Erikber
11.06.13, 00:19
Greetings fellow settlers!
Being an experienced Settlers Online player and a member of the largest guild in Sandycove, there are some features that I find annoying and slow. So, without further ado, here is a list of changes and features I would like to see implemented into the game in the future:
Smart rebuilding
Wheatfields and wells are now able to be rebuilt without going into the building menu and selecting the correct building and then placing it in the correct place.
Instead, just hover the mouse over an exhausted wheatfield or well and a little button pops up. Click on it and the game adds a new construction to the constructing queue. If your queue is full or you don't have the materials to rebuild it, the button is greyed out and unclickable.
In addition, if you hover your mouse over a depleted mine, you can select the small Geologist button. Click it and a dialog box pops up where you are able to select which Geologist you wish to send to rediscover a new deposit. This feature works great with the upcoming Science System.
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/9836/wheatf.jpg
By clicking the wheat image on the Exhausted field, it's instantly added to the building queue.
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/3962/marbleu.jpg
Clicking on the Geologist icon brings you to a new menu.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/9107/searchfornewdeposit.jpg
Select which Geologist that will search for the new deposit.
Star Menu stacking
Say adieu to endless scrolling in the Star Menu. With Star Menu stacking, all resources, adventures, buildings, buffs and specialists are neatly stacked up so that there's only one stack of each item in the Star Menu. In addition, the game will feature a drag-and-drop if you still wish to keep multiple stacks of the same item. Simply click on a stack and then click on the Star Menu and a dialog will pop up, allowing you to specify the number of stacks and the number of items in each stack that you wish to create. Similarly, if you want to merge multiple stacks, simply drag a stack onto another of the same kind and they instantly merge into one.
Intelligent Star Menu handling
In addition to stacking, the items in the Star Menu which only has one destination (i.e. items which can only be added to the headquarters) no longer requires you to click on the headquarters. Instead, when clicking on such an item a dialog box pops up, asking you for the number of items you wish to add to your headquarters. All kind of resources as well as Love Potions, map fragments, you name it, will follow this new kind of handling.
Battle Control
This exciting new feature allows you to manage all your generals and their armies at the same time. Clicking on the new Army button, you will be greeted with a multi-layered window in which, on your left, you have all your generals in a list along with a radio box next to each and every one of them, more on that later. Click on one of them you can specify each general's army, both in the traditional slider way and by simply typing the number of troops you want to assign to each general. On the far right of the window, there's a counter which shows you the total number of assigned and unassigned troops.
On the bottom, the row contains familiar buttons such as Attack, Combat Preview, Transfer and Retreat but also the Send Army button, the OK and the Cancel buttons and the Assign Target button. The target button allows you to set a target for your General without dispatching him. After setting the target, the button changes into a Attack target button. Clicking the Cancel button now serves two purposes; both to cancel unwanted army assignment changes and to remove a picked target.
Now, the most useful feature in this new UI is the radio boxes. All orders you issue is carried out to all Generals which has the radio box checked. This allows you to assign troops to all Generals and only clicking OK once and to dispatch Generals with different targets simultaneously, effectively removing any issues with blocks that are messed up due to lag. You can also retreat all Generals that are currently in the field, see which General that would fare best against a camp with Combat Preview, dispatch a selected number of Generals to an adventure and so on. Such information would be displayed in a central information area. Of course, when you operate more than one General at once, a dialog box will pop up after issuing an order, asking you to confirm the use of all the checked Generals before the order is carried out.
To sum it up, Battle Control would revolutionize the combat part of the game!
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/540/battlecontrol.jpg
The Battle Control UI allows you to easily manage all your Generals at once. With the Assign Target system, blocking will never again get ruined by lag. Of course you're able to rename your Generals just like your Geologists.
Favorite Buffing
Perhaps you have some buildings you always buff and some you don't? With this small new feature, you can simply click on a building and in the information menu tack a small box. After doing so, tiny clouds will hover the building while it's not being buffed, letting your friends know which buildings you prefer to have buffed. In addition to that, selecting a buff from your Star Menu and applying it to your headquarters will bring up a dialog box asking you if you want to spend # number of buffs (provided you have that many) on your Favorite buildings. Similary, using a buff on a friend's headquarters brings up the same box asking you if you want to spend # number of buffs on your friend's Favorite buildings.
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/2404/favoritebuffing.jpg
The Coinage is checked as a Favorite but is not currently buffed, hence the clouds which are visible to you and your friends and guild mates.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/5130/favoritebuffing2.jpg
A dialog box asking you which kind of buff that you'd like to use.
Swap building positions
This is not a new feature but more of an extension of the Move building command. Now, when moving a building, you can select another existing building and the game will ask you if you want to swap the position of those two buildings for the fee of moving both buildings once.
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/4866/swapbuildings.jpg
A dialog box asking you which method to use to swap the position of the selected Farm and Hardwood sawmill.
Non-restricted production - Similar feature implemented 27/1/2015
Don't you just hate having create troops, buffs and alike in batches of 25? Well, no more! The traditional slider reaches its max when you run out of resources. You can also simply input the number of items you'd like to create, if the number exceeds what is possible with your resources, the game sets it to the max amount you're able to create. As simple as that! This change includes items created in the Barracks and the Provision house.
If you change your mind after starting the work on a very large batch, fear not, just click the cancel button as usual and all items that hasn't yet been created returns as resources while items that are already finished (without the batch being finished) is given to you as completed items.
Treasure search reward options - Implemented 6/5/2014
Do you have some 10-15 explorers returning each day with small chunks of resources that quickly fills up your star menu? This small feature allows you to select to have your treasure immediately sent to your storage instead of star menu. The choice of having it sent to your star menu still remains. Useful for non-produced resources such as granite, salpeter, titanium ore etc.
These are all the changes I propose for now, I might include more ideas later on. If you wish to see sketches of the features, try to convince me and I might make some.
Please, do try to criticize, praise or express your general concern for these ideas. If enough of you do so, it might be so that Blue Byte picks up one or two of the ideas. If you are part of a guild or similar, please forward the link to your comrades.
Cheers!
Erikber
Knights & Merchants
Sandycove
Being an experienced Settlers Online player and a member of the largest guild in Sandycove, there are some features that I find annoying and slow. So, without further ado, here is a list of changes and features I would like to see implemented into the game in the future:
Smart rebuilding
Wheatfields and wells are now able to be rebuilt without going into the building menu and selecting the correct building and then placing it in the correct place.
Instead, just hover the mouse over an exhausted wheatfield or well and a little button pops up. Click on it and the game adds a new construction to the constructing queue. If your queue is full or you don't have the materials to rebuild it, the button is greyed out and unclickable.
In addition, if you hover your mouse over a depleted mine, you can select the small Geologist button. Click it and a dialog box pops up where you are able to select which Geologist you wish to send to rediscover a new deposit. This feature works great with the upcoming Science System.
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/9836/wheatf.jpg
By clicking the wheat image on the Exhausted field, it's instantly added to the building queue.
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/3962/marbleu.jpg
Clicking on the Geologist icon brings you to a new menu.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/9107/searchfornewdeposit.jpg
Select which Geologist that will search for the new deposit.
Star Menu stacking
Say adieu to endless scrolling in the Star Menu. With Star Menu stacking, all resources, adventures, buildings, buffs and specialists are neatly stacked up so that there's only one stack of each item in the Star Menu. In addition, the game will feature a drag-and-drop if you still wish to keep multiple stacks of the same item. Simply click on a stack and then click on the Star Menu and a dialog will pop up, allowing you to specify the number of stacks and the number of items in each stack that you wish to create. Similarly, if you want to merge multiple stacks, simply drag a stack onto another of the same kind and they instantly merge into one.
Intelligent Star Menu handling
In addition to stacking, the items in the Star Menu which only has one destination (i.e. items which can only be added to the headquarters) no longer requires you to click on the headquarters. Instead, when clicking on such an item a dialog box pops up, asking you for the number of items you wish to add to your headquarters. All kind of resources as well as Love Potions, map fragments, you name it, will follow this new kind of handling.
Battle Control
This exciting new feature allows you to manage all your generals and their armies at the same time. Clicking on the new Army button, you will be greeted with a multi-layered window in which, on your left, you have all your generals in a list along with a radio box next to each and every one of them, more on that later. Click on one of them you can specify each general's army, both in the traditional slider way and by simply typing the number of troops you want to assign to each general. On the far right of the window, there's a counter which shows you the total number of assigned and unassigned troops.
On the bottom, the row contains familiar buttons such as Attack, Combat Preview, Transfer and Retreat but also the Send Army button, the OK and the Cancel buttons and the Assign Target button. The target button allows you to set a target for your General without dispatching him. After setting the target, the button changes into a Attack target button. Clicking the Cancel button now serves two purposes; both to cancel unwanted army assignment changes and to remove a picked target.
Now, the most useful feature in this new UI is the radio boxes. All orders you issue is carried out to all Generals which has the radio box checked. This allows you to assign troops to all Generals and only clicking OK once and to dispatch Generals with different targets simultaneously, effectively removing any issues with blocks that are messed up due to lag. You can also retreat all Generals that are currently in the field, see which General that would fare best against a camp with Combat Preview, dispatch a selected number of Generals to an adventure and so on. Such information would be displayed in a central information area. Of course, when you operate more than one General at once, a dialog box will pop up after issuing an order, asking you to confirm the use of all the checked Generals before the order is carried out.
To sum it up, Battle Control would revolutionize the combat part of the game!
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/540/battlecontrol.jpg
The Battle Control UI allows you to easily manage all your Generals at once. With the Assign Target system, blocking will never again get ruined by lag. Of course you're able to rename your Generals just like your Geologists.
Favorite Buffing
Perhaps you have some buildings you always buff and some you don't? With this small new feature, you can simply click on a building and in the information menu tack a small box. After doing so, tiny clouds will hover the building while it's not being buffed, letting your friends know which buildings you prefer to have buffed. In addition to that, selecting a buff from your Star Menu and applying it to your headquarters will bring up a dialog box asking you if you want to spend # number of buffs (provided you have that many) on your Favorite buildings. Similary, using a buff on a friend's headquarters brings up the same box asking you if you want to spend # number of buffs on your friend's Favorite buildings.
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/2404/favoritebuffing.jpg
The Coinage is checked as a Favorite but is not currently buffed, hence the clouds which are visible to you and your friends and guild mates.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/5130/favoritebuffing2.jpg
A dialog box asking you which kind of buff that you'd like to use.
Swap building positions
This is not a new feature but more of an extension of the Move building command. Now, when moving a building, you can select another existing building and the game will ask you if you want to swap the position of those two buildings for the fee of moving both buildings once.
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/4866/swapbuildings.jpg
A dialog box asking you which method to use to swap the position of the selected Farm and Hardwood sawmill.
Non-restricted production - Similar feature implemented 27/1/2015
Don't you just hate having create troops, buffs and alike in batches of 25? Well, no more! The traditional slider reaches its max when you run out of resources. You can also simply input the number of items you'd like to create, if the number exceeds what is possible with your resources, the game sets it to the max amount you're able to create. As simple as that! This change includes items created in the Barracks and the Provision house.
If you change your mind after starting the work on a very large batch, fear not, just click the cancel button as usual and all items that hasn't yet been created returns as resources while items that are already finished (without the batch being finished) is given to you as completed items.
Treasure search reward options - Implemented 6/5/2014
Do you have some 10-15 explorers returning each day with small chunks of resources that quickly fills up your star menu? This small feature allows you to select to have your treasure immediately sent to your storage instead of star menu. The choice of having it sent to your star menu still remains. Useful for non-produced resources such as granite, salpeter, titanium ore etc.
These are all the changes I propose for now, I might include more ideas later on. If you wish to see sketches of the features, try to convince me and I might make some.
Please, do try to criticize, praise or express your general concern for these ideas. If enough of you do so, it might be so that Blue Byte picks up one or two of the ideas. If you are part of a guild or similar, please forward the link to your comrades.
Cheers!
Erikber
Knights & Merchants
Sandycove