Band of Misfits as Mining Village

[markus]

It seems that when playing Band of Misfits as Mining Village I have to confirm after each play that I don't want to trash it. When playing an actual Mining Village, I normally don't have to do that.

[JunkDealer]

I'll add a slightly different voice to this...

Inconsistencies drive me crazy!  (More on this later)

The inconsistency here is multifaceted
1) when you play a Mining Village as the last action (ie have no more actions in your hand) it prompts you with the Trash/Don't Trash buttons and the End Actions button is hidden.
2) when you play a Mining Village with other actions in hand it prompts "Trash" (with a different size button to boot) or lets you click on another action card or click End Actions.
3) when you play a Band of Misfits as a Mining Village regardless of whether you have other actions in hand the behavior is the same as scenario 2.

In my opinion, the behavior in all 3 cases should be the same.  The problem I have with inconsistencies in card play is that they lead to user error.  When I play a card, I get used to a certain behavior.  When it doesn't perform in that trained way (for whatever reason) I don't always catch it and sometimes will take an incorrect action (ie Trash when I don't want to).  Yes, that's what the undo button is for, but that is also what UI design is for.  I've always been taught that consistency in actions is a huge factor in UI design.  When you deviate from this (for speed, or ease of play or whatever) mistakes happen.

Regardless of whether you accept my opinion on consistency (and it seems with the design you have presented you do not) I agree with markus that the consistency between a real Mining Village and a BoM as a Mining Village should be the same.

[Stef]

I'll add a slightly different voice to this...

Inconsistencies drive me crazy!  (More on this later)

The inconsistency here is multifaceted
1) when you play a Mining Village as the last action (ie have no more actions in your hand) it prompts you with the Trash/Don't Trash buttons and the End Actions button is hidden.
2) when you play a Mining Village with other actions in hand it prompts "Trash" (with a different size button to boot) or lets you click on another action card or click End Actions.
3) when you play a Band of Misfits as a Mining Village regardless of whether you have other actions in hand the behavior is the same as scenario 2.

In my opinion, the behavior in all 3 cases should be the same.  The problem I have with inconsistencies in card play is that they lead to user error.  When I play a card, I get used to a certain behavior.  When it doesn't perform in that trained way (for whatever reason) I don't always catch it and sometimes will take an incorrect action (ie Trash when I don't want to).  Yes, that's what the undo button is for, but that is also what UI design is for.  I've always been taught that consistency in actions is a huge factor in UI design.  When you deviate from this (for speed, or ease of play or whatever) mistakes happen.

Regardless of whether you accept my opinion on consistency (and it seems with the design you have presented you do not) I agree with markus that the consistency between a real Mining Village and a BoM as a Mining Village should be the same.

Just giving some background info here:

Mining Village is often played in a deck with a lot of Mining Villages and Smithies (or something like that). In this kind of deck it's really annoying to have to click "don't trash" after every play of your village. Therefore, we build this feature that it remembers you can trash the mining village, but instead of asking an immediate reply, it waits for your next decision ("what to play now") and adds the trashing as an option there.

While this plays out nicely most of the time, it isn't always allowed. Suppose you play a Golem and find a mining village and a laboratory. You play the mining village first. We can't delay the trashing decision now, because on your next decision you've already seen the cards from laboratory, and you're not entitled to that information before deciding on the trash.

Therefore we defined two cases for all these optional decisions. Basically the simple case, where you just play the card (delaying allowed) and every other case (delaying not allowed).

On the last action in your turn unfortunately it also can't be delayed, because then we wouldn't know anymore what the current phase is (which is for example trouble when displaying the price of peddler).

I haven't really given BoM much thought yet. Maybe it also can be marked as a "simple" play of the mining village.

[markus]

I think only when you "Throne Room" the BoM you have to ask after the first play, because trashing it allows BoM to become a new card.

I wouldn't mind, if the interface always showed the "Don't Trash" button in addition to being able to click the next action card to not trash.

[JunkDealer]

I think only when you "Throne Room" the BoM you have to ask after the first play, because trashing it allows BoM to become a new card.

I wouldn't mind, if the interface always showed the "Don't Trash" button in addition to being able to click the next action card to not trash.

Exactly what I was trying to say.  I love that I don't have to click "Don't Trash" to move on, but can just click the next action when one is available.  I'm not suggesting that should be taken away.  What I am suggesting is that the shown buttons and behavior shouldn't change from one scenario to the next.  The Trash/Don't Trash buttons should always be there.  In addition the action cards should highlight (which implies I'm clicking Don't Trash). 

In the case of a Golem I totally understand that the behavior has to change... you have to wait for the user to click Trash or Don't Trash and in that specific scenario you can't really offer the End Actions button.  This is because another card was played that changes the behavior.  I fully expect the interface to accomodate that. It's the inconsistency of buttons being shown or not, or of cards being played based on my hand that bugs me.  Maybe I'm the only one having this problem, but when suddenly the system assumes something for me and changes how it reacts it confuses me and I spend more time thinking why did this change, then playing the game.

Hope that helps clarify my position.  Thanks for adding clarity markus!

[Stef]

In an attempt to make it really clear what you're asking for... it's a button that does nothing? It wouldn't move the game forward in any way, it wouldn't even communicate with the server, the only thing this button would do when you click it is hide itself (and probably also hide it's counterpart that does trash).

We could add that, I'm just not sure at all it would be an improvement.

[JunkDealer]

Yes, it would do nothing except add the consistency of the current do nothing.  The idea is the interface shouldn't change for a particular card (unless another card has forced it to change somehow). 

Consistency is king...  For me, I'd rather have that button that says Don't Trash all the time rather than it's there sometimes and not there other times.  I find that kind of "smart" interface leads me to make mistakes more often then not.  I know it's crazy to ask for a button that does nothing, but I would rather that then an interface that is always adapting.  Again I could be the lone wolf howling about nothing here, but inconsistencies in interfaces always drive me nuts.