WARPARTY Beta Patch Notes 9: The great UI overhaul!
We’ve been working hard on creating a better UI to give more control and information to the player, along with other popular requested features directly integrated. As such, we had to postpone working on other suggestions and bug-fixes for a while to fully commit on this task. Starting next week we will return to these tasks as we’ve done previously. We also understand a lot of optimization work is in order to get the game running more smoothly as it progresses, and thank you for your patience as we’re working on this.
Chieftain Selection
Chieftains can now be selected in the lobby and are available immediately at the start of the game. You can also select “Random” if you like surprises.
Talents
In regards to upcoming changes we’ve decided to reduce the amount of Talents to 2 for each Settlement tier. It was clear that not all talents were equally useful and we decided to remove these for now, with reworks being planned in the future.
This also allows us to better incorporate the talents through a new bar at the top of the screen, that will flash when upgrading your Settlement.
The removed talents are:
- Mika - Harmony - Mika returns damage on hit and powers are 25% cheaper.
- Mika - Frenzy - Mika gains a damage increasing aura for 20% extra Damage.
- Char - Overpower - Char does 50% extra damage to buildings and gains +10 Armour Penetration.
- Char - Unholy Allegiance - Every third attack Char does stuns the target. Allows trading food for Crystal at the Settlement
We opted to keep talents that change units and buildings and remove things that have been replaced (i.e. Char’s ability to exchange food for crystal).
Your chieftain icon is also shown here, along with a radial Health bar to keep track of the Chieftain’s health.
Military Commands
We’ve received a lot of requests for more ways to control your units. Thanks to the new UI this is now accessible through both visual buttons as well as custom hotkeys.
Unit Stances
Units can now be assigned 3 stances.
- Aggressive: Attacks all enemies as soon as they enter vision.
- Defensive: Attack enemies when they get close.
- Stand Ground: Do not move, but still attack enemies if they are in range.
Note that villagers are exempt from this behaviour, and will always act as if they were on “Stand Ground”.
Commands
The “Attack Move” command now has a visible button. A new one has also been added for a “Patrol” command, which has units move back and forth between their current and assigned positions, while attacking enemies they encounter.
Finally, we added a “Cancel Command” option for all units to stop what they’re doing. Note that units in certain stances will resume as their stance dictates.
Build Commands
We were asked to allow Villagers to attack and perform attack moves. This was added in an earlier patch but caused some hotkey issues as many players want the ‘A’ key to be the default key for Attack Move, but also use it for buildings.
With the new UI, you can switch between Build Commands and Military Commands when you have villagers selected, and the hotkeys will respond based on which menu is open.
Production Commands
Stances
Production buildings have received the same stance buttons as units and are set to “Aggressive” by default. Units produced from these buildings will come out in that stance.
Unit Production Buttons
Units production buttons can now be right clicked to remove the unit type from the group. Shift + Right Click will remove one from each of the selected buildings, or 5 from the current building if only one is selected.
Minimap
The minimap features new buttons giving more control over what is displayed. We also added a direct “Main Menu” button.
Minimap Filters
We added 3 new buttons above the minimap, each, enabling certain filters.
- All View: Shows everything. (enabled by default)
- Economic View: Only shows economic buildings and units.
- Military View: Only shows Military units and buildings.
The Bottom Bar
By far the biggest change is how we display info on the selected units. The old UI was simply not able to display a large amount of selected units, nor could it support proper info regarding Multi-Queue or other features.
Powers
Powers have been given a new home at the bottom bar with new buttons.
Units
Units are displayed a circular buttons with a radial health bar. One unit is displayed larger than the others and represents the currently highlighted “unit type”. You can switch between the highlight by clicking the Unit Type buttons or pressing the “Cycle Unit Types” hotkey (default: TAB).
Up to 25 units can be displayed at once, with overflowing units being accessible through up to 12 tabs at the bottom of the bar. Clicking these will not alter the selection, only what is shown on the bar.
Selection manipulation is possible through the SHIFT and CTRL modifiers and clicking. CTRL + Click will only select units of this type. Shift + Click will remove units of this type from the selection. The same can be applied to the bottom tabs and the Type Buttons on the left.
Buildings
Buildings have been the most challenging task to get right.
With a single building selected, you can now see a more detailed queue showing the percentage left towards completion as well as incorporating the new radial design. Due to the changes we have decided to limit the maximum queue to 5 objects to make sure everything that is displayed is correct.
With multiple buildings, new circle indicators have been added to the entities to show which queue slots have been filled.
Thanks to the new “Cycle Unit Types” hotkey, you can now cycle through different types of buildings and see different commands for all those buildings.
Control Groups
Control groups are now a visible button at the top of the bar. These buttons feature full interaction to add to, remove from and create new groups. They also feature an icon of the most occurring unit in that group as well as the total amount of units.
This will help keep better track of how many units are in each control group, as well as offer newer players a way to use them if they aren’t comfortable with hotkeys.
Controls
- AS ALWAYS, WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND RESETTING THE DEFAULT KEYBINDS AFTER EACH PATCH.
- A variety of new hotkeys has been added to accommodate the UI changes.
Gameplay
- A new Trade Post building has been added! This building is available in at Settlement Tier 3 and can produce Stegosaurus Caravans.
- Stegosaurus Caravan unit has been added. These units will walk between a Settlement and a Trade Post to generate crystals, with longer distances generating more crystals. This allows players to generate crystals when the mines have been depleted.
- Warrior Health reduced from 300 to 200.
- Warrior Armor reduced from 10 to 5.
- Fire Warrior Health reduced from 350 to 250.
- Medic Healing range increased from 10 to 15.
Bugs
- Fixed a bug where the Rally Point for Settlements would reset after upgrading.
- Fixed a bug where double tapping a building hotkey as a Client would make it disappear.
Miscellaneous Improvements
- The camera on Desert Flower now has less limitation towards the edges to better see crystals and dinos near these edges.
- The rally point visual has been changed since people had trouble seeing it near villagers.
- The red circle indicator for Sages has been removed as it would not display relevant information in large numbers and caused unnecessary clutter.
Final Notes
With the new UI done, we’re aiming to focus more on smaller improvements across all aspects of the game based on the generous feedback we’re receiving through various channels, while we’re also preparing everything for the next big change.
We’re aware some of the reported issues are still in the game and will tackle as soon as possible. We also expect the new UI and features to require thorough testing before it is optimal.
Optimization and performance improvements are also on the list, and we do keep a lookout for opportunities everywhere, but it is easier to first make sure everything is working right and then optimize it, than it is to create optimized stuff that works.
A big thank you and kind regards from everyone here!
- The Warcave Team