Deck statistics and some random Q's.

Suggestions and Ideas to improve the in-game deck editor
Saint
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Re: Deck statistics and some random Q's.

Post by Saint »

Oh yeah and another question i wanted to ask if the fact that equipment dies with the creature is fixed yet (if the creature dies the equipment should just go back and should be re-equipable).
Just curious because that was fairly annoying :P
"The bird of the Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame." - Ripley Scrowle, Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum - 1652
wololo
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Re: Deck statistics and some random Q's.

Post by wololo »

Saint wrote:Oh yeah and another question i wanted to ask if the fact that equipment dies with the creature is fixed yet (if the creature dies the equipment should just go back and should be re-equipable).
Just curious because that was fairly annoying :P
You've been here for long enough to know the existence of the bug list. It has a search box that you can use ;)
here:
http://code.google.com/p/wagic/issues/l ... ells=tiles

which leads to:
http://code.google.com/p/wagic/issues/d ... =equipment

which says:
fixed in 1681

If some specific bugs interest you and you have a gmail account, you can even "star" these issues and get emails when their status changes or someone adds comments to them.

Think of using the resources available to you :)
Saint
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Re: Deck statistics and some random Q's.

Post by Saint »

Slipped my mind to check that to be honest :P thanks for answering anyway lol, but was kind of a side question anyway, did you read the post before this one?
The one about the planeswalker coding that is.
"The bird of the Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame." - Ripley Scrowle, Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum - 1652
wololo
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Re: Deck statistics and some random Q's.

Post by wololo »

Well Wagic started as an "approximation" of the rules, and this was a mistake. Because of these approcimations we get lots of bug reports nowadays. So adding a phase that doesn't exist in MTG for example is not a good idea...my feeling is that if Planeswalkers are not correctly coded they shouldn't be coded at all.
However your suggestions for the GUI are good and simple, they could probably work quite quickly. Remains the issue of where to position the planeswlakers so that it's clear which creatures are attacking it or you...
Saint
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Re: Deck statistics and some random Q's.

Post by Saint »

Well as for positioning it on the battlefield, in the middle on the far left (or right for your opponent) (Well if i play myself i play with 3 lines of cards instead of 2 and a block of enchanments and artifacts/equipment as an example:

-----------------|---------------creatures--------------------------| Deck| Avatar|
Planeswalker--|-Equipment--artifacts --echantments---------|-------|--------|
-----------------|------------------Lands--------------------------- |Yard -| Life--|

(i would have made a picture but i didn't have the time this should cover it though, let the engine know to put the enchantments with the enchantments, artifacts with artifacts and so on so on and just let it make stacks of 2 of each so it keeps order and doesen't take up to much space so you can't see your other cards))

As for were to position it at the assign target and attackers etc., you can or grey out everything but the avatar and the planeswalker or you can animate the planeswalker up next to the avatar and grey everything out or you can make a small splash screen with the avatar and sayed planeswalker wich pops up on every creature you set as attacker and choose the target (think the last one will be most work IMO)

Well hope that was helpfull lol :P
"The bird of the Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame." - Ripley Scrowle, Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum - 1652
wololo
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Re: Deck statistics and some random Q's.

Post by wololo »

I'm not sure we have enough room for 3 lines of cards on the psp screen. That's what wagic used to do in early releases and we moved away from that...
So you want to put the planeswalker where the artifacts/enchantments currently are, and move the enchantments/artifacts back to an additional horizontal line...

Hmmm, fair enough, but when creatures attack, I'd like them to be close to the thing they attack (either player or planeswalker).
So in the case of "you being attacked", I see how the creatures attacking you can go on the right, and the ones attacking the planeswalker go on the left, but what about the opponent ? Should the planeswalker go on the right of the screen for him ?

Also, what happens if you have several planeswalkers ? Especially, during the attack phase, how do you recognize which creatures attack what ?

That's an Interesting discussion. If you can come up with more than ascii art that'd be great though. Not necessarily a cool photoshop montage, but some mockups using the real size of the psp (480x272) showing the attack step would really help (I'd like the following use cases: 0, 1 or 2 planeswalkers on your side).

I never played with planeswalkers, maybe the use case "more than 1 planeswalker" is extremely rare and can be forgotten ?
Saint
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Re: Deck statistics and some random Q's.

Post by Saint »

wololo wrote:I'm not sure we have enough room for 3 lines of cards on the psp screen. That's what wagic used to do in early releases and we moved away from that...
So you want to put the planeswalker where the artifacts/enchantments currently are, and move the enchantments/artifacts back to an additional horizontal line...
Well i think there is just about enough room if we squeeze it in a bit, especially if you let the enchantments and artifacts go in stacks of 2. But i might be wrong its just in my head for now, will have to see how it turns out in the actual game.
Wololo wrote:Hmmm, fair enough, but when creatures attack, I'd like them to be close to the thing they attack (either player or planeswalker).
So in the case of "you being attacked", I see how the creatures attacking you can go on the right, and the ones attacking the planeswalker go on the left, but what about the opponent ? Should the planeswalker go on the right of the screen for him ?
Yeah in my idea the opponents field is just the upside down version of yours so planeswalkers go there.
Wololo wrote:Also, what happens if you have several planeswalkers ? Especially, during the attack phase, how do you recognize which creatures attack what ?


we could do it in phases like we do with first strike damage etc. for instance. you attack your opponent with 3 creatures, a planeswalker with one and another planeswalker with one, you will get the first popup screen/splash screen were you can choose the damage, just like now you will have blocking creatures and then the avatar of your opponent. Second screen pops up with attacking creatures, the blocking creatures your opponent wants to use if he has any left and the Planeswalker card on the place were the avatar usually is. Third screen will pop up, again with the attackers defenders and the planeswalker on the avatar position. The engine will read all the first strikes, double strikes blablabla so on so on and calculate the outcome exactly as it does now.

Wololo wrote:That's an Interesting discussion. If you can come up with more than ascii art that'd be great though. Not necessarily a cool photoshop montage, but some mockups using the real size of the psp (480x272) showing the attack step would really help (I'd like the following use cases: 0, 1 or 2 planeswalkers on your side).
I'll see what i can do with it, i might be able to squeeze it in tomorrow but else it won't be till the beginning of next week (Got a newborn niece i got to visit a few b-day's and some other plans so lol life goes on :P)
Wololo wrote:I never played with planeswalkers, maybe the use case "more than 1 planeswalker" is extremely rare and can be forgotten ?
Well i already explained the more then one planeswalker thing above, you can play multiple planeswalkers aslong as they don't share the same "subtype" (basicly the same as with legends but a little different :P) so you can play a Ajani Goldmane and a Chandra Ablaze for instance but you can't play a Ajani Goldmane and a Ajani Vengeant.
The planeswalker position should be used in the same way as we stack enchantments and artifacts etc. so if you have multiple Planeswalkers they just stack up.

Seriously do think this is possible :) atleast in my mind it is and i think your pretty much getting the picture aswell right? So this should really be doable.
"The bird of the Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame." - Ripley Scrowle, Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum - 1652
Saint
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Re: Deck statistics and some random Q's.

Post by Saint »

Ok here goes i didn't have much time so its kinda crepes, the size is correct the card scaling might not be. Don't know about the order of cards but this is what came to mind.

Well this is one planeswalker, the artifacts are brown, equipment is grey, enchantments are green and the planeswalker here is white, like i sayed the scaling might be off and it looks like crepes but here's number one
Image

This one's with 2 planeswalkers in play, the purple one overlaps the white one.
Image

And this is the attack phase wen the purple one is targeted.
Image

As you can see its just like targeting a player, you can assign damage to the blocking creatures and planeswalker (this can just be the card itself or a avatar based on the Subtype).
If you targeted the other planeswalker in this turn aswell you just get another one of these popup screens and same goes for targeting the opponent. :)

Know it looks like crepes but hope it gives you an idea of what i mean.
"The bird of the Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame." - Ripley Scrowle, Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum - 1652
wololo
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Re: Deck statistics and some random Q's.

Post by wololo »

Thanks, that's pretty much how I imagined it with your description :)

However you conveniently forgot to show the "pain" points. For example, what it looks like when creatures are attacking...how do you make a difference between the attacking creatures and the ones that don't attack? I think the attacking phase will really look like crepes since you basically moved non attacking creatures to what is currently the combat zone.
So, I'm not saying this is bad. I'm saying it requires a bit more thinking imo.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts of course, but based on your screenshots I think you are pretty much reaching the point I'm at: graphically there is no easy way to make it look pretty without major refactor of the UI.
Saint
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Re: Deck statistics and some random Q's.

Post by Saint »

wololo wrote:Thanks, that's pretty much how I imagined it with your description :)

However you conveniently forgot to show the "pain" points. For example, what it looks like when creatures are attacking...how do you make a difference between the attacking creatures and the ones that don't attack? I think the attacking phase will really look like crepes since you basically moved non attacking creatures to what is currently the combat zone.
So, I'm not saying this is bad. I'm saying it requires a bit more thinking imo.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts of course, but based on your screenshots I think you are pretty much reaching the point I'm at: graphically there is no easy way to make it look pretty without major refactor of the UI.
The combat phase in general should be easy if you ask me, wen your playing magic in a normal game you don't put cards next to the planeswalker to make it clear your attacking them either, all the attackers should just stay were they are now. Wen you assign attackers you say A,B,C attack planeswalker one, D attacks planeswalker 2 and E attacks the player, the defending player assigns blockers to ABC, D and to E then the popup to assign damage to Planeswalker 1 and creatures defending him pops up as seen in the 3rd pic i made then a popup for Planeswalker 2 comes up you assign damage to the blocking creatures and the planeswalker, then the player assigns damage to the creatures defending the player and the player himself (so a planeswalker basicly works the same as dmg to a player).

On the GUI thing, yeah there mostlikely will have to be made some changes but if we mess around with positioning and size of card pictures it should be possible to give them a place (like i did in pics 1 and 2), it doesen't really matter that the cards are a lil smaller because if you hover over them you see the big picture anyways. As for what you sayed about the combat zone yeah i noticed that aswell the only way you can fix that is making the cards smaller i think, or a total reorganization of the GUI, but the way i point it out in the pics is the way you play magic in real life :)

Edit: another way to go, just a shot in the dark is to move the box for artifacts enchantments etc. to the right side next to the deck with a little smaller pics, then the creatures and lands in the middle like it is now and the planeswalkers on the left, that will leave it organized and the combat zone will be free, it's just hard really because space is so limited but it really should be possible :) (and adding planeswalkers will draw a big crowd for the game because it will be one of the only AI rule enforced Magic games with planeswalkers in it.

Another Edit: might be a good idea to rename the topic of the post so it'll attract more ppl because were discussing way of topic yet pretty important :P
"The bird of the Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame." - Ripley Scrowle, Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum - 1652
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