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Phase III: The Usability Tune-Up

DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
edited February 2014 in The Road to Android
The next build contains the following improvements:
- For devices that support immersive mode (requires Android 4.4 or later), the game should now remain in immersive mode even after touching the screen
- Double-tapping items on the Buy/Sell screen should now allow you to enter a quantity to purchase
- The game should no longer allow the device to go into sleep mode after being idle (it will still let you manually activate sleep mode by pressing the power button)
- Zooming out on indoor areas should no longer create any black space in the area itself
- Action hot spots are a bit less oversensitive to errant taps
- The dialogue window has been improved*
- Devices with the language set to an unsupported language should now default to English if they didn't before
*In dialogue, you should now see the "Continue" button when there are dialogue options. Tapping an option will highlight it; tap Continue to confirm your selection and continue the conversation. This should eliminate any mistakes made during conversations due to tapping the wrong option.

The counter has been set back to zero. Grab the newest build and check it out!

Objectives for Testers

Converse with the NPCs around Candlekeep and play with the improvements to dialogue. Make sure that the new functionality works for you. Talk to Gorion to end the prologue and complete the test. You will be limited to the Abdel pregenerated character.

Anything outside of the above parameters will display the following message and close the game: "You've wandered outside the bounds of the test. Please restart the test."

To finish the test: Talk to Gorion near the center of the map and tell him you are ready to leave, then watch the cutscene. After you finish reading the Chapter Transition text, you will see the following message:
"You've successfully completed the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition performance test! Thank you for playing!"
Our testing program allows us to track crashes and other problems; there is no need to post issues here. Please submit all other feedback through TestFlight.

When we have enough successful tests with no critical issues, we'll move on to the next phase.
Successful Tests: 166/400
Post edited by Dee on
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Comments

  • DannyBarkleyDannyBarkley Member Posts: 50
    edited February 2014
    Troodon80 said:

    Downloading.

    Dee said:

    *In dialogue, you should now see the "Continue" button when there are dialogue options. Tapping an option will highlight it; tap Continue to confirm your selection and continue the conversation. This should eliminate any mistakes made during conversations due to tapping the wrong option.

    This sounds like a fantastic addition. I'm a bit tired of miss-tapping.
    I actually liked the 'tap and drag' way of selecting - once I knew it existed. Wasn't clear that you could do that. I'll have to try the new method though.

    400 tests required? :-o

    EDIT: I tried the new text selection method - works really nicely.
    Post edited by DannyBarkley on
  • LoubLoub Member Posts: 471



    400 tests required? :-o

    Beamdog sure has rigid, if draconian, standards of quality control.
  • SouldancertnSouldancertn Member Posts: 45
    I could hear Abdel! The dialogue window improvements were great, too. I felt more confident in making a choice rather than hoping that my finger didn't brush across the wrong option. The overhead text was bigger as well, but not sure if I found it to be too necessary. I'll try another run through soon but no bugs so far.
  • DannyBarkleyDannyBarkley Member Posts: 50
    Also, the floating cutscene text is finally bigger! Good stuff.
    Everything else seems good.
  • Troodon80Troodon80 Member, Developer Posts: 4,110
    @DannyBarkley, I knew it existed, but my fingers are a bit larger than a typical stylus. Even with a tap-drag, I could still manage to select a non-intended option while lifting my finger.
  • JustphilJustphil Member Posts: 11
    Couple of issues, cut scence stutters a couple of times when walking out of candlekeep on my note 10.1. Anyone else have problems changing weapons in the inventory? Irem being replaced does not revert to backup.
  • RookrockRookrock Member Posts: 18
    Ran through the test, talked to a few people, made a few friends. All in all the test went really well. No stutters on the nexus 7 2013. Looking great!
  • DannyBarkleyDannyBarkley Member Posts: 50
    Is the smoke animation about Candlekeep Inn faster than usual or am I imagining that?
  • glucero0glucero0 Member Posts: 4
    This build is so much better! For dialogue not only is it much nicer to have to tap continue to commit to an option but the white font is so much easier to read! It's great to be able to select each item, read it, and then decide what to choose.

    As far as choosing quantities goes, I'm not sure it's working quite right. If you choose something like a bolt, which I believe is always bought in quantities of 99, and you select to buy either of them, eight quantities of 99 should appear but it was hard to tell if that was happening or not.

    Anyway, the build is looking and playing great. Thanks.
  • matthileomatthileo Member Posts: 59
    Troodon80 said:

    Downloading.

    Dee said:

    *In dialogue, you should now see the "Continue" button when there are dialogue options. Tapping an option will highlight it; tap Continue to confirm your selection and continue the conversation. This should eliminate any mistakes made during conversations due to tapping the wrong option.

    This sounds like a fantastic addition. I'm a bit tired of miss-tapping.
    giving the dialog adoptions a little more padding, so it's easier to select the one you want seems like a better option. Adding another button you have to click seems like it breaks the flow of the game

  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    glucero0 said:

    As far as choosing quantities goes, I'm not sure it's working quite right. If you choose something like a bolt, which I believe is always bought in quantities of 99, and you select to buy either of them, eight quantities of 99 should appear but it was hard to tell if that was happening or not.

    You buy bolts in stacks of 20. So when you buy four stacks, they'll enter your inventory as one stack of 80. The numbers for the quantity and stack size are a little small at the moment, though.
  • Troodon80Troodon80 Member, Developer Posts: 4,110
    edited February 2014
    @matthileo, true that more padding might be better, but I think this way suits well enough. I've already tried it and I think it's far better than what it originally was. A problem that some people may encounter is screen calibration, even on devices that are considered flagship Android devices such as the Nexus 7, 2013 model (since fixed). Adding an extra button click is a safety-net, and it works well enough to not be that distracting (it's a heck of a lot more distracting to find that you are constantly pressing options that you didn't intend), and it also effectively means that it doesn't matter what size of screen you are playing on (within reason).

    Adding extra padding is an interesting idea, but like everything else on tablets these days, padding takes up screen real estate. For example, Imoen's first dialogue, with additional padding, would then require the user to drag-scroll the dialogue upwards and downwards just to be able to read the text and then pick an option. That's going to be the same amount of time as pressing an option and then tapping the 'Continue' button.
  • Troodon80Troodon80 Member, Developer Posts: 4,110
    The new overhead font is also greatly appreciated. I had a slight bit of trouble double-tapping the item icon in the store, though. It seems to be very precise, even though I am certain that I am tapping on the icon itself, nothing is happening. I have only managed to bring up the quantities dialogue twice. If I don't tap so quickly, the item highlights instead. Perhaps it is a timing issue? Perhaps it's my fingers?

    I'll send feedback.
  • plague1312plague1312 Member Posts: 2
    Worked really nice on my galaxy tab 2 10.1. But i had 2 minor freezes, which lasted maybe 5-8 seconds, where i could not do anything. I really appreciate the continue button and the hovering white text. Will the german voice-over be in the final game? Cant wait the final release...memories will come alive again, guys ;)
  • SamuraiJackJrSamuraiJackJr Member Posts: 9
    Nice improvements overall! Combat was smooth, though I experienced one 10 second freeze near the temple.
  • specter597specter597 Member Posts: 16

    Worked really nice on my galaxy tab 2 10.1. But i had 2 minor freezes, which lasted maybe 5-8 seconds, where i could not do anything. I really appreciate the continue button and the hovering white text. Will the german voice-over be in the final game? Cant wait the final release...memories will come alive again, guys ;)

    I had the same "mini-freeze"
    5-10 seconds. Then it resumed with no issue.
    It happened when I tried to do an unpinch to zoom out

  • cmk24cmk24 Member Posts: 605
    Everything runs smoothly on my TF101. I like all the changes in this build!
  • DannyBarkleyDannyBarkley Member Posts: 50
    The magnifying glass toggle now works properly - great!
  • wigglesgwigglesg Member Posts: 96
    Every thing seems good, I like the click to continue dialog options. The double click to buy quantity got me a little confused - I thought I was buying individual bolts not stacks of bolts so I bought 20*20 bolts.

    I didn't get chance to test if the device recovers after being locked for a long time, anyone tested that?

    One thing I will say though, I'm getting a little bored of running through the prologue, I just hope we're close to release now!!
  • Out2lunchOut2lunch Member Posts: 57
    edited February 2014
    Love the text select and continue button. This is brilliant.

    I had lines at top if chimnies on the inn, similar to first test.

    Hotspots a little too unsensitive. When I killed assassin in house on top map by the door I walked out 3 times instead of looting.

    Vertical doors seem hard to enter on nexus 7, often needing a few clicks, but that could be my fat fingers.
  • spikiespikie Member Posts: 17
    Winthrop dialog to buy stuff from him? There isn't any just the continue button to get at the shop
  • spikiespikie Member Posts: 17
    Hit box around book in hay stack is a little small for fingers also ive managed to get an unexpected out of bounds by completing all of the sub quests and leaving one of the assasins till the end i was trying to see just how much xp it was possible to get within castle walls before going to final cut scene also if you buy any weps from Winthrop and equip them its out of bounds but armour and helm work fine im using nexus 7
  • spikiespikie Member Posts: 17
    One other thing the building in bottom of castle shows a stair case to select but im unable to use the stairs in that location
  • spikiespikie Member Posts: 17
    Sugested addition finger hover over buttons should maybe tell you what they do
  • djseemanndjseemann Member Posts: 10
    Looking good for my n9005
  • LcacdriverLcacdriver Member Posts: 41
    spikie said:

    Hit box around book in hay stack is a little small for fingers also ive managed to get an unexpected out of bounds by completing all of the sub quests and leaving one of the assasins till the end i was trying to see just how much xp it was possible to get within castle walls before going to final cut scene also if you buy any weps from Winthrop and equip them its out of bounds but armour and helm work fine im using nexus 7

    I was able to equip the long sword and fight with it on both both Note II and Note 10.1 (2014). Haven't tested latest version on my Nexus 7 yet.

    On another note (no pun intended), I'm sure many will be grateful that they are accomodating phones, but even on one as big as the Note II, I just can't see playing this on a phone size screen. The Nexus 7 is borderline too small, but even it makes a world of difference over my phone. The 10 inch tabs are the way to go for sure. Can only imagine how awesome the game would look on the new Note Pro 12.2.

  • LcacdriverLcacdriver Member Posts: 41
    spikie said:

    Winthrop dialog to buy stuff from him? There isn't any just the continue button to get at the shop

    You might have got a bad download or something...this shows up on all my devices. Or maybe it is Nexus 7 specific for some reason. I'll test on mind when I get home.

  • cmk24cmk24 Member Posts: 605
    spikie said:

    One other thing the building in bottom of castle shows a stair case to select but im unable to use the stairs in that location

    That is the "training fight area" that is not in the beta due to size limitations. The devs decided to just make the stairs not do anything instead of giving the "out of bounds" message when clicked.
  • spikiespikie Member Posts: 17
    If you preempt all of the quests you dont allways get any dialogue or have to visit the npc multiple times to get quest complete dialogue i started with buying bolts the se off around the castle in an anti clockwise direction giving bolts to gaurd collecting sword and potion on route for gaurd at gate then giving potion to cow hearder collecting book to give to girl etc i found i had to speak to cow hearder and girl multiple times before it would complete quest i finished with mage in the tavern giving him the scroll
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