Adam's thoughts

[AdamH]

I haven't really gotten used to it yet so I don't have many thoughtful things to say at the moment, but from one game I played I have a few things I want to mention. I'll add more things to this thread as I think of them, if that's appropriate.

When I was selecting things with Courtier, at one point I was able to select two different things. This means I was presented with six buttons that corresponded to the six legal choices. This was confusing, I feel strongly that it should be four checkboxes and I should select exactly two of them and then click a button that says I'm done.

Also, there's an option for "coins" and an option for "gold" which I know will be confusing for some players -- many of them (incorrectly) refer to money/coins as "gold." I think the coins should just be the icon for coins, like the one that is used to show you how much money you have. If there's space I think "gain a gold" would be a lot clearer than just "gold."

[Beyond Awesome]

I agree with this 100%, especially the check boxes. Right now, it's overwhelming reading through all the options on cards like Courtier and Pawn.

[werothegreat]

Checkboxes yes please.  Same with Trusty Steed.  I don't want to imagine all the buttons when I reveal Dame Josephine for Courtier.

[allanfieldhouse]

I don't want to imagine all the buttons when I reveal Dame Josephine for Courtier.

Wouldn't that just be one checkbox? "All 4 options"

Seriously though, checkboxes seem like the way to go for all the "pick x of y options" cards.

[AdamH]

Obvs if you select four out of four things it makes the trivial decision for you, but if I get three options out of four with my Courtier, I want to check three boxes to select what I want, even though that is "less efficient" than clicking one out of four buttons.

In other news, I just played a Page game where I spent several turns not exchanging my Pages for T-hunters because I was confused by the interface. I thought that I should click the button that said "exchange" because then I would be exchanging them.

Obviously the X over the pictures helps, it's what made me realize I was doing something wrong (yes I didn't realize it when I never saw T-hunters in my deck after two shuffles, it was the X. Feel free to make fun of me for this). And yeah I get the intent of it now, but I don't think I'm a complete idiot and I was confused by it.

What would I suggest instead? I'm not sure tbh, I haven't completely thought it through. Maybe if there were two buttons, one that said "keep" and one that said "exchange" and you could toggle between them somehow, and it was obvious which one was active? I dunno.

I also found it weird that I needed to confirm the card I trashed to my Expand before choosing what to gain. I realize the intent is to be able to undo it but I think you can still do that while selecting the card you want to gain. I have not thought this through.

[dscarpac]

I also found it weird that I needed to confirm the card I trashed to my Expand before choosing what to gain. I realize the intent is to be able to undo it but I think you can still do that while selecting the card you want to gain. I have not thought this through.

I suppose the issue here is with on-trash effects that might give you info about what card you might gain (or choose not to trash at all)

[J Reggie]

I agree that Courtier should give you checkboxes rather than the one-click thing.  When revealing a Swamp Hag to a Courtier (and being faced with four options of three choices each), it may be less clicking but it's way more confusing.

[limetime]

Let it be changed in settings?

[Philip]

I also found it weird that I needed to confirm the card I trashed to my Expand before choosing what to gain. I realize the intent is to be able to undo it but I think you can still do that while selecting the card you want to gain. I have not thought this through.

You can disable the need to confirm trashes/discards/etc. of single cards in your user profile under game options. These options will be accessible from the game itself as well at some point.

[Bbl]

One more +1 for the Checkbox solution instead of the multitude of otions.

[scottc]

I just played a Page game where I spent several turns not exchanging my Pages for T-hunters because I was confused by the interface. I thought that I should click the button that said "exchange" because then I would be exchanging them.

"Exchange" is the wrong word to use on that screen.  It's very confusing when you first see it.

I think it would be adequate to let people click the card images, which would behave just like html radio buttons - when you click one the other automatically changes its state.

[allanfieldhouse]

The biggest problem withe the Page exchange interface is that it works completely opposite for a single card vs multiple cards. For a single card, you click "exchange" to perform the exchange. For multiple cards, clicking the "exchange" button switches the state to "keep".

I'm not sure what the best solution is, but it should at least be consistent. I think I like the "radio button" sort of approach. One for keep and one for exchange. That way it's explicitly obvious which state each card is in.

It would also be great to have a way to switch them all to keep/exchange with just one click.

[gkrieg]

I will point out that I like being able to not have to click multiple times for things like courtier and pawn.  I like the one-click system.

[werothegreat]

I will point out that I like being able to not have to click multiple times for things like courtier and pawn.  I like the one-click system.

I do not.  I think it's clunkier than a checkbox system.

[AdamH]

I will point out that I like being able to not have to click multiple times for things like courtier and pawn.  I like the one-click system.

I do not.  I think it's clunkier than a checkbox system.

I understand how someone could like clicking a mouse less times, but I said I feel strongly about this in my OP and there's a good reason for that. In computer UIs, when you have multiple options, you either use radio buttons or checkboxes for it (depending on how many choices you want to allow to be picked simultaneously). That's so ingrained in all applications at this point that doing anything else will confuse every single user out there.

If enough people like buttons for this, then sure maybe there should be an option for buttons, but the default for this really really needs to be checkboxes -- they can use radio buttons if you're doing exactly one but buttons are just going to confuse like 90% of people or more out there.

Click efficiency is not the highest priority for a product that's just starting out, accessibility and intuitive controls are. I feel strongly about this and I'm willing to continue to defend this position.