Zoom level poll

[tarbomb]

Rob just reduced the number of zoom levels to 6 (from 23). Do you think this is too coarse, and if so, where would you like to add zoom levels?

In the poll zoom level 0 is the closest zoom level, and 5 is the furthest.

[hypevosa]

I believe having mid steps between all the first 3, if not having 3rd steps might be ideal for me. This would still give me, what, 12 total zoom levels? but alot more precision for when I'm playing.

[rob]

Are people confused by the levels starting at 0? I feel like we have some compromised data due to people discussing 1-based levels in game and then voting here where the levels are 0-based....

[levesque]

What Rob said, make sure you re adjust your vote by noticing lvl 0 zoom is closest zoom.

[Guest]

I zoom in and out frequently during gameplay, so I'm really missing a lot of the zoom levels.

Can we please, please try the "quick zoom" that's been discussed many times instead of removing zoom levels that people actually use? (I'd rather have the player control the way they use zoom levels than the developer, really...)

[Ood]

At a quick glance... between 0 and 1, and between 1 and 2.

[taken]

Either that or just make zoom levels customizable

[amitp]

I think the main reason to try out fewer zoom levels is so that in the future the code and visual design can be optimized for those zoom levels. If it were customizable then they can't do that in the future.

[quicklite]

Sept 16, 2013 11:01:49 GMT -5 amitp said:

I think the main reason to try out fewer zoom levels is so that in the future the code and visual design can be optimized for those zoom levels. If it were customizable then they can't do that in the future.

Amit, I'd like to add another perspective here. Yes, it would technically work to have only a few zoom levels, really optimize them, and then leave it at that. But many games do this. There would be nothing special about this. But I've never actually seen a game before (and although it might be simply because of weird luck, I've played quite a lot of games) that let you customize and change your perspective on the fight and the world as much as grid's old zoom features allowed you to do. Yes, they were 'slow', but they worked really well, and felt really smooth to handle. In fact, I've seen a good 15 people who, when first introduced to pre new-zoom grid, commented on the zoom function before anything else. It was just a really cool feature. And although I understand what you mean about optimization, and what rob means about speed and convienience, I still think that you should still give folks the option to be able to have all these different viewpoints on the battlefield and the world. It just worked awesomely. Of course, there could always be both. Why not both? I'll quote justin's build 67 post as a good example of how that could work:

Sept 15, 2013 0:21:35 GMT -5 Justin said:

You've [rob] said before that you'd consider allowing players to choose how they want their zoom levels to be.

I'd suggest having a list of all 23, and allowing people to select which ones they prefer as a custom option, and a few default options. (maybe name them?)

Example:
All (the one before this build)
Travel (focuses more on the furthest zoom levels, ignores the closest ones)
Attack (focuses more on the closest zoom levels, ignores the furthest ones)
Basic (the current one)
Custom (what I explained earlier)

[amitp]

quicklite, I agree that this is a cool feature. It's from Supreme Commander (2007), and it was a cool feature there too. It was one of the selling points of that game. The designer said it was his favorite part of the game.

"Why not both?" doesn't solve anything. The disadvantage of the zoom levels is that it forces map designs and implementations to be “interpolatable”. If you want things to be interpolatable you usually want them to exist in on a continuous dimension (typically a number). For example you can interpolate between 1 and 3 by producing 1.1, 1.5, 2.0, etc. You can interpolate between red and yellow by producing orange. But it's much harder to interpolate between a cow and a fish. You can try but it's just much harder. Steel Chaos tried to interpolate between classes, and it was a cool feature, but not satisfying. RotMG came after Steel Chaos and they went back to non-interpolating classes. If you limit yourself to interpolatable values you won't be able to explore the design space outside that, and you'll never know whether there's something you're missing.

Now if Rob isn't actually going to making non-interpolating map designs and implementations in the future, there's really no advantage, and we can just go back to having all zoom levels, because it's a cool feature. But by even having the option to have all the zoom levels, you are forcing the designs to be interpolatable, because they have to implement the interpolations. And that prevents trying out map designs that aren't interpolatable. To explore the design space properly you have to make some unpleasant steps outside your comfort zone, knowing that you can always go back to where you were. The way I'd personally do it is to be extreme: have only 3 zoom levels for a month or two, see what ideas come up, and then if nothing seems worth the loss of this cool feature, go back to 20+ zoom levels.

It's sort of hard to judge the loss of zoom levels right now because we see the disadvantage immediately but we can't see any advantage until some day in the future when(if?) those alternate map designs are invented. These are the ups and downs of game development that are normally hidden from public view but y'all are getting to see. :)  You're also getting to see the cities ripped out without a new system in its place. Such chaos!

(TL;DR: to get out of a local maximum you have to make things worse for a while.)

[Kelsoo]

time2make my zoom level complaints coherent. Everyone I have talked to so far has said that they have a strong aversion for the contemporary zoom levels.


I does not perturb me with having most of them removed, no one, ever, used all of them, and they were a waste of time. What I do a with, are zoom levels we have now, which are quite quaint. The general consensus is that more should be added between 1 and 2 (as shown in the graph). I wouldn't mind even having the further ones removed, forcing players to have to either type tele to fellow amigo or travel between multiple towns, fact I think that would be somewhat interesting.

Either way, I feel either changing zoom levels 123 or adding one or two more between 1 and 2 would rectify this somewhat moderate grievance just fine.

As well as removing zoom levels 6 and 5.

[Jufda]

In my opinion this needs fixing. I would be happy with two zoom levels added: between 1 & 2 and between 2&3. Also, I find the closest and the farthest zoom levels unnecessary.