Pie Chart Game Objective

[Chazar]

It seems I only have space for 2 charts in the game objective window.
Im thinking of trying:
keeping the team-chart + one of these:
for non-ladder games, show the exact chart
for ladder games, show a chart based on FOW-knowledge

What do you think?
I think thats the better solution and should not be so confusing either?

I don't think that this is a good idea:

1. FOW-knowledge is unreliable and may be misleading (as illustrated in my earlier examples), so I always want to compare between the trusted and the estimated information - having only one of these charts available makes the comparison complicated

2. it is inconsistent: the FOW-knowledge chart might just as well show team percentages either!

3. For me personally, the team chart is useless, since I can easily glean the team percentage from the individual charts - but then again I am a bit familiar with reading charts.

However, I agree with KGB, that for team games the team information is truly the more important one, so how about this suggestion then:

for ladder games, show both the current team chart and a FOW-based team chart
for non-ladder games, show only the exact team chart, no second chart

Reasoning:
* In order to avoid confusion for users, the same thing should always be in the same place. So if in non-ladder games FOW-knowledge is not necessary (due to exact information being available) then leave this space empty as opposed to showing something else.

* Always show team charts only. If the ladder games is a non-team game, then I assume the team charts are identical to the individual charts anyway, right? So always show team charts for simplicity then.

However, if you manage, then it would be nice if the team chart would change to individual charts by mouseover, or through a button or preference (or whatever is easier to implement). Since the individual pie chart is just a subdivision of the team chart, a nice fading animation might even yield some posh eye candy.

[SnotlinG]

Using onmouse over I think I will be able to present all pie-charts.
For a team laddergame with FOW enabled (which is the kind of game that needs 4 charts) I will be showing:
1 chart (A) with known city distribution per player (one field will be Unknown, which is anything that is in the FOW)
1 chart (B) with known city distribution per team (one field will be Unknown, which is anything that is in the FOW)
On onmouseover on (A) I will hide (A) and switch to 1 chart (C) with citydistribution per player based on FOW-info. This means that there will be no Unknown field - but probably a large Neutral field, at least in the beginning)
On onmouseover on (B) I will hide (B) and switch to 1 chart (D) with citydistribution per team based on FOW-info. This means that there will be no Unknown field - but probably a large Neutral field, at least in the beginning)

My question now is what should the headlines be for easy understanding.
For (A) and (B) I was thinking of "Known city distribution"
But for (C) and (D) Im not sure, maybe "Estimated city distribution"?

For all non-laddergames or laddergames without FOW, I will only need (A) and also (B) in case its a teamgame, and headline will then always just be "Known city distribution".
For FOW-ladder, non-team I think (to keep it consistent) that I will show (A) and onmouseover switch it to (C), and let the right-side of the popup be empty...

[SnotlinG]

Example screens of a "fake"-setup 2v2 laddergame:

Since it is a laddergame the charts are based on cities that are visible to the player:

As you can see the team-slices correspond to the location of the individual players in respective team.
Also the team will use a color from one of the players in it´s team.

Onmouseover on the chart changes it to "Estimated", i.e. chart is based on the players FOW-knowledge:

You can see cities for the AI are slightly more, based on the FOW info, and also that no cities are counted as Unknown anymore (simply most are Neutrals)

[Chazar]

I think that there ought to be some clue to the user indicating that mouseover does somehting at all. This could be used to explain what is going on, e.g. at the bottom write something like:

"Mouseover charts to include city ownership from previous scoutings, as currently seen through fog of war on the map."


Otherwise, does mouseover switch both pie charts at once? The screenshot suggests otherwise, but I think it ought to switch both simultaneously for comparison. In that case, the title can span both charts, which give more room to explain the charts, so you could write:

"Estimated city distribution, based on scouting from previous turns"

or

"Complete city distribution as estimated by previous scouting"


...otherwise, it seems pretty sensible to me. Cool!

[KGB]

In the Known City distribution view I would prefer the 'Unknown' label be removed from the legend on the right. Then in the pie graph just put a '?Fog of War?' label in the middle of that area to indicate it's unknown. Otherwise when I first viewed it, it looked to me like Unknown was a player. Same in in the team view pie chart, remove Unknown from the legend and put a ?Fog of War? in the middle of that area on the pie graph.

KGB

[SnotlinG]

Thanks for feedback, will implement changes in a day or two

KGB, if I add this in the chart, it might be tricky to squeeze the label in when the Unknown slice is very smal?
Right now its kind of huge, but that wont always be the case...

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

When the unknown part is small just replace the ?FogOfWar? label with a ?. I would hope there is enough room for a ? Or better yet, maybe you can make the label be vertical in the pie slice instead of horizontal.

KGB

[SnotlinG]

You guys are a though crowd to please, but here are the latest updates

- It seems I cant put the label for only one entity on the piechart with jqplot. I need to put all or nothing. So what I have been able to do is just put the Unknown like -> Unknown in the legend-list. This should indicate that this is no normal player/team.

- Updated the displayed % to round to 1 decimal, to avoid the game presenting incorrect %. Like showing 70% when you really have 69.9% and you then wonder why you didnt win.

- Changed so both charts are hidden/shown on onmouseover.

- Switched the piechart to start drawing from 12-o´clock position, so your own slice will be displayed starting from 12. (previous from 3)

- Updated with improved headlines / explanations as per suggestion.

Normal display:



On mouseover display (note that headline changes):