Familiar cards

[HinghamtoHingham]

I don't undertstand how the familiar cards page works, I can open it but can't do anything to indicate which my familiar cards are. Occasionally cards grey out but I can't see how that has happened and it isn't clear if a grey' out card is familiar or unfamiliar. I think its a good concept but a bit more explanation and guidance would be appreciated.

I am on a mac and accessing the website through Safari

[Watno]

Grey cards are the unfamiliar ones. You can toggle the familiarity of a card by clicking it.

[AdamH]

I've been meaning to bring this up again but I couldn't find the thread. I guess this one will do.

I've introduced several people to this new client in the past week or so and every single time I try to start a game with them we go through the exact same thing: it's the same base set kingdom with like one or two different cards.

We quit the game, then I have to tell them to go to familiar cards (which requires leaving the table. Why?) and check that they're familiar with everything, then I have to get them back to the table. This coupled with the fact that we've ended up starting games with bots because they have to click an extra button to sit down at the table (the button on friends list says "join" which implies that they would be playing the game, but no) has led to more than 55% of them saying they don't like the new client.

This is not the first impression you want to make. I warned you about this a few weeks ago, saying that the default settings for familiar cards were going to cause issues like this and here were are.

I realize some of this stuff is pretty low on your priority list, but man, turning off the familiar cards feature entirely would be better than this. This isn't what I want, I like having a way to play random sets while excluding the cards I don't like, but I really think a band-aid needs to be put on this for now.

A splash screen that comes up when a user first logs in, directing them towards familiar cards would work. Having the default setting for familiar cards be all cards would be better than just ten of them (yes I realize DXV has said he wanted it this way but man, every single person I've talked to disagrees). An "are you sure?" message when you're about to start a game with a bot when you have spectators at the table would go a long way.

These aren't permanent fixes but I can't imagine they would take that much time to do. The first-time experience users have with this client is extremely important to me and I think you should consider making these quick fixes now instead of potentially turning off lots of people from the game.

[kieranmillar]

AdamH, as an easier start can't you just uncheck 'Respect Familiar Cards' on the game setup options if you're playing against a friend who just signed up? Not ideal for now but may get you up and running more quickly.

While I like the concept of the Familiar Cards list, I think that it currently has some "discoverability" issues and needs to be made clearer as to why the early games for new accounts are so heavily skewed towards base (EDIT: A tiny selection of base, apparently). It's been ages since I set up my account, is it really only 10 cads marked as familiar? That would explain some things, I thought it was the whole base set. I think it should be. 10 is too little.

Here is what I always imagined the process for a new account would ideally be when they first sign up:

When they first log in, a window says "Welcome to Dominion Online, is this your first time playing Dominion, either digitally or the physical board game?" with yes or no buttons. Clcking Yes takes them straight to a tutorial on how to play Dominion.

Clicking No, brings up another message:
"Great! Which expansions are you familiar with?" followed by a checklist with all of the expansions named, along with an extra "I don't know" button. Maybe base game will come pre-selected.

All players will then start with all base game cards marked as familiar, but those who selected more expansions will automatically have the cards from those expansion listed as familiar too.

Finally, the first time a player clicks on the Familiar Cards tab, there is a quick message explaining what the page actually is.

[yed]

After first login only, Familiar Cards tab could be automatically active.

[AdamH]

AdamH, as an easier start can't you just uncheck 'Respect Familiar Cards' on the game setup options if you're playing against a friend who just signed up? Not ideal for now but may get you up and running more quickly.

I'd love to! But the last time I checked, new tables you create don't remember the settings you used at your last table, and this is hidden under "advanced settings". I have a 100% failure rate at remembering to change this so far.

[Mick]

It's interesting that every single check box in advanced table options is defaulted to the exact opposite of how I'd want it to be.

[CanineMan]

I am having trouble when I choose an expansion's cards. I want to explore each one using only it's cards per game. My familiar cards are all grey except that set, but it still says I have 35 - 45 familiar cards depending on the expansion showing. It seems like some of the base set get mixed in, but I have it turned off, and all the cards are grey. I switched from Safari to Chrome, but no success.

Thanks in advance.

[Ingix]

10 cards from the base game are always familiar (I forget which exactly). That was a measure from the very beginning when before people would be matched but no kingdom could be found because their familiar cards had not enough cards in common.