Why? Unified difficulty/advanced settings in 1.3.0

[hrefblog]

Earlier today I've downloaded the new 1.3.0 RC2 version and I was shocked to
see this new unified advanced settings window.
I think it is a bad idea, or at least I don't really like it.

With the releasing of the beta1 version frosch wrote this on the main page:

"This version delivers a lot of improvements to the usability and interface, especially to the configuration settings, which have grown the past years like Santa's beard "

For me it looks more complicated now! There is no way to easily adjust the settings. Or I have not found it...

Are there any chance change this? Or please add the difficulty buttons back to adjust the settings instantly
not one by one.

[Kogut]

I have yet to see this but merging difficulty/advanced settings makes sense as this division was completely arbitrary, useless and confusing.

EDIT: This change was done properly and I see nothing wrong with it, setting filtering should also help new players.

[Zuu]

What might happen in the future is setting presets. Eg. just like you can save multiple NewGRF configurations and then recall them later but for settings.

With the changes made for 1.3 a such preset thingy for settings will involve more settings than the past difficulty settings which only had about 10 settings.

See more here: http://wiki.openttd.org/Todo_list#GUI_. ... s_redesign


That being said, I don't know if anyone is working on this for the moment.

[Sylf]

...setting presets...

That sounds quite delicious.

[Pyoro]

And quite sensible. For a new player/quick game the current approach really is a bit daunting - I'd bet there a quite a few who instantly quit after trying to set up their game and seeing all those settings ^^;

[ChillCore]

I like the idea also to have setting presets, however this is a big undertaking and it would help a lot to have a clear view on what to do before starting to code something like this.

Someone, preferably a mix of new players and veterans, should/could make a list of the settings that define each preset.
New players are needed to iron out the (possibly) confusing bits while the veterans could check if the suggested presets make sense at all.
Once that is done, coding the actual implementation is not that hard and just a matter of doing.

In addition to that maybe the settings (in advanced settings) could use some (?more logical?) regrouping ... again preferably done by a mix of new players and veterans.



Slightly off-topic but in relation to the link Zuu provided:
I myself have started redesigning the way of starting a new game a bit as an extension to my custom TGP parameters patch.
My idea is starting a new game in two steps.
First you tweak all terrain related settings by re-generating the same map (seed) a few times while tweaking height, roughness, rivers, sealevel etc.
Once you are happy with the terrain you continue selecting the other settings (number of industries, towns, etc.) and re-generate the map one more time before you actually start playing.
Note I have not yet posted my completely rewritten version as it needs a bit more polisching and cleaning up.
I'd like it to be reviewed the way it should be reviewed including choice of function's and variable's syntax before doing the final rewrite.