August 10th- Developer Update (Skill Points Allocator)

-Skill Points allocator is now accessed through a modal window to allow easy access without disrupting game play
-cleaned up profile when a user has skill points, allocator modal is now accessed through a new "Skills ()" button that launches a modal from your profile

Give us your feedback on this new modal implementation, if it is positive we will take a look at other possible features that could be moved to a modal window for example the Vault may be a good candidate.

 

i like it a lot! But what about the Whole thing about 2-5 Favor Points to change all of your status around! So if i added 500 to def that i wanted to att to Stamina to Fight more! i can take them all away and add them there!
or to Health or anything!, But u have to have the all of achievements for the Skill points done! than u can re arange them to any status u want! ?

 

I like it too. Although I don't see the need for the 'Save' text at the bottom. It should be like the last one, once you allocated the skills it's automatically updated.

Nice work

 

I think it looks nice having the skills in a new window, however I do prefer the previous drop down option to add 2, 3, 4, etc. to a skill at a time instead of just 1 at a time or (I think it was) 10 at a time.

 

Nooooooooooooooooo

okay this is the first change you've made that I absolutely HATE.

1. Modal windows suck. ZS performance is very good, why? because you aren't forcing 2000 modal windows on us. clicking to go to your profile and back is no issue, never was.

2. The BEST part of the point allocation here was the drop downs. I loved that the second I saw it.

3. You changed the order of the stats, something I don't recommend ANY game EVER does. Players get used to something being in a certain spot, now you've just asked for people to misclick their stats.

4. No minus button, make a mistake and click once too many times and you have to exit and reload the window again.

Sorry but No, not impressed in the slightest this was not a good change. Change for the sake of change is never good. You had a perfect system and you just ruined it....


PS. I've given this game and it's devs tons of credit so I don't feel bad calling a spade a spade when you make a mistake either.

 

Calder 12.......I agree
With this and that Germany map,it seems unnecessary
Are they trying to show off there graphic prowess?

We been after a New Message Indicator for ages,and cant get it
.and these useless thing flow freely

 

To be honest this update worries me a lot. I watched Mafia Wars go from a decent performing mostly PHP game to a flash nightmare that crashes more often than it runs and it all started with adding crap like this.

Everyone say it along with me

Modal windows in browser games are BAD!

The Vault is a perfect example of how to do things NOW. It opens at the top of whatever window you happen to be in, that is perfect. Changing it to a modal window means my browser is eating more memory for absolutely no reason.

 

I'm on the fence about this one. I would at the very least add a minus button to all the skils and disable buttons when you don't have enough skills.

I think my preference would be to go back to the old skill point allocation method but leave this skills window option on the profile for viewing your current allocation.

 

I liked the old one better.

 

that is the best idea.i agree with this 110%.

 

Thanks for you detailed points, I have responded to each above in bold.

Hope to get a version II out later today to address your points above.

-ability to allocate more than 1 skill point at a time
-easier way to clear allocated points if a mistake is made, minus option or clear option
-faster loading modal, absolutely no animation for fade ins etc.

Right now all users in the game see the same skill point allocator, it may make sense to offer an "advanced" one for higher level players.

Some reasons for this change was as follows:
-was not intuitive for a new user (selecting # of skill points to spend through dropdown did not update the skill value)
-for users that had +50 skill points to allocate, profile would lag considerably on some users environments namely the dreaded IE
-to allocate skill points the old way, a user had to jump to the profile page which would take them away from their current page which disrupted game play

 

Im liking the abilty to go right back to where I was before allocating the points. I could see this being good for a few other places as long as it never lags the game. I did almost misallocate because of the rearrangement the first time but the learning curve on that should be very short and it shouldnt take long to get use to. One of the most irritating things I find in your games is when attacking players and you put them in the hospital you then have to click to their profile to attack again. I have always hated this and would try and understand why it is set up like that if you could explain it. One last thing... When bounty hunting I do not want to see that I have severly injured someone it is just annoying. I can deal with it I just dont think it is something we need to have pop up when attacking someone on the bounty list. IMO it is useless info and it looks too similar to the message you get when you take down the bounty. Thanks for the effort in making these games better and keeping us up to date. Grif

 

I find it surprising that anyone found it counterintuitive to be honest I thought it was relatively obvious particularly with Stamina which gave 2,4,6 etc showing that you needed that many to upgrade. I think you'll find now people are upset that clicking once on Stamina takes away 2 points even though it says that in plain English right beside the stat. Also the drop down for Stamina disappeared after you got down to a single point. I found the whole thing quite easy to use and very straight forward.

That being said I'll take your reasoning at face value.

I would still love to see a way of readding the drop downs, whether it be in another window or in the modal window though.

PS. anyone using IE for anything let alone browser games should be slapped and have all computer access removed for life...

 

totally agree with that.
why change something that works really fine and quick?

cannot understand it,sorry...

 

Here are some updates that will be posted later on tonight:

+5 button when user has 5 or more skill points
+ buttons will disappear when you can no longer allocate skill points
[Reset] link added to re-allocate when mistakes are made

I am hopeful that with users feedback on what they liked with the drop-down functionality we can replicate it through this new modal and find a solution where everyone can agree that no functionality has been lost and even some may say an improvement with functionality gained.

 

This is a great idea. I also like the popup vs the page switching to my profile. Hopefully this concept can also be introduced when doing jobs, adding elites, collecting cash & sending boosts leaving the player on one page. Thanks! ​

 

1. Are you referring to when you are attacking someone, then they are put into the hospital and the attack button disappears? If so, what flow would you like to see? The reason why the attack button disappears is because if you were to attack someone you just put into the hospital you would most likely get an error message stating that that user cannot be attacked. If this isn't what you are referring too please clarify.

2. I will add the bounty message to my list and see if I can make that change under the radar.

Thanks for playing and supporting Kano games!

 

Yes, on the road map is a re-vamp of the in-game feed and not requiring people to jump back and forth to different pages to complete actions quickly like Outbreak Help where actions are less involved is something that we are looking to address and a modal may work well in that situation.

 

The latest update has just been pushed to ZS:

+5 option when skill points is over 5
+ buttons will disappear if not enough skill points
[Reset] link added to re-start allocation of skill points
optimized modal loading

Feedback?

 

1. I just reproduced what you mentioned, it looks like a bug. Good find, should get this fixed tomorrow hopefully.