War in the West

[Bletchley_Geek]

GG's games basically provide you with a "data dump", no more no less. It's not something I like much, and requires one to be a bit of a masochist. Of that, I am guilty as charged  ;D

To me, this is a fundamental failure in game design. It made WITP very difficult for me to play much beyond the initial months of the pacific war (in the GC) -- I found it simply impossible without the help of '3rd party' applications like WITP-Tracker, or good ol' pencil and paper. 

I've really come to believe that no game should force you to resort to pen and paper -- it's a red-flag that the UI is missing some very basic and necessary functionality. I find the GG "War in the X" games particularly bad when it comes to not building these basic elements into the UI.  It diminishes the enjoyment factor a lot. They become a chore to play.

Indeed, this aspect isn't a priority of 2by3. I remarked my concerns regarding the UI on the public forums back in the day.

But it doesn't "break" the game for me. Yet certainly, if somebody comes up with a game with the same scope and depth, and on top of that, a UI with a clean design that actually shows you information rather than data, and customize data views so I can zero on the stuff I am actually interested in, it would probably be very hard for me to go back to WitW/WitE.

[jomni]

During WW2, the generals do not have spreadsheets, fancy charts and pivot tables.
They do not have stats of their units in the form that we see in games.
They "play the game" with imperfect information and resorted to pen and paper tracking.

This is the problem with games that present too much detail to the player.
They tend to want to look at these little things that otherwise can actually be ignored.
But of course the counter argument is that the little things will make you win the game more than basic knowledge on conducting warfare.
Having a grasp of these details will give you an edge against your opponent.
This detail infatuation leads to gaming the system.

[Bletchley_Geek]

During WW2, the generals do not have spreadsheets, fancy charts and pivot tables.
They do not have stats of their units in the form that we see in games.
They "play the game" with imperfect information and resorted to pen and paper tracking.

This is the problem with games that present too much detail to the player.
They tend to want to look at these little things that otherwise can actually be ignored.
But of course the counter argument is that the little things will make you win the game more than basic knowledge on conducting warfare.
Having a grasp of these details will give you an edge against your opponent.
This detail infatuation leads to gaming the system.

During WW2 generals had staffs, specializing in dealing with the minutiae and presenting comprehensive reports on readiness and capabilities, in a "hierarchical" fashion. Yes, Rommel didn't bother much about spreadsheets, but did care about the report his IA officer would make on the basis of the "spreadsheets" - the gliederungen - the I-A officer of every major combat unit in the Afrika Korps kept updated on a regular basis.

I don't think that going the extra mile to make sense out of the data spewed by WitE was "gaming" the system. Such an statement is a bit like that a hypothetical flight sim player, who doesn't bother with complex engine management and leaves it to the AI, makes when complaining that MP play is "unbalanced" because, players who bother about it have an "edge", since they "exploit" the simulation. One thing is to take advantage of bugs, say that certain mixtures made an aircraft relying on propellers for propulsion to reach Mach 2, and another thing taking advantage of skills one develops while interacting with the game.

In WitE I indeed found I had a bit of an edge by deriving my own heuristics to assess the chances of a stack being supported by nearby stacks in reserve. Especially in a IGO UGO system, with massive week-long turns where units had really long legs, getting the most out of typically limited mechanisms to react during the phasing player turn is critical, and it is as "gamey" as "abstract" is the way the game approximates reality, where stuff happens simultaneously all the time. Another edge was to be aware of when combat units are actually at their prime fighting ability - you have the Combat Factors displayed on the counters but 1) there's a ton of counters, 2) the map is big and 3) those combat factors are approximations or "forecasts" of actual capability, which sometimes are wide off the mark. This "fighting ability" is a - in a game like WitE - a multi-dimensional affair, which doesn't quite fit the notion of "counter" borrowed from board games.

[JudgeDredd]

Besides - we're not in WWII  :P

Seriously though - a UI will help or hinder...and it should help. This is 2014...not the start of the computing age. Sometimes you need to "think out the box". As much as I hate "marketing" BS like that - it does stand the test here.

For example - I should be able to look at that screen and know what each section is telling me. But I don't. I have no clue what anything on that screenie is telling me. And, further, if I can't look at the screenie and immediately know what it's referring to, I should be able to hover over the item and get context sensitive help. This help should give me an idea of what the figures are...not necessarily explain in detail. On top of that, another plus would be to reference the section in the manual that refers to that part.

I'll put a pound to every penny that he's not going to do any of that.

It's not the minutiae that's being displayed that's the problem. It's the lack of reference and seeming prevention of understanding the data presented to the user that's the problem.

Programmers are inherently bad at displaying meaningful info to users (games or business software) because they know how the software works - so it isn't apparent to them that they have to make that information available to the user and not only do they need to make it available, but it has to be written in a way where you're audience will get it.

My god - I've seen games out there where they have tool tips but when you hover over an item, it tells you EXACTLY what you are hovering over tells you.

It's either laziness or a lack of understanding of people not getting what your on about even though you do and, more, you believe it makes total sense.

Either way - it's a bad show in the computing age that in 2014 users are left looking blankly at a screen, fumbling through manuals and going online for help for sometimes the most basic of things.

Present your game in a fashion that engages rather than pushes away. Explain things is detail within the game and where you can't, refer to the part in the manual with more information. Do that and you'll open up your audience. Do it not, and you'll keep your core user base.

Rant over (I HATE bad interfaces). 

[Bletchley_Geek]

Present your game in a fashion that engages rather than pushes away. Explain things is detail within the game and where you can't, refer to the part in the manual with more information. Do that and you'll open up your audience. Do it not, and you'll keep your core user base.

Rant over (I HATE bad interfaces). 

Not a rant. I reckon that if one has to choose to allocate developing time, the above has a significant priority over other additional features beyond the core of the game one wants to make.

The thing is that UI - or graphics - development can be very, very, very unfun, JD. Capn Darwin was complaining recently and loudly about Windows being a pain in the arse with their thing of "if you don't do fonts in a way that basically only works for Windows 8 guaranteed, expect that font scaling is going to break your game, and badly". That's not fun. The messages of the users protesting loudly about your game looking crap on their crazy settings (settings they're fully entitled to have) is not fun. Redesigning the layout of a carefully crafted UI for higher resolutions or from 4:3 to 16:9 aspect is not fun. Figuring out why the ancient DirectDraw code you used now looks shit, or crashes at random in newer cards, is not fun.

Most war game devs out there are into the business mainly because of the fun, not the money. And when I say "the fun" I mean "the fun they have crafting the game".

[JasonPratt]

Incidentally, it a bad UI "laziness" in the case of monster Gary Grigsby games? How many people does he have for working on things like that, compared to how large the game is?

A bad UI is certainly still a problem; I just want to know how justified the ethical charge of laziness is.  :-\

[JudgeDredd]

Incidentally, it a bad UI "laziness" in the case of monster Gary Grigsby games? How many people does he have for working on things like that, compared to how large the game is?

A bad UI is certainly still a problem; I just want to know how justified the ethical charge of laziness is.  :-\

Mate fight with yourself - I can't be arsed. "ethical charge" Geez.  ::)

[sandman2575]

The thing is that UI - or graphics - development can be very, very, very unfun, JD. Capn Darwin was complaining recently and loudly about Windows being a pain in the arse with their thing of "if you don't do fonts in a way that basically only works for Windows 8 guaranteed, expect that font scaling is going to break your game, and badly". That's not fun. The messages of the users protesting loudly about your game looking crap on their crazy settings (settings they're fully entitled to have) is not fun. Redesigning the layout of a carefully crafted UI for higher resolutions or from 4:3 to 16:9 aspect is not fun. Figuring out why the ancient DirectDraw code you used now looks shit, or crashes at random in newer cards, is not fun.

Most war game devs out there are into the business mainly because of the fun, not the money. And when I say "the fun" I mean "the fun they have crafting the game".

I'm sure it is a drag for the programmers, but a well-functioning UI has got to be a major priority for any game developer. It's the very means by which the player interacts with the game! 

I can't for the life of me fathom why so much effort would be put into designing the intricacies of (for ex.) combat mechanics and outcomes in WITE *without* a comparable effort to make sure this essential information is conveyed in a streamlined, visually engaging way to the player.  Go ahead, anyone, load up WITE and initiate a combat, and soak in the 'experience.' Is there anyone who thinks WITE's presentation of combat is clear, much less engaging?   Half the time information is cut-off in a 'display box' that is obviously way too small to present the data.  It's simply awful. I can't put it any more plainly than that.

2by3 should take a page out of AGEOD's play-book, and see how they have, over time, improved their interface.  In recent games like Civil War II, they've done a lot to improve things like the battle-outcome screen, which used to be pretty hard to decipher in games like Napoleon's Campaigns. It's not perfect now, but it's much better:  a cleaner, clearer presentation of what happened in the battle and why it resolved the way it did. Again, it's not perfect, but it's an improvement.

I realize 2by3's resources are very limited and that none of this is 'easy' for them to do. But a game has got to be as fun for the end-user to play as it is for the devs/programmers to design, and by not putting much thought or effort into the UI, they're falling well short of that standard.

Another point of contrast by a game from a very small developer:  Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue. Again, it's UI is far from perfect.  But it is a much better, more satisfying experience for the player than WITE. I've poured many happy hours into Case Blue. I initially poured hours into WITE when it came out, and then came to the conclusion that I'd rather enjoy playing a game than constantly fighting against its horrific UI.

[jomni]

What is wrong with WITE UI?  As far as I can remember it is pretty streamlined and it is just a simple matter of counter pushing (thousands of counters a turn).

[Cyrano]

It doesn't get more spread-sheety than the EU series and Paradox clearly understood the criticisms that are justly being raised here.  Witness the nigh night-and-day improvement, at least by my lights, in the tooltips between EUII and EUIV.  It gives one hope for HOIIV!

As I say, there's a part of my head that will always think I should like games like WiTE, but I guarantee I've played DC more...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[JudgeDredd]

What is wrong with WITE UI?  As far as I can remember it is pretty streamlined and it is just a simple matter of counter pushing (thousands of counters a turn).

Without looking at the manual, can you tell me what everything (anything?) on the screenie above means? What relevance it has and why, as a player, I want to know about it?

Just as some quick, basic feedback to that question - you should be able to look at the screen and at least have an understanding of what it's telling you. From there, you should be able to see tooltips that explain the items in slightly more detail - giving you a basic understanding of the item being viewed. And finally, for more information, it should refer you to the section of the manual that will explain the feature in detail

It could also be tarted up to make it look less sterile...that's the "engaging" aspect Sandman mentioned. But I would put that as a secondary consideration to actually making the screen mean something to the user without having to run to the manual.

As someone suffering from memory issues manuals are pretty freakin useless to me except when actually going to look up at the moment of needing to know. So these are my own personal views on interface...I need the games to tell me what I'm seeing and why it's important and that information, presented on screen, should be enough for me to play the game with a degree of competence. If I want to master said game, links to the sections in the manual would greatly benefit me.

Note that this isn't dumbing down. It's helping the user to get into the game - a game they've spent thousands of hours on. Why would you NOT want your user base to enjoy that experience? As sandman said - why would you want to model all those numbers in game and not want to present them in a fashion that the user will understand and find engaging.

And this is by no means solely linked to GG games.

[JasonPratt]

Incidentally, it a bad UI "laziness" in the case of monster Gary Grigsby games? How many people does he have for working on things like that, compared to how large the game is?

A bad UI is certainly still a problem; I just want to know how justified the ethical charge of laziness is.  :-\

Mate fight with yourself - I can't be arsed. "ethical charge" Geez.  ::)

Wasn't trying to start a fight; it's a serious question. I was nodding in agreement until I realized I might be blaming someone working nearly by themselves on this and some other superlarge games (with some degree of overlap on development and support between them) with laziness. I didn't want to be unfair to GG; but if he had a team of several people working on the UI, or the money to feasibly hire them and didn't, and we ended up with, well, what we have, then maybe laziness was the problem.

Blaming someone for laziness when there's actual evidence of laziness is fine -- I'm a lazy person in several regards myself.  >:D Which often leads to problems! But designing, programming, expanding, and supporting (to at least some extent) ginormous games like this doesn't seem on the face of it like the actions of a lazy person (or small team thereof).

Since I'm too lazy  :)) to look up the answer myself, despite having a pdf of the WITE instructions less than twenty seconds away on this very computer (where I could check the dev team in the manual credits), I thought I'd ask if you already knew.

Which laziness of mine caused a problem.  O:-)

(Deciding to be slightly less lazy I went to my folder, and discovered I didn't have a pdf of the WITE instructions there after all. I feel reasonably confident they're in a folder of my Kindle, 30 feet away in the door-pocket of my car, butzzzzzzzz....  :P )

[BigBlueFleet]

What is wrong with WITE UI?  As far as I can remember it is pretty streamlined and it is just a simple matter of counter pushing (thousands of counters a turn).

I don't mind pushing the counters. :) ;)

I don't see a problem at all with the UI either. 


On another note it looks like they've made big improvements to using parachute units.  Have to be happy with that. I'm counting the days I can buy this puppy. :)

[jomni]

Oh god!  Another hardcover book from Matrix.
Looks like this will cost a bomb like World in Flames. More than $100? Hope it is optional.
I don't like printed manuals for these games because I only read them once.
Rules can drastically change based on user comments and may become outdated (just look at WITE).

[Asid]

Oh god!  Another hardcover book from Matrix.
Looks like this will cost a bomb like World in Flames. More than $100? Hope it is optional.

Shipping + Taxes