Journey Token

[ravi]

I get what they are trying to do with the journey token (Color = bonus, Gray = not bonus) but I think this is the opposite of what the card says. To me, colored is very clearly representing "token up" and gray "token down" so the current implementation is opposite to the card text. I get why they want to do it this way, but in my opinion that is trying to fix something with the game rather than implementing it online properly. Something just seems "wrong" about trying to do this fix. What they want is to change the way the journey token is implemented (have the flip happen after the card resolution rather than before). Here is a conversation I had with Phillip about it on Discord:

ravi - Today at 3:44 PM
why is the journey token reversed? won't that be super confusing?
Watno - Today at 3:46 PM
because it now matches what the cards say(edited)
you flip it while resolving a card
then you check what side it is on
ravi - Today at 3:48 PM
?
Giant says (for example), "it starts face up"
it now starts face down
Watno - Today at 3:50 PM
oh, i'm sorry
ravi - Today at 3:51 PM
I think MF did this properly, and Shuffle IT is doing it backwards
Philip - Today at 3:51 PM
it'll probably confuse people who were used to the MF version at first, but we think the new way is much more intuitive
colored token = you'll get the bonus
ravi - Today at 3:51 PM
I get what you are saying, but it is the opposite of what the card says
If you want to do that, then you should change the card text
to flipping the token after resolving the action
Philip - Today at 3:52 PM
the card says nothing about colors
ravi - Today at 3:52 PM
yes but "colored" is pretty clearly "face up" to me
and IRL you don't have colors at all, just face up and face down
Philip - Today at 3:53 PM
I say give it a chance
if lots of people complain about it we'll think about something different
ravi - Today at 3:54 PM
I understand it, but consider this at least one person complaining
:)
Philip - Today at 3:54 PM
please give it a chance first  :)

What do others think? What does Donald X think? I think if they keep it this way, they should change the card text so that the flip happens after the card resolution and that the cards say that the token starts face down, otherwise revert back to how MF did it.

[Philip]

If there's sufficient interest we can add a user preference that lets you flip the journey token flip behaviour.

[Witherweaver]

If there's sufficient interest we can add a user preference that lets you flip the journey token flip behaviour.

Personally, I think

Token State: Up/Down

text is optimal.

I never once knew the state of my journey token from physical inspection while playing Making Fun.

If there is a graphic, mouseover could tell you the token's state in terms of the card descriptions. (I.e., with "Current State: Up/Down")

[AdamH]

The card says there is a face up side and a face down side. It's the responsibility of the UI to make it clear which side of the token is face up and face down and for it to do what the card is saying. The fact that this discussion is taking place at all means that it needs to be changed.

"give it a chance" and "you'll get used to it" are not acceptable things to tell people. There is a way to implement this so that it's clear to everyone what's going on, you should just do it that way.

This latest release is pretty distressing, with this issue and also the sound that you can't turn off in the client. Seems to me that the best thing to do at this very moment is to revert this newest release and maybe actually make sure that what you're doing isn't making your software worse before pushing that release out for the public. Doing this makes the developers seem really out-of-touch with that the people using their product want.

This is a huge disappointment for me.

[Rabid]

I like the Colour = Good (Big effect), Grey = Bad (Small effect) system.
On MF and RL I can never remember if I am going to get the big effect from a card.

[Witherweaver]

"give it a chance" and "you'll get used to it" are not acceptable things to tell people.

Yes, they are.

[werothegreat]

It says right on the card "flip it over, then check".  That is what I'm used to.  It starts face up, and when you first play a Journey token card, it flips face down.  The client should implement what the card says, not some sort of weird player intuition.

[Witherweaver]

It says right on the card "flip it over, then check".  That is what I'm used to.  It starts face up, and when you first play a Journey token card, it flips face down.  The client should implement what the card says, not some sort of weird player intuition.

Information being displayed in the GUI is not the same as implementation.  You can argue that displaying "result after playing card" (or however you want to interpret it) is counterintuitive, but that doesn't mean it's implemented incorrectly.

[Rabid]

How about using two colours?
Green = next play Big
Red = next play Small

[JunkDealer]

I will have to agree that the current implementation is confusing.

The log shows the following:
     S flips Journey token face down.

And yet I now see the colored side.  To me the colored side is the face up side.

I understand that you want the colored side to indicate that the next time you play will result in the big action, but from the text of the cards and the text of the log I do find it confusing.

Perhaps the suggestion of a green vs red is a good one rather than a colored vs black and white token.

[ravi]

If there's sufficient interest we can add a user preference that lets you flip the journey token flip behaviour.

That's all well and good, but I really think you should default to what the card text says and have the current implementation be the "flip".

[Witherweaver]

There is a potential problem with a theoretical future card that observes, but does not alter, journey token state, and does different things depending on those states.  It seems that not every journey token card needs to be of the form "flip it, if up do this".  The journey token state information may be deductible at any point except during the resolution of cards that change it (not sure if this colored display is changing with the token or not), but displaying the state itself would be more direct.

[Cave-O-Sapien]

This seems like a really odd decision.

[Jacob Marley]

I think that I agree with the new implementation.  It gives a quick visual signal as to whether you will get the big or small effect on the next play.  This is a response to the repeated complaints about needing to go to the log for game information that should be in the play area.  That is what they are giving here, and I think that having green mean big effect on next play makes sense.  Obviously, the simple fix is to make an optional setting allowing the player to chose.  I also think that as we play and get use to this implementation, confusion will go away for most people. 

[JunkDealer]

I don't disagree that I will get used to it.  I will.  I just think that the text offered (logs and the cards) and the color vs black and white design are at odds with each other.  I also don't disagree that it may even be more intuitive and for new players that's a good thing.  The issue is with old players who are used to the physical version and/or the making fun version.

The current implementation requires an adjustment in thinking, compared to making a small change in the design would not require such a change.  Instead of asking users to modify their thinking to match the implementation, it seems a slight shift in the design would make it clear for both new and old players.

[SkyHard]

I tried it. I tried to get used to it. I don't liked it. Please change it!

Why do you want to make it harder for us (and thus for yourself)?

[Jacob Marley]

Please don't say "us."  That implies that you speak for the entire dominion playing community.  You don't.  At least, you don't speak for me.  I like the way it is.  You speak for yourself only.  It happens that some people agree with you.  Others don't.  Go ahead and say "it makes things harder on me" but let the rest of "us" speak for ourselves.

I'm not trying to troll you, but I see it over and over online where a vocal minority assume they represent the entire population and it annoys me every time.

[AdamH]

There are many cases on here where there is an argument to be made for what the interface "should" be. It can be difficult to determine what is going to be more intuitive for more people, what the audience should be for catering this stuff towards, etc.

This is not one of those cases.

What's happening is not what the card does. There is no clear way to tell when the journey token is "face up" or "face down" when that's the one thing that absolutely needs to be made clear. Literally, that's the only thing that matters and the current interface fails at doing it.

I'm not suggesting that I know what the best thing is, but I can tell you that if there is any doubt in anyone's mind over what state your token is in, or what's going to happen when you play a card that uses the journey token, then the interface is not good enough.

This is different because it's trivial to just have some text that says "Journey token face down" or "Journey token face up" and then the problem is solved. With a picture there and no label and no actual tie to what the card is supposed to do, the current interface fails to do the only thing that it actually has to do.

And really, I'm surprised that anyone out there is willing to defend what's out there right now. Maybe it's clear to you but there are people who it's not clear to: so it's not good enough. There really isn't anything else to it.

[jdcw]

I really like how it is now - MF's version never made sense to me - to me grayed out is inactive.  I like the indicator that tells me that if I play it, it will be good.

[LibraryAdventurer]

Token State: [Face] Up/ [Face] Down

text is optimal.

I never once knew the state of my journey token from physical inspection while playing Making Fun.

If there is a graphic, mouseover could tell you the token's state in terms of the card descriptions. (I.e., with "Current State: Up/Down")

I agree. Mouseover or text-only seems like a good way to do it. I agree with Adam that it should be clear.

[ravi]

... I can tell you that if there is any doubt in anyone's mind over what state your token is in, or what's going to happen when you play a card that uses the journey token, then the interface is not good enough.

I think this is taking it a bit too far. In MF's implementation (and the same could happen in an IRL game), there could definitely "be doubt as to what's going to happen when you play the card." This is because some people may not realize that the flip happens before resolving the card.

However, in MF's implementation, that means you may be mistaken because you haven't learned the card yet. In this implementation you will be mistaken because the interface is literally doing the opposite of what the card says to do. I think some set of new users will still be confused the first time they play a journey card, but this can happen just by learning a card. However, it should be clear that the interface does what the card says.

This has nothing to do with me "not giving it a chance" or "not getting used to it". I'm used to it after one game, that's not the point.

Both implementations can be confusing, however, here is how someone confused by the MF implementation would probably go about it:

"Hmmm, why didn't my Giant attack? Let me look at the card closer. Ohhh! I see it flips the token before resolving the action. Okay, I didn't get that, I guess that the bonus happens when the token is upside down before I play the card."

Here is what happens in your implementation:

"Huh? Why didn't my Giant attack? My token was gray and the card says it flips the token and then resolves. It should have flipped, making it colored and then it should have attacked. ???? I don't get it." Looks at log "what? okay so the token got flipped over and that made it colored? So colored means that it is upside down" - Looks through this forum - "Oh I see, they wanted to change it so that the colored token represents the card doing something 'good' and the gray token means it doesn't."

Again, I am taking the case of someone confused by the journey token, there will be some subset of people who get either implementation intuitively. Maybe there are more people who get yours at first than the MF, however that is not the only consideration. To someone who is confused by the MF implementation, they only need to study the card to understand why they are confused. If someone is confused by this implementation, they will probably first study the card, then get more confused. Then they might look at the log and figure it out, but be confused by the implementation. Then they have to look at this forum (I'm guessing a tiny fraction of your users use this forum) and then see that you did something to be "more intuitive".

I'm in general optimistic of dominion.games, but I really think you made a wrong move here. There have been other things that I disagree with (I think it is counter intuitive to find the tavern mat and other mats), but I can accept that. This is a decision which I really think is just wrong.

[jsh]

In some sense this isn't a big deal either way because it's something someone will figure out when they make the mistake one time. It's literally a 50/50 guess up until then. I think changing it over and over just makes it more confusing; they picked a way to make it work and should stick with that. I do see the point that it needs to reflect the text on the card, but as far as the online implementation goes, whatever is more intuitive is probably better.

With that said, I do like Rabid's color suggestion, though I can't say if it's color-blindness friendly or not.

[Ingix]

I think what this boils down to is the simple question: Which of the sides the of Journey token (colored, grey) is the face up side, and which is the face down side? I just checked the Adventures rule book online, and it actually never says! It only ever talks about it being face up/down, but never about colored/grey.

I always considered the colored side the face up side, and it seems that many players here agree.

[ravi]

I think what this boils down to is the simple question: Which of the sides the of Journey token (colored, grey) is the face up side, and which is the face down side? I just checked the Adventures rule book online, and it actually never says! It only ever talks about it being face up/down, but never about colored/grey.

I always considered the colored side the face up side, and it seems that many players here agree.

The rulebook is written for the real life board game version. I am pretty sure that in that version there is a colored side and a blank side (no gray side). Clearly Colored is face-up and Gray is face-down. They are trying to change the meaning of the GUI token from giving you "face up/face down" info to "will do the good thing/won't do the good thing" info.

[AdamH]

In some sense this isn't a big deal either way because it's something someone will figure out when they make the mistake one time. It's literally a 50/50 guess up until then. I think changing it over and over just makes it more confusing; they picked a way to make it work and should stick with that. I do see the point that it needs to reflect the text on the card, but as far as the online implementation goes, whatever is more intuitive is probably better.

With that said, I do like Rabid's color suggestion, though I can't say if it's color-blindness friendly or not.

It doesn't work, though. Just because the IRL game might have a problem with things being unclear is not an excuse for the online version to have a similar problem. At least IRL you can define it whichever way you like and be consistent with it -- the online version forces you to do it their way.

Getting used to it is a thing that can happen, but as you mentioned, this is not colorblind-friendly and also could just be made better by text. I'm not saying that text is the best solution but right now it's way better than the current implementation and anything else that has been suggested here because there will be no question what it does to anyone if they just read the card and look at the display.

And for any solution to be functional at all, it needs to do at least this much. If it can be made clear by a picture to everyone (even colorblind people) with no ambiguity at all, then sure that's cool. You could even make it exactly the same as the board game and that would be something (at least you can say it's a problem with the board game and shift the blame, but I don't think that's a good solution. Just saying it's better than what we currently have).

I just don't understand why anyone thinks it's OK to say "just give it a chance and get used to it" when there's a very easy way to do it that is just clear to everyone without any acclimation period. Every single thing that doesn't "just work right" the first time for a new player is a source of frustration and this is a very easy way to eliminate one of them. Arguing that it should stay when it simply doesn't have to just doesn't make any sense.

[SkyHard]

Please don't say "us."  That implies that you speak for the entire dominion playing community.[...]vocal minority assume [...]

Us only implies me plus at least one other person. Since my wife has the same oppinion, which personal pronoun should I use? And tell me good sir, why do you assume that I am a minority? Aren't you doing exactly what you say "annoys" you?

[Polk5440]

Mouse over text is only a partial solution for the browser version. This won't work for touch screen devices down the road. Ideally, mouse over should not be used even in the browser version because it hides crucial information one layer deep rather than being obvious looking at the screen.

More/clearer animations could help. Play Giant, display a quick animation of the token turning over, then do what card says (rather than doing a simple color change of token and everything on the card seemingly happening at once).

I agree the implementation should match the card text, or the card text should change to match the preferred implementation. This isn't such an outlandish suggestion once you realize many cards' text don't match currently printed versions of the card because they've already been updated online to 2nd edition text.

[allanfieldhouse]

Okay, so this implementation is completely backwards from how the real game works. A colored boot icon is "face up" IRL. Why would you make it backwards?

[allanfieldhouse]

Honestly, "colored = good play" is more intuitive and would be a better design. Unfortunately, it just doesn't match up with the wording of the card.

Lots of possible solutions of course. A translucent up/down arrow over the image, for example.

[Funhaver]

Lots of good ideas in this thread... let me attempt one more.

Part 1: Add an obnoxious U and D (or Up and Dn, or FU and FD, or Allan's idea of translucent up and down arrows) atop the black-and-white and colored Journey token images, respectively.

Part 2: Create an option to remove said gaudy text (or arrows) from the images.

It seems to me that this would satisfy most people's requests, keeps the excellent (imo) convention of colored = good is coming, and is color-blind–friendly to boot. Let me know if I'm missing something.

[Donald X.]

What does Donald X think?

For me there's no question. This is a simulation of a real physical game that people actually play in real life.

The face up token should show the actual image used on the real face up token - the new improved image, not the original image. The Journey token has a boot. The face down token should show the actual image of the real face down token - it's a mildly textured colored blank circle. We don't use blank circles to mean something else, but the face down token might still be confusing sitting there in some random spot, so the token should be labelled, e.g. "Journey."

[Cave-O-Sapien]

As long as this implementation of Dominion remains a facsimile of the physical card game, it seems silly to represent the virtual token in a manner directly opposite of the physical one.

Edit: ninja'd!

[Donald X.]

Oh a thing you could do, if you wanted to be maximally friendly Someday, is, highlight the text that will apply in the Ranger / Giant in your hand or Pilgrimage on the table (which would be the text for the other position).

[Rabid]

Good idea, does that cause confusion with Throneroom?

[Donald X.]

Good idea, does that cause confusion with Throneroom?

You tell me!

[Jacob Marley]

Please don't say "us."  That implies that you speak for the entire dominion playing community.[...]vocal minority assume [...]

Us only implies me plus at least one other person. Since my wife has the same oppinion, which personal pronoun should I use? And tell me good sir, why do you assume that I am a minority? Aren't you doing exactly what you say "annoys" you?

Ok, there is a misunderstanding as to what exactly "us" meant.  I did not understand that you specifically meant you and your wife.  My apologies.  As for implying that you are in the minority for your view on this issue, that is not what I was trying to say.  I am implying (and I believe) that those who are active on these forums represent a minority of the total online Dominion playing population, and that therefore it is dangerous to assume that the views of the forum community are necessarily representative of the total playing population. That was poorly communicated my me.

Back to the issue at hand, the way I see it is that many people are arguing based on "play the card first, then check for the effect".  If this is how you are thinking,then yes, the implementation is confusing.  I'm coming at it from the perspective of "I want to know before I play the card which effect I will get" in which case it seems intuitive to see the green side up and know I will get the big effect or see the grey side and know I will get the small effect.

[Rabid]

How about using big and small, as well as flipping.
So a big face down token = next play will be big
And a small coloured face up token = next play will be small.

[Ingix]

The rulebook is written for the real life board game version. I am pretty sure that in that version there is a colored side and a blank side (no gray side). Clearly Colored is face-up and Gray is face-down.

Thanks for the correction. I was more remembering the MF version than the board game version, and I couldn't check the latter at the time of writing. That makes the current implementation opposite of what is supposed to happen in the board game version, which is probably very confusing to players.

[jeebus]

Just want to say that I agree that it currently works opposite of what the card text says. The card text is there in the online version too. That's what we're supposed to be following when we play. So there is a face-up side and a face-down side to the token. It should be clear which side is which. Colored being face-down and B/W being face-up is definitely opposite of what 99.9% of people would think, so it's crazy that this was implemented and that anybody is defending it.

EDIT: I think the best solution is a token that shows the symbol when it's face-up and is just blank (in your color) when it's face-down - exactly like the physical game. Only the journey token will ever be facedown by the player, so there will be no confusion. It will start face-up, and when you play/buy something that flips it, it will be obvious. It's the only token there (except for Coin/VP tokens) and the only thing that flips.

[Mick]

When teaching a friend I just told him this game was currently bugged and the journey token shows the opposite side, that seemed like the easiest way to explain it to people who actually expect things to do what the card text says.

[ravi]

So is there any update here? You can see that users are literally assuming there is a bug in the program from this implementation. Donald X has even said that this is the wrong way to do this. Are you guys planning on switching back to MF (color up, gray down) or (even better) using the icon with the boot as up and the plain circle as down?

[fisherman]

We were told to give it some time and that we would get used to the token being implemented backwards. Just reporting in that it has been some time and for me the token implementation is still confusing!

The clearest way to see that this implementation is wrong-minded is to remember there is no especially compelling reason DXV won't someday print a card whose main effect happens when the token is face down. If that happens, I don't see how anyone could ever consider the current implementation intuitive.

[AdamH]

I said this before but it seems like it bears repeating.

"Take some time and get used to it" is not a permanent fix for this. Maybe it's not the highest priority thing ever, but the implementation for this needs to change at some point. Any interface that's causing this much confusion needs to be changed at some point.

I understand that some things are difficult to make an intuitive interface for. On the other hand, just having text that says "journey token face up" or "journey token face down" would be way, way better than the current thing. So I don't think an argument like that can be made for the journey token.

[LastFootnote]

The clearest way to see that this implementation is wrong-minded is to remember there is no especially compelling reason DXV won't someday print a card whose main effect happens when the token is face down. If that happens, I don't see how anyone could ever consider the current implementation intuitive.

I agree that the current Shuffle iT implementation is bad. That being said, I really seriously doubt there will ever be more Journey token cards. And if there someday are (like 6 hypothetical expansions from now), they will almost certainly have their big effect when the token gets flipped face up.

[JunkDealer]

The problem I see now is the longer it stays this way the less likely it will be changed because people will get used to it.   If they do change it there will probably be people who complain about it then.

[Jacob Marley]

How about leaving the bright green side as is and label it "Face Down" and but the Boot symbol on the Grey "Face Up" side?  Does that satisfy both sides?  Or, make the colored "Face Down" side correspond in color to the player's color, thus it will match the other tokens that can go on kingdom cards.

[markus]

Maybe it has to do with Black Market, but game 1944051 started with my journey token displaying the coloured boot, and the opoonent's token being the grey boot.

[Philip]

Maybe it has to do with Black Market, but game 1944051 started with my journey token displaying the coloured boot, and the opoonent's token being the grey boot.

Thanks, fixed in 1.1.3.1.

[Jacob Marley]

How about leaving the bright green side as is and label it "Face Down" and but the Boot symbol on the Grey "Face Up" side?  Does that satisfy both sides?  Or, make the colored "Face Down" side correspond in color to the player's color, thus it will match the other tokens that can go on kingdom cards.

Called it!   ;D

[jeebus]

Hooray, it's now fixed to how it is in the real game. Thanks!

[Watno]

Hooray, it's not fixed to how it is in the real game. Thanks!

I assume you mean now, not not, right?

[jeebus]

I assume you mean now, not not, right?

Yes. Wow, stupid mistake.