Zoom

[Brutoni]

Highlighted throughout the forum. I've posted a thread visible in the Act of Aggression main forum. Posting here as well.


I will be blunt. This is a colossal step back. Hell C&C Generals has a better unit to zoom ratio to enable strategic and tactical choices to be made. I could wax lyrical on this however the blunt and honest truth.

I won't be buying the game unless you change it. Previous series from yourselves mastered the concept that high detailed zoom right out to wide angle view was required. Now it might not need to cover the entire map like Wargame (though I fail to see why you would not take that across as a major strength). Certainly it doesn't need to zoom in so much. However currently the range is diabolical. That Satellite view requires a specific structure is even worse. It forces a player down a certain playstyle for a CORE component of any RTS (screen management).

Unacceptable. That such a core concept of your game is so hugely flawed concerns me about the readiness of this product. We are in a BETA testing phase. You have not delivered the other 2 factions to any level. Your UI needs work and your basic fundamental principles for an RTS like camera management are flawed. UI concerns are ALPHA level and it is immediately obvious you have not put this through external ALPHA testing.


I was less blunt in the main forum because this is not a finished product. It could also be that we are considered more of an ALPHA weekend test group in which case we are just miscommunicating. However either way it needs to change rapidly. Firefighting and damage control to be done here with fundamentals before you even consider being able to apply the polish.

[Pomegranate23]

+1 I fully agree.
Makes no sense that they would remove their major strenght (epic zooming) that made their games unique and awesome.

[thenosh]

Agree on this. It also seems difficult to plant a refinery that gets ALL the Ressource spots since you sometimes can't even see all of them on the screen.

[[NEIN] FireFoz]

+100, big dealbreaker for me and many of my RTS friends. A clear view of the battlefield is essential in a RTS. Other than resource-capabilities i can not think of any reason why not to do it. And if resources are the problem, then I rather have a less-polished game with a good zoom-out than a zoomed-in game that looks nice. It hurts the gameplay so much, it's unacceptable.

[PsychoHypnotic]

I thinks unit zoom is ok when it comes to normal ground units... but for planes this is laughable...if I am not in sattelite view a plane fills out the whole screen...uncontrollable...sattelite view is good but needs to show up from an even higher point... it is kinda akward now

[rav3nor]

[TheMonkeysaur]

Should be easy to fix thankfully.

Let me just say that the greatest frustration and difficulty I had with my games so far is the camera view. I need much greater zoom, as it was I could barely manage to use strategy around my base. I want to be able to be strategic across the map and scrolling around the map for this just does not work.

I like the idea of the drone view, but once I had that view enabled, every time I wanted to zoom out max I would enter into the drone view and have to adjust again, I had moments in the middle of battles where I'm accidentally changing to drone view in order to try to gain perspective. I think the drone view can work like this, but it needs to kick in at a far far greater height, as it is, it's kind of annoying (although i think a fun addition if executed right).

If the camera view is going to be changed, I would actually really like the free cam of wargame where I can zoom in and then adjust my view up or down. It's not essential, but I felt restricted for not being able to do it. A lot of the joy of wargame was viewing encounters from the ground, so i would like to be able to go kind of "first person" in AoA if possible too.

[Spawnfärkäl]

Maybe its because of the new effects and so on, which would need lotsa system power, if zoomed out a lot...?

Although i could live with less beams and lasers and therefore full zooming power

Thatswhy:

+1

[Mitchverr]

Might just be because ruse and the wargame series spoiled me when it comes to RTS but i gotta agree, rather sad at how little the zoom goes in this game and also the sat view consistantly seems to get in the way for me, it doesnt go back to "normal camera" effectively and just bugs me more than helps which will be a problem in the long run from zooming out to get a better view of a fight then suddenly not being able to zoom in and forcing me to press a button to do so.

Perhaps having the thermal view be linked to the building but be a "on off" not a "this far out" thing would work for me, but i dunno.

[Scrooge]

+1 I fully agree

A first step might be to make the thermal view on the satelite view optional, because it provides less information than the normal view.