Thank you Frogboy for this awesome image. i do like a lot this zoom out image and you can do so many thing with it, you can add a lot of info

let me show you 2 small examples of how may it look if you add units heat signature.

http://postimg.org/image/f1zhjhgpl/full/

in the first map you just have dots.
bigger dots are T3 then come T2 and the smallest ones are T1 units, the idea is that when you start a war the units who are fighting will start glowing, i couldn't add the glow to it because i got lazy. sorry.

while the second example is:

http://postimg.org/image/qsdf0v9i1/full/

in here we have some kind of heat signatures,, when you see the armies fighting each other then you see them glowing.

Those are just examples. there is no on screen information about the size of the units, just think about it, if you go ahead and add the unit info in the left side of the screen ala Sins, it will be interesting.

having all that i am sure you will forget about the unit speed.

its not about playing using this zoom, its about getting the info of the whole battlefield, when you see or want to do something in a specific location just go ahead and zoom back in and start moving your units or building.

EDIT:

I want to add a last image on how it may look when you bring your mouse on top of a heat signature armies battling or when you click on this army then you get a white color around what your looking for then the info will appear on the left side of the screen.

http://postimg.org/image/quxanpd5l/full/

Guys remember this is just my personal idea. i hope i will get some good comments from everyone.

EDIT 2: Sorry about the images not expanding, i have no idea why it never work for me, i am so frustrated by that.
I added a direct link to the image for now the best way is to open link in new Tab.

I disagree with this, that is far too imprecise a way of doing it.

I think that is great work ASADDF! I think those show great potential.

Thanks for all the replies Frogboy. I won't labour the point by going on but I am glad you are still thinking about things. Perhaps wait until you have LOD/better optimisation before bring it in.

(it is labour and optimise, not labor and optimize, I think your website spelling correction is broken )

Same for me.  Just zoom out to move faster around the map.

ASADDF last image is what i was talking about in a different post but regarding the space bar..have the empire tree display to help us with information... not sure how well this will work in zoomed out..but as long as you highlight the heat parts to show info..would be good..giving us different tools

ASADDF, I like your ideas. Last one especially.

Good work by ASADDF. Thats how it should look like. One does not need to control units from that view, nor have exact info on particular units, its all about overview on whole battlefield and having rough idea of what is going on where on the map.

Those pics are pretty much akin to this one>

You dont get to control anything at this zoom level, nor can you see exact fleet composition at particular planet either (if yes, only cause of the empire tree)...imagina you could see this only when pressing space instead of zooming out with your mousewheel...i maintain opinion the latter way is more convenient...

I believe it's the right way to go - the overlay system displaying forces' positions on a main viewport with smooth zoom from entire map to local battle. The examples of how it can look is above in ASADDF's post (probably need some additional info on unit composition). It preserves the key ergonomic sequence of SupCom/SoaSE: zoom out, see what's happening, move mouse only a bit and then zoom in. Old-fashioned navigation sequences containing usage of additional panels like minimap or external map windows is less convenient due to missing visual clue between close-ups and large scale view - they force players to remember correspondence between places, events and army compositions; this can cause headache proportional to the size of the map. While current spacebar overview does some part of the job regarding quick navigation, direct visual link is still missing.

This does look very interesting:

Just watch 2 Top players play this FAForever with the most epic caster Gyle  and take your  thoughts about ashes,its the best exemple how its so easy use only zoom to make your decisions on a map ,there is no need complicate watch how many times they use the mini map   (0 times) .

And to over the icons ideas i like PA game not bad now ,but this is the best exemple with + 7.000 units with icons that i really hate the view,so for who  want icons watch how ugly the game can be.

FA  

PA  

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reply 26

Just watch 2 Top players play this FAForever with the most epic caster Gyle  and take your  thoughts about ashes,its the best exemple how its so easy use only zoom to make your decisions on a map ,there is no need complicate watch how many times they use the mini map   (0 times) .

 

And to over the icons ideas i like PA game not bad now ,but this is the best exemple with + 7.000 units with icons that i really hate the view,so for who  want icons watch how ugly the game can be.

 

Actually, as a Gyle subscriber, I can tell you that's what we want to avoid.  I know that it appeals to a some (many) players but playing the game that abstractly is not what we are looking to do in this game.

I like watching the battles from time to time but it's that abstract gameplay we would like to avoid.

That FAF video above is of the commentator. Unless I am missing something it bears no relation to how the players are actually playing/using the zoom function.

That is true. But you can also do a let's play video search and see it's similar.  People tend to play FAF abstractly - it plays well that way.  There's nothing wrong with wanting a game that plays that way.  It's just not the game we want to make.

Which is a different discussion than zooming out of course. What we want to avoid is the call to having zooming out turn into "now that we've got it zoomed out, can you put icons on the map?" path.

True. I guess you'll just have to make those heat maps so damn good no one can complain about them

We won't really know until we get our hands on the heat maps. What is the ETA on that?

If the heat maps don't cut it, then we don't get the high zoom out. If we don't get the high zoom out, we don't need the heat maps. Chicken and egg.

They'll complain no matter what.  It's a mutually exclusive feature really.  There is a legitimate case to have a game where you play it mostly with the full world map and occasionally zoom in to give specific adjustments to a particular army.

I think such a game could be very fun btw.  Imagine a World War II game where you play the game zoomed out to a map of Europe where you see the locations of Armies.  You zoom in and those armies are then broken up into divisions. Keep zooming in and those divisions are broken up into battalians and then companies and then squads and then individuals all in a single seamless zoom.

Many people would absolutely want that game. Heck, I want that game.  The problem scope.  You can't really do all of that well on the budget we have to make the game.  

When we get into these discussions, I think there is often a misunderstanding that we somehow think feature X is a "Bad idea" or just doesn't "conform to our vision".  It's more a matter of picking which parts of gameplay we can focus on withing the budget we have to make the game.  We could do the strategic map game OR we can make the <20,000 foot game look spectacular.  But we can't do both. We have to pick.

And even when you pick, you have to do it well enough so that you don't turn off huge swaths of the market.  There are people who simply won't play games that are too zoomed in.  I didn't play Age of Empires III because of how closely zoomed in it was.  

On the other hand, if you play the game zoomed out too far, the game starts to appeal to the same demographic that plays military board games (which includes me) but that is a very small market. I couldn't get my friends to play Supreme Commander because they found the game too weird looking and too grognardy.  They liked Total Annihilation.  

So there's no perfect decision here.