A point of feedback: keeping track of active PC

[Jenekee]

I don't know if other's have had any problem with this, but I've found that keeping track of which character is currently acting in combat is mentally more taxing in Queen's Wish; it requires more focus and double checking things than previous games. At first I thought it was a minor thing, but the longer I played, the more apparent it became.

 

As such, I often find myself issuing commands to one pc, mistakenly believing a different one was active (e.g. accidentally sending a squishy character into melee b/c I subconsciously assumed my tank character was selected and I didn't double check the sidebar to see who was actually highlighted)

 

A few reasons this may be:

 

First, there are fewer salient cues to differentiate characters from one another.

In the past, we had very distinctive character sprites that stood out and were hard to mistake for one another. I would never confuse my bow-wielding Nephilim archer for my melee human fighter. And I'd never confuse red-shirt John with green-dress Adrianna.

 

But now the look of the sprite depends on the armor you are wearing. While this is a step towards realism, I don't know if it's a great choice for a game that relies so much on iconography for conveying information. Characters end up being harder to differentiate because everyone is decked out in similar looking drab brown or grey (aside from robe wearers). The field becomes even harder to grok when similar looking NPCs join you for battle. And even if you subconsciously get used to the subtle differences between the sprite armors, your mental mapping becomes useless again the moment you upgrade your armor (or worse, it becomes actively confusing when you move armor you've grown accustomed to seeing on one character onto another one).

 

 

Second, the new speed/extra turns system makes it harder/impossible to predict who will be acting in combat next. In the past, your brain could fall into a pattern of knowing Frrrrr acts after Thissa, Thissa acts after Jenneke, etc. And you could count on this pattern holding steady for the most part. Quick Action in later games could change this order up, but even then you could still predict the order your party would act in during and between battles.

 

Now, I have no idea who is going to act first in a battle (or even from one battle to the next), or how many extra turns one player will get before another has had a chance to take their first. While this is not necessarily a bad thing itself, it becomes a problem when coupled with the aforementioned difficulty distinguishing characters from one another, as the state of the battlefield is now much harder to grok.

 

 

Lastly, the one indicator on the battlefield for whose turn it is, the highlighted tile and glowing circle at their feet, is not very salient. It can easily blend into the floor if, say the character is standing on a dark tile right next to a light tile with a similar brightness to the highlight or is partially obscured by a wall/door. And the glowing effect can easily be lost within the medley of other sparkling status effects / blessing indicators and background ornaments on screen.

 

Right now, glancing over at the character sidebar is the most reliable way of checking who is active. But on larger screens where the sidebar is well outside your peripheral vision when glancing at the battlefield, this becomes just one more detail you must to remember go out of your way to look for.

 

 

Some may say this is minor or nit-picky. To that, I say, there's a reason distinctive colors and shapes factor so strongly in how we process information in our world (traffic lights, stop signs, warning symbols, corporate logos, app icons...) They allow us to quickly grok information and make decisions. Without them, our brains have to spend extra time and effort distilling the signals it is getting into a digestible form.

 

It is difficult to quantify precisely how much harder the brain has to work in the absence of such salient cues to differentiate information. All I can give is my personal experience: and that is I find myself issuing errant combat orders due to mistaken identity FAR more often than I did in any previous spiderweb game (previously almost never). I often play games to unwind after a long day when I'm not at peak focus and may not have all of my wits about me; having to pay attention to these minor details in such times makes the game become tiresome much more quickly, and sometimes even frustrating. The end result is, when I'm trying to decide on a game to play, I'm much less inclined to pick up Queen's Wish in these cases.

 

 

Now, I don't know exactly what should be done to improve this. While I liked the old distinctive character sprites, there's also much value in being able to determine what "class" your character is just from looking at the armor and weapons their sprite is sporting - especially when today they may be a melee fighter, but tomorrow, a magic support healer (I guess that's one downside of unlimited character re-rolling — harder to make lasting associations btwn a character and their abilities..)

 

Anyway, I would not say any of the new changes I mentioned as problems need to be reverted. Merely that something needs to be added to offset the reduction in salient cues. Maybe a stronger highlight or some dark outline around the active character, like in previous games, would help somewhat. Maybe different colored "foot discs" would help differentiate your pcs from each other and from other generic friendly NPCs and summons. Possibly customizable armor colors?

 

Just some ideas. Hope others will chime in with what they think.

Edited November 2, 2019 by Jenekee
more decriptive topic title

[ZorroDragonslayer]

I agree. In addition to the above, the characters will highlight in the character palette as being next even when they have a penalty and lose a turn, so while issuing orders someone else is then highlighted and the orders go to the subsequent person. Maybe we need to adjust to the new mechanics and maybe there is something Jeff can do to mitigate the circumstance. I like the extra combat calculations and moves and especially the effects to watch. Very interesting! I hope they remain.

 

Edited November 2, 2019 by ZorroDragonslayer

[mikeprichard]

1 hour ago, ZorroDragonslayer said:

In addition to the above, the characters will highlight in the character palette as being next even when they have a penalty and lose a turn, so while issuing orders someone else is then highlighted and the orders go to the subsequent person.

 

This part sounds like a clear bug - has Jeff been emailed about it?

[TriRodent]

3 hours ago, mikeprichard said:

This part sounds like a clear bug - has Jeff been emailed about it?

(It's been a little while since playing QW so...)

 

I thought that the highlighting of a stunned (for instance) player was more of a flicker and the announcement that that character lost his/her turn.  More of a 'didn't forget about you/your turn' kind of thing than a bug.

[Edgwyn]

I have had a problem with this as well.  While I find it useful that one of my characters frequently gets extra attacks, the system has defiantly led me to multiple mistakes.

[mikeprichard]

I'm just lurking the forums waiting for the next patch and haven't started a playthrough yet myself, but given the above, I encourage Jenekee and/or Zorro to consider emailing Jeff/Spiderweb (support@spiderwebsoftware.com) to explain in detail anything here you think is clearly a bug or could do with some tweaking. It does seem like there's room for fixes/improvement. He may or may not be able/choose to do anything about it, but he's very receptive to feedback over email, so it couldn't hurt.

[Lucidus]

Just going to add my own two cents worth here, because I have often made the same type of mistake. I mostly keep my eyes on the combat screen, so I am not usually mislead by my faster characters acting more often. I do have to consciously look over at the party roster to see what effects have been applied to each character, but the situation changes constantly, and I have trouble keeping track of how long those effects will last. So if I am watching the combat, and a character is highlighted, I will then look at the bottom of the screen to select an action. If that character has been stunned, the highlight can move on to the next character while I am looking down. The duration of the highlight is much longer than a 'flicker,' although maybe that varies on different systems. This has been the source of most of my mistaken actions.

Going slightly off topic, I am concerned by the relatively low levels of activity on these forums. I am seeing only a handful of new posts each week. This is far less than I remember for any of the Avernum games. I hope this does not mean that there is less interest in the game.

[mikeprichard]

Lucidus - briefly joining you in that tangent, I've also been surprised about the lukewarm activity here, particularly as QW is a new series. I'm not really concerned that Jeff isn't making enough money off the new title to keep the lights on, but the situation is a bit strange considering the previous Avernum, Geneforge, and even Avadon releases generated several months of heightened forum activity after release. Who knows?

[Lucidus]

It's kind of cool to come back here every few years, and to find that I recognize many of the commenters. Hi, everyone!

[mikeprichard]

Yep, same here! Always comforting to know when a new title comes out I can check back here and find Randomizer's Strategy Central and the same old-timers discussing the new game.

[txmimi]

I agree with all these thoughts. . . and add a note from a player whose eyes and glasses are not as sharp as they once were:  the characters are so tiny on the screen!  It makes it even harder to differentiate one from another.

[mikeprichard]

Be sure to email Jeff (support@spiderwebsoftware.com) if you actually want to see improvements here. He doesn't generally read these forums.