Missing Features

[The High Druid]

Two things I was hoping for in FG2 that aren't there (or at least I'm being blind and can't find them if they are):

- The ability to resize the map window for both players and the GM
Everyone works at different screen resolutions and what may seem fine for the GM may be totally obscuring the players screen or too small to be usuable. Along with this allowing players to use the zoom feature so they can work at a scale that's comfortable for them.

- Better token management
If you have a large amount of tokens the bag system is not a convinient way to manage them, especially since you don't see the bag names till you hover over them - finding a token that's two or three bags down in the hierachy is a pain.

If anyone has any hints to get around these, it would be very much appreciated.

On the positive side, I'm very pleased token positions are now being saved on the maps so you don't have to reset unfinished battles at the start of the next game session.

[The High Druid]

While token positions are being saved the contents of the initiative tracker are not which still makes finishing a session mid-battle troublesome.

[jasharen1]

Something for token management was one of my biggest hopes for this release. :( when you have hundreds of potential tokens (I was silly I bought a load of them before realising that any more then a couple tokens in a bag makes it extremely difficult to get anything.

Even allowing the token container to be resized would be a huge improvement.

[Ged]

Even allowing the token container to be resized would be a huge improvement.
Already implemented. Control-drag the token box, just like npc-sheets, story pages, images etc., and there you go.

[jasharen1]

I LOVE YOU! I'm stuck at work and haven't been able to look over it yet. Just saw the post and assumed (you know what they say about assuming) wrongly.

[joshuha]

You also know that the tokens resize themselves to fit in the box right? And you can also scale tokens individually on the map as long as its linked to a combat tracker entry?

[The High Druid]

- The ability to resize the map window for both players and the GM

Been informed how to do this last bit (and I apparently totally missed it in 1.05 as well!) But it still leaves players unable to manage their own space and what they can see on their desktop.

[Griogre]

Unfortunately, that is intentional. The developers what to focus the players attention on what the GM thinks it should be.

[Dachannien]

I just wish there were a way to eliminate the maximum window size without editing the ruleset.

[Griogre]

You do know you can just hold down Cntrl and drag out the size of the map? It's not what you want but it is pretty quick. If you should be conciousl that if you some of your players are in a low resolution you will cover there entire desktop and they would be able to do anything and have the map open.

[Dachannien]

There's still a maximum size for the window coded into the ruleset, and it's not big enough. You can only drag the window out a certain amount. Also, it looks like the maximum zoom out isn't as zoomed out as it was in FG1.05, which is also bothersome. I use really large maps, and the fact that FG2 is supposed to be very stable with large maps was going to be a very good thing for our group.

[Yenooc]

I haven't had time to delve into FGII yet, so perhaps one of you who has can tell me if the fog-of-war feature has been improved. A couple of the other VGT programs have very nice (automatic-particular to individual characters) FOW functions, but FGI had only a very awkward manual system in which one had to draw the FOW boundaries with a mouse, and what was seen by one was seen by all.

What I have seen so far is great!

[The High Druid]

You do know you can just hold down Cntrl and drag out the size of the map? It's not what you want but it is pretty quick.

Yes that's the thing I was informed of earlier.


If you should be conciousl that if you some of your players are in a low resolution you will cover there entire desktop and they would be able to do anything and have the map open.

Okay this is why "being concious" doesn't work. Everyone in the group uses different screen resolution, mine being the largest at 1920 by 1200. A 600 by 600 map only takes up about 15% of my screen, but on someone working on 1024 by 768 it's over 50%. If i reduce the map on my screen to a size that's usable for them it's too small to be practical for me. This is why players need some map controls. The GM's share command could still be used to centre the maps on the GM's view, but being able to resize the map window and zoom allows the players to get the window to a usable size and still see what's going on.

[richvalle]

I haven't had time to delve into FGII yet, so perhaps one of you who has can tell me if the fog-of-war feature has been improved. A couple of the other VGT programs have very nice (automatic-particular to individual characters) FOW functions, but FGI had only a very awkward manual system in which one had to draw the FOW boundaries with a mouse, and what was seen by one was seen by all.

What I have seen so far is great!


Nothing like that in FGII Yenooc. Actually I don't mind the FOW stuff in FG that much.

You CAN now hide tokens on the map and they will be hidden when inside of the mask. This is turned on by default. You can also enable a token to be 'invisable always' so it shows up for the DM but not players even in unmasked areas.

rv

[joshuha]

Well the devs said after everything is worked out with the initial FG 2 run that it looks like drawing tools (and thus I would assume FOW) is the next thing they are going to be working on.

[Yenooc]

Thanks, Richvalle--I have since discovered the invisibility option for tokens.

And thanks to you, too, Joshuha--Improved drawing tools would be great, since I am not good at all at drawing with the freehand mouse. ;)