Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Dominion Online at Shuffle iT => Topic started by: phoenix9797 on April 26, 2016, 10:59:32 am

Title: "Features" threads
Post by: phoenix9797 on April 26, 2016, 10:59:32 am
Hi all--

The "main thread" has gotten long and meandering, and it chiefly contains discussion of the pricing model (and recently music / graphical effects).  I thought it might be productive to have separate threads dedicated to hashing out specific features we'd like to see in Shuffle iT's new version of the game.  Ideally, we could have a "hub" thread that provides links to individually-dedicated threads, each of which could contain discussion specific to that feature (and how it might be best implemented).  For example, some features (and thus, threads) that I would like to see under discussion concerning the "pace of game" for the new version would include:

1.  Ability to see opponents' ranking, stats, etc., during the game.  I need something to do while waiting for my turn!
2.  Ability to force a resignation after a very short waiting period (< 30 seconds?) when an opponent has connection issues.
3.  Ability to select "timed game" as an option.  One way to implement a "timed game" would be to enable the players to set a base time (i.e, 5 minutes, whatever), and an increment (i.e., 2 seconds).  Each player starts with the base time, and during his or her turn, it ticks down, while being increased by the increment with every action taken.  So the opponents' base time is the "dead time" I'm willing to invest in the game, since the increments offset the time spent by the opponent actually playing and taking action.  Players could even set separate (personal) base times and increments (perhaps as a profile setting), and the matching feature could enable the ability to accept only opponents meeting a chosen threshold for base time / increment.  In this way, players could be operating with different starting "base and increment" times, while all players are satisfied with the timing setting.

In my opinion, it would be good to have threads individuated for the discussion of options like these (and, I'm sure, many others that we can come up with collectively).  I'm simply not sure whether it would be better for us to each start threads for the topics, or whether it would be best for SCSN / Stef to create "official" ones that they could format in the way that would be most useful for them regarding future reference / implementation as they work on Shuffle iT's version.

Thoughts? 
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: jsh357 on April 26, 2016, 11:08:41 am
Quote
In my opinion, it would be good to have threads individuated for the discussion of options like these (and, I'm sure, many others that we can come up with collectively).  I'm simply not sure whether it would be better for us to each start threads for the topics, or whether it would be best for SCSN / Stef to create "official" ones that they could format in the way that would be most useful for them regarding future reference / implementation as they work on Shuffle iT's version.

I think SCSN has said they want to hold off announcing too many features because there's always a chance one doesn't get implemented on release. Remember when Goko promised Tournaments? MF promised Adventures?  Yeah...
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: phoenix9797 on April 26, 2016, 11:17:07 am
Quote
In my opinion, it would be good to have threads individuated for the discussion of options like these (and, I'm sure, many others that we can come up with collectively).  I'm simply not sure whether it would be better for us to each start threads for the topics, or whether it would be best for SCSN / Stef to create "official" ones that they could format in the way that would be most useful for them regarding future reference / implementation as they work on Shuffle iT's version.

I think SCSN has said they want to hold off announcing too many features because there's always a chance one doesn't get implemented on release. Remember when Goko promised Tournaments? MF promised Adventures?  Yeah...

Ah--yes, I did not mean to imply that these would be endorsements or official "acceptances" for features in the new version; I just wanted to foster discussion (in an organized fashion) about features we'd like to see.  What I meant by the part you quoted was that there might be a specific means of discussion (separate threads, as I've suggested, or perhaps "clumped" threads, each of which contains all discussion about a general topic like social features (for example)) that Shuffle iT might prefer for ease of reference *in the event that* they decide to work on implementing a certain feature.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Joseph2302 on April 26, 2016, 11:22:10 am
# Blacklisting players - think something was mentioned about this
# All sets - and a better timeframe for being added if/when new expansions occur (e.g. Empires)
# Reliability - if player has small connection blip, don't kick them out. Took MF ages to get this right
# First player choosing - for tournaments (guess this will be covered by Tournament Mode)
# A better rating system, with less drop-off if you don't play consistently
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Beyond Awesome on April 26, 2016, 01:42:48 pm
I prefer being able to blacklist abusive players rather than a timer. My biggest worry is that if people can arbitrarily set the matching criteria based on various speeds of playing the game, then this might lead to a system where no one gets matches up.

I'm not opposed to a timer, but it needs to be fair. Still, though, I think jerk players are the real problem and being able to flag them just sounds better to me.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on April 26, 2016, 09:37:09 pm
I think there should be tons of sparkling animations, with no way of turning them off. The animations should also be incredibly slow, with no way of speeding them up, and a delay between each playing of a card. The music should not be able to be turned off, and the sound effects should be incredibly obnoxious, loud, and sound like stock sound effects. Lastly, Dominion: Empire should not be released until 2018 at the very least. I think these are all great "features".

With love,

Lord Bottington
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: kn1tt3r on April 27, 2016, 03:31:18 am
3.  Ability to select "timed game" as an option.  One way to implement a "timed game" would be to enable the players to set a base time (i.e, 5 minutes, whatever), and an increment (i.e., 2 seconds).  Each player starts with the base time, and during his or her turn, it ticks down, while being increased by the increment with every action taken.  So the opponents' base time is the "dead time" I'm willing to invest in the game, since the increments offset the time spent by the opponent actually playing and taking action.  Players could even set separate (personal) base times and increments (perhaps as a profile setting), and the matching feature could enable the ability to accept only opponents meeting a chosen threshold for base time / increment.  In this way, players could be operating with different starting "base and increment" times, while all players are satisfied with the timing setting.

In my oppinion a timer should not be a standard feature for Dominion. It can be something like a special add-on, but the way Dominion is designed doesn't really fit a timer.
I think a lot of you are a bit influenced by chess, where timers work great since every move (not the thinking about it, but the move itself) takes almost the exact same amount of time. In Dominion, however, the difference between resolving Smithy and Scrying Pool can be huge. This means (and you've seen this with the Blitz feature in the MMF mod) that a timer greatly influences the strength of certain cards and the viability of certain strategies, which is not really the point of a timer.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Beyond Awesome on April 27, 2016, 04:53:55 am
3.  Ability to select "timed game" as an option.  One way to implement a "timed game" would be to enable the players to set a base time (i.e, 5 minutes, whatever), and an increment (i.e., 2 seconds).  Each player starts with the base time, and during his or her turn, it ticks down, while being increased by the increment with every action taken.  So the opponents' base time is the "dead time" I'm willing to invest in the game, since the increments offset the time spent by the opponent actually playing and taking action.  Players could even set separate (personal) base times and increments (perhaps as a profile setting), and the matching feature could enable the ability to accept only opponents meeting a chosen threshold for base time / increment.  In this way, players could be operating with different starting "base and increment" times, while all players are satisfied with the timing setting.

In my oppinion a timer should not be a standard feature for Dominion. It can be something like a special add-on, but the way Dominion is designed doesn't really fit a timer.
I think a lot of you are a bit influenced by chess, where timers work great since every move (not the thinking about it, but the move itself) takes almost the exact same amount of time. In Dominion, however, the difference between resolving Smithy and Scrying Pool can be huge. This means (and you've seen this with the Blitz feature in the MMF mod) that a timer greatly influences the strength of certain cards and the viability of certain strategies, which is not really the point of a timer.

This.

And, the need to think on some kingdoms will become more pronounced when Adventures comes out. A 12 card kingdom requires much more thinking than a 10 card kingdom.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SCSN on April 27, 2016, 07:18:57 am
In my opinion, it would be good to have threads individuated for the discussion of options like these (and, I'm sure, many others that we can come up with collectively).  I'm simply not sure whether it would be better for us to each start threads for the topics, or whether it would be best for SCSN / Stef to create "official" ones that they could format in the way that would be most useful for them regarding future reference / implementation as they work on Shuffle iT's version.

Thoughts?

Feel free to discuss what you want where you want to, whether that be existing threads or new ones.

If you care about maximizing your impact, it's probably best to clearly state your general wishes and concerns and let us worry about addressing them (i.e. the implementation details).

In my oppinion a timer should not be a standard feature for Dominion.

It won't be, as stated elsewhere (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15162.msg591683#msg591683).

2. Ability to force a resignation after a very short waiting period (< 30 seconds?) when an opponent has connection issues.

Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: GendoIkari on April 27, 2016, 01:57:13 pm
Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.

If your opponent doesn't have an SSD, that's his fault.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Accatitippi on April 27, 2016, 05:33:38 pm
Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.

If your opponent doesn't have an SSD, that's his fault.

Yeah, on the same note, I don't understand the people complaining about overheating when running Making Fun.

Get a new computer, guys.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Beyond Awesome on April 27, 2016, 09:19:34 pm
Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.

If your opponent doesn't have an SSD, that's his fault.

Yeah, on the same note, I don't understand the people complaining about overheating when running Making Fun.

Get a new computer, guys.

Goko actually killed my last computer from overheating
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: jsh357 on April 27, 2016, 09:21:21 pm
Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.

If your opponent doesn't have an SSD, that's his fault.

Yeah, on the same note, I don't understand the people complaining about overheating when running Making Fun.

Get a new computer, guys.

I have an i7 with 8 GB RAM and a mediocre graphics card, and it overheats my machine like crazy. I shouldn't need a top of the line system to run a card game. (Assuming you weren't joking)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: phoenix9797 on April 27, 2016, 11:03:25 pm
3.  Ability to select "timed game" as an option.  One way to implement a "timed game" would be to enable the players to set a base time (i.e, 5 minutes, whatever), and an increment (i.e., 2 seconds).  Each player starts with the base time, and during his or her turn, it ticks down, while being increased by the increment with every action taken.  So the opponents' base time is the "dead time" I'm willing to invest in the game, since the increments offset the time spent by the opponent actually playing and taking action.  Players could even set separate (personal) base times and increments (perhaps as a profile setting), and the matching feature could enable the ability to accept only opponents meeting a chosen threshold for base time / increment.  In this way, players could be operating with different starting "base and increment" times, while all players are satisfied with the timing setting.

In my oppinion a timer should not be a standard feature for Dominion. It can be something like a special add-on, but the way Dominion is designed doesn't really fit a timer.
I think a lot of you are a bit influenced by chess, where timers work great since every move (not the thinking about it, but the move itself) takes almost the exact same amount of time. In Dominion, however, the difference between resolving Smithy and Scrying Pool can be huge. This means (and you've seen this with the Blitz feature in the MMF mod) that a timer greatly influences the strength of certain cards and the viability of certain strategies, which is not really the point of a timer.

Well, the idea is that *every* action you take during your turn would trigger the increment.  So every time you play Scrying Pool on your turn, you trigger the increment.  Every time you play Smithy, you trigger the increment.  This way, it does not matter which cards are in the kingdom; it just matters that play proceeds with reasonable flow, even if entire turns vary drastically in terms of their actual length.  Both a quick Smithy turn and a lengthy Scrying Pool turn would result in (approximately) the same time remaining in the bank, if the player plays both turns with the same pace.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Accatitippi on April 28, 2016, 01:21:30 am
Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.

If your opponent doesn't have an SSD, that's his fault.

Yeah, on the same note, I don't understand the people complaining about overheating when running Making Fun.

Get a new computer, guys.

I have an i7 with 8 GB RAM and a mediocre graphics card, and it overheats my machine like crazy. I shouldn't need a top of the line system to run a card game. (Assuming you weren't joking)

I was joking.
As somebody who spent 3 years of my life trying to cooperate with a legacy pc as my only machine (15 y.o.), I'm annoyed by the notion of having high hardware requirements just because "there is technology that could handle this".

So yeah, irony.

I'm sorry for your computer, Beyond Awesome. :/
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: kn1tt3r on April 28, 2016, 02:53:15 am
3.  Ability to select "timed game" as an option.  One way to implement a "timed game" would be to enable the players to set a base time (i.e, 5 minutes, whatever), and an increment (i.e., 2 seconds).  Each player starts with the base time, and during his or her turn, it ticks down, while being increased by the increment with every action taken.  So the opponents' base time is the "dead time" I'm willing to invest in the game, since the increments offset the time spent by the opponent actually playing and taking action.  Players could even set separate (personal) base times and increments (perhaps as a profile setting), and the matching feature could enable the ability to accept only opponents meeting a chosen threshold for base time / increment.  In this way, players could be operating with different starting "base and increment" times, while all players are satisfied with the timing setting.

In my oppinion a timer should not be a standard feature for Dominion. It can be something like a special add-on, but the way Dominion is designed doesn't really fit a timer.
I think a lot of you are a bit influenced by chess, where timers work great since every move (not the thinking about it, but the move itself) takes almost the exact same amount of time. In Dominion, however, the difference between resolving Smithy and Scrying Pool can be huge. This means (and you've seen this with the Blitz feature in the MMF mod) that a timer greatly influences the strength of certain cards and the viability of certain strategies, which is not really the point of a timer.

Well, the idea is that *every* action you take during your turn would trigger the increment.  So every time you play Scrying Pool on your turn, you trigger the increment.  Every time you play Smithy, you trigger the increment.  This way, it does not matter which cards are in the kingdom; it just matters that play proceeds with reasonable flow, even if entire turns vary drastically in terms of their actual length.  Both a quick Smithy turn and a lengthy Scrying Pool turn would result in (approximately) the same time remaining in the bank, if the player plays both turns with the same pace.
Your turn:
Play Cartographer (+5 seconds), draw card, look at top 4 cards, decide which to discard, rearrange the rest (takes 8 seconds)
Play Scrying Pool (+5 seconds), decide on opponent's card, decide on own card, draw a shitload of cards (takes 5 seconds)
Net: -3 seconds

My turn:
Play Village (+5 seconds), draw card (takes 1 second)
Play Smithy (+5 seconds), draw 3 cards (takes 1 second)
Net: +8 seconds
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Davio on April 28, 2016, 03:14:48 am
The most important thing for me would be a good pairing system.

Ideally, you'd like to find an equally skilled opponent within a couple of seconds.
Manually setting all kinds of parameters (like "my rating +/- 500", "these sets, but not these", etc. isn't really helpful.


It would be really cool if we could spectate matches between high level players, maybe seeing all of their cards (although this might be prone to abuse; perhaps players could opt-out of showing their hand cards).
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Arctic Penguin on April 28, 2016, 03:23:32 am
3.  Ability to select "timed game" as an option.  One way to implement a "timed game" would be to enable the players to set a base time (i.e, 5 minutes, whatever), and an increment (i.e., 2 seconds).  Each player starts with the base time, and during his or her turn, it ticks down, while being increased by the increment with every action taken.  So the opponents' base time is the "dead time" I'm willing to invest in the game, since the increments offset the time spent by the opponent actually playing and taking action.  Players could even set separate (personal) base times and increments (perhaps as a profile setting), and the matching feature could enable the ability to accept only opponents meeting a chosen threshold for base time / increment.  In this way, players could be operating with different starting "base and increment" times, while all players are satisfied with the timing setting.

In my oppinion a timer should not be a standard feature for Dominion. It can be something like a special add-on, but the way Dominion is designed doesn't really fit a timer.
I think a lot of you are a bit influenced by chess, where timers work great since every move (not the thinking about it, but the move itself) takes almost the exact same amount of time. In Dominion, however, the difference between resolving Smithy and Scrying Pool can be huge. This means (and you've seen this with the Blitz feature in the MMF mod) that a timer greatly influences the strength of certain cards and the viability of certain strategies, which is not really the point of a timer.

Well, the idea is that *every* action you take during your turn would trigger the increment.  So every time you play Scrying Pool on your turn, you trigger the increment.  Every time you play Smithy, you trigger the increment.  This way, it does not matter which cards are in the kingdom; it just matters that play proceeds with reasonable flow, even if entire turns vary drastically in terms of their actual length.  Both a quick Smithy turn and a lengthy Scrying Pool turn would result in (approximately) the same time remaining in the bank, if the player plays both turns with the same pace.
Your turn:
Play Cartographer (+5 seconds), draw card, look at top 4 cards, decide which to discard, rearrange the rest (takes 8 seconds)
Play Scrying Pool (+5 seconds), decide on opponent's card, decide on own card, draw a shitload of cards (takes 5 seconds)
Net: -3 seconds

My turn:
Play Village (+5 seconds), draw card (takes 1 second)
Play Smithy (+5 seconds), draw 3 cards (takes 1 second)
Net: +8 seconds
Although it's not common in chess, I think delays would work a lot better than increments in Dominion. With a delay, the clock freezes for a short amount of time after a move but extra time is never added to your total. With a ~3 second delay after every decision, the clock won't count down while you are making simple decisions but will when you are making more complicated ones. The Cartographer/Scrying Pool player loses very little time drawing their deck because they are making so many decisions that the clock is frozen for most of their turn and the Village/Smithy player doesn't gain any time by making a simple engine because unused time isn't added back to their clock. They each end up having close to the same amount of time to make the big decisions like what to buy. Some strategies will obviously still require a lot more thinking time to play, but with a sufficiently long time control (15 minute time bank per player + X minutes increment added per turn + Y seconds delay per "decision") I don't think it would make any decks unplayable.

In any case, it doesn't sound like this is something that many people want. It would definitely need to be optional and that might end up splitting the player pool and increasing the wait to find a game. Maybe it's something worth experimenting with a bit down the line if there are a lot of players.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: E.Honda on April 28, 2016, 04:56:46 am
The most important thing for me would be a good pairing system.

Ideally, you'd like to find an equally skilled opponent within a couple of seconds.
Manually setting all kinds of parameters (like "my rating +/- 500", "these sets, but not these", etc. isn't really helpful.


It would be really cool if we could spectate matches between high level players, maybe seeing all of their cards (although this might be prone to abuse; perhaps players could opt-out of showing their hand cards).

I also think spectating matches would be a really nice feature. A small delay in the stream would probably remove most potential for abuse.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: phoenix9797 on April 28, 2016, 08:48:41 am
3.  Ability to select "timed game" as an option.  One way to implement a "timed game" would be to enable the players to set a base time (i.e, 5 minutes, whatever), and an increment (i.e., 2 seconds).  Each player starts with the base time, and during his or her turn, it ticks down, while being increased by the increment with every action taken.  So the opponents' base time is the "dead time" I'm willing to invest in the game, since the increments offset the time spent by the opponent actually playing and taking action.  Players could even set separate (personal) base times and increments (perhaps as a profile setting), and the matching feature could enable the ability to accept only opponents meeting a chosen threshold for base time / increment.  In this way, players could be operating with different starting "base and increment" times, while all players are satisfied with the timing setting.

In my oppinion a timer should not be a standard feature for Dominion. It can be something like a special add-on, but the way Dominion is designed doesn't really fit a timer.
I think a lot of you are a bit influenced by chess, where timers work great since every move (not the thinking about it, but the move itself) takes almost the exact same amount of time. In Dominion, however, the difference between resolving Smithy and Scrying Pool can be huge. This means (and you've seen this with the Blitz feature in the MMF mod) that a timer greatly influences the strength of certain cards and the viability of certain strategies, which is not really the point of a timer.

Well, the idea is that *every* action you take during your turn would trigger the increment.  So every time you play Scrying Pool on your turn, you trigger the increment.  Every time you play Smithy, you trigger the increment.  This way, it does not matter which cards are in the kingdom; it just matters that play proceeds with reasonable flow, even if entire turns vary drastically in terms of their actual length.  Both a quick Smithy turn and a lengthy Scrying Pool turn would result in (approximately) the same time remaining in the bank, if the player plays both turns with the same pace.
Your turn:
Play Cartographer (+5 seconds), draw card, look at top 4 cards, decide which to discard, rearrange the rest (takes 8 seconds)
Play Scrying Pool (+5 seconds), decide on opponent's card, decide on own card, draw a shitload of cards (takes 5 seconds)
Net: -3 seconds

My turn:
Play Village (+5 seconds), draw card (takes 1 second)
Play Smithy (+5 seconds), draw 3 cards (takes 1 second)
Net: +8 seconds

This is remedied by having *every decision acted upon* trigger the increment, as I've been trying to suggest.  (I think I've not been as clear as I should have been.)  When you make the decision on the 4 cards for Cartographer, that is 4 triggers of the increment.  Scrying Pool triggers it 3 times: when you play the card, when you decide about your top card, and when you decide about your opponents' top card.

The idea here is NOT to make time / speed a way to win a game.  The idea is to ensure that when I start playing a game, I will ACTUALLY be playing a game, not sitting there after each of my turns until my opponent decides to return from surfing the web while I'm playing my turn.  Since each person chooses his or her own base time + increment, and chooses an acceptable threshold for his/her opponent's base time and threshold, the result would be a game that flows according to a pace both players are happy with.  If it's not flowing at that pace, the player causing the delay will end up losing once time runs out, which is exactly the point.  If you've caused the game to drag on longer than the amount of dead time agreed to by your opponent, then that is the very reason the timer is in place, so your opponent should be credited with a victory and both can go their separate ways, either to finish whatever random task you were trying to accomplish while playing Dominion, or to play a game with an opponent who will remain attentive and active during the game.

This would be a setting ("Timer" or something) just like the current setting regarding the point counter: you could set it to "Always," you could set it to "Prefer to use it," you could set it to "Prefer not to use it," and you could set it to "Never."  If you choose any of the first 3 settings, you'd need to specify your base time and increment, as well as the acceptable level for your opponents' base time and increment.

Thus, for those saying that it would slow down your ability to get an automatch, you would just set it to one of the "Prefer..." settings, which would match you as you prefer (if available), or against whichever opponent is ready to play if your preference is not available.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on April 28, 2016, 10:18:54 am
Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.

If your opponent doesn't have an SSD, that's his fault.

Yeah, on the same note, I don't understand the people complaining about overheating when running Making Fun.

Get a new computer, guys.

I use a computer from 2014. Making Fun sucks up like 99% of the processing power. It's incredible how poorly the app was made.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on April 28, 2016, 10:24:54 am
Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.

If your opponent doesn't have an SSD, that's his fault.

Yeah, on the same note, I don't understand the people complaining about overheating when running Making Fun.

Get a new computer, guys.

I use a computer from 2014.

It's a Mac though.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on April 28, 2016, 10:29:38 am
It's a Mac though.

Shouldn't make any sort of difference, you PC Elitist.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: werothegreat on April 28, 2016, 10:31:42 am
It's a Mac though.

Shouldn't make any sort of difference, you PC Elitist.

Macs are bad, and you should feel bad.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on April 28, 2016, 10:46:15 am
It's a Mac though.

Shouldn't make any sort of difference, you PC Elitist.

Macs are bad, and you should feel bad.

Macs aren't bad. Give me a break. People hate Macs because it's cool to hate on them. It's just different. I hate the Windows interface, but I'm not pretending it's inferior. I'm not even opposed to building a 'Hackintosh', and I'll probably do that one day. It's cheaper and more powerful, and it has the interface I like.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: jsh357 on April 28, 2016, 10:58:52 am
Linux sucks. You all suck. I use my modded Wii for everything, and you can't stop me. Sure it's bad at playing Dominion, but I would have lost all those games anyway.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on April 28, 2016, 11:02:38 am
requesting feature to let Dominion be played on a modded Wii
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on April 28, 2016, 01:13:33 pm
Macs aren't bad. Give me a break. People hate Macs because it's cool to hate on them. It's just different. I hate the Windows interface, but I'm not pretending it's inferior.

I've used a Mac at home and a PC at work for the past ~5 years, and while I love a lot of things about OSX, the Windows GUI is vastly superior to that of OSX. It's not even close in my book.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on April 28, 2016, 04:16:11 pm
I've used a Mac at home and a PC at work for the past ~5 years, and while I love a lot of things about OSX, the Windows GUI is vastly superior to that of OSX. It's not even close in my book.

Which is funny because the Windows user interface is specifically designed to rely heavily on keyboard commands (where Windows is, naturally, also clearly superior).
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on April 28, 2016, 04:19:25 pm
I've used a Mac at home and a PC at work for the past ~5 years, and while I love a lot of things about OSX, the Windows GUI is vastly superior to that of OSX. It's not even close in my book.

Which is funny because the Windows user interface is specifically designed to rely heavily on keyboard commands (where Windows is, naturally, also clearly superior).

It is? How so? OS X has tons of keyboard shortcuts.

One counterexample to your claim that I always run into is how much more difficult it is to type the most common special characters on Windows. I have to memorize a special 4-digit code for each one. On Mac, option-command-hyphen is an em-dash, option-8 is a bullet point, etc.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: sc0UT on April 28, 2016, 04:23:10 pm
Linux sucks. You all suck. I use my modded Wii for everything, and you can't stop me. Sure it's bad at playing Dominion, but I would have lost all those games anyway.

Sent from my Super Nintendo
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on April 28, 2016, 04:30:51 pm
It is? How so? OS X has tons of keyboard shortcuts.

One counterexample to your claim that I always run into is how much more difficult it is to type the most common special characters on Windows. I have to memorize a special 4-digit code for each one. On Mac, option-command-hyphen is an em-dash, option-8 is a bullet point, etc.

For instance, Windows lets you map programs into Windows key+number key keyboard shortcuts. And then that shortcut starts that program up, or makes it active/inactive if it's already open. AFAIK, OS X requires you to use the graphical user interface if you want to launch a program.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: singletee on April 28, 2016, 04:32:14 pm
I play Dominion Online on my Beowulf cluster of TI-83s with a Furby array for audio.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on April 28, 2016, 04:41:37 pm
It is? How so? OS X has tons of keyboard shortcuts.

One counterexample to your claim that I always run into is how much more difficult it is to type the most common special characters on Windows. I have to memorize a special 4-digit code for each one. On Mac, option-command-hyphen is an em-dash, option-8 is a bullet point, etc.

For instance, Windows lets you map programs into Windows key+number key keyboard shortcuts. And then that shortcut starts that program up, or makes it active/inactive if it's already open. AFAIK, OS X requires you to use the graphical user interface if you want to launch a program.

Oh no, I have to scroll my mouse all the way to the right/left/down/wherever and click on the icon. So horrible!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: michaeljb on April 28, 2016, 05:09:33 pm
It is? How so? OS X has tons of keyboard shortcuts.

One counterexample to your claim that I always run into is how much more difficult it is to type the most common special characters on Windows. I have to memorize a special 4-digit code for each one. On Mac, option-command-hyphen is an em-dash, option-8 is a bullet point, etc.

For instance, Windows lets you map programs into Windows key+number key keyboard shortcuts. And then that shortcut starts that program up, or makes it active/inactive if it's already open. AFAIK, OS X requires you to use the graphical user interface if you want to launch a program.

Oh no, I have to scroll my mouse all the way to the right/left/down/wherever and click on the icon. So horrible!

That does sound horrible! I use Alfred (https://www.alfredapp.com/) so I can hit Option+Space and then start typing in the name of what I want to open. I don't even keep anything in my dock any more.

AFAIK the recent OS X updates have sped up the built-in Spotlight so that command+space does the same thing quickly enough, but I got used to Alfred before that happened so I stuck with it instead of switching to Spotlight.

And I concede that technically this is still using a graphical interface, but it's also a keyboard map to open any application at all :)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on April 28, 2016, 06:01:53 pm
It is? How so? OS X has tons of keyboard shortcuts.

One counterexample to your claim that I always run into is how much more difficult it is to type the most common special characters on Windows. I have to memorize a special 4-digit code for each one. On Mac, option-command-hyphen is an em-dash, option-8 is a bullet point, etc.

For instance, Windows lets you map programs into Windows key+number key keyboard shortcuts. And then that shortcut starts that program up, or makes it active/inactive if it's already open. AFAIK, OS X requires you to use the graphical user interface if you want to launch a program.

Oh no, I have to scroll my mouse all the way to the right/left/down/wherever and click on the icon. So horrible!

Dear diary, today I learned that scrolling your mouse and clicking on an icon is a keyboard command, not using a graphical user interface.

And yeah, it is kind of horrible. Your mouse is supposed to be doing mouse things while you can do stuff like opening programs with your left hand at the same time.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on April 28, 2016, 06:12:11 pm
For instance, Windows lets you map programs into Windows key+number key keyboard shortcuts. And then that shortcut starts that program up, or makes it active/inactive if it's already open. AFAIK, OS X requires you to use the graphical user interface if you want to launch a program.

Luckily this is no longer the case. I can press command-space to open the global search bar, then press 'D', then press 'Enter', since the Dominion client is the top hit for 'D'.

You can also create global app-launching keyboard shortcuts, though I think it's a lot more work to set it up than it would be in Windows.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Donald X. on April 28, 2016, 06:55:26 pm
One counterexample to your claim that I always run into is how much more difficult it is to type the most common special characters on Windows. I have to memorize a special 4-digit code for each one. On Mac, option-command-hyphen is an em-dash, option-8 is a bullet point, etc.
Dude, I just google for a word that has an n with a tilde, and paste it into whatever I'm working on.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on April 28, 2016, 07:14:51 pm
One counterexample to your claim that I always run into is how much more difficult it is to type the most common special characters on Windows. I have to memorize a special 4-digit code for each one. On Mac, option-command-hyphen is an em-dash, option-8 is a bullet point, etc.
Dude, I just google for a word that has an n with a tilde, and paste it into whatever I'm working on.

I still do that for e.g. the multiplication sign.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: navical on April 28, 2016, 08:16:26 pm
For the multiplication sign you just type $\times$.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: blueblimp on April 28, 2016, 10:09:18 pm
I don't get how this thread became people hating on OS X, but ok. I use OS X primarily and Windows secondarily, and the app launching is nearly identical on both (cmd-space then type name in OS X; windows button then type name in Windows).

One significant objective advantage of the OS X GUI for me is that because the copy-paste shortcuts use cmd instead of ctrl, they don't interfere with the use of ctrl in Unix-originating apps like a Bash terminal and gVim. So on OS X I can use the normal cmd-c/cmd-v to copy-paste between gVim and other programs, while on Windows I have to use "+y/"+p, which is kinda nasty. (I think it's possible to change them to ctrl-c/ctrl-v, but then you'd lose the use of ctrl-v for block selection, which is super handy.)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: kn1tt3r on April 29, 2016, 02:35:56 am
3.  Ability to select "timed game" as an option.  One way to implement a "timed game" would be to enable the players to set a base time (i.e, 5 minutes, whatever), and an increment (i.e., 2 seconds).  Each player starts with the base time, and during his or her turn, it ticks down, while being increased by the increment with every action taken.  So the opponents' base time is the "dead time" I'm willing to invest in the game, since the increments offset the time spent by the opponent actually playing and taking action.  Players could even set separate (personal) base times and increments (perhaps as a profile setting), and the matching feature could enable the ability to accept only opponents meeting a chosen threshold for base time / increment.  In this way, players could be operating with different starting "base and increment" times, while all players are satisfied with the timing setting.

In my oppinion a timer should not be a standard feature for Dominion. It can be something like a special add-on, but the way Dominion is designed doesn't really fit a timer.
I think a lot of you are a bit influenced by chess, where timers work great since every move (not the thinking about it, but the move itself) takes almost the exact same amount of time. In Dominion, however, the difference between resolving Smithy and Scrying Pool can be huge. This means (and you've seen this with the Blitz feature in the MMF mod) that a timer greatly influences the strength of certain cards and the viability of certain strategies, which is not really the point of a timer.

Well, the idea is that *every* action you take during your turn would trigger the increment.  So every time you play Scrying Pool on your turn, you trigger the increment.  Every time you play Smithy, you trigger the increment.  This way, it does not matter which cards are in the kingdom; it just matters that play proceeds with reasonable flow, even if entire turns vary drastically in terms of their actual length.  Both a quick Smithy turn and a lengthy Scrying Pool turn would result in (approximately) the same time remaining in the bank, if the player plays both turns with the same pace.
Your turn:
Play Cartographer (+5 seconds), draw card, look at top 4 cards, decide which to discard, rearrange the rest (takes 8 seconds)
Play Scrying Pool (+5 seconds), decide on opponent's card, decide on own card, draw a shitload of cards (takes 5 seconds)
Net: -3 seconds

My turn:
Play Village (+5 seconds), draw card (takes 1 second)
Play Smithy (+5 seconds), draw 3 cards (takes 1 second)
Net: +8 seconds

This is remedied by having *every decision acted upon* trigger the increment, as I've been trying to suggest.  (I think I've not been as clear as I should have been.)  When you make the decision on the 4 cards for Cartographer, that is 4 triggers of the increment.  Scrying Pool triggers it 3 times: when you play the card, when you decide about your top card, and when you decide about your opponents' top card.
Ok, that could work. But you'd have to define what exactly a decision is. Each single card you can discard with Cartographer, or the discarding as a whole? Each card you put back on top individually or the putting back in total?
The answers to most of those questions are probably trivial (of course you don't count each card you trash with Chapel individually), but it has to be done.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: pst on April 29, 2016, 05:25:01 am
For the multiplication sign you just type $\times$.

I type C-x 8 x because I use Emacs and am therefore superior to you all.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: phoenix9797 on April 29, 2016, 03:25:23 pm
3.  Ability to select "timed game" as an option.  One way to implement a "timed game" would be to enable the players to set a base time (i.e, 5 minutes, whatever), and an increment (i.e., 2 seconds).  Each player starts with the base time, and during his or her turn, it ticks down, while being increased by the increment with every action taken.  So the opponents' base time is the "dead time" I'm willing to invest in the game, since the increments offset the time spent by the opponent actually playing and taking action.  Players could even set separate (personal) base times and increments (perhaps as a profile setting), and the matching feature could enable the ability to accept only opponents meeting a chosen threshold for base time / increment.  In this way, players could be operating with different starting "base and increment" times, while all players are satisfied with the timing setting.

In my oppinion a timer should not be a standard feature for Dominion. It can be something like a special add-on, but the way Dominion is designed doesn't really fit a timer.
I think a lot of you are a bit influenced by chess, where timers work great since every move (not the thinking about it, but the move itself) takes almost the exact same amount of time. In Dominion, however, the difference between resolving Smithy and Scrying Pool can be huge. This means (and you've seen this with the Blitz feature in the MMF mod) that a timer greatly influences the strength of certain cards and the viability of certain strategies, which is not really the point of a timer.

Well, the idea is that *every* action you take during your turn would trigger the increment.  So every time you play Scrying Pool on your turn, you trigger the increment.  Every time you play Smithy, you trigger the increment.  This way, it does not matter which cards are in the kingdom; it just matters that play proceeds with reasonable flow, even if entire turns vary drastically in terms of their actual length.  Both a quick Smithy turn and a lengthy Scrying Pool turn would result in (approximately) the same time remaining in the bank, if the player plays both turns with the same pace.
Your turn:
Play Cartographer (+5 seconds), draw card, look at top 4 cards, decide which to discard, rearrange the rest (takes 8 seconds)
Play Scrying Pool (+5 seconds), decide on opponent's card, decide on own card, draw a shitload of cards (takes 5 seconds)
Net: -3 seconds

My turn:
Play Village (+5 seconds), draw card (takes 1 second)
Play Smithy (+5 seconds), draw 3 cards (takes 1 second)
Net: +8 seconds

This is remedied by having *every decision acted upon* trigger the increment, as I've been trying to suggest.  (I think I've not been as clear as I should have been.)  When you make the decision on the 4 cards for Cartographer, that is 4 triggers of the increment.  Scrying Pool triggers it 3 times: when you play the card, when you decide about your top card, and when you decide about your opponents' top card.
Ok, that could work. But you'd have to define what exactly a decision is. Each single card you can discard with Cartographer, or the discarding as a whole? Each card you put back on top individually or the putting back in total?
The answers to most of those questions are probably trivial (of course you don't count each card you trash with Chapel individually), but it has to be done.

Generally, I'd say "individually" for basically all of the possibilities you would ask me.  The reason, again, is that I'm not trying to make timing a way to win a game; I'm just trying to make sure that the game proceeds, and all the possibilities you'd ask me would be possibilities where the game is proceeding.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: florrat on April 30, 2016, 01:11:50 pm
For the multiplication sign you just type $\times$.

I type C-x 8 x because I use Emacs and am therefore superior to you all.
My input method for Emacs allows me to type \x. I win :)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: tufftaeh on April 30, 2016, 02:45:25 pm
Back to topic:
My most wanted feature is the big red cross across a card to be trashed by Jack or discarded by Hamlet (as suggested by Donald) - or an undo option for situations like this.
I admit there are really horrible things in the MF UI, e.g. the Scheme interface, but these haven't affected me as often as stupid misclicks trashing/discarding my next action to be played.
The online version does certainly have many advantages over IRL play, but it should also avoid to add pitfalls which could never happen IRL.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Accatitippi on April 30, 2016, 02:49:14 pm
Back to topic:
My most wanted feature is the big red cross across a card to be trashed by Jack or discarded by Hamlet (as suggested by Donald) - or an undo option for situations like this.
I admit there are really horrible things in the MF UI, e.g. the Scheme interface, but these haven't affected me as often as stupid misclicks trashing/discarding my next action to be played.
The online version does certainly have many advantages over IRL play, but it should also avoid to add pitfalls which could never happen IRL.

I find that the red burning border works well enough that I never trash by mistake, but the yellow discard one has tricked me a good few times, in particular when using Vault or Hamlet.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: tufftaeh on April 30, 2016, 02:56:22 pm
Maybe I'm not sufficiently receptive for colors. I would like to have "trash"/"discard" look really different from "play", i.e. not only a differently colored border.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: rspeer on April 30, 2016, 03:36:21 pm
I think that -- like on Isotropic -- trashing should be a different *interface*, not just a different appearance of the same interface you use for playing cards.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Kirian on April 30, 2016, 03:47:04 pm
Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.

If your opponent doesn't have an SSD, that's his fault.

Yeah, on the same note, I don't understand the people complaining about overheating when running Making Fun.

Get a new computer, guys.

I use a computer from 2014. Making Fun sucks up like 99% of the processing power. It's incredible how poorly the app was made.

Um... 2014 is only two years ago.  My computer is from late 2011, and runs MF just fine.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on April 30, 2016, 03:48:10 pm
Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.

If your opponent doesn't have an SSD, that's his fault.

Yeah, on the same note, I don't understand the people complaining about overheating when running Making Fun.

Get a new computer, guys.

I use a computer from 2014. Making Fun sucks up like 99% of the processing power. It's incredible how poorly the app was made.

Um... 2014 is only two years ago.  My computer is from late 2011, and runs MF just fine.

Is your computer a Mac though?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Kirian on April 30, 2016, 03:56:25 pm
Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.

If your opponent doesn't have an SSD, that's his fault.

Yeah, on the same note, I don't understand the people complaining about overheating when running Making Fun.

Get a new computer, guys.

I use a computer from 2014. Making Fun sucks up like 99% of the processing power. It's incredible how poorly the app was made.

Um... 2014 is only two years ago.  My computer is from late 2011, and runs MF just fine.

Is your computer a Mac though?

No, it's a Windows machine.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on April 30, 2016, 04:08:21 pm
Thirty seconds is extremely harsh. There should be enough time to return to your game after a computer crash.

If your opponent doesn't have an SSD, that's his fault.

Yeah, on the same note, I don't understand the people complaining about overheating when running Making Fun.

Get a new computer, guys.

I use a computer from 2014. Making Fun sucks up like 99% of the processing power. It's incredible how poorly the app was made.

Um... 2014 is only two years ago.  My computer is from late 2011, and runs MF just fine.

Is your computer a Mac though?

No, it's a Windows machine.

Well, then I see the pattern here!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on April 30, 2016, 04:11:02 pm
I think it's more that MF doesn't write good efficient code for the Mac version. Maybe Unity doesn't run as well on Macs. If someone could write good code for a Mac version but can't for Windows, it would be the same thing but the other way around.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on April 30, 2016, 10:03:30 pm
Is your computer a Mac though?

No, it's a Windows machine.

Well, then I see the pattern here!

My 2013 Mac laptop runs the current version of MF Dominion with no issues at all. Previous versions caused it to heat up a lot, but I believe they've optimized the code.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Deadlock39 on May 02, 2016, 09:39:15 am
I think it's more that MF doesn't write good efficient code for the Mac version.
FTFY
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: dedicateddan on May 02, 2016, 04:18:08 pm
An interface for custom-designed AI would be cool
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: faust on May 04, 2016, 10:37:06 am
Some things I'd like to see that haven't been mentioned here and I don't remember from the other thread:

- some way to easily access data from all the logs, so that we can have some councilroom-style site.
- "replay" mode for logs, where you can choose a log and get an automated replay of the game for you to watch.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: E.Honda on May 04, 2016, 12:48:36 pm
- "replay" mode for logs, where you can choose a log and get an automated replay of the game for you to watch.

+1 this! Reading logs even with the log prettyfier feels so prehistoric
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: bardo on May 04, 2016, 01:47:44 pm
a couple of remote possibilities:

Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on May 04, 2016, 03:47:39 pm
a couple of remote possibilities:

  • an option to define the nature of your resignation. I often have to end a game to tend to a waking child or something of that sort. If I could mark them as 1)resigned in lieu of loss or conceded, 2) resigned for unrelated reasons and 3) maybe another option, then at the least I could filter them when I search my own game logs. Or, possibly I could see different ratings for different types of games. Obviously, from an official standpoint, they would all count the same, but at least I could see the distinction.
  • somewhat relatedly, maybe there could be an option for aliases. So all my games are rated under Main Name, but I can choose to play under Alias 1 or Alias 2, and they would be rated independently. (Possibly I use one when I'm seriously playing and another when casual). Or maybe just rated and unrated does the trick here

I really need a "playing dominion while intoxicated" alias tbh
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: E.Honda on May 04, 2016, 06:28:20 pm
a couple of remote possibilities:

  • an option to define the nature of your resignation. I often have to end a game to tend to a waking child or something of that sort. If I could mark them as 1)resigned in lieu of loss or conceded, 2) resigned for unrelated reasons and 3) maybe another option, then at the least I could filter them when I search my own game logs. Or, possibly I could see different ratings for different types of games. Obviously, from an official standpoint, they would all count the same, but at least I could see the distinction.
  • somewhat relatedly, maybe there could be an option for aliases. So all my games are rated under Main Name, but I can choose to play under Alias 1 or Alias 2, and they would be rated independently. (Possibly I use one when I'm seriously playing and another when casual). Or maybe just rated and unrated does the trick here

I really need a "playing dominion while intoxicated" alias tbh

There already are My Drunk Account and My Tired Account
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Infthitbox on May 06, 2016, 10:37:27 am
With regard to game logs:

Are you going to have an official game log searching interface and all that jazz, or will you be delegating that bit to the community (like previous implementations)? I assume that the click-to-resume-from-point-in-time game logs means there'd be a way to recover them, but will you also be providing a full suite of gokosalvager-esque capabilities?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: scotty2hotty on May 09, 2016, 09:44:21 pm
In-game animated GIF avatars
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: yed on May 10, 2016, 05:50:23 am
In-game animated GIF avatars
No animations please!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Joseph2302 on May 10, 2016, 06:26:19 am
In-game animated GIF avatars
No animations please!
Strongly disagree.
Lots of animations, and especially sparkles- they're the best! Making Fun doesn't have enough animation, and that's the main thing putting me off their product.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Hugovj on May 10, 2016, 09:25:06 am
In-game animated GIF avatars
No animations please!
Strongly disagree.
Lots of animations, and especially sparkles- they're the best! Making Fun doesn't have enough animation, and that's the main thing putting me off their product.

Also, dancing unicorns. And rainbows :D
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on May 10, 2016, 09:39:52 am
In-game animated GIF avatars
No animations please!

I concur. I want avatars, but I don't think I want GIFs.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: werothegreat on May 10, 2016, 10:01:50 am
Avatars should just be card art.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: yed on May 10, 2016, 10:30:52 am
In-game animated GIF avatars
No animations please!
Strongly disagree.
Lots of animations, and especially sparkles- they're the best! Making Fun doesn't have enough animation, and that's the main thing putting me off their product.
I meant no animations in user avatars.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on May 10, 2016, 10:45:08 am
Avatars should just be card art.

Nah. I think it should be whatever people want, within reasonable limits (like no pornography or whatever). It's classy when WW has his classic Death Star avatar, or when I had my Mario avatar back in the day (I wouldn't use it now, I'd probably use Card Art), but you get my point.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on May 10, 2016, 10:58:19 am
Avatars should just be card art.

Nah. I think it should be whatever people want, within reasonable limits (like no pornography or whatever). It's classy when WW has his classic Death Star avatar, or when I had my Mario avatar back in the day (I wouldn't use it now, I'd probably use Card Art), but you get my point.

Yeah, I would really want my Dismemberment Plan album cover art instead of just something that's already in the game. Everyone else does card art already, and it's not bad, but custom avatars are nice. If for whatever reason there can't be custom avatars, then yeah we should use card art instead of the shitty MF / Goko people
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on May 10, 2016, 11:06:05 am
Why not have card arts as free avatars and let people buy a custom avatar for a few dollars?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on May 10, 2016, 11:09:30 am
(http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/useravs/avatar_2342_1378256076.png)

This was just such a bad idea. Why did Making Fun include it in the game...? They got so lazy, and just copied the code instead of writing new code... Like, why, guys? Why? I'd want to rewrite the code from scratch. Goko's implementation was Stage 42 cancer.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on May 10, 2016, 11:37:28 am
Avatars should just be card art.

Nah. I think it should be whatever people want, within reasonable limits (like no pornography or whatever). It's classy when WW has his classic Death Star avatar, or when I had my Mario avatar back in the day (I wouldn't use it now, I'd probably use Card Art), but you get my point.

Letting people use whatever they want necessitates some sort of feedback and moderation system to review and remove offensive avatars. That doesn't mean you can't do it, but it's extra (ongoing) work that doesn't directly contribute to the product.

I'd rather have a built-in tool that lets users choose and crop card art.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Witherweaver on May 13, 2016, 09:55:05 am
This should be posted in the proper channel, regarding Enchantress:

I hereby require that the new Online version change the affected card's art to a pig.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: michaeljb on May 14, 2016, 02:02:48 pm
Here's a low-priority idea that could be fun: a "puzzle" mode where people can try out/verify their solutions to puzzles.

Some important features for such a mode (probably obvious, but whatever):

* change the number of players
* toggle whether it's a "perfect shuffle luck" puzzle (ie have the computer shuffle, or set the order yourself on each shuffle)
* set the use of Colonies+Platinum/Shelters/Events/Landmarks outside of the recommended setup rules

For things like the infinite loop puzzle, you'd want to be able to add lines to the log describing key pieces of the state; eg once you have the hand you need, you'd dump the contents of your hand/the trash/your current buys and coins, then once you've executed the loop you'd dump the same stuff again, showing you increased your buys and coins, and the same cards are ready for you to do it again.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LibraryAdventurer on May 18, 2016, 02:19:40 am
My only high-priority request that hasn't been mentioned is a kingdom chooser which can choose random while excluding certain cards (like you could do with Goko Salvager).
It's fine if it's casual-only.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SkyHard on May 18, 2016, 06:19:41 am
It would be cool to have an interface for the bots so that interested people (like me  ::) - it's Java right?) could create their own bots. :-*
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on May 18, 2016, 04:05:05 pm
I'd enjoy a mode where 3 or 5 kingdoms are listed, and players strike ones they don't want to play on, and then they play whatever kingdom is left.  I think that wouldn't be too hard? Anyway, some version of isotropic's veto mode seems worth the effort, seems reasonably low effort high reward, although I didn't like how that veto mode was implemented exactly because it was a bit surgical.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: JW on May 18, 2016, 04:08:46 pm
It would be great if there's a button that pulls up the FAQ for all of the cards being used in the current game.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on May 18, 2016, 06:15:42 pm
Ability to trash all your yellow cards at any point in the game for free.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Beyond Awesome on May 18, 2016, 06:19:05 pm
Ability to trash all your yellow cards at any point in the game for free.

Considering SCSN is involved making this, we might see that come true.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on May 18, 2016, 06:57:04 pm
It would be great if there's a button that pulls up the FAQ for all of the cards being used in the current game.

Man, I can't see Stef or SCSN doing this, and adding all the bells and whistles people want too. There's a point where it should be enough.

I think custom avatars, a good workable interface, and rooms for matchmaking are all we really need. Tournament stuff and everything else can be added as needed later.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SCSN on May 19, 2016, 04:38:20 am
Ability to trash all your yellow cards at any point in the game for free.

Who said there will be yellow cards at all? ;)

It would be great if there's a button that pulls up the FAQ for all of the cards being used in the current game.

Man, I can't see Stef or SCSN doing this, and adding all the bells and whistles people want too. There's a point where it should be enough.

We surely won't implement everything that gets suggested, but since reading suggestions takes very little time, I'd say: keep them coming!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on May 19, 2016, 04:43:33 am
I think custom avatars, a good workable interface, and rooms for matchmaking are all we really need. Tournament stuff and everything else can be added as needed later.

I still think that custom avatars shouldn't be possible at all, or at most something that you can purchase for actual money and/or win as a reward for tournaments and stuff, because if everyone has a custom avatar, things can get out of hand super easily, especially when it's a small company handling everything.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on May 19, 2016, 08:00:21 am
I think custom avatars, a good workable interface, and rooms for matchmaking are all we really need. Tournament stuff and everything else can be added as needed later.

I still think that custom avatars shouldn't be possible at all, or at most something that you can purchase for actual money and/or win as a reward for tournaments and stuff, because if everyone has a custom avatar, things can get out of hand super easily, especially when it's a small company handling everything.

The world didn't seem to burn down when Salvager supported this feature. There will be some spam and some bad avatars, but a Report button and a half dozen volunteer mods and the problem is mitigated.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on May 19, 2016, 08:47:20 am
The world didn't seem to burn down when Salvager supported this feature. There will be some spam and some bad avatars, but a Report button and a half dozen volunteer mods and the problem is mitigated.

Most people didn't have Salvager.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: wachsmuth on May 19, 2016, 09:41:44 am
Desktop or push notifications, such as those Steam or Lichess.org use. When the Dominion client is minimized, I still want to be notified if someone challenges me to a game or if it's my turn. Currently, you have to periodically check back on the client if you want to be notified of it, which means that many times people have sent me challenges that I haven't responded to.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: werothegreat on May 19, 2016, 09:29:04 pm
Desktop or push notifications, such as those Steam or Lichess.org use. When the Dominion client is minimized, I still want to be notified if someone challenges me to a game or if it's my turn. Currently, you have to periodically check back on the client if you want to be notified of it, which means that many times people have sent me challenges that I haven't responded to.

It actually does make noise when that happens.  But no one has the sound on in MF's client.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on May 20, 2016, 04:32:07 pm
After playing a game against someone who used every curse word he knew and directed them towards me for the crime of getting super lucky in a Scrying Pool mirror (by not buying treasure on a Fishing Village board, derp), I kinda don't feel like custom-avatars-or-not will be difference on whether users will be capable of being abusive towards other users in some way, so might as well enable them if you're not going to go 100% Hearthstone and disable chat also.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: enfynet on May 20, 2016, 04:51:01 pm
Or you could use filters so you can't discuss strategies behind ambbuttador.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on May 20, 2016, 05:47:28 pm
After playing a game against someone who used every curse word he knew and directed them towards me for the crime of getting super lucky in a Scrying Pool mirror (by not buying treasure on a Fishing Village board, derp), I kinda don't feel like custom-avatars-or-not will be difference on whether users will be capable of being abusive towards other users in some way, so might as well enable them if you're not going to go 100% Hearthstone and disable chat also.
At least you can't put images in chat.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: michaeljb on May 22, 2016, 01:18:45 pm
(2p games only) When one player has achieved guaranteed victory by having more than half of the available VP, maybe display a message to the losing player and make the resign button more prominent for them?

Obviously there are a lot of kingdoms where it's not as simple as "I have half of the printed VP in the Supply, my victory is guaranteed" but sometimes the game does get to a state like that, the trailing player doesn't know they have no mathematical chance, and the player in the lead needs to take a few turns to empty 3 piles, or hit $8 a couple more times, or whatever. At that point, there is nothing interesting for either player to do, so it'd be in both players' interest to end the game now.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Watno on May 22, 2016, 01:23:44 pm
After playing a game against someone who used every curse word he knew and directed them towards me for the crime of getting super lucky in a Scrying Pool mirror (by not buying treasure on a Fishing Village board, derp), I kinda don't feel like custom-avatars-or-not will be difference on whether users will be capable of being abusive towards other users in some way, so might as well enable them if you're not going to go 100% Hearthstone and disable chat also.
At least you can't put images in chat.

.............................................____, ,,---~`\,.............. .................................................. .........
................................,,,_.,-~"* . . . . . . . . ."\,.............................................. ...........................
.............................,/` . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "\, .................................................. ....................
......................... ,/. . . . : : : : : :::: :::: :: : : : : :\?-,...................... ...........................................
....................... ./. . . .: . :: : : :::: :::: :::: :::: : ::: ?-, ................. ..............................................
......................,/ . . . : . :: ::: :: : : :: :::: :::: :: : : : :: ?-, ............... ............................................
...................,-/? : :: :: :: :: :: : : : : : : : :: : : :::: :::: ::::::?;............... ...........................................
......... *""\'''~~~~-______________________,,,,,,,,,,,,----~""""""""`/""*........................................
............ \,/\,/'\,,/"\,,/""\,..,/""\,..,/""\,..,/""\,..,/""\,..,/"\,/"\,/"\,/"\.,-"-/...............................................
.............."~~-,,_____,,,,__________,,,,,,,,_____________,,,,---~"............................................. ..
?????..,-?? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; _,,_ ; ; ;??-,?????????????..
????..,-?? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;,-??_ ??-,\ ; ; ; ; ?,????????:|?????
????,? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;,,-~?????~-,, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?-?;;;?, : :||; ; ; ; ; ?,????????????.
???.,-? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;,-?/ :,-~??~, : ?,, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?-,-? : // ; ; ; ; ; ;?,???????????..
??..,-? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?,| : ?-,;;;;,-? : /? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ????? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ?-,???????????
??.,? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;??-,,___,,-~? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;??~,, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?-,??????????.
??.| ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;-,;;?, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?-??????????.
??,? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;-;;;;| ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; |??????????
??| ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ,,-?,;;;;|??-~ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ?,??????????
......| ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;---,,,,,,,_,,,,-~??, ?-,;;;| ,,-? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?,?????????.
??| ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;???~-,,,_ , , , , , , ?,;,?,? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;\?????????.
??| ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;??-,~-,, , ,,??,? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?,?????????
???, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ??-,,???;;;;| ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?,?????????
??.| ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;??-,_,? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ?,?????????
??.?, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?,????????..
??..?, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; \????????.
???\ ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ?,????????
???.?, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;|????????
???..| ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?-,???????.
???..?, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ,,--~~--,, ; ; ; ; ;,--------,, ; ,--~, ; ; ,,-~, ; ;,--,,;,,-~~-,, ; ; ; ; ; ;?,??????..
????| ; ; ; ; ; ; ,-?? . ,,--,, . ?-, ; ; ; ;| . ,-,, . ?, | . . | ; ;?-, . .\,,/ . ./?-,,--, . ?, ; ; ; ; ; ; ?-,??????
????| ; ; ; ; ; ; | . .,? ; ; ;?, . .| ; ; ; | . .?-? . ,-? | . . | ; ; ; ?-, . . .,-? ; ;,-? . ,-? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ?-,?????.
?????, ; ; ; ; ; ;?, . ?-,__,-? . ,? ; ; ; | . .|\ . .\ . | . . |___ ; ;} . . / ; ; ;?----? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?-,????.
????.| ; ; ; ; ; ; ;?-,,_ . ._,,-? ; ; ; ; |__| .\__\ ;|_____/ ; ;/__/ ; ; ; ; (?) ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ?-,????
??.......?, ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;? ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ?-,???
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Joseph2302 on May 24, 2016, 07:52:46 am
Just to check, when are the sparkliness of the animations going to be revealed to the public?
It's the thing I'm most looking forward to in this implementation- Goko/Making Fun didn't have enough.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: ravi on May 31, 2016, 05:36:31 am
If the "Play All Treasures" Button does not actually play all your treasures, I think it should say so on the button very clearly. Maybe some type of color change or something. This was quite annoying: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15565.0

Alternatively there could actually be a "Play All Treasures Button" with a cautious Treasures button in the normal place, but this one somewhere else. Sometimes I just want to play all my treasures including all alternate treasures.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Accatitippi on May 31, 2016, 08:54:03 am
I would happily do without a "play all treasures" button in games involving Grand Market, Mint, Mandarin, Counterfeit &Co., if I were given an option.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: singletee on May 31, 2016, 09:06:12 am
If the "Play All Treasures" Button does not actually play all your treasures, I think it should say so on the button very clearly. Maybe some type of color change or something. This was quite annoying: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15565.0

Alternatively there could actually be a "Play All Treasures Button" with a cautious Treasures button in the normal place, but this one somewhere else. Sometimes I just want to play all my treasures including all alternate treasures.

Another solution I see for this would be to require the player to click on a Begin Buying button before starting to buy anything. This would also prevent stuff like that example you noted in the other thread about Swindling the opponent's Estate, as well as cases of buying Borrow before playing your treasures.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: ravi on May 31, 2016, 09:49:00 am
If the "Play All Treasures" Button does not actually play all your treasures, I think it should say so on the button very clearly. Maybe some type of color change or something. This was quite annoying: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15565.0

Alternatively there could actually be a "Play All Treasures Button" with a cautious Treasures button in the normal place, but this one somewhere else. Sometimes I just want to play all my treasures including all alternate treasures.

Another solution I see for this would be to require the player to click on a Begin Buying button before starting to buy anything. This would also prevent stuff like that example you noted in the other thread about Swindling the opponent's Estate, as well as cases of buying Borrow before playing your treasures.

I think the simpler solution is to have the '+' button on swindler be a different color than the '+' button when you gain cards yourself. In fact you could have a different color for gaining, buying, and sending cards to your opponent. (not sure how many other mechanics I'm missing that are unique here, so there may not be enough colors for all of them).
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: wachsmuth on May 31, 2016, 09:58:39 am
If the "Play All Treasures" Button does not actually play all your treasures, I think it should say so on the button very clearly. Maybe some type of color change or something. This was quite annoying: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15565.0

Alternatively there could actually be a "Play All Treasures Button" with a cautious Treasures button in the normal place, but this one somewhere else. Sometimes I just want to play all my treasures including all alternate treasures.

Another solution I see for this would be to require the player to click on a Begin Buying button before starting to buy anything. This would also prevent stuff like that example you noted in the other thread about Swindling the opponent's Estate, as well as cases of buying Borrow before playing your treasures.

I think the simpler solution is to have the '+' button on swindler be a different color than the '+' button when you gain cards yourself. In fact you could have a different color for gaining, buying, and sending cards to your opponent. (not sure how many other mechanics I'm missing that are unique here, so there may not be enough colors for all of them).

There's also Contraband, Embargo, placing tokens (Teacher, Pathfinding, Seaway, Lost Arts, Training, Ferry, Plan), Inheritance and probably more.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: ravi on May 31, 2016, 10:32:49 am
If the "Play All Treasures" Button does not actually play all your treasures, I think it should say so on the button very clearly. Maybe some type of color change or something. This was quite annoying: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15565.0

Alternatively there could actually be a "Play All Treasures Button" with a cautious Treasures button in the normal place, but this one somewhere else. Sometimes I just want to play all my treasures including all alternate treasures.

Another solution I see for this would be to require the player to click on a Begin Buying button before starting to buy anything. This would also prevent stuff like that example you noted in the other thread about Swindling the opponent's Estate, as well as cases of buying Borrow before playing your treasures.

I think the simpler solution is to have the '+' button on swindler be a different color than the '+' button when you gain cards yourself. In fact you could have a different color for gaining, buying, and sending cards to your opponent. (not sure how many other mechanics I'm missing that are unique here, so there may not be enough colors for all of them).

There's also Contraband, Embargo, placing tokens (Teacher, Pathfinding, Seaway, Lost Arts, Training, Ferry, Plan), Inheritance and probably more.

Hmm for those, the icon shouldn't even have a '+', in my opinion, since you aren't adding the card to a deck. Maybe for the tokens, little tokens could be on each pile and you click on the token to add it there. For contraband, you could have a red 'x' instead of a '+' or something like that.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on May 31, 2016, 11:07:49 pm
The ability to test fan made cards would be nice.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on May 31, 2016, 11:14:57 pm
I still don't understand why in the title, "features" is in quotes, like the author of the thread was so disillusioned with Dominion applications that he just assumed that all of this fancy wishing would never come to pass.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: drsteelhammer on June 01, 2016, 07:31:16 pm
Have you talked about/decided how you determine how many events/landmarks will be used when generating random Kingdoms? As in, will you stick to what Donald recommended or will it be random?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: JW on June 01, 2016, 07:42:52 pm
Having the option to continue a won-by-resignation game vs. AI. For 3+ player games, this is particularly important. One possibility is to add the bot closest in skill level to the resigned player.

Choosing to play it out against the AI shouldn't negate your victory against the player who resigned. How scoring should work in 3+ player games is more complicated (does the played-out with AI game matter in determining the place of the continuing players relative to each other? Seems fine to me that it does).

Obv. ideally you have the option of continuing a won-by-resignation game vs. AI.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 01, 2016, 07:59:51 pm
If someone resigns online 1v1, I don't think I'd want to continue play, as it's just an AI. I can see this becoming more of an issue in multiplayer though.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: pacovf on June 02, 2016, 12:35:23 am
So, you know, now that you have your very own version of Dominion online...

This is fantastic. Much more please!

If there's even the slightest chance that MF would implement these cards for April Fool's day 2016, I'd be looking forward to it all year.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SCSN on June 02, 2016, 03:50:34 am
Have you talked about/decided how you determine how many events/landmarks will be used when generating random Kingdoms? As in, will you stick to what Donald recommended or will it be random?

AFAIK Donald's recommendation is random? It just doesn't lead to a uniform distribution and can't produce numbers greater than 2. We'll probably stick to that for rated games, maybe something like 3-4 max for all publicly enterable games (you don't want someone tricking unsuspecting players into nonsense games), and however many you want in solitaire and games vs. friends and bots. Be aware that I'm not going to promise a nice UI for the "however many you want" version.

Having the option to continue a won-by-resignation game vs. AI. For 3+ player games, this is particularly important. One possibility is to add the bot closest in skill level to the resigned player.

We'll have this.

If someone resigns online 1v1, I don't think I'd want to continue play, as it's just an AI.

Optionality is an option's defining characteristic. And for sure you'd keep the win regardless of your result against the bot.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: RevanFan on June 02, 2016, 04:43:45 am
I would personally go with up to 4 events/landmarks per game, any combination of which would be allowed. In my own gaming, I never use more than 3 events at a time, but I actually quite prefer 3 to the recommended 2.

EDIT: Also, will people who get the online subscription still be allowed to play against bots online? I ask because most of my online Dominion is with my family and friends, but I sometimes play with bots to test strategies.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Orange on June 06, 2016, 11:03:51 am
I haven't read the thread; apologies if this is redundant.  While there are a lot of things we'd like to see that we don't currently have, I'd say there are a few in MF that I hope don't disappear.  For what it's worth:

Colors to match card types in the game log
Subtle change from black to green font when prices are reduced via Bridge or the like
Various colors (or some other way) to highlight whether you are choosing a card to play, to discard, to topdeck, to pass, or to trash
Appropriate colors anywhere it makes sense, like the green (victory) background on the score counter
The Province sound--I like the audible reminder that my opponent just got one
The quick midscreen display of the card being gained
The recap/scoring screen

I'm sure most of these are already considered and probably interpreted and built differently than MF.  I just didn't want anything useful to fall through the cracks.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on June 06, 2016, 12:00:28 pm
I haven't read the thread; apologies if this is redundant.  While there are a lot of things we'd like to see that we don't currently have, I'd say there are a few in MF that I hope don't disappear.  For what it's worth:

Colors to match card types in the game log
Subtle change from black to green font when prices are reduced via Bridge or the like
Various colors (or some other way) to highlight whether you are choosing a card to play, to discard, to topdeck, to pass, or to trash
Appropriate colors anywhere it makes sense, like the green (victory) background on the score counter
The Province sound--I like the audible reminder that my opponent just got one
The quick midscreen display of the card being gained
The recap/scoring screen

I'm sure most of these are already considered and probably interpreted and built differently than MF.  I just didn't want anything useful to fall through the cracks.

Building on this, I like a lot of the design decisions MF made for Adventures, including the Swamp Hag and Haunted Woods "tokens" and the fact that the little buy plus-sign turns orange to remind you that buying a card will hit you with an attack.

One thing they don't have that I think would be great is some sort of easily visible effect when another player buys an Event. For those of us who don't like to keep our log open, it would be nice to be clearly shown when another player buys e.g. Pilgrimage.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on June 06, 2016, 04:09:44 pm
(2p games only) When one player has achieved guaranteed victory by having more than half of the available VP, maybe display a message to the losing player and make the resign button more prominent for them?

Obviously there are a lot of kingdoms where it's not as simple as "I have half of the printed VP in the Supply, my victory is guaranteed" but sometimes the game does get to a state like that, the trailing player doesn't know they have no mathematical chance, and the player in the lead needs to take a few turns to empty 3 piles, or hit $8 a couple more times, or whatever. At that point, there is nothing interesting for either player to do, so it'd be in both players' interest to end the game now.

There's this early phase in your Dominion experience where you're kind of taking a Timmy approach to the game, just kind of seeing how good of a deck you can build, and not worrying super hard about whether games are technically winnable.  I would hate for this feature to put a damper on early Dominion experiences - it could be frustrating to have the resign button glow right as the final Village that really makes your engine start Provincing each turn gets into your deck, while you are still practicing building your first few engines.

The implementation I would prefer is that the VP total for the player who has the victorious amount of points glows, without any indication of what that means.

In games without the point tracker, the feature seems inappropriate anyway.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: markus on June 07, 2016, 05:23:15 am
It would be good to simply be able to make that resign button glow for the other player to show them that you're happy, if they resign.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Burning Skull on June 07, 2016, 07:52:31 am
It would be good to simply be able to make that resign button glow for the other player to show them that you're happy, if they resign.


gl hf resign please?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on June 07, 2016, 08:50:05 am
You should test updates on all clients before releasing them.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: markus on June 07, 2016, 09:10:05 am
It would be good to simply be able to make that resign button glow for the other player to show them that you're happy, if they resign.


gl hf resign please?
In the current client, using the chat is not really convenient  ;)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: michaeljb on June 07, 2016, 02:07:09 pm
(2p games only) When one player has achieved guaranteed victory by having more than half of the available VP, maybe display a message to the losing player and make the resign button more prominent for them?

Obviously there are a lot of kingdoms where it's not as simple as "I have half of the printed VP in the Supply, my victory is guaranteed" but sometimes the game does get to a state like that, the trailing player doesn't know they have no mathematical chance, and the player in the lead needs to take a few turns to empty 3 piles, or hit $8 a couple more times, or whatever. At that point, there is nothing interesting for either player to do, so it'd be in both players' interest to end the game now.

There's this early phase in your Dominion experience where you're kind of taking a Timmy approach to the game, just kind of seeing how good of a deck you can build, and not worrying super hard about whether games are technically winnable.  I would hate for this feature to put a damper on early Dominion experiences - it could be frustrating to have the resign button glow right as the final Village that really makes your engine start Provincing each turn gets into your deck, while you are still practicing building your first few engines.

The implementation I would prefer is that the VP total for the player who has the victorious amount of points glows, without any indication of what that means.

In games without the point tracker, the feature seems inappropriate anyway.

Definitely would not want this in games without the point tracker.

For me, when a game gets into this state, there are no more interesting decisions and I'd rather get started on the next game.

There have been discussions about players resigning but you still want the fun of playing out your deck, so the player who resigned gets replaced with an AI; maybe instead of encouraging resignation, we could have sort of the inverse of that: you have a guaranteed victory, so you can leave the game to find a new one, while your opponent has the option of playing to the bitter end against an AI.

Maybe that solution is still too unfriendly, and it's true that this situation isn't that common (especially with good matchmaking--assuming there are enough players online to find you an even match), but it is really irritating when it does happen.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on June 07, 2016, 05:45:25 pm
I don't think there's enough demand for a "tlloyd bot" feature in 1v1 games.  Haven't seen that guy himself around anymore.

Once matchmaking is fixed, you're not going to need a feature that coaxes your opponents into resigning when it's impossible for them to win, a subtle indicator that lets them know one player has the majority of all VP is plenty.  If this feature is making your top 5, it's probably because when you play on MakingFun the matchmaking is horrible so you're playing against people way worse than you who are in that Timmy phase, a better matchmaker will keep you away from them for the most part, and I trust the new overlords to handle that.  The important thing is that I don't want the Timmies playing eachother to get this negatively framed message.

EDIT: Rereading your message you said that yourself, oops!  I think we're kind of all on the same page about it with just very slightly differing opinions.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: cactus on June 09, 2016, 08:45:43 am
Pretty sure it has already been requested but I just thought I'd add my voice ...

The one thing I still really miss from isotopic is the miss-click prevention. I can't even remember exactly how it worked on isotopic now after all this time. But I do remember that it was set up so that when would go to trash/discard my best card by accident isotopic would give me a chance to reconsider whether I really wanted to be that stoopid. So form of mis-click protection that works better than MF, if you please!  ;D
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 09, 2016, 09:30:57 am
I wanna be a character you fight in Story mode. Challenger Seprix, Villager Seprix, Seprix the Court Jester, whatever.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Joseph2302 on June 09, 2016, 09:42:34 am
I wanna be a character you fight in Story mode. Challenger Seprix, Villager Seprix, Seprix the Court Jester, whatever.
Ooh, and you could also have RR bot, who has an obsession with buying scouts!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Accatitippi on June 10, 2016, 02:52:45 am
Building your own campaign levels/scenarios would be a very cool - if strictly unnecessary - feature.

Choose starting gamestate, variant rules, ai, and then post your levels for others to enjoy. (it sort of expands the "puzzle mode" feature request somebody else made, with perfect shuffle luck being one of the possible variants)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: JW on June 10, 2016, 05:14:09 pm
It would be great to have a way to offer a draw (as if the game was tied).

Yeah... so I am pretty swayed toward the degenerate case here actually. When you can reach a deck that plays more than 1 Possession a turn without falling super far behind, the goal turns into building this up as quickly as possible and then destroying your own economy. You can destroy your own economy instantly with Donate, and leave your deck in debt so your opponent can't use it. If this is mirrored, the game is locked out and you starve to death.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 10, 2016, 05:17:13 pm
It would be great to have a way to offer a draw (as if the game was tied).

Yeah... so I am pretty swayed toward the degenerate case here actually. When you can reach a deck that plays more than 1 Possession a turn without falling super far behind, the goal turns into building this up as quickly as possible and then destroying your own economy. You can destroy your own economy instantly with Donate, and leave your deck in debt so your opponent can't use it. If this is mirrored, the game is locked out and you starve to death.

Or.... Ban Possession.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: JW on June 10, 2016, 05:23:03 pm
It would be great to have a way to offer a draw (as if the game was tied).

Or.... Ban Possession.

I'd certainly be happy with "veto lists" where cards randomly added to Kingdoms (and the Black Market) don't use cards that all players have on their veto lists. Then hopefully everyone else also wants to veto Possession, Cultist, and Rebuild.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Beyond Awesome on June 10, 2016, 07:30:24 pm
It would be great to have a way to offer a draw (as if the game was tied).

Yeah... so I am pretty swayed toward the degenerate case here actually. When you can reach a deck that plays more than 1 Possession a turn without falling super far behind, the goal turns into building this up as quickly as possible and then destroying your own economy. You can destroy your own economy instantly with Donate, and leave your deck in debt so your opponent can't use it. If this is mirrored, the game is locked out and you starve to death.

Or.... Ban Possession.
I'm not opposed to this
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: markusin on June 10, 2016, 09:32:54 pm
If the new client implements a point counter, I would like for there to somehow be an option to show how many points are the result of Landmarks, unless Landmark points aren't going to be calculated for the point counter until the end of the game. I think cards like Keep, Triumphal Arch, and Orchard will make the source of points on the point counter very ambiguous, and you might not be aware of how a single purchase/gain can result in a massive point swing on the last turn.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: AdrianHealey on June 11, 2016, 08:01:10 am
How about a button that instantly calls Donald on Skype to ask for advice on the current kingdom? Ideally, and reasonably, it should also send the current kingdom immediately to him and the current cards that me and my opponent have for ideal advice.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 11, 2016, 12:52:52 pm
I'd rather have Stef or SCSN on the "Moscow-Washingtonesque" Dominion red phone, but hey, Donald is a nice 3rd place. I'm sure he'd charge $5 a minute though. You know, because they can't all be the best $5-a-minute phone service ever.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Emeric on June 13, 2016, 03:41:09 am
Hi,

I never posted in this forum.
My only hope is to find a good matchmaking and I think you have already all the good ideas for that.
I don't want to see what MF answered me in this thread : http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?10729-Random-is-not-random
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Burning Skull on June 13, 2016, 04:18:20 am
Hi,

I never posted in this forum.

Hi Emeric, and welcome to the forum!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Emeric on June 13, 2016, 05:18:08 am
Hi ;) I would say never in this thread ;) but often in the forum ;)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on June 13, 2016, 03:36:03 pm
I think we don't really know what biased kingdom selection features will look like early on, but I think it's not hard to agree that unilateral kingdom biasing should be removed so I doubt you'll have to put up with it under the new overlords.

Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: feardaram on June 14, 2016, 12:10:59 pm
Registered just to mention the one feature I've been hoping for ever since this new matchmaking mechanism came out: the ability to see who you're matched up with (and their stats) and accept/decline the match prior to starting a game. I've lost count of the number of times I've been put right back into a game with someone I just played who did extreme slow play once they were losing, just generally played slower then I can stand/have time for, or for whatever reason I just don't want to play again (at least right now). This is somewhat similar to a blacklist feature but at times there are players I don't want to get matched with right now but maybe in the future. Having no control over who you get put into a game with is frustrating and should be a basic fix.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SirD on June 14, 2016, 03:12:27 pm
I am very much convinced that the new Dominion client will be wonderful, having seen what SCSN implemented with the MFM. Therefore I am expecting it to exceed my expectations anyway.

What I currently miss very much is indeed a proper matchmaking that enables me to play against sincere, serious players who love a good game; and not some random dudes that are writing questionmarks in the chat after only 60 secs of initial consideration time (which are that type of people that continue during the game to try making me play faster by writing further remarks - as if that helps).

I do know that a lot of thought is necessary for the designers to ensure a good online experience and that there are many possibilities (whitelists, blacklists, options for gameseeking, quantifier for the strictness of these options, etc.) to achieve this. Here I also trust in the programming team and I do not expect a perfect solution out of the box.

Maybe an option to mute your opponent would be nice - and an option for a bot to take over for you when you get slowplayed, but dont want to relent and resign. Or an option where you could choose you playing speed: slow, medium, fast.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on June 14, 2016, 04:29:10 pm
That's another thing that will probably be mitigated by sufficiently good matchmaking.  I didn't really deal with that at rank 30 on isotropic, probably because if you never take 40 seconds to consider a board you have trouble getting to rank 30.

The most important thing is whether there will be a big enough playerbase to have a good close match to pair you with.  Hopefully subscription doesn't turn people off enough for that to be a problem.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 14, 2016, 04:38:02 pm
paying $150 up front seems more of a turn off than $3 a month.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: pst on June 15, 2016, 03:43:07 am
What I currently miss very much is indeed a proper matchmaking that enables me to play against sincere, serious players who love a good game; and not some random dudes that are writing questionmarks in the chat after only 60 secs of initial consideration time.

A "?" is a reasonable check if someone is there, when you now and then are matched with people who just don't do anything at all, and then disappear.

Just make your presence known. If you don't chat, then play your treasures after thinking for some time (inb4 Alms) so the opponent sees that there is somewhere there.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on June 15, 2016, 07:06:42 am
What I currently miss very much is indeed a proper matchmaking that enables me to play against sincere, serious players who love a good game; and not some random dudes that are writing questionmarks in the chat after only 60 secs of initial consideration time.

A "?" is a reasonable check if someone is there, when you now and then are matched with people who just don't do anything at all, and then disappear.

Just make your presence known. If you don't chat, then play your treasures after thinking for some time (inb4 Alms) so the opponent sees that there is somewhere there.

This is the actual reason to type out "good luck, have fun!" before every match - sure it's to be nice to your opponent or whatever, but what you're really saying is "I'm a person and I am actually here, looking at the Kingdom".
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on June 15, 2016, 02:25:46 pm
By the plural "question marks", I assumed he meant "???".  Which has a different connotation.


"?" is, are you there? just thinking?  "???" is, why are you taking this long?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: pst on June 15, 2016, 04:40:36 pm
This is the actual reason to type out "good luck, have fun!" before every match - sure it's to be nice to your opponent or whatever, but what you're really saying is "I'm a person and I am actually here, looking at the Kingdom".

Or "I use a client that sends an automatic canned message at the start of each game" :-)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 15, 2016, 04:47:15 pm
Just say something weird and garden pathy, like "The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families." By the time your opponent is finished thinking about the weirdness and complexity of the sentence, you will have thought of a strategy. Maybe your opponent will even time out, netting you a free win.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Accatitippi on June 16, 2016, 03:58:29 am
Just say something weird and garden pathy, like "The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families." By the time your opponent is finished thinking about the weirdness and complexity of the sentence, you will have thought of a strategy. Maybe your opponent will even time out, netting you a free win.

I tried saying "This statement is false" to Lord Bottington, but it didn't find anything wrong with that. Talk about shabby programming.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: J Reggie on June 17, 2016, 09:04:37 am
Just say something weird and garden pathy, like "The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families." By the time your opponent is finished thinking about the weirdness and complexity of the sentence, you will have thought of a strategy. Maybe your opponent will even time out, netting you a free win.

I tried saying "This statement is false" to Lord Bottington, but it didn't find anything wrong with that. Talk about shabby programming.

They need to program the bots to chat with you!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 17, 2016, 11:12:14 am
They need to program the bots to chat with you!

The chat of Lord Bottington:
"You'll never beat my Big Money Rats strategy!"
"Behold, I play Laboratory! That allows me to draw two more cards!"
"I see you've bought the 7th Province. Foolish boy, this fight is not over yet!"
"...do you dream of electric sheep?"
"Rats!"
"Eyyy, Aye!"
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Mavy2k on June 18, 2016, 02:35:03 am
Adjusting the volume of the sound should be possible.

I have no idea why that is not possible in the current client.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Rabid on June 18, 2016, 04:55:12 am
Adjusting the volume of the sound should be possible.

I have no idea why that is not possible in the current client.

At least 3 volume controls please.

1) Music
2) Sounds effects
3) Notifications (your turn to act, game found)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Sciserr on June 19, 2016, 09:55:10 am
This might already have been covered, but these are the features I think will resonate best with the Dominion demographic:

1. In-depth player statistics aggregate. I wanna see how much I suck with Tactician, or how much I overestimate my 5/2-skills on Mountebank-boards. Winrates, game length, buy-frequency - you name it!  As mentioned earlier in this thread, ingame access to such a stats profile would be really neat. On a strategically ambiguous board, it would be fun to know your opponent's buying tendencies. Meta-strats.

2. A rating system that inspires improvement. I want a badge showcasing how much I suck, and complementary extravagant badges glorifying the very best of the best. The underlying MMR doesnt have to be hidden, but simply supplemented by something flashier than a 4-digit number. Starcraft does this in a semi-decent fashion, disabling mid-season demotions. In this sense, everybody gets the illusion of progressing throughout the season (a la Hearthstone).

These features might be mostly cosmetic, but their importance for game enjoyment is of great significance IMO.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: market squire on June 19, 2016, 01:59:43 pm
Two gameplay ideas that could be discussed:

1. The first thing came into my mind because Donald had suggested it a 2 years ago to MF (http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?4230-Discarding-trashing-othering-multiple-cards). Maybe you have already covered it to be more consistent with the rules. It is considering discarding multiple cards from the hand at the same time. I think Donald gave the example for Militia. You would have a "choose cards" phase for selecting/ deselecting the cards to discard, then discard afterwards. Something like this could be done for playing Treasures as well. At the start of the Buy phase, all Treasures are highlighted by default, and you could click on them to remove the highlighting, so they don't get played by the "play all Treasures" button.

2. How about a possibility to turn on default settings that work on specific card effects? E.g. you could do the straightforward start-of-turn effects (Caravan, Wharf, Merchant Ship etc.) automatically at the very start of the turn (before doing crazier stuff like Dungeon). So the player could decide for every game if they want that, for example in games with Guide you might not want it... This decision could be an optional button ("auto-resolve this game" or something in these lines) that appears every game when you first have that specific effect. If you want, you can always go to settings to stop auto-resolve. Other things that could be auto-resolved besides start-of-turn are topdecking (Alchemist/ Treasury/ Walled Village), upgrading Travellers, revealing Reaction cards to Attacks, revealing Provinces to other player's Tournaments, for Torturer gain curse if the pile is empty. Maybe more?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 19, 2016, 02:02:33 pm
Two gameplay ideas that could be discussed:

1. The first thing came into my mind because Donald had suggested it a 2 years ago to MF (http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?4230-Discarding-trashing-othering-multiple-cards). Maybe you have already covered it to be more consistent with the rules. It is considering discarding multiple cards from the hand at the same time. I think Donald gave the example for Militia. You would have a "choose cards" phase for selecting/ deselecting the cards to discard, then discard afterwards. Something like this could be done for playing Treasures as well. At the start of the Buy phase, all Treasures are highlighted by default, and you could click on them to remove the highlighting, so they don't get played by the "play all Treasures" button.

Have this be optional, please. I don't want to be slowed down when I know I'm not making a mistake.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: market squire on June 19, 2016, 02:14:45 pm
Okay, maybe it is not very helpful for Militia (Donald was adressing server stability issues), but I think it'd be a helpful implementation of the "Play Treasures" button that wouldn't slow you down.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Calamitas on June 19, 2016, 07:39:49 pm
Two gameplay ideas that could be discussed:

1. The first thing came into my mind because Donald had suggested it a 2 years ago to MF (http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?4230-Discarding-trashing-othering-multiple-cards). Maybe you have already covered it to be more consistent with the rules. It is considering discarding multiple cards from the hand at the same time. I think Donald gave the example for Militia. You would have a "choose cards" phase for selecting/ deselecting the cards to discard, then discard afterwards. Something like this could be done for playing Treasures as well. At the start of the Buy phase, all Treasures are highlighted by default, and you could click on them to remove the highlighting, so they don't get played by the "play all Treasures" button.

2. How about a possibility to turn on default settings that work on specific card effects? E.g. you could do the straightforward start-of-turn effects (Caravan, Wharf, Merchant Ship etc.) automatically at the very start of the turn (before doing crazier stuff like Dungeon). So the player could decide for every game if they want that, for example in games with Guide you might not want it... This decision could be an optional button ("auto-resolve this game" or something in these lines) that appears every game when you first have that specific effect. If you want, you can always go to settings to stop auto-resolve. Other things that could be auto-resolved besides start-of-turn are topdecking (Alchemist/ Treasury/ Walled Village), upgrading Travellers, revealing Reaction cards to Attacks, revealing Provinces to other player's Tournaments, for Torturer gain curse if the pile is empty. Maybe more?
Since 2 has been (or at least partially) implemented in SCSN's MMF mod, we can assume that it will make its way to their game :)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Nflickner on June 22, 2016, 02:26:27 am
The ability to test fan made cards would be nice.

I think that implementing a function within the client for fan made cards to be used would be very fun. 
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on June 22, 2016, 09:00:23 am
MF just implemented a feature where the color of the number indicating the number of cards left in a pile changes from blue to red as the pile gets low. You should totally just copy that. Maybe with better choice in colors.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 22, 2016, 11:36:01 am
The absolute worst thing about Making Fun's implementation is freaking Scheme when you have a zillion Action cards on screen. I cannot tell you how many times I misclicked what I wanted, picking the wrong card instead. In fact, the organization of cards in your hand is poor in general. Suppose I have 30 cards in my deck and I want to trash an Estate. I also have a Colony in my hand. How do I know which is which? In fact, this happened with vsiewnar (https://youtu.be/y4NhT3H97Xk?t=10m47s) a couple of days ago, and it was hilarious. Yes, you can see the card costs, but that is no excuse for poor interface.

I posted this elsewhere, but I really really really want this to not be an issue with the new client.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Beyond Awesome on June 22, 2016, 09:34:15 pm
Scheme is a nightmare on MF.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Sciserr on June 23, 2016, 08:59:05 pm
Ranking system suggestion: Rating decay/Play bonus. The objective being to deter ppl from "sitting" on a satisfactory rank. Doesn't have to be something major, perhaps just a steady increase in attainable points concordant to playing three matches a day or whatever. The points would be accumulatable, i. e binge-playing could compensate for a longer hiatus. Starcraft calls this concept their "Bonus pool", enforcing top level ranked matchmaking frequency. This is of course independent of the underlying match making rating (MMR). With this system, the player with the best MMR would still be incentivised to maintain rated play. This in turn increases sample size, reduces skill uncertainty (variance) and raises the general level of ladder gameplay. Should me great, methinks :)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on June 24, 2016, 09:57:57 am
Rating decay has always been a pretty popular concept but it's never really made sense to me.  The point of a rating is to predict the winners of games as accurately as possible.  This benefits both lower ranked players and higher ranked players as a match that has a 50% chance of being won by either side is much more likely to be fun.

There is no reason to believe someone who took a hiatus from Dominion has gotten very much worse at it at all.  There actually might be some merit to that idea in SC, where some muscle memory might try to go AWOL or a popular opening strategy could fall out of favor during the hiatus.

Sure, you can deliberately set someone's rating at a value that you know does not represent their skill to create a negative incentive so they'll do what you want, and apparently you want them to play Dominion all the time and never take a week off to play Pac Man.  Which yeah, increases the accuracy of MMR when your sample size of games is even larger.

But the slight decrease in uncertainty for the 1 or 2 players that want to play less but enslave themselves from uncertainty don't make up for the players who take a break for a bit, come back to it, then roflstomp weaker players (or note that, out of the games they lose, a high proportion are high variance), then decide maybe the break was an even better idea than before, and quit for good, because you set up a system that gives them a "welcome back" experience that shoves the ruins pile up their orifices.  I think pushing those players out of the game entirely (it'd only be one or two, but about the same as the number that actually bother to care about the mmr manipulation) lowers the overall level of ladder gameplay.

Other games that need rating decay need it because they are taking the top X rated players and doing invitational tournaments
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SCSN on June 24, 2016, 11:06:29 am
If we implement a rating decay it will probably of the order of a few iso levels per year.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on June 24, 2016, 11:10:04 am
There's also just: If you haven't played for more than [a week/2 weeks/whatever], you're removed from the ladder. Next time you play a game, you get your ranking back (modified by that game).
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Sciserr on June 24, 2016, 12:20:24 pm
If we implement a rating decay it will probably of the order of a few iso levels per year.

Spoken as someone sitting comfortably at a high rank :P

The point of a rating is to predict the winners of games as accurately as possible. 

Correct, that's the point of the match making rating. The overt ranking points on the other hand, serve a primary play incentivising function. I am not suggesting MMR-decay for Dominion - although it's reasonable for SC, for the reasons you listed. Im suggesting an on-play ranking bonus, independent of MMR. If you pride yourself in having the highest MMR, perhaps generated through a small sample size with a disproportionately lucky upswing, you'll still be able to jerk off at that number. If you want the feature ranking to mirror this excellence however, you would have to average 3 rated matches a day - minimizing the long term risk of rating bias. And yeah; ppl play more rated Dominion. Thats should be a good thing as well :P
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on June 24, 2016, 12:40:13 pm
The point of a rating is to predict the winners of games as accurately as possible. 

Correct, that's the point of the match making rating.

Uh, what? I thought the point was to match players of close to equal skill, for those who care about such things.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Sciserr on June 24, 2016, 12:48:21 pm
The point of a rating is to predict the winners of games as accurately as possible. 

Correct, that's the point of the match making rating.

Uh, what? I thought the point was to match players of close to equal skill, for those who care about such things.

Isn't the one intrisically linked to the other? If I have intel on the comparative skill level between two players, I should be able to 1) predict the winner and 2) decide whether or not its an even/fair matchup.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Watno on June 24, 2016, 12:51:43 pm
The point of a rating is to predict the winners of games as accurately as possible. 

Correct, that's the point of the match making rating.

Uh, what? I thought the point was to match players of close to equal skill, for those who care about such things.

Isn't the one intrisically linked to the other? If I have intel on the comparative skill level between two players, I should be able to 1) predict the winner and 2) decide whether or not its an even/fair matchup.
They're linked, but not the same. There's not much point in the mmr system being good at predicting wether someone has a 0.001% or a 20% chance of winning: As long as it knows the number is in that range, it knows it shouldn't make that match.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Sciserr on June 24, 2016, 12:59:39 pm
No argument there, then :) The advantages of having both an underlying MMR and an overt points-based ranking system are irrespective of what role we attribute the prior though.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Watno on June 24, 2016, 01:05:37 pm
It seems pretty reasonable for a ranking system to have players ordered by what we estimate their probability of winning against others to be
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Sciserr on June 24, 2016, 01:25:42 pm
It seems pretty reasonable for a ranking system to have players ordered by what we estimate their probability of winning against others to be

Reasonable yes, incentivising no. Why not both? :)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on June 24, 2016, 03:17:18 pm
I think you might massively overrate how many flying rips anyone cares about how their rating appears to other people.  Literally nobody is trying to get a high rank then stop playing a game they enjoy in order to gain "bragging rights" among the eleventeen online Dominion players.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SCSN on June 24, 2016, 03:29:30 pm
If we implement a rating decay it will probably of the order of a few iso levels per year.

Spoken as someone sitting comfortably at a high rank :P

I won't be on the leaderboard.

And the exclusive aim of whatever rating decay we may introduce will be to model with a higher degree of accuracy the (d)evolution of skill as it occurs in the real world, e.g. to capture a dynamic such as players getting slightly worse relative to the field and possibly their former selves when they take a long break.

There will be no gimmicks to incentivize anything and no special bonus just for playing.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Sciserr on June 24, 2016, 05:04:03 pm
I think you might massively overrate how many flying rips anyone cares about how their rating appears to other people.  Literally nobody is trying to get a high rank then stop playing a game they enjoy in order to gain "bragging rights" among the eleventeen online Dominion players.

Hmm, this argument I dont particularily agree with, and I'll try to outline why:

1. "Eleventeen online Dominion player". Currently 4338 people have played at least one match of rated dominion online within the last month. The eleventeen-joke might be a foresight of a massive decline in subscriptions come the new model, but lets stay positive and assume growth :P Although your humour hits home, I get a foul taste in my mouth realizing that your argument implies that Dominion Online 2017 should be designed to cater to a select few; the eleventeen, if you will. Look to literally any other game; catering to the casual gamers (4338 minus eleventeen, in Dominion Online's case) is what reaps in the dough.

2. "Literally nobody is gonna sit on rank". More than half the league matches I see on twitch are played as unrated games across all skill levels, even though the tournament default is rated. Now, there are many contributing factors here; reluctance to switch for MF dance amongst others. It is hard, however, envisioning rank satisfaction not playing a part here. Look to other games for verification. Be it Hearthstone ladder heroes waiting out their top 10 spot on the legend ladder, or the countless number of people complaining about ladder anxiety in Starcraft. Gamers care about rank. Its rather human, in fact. Grand publishers like Blizzard, Riot or Valve acknowledge this basic psychological premise, and mask MMR with ranking systems granting an illusory impression of improvement, regardless of performance. 

3. Nick Yee (2006) conducted some interesting research on gamer motivation. He argues all gaming incentives to fit in one of three overarching categories; Social motives, immersive motives or achievement motives. Save the occassional "glhf" in chat, Dominion online ladder is a rather asocial experience. Far all you know, you might as well be playing Lord Bottington on his road to rank 1. And unless you're incredibly superstitious, facing a Ghost Ship shouldn't really give you the shivers. Immersion's off the table. This leaves achievement, the primary spectacle of skill differentiation. Achievement encompasses a lot more than just ranking, but the point still stands: Dominion Online players play to win - or more correctly - to get the impression that they're "winning".   

References:
Yee, N. (2006). Motivations for Play in Online Games. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 9(6), 772-775.


To SCSN:

I respect that decision, though without agreeing. I've made my arguments clear, and won't continue beating this apparantly dead horse.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Donald X. on June 24, 2016, 05:48:12 pm
3. Nick Yee (2006) conducted some interesting research on gamer motivation. He argues all gaming incentives to fit in one of three overarching categories; Social motives, immersive motives or achievement motives.
I do not find this list to be compelling. I am looking at it, he's just talking about MMORPG's. If you want to apply it broadly, then well which thing are Patience players motivated by?

Quote
Achievement component
Advancement—The desire to gain power, prog- ress rapidly, and accumulate in-game sym- bols of wealth or status
Mechanics—Having an interest in analyzing the underlying rules and system in order to optimize character performance
Competition—The desire to challenge and compete with others

Social component
Socializing—Having an interest in helping and chatting with other players
Relationship—The desire to form long-term meaningful relationships with others
Teamwork—Deriving satisfaction from being part of a group effort.

Immersion component
Discovery—Finding and knowing things that most other players don’t know about
Role-Playing—Creating a persona with a back- ground story and interacting with other players to create an improvised story
Customization—Having an interest in cus- tomizing the appearance of their character
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SCSN on June 24, 2016, 06:05:43 pm
Be it Hearthstone ladder heroes waiting out their top 10 spot on the legend ladder, or the countless number of people complaining about ladder anxiety in Starcraft.

For the anxiety part: there'll likely be an option to opt out of the leaderboard (neither you nor anyone else can see your rank) and have your rating only be used by the system for match making purposes. Things like achievements could then deliver a sense of accomplishment to those who don't like the ranking.

Besides, I think Dominion itself offers enough opportunities to get your accomplishment fix: winning a game in an unexpected way, building a marvelously roaring engine, finally pulling off that elusive combo, you name it. Personally, I loved the game long before I got anywhere close to the top or even felt like I was moving forwards, and I would not have gotten there had I not loved it so much.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Sciserr on June 24, 2016, 06:57:48 pm
3. Nick Yee (2006) conducted some interesting research on gamer motivation. He argues all gaming incentives to fit in one of three overarching categories; Social motives, immersive motives or achievement motives.
I do not find this list to be compelling. I am looking at it, he's just talking about MMORPG's. If you want to apply it broadly, then well which thing are Patience players motivated by?


Thats an excellent question! I'll give it a go, applying Yee's framework++: *Boring Psych disclaimer*

1. "The Senior". First and foremost, Solitaire/Patience/Insert non immersive solo game, does not exist in a vacuum. Discussing strategy, exchanging tips, sharing bad luck induced frustration is all part of the socially derived Patience experience. Paradoxically, even this inherently unaccompanied game may be preceded by social motives.This motivational level applies to any game that you can share with someone else, naturally.

2. "The bragger". Given the opportunity to share his or her Patience experience, the player is also given the opportunity to boast. "My success rate is a solid x%, what's yours?". Achievement motives (competition) are not incompatible with the Patience experience.

3. "The Prisoner". Strict imprisonment (no expert here, this is US' domain :P) offers the perfect counterargument to points 1. and 2. Why do isolated individuals, almost completely deprived of human interaction, often turn to games of this nature? Here, we need to take a bit of a theoretical detour. Destination: Self-determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2011). King & Delfabbro (2009) investigate the relationship between gaming motivation and problematically excessive play, applying this theoretical framework. Irrespective of agenda; they discuss a very interesting concept; amotivated play. This is defined as "...playing without a sense of purpose about the activity...". Without delving too far into the original theory of basic psychological needs (tl;dr - all humans need to experience autonomy, competence, and relatedness in order to maintain intrinsic motivation), we can all relate to occassionally not being able to account for exactly why we're doing something. Games are no exception. "The prisoner" can be argued as an amotivated player. The psychoanalytic tradition would conceptualize this behaviour as a discomfort defence (repression of an insuffurable situation), but that is a theoretical quagmire best left at the gates of f.ds :P All in all, Yee's list does't appear "compelling" because it covers motives, not actual behaviour. Although motive A, B and C predict behaviour X, it is perfectly possible to exhibit X without any motivation (i. e amotivated). 

References:

King, D. & Delfabbro, P. (2009). Motivational Differences in Problem Video Game Play. Journal of Cyber Therapy & Rehabilitation, 2 (2), 139-149.

Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2011) Self-Determination Theory and the Role of Basic Psychological Needs in Personality and the Organization of Behavior. In John, Robins & Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research (3. ed., pp. 654- 678). New York: Guilford Press.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Donald X. on June 24, 2016, 07:07:59 pm
1. "The Senior". First and foremost, Solitaire/Patience/Insert non immersive solo game, does not exist in a vacuum.
2. "The bragger". Given the opportunity to share his or her Patience experience, the player is also given the opportunity to
3. "The Prisoner". Strict imprisonment (no expert here, this is US' domain :P) offers the perfect counterargument to points 1.
I don't think these are it. The social interaction is teaching someone the game; that's it. People do not play Patience in order to brag about how good they are. And uh, The Prisoner, well I think there is actual motivation.

To me Patience is a "ritual game." For some activities, it can be fun just going through the motions. You also get to see what happens; I call this a "movie."

But the point of course was to show that Social/Immersive/Achievement was not sufficient to explain motivation in games; Patience is just an example.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Sciserr on June 24, 2016, 07:18:42 pm
Be it Hearthstone ladder heroes waiting out their top 10 spot on the legend ladder, or the countless number of people complaining about ladder anxiety in Starcraft.

For the anxiety part: there'll likely be an option to opt out of the leaderboard (neither you nor anyone else can see your rank) and have your rating only be used by the system for match making purposes. Things like achievements could then deliver a sense of accomplishment to those who don't like the ranking.

Besides, I think Dominion itself offers enough opportunities to get your accomplishment fix: winning a game in an unexpected way, building a marvelously roaring engine, finally pulling off that elusive combo, you name it. Personally, I loved the game long before I got anywhere close to the top or even felt like I was moving forwards, and I would not have gotten there had I not loved it so much.

The anti-anxiety option sounds promising, and ingame achievements are never a bad feature! :)

As for accomplishment; I very much aggree! Being a 5 month old Dominion orphan, I'm currently undergoing that very process myself :) Theoretically, I would argue the enjoyment stemming from these combos, roaring engines and what have you, as proxies for later comparative success - benchmarks of progression if you will. But that's semantic nitpicking, really. The feeling of "competence", experiencing personal efficacy in your activity, is the crux of the achievement motive cluster.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Sciserr on June 24, 2016, 07:35:53 pm
1. "The Senior". First and foremost, Solitaire/Patience/Insert non immersive solo game, does not exist in a vacuum.
2. "The bragger". Given the opportunity to share his or her Patience experience, the player is also given the opportunity to
3. "The Prisoner". Strict imprisonment (no expert here, this is US' domain :P) offers the perfect counterargument to points 1.
I don't think these are it. The social interaction is teaching someone the game; that's it. People do not play Patience in order to brag about how good they are. And uh, The Prisoner, well I think there is actual motivation.

To me Patience is a "ritual game." For some activities, it can be fun just going through the motions. You also get to see what happens; I call this a "movie."

But the point of course was to show that Social/Immersive/Achievement was not sufficient to explain motivation in games; Patience is just an example.


Motivational debates have been prevalent in the field of psychology throughout times, so your skepticism is in good fashion. I do, however, feel like I have a pretty strong case for games like Patience being predicted by a more pervasive social motivation. The discrepancy in our understandings, should stem from our fundamental differences in conceptualizing " gaming sociability". I cant count the number of times I've encountered some unlikely scenario whilst playing a solo game, immediately calling for my friends to come and partake in the extravagance. If you only include actual gameplay interaction when assessing social motives, then yes, Patience is completely asocial. If you consider its consequent widespread social implications however, it's easy to envision social motives preceding future gameplay.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on June 24, 2016, 08:30:44 pm
Donald, I seem to remember you talking about the definition of "game" at one point. Does Patience even qualify?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Donald X. on June 24, 2016, 08:48:55 pm
Motivational debates have been prevalent in the field of psychology throughout times, so your skepticism is in good fashion. I do, however, feel like I have a pretty strong case for games like Patience being predicted by a more pervasive social motivation. The discrepancy in our understandings, should stem from our fundamental differences in conceptualizing " gaming sociability". I cant count the number of times I've encountered some unlikely scenario whilst playing a solo game, immediately calling for my friends to come and partake in the extravagance. If you only include actual gameplay interaction when assessing social motives, then yes, Patience is completely asocial. If you consider its consequent widespread social implications however, it's easy to envision social motives preceding future gameplay.
I do not see any social motivation to Patience beyond the teaching of it. To me it's like you're saying, I eat chocolate for social reasons. We can try to push things into these categories - the chocolate keeps me alive so I can be social - but that doesn't make the categorization useful, doesn't mean it's anything but misleading.

It's fun thinking about these things, making these lists, trying to boil everything down to N things. It can be tricky working out how useful your categorization scheme is and well I do not agree with you about this stuff but time does not permit.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Donald X. on June 24, 2016, 08:54:53 pm
Donald, I seem to remember you talking about the definition of "game" at one point. Does Patience even qualify?
Yes, it meets my technical definition (structured activity with 1+ players and a ranking mechanism).

Richard Garfield defined a subcategory of games, "orthogonal games," so that he could have a precise definition and make true statements about it, without having to deal with people having conflicting ideas as to what a "game" is. I don't remember his definition (it's in the luck speech, which I recommend if you haven't seen it), but you know, the point was to talk about These Games We Play rather than things falling under the dictionary definition of "game."
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Accatitippi on June 25, 2016, 06:05:31 am
You may argue that it falls within/between achievent and immersion, but one of the strongest pulls I feel towards gaming is experimenting. You give me a system, I'll try different stuff and see how the game reacts. Systems that still offer new discoveries keep my attention longer than systems where I feel I can predict too often how the game will play out.
Political games are good at that, and Dominion is in fact one of the few nonpolitical games that I truly love.
Despite liking some of them, I've never got grabbed by CCGs because experimenting is too slow/expensive, and I usually lose interest after a short while of always playing/optimizing the same deck because I can't afford a different one, and optimization doesn't really lead to exciting discoveries.

I'm the kind of person who in a pinch plays new games against themself, and well I don't see that explained by either achievement, immersion, or sociality. (and not rituality either)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on June 28, 2016, 04:01:33 pm
I like to manufacture a contrived dictionary definition for "game" and find a way to exclude Concentration and Monopoly from that definition and then even go as far as to generate prejudices for those nongames that suggests the participants are nonhuman and propose a legally codified caste system that treats them as such.

BUT the important thing is that I am upfront and honest about that.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: michaeljb on June 28, 2016, 05:05:43 pm
It'd be cool to rank/rate* the cards from a kingdom after playing it, or maybe after looking over the logs or watching the replays or something. Then a big ranking/rating list of all the cards--or smaller lists, divided up however you may want to divide them--could be generated based on how good the cards were in actual kingdoms, not just in theory. (I say "kingdom" instead of "game" because if you replay a kingdom you shouldn't be able to rank the cards differently each time)

*it might be difficult/impossible to rank cards 1-10 if you have an engine with 3 vital components, but you could rate each of those 3 cards 5 stars or whatever
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Jeebus on June 28, 2016, 05:25:09 pm
My number one wish for the new platform: (This is partly how Isotropic worked.)

When you have to trash or discard x cards from your hand, clicking a card selects it. If you're trashing, it gets a big X or something. If you're discarding, something else clearly distinguishable. If you try to select more than x cards, you get a message. You can deselect and select as much as you want. Then you have to click a button that says "TRASH" or "DISCARD".

If you have to select a certain number, it says so, and the button is grayed out until you have.

If trashing/discarding is optional, you also have a button saying "DON'T TRASH" or "DON'T DISCARD".

This works the same way even when you only have one card to trash/discard. Yes, it's one extra click, but I think that's totally worth not having to purposefully play slower and more carefully for fear of misclicking.

In addition to the misclicking issue, the other important thing this does is making the GUI work like the game actually works: You discard/trash all the cards at once.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 28, 2016, 05:41:55 pm
I think what will happen will be like thus:

With Action cards that affect cards in your hand when played, it does not matter which individual one of them you trash; they are all the same card, really. With this in mind, having your hand convert into 'piles' of collections of cards that you can select en mass when trashing/affecting seems to be the best option.

When I want to target specific cards for Scheme/trashing (for example), at the end of the turn or during a turn (for trashing), it will show me each card played (for Scheme, trashing would simply show your hand or whatever is the appropriate target) and how many of them there are with a small number, similar to piles. When you select a card, it will move upwards to the top of the screen, away from the piles. If you clicked it again from the top, it would go back to where it was. The interface should also say how many Scheme/trashing choices you have left. After you're done selecting the options, you click on 'Trash' or 'Topdeck' or something of the sort. It is complicated to explain, but it is very intuitive. The only downside is that it is a bit slower, but it does prevent misclicks for sure.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on June 28, 2016, 05:44:10 pm
It'd be cool to rank/rate* the cards from a kingdom after playing it, or maybe after looking over the logs or watching the replays or something. Then a big ranking/rating list of all the cards--or smaller lists, divided up however you may want to divide them--could be generated based on how good the cards were in actual kingdoms, not just in theory. (I say "kingdom" instead of "game" because if you replay a kingdom you shouldn't be able to rank the cards differently each time)

*it might be difficult/impossible to rank cards 1-10 if you have an engine with 3 vital components, but you could rate each of those 3 cards 5 stars or whatever
It'd be better to draw these conclusions by using a councilroom style log muncher that checks whether buying each card produces wins or produces losses.  The algorithm's inability to identify the difference between a Secret Chamber that was a crucial way of converting Scrying Pool into financial benefit and a Secret Chamber that was better than buying nothing with a 2$ hand is far outweighed by various human polling biases and smaller sample size
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 28, 2016, 05:45:29 pm
Actually, even better idea. Why have a bunch of annoying images fly around? I wouldn't mind simply having a more text based decision, much like Isotropic. It should display the name and cost of the cards as well as how many there are in your hand/in play/whatever, but you can see what the card is from the Kingdom pile, so it shouldn't really be much of an issue to just make showing the cards more condensed.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Jeebus on June 29, 2016, 01:42:32 pm
Actually, even better idea. Why have a bunch of annoying images fly around? I wouldn't mind simply having a more text based decision, much like Isotropic. It should display the name and cost of the cards as well as how many there are in your hand/in play/whatever, but you can see what the card is from the Kingdom pile, so it shouldn't really be much of an issue to just make showing the cards more condensed.

I think it could be a great alternative setting. Each group of the same card should be a rectangle with the cost, name, and colors indicating type, plus the number of copies. For instance: "$0 Copper (4)", "$3 Silver (2)", "$5 Hunting Party (3)"... Then these rectangles could be stacked in columns. Several columns could fit on the screen. Hovering over a rectangle for a second could even show the full card.

Also, when the amount of different cards you have to choose from reaches a critical mass, the interface should just automatically switch to that view, instead of being this mass of cards to leaf through. This could be when you have a lot of cards on your hand, or a lot of cards in play for Scheme choosing.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Beyond Awesome on June 29, 2016, 10:34:28 pm
Actually, even better idea. Why have a bunch of annoying images fly around? I wouldn't mind simply having a more text based decision, much like Isotropic. It should display the name and cost of the cards as well as how many there are in your hand/in play/whatever, but you can see what the card is from the Kingdom pile, so it shouldn't really be much of an issue to just make showing the cards more condensed.

I thought they said they had something like this planned
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on June 29, 2016, 10:36:37 pm
Fantastic! I spent a long time thinking about the best possible way to do the interface.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Emeric on July 03, 2016, 01:50:57 pm
Very important feature for next version :
Close account without way to be refund of money of player who insult opponent as you can see in this thread http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?10909-I-don-t-want-to-be-insulted-during-a-game&p=59176#post59176
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on July 03, 2016, 01:53:27 pm
Very important feature for next version :
Close account without way to be refund of money of player who insult opponent as you can see in this thread http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?10909-I-don-t-want-to-be-insulted-during-a-game&p=59176#post59176

Evil should not be repaid with evil.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SCSN on July 03, 2016, 03:35:36 pm
Very important feature for next version :
Close account without way to be refund of money of player who insult opponent as you can see in this thread http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?10909-I-don-t-want-to-be-insulted-during-a-game&p=59176#post59176

You'll be able to report stuff like this in-game and then we'll issue a warning and/or temporary or permanent chat ban (depending on the severity and persistence of the behavior). You'll also be able to blacklist him so that you never get to play him again.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on July 03, 2016, 04:35:54 pm
Very important feature for next version :
Close account without way to be refund of money of player who insult opponent as you can see in this thread http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?10909-I-don-t-want-to-be-insulted-during-a-game&p=59176#post59176

Evil should not be repaid with evil.
I don't think reasonable punishments are evil but banning Someone forever is not a great punishment for chat abuse.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: AdrianHealey on July 04, 2016, 05:14:06 pm
Fantastic! I spent a long time thinking about the best possible way to do the interface.

I actually quite like the MF interface. Not too much crap, but also not too little.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: funkdoc on July 05, 2016, 09:56:17 am
Fantastic! I spent a long time thinking about the best possible way to do the interface.

I actually quite like the MF interface. Not too much crap, but also not too little.

it's mainly visual stuff i (and seemingly others) have a problem with.  events not being distinct enough from cards, the animations, the new garish blue circles around the numbers...
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Infthitbox on July 05, 2016, 10:02:42 am
Fantastic! I spent a long time thinking about the best possible way to do the interface.

I actually quite like the MF interface. Not too much crap, but also not too little.

it's mainly visual stuff i (and seemingly others) have a problem with.  events not being distinct enough from cards, the animations, the new garish blue circles around the numbers...

That's interesting, out of everything the MF client does/has, I find the Event display to be perfectly fine. They're visually distinct enough for me.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Beyond Awesome on July 06, 2016, 02:47:53 am
Fantastic! I spent a long time thinking about the best possible way to do the interface.

I actually quite like the MF interface. Not too much crap, but also not too little.

it's mainly visual stuff i (and seemingly others) have a problem with.  events not being distinct enough from cards, the animations, the new garish blue circles around the numbers...

That's interesting, out of everything the MF client does/has, I find the Event display to be perfectly fine. They're visually distinct enough for me.

I was about to say the same thing. I actually like the way the Events are, and it's easy to find them and remember they are. IRL, playing with Events can be challenging because depending on where you place them, it can be easy to forget where they are.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: AdrianHealey on July 06, 2016, 10:27:11 am
I am pretty sure I have animations turned off or something
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: jaybeez on July 08, 2016, 05:21:22 pm
Just going to add a random thought to the pile.  Remember how Goko Salvager had a kingdom builder that supported a standard syntax so you could specify parameters, including controlling the likelihood of a card or cards being included in the kingdom?  Having something like that would be great.  Maybe something simple like, you have a general setting interface for all cards, where you can specify "more often" or "less often" for a given card, with "neutral" being the default.  Then, if all players "agree" on a card (i.e., have the same setting selected), then the parameter could be applied to the kingdom selection for that game.  I mean, I for one would love to be able to force Possession, Swindler, Governor, Rebuild, Cultist, etc. to appear in kingdoms less often if I'm matched up against a like-minded person.  Or vice-versa for cards that I find more fun/interesting.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: crlundy on August 15, 2016, 03:34:25 am
I don't know if these qualify as features requests or just design suggestions, but here they are for your reading pleasure:


Thanks for all your hard work, and I'm looking forward to seeing the new release!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: jamfamsam on August 17, 2016, 12:07:31 pm
I agree with crlundy. No pointless decisions. If multiple cards need to be decided for trashing or putting back on your deck or whatever, and the cards are the same, skip the decision. It's not important which copper I put back on my deck first.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Witherweaver on August 17, 2016, 12:08:56 pm
I agree with crlundy. No pointless decisions. If multiple cards need to be decided for trashing or putting back on your deck or whatever, and the cards are the same, skip the decision. It's not important which copper I put back on my deck first.

Cards should be Bosons, not Fermions!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on August 17, 2016, 12:55:34 pm
As the client approaches a stable-ish alpha, then beta testing, etc, how much information will be shared about it in advance and outside of testers? Does the contract or best development practices suggest you should keep new dominion information close to the chest? Or will we get to drool over screenshots of the new interface very soon?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on August 17, 2016, 12:58:26 pm
Where can I sign up for the Alpha testing? Maybe it's all random, but if there's a list, I'd like to sign up  ;D
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SCSN on August 17, 2016, 02:00:01 pm
As the client approaches a stable-ish alpha, then beta testing, etc, how much information will be shared about it in advance and outside of testers? Does the contract or best development practices suggest you should keep new dominion information close to the chest? Or will we get to drool over screenshots of the new interface very soon?

Where can I sign up for the Alpha testing? Maybe it's all random, but if there's a list, I'd like to sign up  ;D

We're resuming testing with the original testers soon. Our forum will be launched around the same time, which will contain some information for non-testers about possibly becoming a tester at a later stage.

Don't expect to be drooling over screenshots soon, but we'll give you an impression of our work before the launch.

Quote
Does the contract or best development practices suggest you should keep new dominion information close to the chest?

I'm always happy to share new Dominion information: it's unwise to buy so many Golds and Silvers.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Witherweaver on August 17, 2016, 02:01:33 pm
As the client approaches a stable-ish alpha, then beta testing, etc, how much information will be shared about it in advance and outside of testers? Does the contract or best development practices suggest you should keep new dominion information close to the chest? Or will we get to drool over screenshots of the new interface very soon?

Where can I sign up for the Alpha testing? Maybe it's all random, but if there's a list, I'd like to sign up  ;D

We're resuming testing with the original testers soon. Our forum will be launched around the same time, which will contain some information for non-testers about possibly becoming a tester at a later stage.

Don't expect to be drooling over screenshots soon, but we'll give you an impression of our work before the launch.

Quote
Does the contract or best development practices suggest you should keep new dominion information close to the chest?

I'm always happy to share new Dominion information: it's unwise to buy so many Golds and Silvers.

But Magpie likes them...
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SirD on August 18, 2016, 06:06:03 am
I realise that the thing I deplore the most is the pairing system MF introduced.

I would be so pleased if there were an option to choose if you want to play a fast game or a measured one. While I do not love it, if players take excessive amounts of time for their turns, I can arrange myself with that, and I certainly prefer it to players quitting or nagging.

This has gone as far as that I currently only play friends or bots.

P.S. Maybe it will sort itself out on its own on your system. The Goko solution with rooms and the ability to accept or reject a player also worked much better. Greetings.

Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on August 18, 2016, 09:09:40 am
I'm always happy to share new Dominion information: it's unwise to buy so many Golds and Silvers.

Perhaps you misunderstood, I was asking for new Dominion information.  ;)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: ThetaSigma12 on August 18, 2016, 12:19:26 pm
I'm always happy to share new Dominion information: it's unwise to buy so many Golds and Silvers.

Perhaps you misunderstood, I was asking for new Dominion information.  ;)
Delve and Wedding let you get Golds and Silvers easier.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Gherald on September 13, 2016, 11:24:18 pm
I don't know if this has been suggested already but I would like to see an alternate mode that, like a victory point counter, adds more information.

Specifically I'd like it to display the contents of each player's deck similar to how isotropic+extensions was in its last days
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on September 14, 2016, 12:30:30 am
I don't know if this has been suggested already but I would like to see an alternate mode that, like a victory point counter, adds more information.

Specifically I'd like it to display the contents of each player's deck similar to how isotropic+extensions was in its last days

I would very much like this not to be an option KTHXBAI.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on September 14, 2016, 12:30:54 am
I don't know if this has been suggested already but I would like to see an alternate mode that, like a victory point counter, adds more information.

Specifically I'd like it to display the contents of each player's deck similar to how isotropic+extensions was in its last days

I would very much like this not to be an option KTHXBAI.
Why not??????
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on September 14, 2016, 01:04:02 am
I don't know if this has been suggested already but I would like to see an alternate mode that, like a victory point counter, adds more information.

Specifically I'd like it to display the contents of each player's deck similar to how isotropic+extensions was in its last days

I would very much like this not to be an option KTHXBAI.
Why not??????

Man, you can find any number of threads about this argument.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Beyond Awesome on September 14, 2016, 04:13:06 am
Well, it is possible to deck track without a tracker. Just write on paper as you play along. The thing is even if you don't do it, there is nothing stopping another player from doing so. With that said, I think Donald X. has said he is opposed to a tracker. I think though for tournament play it might be a good idea to have one to prevent cheating
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Haddock on September 14, 2016, 07:40:15 am
Well, it is possible to deck track without a tracker. Just write on paper as you play along. The thing is even if you don't do it, there is nothing stopping another player from doing so. With that said, I think Donald X. has said he is opposed to a tracker. I think though for tournament play it might be a good idea to have one to prevent cheating
I think if Dominion ever blew up Hearthstone-style you'd have to allow the existence of such things because there's no way of preventing it otherwise.

But as it stands currently with the community still relatively small, I think it's pretty much fine to just say "we don't want people doing this"; maybe I have too much faith in people, but I don't think anyone participating in an f.ds-run tournament (at least) would be tracking with pen and paper if we decide that it's not allowed.  (Which we have essentially done.)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on September 14, 2016, 08:06:12 am
I don't know if this has been suggested already but I would like to see an alternate mode that, like a victory point counter, adds more information.

Specifically I'd like it to display the contents of each player's deck similar to how isotropic+extensions was in its last days

I would very much like this not to be an option KTHXBAI.

I'd like it to exist for unrated / custom games only, kind of like games with no limits to Events / Landmarks, games with customized kingdoms, forced starting hands, or predetermined starts, or other rules variations.

Well, it is possible to deck track without a tracker. Just write on paper as you play along. The thing is even if you don't do it, there is nothing stopping another player from doing so. With that said, I think Donald X. has said he is opposed to a tracker. I think though for tournament play it might be a good idea to have one to prevent cheating
I think if Dominion ever blew up Hearthstone-style you'd have to allow the existence of such things because there's no way of preventing it otherwise.

But as it stands currently with the community still relatively small, I think it's pretty much fine to just say "we don't want people doing this"; maybe I have too much faith in people, but I don't think anyone participating in an f.ds-run tournament (at least) would be tracking with pen and paper if we decide that it's not allowed.  (Which we have essentially done.)

I've used a pen and paper in one situation - to track Hermit / Madman / Market Square counts in those games, since those are basically eight turn games where you're just repeating an algorithm of steps and everything's really specific to those numbers. It's probably logically inconsistent with not using tracking for anything else, but fuck that combo otherwise, you know?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Gherald on September 15, 2016, 11:21:36 pm
Automated tracking is like a VP counter. If you don't like it, select the seek option to not play with it.

For me it just saves time and boring mental effort.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on September 16, 2016, 01:00:49 am
Automated tracking is like a VP counter. If you don't like it, select the seek option to not play with it.

So it will fracture the player base. Sounds like a good argument not to have it.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Gherald on September 16, 2016, 04:11:47 am
Right.. because communities are so much better off when people have fewer choices ::)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on September 16, 2016, 07:49:05 am
Automated tracking is like a VP counter. If you don't like it, select the seek option to not play with it.

So it will fracture the player base. Sounds like a good argument not to have it.

No reason the feature can't at the very least be implemented for unrated games.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on September 16, 2016, 08:25:56 am
Automated tracking is like a VP counter. If you don't like it, select the seek option to not play with it.

So it will fracture the player base. Sounds like a good argument not to have it.

Sounds like a good argument to not have the option to play without it to me!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on September 21, 2016, 05:58:20 pm
Well, it is possible to deck track without a tracker. Just write on paper as you play along. The thing is even if you don't do it, there is nothing stopping another player from doing so. With that said, I think Donald X. has said he is opposed to a tracker. I think though for tournament play it might be a good idea to have one to prevent cheating
I think if Dominion ever blew up Hearthstone-style you'd have to allow the existence of such things because there's no way of preventing it otherwise.

But as it stands currently with the community still relatively small, I think it's pretty much fine to just say "we don't want people doing this"; maybe I have too much faith in people, but I don't think anyone participating in an f.ds-run tournament (at least) would be tracking with pen and paper if we decide that it's not allowed.  (Which we have essentially done.)

Sometimes I accidentally let my love of the deckbuilding genre and its flagship get me all rosy eyed and optimistic and hopeful that something that seems to have so much merit in and of itself should surely become big and wonderful someday.  Then every once and a while I get these helpful friendly reminders that not only is it small now, no-one wants to think of it existing in any other state, which is one of the most extravagant ways of helping to guarantee it never reaches any other state.

Guilty Gear is so fun and beautiful I have lot of issues there too, but whenever I let my feelings get away with me the playerbase is always extremely helpful and willing to put me down about the subgenre ever getting traction.

I'll probably go browse mtgsalvation now, until I go home from work and skip Guilty Gear meetup to play League of Legends, which implemented protections against some methods of client-side unfair advantage when it was an indie beta with the playerbase of a couple hundred. Huzzahs!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: IDontPlayThisGame on September 27, 2016, 11:59:27 pm
Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but here goes:

Now that the base set and Intrigue have had their cards changed, will the removed cards be available on the new client? I would like to be able to play with them still, but I understand that they were removed for a reason. Maybe if they're only available in custom games?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: -Stef- on September 28, 2016, 07:05:09 am
Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but here goes:

Now that the base set and Intrigue have had their cards changed, will the removed cards be available on the new client? I would like to be able to play with them still, but I understand that they were removed for a reason. Maybe if they're only available in custom games?

We won't have them at launch. If people continue to ask for them we might add them later but honestly I don't see the point. Those cards were removed with good reasons.

It's very much like adding a Copper to your deck. Yes being able to spend $1 more now is nice, but are you still happy when you realize that drawing that Copper prevented you from drawing your Laboratory?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: RevanFan on September 28, 2016, 07:28:38 am
Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but here goes:

Now that the base set and Intrigue have had their cards changed, will the removed cards be available on the new client? I would like to be able to play with them still, but I understand that they were removed for a reason. Maybe if they're only available in custom games?

We won't have them at launch. If people continue to ask for them we might add them later but honestly I don't see the point. Those cards were removed with good reasons.

It's very much like adding a Copper to your deck. Yes being able to spend $1 more now is nice, but are you still happy when you realize that drawing that Copper prevented you from drawing your Laboratory?
I, for one, would love to have them available, but in a separate set. They shouldn't be a part of Base or Intrigue.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on September 28, 2016, 09:11:48 am
Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but here goes:

Now that the base set and Intrigue have had their cards changed, will the removed cards be available on the new client? I would like to be able to play with them still, but I understand that they were removed for a reason. Maybe if they're only available in custom games?

We won't have them at launch. If people continue to ask for them we might add them later but honestly I don't see the point. Those cards were removed with good reasons.

It's very much like adding a Copper to your deck. Yes being able to spend $1 more now is nice, but are you still happy when you realize that drawing that Copper prevented you from drawing your Laboratory?
Sometimes it's nice to have a crazy kingdom. Sometimes it's nice to have a hard to build engine. Weak cards have made the second category happen a lot more. Also what's the hate about coppersmith It's more balanced than swindler.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on September 28, 2016, 09:20:43 am
Removing Coppersmith isn't about making high level competitive 1v1 Dominion more interesting; it's about making Dominion a better board game for 2-4 casual players. It's a huge trap card that tons of inexperienced players buy into and regret. The first two sets should especially avoid those.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Accatitippi on September 28, 2016, 09:45:09 am
Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but here goes:

Now that the base set and Intrigue have had their cards changed, will the removed cards be available on the new client? I would like to be able to play with them still, but I understand that they were removed for a reason. Maybe if they're only available in custom games?

We won't have them at launch. If people continue to ask for them we might add them later but honestly I don't see the point. Those cards were removed with good reasons.

It's very much like adding a Copper to your deck. Yes being able to spend $1 more now is nice, but are you still happy when you realize that drawing that Copper prevented you from drawing your Laboratory?
Sometimes it's nice to have a crazy kingdom. Sometimes it's nice to have a hard to build engine. Weak cards have made the second category happen a lot more. Also what's the hate about coppersmith It's more balanced than swindler.

I'm not sure that's the kind of weak cards that got removed.
A hard to build engine is made of hard to fit toghether, nonoptimal elements.
The cards that got taken out were not suboptimal elements, they way too often would not be an element at all. (exception: Woodcutter, and maybe Coppersmith)
Scarcity of viable engine ingredients doesn't mean more interesting engines to build, it just means that you end up playing boring strategies like BM-terminal draw more often.

I might be more susceptible to this matter than most due to still playing a good deal of base-heavy games IRL.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: faust on September 28, 2016, 02:20:14 pm
Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but here goes:

Now that the base set and Intrigue have had their cards changed, will the removed cards be available on the new client? I would like to be able to play with them still, but I understand that they were removed for a reason. Maybe if they're only available in custom games?

We won't have them at launch. If people continue to ask for them we might add them later but honestly I don't see the point. Those cards were removed with good reasons.

It's very much like adding a Copper to your deck. Yes being able to spend $1 more now is nice, but are you still happy when you realize that drawing that Copper prevented you from drawing your Laboratory?
Sometimes it's nice to have a crazy kingdom. Sometimes it's nice to have a hard to build engine. Weak cards have made the second category happen a lot more. Also what's the hate about coppersmith It's more balanced than swindler.
You can just include an option to only have 9 or 8 cards in the kingdom for this.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Beyond Awesome on September 28, 2016, 03:30:41 pm
irl, I removed all these cards over a year ago, plus a few others. Coppersmith, Scout and friends are not good cards to show beginners. They are just outright boring cards that suck. I used to teach just using Base Dominion cards but stopped because of how weak many of the base cards were. Now, with the new additions, I might start using Base Dominion to teach new people.

Anyway, I don't miss these cards irl. Online, I see these 12 cards pop up all the time, and honestly, I can't wait to never have to see them again.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: pst on September 29, 2016, 02:13:38 am
We won't have them at launch. If people continue to ask for them we might add them later but honestly I don't see the point. Those cards were removed with good reasons.

One reason to have them is so you can set up specific boards you have played IRL and try out different things on them afterwards. Surely some players who own the old sets will just continue to use them IRL.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Jeebus on September 29, 2016, 11:26:51 am
I would like to somehow have the option to include them in full random. I agree that they should not be part of the free base game package, or the Intrigue package. I don't know the new payment model. Are all expansions going to have a one-time cost? Maybe give some cost to these 12 cards to, like a mini-expansion.

The reason for removing these 12 cards was surely to make the two first sets better, especially for new players. (One aspect of this is that in the base game, 5 terminals and 1 non-terminal were replaced by 3 terminals and 4 non-terminals.) The reason for removing them was surely not to make playing random with all sets better. At best that had to have been an afterthought.

I would categorise them in four tiers:

D) The only cards that are almost useless and can be beneficially retired are Thief (is "fixed" in Noble Brigand and now Bandit too), Adventurer and Scout. (I have never once bought an Adventurer. Even when I was learning Dominion and knew almost nothing, I saw that Gold is always better.)

C) Cards that are almost as useless, but I don't think it hurts to keep them, are Chancellor , Spy and Secret Chamber. They have their uses a bit more often, but they could be retired too. At least Storeroom does Secret Chamber's trick.

B) Cards that perform a function that it would be a bit sad to lose, although they rarely matter, are Coppersmith and Saboteur. The thing is that no other card does what they do (including the new cards), and figuring out when to go for them is a cool possibiltiy to keep. As long as they are not in the first two sets that players buy, I don't see the problem.

A) The cards I'd hate to see go are Feast, Woodcutter, Great Hall and Tribute. Feast and Tribute are useful quite often, and also each do something no other cards do, especially Feast. Woodcutter being the only source of +buy has real impact on the game, since it's cheap but weak and terminal. That happens quite often. Great Hall has an impact on many games. Often you want cheap cantrips, and even more so if it gives VP, and quite often the types matter too. The sole fact that they don't clog your deck means that they are a pile that often gets emptied and that changes the game too. (Interestingly, Mill is priced as if using Great Hall as a baseline.) Ok, Tribute and Feast Great Hall have "fixed" versions, although Courtier can never be a Village (big difference), and Mill costs more (smaller difference but not insignificant). In the end Feast is the #1 card to keep for me.

EDIT: fixed wrong card name
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on September 29, 2016, 02:20:27 pm
The rules variants in the Campaigns on MF are really cool. Is there any chance for custom, unrated games, we would be able to fuck with the rules as well? It could be auto-playing a certain card each turn or an event at the game beginning. Other rule changes could be Kingdom / pile size, starting hand size, starting deck contents, etc.

By no means are these essential features but it would be fun to play with.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Beyond Awesome on September 29, 2016, 02:41:33 pm
For those that want the removed cards, I think everyone should play for a month on the new implementation and see if after one-month they actually miss those cards.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Accatitippi on September 29, 2016, 03:15:52 pm
And while I'm not opposed to having them available for people to fool around with, I'd prefer there was no way to include them in full random, pro games.
Having to endure Transmute Cultist and Harvest is bad enough, no need to not make use of a solution when one is available.

Incidentally, I loved great hall, but it really still lives on in the form of Mill, having received only the least significant of cost increases.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: RevanFan on September 29, 2016, 03:32:08 pm
I don't think they should be available in ranked games or in default full random situations, but they should be able to be turned on for casual games. Sort of like how you can turn shelters or platinum/colony to always on, even if it doesn't meet the rulebook specification. And there could be a feature that would only match you up in casual games with people who also allow the removed cards.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: arcee on October 10, 2016, 05:35:20 pm
FR: A way to follow this ruling...

So to confirm, this also gives us another ruling, that "anywhere in your deck" includes "generally somewhere in the middle", and doesn't have to be an exact number of cards from the top that you decide on.
If what you're asking is, can you choose to not know where exactly you're putting the card, then yes.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on October 11, 2016, 10:27:18 am
FR: A way to follow this ruling...

So to confirm, this also gives us another ruling, that "anywhere in your deck" includes "generally somewhere in the middle", and doesn't have to be an exact number of cards from the top that you decide on.
If what you're asking is, can you choose to not know where exactly you're putting the card, then yes.

There should totally be a Random Place button, but 95% of the time you want it either on top, on bottom, or out of reach for this turn but in your next hand. Once you get over the AP it's really quite powerful.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: allanfieldhouse on October 12, 2016, 10:31:44 am
I think the common places to put cards with Secret Passage will be 1, 2, 6, bottom, somewhere else specific. Seems like those options would be the most useful.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Witherweaver on October 12, 2016, 10:34:54 am
1, 2, 6, bottom, somewhere else specific.

Isn't that, just, the deck?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Mr Anderson on October 12, 2016, 11:08:30 am
All jokes aside, those options (first, second, sixth, bottom) as buttons would be strongly appreciated.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on October 24, 2016, 04:15:33 pm
Easily prepaying for large amounts of time is a feature I consider valuable.  I will likely spend more if that is made convenient.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on October 24, 2016, 04:56:43 pm
All jokes aside, those options (first, second, sixth, bottom) as buttons would be strongly appreciated.

Expanding on this, I think if you just had the existing interface but numbered the cards it would work pretty well. Counting sucks.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: allanfieldhouse on October 24, 2016, 05:10:15 pm
Easily prepaying for large amounts of time is a feature I consider valuable.  I will likely spend more if that is made convenient.

As long as there's easy paying for large amounts of coin tokens, I'll be happy.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on October 25, 2016, 11:28:01 am
If I buy lots of fake currency, then use the fake currency to actually get subscription months, that's not easy anymore and is not what I was talking about.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: allanfieldhouse on October 25, 2016, 03:29:43 pm
I was making a joke about Baker coin tokens. But not a joke -- that definitely needs to be a feature.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: faust on November 10, 2016, 05:32:37 am
I had a new idea for a feature request (at least one I don't remember reading about):

You know this very small share of stalemate games, where "everyone starves to death"?

It would be nice to have something like a Propose Draw button, and if both players accept, the game will automatically end in a draw.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Seprix on November 10, 2016, 10:01:40 am
I had a new idea for a feature request (at least one I don't remember reading about):

You know this very small share of stalemate games, where "everyone starves to death"?

It would be nice to have something like a Propose Draw button, and if both players accept, the game will automatically end in a draw.

I think in those small cases, it should end in a tie automatically, but that is my personal opinion.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Calamitas on November 10, 2016, 11:04:44 am
I had a new idea for a feature request (at least one I don't remember reading about):

You know this very small share of stalemate games, where "everyone starves to death"?

It would be nice to have something like a Propose Draw button, and if both players accept, the game will automatically end in a draw.

I think in those small cases, it should end in a tie automatically, but that is my personal opinion.
Well, sometimes someone has a tight advantage in such scenarios. Enforcing the tie wouldn't be fair then.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: faust on November 10, 2016, 11:54:04 am
I had a new idea for a feature request (at least one I don't remember reading about):

You know this very small share of stalemate games, where "everyone starves to death"?

It would be nice to have something like a Propose Draw button, and if both players accept, the game will automatically end in a draw.

I think in those small cases, it should end in a tie automatically, but that is my personal opinion.
I think writing a program that recognizes such situations is several orders of magnitude harder than adding a button.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on November 10, 2016, 03:24:05 pm
I've never seen a starved to death game in all of my thousands of games of dominion. The only appropriate software behavior for online dominion is for the server to turn on scsn's stream channel so that we can watch the game.

Donald has said it's not a draw.  The game keeps going.

The software should message users to give them a link to the stream and encourage everyone to watch.  Also we should get a reconstruction of how the game reached that state so that we can look for the probable misplay.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: JW on November 10, 2016, 03:39:12 pm
I had a new idea for a feature request (at least one I don't remember reading about):

It would be nice to have something like a Propose Draw button, and if both players accept, the game will automatically end in a draw.

I was inspired to suggest this in this thread a few months ago due to Possession stalemates.

It would be great to have a way to offer a draw (as if the game was tied).

Yeah... so I am pretty swayed toward the degenerate case here actually. When you can reach a deck that plays more than 1 Possession a turn without falling super far behind, the goal turns into building this up as quickly as possible and then destroying your own economy. You can destroy your own economy instantly with Donate, and leave your deck in debt so your opponent can't use it. If this is mirrored, the game is locked out and you starve to death.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on November 10, 2016, 04:14:14 pm

Donald has said it's not a draw.  The game keeps going.


Isn't a "propose draw" button just simultaneous resignation? You're allowed to quit whenever you want; it's just asking "should we quit together"
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on November 10, 2016, 08:45:08 pm
No.  Players can't resign either.  There is no game action made available to the players in the base rulebook that says a player can cause themselves to lose.  Isotropic and goko had bugs where you could press a button to cause yourself to lose, even though they were supposed to implement dominion.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on November 10, 2016, 08:51:57 pm

Just cause they aren't in the rulebook doesn't make them a good feature. Also this is clearly intended by the programmers of the client so it isn't a bug it's a feature.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SettingFraming on November 10, 2016, 11:31:03 pm
I had a new idea for a feature request (at least one I don't remember reading about):

You know this very small share of stalemate games, where "everyone starves to death"?

It would be nice to have something like a Propose Draw button, and if both players accept, the game will automatically end in a draw.

I think in those small cases, it should end in a tie automatically, but that is my personal opinion.
I think writing a program that recognizes such situations is several orders of magnitude harder than adding a button.

Not only is it several orders of magnitude harder, it's proven to be theoretically impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

Of course you could hard-code an approximate list of game states known/believed to result in draws, but that's not really solving the problem as well as button-adding does either.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: gloures on November 11, 2016, 12:06:52 am
I had a new idea for a feature request (at least one I don't remember reading about):

You know this very small share of stalemate games, where "everyone starves to death"?

It would be nice to have something like a Propose Draw button, and if both players accept, the game will automatically end in a draw.

I think in those small cases, it should end in a tie automatically, but that is my personal opinion.
Well, sometimes someone has a tight advantage in such scenarios. Enforcing the tie wouldn't be fair then.

In stalemate situations I feel that if you think you´re in the lead and that a tie is not fair, you´re pretty much obliged to attempt to break out of the stalemate, if you think you can´t get out with an advantage I feel like a tie couldn´t be fairer.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Accatitippi on November 11, 2016, 03:08:54 am
No.  Players can't resign either.  There is no game action made available to the players in the base rulebook that says a player can cause themselves to lose.  Isotropic and goko had bugs where you could press a button to cause yourself to lose, even though they were supposed to implement dominion.
Sneak peek: with the "gain Adventurer" button gone, this will finally be fixed in the new Dominion online.

Hey guys I could make a Scout joke but I made an Adventurer joke instead!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Calamitas on November 11, 2016, 06:25:49 am
I had a new idea for a feature request (at least one I don't remember reading about):

You know this very small share of stalemate games, where "everyone starves to death"?

It would be nice to have something like a Propose Draw button, and if both players accept, the game will automatically end in a draw.

I think in those small cases, it should end in a tie automatically, but that is my personal opinion.
Well, sometimes someone has a tight advantage in such scenarios. Enforcing the tie wouldn't be fair then.

In stalemate situations I feel that if you think you´re in the lead and that a tie is not fair, you´re pretty much obliged to attempt to break out of the stalemate, if you think you can´t get out with an advantage I feel like a tie couldn´t be fairer.
I wanted to say that this is really subjective. Some people, would rather like to tie while others might want to play it out till than. I'm all for a button, it just increases fun for all involved (nobody is forced to agree to the tie, if both want it it is to their advantage). Enforcing a tie automatically in such a situation wouldn't have that advantage though.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: michaeljb on November 15, 2016, 05:34:37 pm
Some players like to play with 2-3 sets instead of full random; I like the idea but always have trouble deciding which sets should be used.

A mode where the kingdom is selected by first selecting 2-3 sets, then mixing all of their cards together, could be cool. So before the game you just know you're playing with "limited random"; you don't know what sets will be used, you just know it won't be more than 3 when you get to the kingdom.

Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on November 16, 2016, 12:02:46 pm
No.  Players can't resign either.  There is no game action made available to the players in the base rulebook that says a player can cause themselves to lose.  Isotropic and goko had bugs where you could press a button to cause yourself to lose, even though they were supposed to implement dominion.

This strict interpretation of the rules is plainly ridiculous. The rules also don't permit talking, using a computer to play Dominion, having a Victory Point counter, chattingwearing glasses to read the cards, or eating food during a game.

Basic respect for human agency suggests that consensual activities can end at any time - the right to quit a game is fundamental to all games, really. A draw is just quitting simeltaneously.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on November 16, 2016, 11:00:42 pm
A draw is different from an incomplete game.  You can pretend those things are the same but they're not.  If a 1900 ELO chess player is playing a 1400 ELO chess player at a large event, and a fire erupts at the venue, forcing evacuation and destroying the board, a good tournament administrator will not score the game as having happened just the same as when both players trade down to 1 king each.  No result will be recorded, because the rules of chess do not define an outcome for that case.

A game's result is defined by its rules, not by what the two players want to mutually agree is the outcome.  Mutually agreeing on an outcome is just not something recognized within the universe of the game.  That is external to the game.  It's like finishing an English crossword puzzle with Chinese characters. 

From what I hear, X-wings miniatures has banned draws entirely from their tournaments because players don't like them.  You can call it fundamental all you want, but you can't go and draw at their games.  You can quit simultaneously and agree with your opponent to do that, and the TO will remove both of you from the tournament.  You can run out of time, and they devised a whole bunch of tiebreakers that always resolve that.  You can't force the tournament administrator to record that your game was completed and neither player won or lost, the game doesn't have that outcome. 

Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on November 16, 2016, 11:55:11 pm

Are you being ornery?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: singletee on November 17, 2016, 12:14:25 am
So agreeing to a draw is not part of the game of Dominion but part of the social activity of playing Dominion. It's still a good feature. Allow either player to offer a draw, at which point the other player can either agree, which ends the game and is scored the same as a score/turns tie, or ignore, in which case the player who offered the draw cannot offer again until an offer has been extended to them.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on November 17, 2016, 12:27:29 am
So agreeing to a draw is not part of the game of Dominion but part of the social activity of playing Dominion. It's still a good feature. Allow either player to offer a draw, at which point the other player can either agree, which ends the game and is scored the same as a score/turns tie, or ignore, in which case the player who offered the draw cannot offer again until an offer has been extended to them.
Also only 3 draw proposals per game to avoid draw spams
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on November 17, 2016, 12:52:00 am
Why not just trash a Province from the supply each turn after 10 consecutive turns with no overall Supply change? They are both equally not Dominion.  One just doesn't have a fiddly new interface nuance to it.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on November 17, 2016, 01:12:06 am
Why not just trash a Province from the supply each turn after 10 consecutive turns with no overall Supply change? They are both equally not Dominion.  One just doesn't have a fiddly new interface nuance to it.
The rules never say you can breath.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: singletee on November 17, 2016, 01:43:13 am
Why not just trash a Province from the supply each turn after 10 consecutive turns with no overall Supply change? They are both equally not Dominion.  One just doesn't have a fiddly new interface nuance to it.

That's an in-game action. I specifically noted that offering a draw was an out-of-game action. It doesn't matter that it's not Dominion. It's a supplement to the gaming experience. It offers players the ability to mutually agree to stop playing a game that has gone degenerate. The goal is to avoid the situation in which the winner is determined not by skill/luck but by the ability to click buttons repeatedly over a long period of time.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: cactus on November 17, 2016, 06:07:06 am
I think players should definitely be allowed to agree to end a game without a winner and loser being recorded - this should at least be allowed in casual games. I play almost exclusively with one other person. It happens fairly often that we will agree not to play a kingdom if we don't think it is interesting etc. The current system insists on recording a loss against the person who "resigns" and so our win / loss record against each other do not actually reflect our years of playing against each other.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Accatitippi on November 17, 2016, 06:33:29 am
A draw is different from an incomplete game.  You can pretend those things are the same but they're not.  If a 1900 ELO chess player is playing a 1400 ELO chess player at a large event, and a fire erupts at the venue, forcing evacuation and destroying the board, a good tournament administrator will not score the game as having happened just the same as when both players trade down to 1 king each.  No result will be recorded, because the rules of chess do not define an outcome for that case.

A game's result is defined by its rules, not by what the two players want to mutually agree is the outcome.  Mutually agreeing on an outcome is just not something recognized within the universe of the game.  That is external to the game.  It's like finishing an English crossword puzzle with Chinese characters.

From Draw (chess) on wikipedia:
Quote
Unless specific tournament rules forbid it, players may agree to a draw at any time. Ethical considerations may make a draw uncustomary in situations where at least one player has a reasonable chance of winning. For example, a draw could be called after a move or two, but this would likely be thought unsporting.

I think players should have the possibility of agreeing on a draw, but not to invalidate a rated game completely, of course.
If the goal is to have fun, and unfun gamestates are not fun, and unfair results are not fun either, then you should be allowed to agree on a draw.

But Donald should have the last word on this, I think.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on November 17, 2016, 08:48:20 am
You know, the rules of Dominion don't specifically allow you to tell someone they broke the rules, so I think if a proposed draw happens there's just nothing you can do about it. Sorry. Stopping the game to point out a rules violation is just as not-Dominion as starting with a 10 card hand at the beginning of the game.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Donald X. on November 17, 2016, 09:09:29 am
This strict interpretation of the rules is plainly ridiculous. The rules also don't permit talking, using a computer to play Dominion, having a Victory Point counter, chattingwearing glasses to read the cards, or eating food during a game.

Basic respect for human agency suggests that consensual activities can end at any time - the right to quit a game is fundamental to all games, really. A draw is just quitting simeltaneously.
If you poke around on f.ds you will find a long discussion on note-taking, where I make clear certain to-me-obvious points, such as the difference between actions that take place within game contexts and actions which do not. I even cover wearing glasses.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Dingan on November 17, 2016, 12:52:48 pm
I've never seen a starved to death game in all of my thousands of games of dominion.

Neither have I.  Maybe it happens to other people, or maybe people play with pre-designed Kingdoms that are more likely to yield a stalemate than the random one.  But I've never seen it, not even once.  There was 1 Ambassador/Golem game I played that went like 60 turns and it felt like a stalemate, but was ever so slightly tipped in 1 direction, enough so that I resigned.

Point is, I don't think a maybe-once-every-few-years scenario should be the highest priority feature at this point.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SettingFraming on November 17, 2016, 09:40:46 pm
Guys, draws happen so close to never in Dominion. It's not something worthy of being put in as a feature. It would be an okay feature, but it's just so unbelievably rare that it's not worth any of this.

I've had one draw happen before, in a very very specific circumstance, and although it was tough to resolve due to my opponent being Japanese, in most situations I think the players can just work it out without the need for an official feature.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: faust on November 18, 2016, 10:29:04 am
Having a draw available is also a nice tool if you have to leave unexpectedly and your opponent is a nice guy. Covering "starve to death" scenarios is merely a nice side effect.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: SettingFraming on November 18, 2016, 11:06:20 am
Having a draw available is also a nice tool if you have to leave unexpectedly and your opponent is a nice guy. Covering "starve to death" scenarios is merely a nice side effect.

This would make more sense if draws were a no-op in terms of rankings. For those near the top of the leaderboard taking a draw, even in an even game, would be disincentivized.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Jacob marley on November 18, 2016, 11:53:49 am
Having a draw available is also a nice tool if you have to leave unexpectedly and your opponent is a nice guy. Covering "starve to death" scenarios is merely a nice side effect.

It's not really necessary for even that, IMO.  If you have to leave unexpectedly, the correct thing to do is explain this in the chat and resign.  I'd be offended if someone said "I have to go, let's call this a draw."
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Calamitas on November 18, 2016, 03:43:24 pm
Having a draw available is also a nice tool if you have to leave unexpectedly and your opponent is a nice guy. Covering "starve to death" scenarios is merely a nice side effect.

It's not really necessary for even that, IMO.  If you have to leave unexpectedly, the correct thing to do is explain this in the chat and resign.  I'd be offended if someone said "I have to go, let's call this a draw."
Dependent on the situation.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: cactus on November 18, 2016, 04:07:51 pm
Guys, draws happen so close to never in Dominion. It's not something worthy of being put in as a feature. It would be an okay feature, but it's just so unbelievably rare that it's not worth any of this.

I've had one draw happen before, in a very very specific circumstance, and although it was tough to resolve due to my opponent being Japanese, in most situations I think the players can just work it out without the need for an official feature.

Stalemate happen incredibly rarely in Dominion (thanks to some very canny game design and a lot of painstaking play testing) so you would be right there is no point having a mutually agreed draw as an option if it was only for stalemates.

I play Dominion in a very competitive way but usually only against one other opponent - not against all comers like most competitive Dominion players (this might be because we are in Australia so when we started playing there weren't many other good players online at the times we were playing - or it could be I get particular joy from beating someone I know). At any rate my point is that there are other reasons players might want to agree to a draw in addition to stalemate. Sometimes my friend and I resign a game before it starts because it contain a particular card (I'm one of those people with a bit of a bee in my bonnet about Rebuild) or we might agree not to play a kingdom if it looks like a very clear cut mirror. The second edition of Dominion is IMO going to reduce the number of clear cut mirror kingdoms (less weak cards = less kingdoms where there is a single stronge card or combo that must be bought) and if there is a way to veto certain cards then I guess my desire for a mutual draw feature won't be so strong.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: cactus on November 18, 2016, 04:21:52 pm
Having a draw available is also a nice tool if you have to leave unexpectedly and your opponent is a nice guy. Covering "starve to death" scenarios is merely a nice side effect.

It's not really necessary for even that, IMO.  If you have to leave unexpectedly, the correct thing to do is explain this in the chat and resign.  I'd be offended if someone said "I have to go, let's call this a draw."
Dependent on the situation.

This is an interesting one. I agree that if I unexpectedly have to leave a game early (dealing with a baby that has just woken up used to be a pretty common experience for me) then good form dictates I should resign. But if there other player had to end the game early and they were winning I would be happy to accept a mutually agreed draw if I thought I still had some small chance in the game  (or if I thought I had no chance I'd just resign myself).

The ultimate end point should be that each players win/loss record and ranking accurately reflects their actual playing ability.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: mameluke on November 18, 2016, 05:07:52 pm
Sometimes the board just sucks and neither player really wants to play it. I had a game the other day where all 10 kingdom cards were Action cards and none of them had +1 Action or +buy. It was just a sad money game with not much strategy, but we played through it anyways. In my IRL group we would have replaced a card or two.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on November 22, 2016, 01:52:54 am
Those games are literally the best

(On a serious note, does +buy impact terminal BM boards apart from Wharf?  Like I feel you buy the same number of Margraves even without it..
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: faust on November 22, 2016, 11:42:54 am
(On a serious note, does +buy impact terminal BM boards apart from Wharf?  Like I feel you buy the same number of Margraves even without it..
Council Room, Counterfeit, Tactician are some cards that may be used in terminal BM and their +buy makes a difference. Margrave doesn't make a big difference, but I might buy Rabble over Margrave without the buy, and I usually would buy Margrave over Rabble.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on November 22, 2016, 05:29:05 pm
Counterfeit amd tactician both cannot appear in the kingdom he described anyway though.

Council room has an extremely hard time being the best terminal BM on the table.  But yeah it definitely has a buy that is meaningful in the tiny sliver of kingdoms where it's the best BM 5.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: faust on November 22, 2016, 06:46:36 pm
Also +buy gets immediately relevant with the right Events (Quest/Annex etc.)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: faust on November 22, 2016, 06:48:56 pm
Council room has an extremely hard time being the best terminal BM on the table.  But yeah it definitely has a buy that is meaningful in the tiny sliver of kingdoms where it's the best BM 5.

Well uh I don't know what BM enabler with +buy you are thinking of that is better than Council Room or Margrave. Wharf doesn't count as you already said the +buy matters there. So what are we even talking about?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on November 24, 2016, 12:24:31 am
I meant amongst all Terminal BM, not just ones with +buy.  Councilroom's sad fate is that usually when it finally finds a villageless board and wants to be a BM card, the board has an Embassy or Journeyman or something.  (It's much better as an engine card).
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Hertz_Doughnut on November 29, 2016, 01:59:16 am
I taught my 4-year-old to play Dominion with a forked version of Goko Salvager (https://github.com/dbergan/Goko-Salvager) that was basically a "kid mode" which limited the game as follows:

- Removed the scary cards:
var JackIsASweetInnocentBoy = " /witch /youngwitch /harem /thief /torturer /seahag /alchemy /fortuneteller /cultist /urchin /deathcart /mystic /altar /graverobber /rogue /soothsayer /cutpurse"

- Forced all games to be against Serf Bot

He loved it.  A fun way to teach basic math and logic skills. (Which the world needs more of!)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Hertz_Doughnut on November 29, 2016, 02:48:41 am
Quick thoughts on draws:

1) Draws are a bug, not a feature of chess tournaments. Tournament play degenerates when players can agree to draws. Originally, drawn chess games were replayed, but in 1867, the British Chess Association was vexed by having too many games needing to be replayed to keep their rounds on schedule, so they made an ad hoc ruling to split the win. Now that's tradition, and the chess community is plagued with grandmaster draws where players intentionally don't play a game of chess for external reasons ("let's save our energy for Bobby Fischer" or "let's split the prize money"). Tournament organizers have to go to great lengths to encourage players not to draw. (At Millionaire Chess, they gave out a trip to Hawaii.)

2) All situations mentioned so far here can be addressed by (a) quitting and replaying or (b) aborting and resuming. If you're in the Possession / Donate death spiral, choose (a).  If your baby woke up when you were winning, choose (b).

...

Now that I've written that, how exactly does the resume function work? If my opponent refuses to resume, can I claim that he resigned? Hmmm...
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: JW on November 29, 2016, 03:08:29 am
Quick thoughts on draws:

1) Draws are a bug, not a feature of chess tournaments. Tournament play degenerates when players can agree to draws. Originally, drawn chess games were replayed, but in 1867, the British Chess Association was vexed by having too many games needing to be replayed to keep their rounds on schedule, so they made an ad hoc ruling to split the win. Now that's tradition, and the chess community is plagued with grandmaster draws where players intentionally don't play a game of chess for external reasons ("let's save our energy for Bobby Fischer" or "let's split the prize money"). Tournament organizers have to go to great lengths to encourage players not to draw. (At Millionaire Chess, they gave out a trip to Hawaii.)

Dominion players in the league can already agree to a 3-3 split without a draw feature. Yet, as far as I am aware this does not happen and is not a concern, and so neither is an explicit draw feature.

Edit: Deadlock points out below that agreeing to a 3-3 split is against the league rules. With an explicit draw feature, this rule would also prohibit non-competitively agreeing to a draw of individual games. It's already the case that players could simply agree, separate from the Dominion online results, to consider a game a tie.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Deadlock39 on November 29, 2016, 07:58:11 pm
Dominion players in the league can already agree to a 3-3 split without a draw feature. Yet, as far as I am aware this does not happen and is not a concern, and so neither is an explicit draw feature.

Doing this would actually be in violation of the most recent revision of the League Rules & Regulations (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15509.0) That were updated in May.

VI. Playing Competitively

All players in the league are expected to complete all of their matches as competitively as possible. There are times when it may appear that your remaining games cannot effect your standings, but this is very seldom the case. The average points per player in a full group each season is 15, and 6 points are at stake in each match. In some groups, the difference between 1st and 6th place has been less than 2 points at the end of the season.  Even if your personal promotion/demotion status is guaranteed, it is still not acceptable to complete games non-competitively. It is possible for the result of any match to determine the fate of another player by way of the 2nd tiebreaker points. It is unfair to other players in your group if you do not complete your matches properly. Players who are found to have forfeited games or matches, colluded with other players, or posted results that were non-competitive in other ways may be banned from the league for up to 4 Seasons depending on the severity of the offense. Repeat offenders may receive a longer ban period or be permanently banned from the league.  If anyone suggests recording a result that you feel is in violation of this policy, please report it to your League moderator immediately.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: mameluke on December 01, 2016, 09:04:58 am
One month to go! Yee-haw!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: JThorne on December 01, 2016, 12:06:10 pm
I'm guessing that a lot of these are already taken care of, but I'll list them for the sake of completeness:

1. Always make the entire card name in your hand readable. The number of times I've had a big hand in MF and have had to identify my hand by the top-left corner of the card art is silly. I assume this was done on day one of the new client.

2. Disambiguate the card-selection actions better. The MF colored borders aren't enough, as has been pointed out many times, and the plus sign on the pile selection even when not gaining is terrible UI design.

3. Allow undo for non-information-providing actions. I allow this in IRL games. For example, if you play a terminal draw card, then realize you didn't play a village first, there's no undoing, because you have looked at the cards that you drew, which provides information you didn't have before making the "error." However, if you trash a card, then change your mind, you should be able to pick it back up and trash a different one, or even rewind the trasher action to your hand (as long as it isn't something like Junk Dealer or Lookout, which draw or reveal cards.)

The implementation of this wouldn't be too difficult: Keep a list of the information-providing occurences that can occur in a game of Dominion and use those as stop points beyond which the undo command is not permitted to rewind. Playing actions or treasure cards from hand is not inherently information-providing (information given to your opponent would not count.) Going from action to treasure phase is not inherently information-providing. Trashing cards is not inherently information-providing. Gaining cards is not information-providing, except for gains from a randomized pile (Knights.) Drawing cards or revealing cards from your own or your opponents' decks is information providing, and should place a stop point. "Look through your discard pile" actions are information-providing.

A well-implemented undo can make up for a ton of misclick-creating UI problems that users are almost certain to complain about, no matter how good your design!

4. An API for developers

Ok, this might sound like pie-in-the-sky, but hear me out. I'm a software developer for a living, so I know that developing user interfaces for new features is often the most difficult part of the development process. Often more difficult that the feature itself. However, exposing some of the internals for tweaking by other developers is relatively easy. If you're using any sort of internal scripting language, it would be great to expose that for hobbyists. Failing that, allowing some sort of plugin system would be great. Here are some things that I would love to be able to experiment with:

-- creating custom bots, both for pre-constructed and random kingdoms
-- a "bot league" where bot matches could be set up (and play something like 100 games against each other almost instantly for a good statistical sample.)
-- custom kingdom creation rules
-- custom campaign creation, including bot setup, starting conditions and rule variants like MF. MF's campaigns seriously lack imagination and I'm guessing a lot of users could do better.
-- custom kingdom setup rules (my IRL group plays with 4 Provinces/Colonies per player for up to 6 players.)
-- custom hybrid cards

That last one is a bit tricky. Note that I didn't just say custom cards. Some users have asked for the ability to create user-designed cards, but that opens too many cans of worms. However, the ability to create cards that are simply a variation on existing mechanics, using the already-present code modularly, would be an interesting thing. For example, people have asked, what would a card that did +1 card, +1 action and nothing else cost? $0? $1? Usually skippable, but could be huge in the right Kingdom. What about cantrip-money that came with two Coppers? What about a vanilla terminal $3 +buy?

Sure, none of that is "real Dominion" but just look at the incredible amount of discussion this game has created in this forum. The puzzle section has some truly astounding stuff in it that will never happen in a real game, but what if someone turned some of those puzzles into campaign stages that were actually playable (with achievements; perhaps even mandatory ones, making the puzzle an integral part of the gameplay!) The variant card forum is interesting, as it usually produces dramatically overpowered (and sometimes underpowered) cards, but the ability to playtest those online would be great.

Expose an API, and it allows for an explosion of creativity among the developer-player community. I'm not sure how bit that community is, but I think it's worth considering.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: JW on December 01, 2016, 12:26:39 pm
I'm guessing that a lot of these are already taken care of, but I'll list them for the sake of completeness:

1. Always make the entire card name in your hand readable. The number of times I've had a big hand in MF and have had to identify my hand by the top-left corner of the card art is silly. I assume this was done on day one of the new client.

SCSN's Making More Fun mod had an alternative (and much better!) hand layout when you have a large number of uniques in hand that made them all readable. See below.

(http://www.makingmorefun.com/download/AllTheCards.PNG)
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Dingan on December 01, 2016, 12:32:49 pm
4. An API for developers
...
-- custom hybrid cards

This would be an interesting feature but I sort of can't imagine it being possible unless they were to limit the cards to only vanilla effects.  All the logic behind resolving an action card's effects, how to count a weird VP action card (think Distant Lands), how new mechanics/rules come out with each set, etc. would be very hard to generalize and expose for custom creation.  At least I would think so.

And then, if they were only limited to vanilla effects, they might not even need any sort of API to be created.  I would imagine they could be made from the front end as a create-your-own-card feature or something.

Then again, I have no idea how Stef and SCSN are implementing it, and I haven't ever even really thought about programatically implementing Dominion.  Maybe it's not as complicated as I imagine?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: JThorne on December 01, 2016, 02:21:10 pm
Quote
And then, if they were only limited to vanilla effects, they might not even need any sort of API to be created.  I would imagine they could be made from the front end as a create-your-own-card feature or something.

Yeah, as a developer, I can tell you that creating a user-interface for something like that would be an unspeakable nightmare. However, exposing an API for functions that probably already exist in the code is relatively simple, which is why I suggested it that way. Honestly, the build-a-card functionality is last on my list for a reason; it's arguably the least interesting suggestion. But the bots/campaigns possibility is a strong one.

In fact, they might even consider releasing an API and asking for user-submissions for future updates, then actually release versions with official campaigns and other content that were entirely user-created. A bit of licensing IP paperwork and you're all set, and it could save the developers the ton of time and effort it would take to create content.

Part of the reason that I bring up these ideas is because an on-line-centric implementation with matchmaking can be extraordinarily intimidating for most players who don't see themselves becoming top-level Dominion experts. I enjoy a lot of games, and I play Dominion well, but probably not at a super-high level. I personally enjoy the MF campaigns and am still working my way through them, usually beating everything on the first try, but occasionally getting stuck having to try one five or six times.

I'm reminded of some of the on-line videogames I've played, particularly team shooters. I've enjoyed the single-player campaigns, and I've enjoyed playing with friends, but in several games I've thought I was reasonably OK at the game and jumped into some random on-line games and absolutely had my head handed to me (angering randomly assigned teammates in the process.) Good single-player or circle-of-friends play can keep players engaged with the game and enthusiastic about it. Jumping into the matchmaking pool and repeatedly getting destroyed by really skilled on-line players is alienating, and Dominion is too good a game to suffer from a syndrome like that.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: luser on December 08, 2016, 03:55:52 pm
As I long time ago though about suggestions for MF how to improve UI. What about following one to make playing it fast and mistake free?

Main tool: Buttons above and below cards. If card has optional trash clause then you trash cards by clicking on button trash above the card. If you click on card itself it means that you are done with previous card and play selected card. That would avoid most trashing by accident. Similar with discard, it would speed up hamlet, you click on button above card to get action, below card to get buy by discarding these and likely on a next hamlet otherwise.

Second feature would be always button. Mainly scrying pools and spy,oracle... engine games would be faster if player could click on additional button, to keep card on top of other player's deck for all future plays until end of turn. For reactions one could select to always defend versus that card until end of turn or check a checkbox to always reveal moat until end of game.

Third in any order interface. Most times you don't care how are some cards ordered. With cartographer it would show cards with button above to discard, then you would drag cards to change order and then hit button done to put them back. So in common case simply hitting done would return them in same order as before. Avoiding cases when it doesn't matter as all cards are same would be nice.

Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: BBL on December 09, 2016, 06:39:20 pm

Part of the reason that I bring up these ideas is because an on-line-centric implementation with matchmaking can be extraordinarily intimidating for most players who don't see themselves becoming top-level Dominion experts. I enjoy a lot of games, and I play Dominion well, but probably not at a super-high level. I personally enjoy the MF campaigns and am still working my way through them, usually beating everything on the first try, but occasionally getting stuck having to try one five or six times.

I'm reminded of some of the on-line videogames I've played, particularly team shooters. I've enjoyed the single-player campaigns, and I've enjoyed playing with friends, but in several games I've thought I was reasonably OK at the game and jumped into some random on-line games and absolutely had my head handed to me (angering randomly assigned teammates in the process.) Good single-player or circle-of-friends play can keep players engaged with the game and enthusiastic about it. Jumping into the matchmaking pool and repeatedly getting destroyed by really skilled on-line players is alienating, and Dominion is too good a game to suffer from a syndrome like that.
This! I really hope ShIT considers a great Solo Mode as vital as the needs of the Hardcore Community for Online Play.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: werothegreat on December 10, 2016, 09:41:45 am
Yes.  There really needs to be a campaign mode.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Witherweaver on December 31, 2016, 07:20:49 pm
The configuration for selecting backgrounds ('Preferred Background') should show you a preview of what the background is. (You select by an enumeration (that isn't explicitly exposed).) The only way to find out seems to be to start a game.  Also, an option to randomize would be nice.

Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: gkrieg13 on December 31, 2016, 07:42:45 pm
The configuration for selecting backgrounds ('Preferred Background') should show you a preview of what the background is. (You select by an enumeration (that isn't explicitly exposed).) The only way to find out seems to be to start a game.  Also, an option to randomize would be nice.

If you type /bg # then you can see each of the backgrounds
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on January 04, 2017, 12:25:29 am
How do you name a card not in supply?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Mic Qsenoch on January 04, 2017, 12:36:12 am
How do you name a card not in supply?

Not currently possible  :(
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: heron on January 04, 2017, 01:49:39 am
Got my email  :).

Edit: On second thought, this was not the thread I intended to post in.... oh well!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on January 04, 2017, 03:45:26 am
Got my email  :).

Edit: On second thought, this was not the thread I intended to post in.... oh well!
It's ok heron.  We can go public about our via email flirtations.  Theory won't ban me for soliciting myself to another forum user.  He's already forgiven me so many other things I know it won't happen.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on January 04, 2017, 11:33:29 am
It would be cool if the log said "Awaclus trashes Dame Molly" instead of "Awaclus trashes a Dame Molly" (and similarly for other unique cards). Not an important thing by any means, but it would be cool.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: NoMoreFun on January 04, 2017, 06:35:24 pm
Could you have cards that get gained (and played/"used") by a player be automatically added to that user's the "familiar cards" list? That way the "2 unfamiliar cards" thing can be a great way to ease into the game or a set gradually.

Also perhaps include a "minimum unfamiliar cards" option for that.

Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: sudgy on January 04, 2017, 08:24:52 pm
Could you have cards that get gained (and played/"used") by a player be automatically added to that user's the "familiar cards" list? That way the "2 unfamiliar cards" thing can be a great way to ease into the game or a set gradually.

Also perhaps include a "minimum unfamiliar cards" option for that.

A lot of people (including me) won't remember cards after using them once.  Maybe asking if they're familiar will work after the game, but that sounds like too much work for a tiny not-really-needed feature.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on January 04, 2017, 09:26:14 pm
I think there's an appropriate N, N >1. 4 seems beyond plenty and like a direct improvement over no automatic additions at all.

Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: kieranmillar on January 05, 2017, 02:37:57 am
I thought cards were marked as familiar after them merely being present in a kingdom for the first time. Is that not how it works?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: avorian on January 05, 2017, 02:28:37 pm
This seems like the best place to put this: the teacher/event tokens need a rework imho. As is, coin is a bare text +1, which could mean anything. Use a coin sprite for this if possible. 
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Chris is me on January 05, 2017, 02:33:41 pm
This seems like the best place to put this: the teacher/event tokens need a rework imho. As is, coin is a bare text +1, which could mean anything. Use a coin sprite for this if possible.

Even like a $ sign would do a lot
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: NoMoreFun on January 05, 2017, 02:44:50 pm
Could you have cards that get gained (and played/"used") by a player be automatically added to that user's the "familiar cards" list? That way the "2 unfamiliar cards" thing can be a great way to ease into the game or a set gradually.

Also perhaps include a "minimum unfamiliar cards" option for that.

A lot of people (including me) won't remember cards after using them once.  Maybe asking if they're familiar will work after the game, but that sounds like too much work for a tiny not-really-needed feature.

It's the best way to introduce new cards in lieu of a single player campaign, which is important
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: LastFootnote on January 05, 2017, 03:04:47 pm
Cards should be "familiar" after either one or two games with them. One is obviously easier to implement. It's not a problem if users aren't actually familiar with all those cards yet. The point, presumably, is to not dump 10 new cards on a user at once. Making a card "familiar" after one play accomplishes that just fine. Never automatically making cards "familiar" means that lots of players will never become "familiar" with any card.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: NoMoreFun on January 05, 2017, 04:04:26 pm
How do you name a card not in supply?

Not currently possible  :(

IMO until this gets fixed "name a card" cards should be banned like Inheritance and Stash. I've played 2 games now where the Mystic pile ran out, meaning you can't use Mystic to name Mystic  (unless you have a Mystic in your hand), which is especially annoying when the last Mystic you played reveals a Mystic on top of your deck and you can't use a Mystic to draw your Mystic.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: blueblimp on January 05, 2017, 04:49:33 pm
I remember when Goko had the bug where you couldn't name empty piles. Can't remember when it was fixed. Might've even been before MF took over?
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Limetime on January 05, 2017, 04:52:01 pm
How do you name a card not in supply?

Not currently possible  :(

IMO until this gets fixed "name a card" cards should be banned like Inheritance and Stash. I've played 2 games now where the Mystic pile ran out, meaning you can't use Mystic to name Mystic  (unless you have a Mystic in your hand), which is especially annoying when the last Mystic you played reveals a Mystic on top of your deck and you can't use a Mystic to draw your Mystic.
I think you might be able to name mystic by clicking an instance of it the log.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Witherweaver on January 05, 2017, 04:58:49 pm
How do you name a card not in supply?

Not currently possible  :(

IMO until this gets fixed "name a card" cards should be banned like Inheritance and Stash. I've played 2 games now where the Mystic pile ran out, meaning you can't use Mystic to name Mystic  (unless you have a Mystic in your hand), which is especially annoying when the last Mystic you played reveals a Mystic on top of your deck and you can't use a Mystic to draw your Mystic.

You Dawg, I heard you like Mystic...
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Jacob marley on January 05, 2017, 05:06:57 pm
How do you name a card not in supply?

Not currently possible  :(

IMO until this gets fixed "name a card" cards should be banned like Inheritance and Stash. I've played 2 games now where the Mystic pile ran out, meaning you can't use Mystic to name Mystic  (unless you have a Mystic in your hand), which is especially annoying when the last Mystic you played reveals a Mystic on top of your deck and you can't use a Mystic to draw your Mystic.

You Dawg, I heard you like Mystic...

Why not, Mystic is hot!
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: NoMoreFun on January 05, 2017, 06:50:25 pm
One of the things I miss about isotropic is the "are you sure" notification that can pop up with plays. That would be really helpful for some situations like buying Borrow before playing any treasures.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: popsofctown on January 05, 2017, 09:44:00 pm
How do you name a card not in supply?

Not currently possible  :(

IMO until this gets fixed "name a card" cards should be banned like Inheritance and Stash. I've played 2 games now where the Mystic pile ran out, meaning you can't use Mystic to name Mystic  (unless you have a Mystic in your hand), which is especially annoying when the last Mystic you played reveals a Mystic on top of your deck and you can't use a Mystic to draw your Mystic.

I'd like to see that, but devil's advocate, you could set your familiarity tolerance to 0 and set that you don't know anything about Mystic.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: NoMoreFun on January 07, 2017, 12:38:21 pm
Another test for "Are you sure" - playing Crown in your action phase when it's the only Action in your hand.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: NoMoreFun on January 07, 2017, 01:04:09 pm
The Undo feature is nice but if there was no new information revealed (eg didn't draw or reveal any cards, didn't play an attack that could trigger a reaction etc.), you shouldn't have to ask for permission. IIRC isotropic was like that.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on January 07, 2017, 01:17:24 pm
The Undo feature is nice but if there was no new information revealed (eg didn't draw or reveal any cards, didn't play an attack that could trigger a reaction etc.), you shouldn't have to ask for permission. IIRC isotropic was like that.

The only thing you could undo on Isotropic was the automatic playing of all Treasures at the start of your buy phase.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: yed on January 07, 2017, 03:22:19 pm
The Undo feature is nice but if there was no new information revealed (eg didn't draw or reveal any cards, didn't play an attack that could trigger a reaction etc.), you shouldn't have to ask for permission. IIRC isotropic was like that.
I  think Stef said, that is planned.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: trazoM on January 07, 2017, 05:23:16 pm
If I remember it correctly, there should be some modes: Always Undo, Ask if information revealed, Always ask.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: avorian on January 09, 2017, 08:14:06 am
This doesn't actually make mistakes any easier to avoid perse, but I think in general any time that playing a treasure triggers a nontrivial effect, it should be excluded from autoplay. Autoplay in turn should just play the treasures in lumps, not some arbitrary order.

Mainly I'm just confused as to how Sauna/Silver interactions ended up operating the way they do. My treasure in hand is played seemingly in a random order (presumably the order it was drawn in?), and whenever a silver appears suddenyl the sauna's activate in the middle of the autoplay.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: michaeljb on January 10, 2017, 03:51:24 pm
RE: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16817.0

Being able to record macros would be cool. You click record, do some things, then hit stop once you've done all the steps you want to repeat. Then there's a button you click once to replay the whole sequence of events.

For the Highway/Goons/Forum/Trader example wero gives, the macro would only have these steps:

1) buy Forum
2) reveal Trader to (attempt to) gain Silver instead of Forum

Maybe there would be a button to repeat the macro 10x, or maybe even an input box where you could repeat the steps some number of times.

I think it wouldn't need infinite combos to be useful, it could also be useful for sequences like

1) play Village
2) play Smithy

Where you know you probably want to play Village+Smithy as much as possible, and why not play those cards by clicking once instead of clicking twice, especially since the locations of the two clicks could be changing position as the cards in your hand change.

And if the macro hit an instruction that it couldn't repeat, eg it plays a Village, but then you don't have a Smithy in hand, it would stop executing after the last successful action. This partial execution could of course be problematic in some situations if you are mistaken about how many times you can repeat a chain of actions, which is why this would be an "advanced user", use-at-your-own-risk feature.

Clearly this is a low-priority, "wouldn't that be neat" kind of feature but this thread seemed like the place to post this idea.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: GendoIkari on January 11, 2017, 05:22:36 pm
RE: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16817.0

Being able to record macros would be cool. You click record, do some things, then hit stop once you've done all the steps you want to repeat. Then there's a button you click once to replay the whole sequence of events.

For the Highway/Goons/Forum/Trader example wero gives, the macro would only have these steps:

1) buy Forum
2) reveal Trader to (attempt to) gain Silver instead of Forum

Maybe there would be a button to repeat the macro 10x, or maybe even an input box where you could repeat the steps some number of times.

I think it wouldn't need infinite combos to be useful, it could also be useful for sequences like

1) play Village
2) play Smithy

Where you know you probably want to play Village+Smithy as much as possible, and why not play those cards by clicking once instead of clicking twice, especially since the locations of the two clicks could be changing position as the cards in your hand change.

And if the macro hit an instruction that it couldn't repeat, eg it plays a Village, but then you don't have a Smithy in hand, it would stop executing after the last successful action. This partial execution could of course be problematic in some situations if you are mistaken about how many times you can repeat a chain of actions, which is why this would be an "advanced user", use-at-your-own-risk feature.

Clearly this is a low-priority, "wouldn't that be neat" kind of feature but this thread seemed like the place to post this idea.

I feel like this gets into a slippery slope. Like, your idea isn't that far from "auto-play all my Villages at the start of my turn". And eventually, it's just the computer playing for you, while you choose what to buy.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Awaclus on January 11, 2017, 05:28:28 pm
Prismata's Q feature (automatically makes some trivial/easy decisions for the player when you press Q) is pretty amazing and not at all a slippery slope. Although it's a little different from michaeljb's suggestion.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Jimmmmm on January 11, 2017, 10:15:14 pm
I'll put this here before I forget. After a game there should be an option to not play another game apart from Leave, so your opponent isn't sitting there waiting for a rematch while you're looking at the post-game screen with no intention to play again.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Dylan32 on January 11, 2017, 10:30:11 pm
I'll put this here before I forget. After a game there should be an option to not play another game apart from Leave, so your opponent isn't sitting there waiting for a rematch while you're looking at the post-game screen with no intention to play again.

You still have access to the chat so you could just tell him/her you aren't going to play again but you are just looking at that screen so they can leave.  I don't see the need to have a special button to tell them that.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Jimmmmm on January 11, 2017, 10:34:49 pm
I'll put this here before I forget. After a game there should be an option to not play another game apart from Leave, so your opponent isn't sitting there waiting for a rematch while you're looking at the post-game screen with no intention to play again.

You still have access to the chat so you could just tell him/her you aren't going to play again but you are just looking at that screen so they can leave.  I don't see the need to have a special button to tell them that.

People just aren't going to do that if you haven't already been chatting. Maybe "Offer Rematch", forcing you to Accept or Decline would be better.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Dylan32 on January 11, 2017, 10:42:12 pm
I'll put this here before I forget. After a game there should be an option to not play another game apart from Leave, so your opponent isn't sitting there waiting for a rematch while you're looking at the post-game screen with no intention to play again.

You still have access to the chat so you could just tell him/her you aren't going to play again but you are just looking at that screen so they can leave.  I don't see the need to have a special button to tell them that.

People just aren't going to do that if you haven't already been chatting. Maybe "Offer Rematch", forcing you to Accept or Decline would be better.

Whether or not people do it is their own choice. Given other issues that actually affect gameplay which have been well-documented, I just don't think this is a button that needs to be added since there is a way to communicate the same thing already in place. Eventually though, I guess I could see something like that being more useful.  I will admit, the "Offer Rematch" button does sound better than the "I don't want to play again" button  :P
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Razzishi on January 16, 2017, 12:09:55 am
The Undo feature is nice but if there was no new information revealed (eg didn't draw or reveal any cards, didn't play an attack that could trigger a reaction etc.), you shouldn't have to ask for permission. IIRC isotropic was like that.

This is why I was confused the first time that I tried an Undo against a human opponent (I had been playing bots and using it liberally).  I thought the point was that you would be able to undo anything that you changed your mind on due entirely to thought processes in your head (or more likely, misclicks), but not anything that generated new information for you.  Prismata you can undo your entire turn (including receiving damage!), but as a deterministic game of complete information, that's never a problem.  I would hope that it would be easy to determine exactly when more information is given to a player, even in a naive way that means forgetting that your opponent has a reaction and that your deck is stacked a certain way (from Apothecary or whatever), just so I don't have to be at the mercy of my opponent when I play my Crown in my action phase when attempting to use it on treasure (is there a better way to fix this perhaps?).
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: Razzishi on January 16, 2017, 12:18:22 am
Another test for "Are you sure" - playing Crown in your action phase when it's the only Action in your hand.

I just saw this on the previous page; I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees this as a potential problem.  Is there any benefit to playing a Crown as an action while having no actions in hand?  Doesn't Peddler count it as an action in play regardless of whether it was played as an action or treasure?  Even if through some convoluted method involving, say, Bonfire, Cultist, and Villa, you return to your action phase, not having the Crown in your hand is pretty much always a net minus.  A very convoluted edge case I can think of is if you then draw Golem off the Cultist trashing, think you might hit Ambassador, and don't want to be forced to give your opponent a Crown if it ends up as the only card in your hand, and at the same time don't want to Crown the Golem so as to increase the chances of needing to Ambassador something you don't want to give away.  But that's so ridiculous to conceive of that I think having the game default to moving to your buy phase if you play Crown with no action cards in hand.  You probably should also be able to retroactively move to your buy phase by choosing to Crown a treasure even if you have another action in your hand.
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: yed on January 16, 2017, 02:45:59 am
Another test for "Are you sure" - playing Crown in your action phase when it's the only Action in your hand.

I just saw this on the previous page; I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees this as a potential problem.  Is there any benefit to playing a Crown as an action while having no actions in hand?  Doesn't Peddler count it as an action in play regardless of whether it was played as an action or treasure?  Even if through some convoluted method involving, say, Bonfire, Cultist, and Villa, you return to your action phase, not having the Crown in your hand is pretty much always a net minus.  A very convoluted edge case I can think of is if you then draw Golem off the Cultist trashing, think you might hit Ambassador, and don't want to be forced to give your opponent a Crown if it ends up as the only card in your hand, and at the same time don't want to Crown the Golem so as to increase the chances of needing to Ambassador something you don't want to give away.  But that's so ridiculous to conceive of that I think having the game default to moving to your buy phase if you play Crown with no action cards in hand.  You probably should also be able to retroactively move to your buy phase by choosing to Crown a treasure even if you have another action in your hand.
See this big discussion
http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=1046
Title: Re: "Features" threads
Post by: yed on January 16, 2017, 02:47:50 am
The Undo feature is nice but if there was no new information revealed (eg didn't draw or reveal any cards, didn't play an attack that could trigger a reaction etc.), you shouldn't have to ask for permission. IIRC isotropic was like that.

This is why I was confused the first time that I tried an Undo against a human opponent (I had been playing bots and using it liberally).  I thought the point was that you would be able to undo anything that you changed your mind on due entirely to thought processes in your head (or more likely, misclicks), but not anything that generated new information for you.  Prismata you can undo your entire turn (including receiving damage!), but as a deterministic game of complete information, that's never a problem.  I would hope that it would be easy to determine exactly when more information is given to a player, even in a naive way that means forgetting that your opponent has a reaction and that your deck is stacked a certain way (from Apothecary or whatever), just so I don't have to be at the mercy of my opponent when I play my Crown in my action phase when attempting to use it on treasure (is there a better way to fix this perhaps?).
Stef plans it, just not enough time now.
http://forum.shuffleit.nl/index.php?topic=604.msg2037#msg2037