Author Topic: Graphs  (Read 2755 times)

Offline Quitch

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Graphs
« on: June 09, 2009, 06:58:56 pm »
While I have yet to finish a campaign beyond the tutorial (I decided Random Easier 5 was too easy so I'm now on Random All 5) when I finished that I got a victory message and nothing more.

The joy in this type of game is looking back over what happened and seeing the story unfold. Through graphs. Graphs of units, graphs of resources, etc. Might be a real pain to add and one for later expansions, but I would definitely love to see something which gave me a great sense of statisfaction in victory "Look how it started yet see how I overcame".

Offline freykin

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Re: Graphs
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2009, 07:07:59 pm »
I agree that this would be cool.  I know the game already keeps track of a score as you play, maybe have it have a high score list saved locally where it shows what you were against and settings used, along with displaying your score?  I remember the older HOMM games did this kind of, with it associating your score with a unit in the game, and I loved using it as a way to keep track of how well I was doing.

Offline x4000

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Re: Graphs
« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2009, 09:38:04 pm »
While I have yet to finish a campaign beyond the tutorial (I decided Random Easier 5 was too easy so I'm now on Random All 5) when I finished that I got a victory message and nothing more.

The joy in this type of game is looking back over what happened and seeing the story unfold. Through graphs. Graphs of units, graphs of resources, etc. Might be a real pain to add and one for later expansions, but I would definitely love to see something which gave me a great sense of statisfaction in victory "Look how it started yet see how I overcame".

Yeah, I know what you mean -- I do have the scores screen available to you at any point during the game, though -- the little button at the bottom left.  Unlike other strategy games, you can see that at any time (well, AoE2 actually let you see it at any time, too, I think).  The main thing that I do not have is graphs, and I'm not really tracking historical data points there, either -- just cumulative totals.

Graphs was something I was interested in doing, but mostly I just didn't have time.  I've added this to my list, though.  Some other recent RTS games I have played also did not have graphs, but rather just had the stats screens like what I have here, by the way -- SupCom, I think?  Or maybe it was AoE3.  I don't really remember.  Anyway, that's no excuse though, I know you are right that the graphics are quite entertaining and part of the satisfaction.  And it's right in my wheelhouse, too, so I don't know why I never focused on it more.  Maybe this will be something I focus on for this next week's DLC.

One good point that you also have, though, is that you weren't really drawn to the score screen at the end of the game.  In a lot of other games it lets you survey the battlefield (same here, it lifts the fog of war so that you can see what was going on), but then when you quit it takes you to the victory screen.  I don't really want to do that for various reasons, but what do you think about if I perhaps cause the Score button to start flashing after victory/defeat, and/or pop up the scores window automatically?  Anyone have any strong preferences there?
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Offline x4000

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Re: Graphs
« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2009, 09:41:25 pm »
I agree that this would be cool.  I know the game already keeps track of a score as you play, maybe have it have a high score list saved locally where it shows what you were against and settings used, along with displaying your score?  I remember the older HOMM games did this kind of, with it associating your score with a unit in the game, and I loved using it as a way to keep track of how well I was doing.

You know, this is another excellent point.  I was also thinking about doing something like this, but then couldn't decide exactly how to handle it and so wound up putting it off for later.  That was before I added multiple player profiles, though, so now that makes it somewhat easier.  This is something that will take a couple of new screens in order to add, but I think it's well worth it.  I've added this to my list, too, but I don't know if I'll be able to get it done in the next week.  I'll shoot for sometime in the next month, though, since I agree that it would help to give an overarching sense of purpose and completion between multiple games.  Thanks for bringing it up!
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