Missing features & functionalities

International board Help & Bugs
#1

EDIT: With the implementation of MantisBT, this thread has become partly redundant. Going further, please use the following:

  • MantisBT for reporting features from the original H3 still missing in VCMI (please first check they aren’t already reported!!)
  • MantisBT also for no-harm enhancements (from WoG or NEW > please tag them accordingly)
  • This thread can be still used if you first want feedback on your suggestions before making the official request on Mantis and for users who have issues logging into Mantis for reporting any of the above (meanwhile you can contact an admin to help you with the issue)
  • Modding suggestions thread is to be used for any enhancements which would alter the original gameplay.
    Note: There is no thread yet to discuss the WoG ERM scripts which should take priority, because we’re trying to focus on completing recreating the original H3 first. However, if there’s any WoG feature you really think should be handled sooner rather than later, you can mention it in this thread.

[size=75]ORIGINAL POST:[/size]
To avoid mixing two different things:

  • H3 features not yet implemented by the VCMI team vs
  • VCMI bugs = faults/defects in the latest VCMI build (crashes, bugs or features not correctly implemented)

…I am opening this thread to collect all missing functionality requests from the testers (for devs to know what would we prefer to have it implemented sooner rather than later).

[size=75]The advantage is that we can log all requests in one place, as they are all valid until implementation (with no way back). That as opposed to bugs, which are better tracked in separate threads for each build [EDIT: This is not the case anymore, now that we have [url=http://bugs.vcmi.eu/view_all_bug_page.php]MantisBT[/size]]

This is not a thread to request functionalities/elements from WoG, HotA or other mods, which would alter the gameplay of NWC’s H3. For that we may have dedicated thread(s) in the future (certainly one for WoG, but we’ll see about the other famous mods as well if the case). If you have creative ideas for new mods, please use the Modding suggestions thread.

However, what we could actually ask for, is new features which may enhance the testing/playing experience, but without altering the gameplay experience of the original game. Examples of such feature would be:

  • Support for higher resolutions
  • Stack queue during battles
  • Treasure Chest window defaulting on Gold/Experience to save us a mouse click
  • Any other hotkeys, as long as they don’t override hotkeys from the original game

Useful link: [size=150]Click here[/size] to check which H3 in-game items have been already implemented in VCMI. They are logged in 5 different categories (see tabs at the bottom): Map objects, Spells, Secondary Skills, Artifacts & Town structures. If the item is already supported, then any functionality issues related to it should be reported in the BUGTRACKER. This topic is for items you would like to be implemented sooner from those not yet supported or to point out if anything is missing from the spreadsheet.

Pomoc dla tych co chca pomoc
0.71b - development version
[Archived] I want to help
Moving missing features list to bugtracker
VCMI 0.72d - development version
0.73c - development version
#2

Here is a first set of functionality requests:

1 - The Adventure Options button. http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/Zamolxis/VCMI/080920-AdventureOptionsbutton.jpg We would need that particularly for the Scenario Information function. That can be very useful for our reporting, as we can retrieve a lot of necessary information if we have to write a report while playing: map name, size, victory/defeat conditions, enemy’s alignment/start hero/bonus, map difficulty etc. Luckily now we can save our games, and like this we can find back the Scenario Information in the Load Game screen. But for that we need to quit the application and start it again, so it would save time if we could access it directly while playing.
[IMPLEMENTED]

2 - Access to Main Menu and/or Load Game from the System Options interface (again, to avoid having to quit/restart the application so many times)
[Partly implemented: access to Main Menu only. For Load Game implementation we have report [url=http://bugs.vcmi.eu/view.php?id=715]#715.]

3 - Drag & Drop functionality for artifacts, war machines, creatures…
[IMPLEMENTED]

4 - Possibility for heroes to meet in order to exchange artifacts, war machines, creatures (and spells, once Scholar is implemented)
[IMPLEMENTED]

5 - (New feature request) Possibility for visiting hero to meet garrisoned hero, in order to exchange also artifacts & war machines, not only creatures. This could be easily implemented by making use of the “Split” button for example, which in case of the heroes it would open the Exchange interface as we have it when they would meet on the adventure map:

This would be a minor tweak, meant to remove a limitation which NWC just never thought of fixing in the game. It would be identical with what they did in Armageddon’s Blade, when they implemented Spacebar to revisit map locations. That was saving the player 2 movement points which were otherwise pointlessly lost in the Restoration of Erathia. Same 2 movement points we now have to waste to first take the visiting hero out of town gate, then go in to ungarrison the other, then go out to have the meeting, then go in again to regarrison, and finally out again to move first hero back at town gate. This micro-management is a waste of mouse clicks & movement points.

So the impact on gameplay would be minimal and positive only. The current behavior is not logic and does not have any added value. It does not make sense to be able to exchange troops but not artifacts while in town, so it only causes frustration due to the wasted movement points & extra mouse clicks (much like revisiting locations in RoE).

EDIT: Split Stack button behavior in case 5 is implemented:

  • if a creature is selected: button available (like H3)
  • if no creature/hero is selected: button disabled/grayed out (like H3)
  • (NEW) if a hero is selected: button available again. // [size=92]Suggestion (if possible): if a hero is selected, we could have a 3rd button design, similar with Split Stack, but with the two knights facing each other, rather than going away from each other like now.[/size]
    [IMPLEMENTED, using existing button]
VCMI 0.72c - development version
#3

I’ll write here some features i want to be in vcmi soon

6 - enter usability(present in h3) - when town in townlist (mapview screen, not townview) or hero is active then enter brings a window of it (him,her)
[IMPLEMENTED]

7 - some hotkeys (so many times asked by people in forums) for market place- Trading post (key T) and thieves guild (in tavern of town, key G) to be accesible, if player has such structures in any town, from anywhere ( map and town(doesn’t matter has a town such a structure or not)) , because this saves so much time, u cant even imagine - i.e. u come to the magic school and u see u havent 1000 gold and u need: chhose a town with a marketplace, enter it, choose marketplace, here resource manipulation , then exit a town, choose needed hero, then usual actions, and with theese hotkeys - press hotkey, resourse manipulation, press spacebar to revisit magic school
[IMPLEMENTED: CTRL+T for Trading post (as ‘T’ should be used for Towns, to be consistent with H3 - See [url=http://bugs.vcmi.eu/view.php?id=216]#216) and ‘G’ for Thieve’s Guild - see report #907]

8 (NEW) - i always cannot explain why if u want to exchange some more items between heroes when u accidentally closed herotrading window U NEED to waste some more movepoints, however this breaks gamerules and gameplay so u feel free if u want not to make this
EDIT (Zam): Perhaps the only solution here without creating exploits, would be to allow heroes to meet again without movement penalty, only same day and if neither of them changed tile or fought a battle in between.

#4

9 - Smart handling of the Treasure Chest window.

Right now in VCMI the window opens with Gold selected as default (as opposed to H3 where nothing was selected). However, following the discussion in this thread, it looks like this will mainly serve in Multiplayer. In Singleplayer people seem to prefer Experience. So perhaps it would be better if VCMI would remember last choice of the player, and make that as default until player chooses otherwise.

Other suggestions here would be being able to customize the Treasure Chest default from VCMI Game Options (when that menu will be implemented), or, if the poll in this thread continues the trend after more than 100 users have voted, another alternative would be to have Gold defaulting in Multiplayer, and Experience defaulting in SinglePlayer.

[size=75](feel free to share your thoughts on this in the dedicated thread[/size])

#5

10 - End Turn to check for movement left for the Adventure Map heroes.
[IMPLEMENTED]

11 - Support for Abandoned Mines
[IMPLEMENTED]

12 - Possibility to capture enemy/neutral castles.
[IMPLEMENTED]

13 - Possibility to visit allied castles to buy war machines & spell book, learn spells, upgrade troops and replenish spell points overnight.
[IMPLEMENTED]

14 - (NEW) Possibility to garrison our hero in the allied town. This will mainly benefit our ally actually, because if we spend the night in their castle to replenish spell points, they could actually visit their own town, buy heroes etc (while current H3 behavior kinda forces allies to an annoying choice, if one needs to replenish spell points, while the other would like to be able to use their town).

15 - (NEW) Possibility to use allied hero marketplace while visiting their town. This could be a pretty cool feature (though of very rare occurrence): have the allied marketplace add up to ours for a better rate, but only when visiting their town.

If you believe 14 & 15 are more of a mod request, you can ignore them in this thread. I just feel it would have made sense to have them in in the original H3 already.

#6

16 - Damage calculation in battle
[Partly implemented]

17 - (NEW) Retaliation calculation in battle. Something like: “will retaliate with xx - yy damage” (if the creature will retaliate, depending on the damage we inflict first, and of course if it’s not too difficult to implement)

18 - Keyboard arrows keys to move hero
[IMPLEMENTED]

19 - NumPad keys to move hero:
→ 8, 6, 2, 4 : same as the arrow keys
→ 7, 9, 3, 1 : diagonal movement
→ (NEW) 5 : center map on selected hero (as I believe H3 did not have any hotkey for this)
[IMPLEMENTED]

20 - (NEW) Not sure if it’s worth the effort, but it might be interesting if VCMI could offer support for non-QWERTY keyboards. I was playing the game during the holiday on my AZERTY laptop, which kinda messed up the hotkeys I had to press (A was Stack Queue, Z was Wait, Q was Auto-Combat etc). Luckily they were located on the keyboard in the QWERTY spots so it wasn’t really a problem. But I’m just thinking of the players from countries where they never used QWERTY, who might get confused between the hotkeys in the manual and the keys they would actually have to press. Though - if NWC didn’t much bother with this, probably we don’t have to bother either (unless it’s piece of cake to implement). :stuck_out_tongue:

Battle Interface add-ons
#7

Qwerty was designed for typewriters in order to maximally slow down the process of typing. Computer engineers copied it straight… We have to stop this madness!

Yes it is, actually calculating it basing on two random factors makes things totally messy as dependent probability is. Imagine it reads “creature will retaliate, doing 0-326 damage”, depending whether we killed it with one blow or not. I don’t think it will provide us any useful information as damage distribution is no longer linear.

#8

better would be
"creature may retaliate doing xx-yyy damage" (where xx never zero and when chance to miss)
"creature will sure retaliate doing xx-yyy damage " (when no chance to prevent retaliate)
“creature couldn’t retaliate so doing no damage” (when no retaliate possible ie. monster flag or killing last unit)

#9

Implemented.

As for hero meeting possibility and related requests, I hope it can be done by the next release.

#10

Hi everyone !!!

If you don’t mind i answer about H3 hotkeys

for centering selected hero there is a hotkey- it is Space, actually it makes a visit if hero stands in object, but otherwise it centeres on a hero, the second one hotkey is H, but it actually makes another hero active, in case of only one hero it centeres too )))

By the way h3 has lots of hotkeys, they help buying creatures(M for maximum and digits for typing number), in battle space and enter in tactics, other i think you know

21 (NEW) As for me i would ask of multi-path feature it would be so MAGNIFICIENT, you cant even imagine, but it is quite hard to implement, so the point is : u press a button, say Ctrl and click many points of desired path, release Ctrl and hero moves by path - visiting all he wants, of course , if one of point is battle (but even in this case possible to implement multipath) then it could be a finishing point

the other easier way to make pseudomultipath is control-digits to set hand made path, instead of moving by offered path, which could be faster by time spent

#11

There are actually 3 hotkeys to “center” the hero in H3:

  1. H - Centers, but on the next hero with movement points left
  2. Return - but only if hero is selected AND not already centered, otherwise it opens the Hero screen (I forgot about this in my other post earlier)
  3. Spacebar (introduced in Armageddon’s Blade) - centers + revisits location

So you’re right, maybe we do have enough “centering” hotkeys in H3. I’ll leave however my request for adding NumPad 5, as hotkey to center (and nothing else). It could be useful to implement next to the other NumPad keys for hero movement (unless someone thinks of a better use for it).

I checked and you are also right about M to buy maximum creatures, however typing a number did not work for me. Are you sure about that?

22 Gradual implementation of all H3 shortcuts: [Mostly implemented, except those[/color] in red]

[quote]
Heroes of Might and Magic III - Keyboard Shortcuts:[/quote]

Adventure Map
H - Selects next hero
T - Selects next town
M - Moves current hero
K - Kingdom Overview
U - Toggles map elevation (surface/underground)
C - Cast spell
Z - Puts current hero to sleep
W - Wakens current hero
Q - Quest Log
E - End turn

Arrow Keys - Moves current hero
(Including the NumPad keys, very useful for moving the hero also on diagonal: 1,3,7,9)
Ctrl + Arrow Keys - Scrolls Adventure Map
Return - Centers current hero or town on Adventure Map or Confirm message window
Tab - Send a chat message (multi-player game)
Esc - Quit to Desktop or Exit message window

A - Adventure Options:
V - View World (also available from Adventure Map)
P - Puzzle Map (also available from Adventure Map)
D - Dig (also available from Adventure Map)
I - View Scenario Info (also available from Adventure Map)
R - Replay Opponent’s Turn

O - System Options:
L - Load Game (also available from Adventure Map)
S - Save Game (also available from Adventure Map)
R - Restart Scenario
M - Main Menu
Q - Quit to Desktop
Esc - Return to Game

Combat Screen
A - Automatic combat on/off (hotkey actions the button, but functionality isn’t implemented yet - to check again when implemented)
D - Defend
W - Wait

C - Cast spell
R - Retreat
S - Surrender
O - Combat Options
T - View troop
F5 - Toggles creature pop-up types
F6 - Toggles hex grid display
F7 - Toggles mouse shadow display
F8 - Toggles movement shadow display
Up/Down Arrow Keys - Scrolls combat messages
Space - Selects next creature (in the manual, but it actually acts as “Defend”)
S - Start combat during Tactics phase

Town Screen
Up Arrow - Previous town
Down Arrow - Next town
Space - Switches visiting/garrison heroes

Spell Book
Left/Right Arrows - Turns pages

Up/Down Arrows - Move through bookmarks
A - Displays adventure spells
C - Combat spells

View Army Window
U - Upgrade creature
D - Dismiss creature

General
F1 - Help
F4 - Toggles window/full screen display
Esc - Cancel, Exit, or No
Return - Okay, Accept, or Yes.

The above is extracted from the H3 Manual released with Restoration of Erathia. If you are aware of any other hotkeys introduced later in the add-ons, please let us know. pHOMM already pointed out a couple of examples:

[quote]
Adventure Map[/quote]

Spacebar - Center hero and/or Revisit location (introduced in Armageddon’s Blade)

Combat Screen - Tactics phase
Space - Select next creature
Return - Begin combat (exit Tactics phase)

Town Screen - Recruiting
M - Maximum

**pHOMM **also mentioned the use of digits “for typing number”, but that doesn’t seem to work for recruiting (unless I misunderstood what it refers to). Of course, this can be further enhanced anyway, and here would be an example proposal:

23 (NEW)

[quote]
Town Screen - Recruiting & Marketplace[/quote]

M : Maximum (the only one already existing)
Backspace or 0 : Minimum (0)
Number keys : type in exact value
NumPad +/- : Increase/Decrease amount with 1 unit

By the way, for everyone’s information, the **VCMI **devs have already implemented a few other hotkeys (Tow/TowDragon, feel free to edit my post to add those that I forgot):

[quote]
Adventure Map[/quote]

Ctrl - by holding it pressed, we can leave the game interface without causing the map to scroll when our mouse pointer passed the edge of the map on its way "out"
Ctrl+Arrows - can also scroll Adventure Map behind open windows (e.g.: Treasure Chest window, but also Town screen or Battlefield on higher resolutions)
Number keys (1,2,…) - Used for selection in choice windows (Treasure Chest, Hero skill choice, and perhaps later on also Commander skill choice)

Combat Screen
Q - Show stack queue (the attack order of the creatures on the battlefield)

Documentation
Bugs not reported on Mantis
#12

[quote=“Zamolxis”]
23 (NEW)

0 shouldn’t be used to minimum shortcut, because it should be enabled for typing numbers
ie. when we type 106 it shouldn’t be zeroed and after changed to 6 but it should set amount to 106 (as we type)

#13

@ majaczeck: You’re right. :slight_smile: I edited my post above to leave only ‘Backspace’ for that function.

[size=75]Regarding the functionality requests, those are more that just minor tweaks, but more like mod requests (as the alter the gameplay), so I’m not gonna give them a log number for this thread. I’ll probably open a new thread soon for this purpose. Or if you want to discuss your proposals more in detail, you can even open a new thread in the General Discussion section.[/size]

24 - (NEW) Double click to select Gold/Experience, or between 2 Primary/Secondary skills when we have a choice window.

25 - In the Scenario Advanced Options panel, of the elements still to be implemented, I’d like first to have the pop-up window when we right-click the starting hero. Especially once that the hero specialties are implemented, it will be useful to be able to easily check that before we start the game:

i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/Zamolxis/VCMI%202009/th_090601-RC-SHero.jpg [IMPLEMENTED]

#14

Yep! hi there, guys(and maybe girls)

I’m terribly sorry for my fault, actually ONLY SPLITSTACK DIALOG uses digits for typing exact number, i thought this helps in recruit dialog and didn’t checked (counting on my experience and kniwledge in heroes) and posted wrong, even without mentioning about splitstackdialog, so sorry guys, esp. Zamolxis

Following the topic :

26 there were lots of wishes in russsian forums about not only stack queue, but also info about retaliation (retaliated this round or not and how many retaliations left - but it only affects griffin, but in future maybe others) and morale effect (had a creature morale already or not, this is important in battles against lots of neutral creatures - when they split in 6-7 stacks)
But really i think the first part(retaliations) is easy to implement but second isn’t worthy a lot

27 improvement request - although we have a stack queue in battle i think there is a way to improve it : if we and opponent have lots of same-typed creatures, then a bit hard to understand which one goes now (i know there is a colored border))))
so the requests are

  1. to put digits in a queue (it’s the base i ask)
  2. make a highlighting - when mouse cursor is on a queue, the creature, that is pointed by cursor, is blue-highlighted - it’s like we hovered a creature on the battlefield - it’s the same how it’s in H5 made (because it’s easy-to-implement, as i think )), i hope we’ll see this soon)
  3. make a long - 2-3-turns long queue, (again like in h5) because often it’s less-pain-to-know when and who makes double-turn (using wait with the same speed of creatures), of course this makes the queue more dynamic, because we need the queue to be affected by haste/slow/blind/creature_abilities (and all types of curing/resurrections/dispells) now it’s even not affected by slow and haste ( i’ll post about in 0.72 bugs thread)
#15

Actually there is a spell called “Counterstrike” so this is not a griffin only thing :slight_smile:

I agree about queue improvements

#16

About typing in the creature number - no worries. :wink: I just thought maybe that worked in some other version of Heroes, who knows. Anyway, is good you brought it up, as it might be interesting to have it in VCMI as well.

Regarding request 27 (NEW):

  1. Putting stack size also in the queue might be indeed useful to distinguish between two same type creatures on the battlefield (correct me if you meant sth else by “digits in a queue”)
  2. Marking a creature in the queue when we hover over it on the battlefield is indeed another way to identify it, particularly useful if we end up having same type creature stacks of either same size, or very large but comparable sizes
  3. A longer queue might be useful, but I would limit it to the number of creatures also. Something like: “2 turns, but no more than 15 creatures” for example.
    Overall, all good ideas anyway.

Now, coming back to the original H3 features:

28 Spell damage information when we right click on the spell in the Spell Book. Right now I think the window opening when we right click on them in the Spell Book is the same with the one in the Magic Guild, but H3 had extra information regarding the spell damage. But if this was intentionally left out before support for Power & Sorcery is implemented, I understand the delay.
[IMPLEMENTED]

29 Spell damage information in the Battle log - after casting
[IMPLEMENTED]

And a suggestion:

30 (NEW) Spell damage information in the Battle log - before casting. This can be implemented in two ways:
a) Either straight forward (but maybe rather boring) values: "Cast Lightning Bolt on Air Elementals for xx damage"
b) Or mentioning only when necessary the buffs & debuffs: “Cast Lightning Bolt on Air Elementals for yy% extra damage” (due to creature’s vulnerability to that particular spell)

[size=75]All this information about spell damage would make it easier for the testers to check if the damage is correct I think. At least I’d prefer to calculate on the spot, rather than trying to reproduce the same situation (same spell, same hero power etc) in H3 to check that it corresponds to VCMI.[/size]

#17

aa31 (NEW) >> alternate quicksave for hotkey “S” - additional to autosaves but diffrent name and on player demand

aa32 (NEW) >> number of autosaves customizable by setings.txt
(may be default 5, may be less (eg. 3), may be more (eg. 10) on client(server?) demand)

33 (NEW) aa>> computer could ask “are you sure” when digging
in plain homm3 if you press D by mistake it just dig without ask, which is rather unfunny on turn beggining

34 >>load screen access from game “L” hotkey] (it’s currently missing, and thankfully to the curent code is easy to do)
[IMPLEMENTED]

35 (NEW) >> possibility to put custom object in mapmaker
it can be supported by placing local event where message start with “VCMIOBJECT" in first line
and text object signature in next lines (handled by map loading code in VCMI)
where could be more "VCMI…” things ie. “VCMILUAEVENT" "VCMIPYEVENT” or anything that devs thinks VCMI needs
plus code fixup to not show text of local event if starting by “VCMI~~”

#18

^^ Few comments/suggestions on the above:

aa31 >> Hotkey “S” is used for normal Save Game in H3. Perhaps we should have a different hotkey for Quicksave (i.e.: “Ctrl+S” - and then we could have “Ctrl+L” for QuickLoad).

aa33 >> That’s a very good suggestion. Hitting D by accident on Adv.Map was indeed quite annoying in H3. Luckily we have now Autosave in the beginning of the turn, which would save some time, but a confo pop-up for digging would eliminate the risk completely.

aa34 >> That’s kinda included in aa2, but let’s leave that for Main Menu only then, and this for Load (and I took the liberty of adding the “L” hotkey to your post so that it’s implemented together with the function).

#19

36 (NEW) Feature request: on pressing “Print Screen” screenshot capture to game subfolder.
Can be quite useful in testing.

#20

It’d be quite easy to implement. I’ll do that when there is nothing more urgent.