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Party Formation Facing Direction

H8Cr1meH8Cr1me Member Posts: 2
in iPad (Archive)
Shouldn't there be an option to adjust the party facing direction like you can on the PC? This is important tactically and it also helps fit your party into tight spaces when you can align the party formation.

Comments

  • salesninjasalesninja Member Posts: 5
    Also am wondering wher this feature is.
  • BJMJDBJMJD Member Posts: 192
    edited December 2012
    I don't have the game (I hope to have it soon), but did you try a hold tap and, without removing your finger from the screen, moving it on the screen?
  • ScottYelichScottYelich Member Posts: 6
    Seriously -- the touch interface seems like it was barely "enhanced" I tap to set a point, and I figured I could drop another finger and rotate the formation orientation -- but no. WHAT? NO? ARGH! It seemed to intuitive. I was guessing how to make way-points in movement -- but hell, I'll settle for party orientation before waypoints.
  • ilgiallomondadoriilgiallomondadori Member Posts: 4
    No party orientation is a pain in the arse. I hope they fix this one soon.
  • prometheanpromethean Member Posts: 9
    Agree... from an interface standpoint on the iPad, there is no "Enhancement" over GemRB, and a step back in some aspects. That doesn't take much away from the fact that it's awesome to have this on iPad, even buggy but playable, especially knowing that these issues are likely to be resolved, with the end result that the BG2:EE will be even better.
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641
    This is reported in the Known Bugs post.
  • SarthosSarthos Member Posts: 31
    edited December 2012
    One solution is to move slightly less than you need to and then tap again. The party will turn to face the new direction. My ultimate solution would be a two finger tap if they can get it to work consistently.

    BTW, if you press and hold a formation button there are more formations available including a follow-the-leader option.
  • HellkiteHellkite Member Posts: 3
    What about using the two finger rotate gesture? That'd be the most intuitive.
  • VirrenVirren Member Posts: 16
    I can understand they might not be able to bring all the control features to a touch interface. But they should list or call-out the differences. They have put in the effort to develop a tutorial. A better help file or readme wouldn't be hard to add, and may alleviate some of the frustration some players feel.
  • BytebrainBytebrain Member Posts: 602
    @Virren
    I agree completely.
    As much as I love the game both on my iPad and PC, Beamdog ought to have done more for the iPad in regards to an iPad specific tutorial, (preferred), or at least, as you suggest, a help file or read me, preferable in the game.
    Also, in-game links to the manuals, which opens and reads fine in Safari on the iPad.

    Bugs aside, they can and will be fixed, some not so good interface decisions may be changed for the better, but the tutorial and manual is the only help a new player have, and it's a big problem for a lot of people, which they could have avoided.

    I hope they get the chance to look into this, even though they have a lot of stuff on their plate as it is.
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  • Garrison64Garrison64 Member Posts: 72
    You can already 2 finger pinch to zoom in and out.
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  • Garrison64Garrison64 Member Posts: 72
    Drawing the rectangle for character selection is a direct hold over from the PC game. A lot of isometric games use that method for party selection.
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  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited January 2013
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  • D3V11_D3V11_ Member Posts: 69
    edited January 2013
    double tap is not supported in iPad OS. just so everyone knows when they are thinking of solutions.
    *pleas correct me if i am wrong*
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641
    edited January 2013
    subtledoctor said:

    Right - a direct holdover from a platform where a mouse pointer is integral, and where it can only point to one pixel on the screen, and that, plus keyboard shortcuts, are the only way to interact with the game.

    But it's 2013, and multitouch tablets are the fastest-growing segment of the computer/electronics industry. And you cannot use a single, precise pixel-sized pointer, and you cannot use keyboard shortcuts. But you CAN use fingers which, when pushed against a screen, are roughly the size of the circles under BG characters. And you can use multiple simultaneous touches, up to 10, and the game is designed to have up to six controllable characters. See where I'm going with this? Given just the facts in this paragraph, if you we're coming at this problem fresh, would your solution be "we'll make it like using a mouse?"

    Some creativity would go a long way in adapting this game's interface. I'm not suggesting it would be easy - the code base is ancient and inefficient - but millions of people would pay good money to programmers who do difficult things creatively and elegantly. There's plenty of room for improvement here, and this seems like the right place to nudge things along.

    @subtledoctor

    While I don't disagree with you, there are some problems in your argument...namely, that this isn't an iPad game...it's a PC game, ported to the iPad...better say it that this is a Multi-Platform game ported to the iPad as a platform. What you're talking about is a completely re-designed and re-worked interface for the iPad...and I'm with you, I'd LOVE to see it. But you won't...because what you're asking for is to separate the code bases to make distinct games for the PC, the tablets and the Mac. A 12 person development staff that also acts as their own marketing, tech support, and distribution center cannot afford to do that. To make THAT large a change to the interface would require either alot more extraneous code on the PC Version, or it would require you to strip out a large chunk of the interface and re-write it.


    MUCH more efficient for the developers to "mimic" a mouse on the iPad. You did want this game before 2014 right?

    At it's heart this game is a 1996? game for the PC...it will always BE a 1996 game for the PC, even if you're playing it on a 2010 iPad. It'd be great to take the "mouse" out of the iPad interface, but the fact is, the game was never designed or built around a device without a mouse...and you can't really re-design it now.
  • D3V11_D3V11_ Member Posts: 69
    Thank you @Illydth, I could not have worded it better myself. I would love to have that functionality but realistically I don't think it will happen any time soon.
  • Garrison64Garrison64 Member Posts: 72
    D3V11_ said:

    double tap is not supported in iPad OS. just so everyone knows when they are thinking of solutions.
    *pleas correct me if i am wrong*

    Until someone here said you could open the gem bag by tapping on the left side of the open button I was double tapping the bag to open it. The problem is that you have to tap in exactly the same spot twice and it's not easy to do with your finger so opening the bag was a pain. But you can double tap to do it so even though it isn't technically supported on the iPad it can be used in this game.
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641
    I'm guessing that while the iPad OS may not support a double tap, because the game itself is "mouse based" a double tap on the interface is still recognized as a double tap...the game itself is probably processing 2 taps in the same location within a given period of time as a double tap, regardless of whether or not that's a distinct trapped action (event) within the iOS software, the Game itself still recognizes it.
  • BytebrainBytebrain Member Posts: 602
    Illydth said:

    I'm guessing that while the iPad OS may not support a double tap, because the game itself is "mouse based" a double tap on the interface is still recognized as a double tap...the game itself is probably processing 2 taps in the same location within a given period of time as a double tap, regardless of whether or not that's a distinct trapped action (event) within the iOS software, the Game itself still recognizes it.

    I think you're right about that, I've seen quite a few games on the iPad working like that.

    On the touch interface issues, I think it would be possible to make some adjustments and introduce a more creative way to use touch without too many issues.
    One thing in particular I think would be very useful would be to use swipe on the entire line of "dock icons" to reveal tooltips.
    It's a simple gesture, and the tooltips would show exactly like they do on the PC, so it would be better in every way than the implemented solution.
    Lots of people not scrutinizing this board closely still doesn't know how to access tooltips in the game, as they've neglected to explain the procedure properly. And the current way of getting access to tooltips is counter intuitive IMO.

    While I love the game on my iPad, it's sometimes painfully obvious that the developers is newbies on the iOS platform...
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