Decisions automatically made should be configurable (default off)

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AdamH

I'm not sure if this is on the backlog; if not, I think it should be.

Many times during play, decisions are automatically made for the player. This occurs when there is only one choice for a decision (Lookout reveals three identical cards, I play Sacrifice with only Coppers in hand, etc.). As far as I know, there is no way to turn off this behavior.

This feature should be configurable. There are many reasons why someone would want to make each decision explicitly regardless of whether or not there's an actual decision to make. The most important one is that the interface would be more consistent -- for example, when I click on Salvager, the next card I click is always one that I want to trash, not one that I want to play, and I don't have to think about whether or not that decision is going to be made for me (are all of the cards in my hand the same?) before I even know what my next click does.

And of course if this is a configurable option, the default should be that no decisions are automatically made for the user.

ThetaSigma12

Ok I agree that it could have a toggle off, but this was probably my favorite feature of ShuffleIT and I see few peoblems with it. It should not be off by default.

I do agree that it causes some problems, but I don't think that's a problem. "Confirm single trash/discard" fixes the rest and there's always the undo, which is planned to be fixed in the future to make it more helpful.

I think this is a verrrrrrry low priority concern.

tufftaeh

Undo isn't that easy after you inadvertently buy the card that you wanted to select (e.g. to make your opponent gain it with Swindler) but that card was auto-selected (as the only option) and then your turn ends immediately. It's kind of difficult for your opponent to see what happened, and you have indeed got new information (your new hand), and you need to go back from their turn to your turn, so some won't allow this undo. (This can happen almost only with autobuy active, of course.)
I second the request to make this an option (like allowing autobuy). I think it's especially suitable for inexperienced players to have to do all decisions themselves in order to learn how the cards work. Autoplay is still very good for more experienced players, as is autobuy.

AdamH

The default settings should reflect what a new player would enjoy the most -- what would make the interface the most clear and most user-friendly to someone who doesn't know what Dominion is and/or has never used the client before.

A new player plays a card, expects to make a decision, but doesn't see what they expect. They have to first figure out that a decision was made for them somehow, which I have no idea how they would do that other than reading the game log in detail and assuming that's what happened. But then also this isn't consistently applied.

A new player is going to be really confused when they play Lookout and don't get to trash a Copper, then discard a Copper, then topdeck a Copper. I've been playing with this client for months and it's still jarring to me when that happens.

It's very, very clear to me that the option to have trivial decisions made for you should be off by default and I'm willing to stand behind that position if I need to.

On the other hand, yeah it's a pretty low priority, unless it's something they can do very easily, in which case their ratio of (improvement in user experience)/(time invested) goes way up and maybe it's worth throwing into the next release.

I could argue that it's better to turn off these automatic decisions entirely until it can be configured, and I believe that is the case. But I'm not gonna bother because I know that's not going to happen.

ThetaSigma12


Donald X.

Quote from: AdamH on 11 April 2017, 01:48:48 AM
A new player is going to be really confused when they play Lookout and don't get to trash a Copper, then discard a Copper, then topdeck a Copper. I've been playing with this client for months and it's still jarring to me when that happens.

It's very, very clear to me that the option to have trivial decisions made for you should be off by default and I'm willing to stand behind that position if I need to.
Definitely, it's a confusing thing and new players should not experience it.

Polk5440

Quote from: Donald X. on 11 April 2017, 02:35:37 AM
Quote from: AdamH on 11 April 2017, 01:48:48 AM
A new player is going to be really confused when they play Lookout and don't get to trash a Copper, then discard a Copper, then topdeck a Copper. I've been playing with this client for months and it's still jarring to me when that happens.

It's very, very clear to me that the option to have trivial decisions made for you should be off by default and I'm willing to stand behind that position if I need to.
Definitely, it's a confusing thing and new players should not experience it.

Agreed. Except, I am not a new player, and I don't think I should have to look in the log to see what happened after playing a card, either. Lookout's a great example. Did it reveal three Curses? three Coppers? three Villages? three Provinces?

dscarpac

This could be fixed by just having obvious animations showing where the three coppers go instead of having to look at the log. You don't have to make the player choose which of the three coppers to trash.

AdamH

Quote from: dscarpac on 12 April 2017, 07:52:50 PM
This could be fixed by just having obvious animations showing where the three coppers go instead of having to look at the log. You don't have to make the player choose which of the three coppers to trash.

This is possible, but without seeing what those animations look like I'm hesitant to say this will solve the problem that exists with the user's experience. And in any case, I still think this should be configurable. Having a consistent interface is still very important for new users.