My user name is spooneye—I've been playing Dominion online for maybe 4 or 5 years now?
Here are some features we have on our wishlist; please let me know if you would appreciate/use them:
1. An offline client, allowing you to play campaigns against bots
As a NYC subway rider, this is incredibly valuable to me. I often play Ascension on the subway, which I like considerably less than Dominion, but it serves a valuable purpose as a game I can enjoy semi-atuomatically while listening to music or a podcast. When I play Dominion online (where I pretty much only play ranked random tables) I'm pretty focused, but it's also a really good game to just goof around with and try out ill-advised strategies.
I am also a big fan of Hearthstone's recent Dungeon Run, which does a great job of designing a boss-rush framework around its usual gameplay, but cannot be played offline. If there was something structurally as ambitious in Dominion that could be played offline, it would probably take over my commuting time completely.
2. A bot with a setting for different play styles
I'd very much like this, as my offline play style would tend towards idle experimentation, but it's not crucial.
3. A strong bot.
It depends on what you mean by strong: assuming it was let loose in ranked play like any other entity...level 30? 40? 50? I guess I'd be disappointed if it were below 40ish, since that's about the floor of my "suitable opponents"...but since my offline play would be a lot more half-assed than my online, it'd still get a lot of play as long as it wasn't pulling some "trash a Province with JoaT" shenanigans or whatnot.
4. Options for timed games
Yeah, this would be great. I tend to get a little impatient with some people's playstyles, so the ability to set moderate limits would let me avoid matching with people who'd prefer a more languid pace. And I do enjoy blitz-style boardgames in general.
5. Options for undo settings
At the moment, this seems to work pretty well for me, no particular problems. Everyone has been nice and reasonable about it, so even if it's slightly clunky I can't think of anything that needs changing.
6. Online mini-tournaments; the option to easily create one for you & your friends.
Theoretically super-cool, but I don't know if I'd actually end up using it. But if someone invited me to one, I'd almost certainly join.
7. Option to invite specific players to your table
I honestly thought you could already do this. It's never occurred to me, I just play random matches.
8. More translations (to what language?)
I'm monolingual, so no opinion worth mentioning.
9. Better animations when cards are gained/bought/played/...
These all seem fine to me. I've never found myself confused.
10. Better visualization of split piles, Archive/Crypt contents, Prince targets, ...
These would be good—having not bought the last two expansions, I've come across split piles where I'm just trusting that there's something cool on the bottom that interacts with the top half, and I know I've botched a Prince and totally wasted it at least twice. I don't know what Archive/Crypt is, and at this point I'm afraid to ask.
10. Option to hide the log
You can switch it over to the Trash right now, right? This seems fine to me as an alternate option—maybe there's some UI improvement that could be made to point people towards this option, I dunno.
11. Android app (or just improved compatibility?)
I don't own an Android, but sure, they're nice folks, they deserve it.
12. iPhone app (or just improved compatibility?)
I think a distinct app would be a necessity for the sort of offline play I hoped for above.
13. Downloadable game logs
Not a high priority now, but I've flirted with trying to consciously up my game, and the availability of these might nudge me in that direction.
14. Improved moderation (dealing with chat abuse, slowplayers, ...)
Have never had anything but the mildest chat unpleasantness. There have been a few time I wanted to blacklist a particularly pokey player, but couldn't figure out how to do it, and once the game ended I forgot their exact username. So a list of your last 10 opponents would be a very useful option.
15. Tutorial on how to play Dominion
The fact that I'm here means this isn't crucial for me directly, but I do use Dominion in the game design classes I teach, and having a good online tutorial would save me about a half-hour of class time per semester. :)
16. Tutorial on how to play dominion online.
I think a well-structured and prominently placed FAQ is sufficient—if you're going to play online, you're probably pretty self-motivated to figure things out, and it conforms enough to usual online game best practices that I think I'd be able to figure out how things work without explicit instruction.
Some extra thoughts for the end:
- The worst part of the UI is probably the Tavern cards and some other reaction effects—I don't know why they're tucked away in the log, and although I haven't asked for undos often, it's almost always because of this.
- Definitely the ability to veto cards—maybe even the old-old-school isotropic method, where 12 cards are drafted and each player vetos one? The combinatorial flexibility of the game is its greatest strength, but also can make for some very ungainly games—my patience for setups where the dominant strategy is "play your whole deck every turn" is limited, and it's less about any particular card than a combo that just makes me roll my eyes and go "oh, this again".
- As an out-of-left-field suggestion: how about the possibility of using a Backgammon-style doubling cube in ranked play? Having played a fair amount of Hearthstone, I'm used to the "instantly resign when it's clear you've lost" equilibrium there, but here I'm often frustrated by people who insist on going down with the ship, and in turn probably seem brusque and unfriendly when I just don't want to waste anybody's time. The option of a doubling cube would fix that, add an interesting evaluative meta-skill to the gameplay, and work pretty seamlessly with ranked play, since the usual stake is already "1 win".
Here are some features we have on our wishlist; please let me know if you would appreciate/use them:
1. An offline client, allowing you to play campaigns against bots
As a NYC subway rider, this is incredibly valuable to me. I often play Ascension on the subway, which I like considerably less than Dominion, but it serves a valuable purpose as a game I can enjoy semi-atuomatically while listening to music or a podcast. When I play Dominion online (where I pretty much only play ranked random tables) I'm pretty focused, but it's also a really good game to just goof around with and try out ill-advised strategies.
I am also a big fan of Hearthstone's recent Dungeon Run, which does a great job of designing a boss-rush framework around its usual gameplay, but cannot be played offline. If there was something structurally as ambitious in Dominion that could be played offline, it would probably take over my commuting time completely.
2. A bot with a setting for different play styles
I'd very much like this, as my offline play style would tend towards idle experimentation, but it's not crucial.
3. A strong bot.
It depends on what you mean by strong: assuming it was let loose in ranked play like any other entity...level 30? 40? 50? I guess I'd be disappointed if it were below 40ish, since that's about the floor of my "suitable opponents"...but since my offline play would be a lot more half-assed than my online, it'd still get a lot of play as long as it wasn't pulling some "trash a Province with JoaT" shenanigans or whatnot.
4. Options for timed games
Yeah, this would be great. I tend to get a little impatient with some people's playstyles, so the ability to set moderate limits would let me avoid matching with people who'd prefer a more languid pace. And I do enjoy blitz-style boardgames in general.
5. Options for undo settings
At the moment, this seems to work pretty well for me, no particular problems. Everyone has been nice and reasonable about it, so even if it's slightly clunky I can't think of anything that needs changing.
6. Online mini-tournaments; the option to easily create one for you & your friends.
Theoretically super-cool, but I don't know if I'd actually end up using it. But if someone invited me to one, I'd almost certainly join.
7. Option to invite specific players to your table
I honestly thought you could already do this. It's never occurred to me, I just play random matches.
8. More translations (to what language?)
I'm monolingual, so no opinion worth mentioning.
9. Better animations when cards are gained/bought/played/...
These all seem fine to me. I've never found myself confused.
10. Better visualization of split piles, Archive/Crypt contents, Prince targets, ...
These would be good—having not bought the last two expansions, I've come across split piles where I'm just trusting that there's something cool on the bottom that interacts with the top half, and I know I've botched a Prince and totally wasted it at least twice. I don't know what Archive/Crypt is, and at this point I'm afraid to ask.
10. Option to hide the log
You can switch it over to the Trash right now, right? This seems fine to me as an alternate option—maybe there's some UI improvement that could be made to point people towards this option, I dunno.
11. Android app (or just improved compatibility?)
I don't own an Android, but sure, they're nice folks, they deserve it.
12. iPhone app (or just improved compatibility?)
I think a distinct app would be a necessity for the sort of offline play I hoped for above.
13. Downloadable game logs
Not a high priority now, but I've flirted with trying to consciously up my game, and the availability of these might nudge me in that direction.
14. Improved moderation (dealing with chat abuse, slowplayers, ...)
Have never had anything but the mildest chat unpleasantness. There have been a few time I wanted to blacklist a particularly pokey player, but couldn't figure out how to do it, and once the game ended I forgot their exact username. So a list of your last 10 opponents would be a very useful option.
15. Tutorial on how to play Dominion
The fact that I'm here means this isn't crucial for me directly, but I do use Dominion in the game design classes I teach, and having a good online tutorial would save me about a half-hour of class time per semester. :)
16. Tutorial on how to play dominion online.
I think a well-structured and prominently placed FAQ is sufficient—if you're going to play online, you're probably pretty self-motivated to figure things out, and it conforms enough to usual online game best practices that I think I'd be able to figure out how things work without explicit instruction.
Some extra thoughts for the end:
- The worst part of the UI is probably the Tavern cards and some other reaction effects—I don't know why they're tucked away in the log, and although I haven't asked for undos often, it's almost always because of this.
- Definitely the ability to veto cards—maybe even the old-old-school isotropic method, where 12 cards are drafted and each player vetos one? The combinatorial flexibility of the game is its greatest strength, but also can make for some very ungainly games—my patience for setups where the dominant strategy is "play your whole deck every turn" is limited, and it's less about any particular card than a combo that just makes me roll my eyes and go "oh, this again".
- As an out-of-left-field suggestion: how about the possibility of using a Backgammon-style doubling cube in ranked play? Having played a fair amount of Hearthstone, I'm used to the "instantly resign when it's clear you've lost" equilibrium there, but here I'm often frustrated by people who insist on going down with the ship, and in turn probably seem brusque and unfriendly when I just don't want to waste anybody's time. The option of a doubling cube would fix that, add an interesting evaluative meta-skill to the gameplay, and work pretty seamlessly with ranked play, since the usual stake is already "1 win".