Suggestions Thread

[Nuke]

just a thought for your upcoming patch, not only for online play but also for replay value, make an option to turn weather off. pvp with objectives needs it more than anything. weather in the vs AI mode is enough to kill your chances at a brilliant victory. Versus another person is the differtance between wining and losing, and diminishes your online playability...if you do get a lobby up one day for pvp, id say being able to choose weather on or off could be a deciding factor as to the popularity of playing the game against human opponents.

[floogles]

Man I love this game! The weird thing is, because I like it so much, I actually want to make suggestions about it (to make a good thing even better, not to trash it)

My suggestions for the game after two days of playing:

- Difficulty settings. I would really like to see this included - maybe 2 levels harder and 2 levels easier than the current setting. It would increase greatly increase the replay. I think the easiest way to do this would be:
1) add or subtract steps (ie. "hard" adds steps to all enemys and/or takes steps from player)
2) scale experience - since experience makes units so powerful, "hard" could accumulate only a rate of 50% experience, "easy" = 150%
3) change the probability tables to make it harder or easier
4) Some reward for playing on harder difficulty (prestige points bonus? specialist steps bonus? )
5) Other more interesting difficulty mods that might unbalance the game might be to make defending much more powerful since you always have to attack to win (extra bonus to entrenchment and terrain cover)

- Prestige points. Although the prestige points system is good, I think it takes away from the game. Mostly because in games, I LOVE upgrading units or buying new ones, balancing that with the limited resources I have already.
1)But in UOC, somehow it always feels like cheating and shooting yourself in the foot to buy specialist sets or reinforcements. And I love the specialist sets, but I always feel bad for buying them.
2)I think this is a function of how the prestige is linked to scoring, and you have to always hold onto it for some future-maybe-what-if scenario in the campaign. Unfortunately, the player knows enough to know he shouldn’t spend it, but doesn’t know enough about how *much* he shouldn’t spend it.
3) I think it is the same feeling as trying to calculate how much I can spend on food this week (chocolate cake or cheap bread) because I might get less hours work next week and have less money…maybe…or I might need to pay a bill. All this guessing and planning takes the fun out being able to enjoy the chocolate cake (specialist set) guilt free.
4) I know this is an emotional response to a well thought out prestige system, but I noticed it, because it (upgrading) is literally the only thing that is not fun for me in the game.
5) How to do this? Well, why not give specialist steps for free very occasionally in the force pool instead (with a little popup message “specialist step now available”)? Then it would be a joy to find them there, and so much fun to think “which unit shall I boost with this?” Then there is no conflict with the prestige system
6) I know you have thought about this stuff at length, I wish I could come up with better ideas, maybe you or other players can have some better ideas?

- Some of my suggestions reflect the RPS article here which I am sure you are aware of.


-minor things
- shouldn't there be a penalty for moving out of entrenchment? I know you lose a whole turn to do it, but I found it strange you can have full movement straight out of entrenchment

- I know the specialist steps details are covered in the manual, but I would just love if there was some more detail available in game. I would love to just have a little historical detail pop up for these. Actually, it would be great to have a “codex” or something (accessible from the menus) where there were more detailed unit descriptions of everything so I can read a little paragraph about the Jaeger, about the T-34, about the partisans, etc. I think other people would love these little details too. You could make them really stylized like a character sheet.

- the messages that pop up when you take an objective are too quick to read. I really want to enjoy those messages as a sense of accomplishment and immersion in the progress of the campaign…but I can never read them quick enough???? Could solve by just putting an “OK” box on them so they are clicked away instead of disappearing. Does anyone else have this problem?

- Adding a mixer so you can control the balance between the different sounds (instead of just being able to switch them on or off) would be really good. just found it...strangely, it was hidden in the options menu! d'oh!

- To automate hiding the force pool bar, why don’t you allow it to popup when the mouse hits the very bottom of the screen, and then auto-hide after 2 seconds or so? Then you get a bigger screen, but can always access the bar whenever you need it.

- I have read that some people really want an undo move so they can find out the odds of attacking someone before committing to move there. Why don’t you use a mouse-modifier to do this instead?

-Eg. I *might* want to attack a unit 3 hexes away but I am not sure yet. So,I click my unit, move the mouse to where I want it to move, then I hold “ctrl” and it temporarily fixes the move so I can hover over enemies that are next to the planned move and find out odds. As soon as I release “ctrl”, it goes back to normal (all without moving the unit, and similar to the way you use “ctrl” already to view the combat sheets).

Thanks for reading if you got this far...I am gonna get back to stalingrad!!!!

[Snowwhite]

My suggestion.

Have a Easter sale, 50% off, and then I, like many others, will buy it.

[Tomislav Uzelac]

There you go mate. Well, 33% off, but that's just because we... like, don't do requests

Also, many thanks for the many useful suggestions in this thread. Keep them coming, we are paying attention.

[Snowwhite]

There you go mate. Well, 33% off, but that's just because we... like, don't do requests

Also, many thanks for the many useful suggestions in this thread. Keep them coming, we are paying attention.

Thank you. Buying it now,

[Myshkin]

Please find attached my comments below.

Pros:

1. Beautifully crafted flawless game engine
2. Game concepts are abstract, without being oversimplified
3. Easy to learn, but hard to master universe
4. The game provides a deep challenge in both logistics and tactics
5. Game art is minimalistic, but elegant
6. Very well balanced challenging scenarios
7. The multiplayer option provides challenges for hardcore users
8. The savegame dynamic mechanics add to the game complexity (such as limit save/load abuses)
9. Easy to mod a scenario
10. Well polished and sufficiently informative manual
11. Plenty potential for further improvement and development

Cons:

1. Game frustratingly asks for gamekey more than once
2. Game lacks depth in strategic level i.e. decisions that will affect the long term progress of the campaign. Currently, strategic decisions are limited to banking prestige and requesting elite units from Stavka or OKW reserve.
3. The game is very short you can finish the whole game in 10 hours. It really feels like an extended demo.
4. Campaign feels more like patching together different scenarios without any real connection between them
5. The finale is disappointing. In fact, it is utterly absent.
6. Inflicting heavy losses on the enemy and minimize own casualties is irrelevant for gaining or losing prestige. There is a certain scenario, that the only way to achieve BV is by sacrificing your entire army...
7. Air combat is not existent. There is no concept as air superiority. The influence of air strikes is practically minimal.
8. Not possible to mod a campaign at the moment

Suggestions:

1. Undo last move would fit nicely. There are plenty of cases I was forced to restart the scenario, because of misclicking.
2. Implement artillery barrage. Units with artillery specialists could provide suppressive fire at nearby hexes.
3. Increase the influence of air superiority on ground forces. Add fighters, which can patrol an area from air attacks, or suppress enemy fighters on patrol.
4. Untie the game score from accumulated prestige. Prestige should also take into account own losses and enemy casulaties.
5. Include a grand finale screen. A conclusion page with several statistics and game progress info is at least better than nothing.
6. Improve the connection between campaign scenarios
7. War in Russia mode: Open mode where the players can play through the whole eastern front map without turn limitations
8. More campaigns with more missions with non-linear choices and RP elements e.g. single or multiple core forces with dynamic unit progression (experience, losses) throughout different scenarios
9. A campaign editor will provide a lot more modding options to the UoC community.

Cheers,
Mysh

[Snowwhite]

Update your blog telling us what you and your team are up to now, and also your future plans uoc. People like information about the games lasting appeal and growth before they part with their hard earned money.
It gets the community involved and also shows that the project is alive and kicking. It can only help.

[Tomislav Uzelac]

1. Game frustratingly asks for gamekey more than once

This should not be happening. Please open a topic in "Technical Support" or email support at unityofcommand.net; and try to give us a bit more details about what happened exactly.

[Shatner]

After completing a scenario or campaign mission, I find it very gratifying to click back to the start of the mission in History Mode and then watch all the turns replay. This game is cleverly designed, the levels are well constructed, and success is sweet given the difficulty involved, so watching a replay allows me to savor the experience. Unfortunately, this replay is continually broken up by having to advance to the next turn in History Mode and then click resume.

I would really like two things:
1) A "Back to the Beginning" button in History Mode that would take you back to the very beginning of the first turn (this will save the user a lot of clicking)
2) A "Play All" button in History Mode that would play all of the turns in sequence without stopping until the end of the scenario

Thanks for an excellent game, where my only real complaint is "it's kinda clunky reliving the good times I spent playing it".

[floogles]

+1 "play all" history button. Would make for much greater immersion.