Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 10  All

Author Topic: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)  (Read 64945 times)

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

pst

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 584
  • Respect: +906
    • View Profile
What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« on: October 19, 2015, 06:55:25 am »
+4

This is about the downloaded clients, not about the web version.

If you don't use Playdominion, please pick the main reason that you don't. If you would have continued to used the previous version if it was available please pick the reason why. If you use Playdominion, please pick what you think would benefit your playing there the most.

I have intentionally not included "cards are too expensive" as an option, since if you think so it's so hard to compare to the others. Presupposed in the question is that you want to play Dominion online with no owned cards or with the cards you do own, and that there is something in the implementation that makes you not play or not play as much (or as happy) as you'd do otherwise.

November 4 2015: Poll locked, because 2.0.43 is no longer the latest version.
« Last Edit: November 04, 2015, 02:37:42 am by pst »
Logged

SCSN

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2227
  • Respect: +7140
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2015, 06:57:59 am »
+5

Quote
The robots are so good they scare me away

Definitely this.
Logged

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2015, 07:07:45 am »
+1

Quote
The robots are so good they scare me away

Definitely this.

Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

SCSN

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2227
  • Respect: +7140
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2015, 08:10:51 am »
+1

I voted "I have difficulties finding suitable opponents with the matchmaking". I'm constantly getting matched with total droolers, like this guy who opened Silver/Potion on a Mountebank board with Possession being the sole Alchemy card. By the time he bought his first copy (for 9+P) I had a 6-0 Province lead, and when I was about to end the game a few turns later there was this slight hesitation of "should I prolong it just to give him the opportunity to play his Possession at least once?", but no, enough with this crap already. It could be argued that maximizing your win chances against terrible opposition is a skill of its own, but it's not one that's particularly enjoyable to cultivate.

And then there are a ton of things that aren't even listed in this poll: the barely readable font of the log that scales horribly and is illegible on streams, the still awfully positioned chat that instead of randomly popping up over your hand now gives an almost invisible notification, the rematch window disabling the chat, the button placement, the coin- and other tokens still being hidden beneath this horrible tray, this tray being even less responsive and far more erratic in its behavior than it was on Goko, the... shall I go on? I shall not.

I really hope they go bankrupt if not today, then at least tomorrow, but seeing that they've just started branching out into the highly profitable business of selling fake passports, visa's and driving licenses, we're likely stuck with them for the foreseeable future.
Logged

popsofctown

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5477
  • Respect: +2860
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2015, 08:33:04 am »
0

I voted "I have difficulties finding suitable opponents with the matchmaking". I'm constantly getting matched with total droolers, like this guy who opened Silver/Potion on a Mountebank board with Possession being the sole Alchemy card. By the time he bought his first copy (for 9+P) I had a 6-0 Province lead, and when I was about to end the game a few turns later there was this slight hesitation of "should I prolong it just to give him the opportunity to play his Possession at least once?", but no, enough with this crap already. It could be argued that maximizing your win chances against terrible opposition is a skill of its own, but it's not one that's particularly enjoyable to cultivate.

And then there are a ton of things that aren't even listed in this poll: the barely readable font of the log that scales horribly and is illegible on streams, the still awfully positioned chat that instead of randomly popping up over your hand now gives an almost invisible notification, the rematch window disabling the chat, the button placement, the coin- and other tokens still being hidden beneath this horrible tray, this tray being even less responsive and far more erratic in its behavior than it was on Goko, the... shall I go on? I shall not.

I really hope they go bankrupt if not today, then at least tomorrow, but seeing that they've just started branching out into the highly profitable business of selling fake passports, visa's and driving licenses, we're likely stuck with them for the foreseeable future.

No no no, they sell real ones too! 

I'm certain that the product I get if I ask for a "real" one is a totally different result than if I ask for a "fake" one.


Seriously though, can they go bankrupt? What other irons do they have in the fire or not?
Logged

pst

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 584
  • Respect: +906
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #5 on: October 19, 2015, 08:38:06 am »
0

And then there are a ton of things that aren't even listed in this poll: the barely readable font of the log that scales horribly and is illegible on streams, the still awfully positioned chat that instead of randomly popping up over your hand now gives an almost invisible notification, the rematch window disabling the chat, the button placement, the coin- and other tokens still being hidden beneath this horrible tray, this tray being even less responsive and far more erratic in its behavior than it was on Goko, the... shall I go on? I shall not.

I can add more options if needed, but these are not things that you would put higher than the thing you voted on, right? Maybe the graphics/animation answer should be extended so it's clearly about the whole look of it, including fonts and layout?

I am also irritated by that Rematch window thing by the way. When I'm about to decline a rematch suggestion I often want to explain why first, for example. But a detail like that would never "win" this poll in my opinion.
Logged

yuma

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 695
  • Respect: +609
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #6 on: October 19, 2015, 08:50:55 am »
+2

How about can't access in any shape or form. Online won't work. Download causes computer to crash. Completely unstable platform.

I have no idea what problems exist within the game itself because I have yet to actually play a game on the version. That is a major problem.

{never had a problem getting onto Goko aside from global shutdowns}
Logged

Chris is me

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2745
  • Shuffle iT Username: Chris is me
  • What do you want me to say?
  • Respect: +3457
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #7 on: October 19, 2015, 09:03:02 am »
0

The matchmaking is so bad, I've almost exclusively played with the new client while either half-asleep or very drunk, and my Iso level is 10 higher than it was on the old client.

Everything else is at least passable albeit pretty annoying, but the matchmaking is horrendous.
Logged
Twitch channel: http://www.twitch.tv/chrisisme2791

bug me on discord

pm me if you wanna do stuff for the blog

they/them

-Stef-

  • 2012 & 2016 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1574
  • Respect: +4419
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #8 on: October 19, 2015, 09:33:54 am »
+3

I also have a really hard time picking just one.

Sometimes when I see something or get something in my hands I'm genuinely impressed.
Every detail makes sense, you just know that whoever made it put a lot of love in the product.

With Goko/MF it's exactly the opposite. Whatever they do, they always find some way to screw it up.
Sure the functionality meets the basic needs, but you know they never used it much themselves, nor did they have a good feeling for the people that were going to.
Whoever works on it probably wishes he was doing something else.
Logged
Join the Dominion League!

qmech

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1918
  • Shuffle iT Username: qmech
  • What year is it?
  • Respect: +2320
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #9 on: October 19, 2015, 10:22:41 am »
0

the coin- and other tokens still being hidden beneath this horrible tray, this tray being even less responsive and far more erratic in its behavior than it was on Goko

This is the biggest problem.  I can see the difficulty for games with large numbers of players, but it would be nice to see all the game information at once for two player games.

I'd also like a 3200x1800 resolution option so that I don't get so much anti-aliasing, but this is the firstest of first world Dominon problems.
Logged

Witherweaver

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6476
  • Shuffle iT Username: Witherweaver
  • Respect: +7861
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #10 on: October 19, 2015, 10:42:10 am »
+4

Uh, dragging cards?  Why would you not change that interface?  Watchtower, Cartographer, anything with choosing card locations. 

Moving choice buttons (e.g., Hamlet) away from phase ending buttons. 

Also, Scheme.  If you have a huge string of Actions, it's not easy to tell what the Actions are.  You can click on a card and try not to select it, but the control is subtle and sometimes it just gets chosen.  Some sort of mouseover letting you know what the card is would be helpful.  (A "ghost" card appearing on the right, where the selected card would go, would work.)
Logged

Heisenberg

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 59
  • I am the one who knocks!
  • Respect: +31
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #11 on: October 19, 2015, 10:50:04 am »
+1

Most of the time it does not load at all.  Also, the player level matching is very poor.  It has brought down my standards so much to the point that I was pleased earlier that I was able to complete 3 games without it crashing....very unstable.
Logged

SCSN

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2227
  • Respect: +7140
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #12 on: October 19, 2015, 11:58:06 am »
0

Quote
I can be forced into playing games with/without the point counter against my will

Out of interest: can you ever be forced into playing a game with the point counter against your will? I thought if a player who prefers "with" gets matched against one who prefers "without", the game will be played without, or is it actually random?
Logged

Kirian

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7096
  • Shuffle iT Username: Kirian
  • An Unbalanced Equation
  • Respect: +9411
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #13 on: October 19, 2015, 11:59:23 am »
+12

How about "with a big enough hand, I can't tell which cards are whicb, and can't click on them to find out?"

But I'm with Stef on this one.  It's like going to a pizza place, hoping for a good deluxe pizza, but they tell you they only have cheese pizza, and when it comes to your table, it's lukewarm, unsliced, and made with barbecue sauce and cheddar cheese.

What you have is technically pizza, and will be filling and perhaps as nutritious as pizza normally is... but no one wants to eat it.

And then someone says "Man, I miss that old shack with the homemade pizza, the place looked like crap and was a hole in the wall, but damn the pizza was good."
Logged
Kirian's Law of f.DS jokes:  Any sufficiently unexplained joke is indistinguishable from serious conversation.

Witherweaver

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6476
  • Shuffle iT Username: Witherweaver
  • Respect: +7861
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #14 on: October 19, 2015, 12:06:43 pm »
0

How about "with a big enough hand, I can't tell which cards are whicb, and can't click on them to find out?"

But I'm with Stef on this one.  It's like going to a pizza place, hoping for a good deluxe pizza, but they tell you they only have cheese pizza, and when it comes to your table, it's lukewarm, unsliced, and made with barbecue sauce and cheddar cheese.

What you have is technically pizza, and will be filling and perhaps as nutritious as pizza normally is... but no one wants to eat it.

And then someone says "Man, I miss that old shack with the homemade pizza, the place looked like crap and was a hole in the wall, but damn the pizza was good."

Wait, Making Fun makes pizza now?
Logged

Heisenberg

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 59
  • I am the one who knocks!
  • Respect: +31
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #15 on: October 19, 2015, 12:21:37 pm »
+3

No number of turns tie breaker.  My opponent first and took the last turn and the game was scored a tie.
Logged

gkrieg13

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 509
  • Shuffle iT Username: gkrieg
  • Respect: +463
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #16 on: October 19, 2015, 12:23:18 pm »
+1

No number of turns tie breaker.  My opponent first and took the last turn and the game was scored a tie.

That's not always true. It sometimes handles them correctly.
Logged

popsofctown

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5477
  • Respect: +2860
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #17 on: October 19, 2015, 12:25:40 pm »
+5

Stef brings up a very poignant point (I think that's what the word poignant means, I have only read it in books) about the developers' inexperience playing Dominion.  The low overall quality is bad.  But the lack of love is kind of different from that.  You can feel from every corner, as the sum total of all the little design choices along the way, that the creator has not played much Dominion.  I almost don't want to point at one aspect for fear of giving the illusion that there are only countably many ways of feeling that the creator has not played much Dominion, but clicking cards to put them back onto your deck one at a time is just not something anyone has ever done ever with the physical game.  You might not feel that one is so bad.  But there's like 999 details I could pick out, and 999 details you can pick out, and we might disagree about some of them, but I think anyone who plays physical Dominion a good bit then plays with this product would not be willing the take a 20$ bet on even money the designer played over 150 games.

The knowledge that the person writing the code has never broken and will never break past isotropic level 10 and possibly hates Dominion makes complaints about the product have an "us" versus "them" feel.  Every flaw feels like negligent disregard instead of honest failures.  The proportion of necessary features of design choices granted from the getgo makes it feel like the desire for a reasonable Dominion client must be foreign, alien, and bizarre to those tasked with providing one, and you feel like you have to explain yourself as a strange alien race, for the human developers certainly can't understand why we eat Helium sandwiches or why a preference on whether memorization is a core game mechanic or not is a big deal.
Logged

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #18 on: October 19, 2015, 12:30:12 pm »
+2

Stef brings up a very poignant point (I think that's what the word poignant means, I have only read it in books) about the developers' inexperience playing Dominion.  The low overall quality is bad.  But the lack of love is kind of different from that.  You can feel from every corner, as the sum total of all the little design choices along the way, that the creator has not played much Dominion.  I almost don't want to point at one aspect for fear of giving the illusion that there are only countably many ways of feeling that the creator has not played much Dominion, but clicking cards to put them back onto your deck one at a time is just not something anyone has ever done ever with the physical game.  You might not feel that one is so bad.  But there's like 999 details I could pick out, and 999 details you can pick out, and we might disagree about some of them, but I think anyone who plays physical Dominion a good bit then plays with this product would not be willing the take a 20$ bet on even money the designer played over 150 games.

The knowledge that the person writing the code has never broken and will never break past isotropic level 10 and possibly hates Dominion makes complaints about the product have an "us" versus "them" feel.  Every flaw feels like negligent disregard instead of honest failures.  The proportion of necessary features of design choices granted from the getgo makes it feel like the desire for a reasonable Dominion client must be foreign, alien, and bizarre to those tasked with providing one, and you feel like you have to explain yourself as a strange alien race, for the human developers certainly can't understand why we eat Helium sandwiches or why a preference on whether memorization is a core game mechanic or not is a big deal.

I would not go this far.  Jeff, at least, seems to clearly be at least a competent Dominion player.  As for clicking cards to put them back on top of your deck - how the hell else would you implement this?  I seem to remember checkboxes on isotropic, but this has a rather different GUI.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

Voltaire

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 957
  • flavor text
  • Respect: +1097
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #19 on: October 19, 2015, 12:31:46 pm »
+3

I think a much more constructive approach is to point out that a good team could be Level 0 Iso players and code a great Dominion game, just by understanding player feedback and being good at their jobs. Obviously it's great if the designers love and are skilled at the game, but I honestly don't think that's necessary. Being a good programmer is the skill required to code a good Dominion game.

Every flaw feels like negligent disregard instead of honest failures.  The proportion of necessary features of design choices granted from the getgo makes it feel like the desire for a reasonable Dominion client must be foreign, alien, and bizarre to those tasked with providing one, and you feel like you have to explain yourself as a strange alien race, for the human developers certainly can't understand why we eat Helium sandwiches or why a preference on whether memorization is a core game mechanic or not is a big deal.
Logged

popsofctown

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5477
  • Respect: +2860
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #20 on: October 19, 2015, 12:34:04 pm »
0

Stef brings up a very poignant point (I think that's what the word poignant means, I have only read it in books) about the developers' inexperience playing Dominion.  The low overall quality is bad.  But the lack of love is kind of different from that.  You can feel from every corner, as the sum total of all the little design choices along the way, that the creator has not played much Dominion.  I almost don't want to point at one aspect for fear of giving the illusion that there are only countably many ways of feeling that the creator has not played much Dominion, but clicking cards to put them back onto your deck one at a time is just not something anyone has ever done ever with the physical game.  You might not feel that one is so bad.  But there's like 999 details I could pick out, and 999 details you can pick out, and we might disagree about some of them, but I think anyone who plays physical Dominion a good bit then plays with this product would not be willing the take a 20$ bet on even money the designer played over 150 games.

The knowledge that the person writing the code has never broken and will never break past isotropic level 10 and possibly hates Dominion makes complaints about the product have an "us" versus "them" feel.  Every flaw feels like negligent disregard instead of honest failures.  The proportion of necessary features of design choices granted from the getgo makes it feel like the desire for a reasonable Dominion client must be foreign, alien, and bizarre to those tasked with providing one, and you feel like you have to explain yourself as a strange alien race, for the human developers certainly can't understand why we eat Helium sandwiches or why a preference on whether memorization is a core game mechanic or not is a big deal.

I would not go this far.  Jeff, at least, seems to clearly be at least a competent Dominion player.  As for clicking cards to put them back on top of your deck - how the hell else would you implement this?  I seem to remember checkboxes on isotropic, but this has a rather different GUI.

My understanding is that Jeff has touched about two lines of code, if that.

Isotropic had you drag the cards into an ordering, not use checkboxes.  Dragging images works just as well as dragging words, if not better.
Logged

popsofctown

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5477
  • Respect: +2860
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #21 on: October 19, 2015, 12:42:26 pm »
+4

I think a much more constructive approach is to point out that a good team could be Level 0 Iso players and code a great Dominion game, just by understanding player feedback and being good at their jobs. Obviously it's great if the designers love and are skilled at the game, but I honestly don't think that's necessary. Being a good programmer is the skill required to code a good Dominion game.

Every flaw feels like negligent disregard instead of honest failures.  The proportion of necessary features of design choices granted from the getgo makes it feel like the desire for a reasonable Dominion client must be foreign, alien, and bizarre to those tasked with providing one, and you feel like you have to explain yourself as a strange alien race, for the human developers certainly can't understand why we eat Helium sandwiches or why a preference on whether memorization is a core game mechanic or not is a big deal.
There's a phase of software development that was discussed in my college courses called "elicitation", where you talk with the client a lot, and find out things he expects from the experience that he didn't think he would have to tell you he expects from the experience.  It's important for going beyond the base requirements you first get.

If they spent the right kind of time and effort in that phase getting all the details about what an experience playing online dominion should be like and actually taking it to heart, I agree it would be interchangeable with actually playing the game themselves.  It would be the same stuff, second hand instead of firsthand.  It doesn't seem they really went that route either though
Logged

Voltaire

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 957
  • flavor text
  • Respect: +1097
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #22 on: October 19, 2015, 12:43:49 pm »
+1

Well I can agree with you there, for sure.
Logged

Kirian

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7096
  • Shuffle iT Username: Kirian
  • An Unbalanced Equation
  • Respect: +9411
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #23 on: October 19, 2015, 12:47:45 pm »
+2

How about "with a big enough hand, I can't tell which cards are whicb, and can't click on them to find out?"

But I'm with Stef on this one.  It's like going to a pizza place, hoping for a good deluxe pizza, but they tell you they only have cheese pizza, and when it comes to your table, it's lukewarm, unsliced, and made with barbecue sauce and cheddar cheese.

What you have is technically pizza, and will be filling and perhaps as nutritious as pizza normally is... but no one wants to eat it.

And then someone says "Man, I miss that old shack with the homemade pizza, the place looked like crap and was a hole in the wall, but damn the pizza was good."

Wait, Making Fun makes pizza now?

Yes, but you don't want to eat it.
Logged
Kirian's Law of f.DS jokes:  Any sufficiently unexplained joke is indistinguishable from serious conversation.

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: What is the main problem with Playdominion now? (v2.0.43)
« Reply #24 on: October 19, 2015, 12:50:20 pm »
+3

My understanding is that most of us want less dragging, not more.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 10  All
 

Page created in 1.388 seconds with 21 queries.