Starcraft-like attack command is well hidden

[Josef Kufner]

Hello, in Starcraft, unit can be ordered to attack some place. Player presses 'Attack' button, then clicks on the ground in target location. Unit walks to this location and automatically attacks all enemies on its way.

It is something like patrol command in Age of Empires, but without returning.

I really miss this feature.

[fabio]

There is already this, see ​http://youtu.be/Y-0l7Ej3cM8

[Josef Kufner]

Oh... thank you.

In that case, let me rephrase the bug: There is no way to discover this attack feature.

Small attack button with good description in tooltip would be very helpful. I guess there is much more hidden features like this.

[historic_bruno]

You mean "attack-move"? Reading the manual is a good way to discover features ;) I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more useful ones end up in tutorials as well.

[Josef Kufner]

Reading manual is a good way, but it is not the best way. User interface should be intuitive and features should be easily discoverable. That is the reason why we have Graphical user Interface and not only command line.

If we would talking about build order, strategy, unit composition, I would agree about manual. But this is one of the most elementary features, and it must be visible somewhere.

[Adrián Chaves]

We must reach a compromise between making it easy to discover features and having a clean, non-cluttered interface. If we ever move to something like the Rome II Total War interface concept there might be a place for such a button, but with the current interface concept I think we should not add a button for this. It would be a button too many.

[Josef Kufner]

There are four buttons in bottom of the unit panel: delete, stop, garison, repair. This is exactly the place, where I expect attack and patrol (see #1720) buttons. Also there should be keyboard shortcut and/or mouse click displayed in tooltip of each button.

[Adrián Chaves]

Where should we put these?

• Move button (Right-click).
• Add to selection button (Shift + click).
• Remove from selelection button (Ctrl + click).
• Queue task button (Shift + left-click).

[Josef Kufner]

Both Starcraft and Age of Empires have move button ;)

[Erik Johansson]

A move button definitely is unnecessary, and adding an attack-move button is most likely going to clutter the interface anyway. Especially since it's not necessarily something a basic user is going to use anyway, and more advanced users can be expected to read manuals.

On the other hand it might make sense to make some kind of introductory GUI for beginners where more things have buttons, then the normal GUI could be less cluttered, while we'd still have the ability for beginners to discover things. For someone who's just wanting to learn it shouldn't matter as much if they have less screen space for the game world, but rather that they have a chance to get to know the more advanced things. It could even be just a bar above the rest of the GUI that you could toggle on and off to see what the commands are.

[historic_bruno]

I agree with having different UI layouts, but that is really a separate ticket :)