Libertalia - a few points

[sunmachine]

Just played my first game of online Libertalia with friends in different countries. We played turn based (it took 3 weeks) and enjoyed the experience. There were a few things though that cropped up which could perhaps make it better.

- Oftentimes, when there was no choice to be made, a player still had to make that non- choice, which on one occasion took two days before being resolved. It would be cool if this was dealt with automatically. For example, there's only one booty tile left to choose, or the last x tiles are all the same.
- The log on the right hand side, can this be turned off? Booty is meant to be secret, and the game correctly keeps it so, but this is kindof pointless when you can just scroll back and see exactly what everyone has taken for the whole game. It would be good if all non personal tiles were logged non specifically, eg "(player) took a booty tile"

Apologies if this has been mentioned before.

[Liallan]

I disagree with both of these points.

As to the first, I may or may not be in the minority, but I tend to not like when too many things happen automatically because I don't like missing moves and feeling like I don't know what happened. And playing turn-based you would have to take screenshots or note everything to see what is different when you get back. This is especially bad when turns are not taken in a "player order" but a card/event order.

Then to dump the game log as well? I see what you're saying, but this is true of other games. And if you're playing turn-based, you're never going to remember everything that is going on in the game so it should be OK to look through the log. (You can always take notes and how do you know others aren't doing that? Some players certainly are.) In real-time I don't see that anyone would really have time to go back and look at all that, and in turn-based I don't have an issue with anyone doing it. And keep in mind, while the booty is kept secret, it's taken in plain view - it's not showing anything you wouldn't have seen.

Now think about the concept of combining the two things you want. You'd never know what the heck was going on, because you want to skip over moves that can be automated and at the same time turn off the log so you can't even read what's happened automatically when you were gone, nor what the other players did that would have been in plain view. If you will think about that, I think you'll realize you can't play the game that way. It's even more difficult for someone who doesn't have a list (or have memorized) of all those cards and what they do.

In fact, there is another game on here which refuses to include certain information in the game log for this very reason - that someone could just look back and see what has happened. But playing turn-based, you don't SEE what happened while you were gone, and it's not in the log, so how can you know what the hell is happening in the game? You can't. It was requested to add the information into the log and the developer refused to do so. So I stopped playing it because I don't want to play a game where I quite literally don't know what is going on in the game.

(As a side note, things like this should be posted in the game-specific forums at the bottom. That's what they are for, and developers may be reading those but not the main forums.)

[sunmachine]

(Yes, I'm new to BGA and just as I posted I saw it was in the wrong forum. Is there any way of moving it? Dear Mods, could you move this please? My apologies for incorrect posting.)

You wouldn't be missing a move, the code is doing what the player would do and saving time. In essence the game already does this to a degree. When you play the Cabin Boy, you don't take any booty tiles and the game automatically moves on. There is no choice to be made so the game progresses - a player is not required to log in and not choose any. The same is true when only one tile remains, there is no choice to be made. Your action is predetermined and immutable. (sabres excepted)

With the log, I'm not suggesting dump it all. Just keep the treasure information hidden to other players. So as it is now but without the specific text, eg "(Player) takes booty tile" instead of "(player) takes treasure chest". Players might take notes but that's an extra workload for them. At present, there is no extra workload and you have an inconsistent state of information being hidden and open at the same time. When I play realtime f2f one of the interesting aspects is trying to remember what others have taken; this can be critical when deciding whether or not to take a treasure map if you think someone already has 2, "or do they have 3 already, hmmm".

At least if there was an option to do the above, to allow your preference, and mine.

[Liallan]

You wouldn't be missing a move, the code is doing what the player would do and saving time. In essence the game already does this to a degree. When you play the Cabin Boy, you don't take any booty tiles and the game automatically moves on. There is no choice to be made so the game progresses - a player is not required to log in and not choose any. The same is true when only one tile remains, there is no choice to be made. Your action is predetermined and immutable. (sabres excepted)

I understand the concept of automating a move when you have no choice. Yes, I would be "missing moves." I'm not sure what the heck you thought I meant by that - that the move just wouldn't be made? By "missing" them I mean I wouldn't see them. I'm not really fond of not seeing my own moves and this game already does more than enough of that.

With the log, I'm not suggesting dump it all. Just keep the treasure information hidden to other players. So as it is now but without the specific text, eg "(Player) takes booty tile" instead of "(player) takes treasure chest". Players might take notes but that's an extra workload for them. At present, there is no extra workload and you have an inconsistent state of information being hidden and open at the same time. When I play realtime f2f one of the interesting aspects is trying to remember what others have taken; this can be critical when deciding whether or not to take a treasure map if you think someone already has 2, "or do they have 3 already, hmmm".

Well, first, what you said was "The log on the right hand side, can this be turned off?" Turning off the log means dumping it all, yes. Might not be what you meant, but it is what you said.

And playing f2f, you would see what they took. Hiding that in the log means you'd never know, so no, that isn't going to replicate playing f2f. This was part of my point. So, you're playing turn-based, you're last to take a booty tile, the other players take theirs while you aren't there and don't see it, it automates yours (following your preference) since you don't have a choice, and when you come back to your turn, none of this is in the log (since you want to remove booty tile information), so you have no idea what it was that happened. And you can't "remember" what your opponents took cause you never saw it and it's hidden from the log. So your method also completely eliminates that "interesting aspect" of trying to remember stuff. In turn-based, trying to remember stuff is simply never going to be the same. I feel like you're not really thinking about this.

At least if there was an option to do the above, to allow your preference, and mine.

Yeah, I get that. I'm all for options. I'm just saying I think you're going to find it's not going to work the way you think it will, because your way is going to completely eliminate some things you would see in the real game.