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Multiplayer suggestions and autopass - Printable Version

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Multiplayer suggestions and autopass - fbarbe - 06-24-2021

Hi,

I started using Remote Play on an almost regular basis with friends, and there are multiple features that I would love to see implemented.

  1. Challenging a friend is quite a hassle to do, as there is no way to search or save favourite contacts. It would be awesome if there could be a "Favourite" tab
  2. When a game ends, it would be great to have a "rematch" option
  3. The interface for chatting is quite unusable, would be nice to have a separate panel. In general, it doesn't make much sense to have all the errors (e.g. "your password is incorrect") in the Status bar.
  4. When selecting a game, there should be an option to disable the loading of the game in the background. For "heavy" games such as Mini Wars, this takes a long time to load locally (especially when selecting a different option) and makes the whole process much slower
  5. The "Remember Me" option does not seem to work on Linux and Windows: when closing the app, only the username is saved and not the password (and the user is logged out).
  6. When a user has many open games, adding a password to a game adds it to every other open game.
  7. The players' names are not reset after leaving an online game. 
  8. When looking at open games, the details do not give a description of who is playing them.
Other features which are not directly related to multiplayer:
  1. An auto-pass feature would be useful, that when enable would automatically play the passing move if it is the only one available.
  2. In "Mini Wars" with "Fog of War" enabled, enabling "Last Move" allows to see the opponent's move even tho it should be hidden.
  3. In "Seesaw", a promoted unit (two pieces or more stacked on top of each other) can only be moved by clicking on the bottom stacked piece, making it hard to select it.
Even without these features, playing board games online with friends turned out to be a lot of fun! I mainly used it to play Yavalath, Seesaw and Mini Wars.


Best,
Fabio

RE: Multiplayer suggestions and autopass - slimy_asparagus - 06-24-2021

(06-24-2021, 10:15 AM)fbarbe Wrote: 1. Challenging a friend is quite a hassle to do, as there is no way to search or save favourite contacts. It would be awesome if there could be a "Favourite" tab
3. The interface for chatting is quite unusable, would be nice to have a separate panel. In general, it doesn't make much sense to have all the errors (e.g. "your password is incorrect") in the Status bar.
I raised these issues before. I have not reviewed what the current status is.

(06-24-2021, 10:15 AM)fbarbe Wrote: 2. When a game ends, it would be great to have a "rematch" option

8. When looking at open games, the details do not give a description of who is playing them.
I agree.


(06-24-2021, 10:15 AM)fbarbe Wrote: 5. The "Remember Me" option does not seem to work on Linux and Windows: when closing the app, only the username is saved and not the password (and the user is logged out).
Yes, I use Linux and I find this quite annoying.




(06-24-2021, 10:15 AM)fbarbe Wrote: 7. The players' names are not reset after leaving an online game.
I raised a related issue, which was fixed. But this is very true and annoying.



(06-24-2021, 10:15 AM)fbarbe Wrote: Other features which are not directly related to multiplayer:
  1. An auto-pass feature would be useful, that when enable would automatically play the passing move if it is the only one available.
This sounds sensible, but I quite strongly worry it could cause issues.

RE: Multiplayer suggestions and autopass - MatthewStephenson - 07-01-2021

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestions. Regarding each of your points:


Quote:1. Challenging a friend is quite a hassle to do, as there is no way to search or save favourite contacts. It would be awesome if there could be a "Favourite" tab
2. When a game ends, it would be great to have a "rematch" option
3. The interface for chatting is quite unusable, would be nice to have a separate panel. In general, it doesn't make much sense to have all the errors (e.g. "your password is incorrect") in the Status bar.

Thanks for the ideas, we may add these features in the future when we have time.


Quote:4. When selecting a game, there should be an option to disable the loading of the game in the background. For "heavy" games such as Mini Wars, this takes a long time to load locally (especially when selecting a different option) and makes the whole process much slower


This is unfortunately not possible as we need to compile and load the game descriptions before we can determine important information, such as the options available,or how many players there are.


Quote:5. The "Remember Me" option does not seem to work on Linux and Windows: when closing the app, only the username is saved and not the password (and the user is logged out).


The "Remember Me" option is only supposed to remember the username, as storing user passwords in the preferences is a potential security risk. If other OS's are able to remember the password then this is something outside of Ludii's control.


Quote:6. When a user has many open games, adding a password to a game adds it to every other open game.


I'm not sure what you mean by this. Could you give a specific example/instructions on how to see the problem?


Quote:7. The players' names are not reset after leaving an online game.


I wasn't able to replicate this problem with the latest release of Ludii (v1.2.1). If I join an online game, the player names change to those of the online players, however if I then select Game -> Leave Game the player names revert to their original offline names. Are you performing this or a different process?


Quote:8. When looking at open games, the details do not give a description of who is playing them.


When looking at games in the "Games" tab in the remote dialog, you can see the usernames of all currently joined players by selecting the "Details" button for the game you are interested in.


Quote:1. An auto-pass feature would be useful, that when enable would automatically play the passing move if it is the only one available.


I'll look into this some more and see if we can add something.


Quote:2. In "Mini Wars" with "Fog of War" enabled, enabling "Last Move" allows to see the opponent's move even tho it should be hidden.


Thanks for your interest in the game Smile. I'll see if I can fix this.


Quote:3. In "Seesaw", a promoted unit (two pieces or more stacked on top of each other) can only be moved by clicking on the bottom stacked piece, making it hard to select it.


When moving a "stacked" set of pieces, you need to click so that the mouse cursor overlaps with the bottom piece of the stack (as this is the piece actually being moved). If you think of clicking on the space where the piece is placed rather than the piece itself this might make it clearer. You can still click on the higher pieces in the stack, as long as the cursor overlaps the board space where the bottom piece is.

Cheers,
Matthew

RE: Multiplayer suggestions and autopass - slimy_asparagus - 07-02-2021

(07-01-2021, 09:05 AM)MatthewStephenson Wrote: 7. The players' names are not reset after leaving an online game.


I wasn't able to replicate this problem with the latest release of Ludii (v1.2.1). If I join an online game, the player names change to those of the online players, however if I then select Game -> Leave Game the player names revert to their original offline names. Are you performing this or a different process?


I think I have seen you say this before and I had forgotten to try it. However I have several points to make here. 

1. "Leave the Game" sounds a lot like "resign". I think no one will try this unless explicitly told to do so and that it is different from resign.
2. There is a "Leave" tab on the Remote dialog, but was grayed out. I am not sure what that was for.
3. I did finally try it and it seemed not to work. However since I have been previously been only using Ludii to play this one remote game for about a week, I don't think it was a fair test. I will try again later making sure it is a fair test.
4. So basically I am saying that even if this works, it is very unintuitive. Would it be impossible to leave a game automatically when a Ludii is closed if the current game is a remote game?

RE: Multiplayer suggestions and autopass - slimy_asparagus - 07-03-2021

(07-02-2021, 02:48 PM)slimy_asparagus Wrote:
(07-01-2021, 09:05 AM)MatthewStephenson Wrote: 7. The players' names are not reset after leaving an online game.


I wasn't able to replicate this problem with the latest release of Ludii (v1.2.1). If I join an online game, the player names change to those of the online players, however if I then select Game -> Leave Game the player names revert to their original offline names. Are you performing this or a different process?


I think I have seen you say this before and I had forgotten to try it. However I have several points to make here. 

1. "Leave the Game" sounds a lot like "resign". I think no one will try this unless explicitly told to do so and that it is different from resign.
2. There is a "Leave" tab on the Remote dialog, but was grayed out. I am not sure what that was for.
3. I did finally try it and it seemed not to work. However since I have been previously been only using Ludii to play this one remote game for about a week, I don't think it was a fair test. I will try again later making sure it is a fair test.
4. So basically I am saying that even if this works, it is very unintuitive. Would it be impossible to leave a game automatically when a Ludii is closed if the current game is a remote game?
I just tested this more thoroughly in 1.1.16. I made sure I was in a default settings before going remote. I then left the game using the menu command. But I still had the remote game - just offline.

RE: Multiplayer suggestions and autopass - fbarbe - 07-23-2021

(07-01-2021, 09:05 AM)MatthewStephenson Wrote: When moving a "stacked" set of pieces, you need to click so that the mouse cursor overlaps with the bottom piece of the stack (as this is the piece actually being moved). If you think of clicking on the space where the piece is placed rather than the piece itself this might make it clearer. You can still click on the higher pieces in the stack, as long as the cursor overlaps the board space where the bottom piece is.
Hi,

I have now tested this in 1.2.4, and I still have the same issue. To clarify: (in Seesaw) dragging a stack of pieces does work when the cursor overlaps with the bottom piece, but clicking does not.
I personally like to click on the piece to see all available moves and then decide where to move, and clicking on the top piece of a stack (even if the cursor overlaps with the bottom piece) does not work.

Hope this makes it clearer :).

Are there any plans to implement the auto-pass feature?

Best,
Fabio

RE: Multiplayer suggestions and autopass - MatthewStephenson - 07-23-2021

HI Fabio,

Thanks for your comments


Quote:I have now tested this in 1.2.4, and I still have the same issue. To clarify: (in Seesaw) dragging a stack of pieces does work when the cursor overlaps with the bottom piece, but clicking does not.


This should be updated in the next release, so that you can click anywhere that overlaps the piece you want to select (same as dragging).


Quote:Are there any plans to implement the auto-pass feature?


Sorry I forgot to update you about this. Auto-passing is already the default behavior for deterministic games, however you now have the option "Auto Pass Stochastic Game" in the advanced preferences tab.

Cheers,
Matthew

RE: Multiplayer suggestions and autopass - fbarbe - 08-19-2021

Hi,
I love the "Auto Pass Stochastic Game" feature!
However, when I close and open the Ludii Player the auto pass is turned back off. That is not the case for all the other settings, including Moving animation that is kept at the last state.

Is that normal?

Best,
Fabio

RE: Multiplayer suggestions and autopass - MatthewStephenson - 08-19-2021

Hi Fabio,

Yep that's a bug, will be fixed in next release.

Cheers,
Matthew

RE: Multiplayer suggestions and autopass - mariakenneth - 04-18-2024

Thanks for sharing your experience with Remote Play, Fabio! It's great to hear that you're enjoying playing board games online with friends, despite some of the challenges you've mentioned. Hopefully, the developers will take your feedback into consideration and implement some of the features you've suggested. Keep having fun with Yavalath, Seesaw, Mini Wars, and omegle new! Best regards.