Needs an undo

[moogleii]

I clicked on a gold token, and it prevented me from undoing that action. What is this, chess? Curious why some games on BGA have undo and others don't. Otherwise, good implementation.

[Meeplelowda]

I clicked on a gold token, and it prevented me from undoing that action. What is this, chess? Curious why some games on BGA have undo and others don't. Otherwise, good implementation.

This is a great summary written by a BGA developer about adding an undo function on BGA that I can't improve upon:

Why are the inclusion of undo buttons so random and sporadic over the games on here?

Undo needs to be implemented individually for every game. It's not a box you check to just make it happen. Furthermore, undo is tricky to implement correctly and very bug prone. As such, it's often avoided by game developers.

Either commit to allowing rectons to be made, or ban them over the entire site unless a game specifically allows for it in the rules.

Wish granted?
Official BGA policy states that undo should be avoided in games.
"As a rule of thumb, on BGA we advise you to not undo moves. Undo are painful for opponents, in real world and online. Some players may also use Undo to 'test' situations while they should just think instead. In many cases, proposing an 'Undo' means also adding an extra step, which is not good for the game interface."
See https://boardgamearena.com/doc/BGA_Undo_policy

Since BGA seems to be going to allowing them, why doesn't this game have one?

In summary:
1) Undo isn't encouraged
2) And it's not trivial to implement

I developed Gaia Project and got a similar request. I don't want to volunteer a dozen hours to implement a feature that I don't feel is needed and may introduce tons of bugs.

[breadpirateroberts]

I totally get not doing it if it's not needed, but I want to bump this because I do feel like this is a game that would really benefit from an undo button as well.

[Kayvon]

No one's saying it wouldn't be an improvement. We're all in agreement that it would be great to have.

The question is who wants to volunteer time to implement it, fix the associated bugs, and keep it working. If you're volunteering, that's terrific! If you're asking someone else to do it for you, that's less reasonable.

[moogleii]

Informative insight, thanks! That must explain why some devs go the confirm button route instead.

I clicked on a gold token, and it prevented me from undoing that action. What is this, chess? Curious why some games on BGA have undo and others don't. Otherwise, good implementation.

This is a great summary written by a BGA developer about adding an undo function on BGA that I can't improve upon:

Why are the inclusion of undo buttons so random and sporadic over the games on here?

Undo needs to be implemented individually for every game. It's not a box you check to just make it happen. Furthermore, undo is tricky to implement correctly and very bug prone. As such, it's often avoided by game developers.

Either commit to allowing rectons to be made, or ban them over the entire site unless a game specifically allows for it in the rules.

Wish granted?
Official BGA policy states that undo should be avoided in games.
"As a rule of thumb, on BGA we advise you to not undo moves. Undo are painful for opponents, in real world and online. Some players may also use Undo to 'test' situations while they should just think instead. In many cases, proposing an 'Undo' means also adding an extra step, which is not good for the game interface."
See https://boardgamearena.com/doc/BGA_Undo_policy

Since BGA seems to be going to allowing them, why doesn't this game have one?

In summary:
1) Undo isn't encouraged
2) And it's not trivial to implement

I developed Gaia Project and got a similar request. I don't want to volunteer a dozen hours to implement a feature that I don't feel is needed and may introduce tons of bugs.

[jstjst]

I agree that adding an "undo" to Splendor Duel is an excellent suggestion.

[Kayvon]

I agree that adding an "undo" to Splendor Duel is an excellent suggestion.

Right. We're all in agreement that it would be great to have.

The question, again, is who wants to volunteer time to implement it, fix the associated bugs, and keep it working. If you're volunteering, that's terrific! If you're asking someone else to do it for you, that's less reasonable.

Undo is not an easy feature to implement and maintain. I've added it to several games. It's time consuming. Even when it's working perfectly, people still complain that it could be better (allow more, allow undo on fewer steps, explain why you can't undo after drawing a card, etc.).

[kitwin]

+1 to the idea of an Undo. How does one get to work on one of these projects? It's a bit strange (as a paying user) that the "fix it yourself or be grateful" idea is so dominant in this thread, but I might be interested because I'm enjoying this game quite a bit though the interface for this one is perhaps the most stressful of any game I've used on this site because mis-clicks are so easy and so costly.

And honestly having a "confirm" in more places would probably solve this problem a vast majority of the time. One mis-click in a number of places in this game (and only this game, in my random walk through the adaptations on the site, which are by-in-large excellent) can really ruin your game.

And I'll say (naively, since I've been a programmer in the past and at this point quite rusty) that it's probably a less difficult option to add "confirm" to a number of actions - especially taking a card or taking a gold. In terms of game action it does seem that any action that doesn't result in a change of player or a change of information could be some kind of "return point"

I don't want to be too harsh on the developer here - what's here works great and is quite impressive. But this feels like it stopped development at the 90% mark for some reason.

[Kayvon]

How does one get to work on one of these projects?

That part's easy: Visit studio.boardgamearena.com

It's a bit strange (as a paying user) that the "fix it yourself or be grateful" idea is so dominant in this thread

It would be strange, I suppose, if you didn't realize that almost all games on the platform are implemented by volunteers. Once you know that, it makes much more sense that you can't simply demand additional free labor from someone who already gave so much. It's a "be the change you want to see in the world" situation and it's exactly how the game was added to begin with. (The site itself is maintained and managed by employees, of course.)

Your intuition is spot on: adding a confirm button is orders of magnitude simpler.

[kitwin]

Cheers on the reply - I (honestly) had no idea about the volunteer-run part of it. It's a little unique in my experience for a paid service. But on the whole I'm a happy customer. I'm going to file that studio.boardgamearena.com thing away and see if I can make time to check it out. If I think I can meaningfully contribute, I might look into that.

Is there an active volunteer on this adaptation, or is that seat currently empty? (I guess I'll check studio.boardgamearena.com, but I had absolutely no visibility into that until I found this thread)

Sorry for the late reply; I thought the thread replies would trigger an alert/update in my profile but I only saw it when I came to the community tab directly. Not on these forums that often, so now I know where to look.