Posts by LegacyModeEnjoyer

Quote from freezy

I think you should put the energy into suggesting specific improvements for the new client.

I did, check my previous response, still I dont think there is coming back from the damage. As I said in other posts im sure Bytro did this with good intentions, they wanted a new flashy UI, of course this benefitted them but they also did it for the players so they wouldnt have to use some old UI, but things are not working, to sum up several posts it boils down to

-game is harder to read

-game is less rewarding

-game is buggy, very buggy

I quoted below by previous post in which I list key points that I think would make a massive difference.

Quote from LegacyModeEnjoyer

EDIT:

Better listed realistic suggestions:

1- Add a way, or just plain out, make the numbers for units bigger on the map, they are a tad smaller than on the Legacy Mode and they are just a bit hard to read easily, so having it bigger, or the option to make it bigger would be huge.

2-The big units (or 3d models) thing has already been commented on.

3- Make unit stacks again. Like on legacy, now you only see the 3d sprite of the "most important unit" (I have no idea how its selected), I think it would be better to have like on legacy where you just had stacks of the units with their respective amounts. Right now its not so far from it but its all lumped up in a white box and again, hard to see what is what and their amounts, I think to have them a bit more separated or discernible would also help a lot.

4- Bring back the old shades for the borders, it just looked better and again, helped the "reading" of the map, or at least make it an option, im sure its not easy but as I say, I think its one of the biggest differences, its a subtle one, but it has big impact. (colour of the country is deepened at the border)

5- I have no issue with the new 3D models (although I prefered the old ones) of buildings, but they are just way to tiny and hidden, railroads, factories and ports are much less visible, which makes the game much much less rewarding, which also affects engaging playerbase because well, what game doesnt want to be rewarding right? So if 3D sprites are staying just make them bigger and more noticeable. Most crucially those 3: ports, factories and railroads. Forts could also be more visible, or again, at least a bit bigger, same goes for the flames (or smoke) that comes out of a region that is low on morale. Everything around this aspect is just too small and seems like a minor detail on the map when in reality they are a huge deal.

6- (This is more of a bonus) I know its probably never coming back but another thing that not only made the game more rewarding but also easier to manage was the ability to go into provinces (when you clicked on them and you got that square miniature of it and you could manage buildings from there). I have met a few players that liked the new UI more but still wish they had that tiny little miniature province, although im guessing its hard to implement into the new UI.

7- Another huge impact on visibility, make roads more visible, it seems to be a trend with this new UI that things are more subtle and less visible. I get it looks smoother but really impacts gameplay. Roads need to be more visible, maybe a deeper colour or just thicker? Please make them more visible.

I think if those 6-7 things are improved upon, its a MASSIVE leap foward. Those are the key points I could find right now, if I come up with more I will post but I doubt they will ever make it into the game, but here is to hoping.

Display More

Since I've commented on various sites on threads discussing the new user interface (UI) enforcement, seems only logical I would make a dedicated thread. This is not a thread to suggest improvements, there is another dedicated thread for that, this is purely so people can share their opinion on the new UI.

For the better part of a decade I have been playing Supremacy 1914, sometimes with random people I met, other times with friends, hell even with family when I first started. I always thought it was unique, a game with an experience I had never seen before, matches that lasted for months, movements took hours or days, engaging in political and strategic discussions with other players, but after a while I saw other games that did the same, worked exactly like Supremacy 1914, but there was something different, the execution.

What set S1914 apart from competitors?

Gameplay was very similar with a few key differences, most noticeably how rewarding it was.

The almost MSpaint-like looking map was a bit striking at first, other games had posh polished graphics with smooth edges and minimalistic icons, on S1914 it all seemed rather old and basic. Ironically that was its biggest strength. Big territories that stood out on the map, almost slapped you in the face everytime you zoomed out of a map and saw a massive empire expanding, menacing looking chimneys of factories that meant your days were numbered when fighting against a more industrialized nation, the impending doom of ports and railroads appearing signaling increased economic growth for your friends and foes, the forts getting bigger and bigger signaling strongpoints in the map for your allies.

All other games just looked like someone smeared melted butter over a TEG board, with washed out boring graphics that barely showed the increase in size of someone's territory and nothing else, gameplay felt bland and unrewarding, people just logged on to see the progress and then left, high contrast to Supremacy where myself (and most if not all the people I've played with) stayed looking at their games for several minutes at a time, the game is slow paced so nothing would change in the span of 10-30 minutes, but something just kept people hooked, the way the game looked and operated.

I've had countless ads from other games pop up over the years, I've tried a few but never stayed in any of them, always kept coming back here, something was just better, I couldnt pin quite what is was, until the new UI came. Now Supremacy 1914 looked like every other vanilla washed out unoriginal game out there, with bland colours, smooth 3D sprites for units/buildings and minimalistic designs for icons the game just wasnt what it used to be. Interactions are clunky, all seems like tabs placed everywhere, everything is more uncomfortable and more cumbersome to do, just access to actions in general is harder, the reading of information is harder, it is plain worse, what was once a game with easy going UI has now become a cluster of modernized graphics and misplaced interactions that made the game impossible to play in comparison to its former self.

At first I thought "well the game is still the same, only new UI that is it" but after 2 months of trying, I just quit playing, 7 years after I started playing Supremacy 1914.

The new UI was more "posh" for sure, but it was impractical, ugly at certain aspects, removed a lot of features the old UI had and most importantly, the game just looked like nothing, the map was ugly with washed out darker colours, sprites for buildings were reduced to almost invisibility, the game didnt feel rewarding at all, not only was it a pain to play, but it wasnt even rewarding, I went from spending several minutes in each game managing my army to just going in to rearrange my troops and build a couple things and just going to do something else.

The game isnt as engaging, isnt as rewarding, isnt as intuitive and easy to use as the old one. Pure gameplay wise its still the same, but the new UI just murders the only thing that set Supremacy 1914 from other copycats. That is what the game looks like right now, a copycat of the old one, improved upon nothing, just slapped some bad UI on top and ready to go.

Why isn't Legacy Mode an option?

I came back to Supremacy 1914 a few months later after fiding out you could still play the game on Legacy Mode, I thought "hey win win", everyone had access to Legacy Mode, new players, old players you name it, until last year (I think) when Legacy Mode was restricted only to "veterans". I thought it was a bit unfair, specially since I had brought some new friends on board to play the game and they preferred Legacy Mode over the "standard UI" but I guess it wasnt that heartbreaking for them since they only started playing recently, at least for one of them, most of them quit, a few because of the enforcement of the new UI, which brings us to today.

Yesterday Bytro removed completely the access to Legacy Mode, from my brief interactions with the game devs (and to sum it up nicely) it was because it was too expensive and not too many players used it. They thought well barely anyone uses Legacy Mode and its costing us a lot of money so why maintain it, right? WRONG.

Players didnt "choose" the new UI, you didnt give them an option, you pushed this rushed, ugly looking impractical UI on the playerbase because it took a lot of money and time to develop and you didnt just want to scrap it despite knowing it was bad, the only people that PICK the new UI are low attention span 10 year olds that prefer FORM OVER FUNCTIONALITY. You allegedly took "years" of suggestions yet I see none are implemented or even considered, its just as bad as it was when it was introduced. I have already made a list of things that could be improved but everytime I go in to check on my active (and last) games more and more things pop into my head, there is really no coming back from how bad it is, should have just worked over the old one instead of making a brand new one from scratch.

Despite the time and effort put into the new UI, which im sure Bytro did with good intentions, it just doesnt work, people have endlessly complained about it and you didnt even give new players a chance to use it, you've fallen victim to your own fallacy that people CHOSE the UI rather than face the fact YOU FORCED IT ONTO THEM,

You have them no option, no trial period, no nothing, you slowly restricted access to Legacy Mode because you knew it was BETTER and people were starting to complain about not having access to it or them outright ignoring the new UI.

People who've spent years, money and time on this game are being slapped in the face with this, quite frankly, garbage UI that just makes Supremacy 1914 as bad, or hell even worse now, than its competitors. The new Ui is ugly, impractical, counter-intuitive and super bugged. Its not only enraging the fact that this UI was pushed despite its countless flaws, but Bytro's attitude towards the whole ordeal its just infuriating, long time loyal players, hell some even money-spending players are just being hit with this trash cause they want to make ads with this posh bland looking UI to attract new temporary players that just go afk into 10 different games and have no notion of the game whatsoever, im not sure whether to define it as betrayal or sellout.

I hope the best for them, I do, I always saw Bytro as the ones that did things right, took time and made good improvements to the game over time, the game at its foundation is still the same, but lets face it, more than 10 years after its release there are countless copies and with this new UI, there is nothing setting them apart, Supremacy 1914 has unfortunately become just another strategy game. I still hold a little faith, but I wouldn't hold my breath

Quote from LostRealist

Well at least it looks like every single other strategy game on the Play Store now so at least that fix should be laughably easy to get elsewhere. The high-efficiency UI used to set it apart, but this was abolished for marketing reasons.

If there was a game as good as this one, that's where I'd be. But I haven't seen one in ten years. This whole situation would be much less frustrating if that was the case.

Not only that but as they quoted, most players use regular UI instead of Legacy UI, well because vast majority of players DONT EVEN HAVE THE OPTION TO USE LEGACY MODE. They are selling themselves the lie that the new UI is better, its pure garbage and the vast VAST majority of players would opt for the Legacy UI were they given the chance to even try it.

At least they are trying to improve it but they should just cut their losses and grant everyone access to Legacy Mode and truly see how many players will prefer it over time. They have fallen trap to their own fallacy.

New UI has been around for a couple years now, its utter garbage and for some reason has WAY TO MANY BUGS, which is ironic since it should be the upgrade from "the old one", please, plus now I have to open more than 1 supremacy tab to view 2 games instead of being able to mouse-wheel click one so it opens on another tab, please Bytro PLEASE, GET A GRIP.

I hope they actually listen to the community when it comes to the changes that should be made to the UI, but given they ignored all the previous years of feedback just to wrongfully push the garbage they created cause they dont know when to admit defeat I wouldn't count on it.

People didn't just "prefer" the new UI, you didnt give them an option, you forced this garbage on everyone and now you said very few people used Legacy, THATS BECAUSE FEW PEOPLE HAVE ACCESS TO IT.

Their justification for the new UI is laughably bad, it makes no sense, they wanted to upgrade graphics which I understand, but if its wrong you have to go back to the drawing board. Outright making Supremacy 1914 into another one of those posh ugly looking strategy multiplayer games that is pure trash and have they ads plastered everywhere. My god I think I can ever vent enough how ridiculous the whole situation is, its borderline infuriating.

Quote from freezy

An option to hide the big unit images on the map is already planned, I expect it in the near future (thanks for your patience on that one!). The labels will also try to point to the exact position of the unit then and not just float in the air. Unless many are in the same area and overlap, in that case labels are spread out for readability and the line connects them to the actual position.

EDIT:

Better listed realistic suggestions:

1- Add a way, or just plain out, make the numbers for units bigger on the map, they are a tad smaller than on the Legacy Mode and they are just a bit hard to read easily, so having it bigger, or the option to make it bigger would be huge.

2-The big units (or 3d models) thing has already been commented on.

3- Make unit stacks again. Like on legacy, now you only see the 3d sprite of the "most important unit" (I have no idea how its selected), I think it would be better to have like on legacy where you just had stacks of the units with their respective amounts. Right now its not so far from it but its all lumped up in a white box and again, hard to see what is what and their amounts, I think to have them a bit more separated or discernible would also help a lot.

4- Bring back the old shades for the borders, it just looked better and again, helped the "reading" of the map, or at least make it an option, im sure its not easy but as I say, I think its one of the biggest differences, its a subtle one, but it has big impact. (colour of the country is deepened at the border)

5- I have no issue with the new 3D models (although I prefered the old ones) of buildings, but they are just way to tiny and hidden, railroads, factories and ports are much less visible, which makes the game much much less rewarding, which also affects engaging playerbase because well, what game doesnt want to be rewarding right? So if 3D sprites are staying just make them bigger and more noticeable. Most crucially those 3: ports, factories and railroads. Forts could also be more visible, or again, at least a bit bigger, same goes for the flames (or smoke) that comes out of a region that is low on morale. Everything around this aspect is just too small and seems like a minor detail on the map when in reality they are a huge deal.

6- (This is more of a bonus) I know its probably never coming back but another thing that not only made the game more rewarding but also easier to manage was the ability to go into provinces (when you clicked on them and you got that square miniature of it and you could manage buildings from there). I have met a few players that liked the new UI more but still wish they had that tiny little miniature province, although im guessing its hard to implement into the new UI.

7- Another huge impact on visibility, make roads more visible, it seems to be a trend with this new UI that things are more subtle and less visible. I get it looks smoother but really impacts gameplay. Roads need to be more visible, maybe a deeper colour or just thicker? Please make them more visible.

I think if those 6-7 things are improved upon, its a MASSIVE leap foward. Those are the key points I could find right now, if I come up with more I will post but I doubt they will ever make it into the game, but here is to hoping.

Quote from freezy

Thanks for the feedback! We are always striving for improvement, so we still look for feedback. About general taste we can't do much, so if you just dont like the new graphics and get migraine from it, well then we unfortunately we cannot solve this

Legacy was turned off because the costs of maintaining it were higher than the revenue it generated. It also made developing the game more cumbersome as 2 clients had to be maintained in parallel.

The impact on playerbase from the shutdown is very miniscule, nearly non existent in the grand scale of things, that is because the amount of Legacy users nowadays was tiny compared to the total amount of active users. The very big majority of players was already using the new client and has no issues with it. Legacy won't be turned on again.

I appreciate the response, but as I said, cant Legacy Mode just be left as is? I dont think people will mind it doenst have the new features or is buggy, I just want the game to look and operate the way it did. In full honesty the new UI is simply bad, it didnt really improve on anything and just made everything worse.

I take your word that it wont be coming back but I hope Bytro does right by the people who played for so many years, have put money into the game, stayed on it for as long as it has since its beginning and at leasts refund purchases cause I cant imagine buying 100 euros worth of goldmarks or premium account just to be slapped in the face with this really, really, really ugly UI, I honestly cannot explain without being crude how bad it is. I would like to say its lazy and terrible, but it isnt lazy, there was clearly a ton of work put behind it, its just terrible, its worst than terrible its almost viscerally offensive.

I get the whole cost of maintenance, makes complete sense, but come on, its just the way the game looks, there has to be a way to do it efficiently without costing a huge chunk of change, its just something aesthetic, cant be that hard.

Not to spam but since its relevant, this is what I said on another post discussing the same issue:

Yep, I have been playing Supremacy since 2014, after they introduced the new UI I tried the game for 2 weeks, I thought I would get used to it, I didnt. Honestly its so bad just looking at a map trying to follow what is happening gives me a headache, with the flashy graphics its 10 times harder to read anything, to see what provinces have what buildings, to see what composes each battalion, its completely unbearable. I have 2 games underway that are going pretty decent but im considering just abandoning them because the new UI is just so bad, it assaults the senses, I really cannot describe without being rude how bad the new UI is, I have no idea why Legacy Mode as an option has been removed, everytime it has been removed people complained, now they have done it again and I dont think they will bring it back.

For what I have seen in other discord servers/websites people are saying they will stop playing altogether cause they cant stand the new UI. I get it, Bytro put a lot of money and effort into it hurray for them, but why would you intentionally go after the people who choose not to use it? Unless they know its so bad the only way you use it is if they force you to use it which is just wrong.

The new UI is empirically worst:

-The 3D graphics although not looking bad, on a strategy game with hundreds of battalions and different troops and vehicles it just looks clustered and really unnecessary. This is the biggest point for me, not only is visibility reduced cause on the map these 3D figures have "priority", the numbers and stats are reduced so when im zoomed out I cant really tell what is where, the numbers are tiny un unclear, the screen is just plagued with this 3D figurines like it was some D&D game, everything is worst with these, selecting/dragging/splitting/low level control is made so much worst and so inconsistent the only way to play seems through multiple clicking and setting paths manually. Just changing these to the way they were before and saving those 3D models for something else would be a huge step foward.

-The information bar on resources on top is terrible now, I have no idea if its because of font choice, or size, or colour or whatever but I really need to focus my vision to be able to read what material is on surplus and which isnt. The replacement of decimal points with "k" (ie 4000 = 4k) just looks wrong and doesnt give me an exact number of the resources I have unless I hover my mouse over it. For some reason they also added a ton of garbage that wasnt there before, like your country's name and flag, your picture, your level, your game progress, why is it so clustered, why is it all on the same bar, I know its for "simplicity" but its so bad. The new graphics for the materials look good though, although again, this attempt at "smooth graphics" really makes it hard to look at for a prolonged time, the one for coal is specially terrible, really an example of less is more, old icons were super simple but they were easy to understand and were "descriptive". Also with the new way they made it, when you have any production go over 1k surplus it just bugs out and looks even worst.

-The information bar on politics (messages, coalitions, etc) is super bad, for some reason its to the left which has no reasoning behind it and its just annoying to get used to, the new "minimalistic" same colour icons again are terrible and less intuitive and easy to use compared to the old ones. The message tab looks better, I liked the old simple one more but the new one is good. Same can be said for newspaper and market, although again, that colour pallete for the blue/red/weird grey-ish blue really makes it harder to read. Also there is a lot of garbage, tons of notifications spam which is incredibly annoying. Specially since you have that big ugly chat thing at the bottom which no one uses but you cant get rid of it.

-The map, oh my god, the map. When I first saw the new UI I thought it was like some april fools or something because the new map looks so bad it really makes me abandon the game everytime I look at it. The colour pallete looks diluded, less bright and just worst in general, its just plain bad, with soft edges and puked over colours the game is hard to look at and hard to easily tell what is what. This is the second biggest point. Plus the smooth map combined with the "smooth" armies it honestly gives me a migrane just trying to move my troops around.

These are just some points but I really cant put into words how bad it is, I know Bytro worked hard for a new UI cause I admit the old one is just well, old, but it doesnt mean it isnt better, it is better, at least for a ton of players who have been playing this game for years and have been slapped in the face with being forced to use this, and im sorry, garbage UI. I dont want to have to pay the price for their mistakes, if people like the old UI more they should be able to use it like they have been for the last couple of years, I dont know why remove it now, but with so many posts saying people will stop playing, like yours truly, I hope the impact in playerbase makes them do the right decision.

The new UI needs almost a complete overhaul to even be a fraction as useable as the Legacy one. To really point to every single flaw within it would take hours, there are just so many things wrong its not just worst, its so bad its forcing me to quit the game forever. I dont care if its buggy, if it doenst have new features, just leave it as is I just want Legacy Mode back, whatever it takes.

Yep, I have been playing Supremacy since 2014, after they introduced the new UI I tried the game for 2 weeks, I thought I would get used to it, I didnt. Honestly its so bad just looking at a map trying to follow what is happening gives me a headache, with the flashy graphics its 10 times harder to read anything, to see what provinces have what buildings, to see what composes each battalion, its completely unbearable. I have 2 games underway that are going pretty decent but im considering just abandoning them because the new UI is just so bad, it assaults the senses, I really cannot describe without being rude how bad the new UI is, I have no idea why Legacy Mode as an option has been removed, everytime it has been removed people complained, now they have done it again and I dont think they will bring it back.

For what I have seen in other discord servers/websites people are saying they will stop playing altogether cause they cant stand the new UI. I get it, Bytro put a lot of money and effort into it hurray for them, but why would you intentionally go after the people who choose not to use it? Unless they know its so bad the only way you use it is if they force you to use it which is just wrong.

The new UI is empirically worst:

-The 3D graphics although not looking bad, on a strategy game with hundreds of battalions and different troops and vehicles it just looks clustered and really unnecessary. This is the biggest point for me, not only is visibility reduced cause on the map these 3D figures have "priority", the numbers and stats are reduced so when im zoomed out I cant really tell what is where, the numbers are tiny un unclear, the screen is just plagued with this 3D figurines like it was some D&D game, everything is worst with these, selecting/dragging/splitting/low level control is made so much worst and so inconsistent the only way to play seems through multiple clicking and setting paths manually. Just changing these to the way they were before and saving those 3D models for something else would be a huge step foward.

-The information bar on resources on top is terrible now, I have no idea if its because of font choice, or size, or colour or whatever but I really need to focus my vision to be able to read what material is on surplus and which isnt. The replacement of decimal points with "k" (ie 4000 = 4k) just looks wrong and doesnt give me an exact number of the resources I have unless I hover my mouse over it. For some reason they also added a ton of garbage that wasnt there before, like your country's name and flag, your picture, your level, your game progress, why is it so clustered, why is it all on the same bar, I know its for "simplicity" but its so bad. The new graphics for the materials look good though, although again, this attempt at "smooth graphics" really makes it hard to look at for a prolonged time, the one for coal is specially terrible, really an example of less is more, old icons were super simple but they were easy to understand and were "descriptive". Also with the new way they made it, when you have any production go over 1k surplus it just bugs out and looks even worst.

-The information bar on politics (messages, coalitions, etc) is super bad, for some reason its to the left which has no reasoning behind it and its just annoying to get used to, the new "minimalistic" same colour icons again are terrible and less intuitive and easy to use compared to the old ones. The message tab looks better, I liked the old simple one more but the new one is good. Same can be said for newspaper and market, although again, that colour pallete for the blue/red/weird grey-ish blue really makes it harder to read. Also there is a lot of garbage, tons of notifications spam which is incredibly annoying. Specially since you have that big ugly chat thing at the bottom which no one uses but you cant get rid of it.

-The map, oh my god, the map. When I first saw the new UI I thought it was like some april fools or something because the new map looks so bad it really makes me abandon the game everytime I look at it. The colour pallete looks diluded, less bright and just worst in general, its just plain bad, with soft edges and puked over colours the game is hard to look at and hard to easily tell what is what. This is the second biggest point. Plus the smooth map combined with the "smooth" armies it honestly gives me a migrane just trying to move my troops around.

EDIT: Also the new buildings on the map are impossible to see, ports, railroads, factories, are just not as visible which is also a big point, the new mini 3D models are trash and completely invisible.

These are just some points but I really cant put into words how bad it is, I know Bytro worked hard for a new UI cause I admit the old one is just well, old, but it doesnt mean it isnt better, it is better, at least for a ton of players who have been playing this game for years and have been slapped in the face with being forced to use this, and im sorry, garbage UI. I dont want to have to pay the price for their mistakes, if people like the old UI more they should be able to use it like they have been for the last couple of years, I dont know why remove it now, but with so many posts saying people will stop playing, like yours truly, I hope the impact in playerbase makes them do the right decision. Just bring it back, the new UI is so bad I just want to stop playing but I have 2 ongoing games.

Although I love Supremacy 1914, as I said, I have been playing it for many years, if im forced to look at this terrible UI seems like im gonna have to stop playing, it really is that bad.