I am really tired of players agreeing to play fast and then taking 20 mins to make a move. I am playing today with "Kappels" and he is way too slow. We need to be able to set 5 mins/5 min games. So much time wasted on people who are not committed. It sux and something should be done about it.
Best posts made by Robert Shepherd
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We definitely need shorter game times!
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RE: Coordinates system
SIS
I have developed, what I think is, a simple intuitive system (call it is SIS for short) for naming all spaces on the GP playing tiles.The advantages:
- The system is intuitive: it works like a clock - 0 at the top and 6 at the bottom for the outside ring, 0 - 5 for the inner ring and no extra number needed to refer to the centre.
- Numbers separated by a character - avoids confusion
- Small mnemonic - more easily remembered and referred to.
- The system is easily extensible.
- "C" also denotes Centre but its trivial and could easily be inverted (ABC -> CBA).
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Setting game preferences - It would be nice if the set up remembered them
It would be nice if the set up remembered your last game preferences - that way if you want to make multiple games of the same kind you dont have to reset all the options for each game.
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Week 1 Observations/Suggestions
=====================Outside Player Space=================
- Active games should list the total number of games as a number (both in Account and Name)
- The games where a player has least amt of time left (when its players turn) should be at top of games list - is it already like this? I cant tell
- Open games should be different colour when youve joined - same for active games
- https://gaiaform.io/account does not show all active games - why click "see list of all games"?
- Perhaps a little countdown timer beside games which are about to expire on your turn (2 hrs left, 1 hr left etc)
- The ability to change your name? at least your "cool player name"
7================Inside Player Space=================
Put as much as possible on one page (or at least have some options to switch the playing space to suit your preferences and your individual screen space)- I have included a copy of what this might look like above - some people will invariably think my suggestion looks chaotic and this is why it should be optional/adaptable
- I understand that this might take some serious changes and so is untenable now but it should be implemented as much as possible (without a huge time investment)
- It could be put in the road map as a long term plan
10========================================== - "Jump to next active game" should scroll with the page on left hand side - I am always scrolling up and down to get to my new games
- Button to turn off comments except when they are from another player - I keep checking to see if someone said something and its only the round notice
- Bigger space for notes - less for the rest of the info
- Turn order vertical on the left hand side which scrolls with the page (see my image attachment)Turn actions should be in the same space as the board
14============================================== - When referencing position space on the board, tile number should also be mentioned ("Tile 1", "Tile 2", etc)
- this is not done in move history so its harder to tell where a player made their last move
- I think the grid system could be improved to be clearer and more efficient
- One option: Center of all tiles has a letter value: Center: C , Middle Ring: B, Outside Ring: A and numbers move clockwise from the top starting at 0 (or 12) as it does on a clock
- examples: The top hex on Tile 1 would be: 1A0 (Tile 1 - Outer Ring A - Top position 0), bottom hex of Tile 1: 1A6, center of Tile 9: 9C0
19============================================== - All booster tiles should always be viewable with who has which one as part of the indication - grayed out ones not available or available ones in a slightly separated list
- Zen factor should appear beside name when choosing to play w player and last player shouldnt automatically start game
- A option so that you can choose not to play w players who have a low zen factor - I think this may already be in the works
- Permanent circle of colours which scrolls with - I think this may already be in the works or something similar
- Prioritize chat over settings - atm it covers the round bonus tile (for me) when I open it
- Possible actions permanently on screen
- Arrows to indicate turn/power (red/green) (see my example image)
- For newbies you can have labels (optional) for all the sections ("Boosters", "tech", etc)
- Switch to be able to see all player boards (see image example)
- I tried to charge power w the Taklons and it said "brainstone area 2", "brainstone area 1" (which I chose and the brainstone didnt move). It seemed to me that it was saying the brainstone should move from area 1 but it didnt - very unclear. I see now that it meant that the brainstone should move to area 2. It should have said "move brainstone from area 1 to area 2?" this kind of mistake early on can cost you the entire game.
- Have an indicator when youve made a comment/plan for yourself so you dont have to click to see if youve made notes - this is standard on lots of game sites
- Chat directly w other players
- Smaller header or eliminate it entirely - on my screen it tales up too much space
- Update of graphics but I understand that will be implemented soon
- Sorry for the formatting but it was the only way I found to number comments without restarting the numbers under a new heading - I want all comments to have a specific reference number even under a new heading
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Statistics - just wondering on the progress?
Id love to see:
- how many games I play with which faction
- how long players take (while actively on page)
- average score per game (with which race)
- lots more
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Request: Less scrolling
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If the "All Games/New Games" buttons were at the top of the page, no one would have to scroll down to see them.
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If "Profile" was the default instead of "Settings", people would have one less page to have to pass through to get to the more useful info. This is based on the premise that one sets the settings once (or rarely) but looks at the stats of a player's page much more often.
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Perhaps if the "Description" and "Rules" were deemphasized and set to one side, people wouldnt have to scroll to the bottom of the page to setup a game. All the details would be on a single page or at very least, it'd be less scrolling.
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In the game, if the action buttons were higher up one wouldnt have to scroll down to see all of them at the same time. I believe Ive mentioned this before but the action buttons would be much clearer as graphics. I waste a lot of time double checking the text because they all look so similar. Perhaps making them graphics would also mean they could be smaler and thus also fit above the scroll line.
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It would be great to see how much time a person actually uses/game
It would be great to see how much time a person actually uses/game.
Basically a stat about time usage and this would be as much for myself as knowing who was a slow player.
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RE: Week 1 Observations/Suggestions
Personally I dont like the complication it brings to the game the way the official rules are written (one of my only complaints about IMO the best game ever made).
I would prefer the rule to be that you pick the buildings you want to include and you can use as many satellites as you want (25 max) but the official rule means that you have to see if the way you make the federation can be done with fewer satellites or fewer buildings and choose the minimum. This brings a needlessly complex situation to the game where in some scenarios you would like to build your federation out of a certain set of buildings but are prevented from doing so because of the satellite/federation rule. Effectively it prevents some freedom and is needlessly complex. There are threads on BGG about it if you want to know more.
It might also be interesting to note that most people just accept the game rules the way they are presented but I dont. What I love about Gaia is that nothing is hidden except your opponent's strategy and the federation rules go against the spirit of freedom in the game and make it needlessly complicated.
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Id like a fast player league
It would be nice to have a league where you knew that the players had a reputation for playing RT and fast. Not sure how this would be implemented (maybe by invite?) but itd be really handy for those of us who like to play quick RT games.
Latest posts made by Robert Shepherd
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I would love to see a global timer
I think this has been suggested before but Id like to see a continuous global timer. I would like to have a total of how much time each person takes to play per turn and then see it aggregated for the whole game. It could be added beside the temporary timer as a running total. This would be especially useful for fast games. This could also be implemented in a way that each player gets a max amt of time to play a whole game (this could be set to 45 mins, 60 mins, 75 mins, 90 mins, etc - even though I like to shoot for 30 mins/player I think 45 mins is probably the fastest reasonable time limit). In this way a person could time out either by taking too long to make one turn or by using up their total time limit.
My point here is that time should be a serious factor in play. It isnt fair for some players to use more time than others to play the same game. This is the reason that games like chess and go have clocks. Having this addition (or at least the option) will create a balance in time and make the game more fair.
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RE: Request: Less scrolling
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Does it take a consensus to put the "All Games/New Games" buttons at the top instead of at the bottom?
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Thx
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I guess we will see
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Well I know lots of people complain about not being able to differentiate between the text action buttons and thus make mistakes by clicking the wrong thing. Perhaps a poll to see if people would prefer graphics or text?
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Request: Less scrolling
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If the "All Games/New Games" buttons were at the top of the page, no one would have to scroll down to see them.
-
If "Profile" was the default instead of "Settings", people would have one less page to have to pass through to get to the more useful info. This is based on the premise that one sets the settings once (or rarely) but looks at the stats of a player's page much more often.
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Perhaps if the "Description" and "Rules" were deemphasized and set to one side, people wouldnt have to scroll to the bottom of the page to setup a game. All the details would be on a single page or at very least, it'd be less scrolling.
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In the game, if the action buttons were higher up one wouldnt have to scroll down to see all of them at the same time. I believe Ive mentioned this before but the action buttons would be much clearer as graphics. I waste a lot of time double checking the text because they all look so similar. Perhaps making them graphics would also mean they could be smaler and thus also fit above the scroll line.
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RE: Request:Faster Clock
Fantastic!
Even I think 1 minute is a bit too fast but hey if ppl want to play it, great.
10 min/5min is going to be my new normal but maybe a 10min/10min option would also be wise. There are scenarios I can think where one person has to deal with something which takes longer than 5 mins. -
3 observations
- Ivits space stn - range +3
I always assumed you could use the range +3 booster to place the Ivits space stn in the same way you can use it to place a gaia former but when I tried to do this online there was no option. I dont see the logic in being able to place a gf and not the space stn. Could someone plz justify the difference?
- Itar rotation
I was also under the impression that for the Itar there were 2 phases of the beginning of the round. One where one takes income and one where you can decide what tech tiles to take with the power in the "gaia bowl". Given that the second part happens after the first, it seems reasonable to me that any power not possible to be used by taking tech tiles should be able to be rotated if the tech tile/track advancement allows for it. This isnt possible online and may not be possible according to the rules but if this is the case then I see a logical inconsistency with how power is dealt with in these 2 parts: Is power part of the first phase (income) only then what is the point of defining the tech taking part of the Itar as happening "after" the income phase? My point is that either there are 2 separate parts of setup for the Itar or there are not - having one set of rules applying only to power seems like an inconsistency.
- 25 satellites max
Some players dont know that there is a 25 satellite maximum. It might be good to include that somewhere in a mouse over info.
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RE: Real realtime. 1h + 5m can be a drag
5min + 5min or just set the time any way you like. Same for the time period - no need for a 3 hr min time slot.
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RE: We definitely need shorter game times!
@ariallito
Ill use nothing else -
We definitely need shorter game times!
I am really tired of players agreeing to play fast and then taking 20 mins to make a move. I am playing today with "Kappels" and he is way too slow. We need to be able to set 5 mins/5 min games. So much time wasted on people who are not committed. It sux and something should be done about it.
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It would be handy to change the settings once you have made the game
It would be handy to change the settings once you have made the game rather than having to leave the game and recreate a new one. For example itd be nice to change the karma or to expand the player number to allow different players to join.
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RE: Id like a fast player league
@Babbuc49
It would just be nice to have a group where you dont have to always check karma or keep a list of ppl who say they will play fast and then dont but you might be right that maybe there just arent enough of ppl who love speed Gaia.