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blueblimp

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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #25 on: March 31, 2015, 01:29:28 am »
+8

1. Automatch
2. Automatch
3. Automatch
4. A point tracker (by consent of all players) is very nice-to-have. It's preferred by a majority of players, but not all: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=10867.0.
5. Did I mention automatch? It's important because it's only fun to take a few minutes to play a game if I can quickly find one with another player of roughly comparable skill.

For automatch UI, consider "what would Hearthstone do?", because Blizzard has a keen design sense. In Hearthstone, the flow to play a competitive game is: select play from the menu, select Ranked (equivalent to Goko's Pro; as opposed to Casual, which does not display rankings), click Play. You are then matched and put into a game. That's it--no other step.

For online Dominion, 2-player uniform-random-kingdom is by far the most popular competitive format, and usually with point counting (but not deck tracking). It's high value to be able to quickly and easily play an evenly-matched game in this format, way more important than having lots of options for the settings of the game to play.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #26 on: March 31, 2015, 01:38:58 am »
+1

For automatch, if you make a point counter, you should have whether or not you have to point counter as an automatch setting.  The best idea I've seen is to have five levels, No VP Counter, Prefer No Counter, Either, Prefer Counter, and Always VP Counter.  The "Prefer"s are people who, if there is someone who will play like they want, will get paired with them, but will play with people who want it on if they have to.

I really want this type of setting because I am definitely in the "Prefer No VP Counter" camp.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #27 on: March 31, 2015, 01:49:14 am »
+3

1. Automatch
2. Automatch
3. Automatch
4. A point tracker (by consent of all players) is very nice-to-have. It's preferred by a majority of players, but not all: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=10867.0.
5. Did I mention automatch? It's important because it's only fun to take a few minutes to play a game if I can quickly find one with another player of roughly comparable skill.

For automatch UI, consider "what would Hearthstone do?", because Blizzard has a keen design sense. In Hearthstone, the flow to play a competitive game is: select play from the menu, select Ranked (equivalent to Goko's Pro; as opposed to Casual, which does not display rankings), click Play. You are then matched and put into a game. That's it--no other step.

For online Dominion, 2-player uniform-random-kingdom is by far the most popular competitive format, and usually with point counting (but not deck tracking). It's high value to be able to quickly and easily play an evenly-matched game in this format, way more important than having lots of options for the settings of the game to play.

Or you could just do it the way Salvager does it now — have a Quick Game button that creates the game and starts the automatch with the settings that you can choose on the settings page. The settings could default to 2-player Pro #vpany games, so that it'd still work the way you described for the most part, but you could also customize it if you wanted.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #28 on: March 31, 2015, 02:13:53 am »
0

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.

The way I've seen it on KGS (gokgs.com) is that disconnected games have a time limit of a few days to avoid pileup.  If they're not resumed before that limit, they're either deleted with no rating effect or awarded to the player who stayed connected (I forget which they do). 

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

So start with Lord Bottington and let the user customize it?  That would be nice but it seems like significant work.  My thought of just providing a bot API might be even more work, or it might turn out to be less for MF, and shift the work to the community; we'd have to port Geronimoo's simulator onto whatever platform MF gave us.  But then we'd have Geronimoo's sim able to play on Goko, and whatever else we might cook up in the future.
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Titandrake

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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #29 on: March 31, 2015, 03:31:56 am »
+7

Automatch is the main deal breaker for me - the difficulty in finding a game against someone of similar level hurts a lot.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #30 on: March 31, 2015, 06:46:17 am »
+6

No lobbies

No lobbies. When you want to play a particular person it's easier to use that players name than to agree on meeting in "secret chamber III" or something like that.

Normally you want to play a game when you've entered the site, and then you press one of two big buttons: "Play against robots" or "Play against other players".
Next choice will be the number of players.

These will match you against suitable opponents. Of course you can finetune these automatch settings, but there should be fine defaults for new players.

Tables and chat

Matching gets you a table which is something more than a game. You can play several games after each other on the same table without having to get up and sit down again. The table has a chat, so you can chat before the game begins. When a multiplayer game can't be found at once some players may be seated beforehand. So when you are two players waiting for a third you can still chat while waiting, discussing whether you'd like to play on two instead, if anyone knows someone who might want to join, or just about the weather.

After a game there's an big button "play again against the same opponents". If everyone does, that happens. Others at the table can see when you press that.
A not as prominent option is to try the same board again, which is something players want to do sometimes. The same thing here, if everyone switches that on it happens, and you can see if others do.

You can still try to find a match outside the table while still sitting at it. You aren't leaving the table until you are moving to a new one (since there are no lobbies). That will lead to more chatting about the game afterwards while you are waiting for your next game, instead of people quitting as fast as they can to get back to searching the lobbies.

Two players waiting for a third should be able to play a two-player game instead, but no one of them should be forced into a two-player game if they only wanted to play three-player. So have such a switch "willing to play with what we have now" available for all players, starting the game if all or on, and resetting them off when someone joins the table.

Other matching

You can mark your opponents with "like to play with" and "don't like to play with", and matching will consider that next time. When you mark that you don't want to play with someone they don't get to know that. They aren't put on a list of players to avoid for anyone. It's just your decision, and could be for any reason. There are some drawbacks with this, but it needs to be done. You shouldn't be forced to play games you don't like. Maybe it is because they are rude, or too slow for you, or maybe it's your ex-boyfriend that you don't want to interact with. It doesn't matter if it's fair or not.

You can have friends, and see what other friends are logged in and challenge them to a game.

Rating

Just one rating, with the primary aim to aid automatch. So make sure that most games are played rated, and don't make it sound like it's something special. (No "Are you a real professional now so that you are ready to play with the 'pro' rating?", but rather the unratedness is just something that happens when playing with a fixed deck, like repeat games with the same kingdom.

That's the primary aim, but of course making top lists of top players is an important secondary aim as well.

Cards

There is not one player hosting a game. The table you get after matching is "neutral". When a game starts at the table the cards available are the cards anyone brought to the table  (like it would do if they met afk and combined what they had). A basic card like Smithy that everyone "has" doesn't get a higher probability of appearing than a card that only one player at the table has – every possible card gets the same probability.

This way there is better reason to start buying cards even if you're not ready to buy them all. With the current setup there is not much reason to buy a single set if you don't play robots, because with few cards you will often play against someone with more cards anyway, so your cards won't be used. But with this scheme there is better reason to buy your favourite set to make sure that cards from it can appear in all games you play.

You wouldn't have to bring all your cards to the game. If you hate that Possession, move it to the cards-I-keep-at-home pile. (This avoid people not buying a particular set because there's one card there they don't want to get in their games as often.) You're not safe though – someone else might have brought it to the table.  Probably only few players will bother taking away cards they've bought like that, but it can be very useful for some.

[some of the above is reused from a posting a made in 2013]
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DavidTheDavid

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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #31 on: March 31, 2015, 12:03:29 pm »
+1

About logs, part of the consideration is that the game will be cross platform. The lead developer Jeff can speak to this far better than I, so I'm stepping outside my area here. But since the game will be built on Unity, a log would look fine on a laptop browser window, but scaled down to mobile, it would simply consume space while being too small to serve a purpose. Again, that's what I think I remember was said about that, and I don't want to put bad info out there.

Anyhow, thanks for the ideas. I can't promise what will get into the game and what won't. I do player support, not game design, but the developers can consider these ideas and how they fit with their vision of the game and what's currently being planned.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #32 on: March 31, 2015, 12:07:18 pm »
+2

The most important thing to me is automatch, no question.  I consider Goko to be lacking the functionality of logging on at any time to get a game of Dominion in against real people without it.

Also: abolish any idea of the concept of these lobbies. 
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #33 on: March 31, 2015, 12:14:55 pm »
+2

It feels slightly odd suggesting something I don't want when other people seem to, but here we go: I don't want first player to be decided by the official rules if you play rated games against the same player repeatedly.  That rule is great for playing in person with friends, but an unnecessary distortion in competitive play.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #34 on: March 31, 2015, 12:18:21 pm »
+19

About logs, part of the consideration is that the game will be cross platform. The lead developer Jeff can speak to this far better than I, so I'm stepping outside my area here. But since the game will be built on Unity, a log would look fine on a laptop browser window, but scaled down to mobile, it would simply consume space while being too small to serve a purpose. Again, that's what I think I remember was said about that, and I don't want to put bad info out there.

It should be really easy to toggle the visibility of e.g. the log based on the platform and/or user settings. Quite a few of us find the game unplayable without a constantly visible log, at least if the new version will bear any kind of visible resemblance to the current one.

Letting a cellphone or a tablet screen be the bottleneck for what the desktop version is allowed to display would be a design decision of Goko-level incompetence.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #35 on: March 31, 2015, 12:18:53 pm »
0

Cards

There is not one player hosting a game. The table you get after matching is "neutral". When a game starts at the table the cards available are the cards anyone brought to the table  (like it would do if they met afk and combined what they had). A basic card like Smithy that everyone "has" doesn't get a higher probability of appearing than a card that only one player at the table has – every possible card gets the same probability.

This way there is better reason to start buying cards even if you're not ready to buy them all. With the current setup there is not much reason to buy a single set if you don't play robots, because with few cards you will often play against someone with more cards anyway, so your cards won't be used. But with this scheme there is better reason to buy your favourite set to make sure that cards from it can appear in all games you play.

You wouldn't have to bring all your cards to the game. If you hate that Possession, move it to the cards-I-keep-at-home pile. (This avoid people not buying a particular set because there's one card there they don't want to get in their games as often.) You're not safe though – someone else might have brought it to the table.  Probably only few players will bother taking away cards they've bought like that, but it can be very useful for some.

[some of the above is reused from a posting a made in 2013]

I like this, but it would require changing it to choosing your opponent before choosing your cards, which is opposite their current setup.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #36 on: March 31, 2015, 12:20:27 pm »
+12

About logs, part of the consideration is that the game will be cross platform. The lead developer Jeff can speak to this far better than I, so I'm stepping outside my area here. But since the game will be built on Unity, a log would look fine on a laptop browser window, but scaled down to mobile, it would simply consume space while being too small to serve a purpose. Again, that's what I think I remember was said about that, and I don't want to put bad info out there.

Yes, a side-log should only appear on desktop machines, not on tablets. My cursory research into Unity reveals that it should be able to detect which platform is running. A side-log is a make-or-break feature for many players. Your devs need to bite the bullet and implement it for the non-mobile platforms.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #37 on: March 31, 2015, 12:23:37 pm »
+1

I would prefer to not be prompted with a pop-up effect for things during my own turn.  I understand if my opponent plays a Torturer and I have a Moat, he needs to wait until I do or do not reveal before he can continue.  But if I Trash a card and I have Market Square in my hand, I already know ahead of time whether or not I want to reveal it.  Don't pause everything and ask me.  There should be some solution like creating a button in some designated area that I can choose to activate or not. (Maybe "Reveal Reactions" that becomes actives/appears only when Reactions can be revealed?  If you click it, you can then choose reactions to reveal.  If you don't, you can just play cards like normal.)

Also, for the love of god, no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no dragging cards to locations.  God, no.  Make it stop.  Please, make it stop.
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Voltaire

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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #38 on: March 31, 2015, 12:43:41 pm »
+2

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

And, in cases where there legitimately isn't enough screen real-estate to display everything on one page, apply some logic to which cards to kick to page 2. For example, kick non-Supply cards (Spoils, Madman, Prizes, etc.) all the time, but absolutely never kick the 11th Kingdom card Young Witch creates (or Ruins) to Page 2.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2015, 12:46:41 pm by Voltaire »
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #39 on: March 31, 2015, 12:45:53 pm »
+5

I know this has basically zero chance of happening, but having the option to play with a text-only interface like you could on Isotropic would be fantastic.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #40 on: March 31, 2015, 01:46:22 pm »
+1

I know this has basically zero chance of happening, but having the option to play with a text-only interface like you could on Isotropic would be fantastic.
Someone read my mind and found one of the ulterior motives behind my "bot API" request :)
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blueblimp

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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #41 on: March 31, 2015, 06:14:20 pm »
0

About the log, I believe what Hearthstone does is to write out some log data to a text file, which can be interpreted by 3rd-party programs. So if you're not able to make a side log part of the official UI, consider something like that as an alternative.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #42 on: March 31, 2015, 06:20:04 pm »
0

About the log, I believe what Hearthstone does is to write out some log data to a text file, which can be interpreted by 3rd-party programs. So if you're not able to make a side log part of the official UI, consider something like that as an alternative.
I think that already exists, and is where http://gokosalvager.com/ gets its data from.  If you search for a game and view the raw (unprettified) log, it's hosted on http://dominionlogs.goko.com/, not Andrew's server.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #43 on: March 31, 2015, 06:27:08 pm »
+2

About logs, part of the consideration is that the game will be cross platform. The lead developer Jeff can speak to this far better than I, so I'm stepping outside my area here. But since the game will be built on Unity, a log would look fine on a laptop browser window, but scaled down to mobile, it would simply consume space while being too small to serve a purpose. Again, that's what I think I remember was said about that, and I don't want to put bad info out there.

Anyhow, thanks for the ideas. I can't promise what will get into the game and what won't. I do player support, not game design, but the developers can consider these ideas and how they fit with their vision of the game and what's currently being planned.

I can see two ways to implement a log. One: Simply have an option where players can turn side log on. So, if you are on a tablet, it's not bothering you. Two: As others have said, you can have Unity detect what OS someone is using. Personally, it would probably be easier to let people turn the log on or off, and who knows maybe some people don't want a log who play on a PC, but having a log is pretty important as you can see by a lot of these posts.
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blueblimp

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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #44 on: March 31, 2015, 06:46:31 pm »
0

About the log, I believe what Hearthstone does is to write out some log data to a text file, which can be interpreted by 3rd-party programs. So if you're not able to make a side log part of the official UI, consider something like that as an alternative.
I think that already exists, and is where http://gokosalvager.com/ gets its data from.  If you search for a game and view the raw (unprettified) log, it's hosted on http://dominionlogs.goko.com/, not Andrew's server.
1. Aren't we talking about the new implementation, where there's no presumption that anything exists?
2. As far as I know, those logs only appear once the game is done. I'm talking about writing a log to a local text file continuously as the game is played, so that another app can monitor it and display the output in a window. This would accomplish about the same thing as Salvager's side log does now, except would work with a non-web app.
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #45 on: March 31, 2015, 06:47:53 pm »
0

Also, the log being color-coded would be helpful, rather than having what we have now when you push the log button.
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   Quote from: sudgy on June 31, 2011, 11:47:46 pm

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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #46 on: March 31, 2015, 06:53:27 pm »
0

Please could we have lots more sound effects,

Some examples:
clapping when we win.
a ZOINK noise when we play a swindler
a nelson HA-HA when opposing player picks up a curse
a coin spinning everytime you play a treasure
a lightning bolt for every zap played
he bots saying 'im the winner'  in an italian accent
The voice of Donald tutting everyime someone tries to say a rude word in chat

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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #47 on: March 31, 2015, 09:20:02 pm »
+1

Features that I think are most important:   (most or all have already been mentioned, so I'm just adding my vote)
- better kingdom builder to choose which cards to use including choosing particular cards, just "random from these 2 expansions", random excluding particular cards, random with certain cards more or less likely than others, or a mix of those options.
- always visible log and chat
- all buyable cards on the main screen
- interface stuff: an alternative to card-dragging & make it harder to misclick with cards like Hamlet.
- I'm assuming there will be some kind of automatch. My request is in automatch settings, be able to choose "either pro or casual", "perfer pro", or "perfer casual" instead of just "pro only" or "casual only". This may not apply if the rating systems change and we don't have pro and casual anymore.


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« Last Edit: March 31, 2015, 09:29:37 pm by LibraryAdventurer »
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #48 on: March 31, 2015, 10:03:27 pm »
+2

About logs, part of the consideration is that the game will be cross platform. The lead developer Jeff can speak to this far better than I, so I'm stepping outside my area here. But since the game will be built on Unity, a log would look fine on a laptop browser window, but scaled down to mobile, it would simply consume space while being too small to serve a purpose. Again, that's what I think I remember was said about that, and I don't want to put bad info out there.

Anyhow, thanks for the ideas. I can't promise what will get into the game and what won't. I do player support, not game design, but the developers can consider these ideas and how they fit with their vision of the game and what's currently being planned.

The log is crucial to have on non-mobile platforms. When people stream Dominion on twitch, they are playing it on a desktop or a laptop, and the log makes it possible for the viewers to tell what's going on in the game (otherwise, it's impossible).
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Re: Features Thread
« Reply #49 on: March 31, 2015, 10:21:26 pm »
+2

1. Aren't we talking about the new implementation, where there's no presumption that anything exists?
I'm optimistically presuming what we have now will still be there.  I also listed that in my first post in this thread: the single most important "feature" for the rewrite is to maintain all features we currently have, including those provided by Salvager, except those replaced by something that does the same job better.  Basically my only request for version 1.0 is, "Don't break anything that works now."
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