Pause gets reset when exiting some dialogs

Karsten75 · February 20, 2010, 01:45:00 AM

The Pause function is erratic and does not work the same in all circumstances. In some cases, opening a window will cause the game to pause, in other cases, pausing the game, opening a window and then closing a window causes the pause to be unset, with the game progressing. If you play a very time-critical game, then this can have devastating results. SOme dilogs must be dismissed for the game to continue, others allow the game to continue while the dialog is displayed.

Can you *please* make the game so it is consistent?

Also, The dialogs cannot be dismissed by a keyboard function (Esc, Space, or Enter), but necessitates moving the mouse and then moving the mouse back to where it was previously.

Sometimes games are time-dependent. In these cases it would be very, very useful to have the game time displayed at all times, and not varied by the game score. I don't think most of us care that much about the score while the game is in progress. Could you perhaps relegate the score to the graph (so if someone wants it they can click on the blue button) and display the time always in that space? or is ther eanother space to display the time or score?

Sqaz · February 20, 2010, 02:31:21 AM

Quote from: Karsten75 on February 20, 2010, 01:45:00 AM
Sometimes games are time-dependent. In these cases it would be very, very useful to have the game time displayed at all times, and not varied by the game score. I don't think most of us care that much about the score while the game is in progress. Could you perhaps relegate the score to the graph (so if someone wants it they can click on the blue button) and display the time always in that space? or is ther eanother space to display the time or score?

I agree, the time should always be shown, in the game it's much more important than the score (especially whan you have emitters that burst each two minutes or so).

And since score is time based, you could always replace it by the time, you can better rate someone's prestations when you see 18 min instead of 7854 points.

UpperKEES · February 22, 2010, 06:51:22 AM

Yeah, it would be nice if the game state would return to it's previous state after closing a dialog. Paused when it was paused before and unpaused when it was unpaused before. At the moment I often lose a valuable second pausing the game again....

Regarding the display of score and time: maybe toggling it after a click would be nice. I rather see the time as well.

UpperKEES · March 14, 2010, 03:43:21 PM

Hmmm, someone just pointed out that I wrote something rather stupid. Of course a dialog would never show up when the game is paused, so it's pretty hard to return to that state after closing the dialog. It could however be an option in the preferences screen (with 'unpaused' as default).

When you pick up a lot of survivals pods, artefacts and techs these dialogs drive you crazy, especially when you know the game is still running and you were busy micromanaging. Please consider this slight change!

Karsten75 · March 14, 2010, 05:56:18 PM

My complaint was more regarding the lack of consistency.

2 examples:

1. You rescue multiple survival pods. The pop-ups appear and your game is paused. as soon as you dismiss the first pop-up, the game unpauses and runs, but there are still similar dialogs on the screen.

2. For techs the screen does not pause, but for artifact and survival pods the game pauses. It makes sense to pause for artifact pop-ups, since they may be a lot of reading, but survival pods are essentially similar to techs, and has no immediate effect. if the game does not pause for one, why does it pause for the other?

3. (yes, I know I said 2, but I'm on a roll.) If you pause the game before entering the upgrades dialog, the game unpauses when you exist the upgrades dialog, but you may have had other plans and it s inconvenient.

4. Then there are several of the dialogs in story mode tutorials that are even more bizarre.

UpperKEES · March 14, 2010, 06:02:27 PM

I understand and I agree. My solution would however solve that inconsistency as well and let the player choose what to do after closing a dialog. For me it's the most (and probably only) annoying thing in CW.

Karsten75 · March 14, 2010, 07:53:55 PM

Want one more? The fact that you have to click on the popups and cannot dismiss them them with a keystroke (Esc?).

UpperKEES · March 14, 2010, 08:06:10 PM

Nah, that's no problem for me as long as the game is paused. It would only be convenient at Hope. ;)

Edit: if implemented, I would choose the Enter key (similar to a default button in Windows). The Escape key ends full screen mode.

And another thing: it would be nice if I could use the scroll wheel on my mouse to cycle through the list of custom maps instead of having to use the scroll bar.

UpperKEES · March 15, 2010, 12:43:51 AM

Quote from: UpperKEES on March 14, 2010, 03:43:21 PM
Hmmm, someone just pointed out that I wrote something rather stupid. Of course a dialog would never show up when the game is paused, so it's pretty hard to return to that state after closing the dialog.

Damn! I was right! When a dialog shows up that doesn't pause the game, I often press 'P' automatically to pause the game. Closing the dialog then unpauses the game. That's obviously not what I want. Got reminded when playing again....

Karsten75 · March 15, 2010, 10:21:03 PM

Oh here's another one that is intensely frustrating.

You get to collect an upgrade bonus and survivor pod in the same timeframe. While the game pauses because of the pop-up notification for the survival pod, you open the dialog to choose where to apply the upgrade bonus. When you close/dismiss either of those pop-ups or dialogs that individually would have paused the game, the first one will unpause the game, even though the other one is still on the screen.