Missing features & functionalities

39 Restart Scenario might be a good to have, in case we want to test things like starting armies, starting Tavern heroes, etc.
[IMPLEMENTED]
[size=75]Same as the need to Load a saved game, it’s getting (only) a bit annoying having to first close the application and then restart it to test a certain small thing over and over again - trying to reproduce a bug.[/size]


40 (NEW) Possibility to Save Game during a battle. Either just a quick save, to be accessed only from the Load menu later on, or simply full access to game options (Load/Save/Main Menu/etc) while in battle. This is of course not a priority, but perhaps a good to have in the farther future. :stuck_out_tongue:


41 Support for Shipyards
[IMPLEMENTED]
and/or

42 Support for Summon Boat spell
[IMPLEMENTED]
Both requests are because I noticed Navigation secondary skill was implemented since 0.63, however it’s not so easy to test it without boats. :mrgreen:


43 Main Menu hotkeys (see full list on 1st page of the thread)
[Mostly implemented,[/color] except the ability to Exit Credits with any hotkey - only mouse click works]

44 (NEW) Possibility to Tab through the clickable buttons in the game menus, and activate them with Enter/Spacebar/Arrows. Again, not a priority of course, just a nice to have.

In case you consider it, I’m thinking of the following behavior for example:

  • we are in the Main Menu, we press the standard hotkeys N, then S, and then we are in the New Scenario screen (where in H3 only the mouse could take us further)
  • we could however have Tab cycling through the buttons Show Available Scenarios, Random Map, WoG Options, Show Advanced Options, Begin and Back
  • These buttons could be activated by Spacebar (or those opening just a half screen in the left side, could open/close with left/right arrow)

Autosaving when loading is indeed redundant, as we already have a Saved Game. But that’s not the case with starting a New Game. In case we notice an issue at game start, and (by mistake) we want to reproduce it by starting again - we may actually lose the chance of having a saved game with that issue. My suggestion would be:

45 (NEW) Same as the Autosaves after End Turn, we could have a set of autosaves at game start (NewGame_1, NewGame_2, etc), which would capture the last 3-5 game starts, in case we need to compare them afterward (as game loading will not override them).

If however you feel that such feature is not worth the (coding) effort, then at least I would include again the first turns in the Autosaves (whoever starts a new game, probably does not need Autosave_1 so much anymore). Or again - alternatively we could have an Autosave_0 file, which saves the last first turn on a map.

But, alternatives aside, I still feel 3 to 5 NewGame files would be the best solution to preserve first turns for a long time. I think such saves would be very useful, as they contain quite some information, which may prove later on useful, in regards to some particular bug:

  • Randomly generated resources (weekly generators, but also objects like lean-to)
  • Randomly generated artifacts and monsters
  • Randomly generated heroes in all Taverns & their armies
  • etc (other randomly generated items, which may not be retrievable later on).
    [IMPLEMENTED]

45B Autosave after game start/load should maybe better overwrite the oldest of the 5 Autosave files, rather than always starting with Autosave1.

46 When we recruit creatures from a map location, the message saying: “The (creatures) would join your hero, but there aren’t enough provisions to support them” - is not implemented yet.
[IMPLEMENTED]

46a SUGGESTION Although not yet implemented, I believe it may be more practical if we would replace that message, with the window we get when a creature wants to join us, but our army is full. It would save us quite some mouse clicks, as often there is actually place in our army, we just have to bring together some 2 stacks of the same creature. Full behavior should be:

  • If we can make space for the new stack, the transactions is completed after we move it in the army
  • If we cannot make space and don’t want the stack for now, we should be able to press the Cancel button and so cancel the transaction (no money lost, creatures still recruitable)
  • If we cannot make space, but are willing to sacrifice an existing stack, we should be able to do so, by exchanging slots (transaction completed, sacrificed stack lost).

46b MODDING SUGGESTION: Regarding the 3rd option suggested above, instead of sacrificing the stack, it would be more interesting if we could leave it as defending army for our flagged dwelling. [size=75](I know this thread is not the place for mod suggestions, but as it was related, I though of writing it down somewhere, better than forgetting about it when we’ll discuss mods in the future)[/size]

46c Alternative suggestion If you believe the above would not be a good idea, another alternative (possible only when there is a split stack in our army) would be to replace the message “The (creatures) would join your hero, but there aren’t enough provisions to support them” with a choice window saying “The (creatures) would join your hero, if you are willing to regroup your split stacks” - to which VCMI would automatically regroup the (let’s say) lowest level split stack, adding the new recruits to the army.

Majaczek’s suggestion above was implemented, however only for the Stack Split window. This could be extended to other screens and further enhanced as follows:

47 - Fill-in values @ Marketplace. As originally suggested by majaczek; for both Marketplace screen: “Trade Res.” and “Give res. to other player” (the latter not yet implemented in VCMI)

48 - Fill-in values in Recruit window. It could be useful to have the type-in number possibility in the Recruit screen as well.

49 - Arrow keys to move sliders. It would be nice to be able to use the left/right arrows to decrease/increase the value of the slider with 1 unit.
[IMPLEMENTED, [/color]also for up/down arrows & mouse wheel, albeit those feel counter intuitive - see #1277]

[size=75]And because we talked about the Marketplace:[/size]

50 - Complete Marketplace interface:

  • Add subtitle tooltips
  • Add “Give resources to other players” screen, functionality & button
    [IMPLEMENTED]
    //
    51 - CTRL hotkey to use melee attack for ranged creatures in battle.

[size=75]WoG also added r-click on Defend button to open a menu where we can choose between melee, ranged and cast attacks (like H4). Personally I never used that, but I just thought of mentioning it in case you think it’s interesting to implement that as well.[/size]

52 - FADING EFFECTS:

52.01 Fade out of all map items which disappear after interaction with a hero:

  • artifacts
  • scholars
  • campfires
  • spell scrolls
  • resource piles
  • treasure chests
  • pandora’s boxes
  • flotsams
  • sea chests
  • ocean bottles
  • shipwreck survivors
  • quest/border guards
  • prisons (fade to hero)
  • defeated/disbanded heroes
  • defeated/fleeing/joining monsters

52.02 Fade in/out effects for battle spells:

  • fade in for Summoned Elementals (and also other creatures later in WoG or other mods)
  • fade in effect for Land Mines, combined with a specific animation in the beginning
  • fade out effect for Removed Obstacles, in parallel with the animation on top of them
  • short fade in effect for Quicksand
  • short fade out effect for Teleport (it seems the fade out effect ends with the creature instantly appearing in the new hex, so no fade in - unless my eyes are deceiving me)

52.03 Fade in/out effects for adventure spells:

  • fade in/out for Summoned/Scuttled boats (incl. defeated hero in boat)
  • faded transition when map is recentering on the new hero position after using Town Portal or Dimension Door

52.04 Fade in/out for heroes landing or embarking

52.05 Faded transition between Surface & Underground when hero passes through the Subterranean Gate

52.06 Fade in effect when building structures in town (and fade out when the WoG destroy structure feature will be supported)

52.07 Fade in for heroes recruited at the Tavern (with same effect for the creatures in their army)

52.08 Fade out effect for the Puzzle Map.

52.09 (WoG only) When this WoG feature will be supported, fade in of monsters/artifacts the hero drops on the map (with r-click)

52.10 Short faded transition when opening/closing Town/Battle screens. And I believe there was also a very short faded transition between the game load interface and the Adventure Map, or upon leaving the Adv.Map to the Main Menu. H3 had these, but so short that we almost didn’t notice the fading effect. And maybe better so, because I don’t want to have to wait more than 1 second for my Town screen to open (and waiting for the intro battle music with armies frozen was sometimes a bit too much already). But it might be interesting to have, especially for higher resolutions, at least some short fade in/out effects when we open those screens on top of the Adventure Map.

These are by no means a priority now, but I thought of listing them all in one place, before people start reporting them one by one in various bug threads (as I already saw a report for just one of the items I listed at 52.01). I hope I didn’t forget anything, so feel free to point out if anything is missing. :slight_smile:

//
53 - FADING SOUNDS: All of the above fading effects are accompanied by a specific sound (except for 52.10). It may be a good idea, after implementing one or the other, to check if the associated sound works as well.

[size=75]Best regards,
Zam[/size]

54 - (NEW) Arrow keys to move up & down the hero list in the Hero window.

55 - Lookout Tower functionality. Not urgent, but it was reported as bug 0.71#57 - which is not the case - so I thought I’d better report this in the right place.
[IMPLEMENTED]

56 - Battle Retreat. Currently we can retreat, but hero disappears completely. It should reappear at Tavern with 1 L1 unit and no but same artifacts (and of course spells).
[Partly implemented - see [url=http://bugs.vcmi.eu/view.php?id=1416]#1416]

57 - Battle Surrender. Same as retreat, but paying the fee to keep your troops (it’ll appear at Tavern with same troops, artifacts & spells)
[Partly implemented - see [url=http://bugs.vcmi.eu/view.php?id=1416]#1416]

EDIT: When implementing 56 & 57, make sure Retreat/Surrender function also if the hero has no Tavern, but builds one before the end of the week or finds one on the map.

Implemented.

It was buggy :frowning:

58 - (NEW) In H3/VCMI, when a hero has no spell book, if we press “C” on Adventure Map an empty spell book opens, while if we press “C” during combat, nothing happens.

Maybe a more consistent / appropriate game response would be - in both cases - a message box saying “(hero name) does not have a Spell Book.” or “(hero name) has no Spell Book.”

//
59 - Hot-Seat. For testing purposes (as requested by ral_il_an here).
[IMPLEMENTED]

60 - (NEW) MultiPlayer Arena. IMO one of the few good things introduced by H5, was the possibility to meet online with other players just for a quick battle with well developed heroes & armies. In the beginning this could be pre-defined. Later on players may be allowed to purchase whatever creatures the want with a given amount of money, plus a limited amount of skills & spells at choice.

As a very first step however, we could have just Hot-Seat Arenas, which may be quite useful in the testing phase.

//
61 - (NEW) Sort Backpack. We all had the case when playing an XL map, that after a couple of game months, our backpack was so full, that we really had to scroll to find one artifact or another. It would be interesting if VCMI could introduce a functionality to sort these artifacts:

  • first (or at least) by destination slot: head, neck, chest, left/right arm, rings, cape, feet, misc + spell book & machines (in WoG)
  • then maybe also by value

It could be a button, but maybe much easier (with no risk of spoiling the hero screen) a hotkey combination. E.g.: CTRL + Backpack Scroll Arrows

#62 Information during buying creatures that garrison is full.

There is only info in console: “System message: Server encountered a problem: Cannot recruit: no available slot!” but should appear screen with massage: “There is no room in the garrison for this army”.

NEW Features Request:

#63 **Resources requirements **- r-click on building shows if all prerequisites for this building have been met, if not there is written requires for buildings. It would be nice if there were also requires for resources which are necessary to build all required buildings. And also if all required buildings are built but you still can not build chosen structure because of lack of resources there could be info about requires for resources to be collected, i.e. - to build capitol- requires: fort, citadel, castel; cost: 12500 Gold, +30 Wood, +35 Ore.
#64 **Removing screens which are not necessary **– all screens in which player doesn’t have to confirm anything could be removed. The info could be shown only in Status window ie: campfire, seachest, flotsam, all guarded buildings in which you get only resources, flagging mines, fountain of fortune, shrine of magic, mystical garden, collecting artifacts, shipwreck survivor and so on.
#65 Moving Adventure Map using middle button – if you hold mouse’s middle button and move the mouse you can move adventure map like it is anchored to the cursor.
#66 Possibility to change the TOWN if you are inside other town structure i.e. in FORT, HALL, Mage Guild without necessity to go out from this structure i.e. by using UP/DOWN ARROW. And then if you go out from this structure/town this town is selected on the Adventure Map. It could be helpful when you have a lot of towns and you want find out fast in which town there is mage guild with special spell
#67 New skill screen - If hero gains a lvl, new skill should appear on the right side and then by default could be chosen left skill so mostly it would be chosen the existing skill.
#68 **Hero and Town List Reordering **(i.e. like it is in WoG: Shift-click on a hero or town in the hero or town list to move that hero or town to the top of the list)
#69 Buy All Creatures button (click on the castle icon in your town screen, creatures are bought starting from the highest level)
#70 Saving the resolution which is set in cmd console to setting.txt file for future game run without necessity to edit it.


[size=75]I’ve reordered your items to separate the missing feature from the new features requests (which I marked accordingly). For future reference, please mark the requests for features which did not exist in H3 is such a way that the devs can easily separate them from the features in the original game which are still missing (e.g.: by adding “NEW” in front of them). Thanks.

Zamolxis[/size]

** - **arrow keys to move heroes on adventure map. ** - **[]*Same as [b]#18*

NEW - nice feature from H5 - exchange between two heroes in town (garrisoned and visitor) - open exchange window instead of hero info.

In H3 you need:
1)move visitor out of town 2)move garrisoned hero down 3)exchange 2) 1)
…just to switch 1-2 artifacts

[, but thanks for pointing it out as a confirmation it’s really needed] ;)*Same as [b]#5*

56 - in H3 all artifacts are remaining after retreat. Zamolxis just mistaking? * - You are right. I corrected my post above. (Zamolxis)*

**63 **- IMO only as option. This is one of nice features from Heroes 1-4 small “stories” instead of H5-style messages “You’ve learned new skill”. With exception of system messages(like “No empty slots”, “No spellbook”)
IMO - most new games become boring. More ugly (mostly) graphics and less nice texts.

68 - Maybe use drag-and-drop for reordering (like creatures in army) will be more useful?

Probably this one is same as point no #5

New game you are right. But VCMI isn’t new game and IMO should be concentrated to have as good playability as possible.

Of course this solution will be perfect.

@68
i prefer h3 mechanism in reordering, maybe dragging is funny, but it’s less handy and less mice friendly

I think you should read point #68 one more time. In H3 there is not possible reordering Heroes or Towns. We are not talking about drag and drop creatures like it is in H5. You are right that this kind of reordering is not very friendly but you can used to.


#71 If you have **flagged shipyard it should be possible to buy a boat with l-click **without hero inside.
[IMPLEMENTED]

Regarding #68

@majaczek: Do you mean the WoG mechanism of reordering? Because H3 didn’t really have one. They had a default “logic” of ordering them, but besides garrisoning, there was not much you could do to change a certain existing order. EDIT: I see Boulie replied more or less the same while I was writing this. :wink:

@Ivan: Drag & drop would be a fancy solution indeed. But unless that’s really easy to implement, I guess that CTRL+Arrow will do for starters.

Regarding #64 : Removing all screens in which the player isn’t given any option might speed up the game, but not everybody is playing against the clock. Personally they don’t bother me, as long as I can easily close the with both Enter & Esc. However disabling such pop-us could be implemented as an option from the future VCMI menu. :slight_smile:

And I hope you don’t mind I edited a bit your posts above:

@Boulie: please point out when you’re requesting a NEW feature, it’ll help the devs prioritize.

@Ivan: I removed the log numbers as those two were already requested, but I’ll take your post as a support of my initial requests to have those two features implemented, so thanks. :slight_smile: [size=75]*winks at devs to take the hint ;)*[/size]

Regarding #71 : Hmm… that’s a fine line between “missing feature” & “bug”, because Shipyard has been implemented, so if you can’t access it without visiting it, in a way we can say it wasn’t implemented well yet. But well, that was just a thought… as long as it’s reported somewhere it’s ok - the devs will see it. :wink:

**EDIT: Here is the full functionality of the Adventure map Shipyard (3 tile object):

a) If a selected hero has a direct path to the Shipyard:

  • Hovering over Shipyard’s middle tile changes the mouse pointer to the (jumping) horse. 1st click sets the path, 2nd click moves hero there. When hero arrives, the Buy Ship window opens.
  • Hovering over Shipyard’s left or right tile changes the mouse pointer to a boat. If we own the Shipyard, l-click with open the Buy Ship window.

b) If no hero is selected, or the selected hero has no direct path to the Shipyard

  • Hovering over any of the 3 tiles of the Shipyard changes the cursor to a boat. If we own the Shipyard, l-click with open the Buy Ship window.**

OK! But I think it should be changed a little bit :wink: I mean we should also separate the WoG features ie point #68 and #69.
Also point #67, part of it is from H3 (new skill should be on the right side of the screen) and rest is new feature.
Sometimes it is hard to remember everything what is H3, WoG, H5 or other game :wink:
But I will try to do that.

#67, #68, #69 are fine in this thread because they are not altering the gameplay, meaning that they would not influence the final game outcome, score, etc.

#67 Would save us 1 click and (perhaps) place the skills in more intuitive spots.

#68 & #69 Are WoG features which are only speeding the gameplay, making things easier for the player, but in fact are not altering anything. Buying the creatures one by one or all together, or reordering your towns, will not make your hero stronger or anything. :slight_smile:

So WoG features can be mentioned in this thread, but only if they don’t alter any stats and if you mark them as “NEW”. Any idea meant to remove an annoyingly high amount of clicks (like buying 7 creatures separately or exchanging artifacts in town), but which leads pretty much to the same result as in H3, is of course welcome. Or take for example the H5 stack queue in battle. Does it make your creatures do more damage? No. It just saves us some right clicks to double check the speeds of some creatures. That’s also a type of feature from other (Heroes) games that can be requested here, because it enhances the game experience, without actually altering the outcome.

What we should not have in this thread, are really modding requests (WoG or not), which would notably change the feel or behavior of the original game (e.g.: new design for a certain creature, double hero movement, creatures have breath weapon, enhanced secondary skills, commanders, H4 advanced hero classes etc)

New Feature Request:
#72 Upgrade All button to upgrade all creatures (both in garrison and visiting hero) that can be currently upgraded in the town. This is similar to Buy All and there’s a WoG script that does it by shift-clicking the button (although I think this script may not have been distributed publicly).

Re: #69 (Buy All Button) - There was also an addition to WoG’s Buy All that lets you choose the order that they’re bought in (I think ctrl-clicking the button brings up some dialogs to select the order). Again, this probably wasn’t in the public WoG distribution.

Is there any list of artifacts that have and haven’t been implemented similar to the one for adventure map objects? It would be helpful.

Yes, on the same page.

If you are referring to the Google docs link (ITEM IMPLEMENTATION STATUS in my signature), then check the other tabs at the bottom. :wink:

And let’s hope in one of the future versions of Google docs, they’ll enhance those bottom tabs to allow users to emphasize them somehow, because I also didn’t notice them the first time (if you’re not used with the application, they’re not at all obvious).

[size=75]@Warmonger: a tiny piece of advice (and I hope you don’t mind) - when you answer in “riddles”, add a smiley. :slight_smile: Sometimes same words can be taken as friendly or rude by different people. Here was okay as we know each other a bit, but in the “offical VCMI thread” at Celestial Heavens (a similar issue with a link) they kinda interpreted it as sth else. And in such cases a smiley often helps… :wink: [/size]