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DavidTheDavid

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Features Thread
« on: March 30, 2015, 10:23:24 pm »
+22

Hi, all. This is David from Making Fun. As you know, the game's redevelopment has been underway for some time. The game hasn't hit beta yet, but a lot of progress has been made. Once the game leaves beta, there will be a 1.0 release and the inevitable 2.0 release. The latter release will have a lot of refinements, including possibilities like something that's a customer service issue from time to time: reporting abusive players. I started a thread on our forums. Please feel free to comment there or here. I'll check on this thread every few days.

Besides reporting abusive players, what features are important to you? You should expect that much of the Salvager functionality will be incorporated into the game.

http://forum.makingfun.com/showthread.php?6343-Features-Thread&p=32391#post32391 reads as follows:
Quote
Hi, all. As you know, the new version of the game is underway.

I have a question about a topic that comes up now and then: reporting abusive players.

What options would you like in the new game? They wouldn't make it to the 1.0 release, but at 2.0, we might address this.

How about the option to mute other players?

How about reporting people? The problem here is that some people report issues that aren't violations and CS spends a lot of fruitless time chasing perceived insults. On other hand, it's good to have a function that reports a chunk of text where someone might have been abusive. Direct quotations are powerful witnesses.

Besides reporting abusive players, what features are important to you?
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #1 on: March 30, 2015, 10:30:36 pm »
+8

Adventures.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #2 on: March 30, 2015, 10:32:25 pm »
+1

You should expect that much of the Salvager functionality will be incorporated into the game.
Will they actually though?
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #3 on: March 30, 2015, 10:39:34 pm »
+30

The ability for people to reconnect

The ability for me to choose if I should force an inactive player to resign or not (In case I think they legitimately disconnected)

Fewer lobbies, maybe just one for casual, one for pro, one for unrated

Get rid of the multi-page interface for Kingdoms; this will be especially important with the Adventures cards

Don't make me click any sliders to see VP/tokens/etc and the state of the deck

Built in point counter (optional)

Allow players to choose first player (optional)

Make the interface for cards that reorder cards (Scout, Cartographer, etc) more intuitive

Eliminate all drag and drop interface options and replace with buttons

Don't make the chat or log things you have to click to open; they should always be visible

Get rid of the fanfares at the end of the game or at least make them way less annoying
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #4 on: March 30, 2015, 10:45:39 pm »
+3

The ability for people to reconnect
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2015, 10:47:58 pm »
+4

In non-mobile settings, please make use of the entire screen.

Allow me to make a friendlist, and invite online friends to play, rather than having to hunt through rooms and open games.

Change all remaining click-drag to buttons.

Make sure pop-ups (of play area for Scheme, for example) space out cards enough that I can actually see what I'm clicking.

Add an undo button.  It only needs to be there for a couple seconds (and obviously not for draw cards and things like that) - long enough for me to realize and want to correct a mistake, but not long enough for me to cheat.  Or something like if I go to purchase something and didn't spend any Coin tokens, ask me if I'm sure I want to do that.  It's too easy to mess something up because you're being absent-minded.  The interface should realize human players are going to make mistakes, and cater to that.
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DavidTheDavid

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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2015, 10:48:16 pm »
0

The ability for people to reconnect

The ability for me to choose if I should force an inactive player to resign or not (In case I think they legitimately disconnected)

Fewer lobbies, maybe just one for casual, one for pro, one for unrated

Get rid of the multi-page interface for Kingdoms; this will be especially important with the Adventures cards

Don't make me click any sliders to see VP/tokens/etc and the state of the deck

Built in point counter (optional)

Allow players to choose first player (optional)

Make the interface for cards that reorder cards (Scout, Cartographer, etc) more intuitive

Eliminate all drag and drop interface options and replace with buttons

Don't make the chat or log things you have to click to open; they should always be visible

Get rid of the fanfares at the end of the game or at least make them way less annoying

Ooh, nice. Thanks.

About the reconnect, I brought that up recently with the lead engineer. He has seen it working recently, so we need to know any details about where this is failing. It's one of those things, from a customer support perspective, that seems like a possible hardware problem for the client user: bad isp, outdated wireless card drivers, or who knows what. Or it could be something on our end, too.
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werothegreat

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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2015, 10:49:39 pm »
+3

The ability for people to reconnect

The ability for me to choose if I should force an inactive player to resign or not (In case I think they legitimately disconnected)

Fewer lobbies, maybe just one for casual, one for pro, one for unrated

Get rid of the multi-page interface for Kingdoms; this will be especially important with the Adventures cards

Don't make me click any sliders to see VP/tokens/etc and the state of the deck

Built in point counter (optional)

Allow players to choose first player (optional)

Make the interface for cards that reorder cards (Scout, Cartographer, etc) more intuitive

Eliminate all drag and drop interface options and replace with buttons

Don't make the chat or log things you have to click to open; they should always be visible

Get rid of the fanfares at the end of the game or at least make them way less annoying

Ooh, nice. Thanks.

About the reconnect, I brought that up recently with the lead engineer. He has seen it working recently, so we need to know any details about where this is failing. It's one of those things, from a customer support perspective, that seems like a possible hardware problem for the client user: bad isp, outdated wireless card drivers, or who knows what. Or it could be something on our end, too.

I have never successfully reconnected or played against someone who has successfully reconnected on Dominion Online.  I did not realize that was even an implemented feature.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2015, 10:50:41 pm »
+2

I have never been able to reconnect when I lose connection at all.  I have seen a message that someone has reconnected in the past, but they usually never pop back in regardless.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #9 on: March 30, 2015, 10:59:27 pm »
+1

You should expect that much of the Salvager functionality will be incorporated into the game.

Which parts?
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #10 on: March 30, 2015, 11:02:20 pm »
+2

What's important:

Point Counter
Cards that can be bought show on first page (ruins, etc.) Spoils, Tournament cards, etc. can be on another page
For non-pro games, the ability to choose who goes first.
In pro and non-pro games, the ability to choose identical starting hands (5/2, 4/3)
For non-pro games, the ability to select which expansions get randomized (a lot of casual players don't want to play with every expansion at once)
Option to have the log out on the side

Also, for the iOS and Droid versions, I think there should be an offline option to play bots. Lots of people use their tablets and phones where they don't get Internet connection and want to play a quick game. I have seen a lot of people playing Candy Crush just waiting around somewhere. My point is having an offline option will be HUGE for selling this game to the phone/tablet crowd. Also, a lot of people want a pass and play feature. That makes a lot of sense. I don't know how easy that would be to implement, but keep in my mind that a lot of revenue can come from the tablet/phone market. So, if you appease that market then sales should really take off, I think.


If possible:

non-random turn order. If you lose and play an opponent again, you go first.

PS: When the new version launches, should we expect Adventures with it or will that still be some time off?
« Last Edit: March 30, 2015, 11:16:36 pm by Beyond Awesome »
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #11 on: March 30, 2015, 11:12:28 pm »
+8

I agree with everything that has been said so far, especially jsh's post.


Also,

Display what (or at least how many) expansions a game host owns in Pro games

Salvager kingdom generation functionalities + display the options for generating the kingdom instead of the full kingdom in Casual/Unranked games

If you're running out of stuff to do, you might also want to let users use the bot AIs for simulation.


Also, if the fanfares need to be there (which is fine I think), they should count as music, not as a sound effect. I turn the music off because I want to listen to other music while playing Dominion without having annoying dissonances there that the composer did not intend to have, and the fanfares ruin that unless I also turn the sound effects off.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2015, 11:15:29 pm »
+5

Here are a few Salvager features that I really hope make it into the new version 1.0:

1. Logs displayed on the side that don't require clicking a pop-up. It's also great that they are CTRL+F searchable in Salvager so you don't have to spend time searching manually for that one thing you forgot.
2. Optional point tracking.
3. An easy way to enter custom Kingdoms for Casual games. I don't like the built in Deck Builder tool; it takes too long to find each card. I love the Salvager Kingdom generator where you can just copy and paste a fun Kingdom you found in text form. It's also nice to specify extra conditions when choosing the Kingdom, for example do you want at least 3 cards from Alchemy, or at least 1 Attack. (See this page: https://github.com/aiannacc/Goko-Salvager/wiki/Kingdom-Generator).
« Last Edit: March 30, 2015, 11:17:03 pm by Arctic Penguin »
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #13 on: March 30, 2015, 11:19:17 pm »
+5

(Echoing some other suggestions)

Very important

Cards that can be bought should always show on first page (including Ruins). Cards not in supply like prizes, madmen, spoils do not matter as much

Automatch based on a reasonable, non-volatile implementation of TrueSkill (see Isotropish for something reasonable)

Allow players to reconnect if something happens to their browser window yet they revisit the website in time to rejoin the game in progress

Good interface improvements

Logs displayed on side

Make it more difficult to accidentally discard a card you were actually intending to click on to play, with e.g. Hamlet and Storeroom

Making it more difficult to accidentally end your turn, e.g. when you had no actions left to play but were intending to click on a Play Treasures button (which you didn't realize was actually an End Turn)

A general undo action for non-draw actions would be useful, if it can be implemented - though I realize that's harder.

Undoing a coin token being played, and also allowing them to be played after normal treasures (but not after something like Venture) would be nice
« Last Edit: March 30, 2015, 11:20:28 pm by Gherald »
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #14 on: March 30, 2015, 11:42:52 pm »
+15

David, I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding about the reconnect feature. What people want is the ability to rejoin a game in progress even if they've quit their browser entirely. Isotropic worked like this. If you accidentally closed your window or tab, but then logged back in before the game ended, you just picked up right where you left off. You didn't go through the lobby or anything. If you left a game that's still in progress, you immediately resume that game upon logging back in.

I'm honestly surprised your system doesn't already detect when this is happening. Right now a player (or several players) can use the same account to log in multiple times and play several games simultaneously.

Add an undo button.  It only needs to be there for a couple seconds (and obviously not for draw cards and things like that) - long enough for me to realize and want to correct a mistake, but not long enough for me to cheat.  Or something like if I go to purchase something and didn't spend any Coin tokens, ask me if I'm sure I want to do that.  It's too easy to mess something up because you're being absent-minded.  The interface should realize human players are going to make mistakes, and cater to that.

PLEASE STOP ASKING FOR THIS. The immense amount of time it would take to implement and maintain is not worth it. Either that or it would be endlessly buggy.

Cards that can be bought should always show on first page (including Ruins). Cards not in supply like prizes, madmen, spoils do not matter as much

This is the number one most important feature. Anything that can be bought needs to be on page one so that players can see all of their buying options. All Supply piles need to be on page one so that a player can tell at a glance how close the game is to ending. Conversely, non-Supply piles should never be on page one, even if there's space for them. Empty non-Supply piles do not contribute to ending the game.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2015, 12:00:51 am by LastFootnote »
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #15 on: March 30, 2015, 11:49:37 pm »
+8

I think many people would like the option to play another game with the same opponents once a game has finished (without going back to the lobby or anything else). Ideally the start player would be set properly according to the Dominion rules for a series of games.

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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #16 on: March 30, 2015, 11:50:50 pm »
0

These are my most wanted features, as already mentioned by others players:

* Have the log, chat, and tokens always visible without clicking buttons
* Have the entire supply on a single page
* Remove drag-and-drop interfaces
* Have an optional point-counter
* Improved matchmaking that allows you to filter based on number of sets owned

Here are features which have not been mentioned and are less critical:

* Allow games to be spectated by others
* Allow using arbitrary images as avatars
* Use identical Trueskill parameters as isotropic
* Make the time-out timer visible to players
* Veto mode
« Last Edit: March 31, 2015, 12:17:39 am by pubby »
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #17 on: March 30, 2015, 11:55:55 pm »
+3

An option to play multiple coin tokens quickly would be nice in merchant guild games especially.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #18 on: March 30, 2015, 11:56:02 pm »
+2

Add an undo button.

PLEASE STOP ASKING FOR THIS. The immense amount of time it would take to implement and maintain is not worth it. Either that or it would be endlessly buggy.

Yes, a general-purpose undo button is not needed, BUT, a way to undo coin token spending and overpay amounts would be appreciated and is not very hard to do.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #19 on: March 30, 2015, 11:58:23 pm »
+5

I'm surprised there are so many requests to remove the drag-and-drop interfaces. This is meant to be cross-platform, guys, and those interfaces can be nice on phones and tablets. They should never be required, though, especially on a desktop. It's pretty awful that Watchtower never got buttons for the only two options it has (top-deck or trash). The discard and trash interfaces need to be redone anyway to allow for simultaneous discarding and trashing, so that should help.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #20 on: March 31, 2015, 12:10:51 am »
+2

Since some people have said they never successfully reconnected, I'll chime in and say that I have, and I've also had opponents do so.  But there's the five-minute timeout thing to contend with; you need to get your connection back fairly fast.  I think what jsh meant by "reconnect" and "choose whether to make a disconnected opponent to resign" isn't about the five-minute timeout, but saving a game state and being able to pick it up at any future time.  You'd need an interface like "my games in progress" that highlights whether the opponents for those games are online and available, i.e. not in the middle of another game. 

So if someone disconnects and I think they'll be back, I can just say "pause this game" instead of forcing a loss on them.  Later on that opponent and I can resume our game, whenever we happen to both come back online.  Or better yet, just let all players agree to pause a game any time.  If a player is disconnected and the other(s) say "pause this game," assume the disconnected player consents. 


If you're running out of stuff to do, you might also want to let users use the bot AIs for simulation.
Not sure what you mean by this, but I'm gonna jump off the deep end with it: publish an API for us to write our own bots.  (Note: I realize that would almost definitely allow us to make alternate user interfaces as well as bots, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.)


Repeats of other people's things:
Ability to choose who goes first in unrated games (useful for league/tournament sets among other things). 
Option for identical starting hands (if both players agree to it).
Rematch button when a game ends, offers to play again with the same opponent(s) and rulesets.  If they accept, skip matchmaking/lobby and go straight to the next game. 

The controversial one:
Option for some small amount of kingdom control in pro games, whether it's iso-style veto or Donald's hate-list idea or something else along those lines (there are multiple long threads debating the best way to do this, if it should be done at all, on these forums).


Saving the most important for last: Don't lose features you have now!  That includes ones provided by Salvager, since it's pretty ubiquitous.  Seriously, I'm willing to wait longer for you to implement everything Salvager currently does before releasing the new interface. 
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #21 on: March 31, 2015, 12:13:48 am »
+6

I didn't mean games should persist forever.  I meant iso style, where if the opponent gets back in enough time to keep playing, we can resume.

The other way might work but you could potentially have huge numbers of abandoned games sitting around and I don't want to play games that take multiple days to coMplete.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #22 on: March 31, 2015, 12:58:08 am »
+1

Add an undo button.

PLEASE STOP ASKING FOR THIS. The immense amount of time it would take to implement and maintain is not worth it. Either that or it would be endlessly buggy.

Yes, a general-purpose undo button is not needed, BUT, a way to undo coin token spending and overpay amounts would be appreciated and is not very hard to do.

Sorry, didn't realize this was a touchy subject, and I don't remember asking before for something like this...  I don't know, have I ever?  If I have, it was probably well over a year ago and I simply don't remember.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #23 on: March 31, 2015, 01:04:52 am »
+3

Add an undo button.

PLEASE STOP ASKING FOR THIS. The immense amount of time it would take to implement and maintain is not worth it. Either that or it would be endlessly buggy.

Yes, a general-purpose undo button is not needed, BUT, a way to undo coin token spending and overpay amounts would be appreciated and is not very hard to do.

Sorry, didn't realize this was a touchy subject, and I don't remember asking before for something like this...  I don't know, have I ever?  If I have, it was probably well over a year ago and I simply don't remember.

I don't think it's pointed at you, but rather everyone who suggests it.  The undo feature is just way too complicated to be a priority.  You have to decide where to draw the line on undos, and depending on how the game is coded it could be a hassle jumping back a step too.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #24 on: March 31, 2015, 01:13:53 am »
0

If you're running out of stuff to do, you might also want to let users use the bot AIs for simulation.
Not sure what you mean by this

Like Geronimoo's simulator but with the Lord Bottington AI as the base.
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