Vladislav]

The same is in HoI3 and I don't like it. I used to keep research completation reports on auto-pause so I won't loose time when it is finished, but when it poped-up, I instinctively hit pause again.

So definite +1 here

I have the same problem in EU3. I have most important notifications set to auto-pause, but when I'm playing on the fastest speed and, say, I hear the "DoW" tune, I instinctively hit pause, which unpauses the game and I lose like a month before I pause the game again... Or I go to pause the game for whatever reason and in that split-second a pop-up comes up and pauses the game, so my hitting the spacebar unpauses it, then as I'm frantically trying to pause the game again more windows pop up and pause the game so I'm going through this ridiculous cycle of pausing and unpausing the game.

 

[KAding]

Absolutely! I just stopped using the auto-pause function, it just doesn't work in combination with my finger .

 

[unmerged(15485)]

This would be a terrific boon for usabilty. +1.

I can't count the number of times I have, by mistake, unpaused an important event set to auto-pause.

 

[Weijun]

Seeing as people have been asking for the current way of doing pause for quite some time because of the problems raised by the old way, it would be nice if you could propose solutions to the problems created by reverting instead of just asking PI to revert.

I honestly had no idea that anyone had problems with the old system. Except for the location of the pause key (admittedly, keeping my left hand hovering over the space bar is much more comfortable than Pause/Break), I found the old system effective and intuitive.

In the old system:
If you get one pop-up: confirm with the mouse or hit enter.
If you get multiple pop-ups: hit the pause key, then read and confirm at your leisure.
If you want to pause for any reason: Hit the pause key.

I would be very interested to see a poll on this. Clearly, those of us who posted here are the ones who feel the most strongly on the subject. I do wonder, though, whether most Paradox gamers dislike having two pause states.

 

[herm]

The same is in HoI3 and I don't like it. I used to keep research completation reports on auto-pause so I won't loose time when it is finished, but when it poped-up, I instinctively hit pause again.

So definite +1 here

I have the same problem, cant imagine why Paradox changed that. And now I play the demo and notice that the game unpauses automatically for the strangest of reasons (for example left clicking a province...).

 

[LeeDub]

+1 In fact, I was just thinking about it!

I would request this feature to be implemented in all Clausewitz games and beyond.

 

[unmerged(197473)]

+1 Aye!

 

[TheLand]

To make things more confusing, selecting a new state unpauses the game. GRRRRR

 

[ComradeOm]

Am I understanding this correctly? The problem is that some users have set events to autopause and then reflexively unpause the game when an autopaused event pops up. Correct?

If so, the obvious solution would be to either not use autopause settings or to train yourself not to hit pause at the wrong time. Seems to make more sense than having "separate pause and resume buttons"

 

[Baneslave]

One solution would be locking the unpausing for slight moment when pause-and-pop-up message comes up. Similarly how you cannot click event choices on the second the event pops up.

 

[TheLand]

Am I understanding this correctly? The problem is that some users have set events to autopause and then reflexively unpause the game when an autopaused event pops up. Correct?

If so, the obvious solution would be to either not use autopause settings or to train yourself not to hit pause at the wrong time. Seems to make more sense than having "separate pause and resume buttons"

Well that depends on whether you think that software should be designed to work easily with natural human behaviour, or whether humans should adapt themselves to the whims of their software overlords.

At work we have a running joke about a supplier who, when told their website didn't work at different resolutions, said "Well then the user should just resize their browser!"