Voting type

[MagicalHacker]

Currently, when the host sets game options, he can set them using dialog buttons. If he answers 'let players vote' on the very first question, however, the players can choose their own mode; unlike the host, they choose this by walking acolytes into a circle of power.

I propose to let the players vote using dialog buttons, like the host. Just like the voting acolytes, the dialogs can be destroyed should the timeout expire, and the player can use default options. I feel this would make the game look more professional, as well as reduce the possibility of players accidentally ending up with the wrong difficulty since the H CoP happened to be right between their acolyte and the VH CoP.

What are your opinions on this matter?

[Guest AlienFromBeyond]

I agree, the current acolyte method of selection blows.

[holepercent]

i used to have some problems controlling the acolytes. not making sure the CoP was highlighted would result in the acolyte above the circle but not going into it. another old problem was if you accidentally clicked the option for the next vote (eg hero/race mode options), your difficulty would be the CoP closest to the acolyte. i would prefer everyone votes the same way as the host pick.

[Guest mrchak]

Good idea, shouldn't be too hard to program. Karawasa - if you want me to handle this, I'd be happy to make the triggers for it. I've gained mad skills with dialogs.

[Cisz]

I like the mad running around in the beginning. Removing this takes away an unimportant but existing piece of player interaction.

[Guest mrchak]

It is a little buggy though, I have noticed. It could probably be optimized

[Cisz]

Maybe some walls could make the pathing less buggy.

[0rb3r]

Actually I like the acolyte running instead of dialog boxes following reasons:

1. It gives you interesting information about other players, i.ex. how many people plays VH and VE.

2. It is less boring then choosing from boxes

3. People decides faster (no one likes it to be the last one choosing), and no waiting.

4. Player interaction in general

If you still think that boxes are better, my proposal would be that if you use boxes, each chosen option will create a wisp in an area with the player color. I.ex. Player 2 (blue) chooses Normal dificulty, Race and Chaos mode. At voting end of each player, the cam is locked and centered to an area where the player sees a circlet for each difficulty, and a wisp with the difficulty choosen by each player (in real time), iex VE: red, orange E: grey N: blue, green H: yellow VH: brown. A special area could be for other options, like a circlet showing all people who wanted Race and hero mode, as well as chaos and random mode. In our case, a blue wisp would appear at the chaos and the race circlet.

This way the game would appear more professional and you would still have the interesting information about other players.

After 2-5 seconds seeing the distribution, the game should start, that's it. Do you guys like the idea?

[Twilice]

Yeah.

[MagicalHacker]

I like that

[Cisz]

We could place workers on some chart area.

[Guest Sancdar]

I never ever notice what other people are picking for most things. You can tell difficulty from the scoreboard, and the rest don't matter to me, only whether or not they are on.

[Cisz]

I have some more thoughts.

To me, using a menue takes more time than a worker-vote. I have to find the right buttone on a new screen of info in a menu, while i can click on a different place of an allready visible field with a vote.

Is there a way to have hotkeys in a menu? If so, that would totally solve this issue for me.

The advantage of a menu would be, that all game options could be either chosen by the host or the players or voted upon.

Like this (host menu):

Difficulty

[ ] Allow a choice for each player

[ ] Allow a vote

[ ] Force very easy for all players

[ ] Force easy for all players

[ ] Force normal for all players

[ ] Force hard for all players

[ ] Force very hard for all players

Randomness

[ ] Allow a choice for each player

[ ] Allow a vote

[ ] Force a game without random for all players

[ ] Force a game with allrandom for all players

[ ] Force a game with samerandom for all players

Extreme

[ ] Allow a choice for each player

[ ] Allow a vote

[ ] Force a game without extreme mode for all players

[ ] Force a game with extreme mode for all players

And the players get a vote menue for all options the host allows a vote for, and a choice menue for everything that is allowed to be chosen.

[Karawasa]

Alright, after a few hours of triggering, I have finally completed the new system. I must say, this is pretty spiffy. I don't see a reason to do the wisp/builder idea, Sancdar put it quite well.

[Cisz]

This sounds exciting. Am I lucky and you managed to include hotkeys?

[Karawasa]

No

[Cisz]

Didn't we have this cool jass coder?

[Karawasa]

Looking at the current system, I don't know if there is any point in giving emjlr3 more work to make hotkeys. Lets take player voting, there is the difficulty dialog, the random dialog, the hero dialog, the chaos dialog, and the extreme dialog. Timing currently is 7.5/5/5/5/5 seconds of showtime for a total of 27.5 seconds. So, even if you are super fast and click right away, you will be waiting for the time for the dialog to expire to see the next one.

[holepercent]

if the dialog boxes are going to be timed, there's not much difference in clicking or using hotkey. after all you still have to wait for the counter to run down... 7.5/5 seconds feels a bit too long for me... 27.5 seconds of voting... host pick is usually done in 10 seconds (at least when i host pick)... although the host probably knows what he wants and is able to pick fast.

and if a player doesn't pick what would the defaults be? especially for difficulty... VH?

[Karawasa]

Normal is the default. I have decided to make them all 5/5/5/5/5 for a total of 25 seconds. Keep in mind 3.0 circle system always took 20 seconds before countdown for level 1 started. The additional 5 seconds can be attributed to the additional randomness option.

[holepercent]

in 3.0 circle system if you finished the vote early you could start building straight away while waiting for the timers to run... you can't build when you are picking the options in the dialog boxes... 25 seconds would be ok...

[Karawasa]

That is true, but I see no reason to build in that initial period. After "voting ends," you have another 25 seconds to fiddle around. I don't imagine you need more time than that. Besides, why would you want to build right away, if you wait until 10 seconds before the game starts, you can get an extra 1 gold from interest unless you are below normal.

[Cisz]

The voting of 3.0 allows experienced players to be done with it in under 10secs.

After that I do the following:

-Assign hotkey for worker.

-Build basic arrow and upgrade to advaced arrow (leaving me over 50gold on vh).

-Assign hotkey for said arrow.

-Assign hotkey for elemental summoning center.

-Check for where other players build. Anyone racing? Or playing very slow?

-In many cases I answer some questions: "Yes we play random." "No heroes." "You probably named the map wrong."