[S1914] Legacy-Removal Feedback Thread

    First things first: the Legacy-Client has been removed for good now and it won't come back.

    While we announced it a while ago and did so again as part of the last release notes, we are aware that some of our veteran players are not happy with this change and had hoped it wouldn't become a reality. The main reason for the removal is that Legacy it is outdated and only used by a fraction of the player base, while still requiring equal amouts of maintenance work by our developers as the Standard-Client. This is taking up valuable time that we want to spend on the active development of Supremacy 1914 so we can ensure the game is as fun and engaging as possible.

    In case you're one of the players who used legacy until now, please provide us with any form of constructive feedback on why you prefered Legacy so we can do our best to adjust the Standard-Client accordingly, whereever possible.

    I'm just a new player who played a month a ago. I really liked the legacy mode. It's not complicated, you know your borders and you see the AI's borders as well. But now that legacy is gone, I think new players will find this game hard and complicated and will give you a low rating. I want legacy mode back. Please consider it! :(

    I just bought more High Command and Goldmark. How do I get a full refund for my money?

    Quote from Slyx

    First things first: the Legacy-Client has been removed for good now and it won't come back.

    While we announced it a while ago and did so again as part of the last release notes, we are aware that some of our veteran players are not happy with this change and had hoped it wouldn't become a reality. The main reason for the removal is that Legacy it is outdated and only used by a fraction of the player base, while still requiring equal amouts of maintenance work by our developers as the Standard-Client. This is taking up valuable time that we want to spend on the active development of Supremacy 1914 so we can ensure the game is as fun and engaging as possible.

    In case you're one of the players who used legacy until now, please provide us with any form of constructive feedback on why you prefered Legacy so we can do our best to adjust the Standard-Client accordingly, whereever possible.

    Well, the game is unplayable now. I am a player since january 2013 and this will be my last day in this game. The legacy map is clear and you see all the important parts you need to see. The new map is overloaded with pretty and colorful graphics. But hell yeah the water is animated. i can't live without that. It is bad. All units look the same. i can't differentiate the borders of my allies. I can't tell if my units are in a town or somewhere else. are there waypoints in the water? i dont know´. Can't see it.


    As if you tried to make the game as confusing as it can be. Well you succeed. I am out, thanks for the 8 years. What a disgrace.

    Quote from Slyx

    ...The main reason for the removal is that Legacy it is outdated and only used by a fraction of the player base...

    The reason it is or was used by only a fraction of the player base is BECAUSE when the new UI was launched any new players who joined the game did NOT have the choice to use Legacy mode. In any case, it's over now and yes, the question is WHEN will HC be refunded and what about recent purchases of GM?

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    First things first: the Legacy-Client has been removed for good now and it won't come back.

    I'm starting with this because this is the first and foremost problem that had plagued so many things: Refusing to reverse if things are wrong is the definition of arrogance.

    I created a forum account only for this. I will try to stay as objective as I can but I'm gonna be full honest: This is the singular worst decision you could ever do. It is clear that the new version of the game has been designed to unify mobile and pc players, however, this was a mistake from the start. First, because the game is unplayable already on mobile ergononomy-wise, and software-wise on half of them, and secondly (most importantly), the way a strategy game is played on PC or mobile is not the same !

    Moreover, it is so obvious that the goal was to make it as beautiful as possible. Aight I give you that the new ATH is amazing-looking. It is also unplayable because you tried too hard and removed the simpleest of concepts: a strategy game need simple controls.

    Also, you decided to not let people use legacy mode, and then try to use it as an argument to say that people were using it less and less. No. That is a blatant lie. You forced new players to use the new version, and with a normal amount of players quitting you simply waited until the numbers were low enough for you to proudly announce that lie.

    Expect a fall of players. You will lose in the coming weeks most players that played on legacy, and I can assure you, with an ATH that uselessely complex, you will see way less and less players coming over the years.


    I will never understand how company think this is a good idea. When something works, don't change it. Fix it and improve it. But don't change it.

    Legacy mode was more user friendly, simple and aesthetically pleasing to my eye. The new map is more confusing and cluttered, but that could be a case of just having to re-learn everything again. Given time it might be okay to play but i'm not sure I want to invest the time needed.

    Quote from perry89

    1. The new version is unplayable as a strategy game.
    2. How do you want to refund the gold after the game is no longer playable for us?

    1. If you want to specify which aspect keep you from playing it we can look into how this can be improved.
    2. In case you want to file for a refund you have to create a support request so the staff responsible for payment issues can look into it. Although a graphical change might not be enough to varant a refund but I'm not an expert in this regard.

    Quote from CuriousSquirrel

    I just bought more High Command and Goldmark. How do I get a full refund for my money?

    Same as above. If you want to file for a refund please create a support request so the respective staff can look into it.

    Quote from Senpai Kazu

    I'm just a new player who played a month a ago. I really liked the legacy mode. It's not complicated, you know your borders and you see the AI's borders as well. But now that legacy is gone, I think new players will find this game hard and complicated and will give you a low rating. I want legacy mode back. Please consider it! :(

    Legacy will not be reimplemented as the reason behind its removal was that it runs seperately from the standard mode and eats up too much ressources regarding maintenance. We can however adjust the standard client in order to better reflect the look of legacy if legacy fans provide us with conrete points that we can work on in order to make it happen.
    Thanks for pointing out the border issues.

    Quote from donolinio

    Well, the game is unplayable now. I am a player since january 2013 and this will be my last day in this game. The legacy map is clear and you see all the important parts you need to see. The new map is overloaded with pretty and colorful graphics. But hell yeah the water is animated. i can't live without that. It is dogshit. All units look the same. i can't differentiate the borders of my allies. I can't tell if my units are in a town or somewhere else. are there waypoints in the water? i dont know´. Can't see it.


    As if you tried to make the game as confusing as it can be. Well you succeed. I am out, thanks for the 8 years. What a disgrace.

    Water waypoints visibility needs to be adjusted, got it.
    Are graphics simply to colourful, or does this influence a specific aspect of gameplay in your opinion ? Adjusting the "colourfulness" shouldn't be a huge problem. We addressed a similar issue in CoW just now.
    Do you think unit labels are too similar, or are you refering to the unit models themselves ? The first could probalby be adjusted on some way, unit models not so much however, I'm afraid.

    I have been playing for over 7 years now. I am quite active, and I have achieved a global ranking of 12.


    I will no longer play unless the developers are able to make the new UI as simple as possible. This game is all about planning and strategy. Bells and whistles and fancy graphics do absolutely nothing for gameplay. Nothing.


    Provide a way to use the "Pin" mode in the new UI and it might be salvageable. As it is the larger maps, which I and many prefer, are absolutely unplayable.


    So, simplify simplify simplify! Your dedicated userbase could care less about graphics. All we care about is reliability and an ability to see things clearly, especially on the larger maps.

    With Legacy mode you had a nice view on your map. Simple and tight. Good overview on your troops even when lots of troops were bunched up in 1 place. Now with the current army labels and army images you cant see shit when 3-4 armies are in the same place.

    Besides this, also performance wise the new version is poor. 500p maps are now unplayable especially on your mobile phone. Sure I do not have the newest and greatest phone (Iphone 7). But to me its not normal that when I hit only 200 regions in a 500p map, the app already crashes because it cant handle such big maps. On legacy you did not have that problem. Now with legacy removed you could basicly just remove 500p maps from the game in general. They are not playable in the new version. especially on your phone.

    About legacy mode being less used, its pretty simple.... Its Bytro their own damn fault. You disabled legacy mode for newer players so they did not even had the chance of picking legacy mode or the newer version. You simply forced all new players into the new version. So dont come up with the bullshit excuse that "The main reason for the removal is that Legacy is outdated and only used by a fraction of the player base" because I'm pretty sure if you would offer it to all the new players, a good portion of them would go for Legacy mode and it would not be "underplayed".

    It would not surprise me that this was set up by Bytro in advance so they could have this excuse to remove legacy and put all their effort, resources and time into the new version that has failed so far when it comes to being user friendly

    But hey... It looks good tough! An animated 3D sea! Now thats rly something everybody was waiting on :o


    If you want the ultimate example of the new version being not user friendly.. Here is 1 screenshot of my 1 infantry traveling on my land. Me being Florida on a 500p map. The walking paths are white. But so are my regions. You cant even see where your troops are going unless you switch the option of showing country relations on and off... aka not user friendly.

    Thanks for staying objective in regards to your feedback, I appreciate that a lot.

    The reason why legacy wasn't made accessible to newer users is because it's quite francy a relic of the past. In the end a game is software and ours has been around for almost 12 years now. You can only run old sofware for so long until you need to replace it. This is what happened to legacy. We removed it and restricted access so we can focus our efforts on improving the new version and thereby make the game better for the majority. The whole point of this post is to get to know specific pain points that made legacy better for old users so we can make improvements to the "new" version.
    Veterans of the game are the ones best suited to leave construtive feedback as they've played a long time and know the bits and bobs, what works well and what doesn't. When we announced to discontinuation of legacy we unfortunately didn't get much feedback besides "keep it or we will leave". Sadly this doesn't help us in adressing specific aspects of the client.

    While the removal of legacy is a pain for some users this is also the perfect time to let us know what to change in the standard client so you can have the best of both worlds.

    Besides working for Bytro, I'm first and foremost a gamer myself. I've spend more time playing video games than I'd like to admit, therefore I feel qualified to say that I understand the anger when adjustments are made to a game that I grew to love and got used to its look. Please don't take this as being forced to abandon a great game but instead as an opportunity to have an influence on its future for the better. We're not asking the legacy veterans to simply accept the stanard view or quit but instead to provide us with their knowledge and feedback so we can make improvements.

    Simply keeping legacy would've been the "easy" solution from a player persepective but it's a little different for us as a company. Every hour we spend each release in order to maintain legacy could've also been used to improve the standard view. At some point we need to make the call to remove it and to focus our efforts so everyone benefits in the long run.

    A genuine question:


    How hard would it be for the developers to provide a maximally simplified UI within the new client? That is, use pins instead of graphics for units, at the very least. Disable the superfluous layers.


    This is a game that is not only about planning and strategy, but also about fine-grained activity at times. The new client simply does not allow the latter, and makes the former more annoying than it is worth.


    So, again, how possible will it be to provide a radically streamlined option within the standard client?

    It's hard to estimate it reliably on the spot. It would require some work but nothing is really impossible. As for pins, are you refering to removing 3d models of units and only using army labels ? This could be possible as far as I can tell.

    If you have any other concrete aspects of how and what to simplify, I'll glady relay feedback to the rest of the team.

    Big changes require time and effort but that doesn't mean they're completely out of the question if they promise to improve the game.

    The military unit sizes and its icon next to it occupies too much space on the map and I cannot see what unit is where and what is going on. Please fix the visibility issues on the map and while doing that bring the legacy mode back it was perfect. This new mode has soo many visual issues, One of them is too much attention on the units it is really hard to see what is going on in the map. because of that the borders are not distinguishable, cannot differentiate enemy and ally units although the differences are actually there but hidden to eye


    The best course of action for developers to take examples from legacy one and implement the similar thins with new graphics maybe

    Quote from Slyx


    If you have any other concrete aspects of how and what to simplify, I'll glady relay feedback to the rest of the team.

    Big changes require time and effort but that doesn't mean they're completely out of the question if they promise to improve the game.

    If I would have to get my list out of things I'd would like to see changed.

    - Better performance of maps. Like I mentioned before, 500p maps are unplayable when they go mid-late game stage. You guys introduced the low graphic mode but even then I keep crashing on big maps in mid-late stage of those games. I'm sure more players have this problem aswell.

    - Simplified army labels so you can have a better overview of your armies and your enemy his armies. Things are now cluttered when more armies/squads are in the same place or close to each other. Such as labels even covering the province point so you cant even see if that fort you are fighting against is being destroyed or not to give an example.

    Maybe implement a legacy kind of label together with the current 3D models?

    - Like Sphragis said before, pins would be a nice option. Simular to the pin option you had in Legacy.

    - Better colours for countries, more clear borders (atm there is a bug with borders not being shown correctly aswell).

    - More user friendly diplomacy menu: In my expierence, newer players are having a hard time telling when a player is being taken over by the AI or not. The current diplomacy menu shows you when a country is a player or a computer. But it does not give a different symbol when a player went inactive. It will still show as a "player" and when you hover your mouse on that icon it says "player" even when they are taken over by the AI. The only option now to find out if players are taken over by the computer due to inactivity is to locate the country on your map, and zoom out to see wich icon pops up. A silhouet of a guy or the silhouet of a guy with some kind of briefcase or barrel behind it. (these 2 icons are also not clear in my opinion for new players)

    - Water waypoints visibility needs to be adjusted

    - Unit models need to be adjusted: They take up lot of space together with the labels making it even more cluttered. If its not possible to remove it, maybe shrink the size of them or make them somewhat transparant so you can see the walking paths/province points and buildings trough the unit models?

    Take this example the numbers and unit icons are taking all my attention in the new version. Although in the old one they were transparent maybe that what is needed, you could remove that big white background on top of each unit. when the map gets more crowded all we can see will be white



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    1. Great stuff! they did to this game.
    3. I'm quitting, until they put the old mode back on. This new way is more laggy than the previous one, they decorated everything, made things more difficult to find. New mode has no conditions to form strategies or even visualize information, there is a lot of visual pollution ...
    5. The person responsible for this "New lagged mode" should be dismissed.
    6. RIP
    7. Supremacy, playing this since 2017, ended the gameplay.