Stop pausing and unpausing my game please

[ApexDM]

I don't understand why the option in the menu does not turn off all sources of auto-pause, there are loads of actions that unpause when done like destroying a build for example - very annoying. Also, why can we not accept rewards while the game is paused?

[Ondrej Homola]

Hmm as far as i am aware there are no actions besides Crisis appearance and Tutorials that pause the game. I suspect the pause got there on the first occurrence of building destruction only because a tutorial popped out?

You should be able to turn off both Crisis pause and Tutorials in the menu. If some pause still appears in this condition please let me know what the action was and I can investigate.

Rewards can be collected during Crisis I think since 0.10.5. This does not include however rewards for quests which still have a crisis pending. If there's an issue in this let me know the case or send a screenshot please.

[ApexDM]

Originally posted by Ondrej Homola:

Hmm as far as i am aware there are no actions besides Crisis appearance and Tutorials that pause the game. I suspect the pause got there on the first occurrence of building destruction only because a tutorial popped out?

You should be able to turn off both Crisis pause and Tutorials in the menu. If some pause still appears in this condition please let me know what the action was and I can investigate.

Rewards can be collected during Crisis I think since 0.10.5. This does not include however rewards for quests which still have a crisis pending. If there's an issue in this let me know the case or send a screenshot please.

No its not a tutorial thing, there are so many actions that unpause the game...
- Closing the menu if you press Esc while the game is paused.
- Exiting the culture screen.
- Closing the build menu.
- Closing the map.
- Actually I think closing literally any screen/menu that comes up unpauses the game come to think of it.
- Tabbing out of the game, or back into the game.
- Activating ANY ability, which is REALLY the most egregious as there are times I'd like to activate my barracks ability and actually have time to use a heavy unit. As it currently works if you have auto combat on and pause the game, clicking or using the barracks ability unpauses and the auto combat will use the barracks ability charge (often on malita since I think those are prioritizes.

I could go on. I feels like nearly ever action taken in the game unpauses, and as I mentioned before it would really help if I could click and event or loot drop at the top of the screen and not unpause the game everytime.

[Ondrej Homola]

i see....well it is something for me to re-consider but at present the combat is not meant to be played in paused mode. But yeah i'll give it another thought if it would be sensible to attempt this approach and what it would cost.

Regarding unpause on menu switch - you are correct. Will take a look at this and try returning to the state it was prior to menu switch.

[ApexDM]

Oh yah another bad one is that destroy a building to replace it, the game unpauses; so if you have auto build on, it instantly rebuilds the first thing it can before you can select a new building unless you remember to turn it off before you destroy.

[ApexDM]

Originally posted by Ondrej Homola:

i see....well it is something for me to re-consider but at present the combat is not meant to be played in paused mode. But yeah i'll give it another thought if it would be sensible to attempt this approach and what it would cost.

Regarding unpause on menu switch - you are correct. Will take a look at this and try returning to the state it was prior to menu switch.

I have no idea what your talking about with combat happening while paused, that is not what I am talking about at all. Obviously it has to happen in real time otherwise the bar would never go down... so ya.

[Ondrej Homola]

"I'd like to activate my barracks ability and actually have time to use a heavy unit"
this is what i understand as fight in paused mode. If you can use pause to give yourself comfortable micromanagement of abilities during combat i'd call it 'paused combat' but probably not ideal terminology here.

You see, if I allow using barracks ability without breaking pause and boosting your unit that way, inevitably Bolster, windmill, patriotism, and all toggle abilities would have to follow this approach and not cause unpause. This would lead to combat always happening as 'pause- boost everything - use single unit - pause'. And eventually someone would argue that even unit usage might not toggle pause in case when everything else doesnt.

Which is quite different than having to micromanage in realtime (or micromanage the pause if you really need to). I'm not saying it is necessatily wrong, just that this is a quite big change in the user experience which i cannot do just casually.

[ApexDM]

By time to select the unit I mean when auto-combat is on. I can see actually using a unit type unpausing the game, but using the ability to "make you next unit deal double damage" or the temple of artimis ability is currently impossible unless you pause, turn auto combat off (which I think unpauses), select the ability (which unpauses), select the unit (which unpauses), then turn auto combat back on (which I think unpauses) I am not asking to change the balance of the game at all, I just want to be able to actually use the mechanics that are already in place to their best effect. All these issue become WAY worse when playing at 400% speed, I COULD add to all those prior steps the process of reducing the speed to 100% once combat starts but at that point I am spending like 4-10s and 6 extra clicks just to actually make the ability I want to activite be used on a heavy unit instead of whatever unit auto-combat decideds to blow it on when its clicked if you have auto-combat toggles on when you use the ability.

What you refer to as "micro managing in real time" does not happen when I play in the game current state. Instead I have decided to just ignore nearly every building ability, even out of combat, because of how the unpausing works.

I don't understand how your example of "pause, use a single unit, unpause", is any different from how the game works currently, its just that player has to repause the game as quick as possible after each unpause.

I am NOT saying that troops should be usable while paused, because I get how that defeats the time sensitive nature of the combat and the spam click/hotkey of using troops, which also makes auto-combat more valuable. What i am trying to address is the usability of the buildings ability, not their mechanical function. Since the player CAN pause the game at anytime, the only thing unpausing it does is test their reflexes of how fast they can press spacebar after clicking BASICALY ANY BUTTON IN THE GAME to get back to pause. If this is the case, then the optimal thing to do is also press it - key 8 times to get back to 100% speed so the fewest frames pass between the game unpausing and me repausing it, and since doing so would take more time, clicks, and keystrokes than the entire combat if it was just left on auto-combat and I didn't use the abilties at all, I ignore them.

[Ondrej Homola]

Alright i get your point now it makes sense. I will think about this after getting out of patching season and see what can be done at that time.