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Messages - AdamH

#241
General Discussion / Re: Autoplay?
20 November 2017, 09:50:27 PM
Quote from: Ingix on 20 November 2017, 08:32:21 PM
4) I agree that one klick that shows/brings you to all of the current game's autoplay options would be nice. I don't agree that the right-click interface is somehow a kludge. Why should information that belongs to a certain card not be accessable by right-clicking it?

I wasn't trying to say that this should be removed -- right-clicking on the card should pull up what it does, I think that menu looks great. I'm just saying that this shouldn't be the only way to change autoplay settings in the middle of the game, since there doesn't appear to be any indication in the client that this can be done.
#242
Interface Issues / Nocturne and familiar cards
20 November 2017, 04:38:45 PM
This has been said here before, but when I bought Nocturne the cards were marked as unfamiliar by default. I went into a game hoping to see some but since I play with the familiar cards feature enabled, I didn't see any until I went digging through options.

I get that you want new players to have only the first game kingdom as familiar cards to start off, but when an expansion is purchased, it really should have all of the cards be set to familiar. At the very least, put a reminder in the store saying that you'll want to set the cards to familiar once you buy them.
#243
General Discussion / Re: Autoplay?
20 November 2017, 04:36:43 PM
OK, I've spent about an hour on this and I think I have most of it figured out.

1. When I originally posted, I went back and reproduced it 4 times. This was when I originally posted. I don't remember what the circumstance was but it definitely didn't work and I had the autoplay settings as described. There may still be a bug related to that specific situation but since then it has been working for me as you said, so yeah I guess we can disregard that.

2. The options page for autoplay, this is probably fine, but there should at the very least be a link to the documentation page for autoplay here. The problem is, well, the next point.

3. The documentation page for autoplay; this thing; I have no idea what this is trying to say. When I was trying to understand what autoplay did, this page actually did more harm than good. Even after reading Stef's post which kind of explains it (which is linked nowhere from the client) I still don't really get this whole name/question/condition/effect. The questions aren't questions, and and a lot of them are terse enough that if you aren't intimately familiar with the card (or even if you are and you don't know what is meant by "question") they don't really mean anything.

It would be much better to describe an in-game situation where this decision comes up, then describe what the client will automatically do for you with each option enabled.

Also, the use of the word "default" is misleading here. Let's take Peasant for example. On this page it says "Peasant's default is [Exchange/Keep]", which suggests that the menu will still come up, but if I just click OK then [Exchange/Keep] is the thing that will happen. This isn't really the desired behavior (and the client doesn't do that, so good) -- I think you should change the wording here to "Peasant will be [Exchanged/Kept]" and maybe even add "without a prompt" if you want to be clearer. Also consider changing the name of the option from "default keep" to "automatically keep" or something similar.

4. The options specific to a given game. Right-clicking on a card to open autoplay options seems like a decent thing to have, but this should not be the only way to set game-specific autoplay options. It's like how you have to hover over your name to see duration stuff, it's a kludge and really isn't good enough to keep around forever.

The best place by far to have these game-specific autoplay options presented to the user is when they're actually making the decision. Every time I have to discard a Curse to a Mountebank, there should be a checkbox near the place I click that says "automatically do this for the rest of the game" or something like that. If that seems annoying, then you could hide it behind some option that is off by default.

Something not as good, but still much better that the current thing and probably easy to implement, would be a button up by the "resign" buttons in the top right which says "Autoplay" and opens up a menu of all relevant game-specific autoplay options. I mean, really this could be combined with the ability to set options during a game which is desperately needed.

5. This is minor, but in my opinion, the groups of options in the options menu should probably be changed so that the "cleanup phase autoplays" are at the bottom. These are the kind of thing that I think people could set automatically thinking they're great, and then wonder why they can never exchange their travellers. This is probably minor though.

-----

In any case, it seems that the actual functionality is there, so now that it's been uncovered, it looks like the quality of my online Dominion life will improve!
#244
General Discussion / Re: Autoplay?
18 November 2017, 02:54:27 PM
 sorry for being terse, I'm on mobile.

I did not have a necropolis in hand. This can be reproduced easily. Just have a hand with your only actions being crowns, and you have actions remaining. I should be sent to my buy phase but I am not. What is the point of auto play if not this?

I read the post but I still don't get it. Can someone give an example of one auto play option, have a specific in-game scenario, and describe the behavior with autoplay on and off? And perhaps explain what these questions are? I just don't understand it, please try to use little words for me so I don't get confused.
#245
General Discussion / Autoplay?
17 November 2017, 02:34:43 PM
All right, I'm extremely excited that autoplay is a thing. I read the "documentation" on it and I have no idea what it means. Something about answering questions? I have no idea what a lot of these options do. OK fine, let me start up the game, just turn some of them on, and see what happens. Maybe that will help.

I put Crown on "Auto-end actions" and I found myself with one action left, a single Crown in hand, and a bunch of treasures. No other actions. Here it goes! I click the Crown without clicking end actions first! Crown is played as an Action! WTF? It doesn't work.

I have no idea what autoplay is supposed to do, and it doesn't appear to work. The documentation needs to be much clearer, because I read it like 3 times and I have no idea what it's trying to say. Also, whatever is happening with Crown is not right, because I just tested it.

Man, I really thought this was the end to so much frustration and I feel like we're so close, but this was a huge disappointment.
#246
Game Log Issues / Plural of Hero misspelled.
03 November 2017, 02:09:14 PM
In the game log, the plural of Hero is spelled "Heros" and it should be spelled "Heroes."
#247
General Discussion / Re: New Start Game feature
24 October 2017, 07:05:44 PM
It would be nice if there was an option to skip this at the beginning of each game. I'll be very thankful that it's there for the next month or so while I'm still getting used to the cards, but eventually I will get annoyed by it.

BTW, the update that came when these previews started included a lot of really awesome features, including this. I'm really happy with the display for duration attacks and various tokens.
#248
General Discussion / Re: Terms of Service
20 October 2017, 02:22:58 PM
Quote from: Stef on 20 October 2017, 12:27:09 PM
I don't see why it would prohibit using broadcast software.

The idea is that broadcast software means that more people view the game and give advice to the player, making them better and giving them a competitive advantage.

But if this is not your interpretation of the rule then I will continue to stream with no wording change.
#249
General Discussion / Terms of Service
17 October 2017, 04:05:30 PM
With the recent kerfuffle over the tournament and ToS violation, there is a certain statement in the ToS that has been scrutinized:

Quote2.A. You agree that you will not, under any circumstances: use cheats, automation software (bots), hacks, mods or any other unauthorized third-party software with either the direct aim or incidental side-effect of gaining a competitive advantage

Perhaps an update to the wording is appropriate here? Currently the use of any broadcasting software is not allowed (which is probably not the best thing in combination with later tournament matches being "required" to be streamed). Perhaps a list of approved pieces of software could be added to the ToS, which would include common streaming software like OBS or XSplit. Maybe give the blessing here for other third-party apps like Sparklepig? I would like to continue streaming Dominion but not if there's any risk of getting my account banned.

It also may be a good idea to make it so you can use this stuff with the consent of all of your opponents. Many times I will play games where I'm tutoring someone sitting next to me -- my opponent is OK with this (it can often include some long delays in play so I usually arrange for a specific opponent who is willing to put up with this) and sometimes I'll use text editors or calculate odds or something to help explain things. Currently this is against the ToS.

I understand why the ToS is written the way it is, to give you the maximum flexibility over what you can act upon; but given recent events it might make people feel better if you have a whitelist of things that are definitely OK to use.

Even if you decide to make no changes to the ToS, a followup reply here saying so would be appreciated just so I am clear with your stance on the issue. Thanks.
#250
Feature Requests / Two Undo Buttons
09 October 2017, 10:46:05 PM
I think it would be a huge help to the software (and shouldn't take that long to code) if there were two undo buttons.

1. The undo button that currently exists, it just undoes one step. It would be nice if it took you back to the last decision YOU made rather than the last decision ANYONE made (so if you were playing a bot it would actually work for going back to your previous turn, for example). But that's a different feature request.

2. And undo button that lets you undo back to any decision -- essentially something you can click that does the exact same thing as typing "/undo" in the chat does.

I think this second undo button would make the software a lot more usable for a very small cost. Not only does it present the user with one of the most useful features of the software without them having to know about its existence somehow (which is not in the client), but not having to use the keyboard in order to do an arbitrary undo is a huge step in the right direction for usability.
#251
Other Bugs / Re: Max events/landmarks not respected
29 September 2017, 08:00:51 PM
Quote from: Stef on 29 September 2017, 05:28:10 PM
You are free to express your own opinions, but I'd really appreciate it if you would make a little more effort trying to not represent them as facts or the opinions of others.

If I say something that you disagree with, you can say what it is and why you disagree with it. Telling me that everything I say is just my opinion doesn't make everything I say wrong.

And I thought I was doing you a service, telling you what I'm hearing from people I talk to who aren't going to sign up on these forums or otherwise tell you their feedback. If you would like me to stop, sure I'll stop, but if you're trying to tell me that I just post random crap on your forums and say "everyone else is saying it too!" then that's just not true.
#252
Other Bugs / Re: Max events/landmarks not respected
29 September 2017, 05:02:59 PM
Yeah this kind of thing is going to happen when the list of reported bugs is not kept up to date and reported bugs don't get fixed. I'm not going to look through all the threads everywhere to make sure something hasn't already been reported.

And really that's a shame. It would be much easier for someone to keep a list maintained than it will be for them to go back and remake the list when the time comes, so it leads users to think that they don't care about ever fixing the numerous problems with their software.
#253
Other Bugs / Max events/landmarks not respected
26 September 2017, 11:14:40 PM
I'm playing a game at a table I created. It's a 1-player game. I have max Events/Landmarks set to zero and I am getting events and landmarks at my games.

I have required two cards, no colonies/shelters, and they are not Events or Landmarks. This is definitely a bug.
#254
2017 Championship (archived) / Re: Rules Discussions
01 September 2017, 03:43:05 PM
Oh that's neat.

I have no further comments on the rules.
#255
2017 Championship (archived) / Re: Rules Discussions
01 September 2017, 03:17:38 PM
Quote from: drsteelhammer on 01 September 2017, 03:09:28 PM
What do you mean by replay mode? I don't think there is a replay mode currently. Im not 100% certain of the technicalities used, but I think there will be a way that only the streamers can join the spectator mode.

The only way I know of to allow certain people to spectate a game and exclude all others is using the "friends only" spectator mode. So a player would have to clear off their friends list and add only the moderators or streamers or whoever. I don't think this is reasonable to ask of people.

If there is some other way, I'm not aware of it.

The replay mode I'm referring to would be where people take a game number, then I think you can just click through each of the decisions made -- I guess you could do that one stream. I am not as familiar with this feature, but it seems like the only thing you could really do if you wanted to cast a tournament game after-the-fact. It doesn't seem that great, since you'd have to keep the results quiet until that stream/video was released for there to be any suspense at all, but there is some upside. If some guy is taking a long time to think, you don't have to wait for it, you can just have the commentators say whatever they want to say and then move on when they're done. You could also rewind if needed.