I give up on this game until they fix the interface

from Stardock Forums

I just bought this game and I am stunned that it got good reviews. It ignores the basic interface paradigms that have long been proven useful in 4x games.

 

I started playing and gave up. This game is not playable for me until they fix basic problems:

 

1. There is no hotkey for selecting the next unit.  The only way to select a new unit is to scroll to it and select it.  So, if you've forgotten where your units are (easy to do in a 4x game), then this is obviously not a fun task.

2. There is no way to deselect a selected unit.  That means if you use the mouse to scroll, the stupid game thinks you want to move the selected unit to where you're scrolling.  This is a basic bad design decision.

3. No overall city view.  You can't call up a screen that has a list of cities that you own.

4. No idea what a city is producing.  There is no indication what the hell a city is producing/researching/whatever.

5. No way to select screen resolution!!!  OMFG R u kidding me?  Some of us have large monitors, so we need to lower the resolution so the text is bigger.  The text is too f***ing small in this game.

4x games have been around for 20 years.  It's a pity the lazy designers at Stardock have never played one. Or if they did, they decided to go in the opposite direction of good design.  I am pissed.  $40 for this amateur piece of crap interface?!?!

 

 

 

26,377 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

1. Click on the unit picture/summary on the top of the left edge of the screen, just above the city list.

2. I can't speak to this, I use the arrow keys to scroll.

3. There is a list of cities on the left edge of the screen, just below the units.

4. If you click a city to zoom to it, you can see the production in the map tooltip. I agree it would be better if there were a summary that was immediately accessible.

5. I have not had this problem.

I've played every major 4x game since the original Civ - including Master of Orion 3, which should give me some bonus points - and while I have issues with the interface that I would like to have a chat with the staff and my blackjack (or maybe a baseball bat a la Untouchables), none of these are among them...

Take a breath, take some time, adjust. What you need is there. Relax.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

1. There is no hotkey for selecting the next unit.  The only way to select a new unit is to scroll to it and select it.  So, if you've forgotten where your units are (easy to do in a 4x game), then this is obviously not a fun task.

2. There is no way to deselect a selected unit.  That means if you use the mouse to scroll, the stupid game thinks you want to move the selected unit to where you're scrolling.  This is a basic bad design decision.

3. No overall city view.  You can't call up a screen that has a list of cities that you own.

4. No idea what a city is producing.  There is no indication what the hell a city is producing/researching/whatever.

5. No way to select screen resolution!!!  OMFG R u kidding me?  Some of us have large monitors, so we need to lower the resolution so the text is bigger.  The text is too f***ing small in this game.

1. The select next unit key is [tab].

2. Left click on the ground where there is no unit or object and this will deselect any unit you have selected.

3. Look at the bottom right and pressed [Govern] then select [Ledger], be sure the tab [City List] is highlighted.

4. Not sure exactly what you are referring but you can see the product on the main screen as well as in the city view for the specifics of mana, production, the amount of research, which also shows up in the ledger screen as indicated above.

5. I can switch my resolution to the game. By going to the options screen and selecting the option resolution

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Ok I will bite

1. Tab key

2. left click on screen

3. Ledger - city list try left clicking on the frame crown at the top of the screen

4. Shown as a graphic above the city's population bar or see the city list for text list

5. Options - Resolution

 

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Oh my goodness, thank you so much for all this info.  Especially the TAB key -- which, BTW, is NOT listed in the hotkey section of the manual.

 

I also just realized I've been playing 4x games since Reach For The Stars in 1983.  30 years!  Damn, I'm old  :(O

 

Thanks for your patience in explaining these things. I really appreciate it!  I should be more forgiving.  After all, it's not till the most recent version of Civ that they finally learned how to alphabetize correctly in the Civilopedia.

 

I'm off to try again! :grin:

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

That's all good.  I just learned about the TAB key.

 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

You were about to not play the best 4x game of recent years because you didn't understand the interface? That seems... a touch hasty.

Admittedly parts of the interface could be better explained (you shouldn't have to go to the forums to have them explained), but I would kinda hope that you'd at least find the City List and the Options screen.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

No no no, OP, you dirty newb you, you got it all wrong. What you really want to be complaing about regarding the FE:LH interface is that they didn't copy one of the new interface inventions Civ V got exceptionally right: The automatic find-next-idle-unit-before-turn-ends. In Civ V, you can't end your turn (unless you hard-end it with a keyboard shortcut) until you've issued orders to all idle unit and completely exhausted their movement points. If you had issued an order to a unit and then end turn but the unit still had movement left, you'll get another chance to move that unit again before turn ends. This system ensures you'll always be moving your units optimally - this is brilliant because it ensures you won't have to double-check if your units are moving correctly to satisfy that OCD. In FE:LH, the next-turn system is unfortunately so that the game only checks for all units to have orders, not to have fully exhausted their movement. That means if you have a hero with three movement standing next to a tile you are ordering the hero to move to and end your turn, the hero will only move to that tile and the turn will end - the two movement points remaining will simply be wasted. To play optimally you therefore can't rely on LH's green 'end turn' button to check if you are in fact ready to end turn, you have to check all units each time (aka **** annoying).

 

Civ V style end turn checks in LH please, StarDock, at least as an option!

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks for all your help, but now there are 2 problems which prevent me from playing the game, and I think I have to ask for my money back.

 

1. Changing the screen resolution DOES NOT CHANGE THE SIZE OF THE FONT.  It just makes the playing area smaller.  This is absolutely no help at all.

 

And more importantly --

 

2. When you TAB from unit to unit, the screen scrolls quickly in a vertiginous manner, similar to the horrible iOS 7 design flaw Apple recently corrected in a hotfix when they were sued by users.  Yes, Fallen Enchantress literally makes me sick. 

 

I am in the 5-10% of the population that cannot read books in cars or go on roller coasters or watch shaky camera movies like The Blair Witch Project.

 

So the movement of the screen in this game literally makes me sick.  Within seconds of using the TAB method to go from unit to unit, vertigo and nausea overwhelm me.

I cannot find any way to turn this off, and unless I can I will demand my money back because the product causes health problems.  Since they do not warn the consumer of the vertigo-inducing nature of their game, I am well within my rights.

*sigh*

Oh well. I guess I'll have to go back to work instead of wasting my time on games.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

About #1: Not sure if I understand your exact problem but: You can perhaps fix this by editing your text settings file: Navigate to your \documents & settings\username\My Games\legendaryheroes folder. In Prefs.ini, manually edit in the resolution you want to use, it's the "DisplayWidth" & "DisplayHeight" lines near the very top of the document.

 

#2: I didn't even know about TAB (lol?) and have been playing the game just fine without it. If scrolling the bar on the left is too annoying for you you can simply click the the extreme left of the bar (there is a scroll bar to the left of the unit and city icons) and it will take you to the absolute top where your heroes and armies are.

 

Hope this helps.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting PhuckStardockRegistration, reply 8

Thanks for all your help, but now there are 2 problems which prevent me from playing the game, and I think I have to ask for my money back.

 

1. Changing the screen resolution DOES NOT CHANGE THE SIZE OF THE FONT.  It just makes the playing area smaller.  This is absolutely no help at all.

 

And more importantly --

 

2. When you TAB from unit to unit, the screen scrolls quickly in a vertiginous manner, similar to the horrible iOS 7 design flaw Apple recently corrected in a hotfix when they were sued by users.  Yes, Fallen Enchantress literally makes me sick. 

 

I am in the 5-10% of the population that cannot read books in cars or go on roller coasters or watch shaky camera movies like The Blair Witch Project.

 

So the movement of the screen in this game literally makes me sick.  Within seconds of using the TAB method to go from unit to unit, vertigo and nausea overwhelm me.

I cannot find any way to turn this off, and unless I can I will demand my money back because the product causes health problems.  Since they do not warn the consumer of the vertigo-inducing nature of their game, I am well within my rights.

*sigh*

Oh well. I guess I'll have to go back to work instead of wasting my time on games.

 

 

You can change the font. There are a number of guides available to do this easily. The font chosen for many games is not always whatever is the most readable but whatever fits into the art design. 

If Fallen Enchantress is causing you health problems you I recommend you contact Stardock and see what their options are for refunds personally. You do not need to announce your intent on the forums.

A few accessiblity options added to the game will probably be easy to develop. Personally I like floating over to my unit but I can understand if some people would want an option for the camera to be instantly centered on the new target.

I will upvote this "as a menu option"