Missing features & functionalities

@Warmonger

Good idea. I think it would be a good idea to move item implementation status from google docs to our wiki too, but it would be quite time-consuming.

@Warmonger: Great job. It’s probably better to have them there than on Mantis. Not only did I not manage to find the time to log them in there, but I was also a bit worried that I’d flood Mantis with all the missing features, while we already have over 200 open items. So it might get too cumbersome for devs to browse through them all (though if that is not an issue, let me know, and I can still do it… if I get one day the time - but won’t be anytime soon).

Boulie’s note #1152 attached to Mantis report #526 gave me an idea. There he suggested that we implement drag & drop in the spell book, so that the ALT + 1, 2, 3… (first) shortcuts can be associated with our favorite spells. And then he took it even further suggesting that the shortcuts would work also w/o opening the spell book. While I like the idea, it feels pretty difficult to implement, plus I see small risks of having the spell book ending up looking a bit chaotic…

But perhaps we can have this as alternative:

103.(NEW) In the VCMI Options (to be implemented) menu, which will probably look at least at some level like the WoG one (tabs for different categories), we could have a tab dedicated to spells. Among different options, a section of that tab page could be dedicated to hotkey assignments. Once the user made hotkey assignments, he/she could cast them (if applicable) during battles w/o having to open the spell book to look for them.

I prefer to have it customizable like this, rather than VCMI forcing some hotkeys which may be less intuitive for some players as compared to others.

I like this! :wink:
Divided for section like global hotkey, hero’s screen hotkeys, spell book, adv. map and so on.

Everything what makes game quicker and more friendly are big advantage for VCMI.
There are many nice solutions in TE or new mode Heroes 3 World Tournament / Thread: Homm3 version - WT.
I don’t mean changes in game but features i.e. quick combat improvement, chess-time setup, implemented autosaver, army splitting and switching, artifacts switching,etc.
Players get used to this kind of improvements so we need to follow it. And try not change their habits if it is possible.

Looking on how hotkey system is implemented in RPGs we can implement alternative solution without drag&drop \ lots of new code \ cluttering spellbook:

  1. Add to spellbook one more tab at the bottom named “Favorite spells” or something like that;
    2)when user click on one of slots on that page, spellbook will switch for selecting spell for that slot;
    3)when player press Alt + numpad keys without opened spellbook - cast spell binded to that hotkey.

Additionally we can add this set of spells on battle interface for one-click access (like most MMORPG have)

also please support normal numbers as mirror to numpad - many notebooks/netbooks don’t have numeric keys

I wouldn’t worry about that. So far number hotkeys have always been implemented to be supported for both mainpad and numpad in VCMI. It was H3 which didn’t support them on the numpad actually, which was a bit annoying.

I wonder if this thread is still useful… I haven’t been browsing it for a long time because I use bugtracker to find issues to fix/implement (and this thread is too chaotic). I think this thread should be closed and all feature requests should be reported on mantis. New features / feature requests should be reported with special tag. All relevant requests from this threads should be moved. Does anybody have arguments against it?

I do. :stuck_out_tongue:

But don’t get me wrong. I agree with the following:

  • Mantis is most probably a better place to report features still missing
  • You guys (the devs) should not worry anymore about this thread
  • Whatever relevant requests in this thread not yet implemented, should be added in Mantis for your attention

The reasons I prefer to leave it open though are:

  • for debates. Let’s say I have an idea (like implementing hotkeys for favorite spells on the previous page). I prefer to list it here first and get a bit of feedback on it before reporting it on Mantis. Maybe it’s a stupid idea, or maybe someone can point out something obvious that I missed. Like this I have a better chance of reporting on Mantis an improved version of my original idea, which may also make things easier and more clear for you as devs when you get to it.
  • for new users who just discovered the forum and aren’t yet familiar with Mantis. They may not think it’s the place to report all that’s missing or enhancements and open new threads over here. I’m hoping this sticky may jump in their attention and they’ll go for it instead.
  • for logging purposes. Related to the above, I prefer to have whatever reports/suggestions people might like to post on the forum in one place rather than scattered around (but that’s just me - maybe you actually prefer new threads for such things…)
  • in general I don’t like closing threads, unless they become spam playgrounds :slight_smile:

Now, I agree people need to be discouraged from using this place i/o Mantis, so maybe a good idea would be for me to update the original post about the purpose of the thread, pointing people to Mantis if they want to raise sth to your attention, and post here only if they want other people’s opinion on it first (or if for some reason they really don’t feel like using Mantis - I remember years ago writing lots of useful reports for the H5 beta on the forum, simply because I used to hate Ubi’s bug reporting tool).

For the rest, I was planning to log whatever’s still pending here into Mantis, but with over 200 bug reports still open over there, I thought it may not be the best time to overload it with all these feature requests right now.

Of course, that’s just my p.o.v. It may be wrong or biased, so if you really want the thread closed, I won’t get upset or anything. Maybe a tiny bit frustrated, but it’ll pass. :stuck_out_tongue:

Yep, I also think that closing is not solution. Here are many good ideas and somehow should be made kind of classification - urgent/very good/ good/ nice /useless.
I think Zamolxis is right person to go through this thread and make such a list.
Urgent (and maybe very good - depends how many will be classified as very good and urgent) should be added to mantis. Then after VCMI 1.0 will appear next part of the features could be added to mantis, too.
We should try to avoid making mess in Mantis :wink: That’s why all of the ideas shouldn’t be added to mantis

Yes, you’re right, I didn’t think about new users. This thread could really be a good place for them to report missing features, and for discussions about them. I’m just worried that good ideas written here may be forgotten. Mantis is a better tool for managing feature requests - we can discuss each request separately and tag it according to its priority.

I don’t think this number is likely to decrease. Issues get fixed, but new ones are reported too. I think it’s possible that we will never have less that 100 open issues. Fortunately mantis is much more sophisticated tool tan this forum is and it’s not so easy to overload it :).

Hi everyone!
104. (NEW) This is my first request new features that I would like to see in VCMI. In the original heroes 3 no support for mouse scroll, I think that to introduce it would be a good idea.
Scrolling the mouse would appear in the following locations:

  • The book of spells.
  • List of characters in the adventure map.
  • List of towns in the adventure map.
  • List of towns in the use of spell “town portal” (hell portal in inferno, too).
  • In the Settings window (volume of music and volume effects).
  • The backpack hero (when a lot of artifacts rather tedious to switch them.)
  • In a battle (information below).
  • In a review of the kingdom.
  • In the battle for the monster, if applied more than 3 spells.
  • When inactive “tactics” - select next /previous monster.
  • When hiring monsters, as well as the use of the market, and in other places that I missed.
    Some suggestions. In such locations, such as a backpack hero, scrolling should be smooth, but not too much otherwise it will not quite in the style of the heroes. Let’s just say the player should be clear where we are going backward or forward. I think half of the frame will suffice.
    Thank you for your attention.

Finally someone with good ideas. I didn’t even know that some of them are not implemented :stuck_out_tongue:

Hello again.

Another small suggestion.

105. (NEW) In heroes3 battle log at the beginning of each round, informs us «beginning of the next round». I think that a player should know how many rounds have passed, so should enter the variable that will be reported which account it is round began. Then the message would have looked different, like this «beginning of round 1» (round 2, round 12, round 999).

This can be useful for future modmakers, if they choose to enter such an environment:
[ul]Winning over 13 rounds, the fight ended differently and you can continue on the next day (unless the attacker hero not have enoughmovement points)[/ul]
[ul]From 21 rounds in all the creatures began to strike lightning (or Armageddon), and the more rounds would be the greater damages (it would help on the “endless battles” only if the creatures are not immune; the idea is taken from the game etherlords 2)[/ul]
[ul]Well, for example, or such as would be the night and the forces of darkness (necromancers) attack on the castle, where the forces of darkness are constantly reinforced, if the defense hold 16 rounds, then the day comes (rushes spell «destroy undead» c SP 99 and everybody dies)[/ul]
Thank you for your attention.

I like the idea. Actually I even see it particularly useful during the beta as well, for example to count more easily the amount of rounds until a shooter runs out of arrows, to check if the feature works (and of course not just that).

And I would actually take it a notch further. It may be nice if we would also have an indicator when we step into the 2nd part of a round. It doesn’t have to be a sentence, or not even a word. Can be just a blank row, or with a couple of stars centered… or even just a tiny discrete line between rows.

Hi again, go out on bond.
First I want to congratulate all the new Happy 2012.

Secondly, a few small proposals, this time associated with scrolls of spells. The proposals are:

106. (NEW) aWhen you move to the magical sanctuary horse, it would be nice to report, whether written spell in the book or in the scroll. Or, if on scroll, when hero visit this magical sanctuary learns respectively (writes in the book), and scroll if it was in the active slot is removed in a backpack. If the hero knows the spell, and has a scroll, the priority of the book spells, that is to be written that the hero has already learned the spell as usual. And if hero have not book, then write on the status bar that visiting sanctuary is useless, it would be a reminder just in case.

107. (NEW) aWhen the mouse cursor on the scroll in backpack or hero slot? in the status bar was granted information that is spell studied and if it is. If the spell is learned when you drag would not display a yellow frame slots for scrolls (by default it is always displayed).

Hi lord haart,

Thanks for the suggestions. The enhancements would make perfect sense in the original H3. However, if we do implement them, we’ll have to also put in place code for the WoG Living Scrolls, because the player may want to keep those spells in the active artifact slots also after learning the spell. :wink:

**108 **(NEW) - If we highlight the opponent’s creature in battle screen, the hexes could be shaded for the oponnent’s creature not ours. it works this way in newer versions of heroes and is pretty informative. In H3 I have from time to time count the hexes to know if meelee unit could attack me after turn or not.

**109 **(NEW) - Add secondary skills scrolling buttons and make it work.
I attached a file with positions, two defs for scroll buttons (up and down), and a screenshoot (or rather modified graphics) how it would look. It should scroll one page at once. In era it’s implemented via script (the script scan for buttons during mouseclick and if found it scrolls skills a page) but there’s no problem to make it hardcoded in VCMI and add the two pretty defs to the package

EDIT: the secskills.btn file is text file it contains button names, positions, handle numbers and a few less important stuff. I attached it with the other files for you to not make you pixel-search for position of those.
secskills.zip (204 KB)

In ERA 2 is not working, the buttons crash in various situations.

As for my wishes as player, I would love to see in VCMI all wog scripts which simplify redundant tasks, as buy all, view quantity of creatures in dwellings, rename towns and heroes, scroll additional skills, view movement points, no creature spawns, no plague.

I am rather against stack queue because it removes big part of the checks and calculations we love so much in complex battles. I also disliked the improved pathfinding because, as I saw it, it removes the possibility to hide paths for mapmakers. Did not test it so I just speak about the screens I saw, maybe I am wrong.

Mouse scroll is nice, but IMHO is just cosmetic. What we need is open spots for new ID’s, mines, resources, creatures and towns. Heroes III is very good game and has good game-play. What it misses badly is modding openings, how to add this and that and make it functional, not just work around with clumsy scripts as WoG does.

The WoG scripts, as well as open spots for various elements, will definitely come - that’s the main purpose of this project. We just don’t see much of that yet I guess, because the first target is recreating H3. Once that is done, but with an open source end product, the limitation WoG coders had to face will not be a problem anymore.

As for stack queue & enhanced pathfinder, those are features asked (and coded) from the pov of the player, with the purpose of further reducing what some may consider micromanagement. Personally I don’t make much use of the stack queue, but I’m happy with the enhanced pathfinder. But I’m not a map maker to realize what the disadvantages can be. So it’s great you raised it. In that case, I think the enhanced pathfinder should be optional (just like stack queue), not mandatory. Maybe even code it as such that the map maker would be able to set for the map whether the player should be allowed to benefit from it or not.