Messages

You know what? There is a HUGE difference between using the term "incel" to describe a person using abusive language targeting a persons gender, and bringing that abusive language and imagery into the game in the first place. And I'll add, unlike the terms directed toward Miss Kitty, "incel" isn't an obscenity.

Would it be better if she called him a jerk? How about asshole? Or dick? She was playing a game and this *** called her a c*nt.

A user tried to report a case of abuse, and was told to suck it up, take care of it herself, and let the abuser continue to roam the community and unleash his attacks on other unsuspecting players. On top of that she was criticized for using a term to describe his behavior which honestly seems to fit pretty well.

I wish there was a better solution that was somehow able to 'detect' the person behind a (new) account.

How about this: check the IP address for new accounts. If it's the same as a previously banned player, put them on probation of some sort - maybe have some sort of human verification off the bat or at an early opportunity. There really aren't that many bad actors out there. Sure, you're going to end up playing whack-a-mole with them until they get bored, but is that worse that turning off new players who arrive wanting to join the platform?

It's a matter of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The vast majority of new players have no idea how to report the bad behavior. Sure, it's more efficient for a few "in the know" players to simply ban and not have to worry about a particular bad actor again, but that just means that he moves on to other players who don't know their options.

This whole enterprise already has a clubby, unwelcoming feel. Just look at the home page. It's not a site I ever recommend to other people, even though I have figured out how to make it enjoyable for myself. Bad experiences in a chat that you can't even turn off is just icing on the cake.

You know what might be helpful? When slow play is detected, offer the other player an opportunity to stop the game and blacklist the player - perhaps with a message that this will not affect the player's ratings if the other player is banned.

The problem with Ingx's solution is that it is not obvious and is not in-game - sure, some people do come over here to complain and the solution is offered, but the vast majority do not. They just have a bad experience and don't want to come back.

Even a notification (like those tournament notices) on the front page would be better than nothing. But even better would be a message popping up after an opponent goes more than, say, three minutes without playing.

Okay, it's not just me. I've tried different browsers, private mode, clearing cache and cookies, kick and kick and resign buttons, you name it.

The perfect doesn't have to be the enemy of the good here. I for one would love to have an option to choose from a menu of the recommended kingdoms, and even better to have a way to add interesting ones to a personal playlist. Heck, I'd be happy if I could just replay a game with the same kingdom. It's fun to try out different strategies.

I guess the thinking is that if the developer bans an account and the slow player just creates another one, he might get paired with one of the players who already reported him. So a hassle for them.

But that's got to be balanced with the probability that the slow player is just going to keep doing it, only now with players that are new or not in the loop, so they don't realize they won't be penalized by resigning (eventually).

It would be helpful to have a clear option to BOTH ban and report. Maybe, have an option - would you like to report this player? - when you hit the ban button. As it is, it looks like slow playing, abusive language, and so on is simply tolerated by the developer and the community, and that is a big turnoff. Just my two cents. I've never had to deal with this, maybe because I almost always play bots.

I just wanted to clarify that I'm not 100% certain there was any button at all in the problem I initially reported. Unfortunately I didn't save the number. I have had issues in the past where needed buttons disappeared and I couldn't continue at all - but that was last year I think.

To continue Josh's point: a highlighted card in the discard pile that the user could select to play when Vassal pulls it up would seem to me to be the most intuitive indication of what can be done, perhaps with "you may play..." message.

As it is, sometimes there's a message, sometimes not, and even when it's there, the "play action" button is not obviously connected to either the message or to the card in question. I mean, it is by default, but the whole interaction feels rough.

["You may play a Chapel"]

Okay, I was able to play a game and recreate the inconsistency in the messaging when Vassal is played.

When there is no choice of what to play, that is, when there are no action cards in my hand, the message tells me the name of the card in the discard pile. "You may play a Chapel". In the upper right are two buttons, Play Action and Don't Play. That's actually fairly straightforward.

When there is an action card in my hand (as well as actions left to play), the message says "You may play actions". The action card in my hand is highlighted; the card in the discard (which also could be played) is not. There is a single button in the upper right, Play Action, which refers to the card in the discard pile, although that is not clear. There is also an End Actions button under the log now.

The first scenario is pretty clear, even though it would make sense to highlight the card on the discard pile.

The second one though is confusing. The action card in my hand is highlighted, but the question of whether to play the card revealed by Vassal should be decided first; the interface should make that clear. I suppose the thinking is that clicking on the card in the hand is equivalent to choosing the Don't Play button and continuing the turn.

It doesn't seem to be a matter of "You may play a Chapel" taking more room than "You may play an Action". I guess it does save a click, since you can choose to not play the Vassal-revealed card and simply click on the action in your hand. I'm not sure that slight efficiency is worth the ambiguity though.

One other confusing aspect to that scenario is that the number of actions remaining is displayed on the central message, and the "You may play an action" and the "Play Action" button all use the same word, and the action card in the hand is the one highlighted. When I made the initial post there were Thrones involved which just multiplied the confusion. It seems it would be more clear to have the message say something like "you may play a [card] or play an action", and have the button read "Play card" instead of "Play action". Or have the playable card in the discard highlighted too so that it can be clicked.

Anyway I appreciate your looking at this. I'm not a complete newbie, but I am a beginner even if I've played a little over the years. I even made a couple of lengthy posts here a little over two years ago, about the interface actually. Several weeks later though I got in a situation where I couldn't play at all because a game got stuck and wouldn't end for me, and I just kind of gave up. Two years later many things seem easier, but the site still seems to be unwelcoming for newcomers. I haven't recommended it to friends. Just my two cents.

Great reply, thank you.

First: including images. I'm trying this again. The image isn't showing in the preview, but this time I'll go ahead and post with the attachment and see what happens.

If you can see the image, you will notice that the Festival card in the discard is NOT highlighted like the Militia one is. That, I think, is a big part of the confusion. It genuinely looks like it isn't playable.

I honestly don't see how including the message that the Festival could be played would be limited by the space in the central information area - it's blank, and the message does appear in other cases. Of course I'm not playing with other expansions where that area might end up more cluttered. But it's an inconsistent, misleading presentation of available options from the user's point of view, if not to the programmers.

The larger point I suppose is ease of entry. I get the idea that most players, at least the ones who stick around, don't much notice the workarounds and unintuitive interfaces they have learned to deal with. They are paying attention to  playing the game, with all its mechanics and options and cards and strategies. Beginners and newcomers, though, have a rough time navigating the initial hurdles before they can really start to enjoy a fantastic game.

This reminds me of the time I was a teaching assistant for a remotely-offered intro computer programming class back in the nineties; the students had to dial in to our system instead of using the onsite Windows computers. Probably ninety percent of the questions I got were about Unix. Don't get me wrong, I love Unix, but it wasn't a Unix class and not what the students had signed up for.

Anyway, thanks again for the detailed and informative response.

ETA: Well, looks like I saved the wrong picture. This is immediately before playing the Vassal, sorry.

It would be REALLY nice to have this information clearly spelled out and available in the game. The interface is unfriendly to newcomers.

Update: Maybe this was just a confusing interface. I clicked on "play action" and it did play the Festival.

Usually if Vassal hits an action card it will tell me in a message what the card is, and ask if I want to play it.

It's happening to me again. Game #24522571.
I'm not sure how to insert an image here so I'll just describe what is happening.

I've got two actions, and a Militia and Vassal in my hand. I play the Vassal and a Festival is discarded but there's no option to play it; the Militia is highlighted and the "play action" button is available.

Once again I've tried backing up with undo, reloading the page, closing and reopening the browser, all to no avail.

The game log indicates that the correct behavior is an option, it's just that there is no way to choose the Festival. So maybe it's an interface issue. Anyway, here is the game log:

Turn 18 - ElisabetK
E plays a Laboratory.
E draws a Festival and a Laboratory.
E gets +1 Action.
E plays a Festival.
E gets +2 Actions.
E gets +1 Buy.
E gets +$2.
E plays a Laboratory.
E draws a Militia and a Vassal.
E gets +1 Action.
E plays a Vassal.
E gets +$2.
E discards a Festival.

It's your action phase, you may...
• play an Action from your hand.
• You may play a Festival from your discard pile.

I just got an iPad and have run into problem of buttons at the bottom being cut off, which is really disappointing.

With all due respect, Ingx's method is a workaround, and a non-straightforward one at that.

I also would like to see a button I can click to see the game log from the score page at the end of the game. It's nice to see the hands the other players have at completion, and it's also nice to see the turn-by-turn logs, but, speaking as a learner, it would be really nice to be able to see both together or at least be able to wee them by clicking back and forth on a tab or button.

As a learner, I'd really, really appreciate that feature.

I ran into a weird situation in a bot base game last night. I had a Vassal in my hand, and playing a Sentry had showed me that my next card was a Throne. I also had some other actions in my hand.

So I played the Vassal, expecting to be able use it to play the Throne that was the next card and use that on one of the other cards in my hand. Instead, the Throne went to the discard pile and I was not given any option to play it.

I backed up using undo a few times, trying again to replay Vassal/Throne, and even backed up a couple of moves and tried replaying, but it always ended with the same result - when I played Vassal, it would discard my Throne and not allow me to play it.

I gave up on that and tried using another Throne in my hand first, so that I played Vassal twice. This time, I was given the option to use the second (pulled by Vassal) Throne card as expected, so I was able to apply it to another card in my hand. It wasn't what I wanted to do, but it worked. I tried one more time to back up and do what I originally wanted, but since it still did not give me the option to play Vassal/Throne, I backed up and played Throne/Vassal/Throne instead and continued on.

I've used search to see if similar problems have been reported, but I'm not familiar with the cards mentioned so I'm not sure if this is the same issue.

I'm also not sure if it's an interface issue (a button not appearing) or a problem with how Vassal is being interpreted. Or, for that matter, a misunderstanding on my part, although what should happen seems pretty obvious to me.