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Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 6:38 pm
by Thorthoth
Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

Lets make assassin games more visually distinctive perhaps by giving the page background a different color or by outlining the map in a red border.

The reason for this is that sometimes when a player is playing many games in a row, he may forget to notice which games are assassin and which are not, and since assassin games have a basic strategy completely different from other games, disaster may result...This could be avoided by making the game type unmistakably obvious. The little red crosshair symbols can be easily overlooked.

Now I suspect that some critics of this suggestion will take a ''you snooze, you lose'' attitude about this... but that is a bit unfair, for two reasons.
1. The player may be perfectly capable of playing a decent game, except for this one misperception that is actually extraneous to the game play itself.
2. This error also unfairly screws up all the other players in the game too, everybody's strategy is jeopardized and one random player who may not even have been playing well otherwise, suddenly wins.

Remember the player who has made this error was not trying to wreck the game dynamics, he was tripped up by poor signage supplied by CC's website designers.
Anybody who has ever been screwed up by poorly written or displayed labeling, directions or roadway signage should be sympathetic with this plight.

The problem is real and the solution is simple. Let's not waste time with unnecessary dilly-dallying or negative remarks, let's just correct the situation.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 6:42 pm
by IcePack
Actually, I do agree with this. Though I dont think you should stop with assassin. There have been many games were I didn't realize it was standard (instead of teams) or assassin, or terminator, but the one that ALWAYS seems to trip me up is trench. Usually when sitting for someone else (since its not something I commonly play). I sually glance at settings, but sometimes i miss the trench part when trying to get through a large number of games and totally flop the deployment.

Some sort of better visualization or distinction thats very obvious could be a nice improvement

Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 7:42 pm
by InnyaFacce
I Think This Is A Great Idea
Every Game Type Should Be Color Coded
Polymorphic . Trench . Assassin . Terminator . Standard . Team . Freestyle . Speed

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 7:56 pm
by Thorthoth
Yes,I fully support expanding the color coding beyond just Assassin.
It's great that we are forming a consensus on this.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 12:47 am
by Metsfanmax
I believe this is a very good idea.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 1:36 am
by riskllama
couldn't hurt, nope. or maybe just have the appropriate medal symbols displayed somewheres on your panel set up?

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 5:51 am
by mrswdk
I would go much further than a simple color code. Maybe in Game Finder there could be a big label next to the game saying 'Assassin', and/or an option to filter out Assassin games from the search.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 7:39 pm
by riskllama
mrswdk wrote:I would go much further than a simple color code. Maybe in Game Finder there could be a big label next to the game saying 'Assassin', and/or an option to filter out Assassin games from the search.

:-s

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:23 pm
by Metsfanmax
mrswdk wrote:I would go much further than a simple color code. Maybe in Game Finder there could be a big label next to the game saying 'Assassin', and/or an option to filter out Assassin games from the search.


This is not about joining assassin games, it's about playing ones you're already in. Read the OP please.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2017 4:50 pm
by mrswdk
Okay forget the game finder point but the big about the big label still stands. You could label all the games 'assassin', and also add little crosshairs next to your target's name. These would be useful visual clues to show people they are playing an assassin game and not a regular game.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2017 5:29 pm
by riskllama
quit trolling suggs, mrs.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:27 am
by mrswdk
Disagreeing with a suggestion =/= trolling

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 5:38 am
by Dukasaur
mrswdk wrote:Okay forget the game finder point but the big about the big label still stands. You could label all the games 'assassin', and also add little crosshairs next to your target's name. These would be useful visual clues to show people they are playing an assassin game and not a regular game.

Yeah, we get the point. You think they're already labelled well enough. That's okay if your game load is low enough that you that you can take the time to study the game before starting. That's not always the case, though. Sometimes people get in over their heads with hundreds of active games and need to take turns very quickly, and don't really study the board, just drop on the first place that looks good and attack the first thing that looks vulnerable. It's happened to me, not often, but it's happened. At least one fairly prominent player apparently foed me because of a situation like this, so while I'll grant you that it's not an extremely common problem, it is a problem. If it can be fixed without too much difficulty then why not?

I think a magenta frame around the Map Inspect window would work. We could also have something similar, like an orange frame around Map Inspect, in Team games, for similar reasons.


mrswdk wrote:Disagreeing with a suggestion =/= trolling


Correct.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 8:24 am
by mrswdk
It's not really a question of 'studying' the game. Takes like 2 seconds to remind oneself of the map settings (e.g. am I playing an escalating game, is it trench? etc). If someone starts 50-60 games and finds the game load so high they don't even have time to do more than spend 5 seconds taking their turns in a blind panic then maybe the simpler solution is for them to just reduce their game load to a size they find manageable.

I mean this is all academic given the location of the discussion, but still.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 10:16 am
by Thorthoth
mrswdk wrote:It's not really a question of 'studying' the game. Takes like 2 seconds to remind oneself of the map settings (e.g. am I playing an escalating game, is it trench? etc). If someone starts 50-60 games and finds the game load so high they don't even have time to do more than spend 5 seconds taking their turns in a blind panic then maybe the simpler solution is for them to just reduce their game load to a size they find manageable.

I mean this is all academic given the location of the discussion, but still.

But still, shut up. making the display more clear would still be an improvement. You're just trolling. This thread was functioning productively until you came around to making your usual mess of things.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 11:58 am
by Dukasaur
mrswdk wrote:It's not really a question of 'studying' the game. Takes like 2 seconds to remind oneself of the map settings (e.g. am I playing an escalating game, is it trench? etc). If someone starts 50-60 games and finds the game load so high they don't even have time to do more than spend 5 seconds taking their turns in a blind panic then maybe the simpler solution is for them to just reduce their game load to a size they find manageable.

I mean this is all academic given the location of the discussion, but still.


True enough, but life isn't always that simple. For starters, once you realize your game load is too high, you can't just snap your fingers and make it go away. Some games end in a week, others take months, so trying to reduce your game load takes time. If you play mostly tournament games, like I do, the games just keep on coming. You can't control when a tournament will enter the next round, and it seems to come in waves sometimes, when five or six tournaments will update on the same day and you're handed 15 or 20 new games you weren't really expecting until some point in the future.

Add to that an unpredictable work schedule, and you can really get yourself in shit. Sometimes I don't have much work, I'm looking at a 20 or 25-hour work week, so I get cocky and sign up for some extra tournaments, and then suddenly something changes and my bosses find extra work for me and I'm working a 60 or 70-hour week, and suddenly those extra tourneys that sounded like fun a week ago now seem like a prison sentence.

Anyway, I didn't come here primarily to tell you about the ups and downs of my life. The fact is, sometimes people do have to take their turns when they've worked unexpected overtime or whatever, and they're groggy and tired and not paying attention, and they would appreciate extra visual clues about what's going on. That's all this thread is about, some minor graphical adjustments that would cost the site nothing except a few minutes of programming time. My suggestion is to put a colour-coded border around the Map Inspect window (because that's the one thing always moving around the map while you place troops, attack, etc.).

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 12:20 pm
by Mad777
I kind of like the idea as well, expending to all major game type is also something I would consider to adhere.

Thanks for submitting this one... 8-) (did I really say that? :lol: )

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 1:28 pm
by riskllama
I think my idea of the medal icons would work best, maybe put them in the game header above the players. no medal for the settings that are being used, you say? create medals for those settings... :idea:

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 5:09 pm
by mrswdk
There are better Suggestions still stuck in Suggestions purgatory. It would be better to deal with them first before entertaining fluff like this.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 5:41 pm
by riskllama
this is good fluff, tho. handy, useful fluff.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 6:30 pm
by iAmCaffeine
TDIL mrs is big about big.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 3:36 am
by mrswdk
I'm the biggest.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 10:57 am
by DJENRE
Hello all,
I was actually talking about something really similar into my clan.
I gonna try to explain and to be as clear as possible.

The main problem for players (if we see this thread) is to be awared on some important games. But wich one?
For some people (Thorthoth) it will be the assassin games for not making a mess into a game (really unfair for himself, but it's his fault ;) , but so unfair for other players....)
For some people (mrswdk) sometime he didn't realize it's trench and deploy badly.... and lost badly...
For some people (InnyaFacce) it sould be a color/icon/ symbol for any type of game.
For some people (Dukasaur), he doesn't have time to see everything when he's sitting a friend....Too many games...


My first idea was a bit different but could reach all those ideas :

What about the idea each player can set a color/icon himself to the game he wants?

The color/icon will be visible on both Central Command Page (where you see all games listed) and also into the Game page.
I think a color code would be easier than icons. This color will replace all grey parts in both central command page and game page. So it's easy to see.
It can be selected by clicking on a little arrow wich will show a "SELECT GAME COLOR" list with all the colors (10 maybe).
This arrow could easily fit beetween the TIME and the JOIN button, on the central command page and somewhere else into the game page.

With those possibilities, each player can organize is own color code for his games. It is not done automatically. If nothing is done, the game remain grey.

Player 1 will maybe set one color for each type of game.
Player 2 will maybe set in RED all the assassins game.
Player 3 will maybe set in a proper color all tournaments because he's looking for Tournament medals.
Player 4, who is looking for an higher rank, will set in real time in GREEN all the active games he gonna win but in RED the ones he gonna loose, so he can calculate the delta of points he gonna earn in the next days.
Player 5 will maybe say "Hey buddy, can u sit me for 3 days please, I have a lot of games, but the most important for me are set in RED, so please play those one carefully"

Possibilities will be then unlimited for every player to make warning on certain games, and not on others, depending what they're looking for.

I hope I've been clear for all.
let me know what u think about it.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:09 am
by Thorthoth
Greatly expanding customized settings on all fronts would be a huge step forward.

• Color-coding game types & settings.
• Placing/removing buttons (for example, I'd like to see a zero advance button instead of scrolling).
• Allowing players to use the classic display instead of the panel display (or make the panel display modifiable into a simulacrum of the original display).
• Better speed game alerts (and a separate section at the top of Active games just for Speed games. They sometimes get lost mixed in with the other games).
• So much more, for now I'll just say, 'etc.'.

Of course, fixing the ongoing lag, freeze and blink issues is baseline.

Let's face it, folks. We're talking about CC 2.0.

Re: Make Assassin Games more visually distinctive.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:59 am
by Dukasaur
Good idea, DJ! And agree with most of yours also, TT.