Player count ranges gone??

[towehaal]

(I should add that we are not seing an increase of "refuse to start", so it seems that it actually does the trick).

I would imagine many live players would just "stick it out". I'd be interested to know if there is an increase of "propose to abandon". Or quits. And maybe there aren't. Which speaks more to the quality of the community than the quality of this decision.

While it make increase ease of use (I guess), I feel like is reduces agency which doesn't seem like a worthwhile tradeoff.

[towehaal]

So here is something I just thought of....


Could you add a "required" number of player to start. Something that the table admin could adjust but maybe wouldn't have to, but still helped to set the table expectations.

Like... I want 4 players. Check a box that says "require at least": 3 players... or something like that.

[voriki]

So here is something I just thought of....


Could you add a "required" number of player to start. Something that the table admin could adjust but maybe wouldn't have to, but still helped to set the table expectations.

Like... I want 4 players. Check a box that says "require at least": 3 players... or something like that.

That is exactly what we had before.

[Tisaac]

Indeed we decided to replace the "I want to play with X to Y players" by the way more direct and simple "I want to play with X players".

Like all choices there are pros and cons, and I'm sorry that you dislike it, but we thought a lot on this and think this is the right choice.

Non exhaustive list of reasons:
- according to our stats, most of you want to play with an exact number of players. With the current system, when you want to set this number, you may have to change the min AND the max, which is too complicated and too many clicks for a simple operation like this.

- we have more and more games with a Solo mode, and the new system makes the selection of Solo mode obvious (you select "1 player") while something like "1 to 4 players" is unclear.

- some options are only visible with a given number of players. For these options, the "x to y players" makes the options interface behave weirdly and really difficult to understand.

- and finally, with the "x to y", the only number that matters was the y (the max). You were able to start the game using "Start" button, even if the minimum was not reached, so the "x" was kind of useless.

We recommend you to use the new "number of players" as you were using the "maximum" number of players, and you should not see a big difference compared to what you had before.

(I should add that we are not seing an increase of "refuse to start", so it seems that it actually does the trick).

As a game dev, this is a very very positive change. I was getting really tired of people not knowing how to setup a solo mode. Or the game option config that was tiresome and people were usually not getting it (eg : different draft mode depending on the number count -> no way to filter the display depending on the number of players, you can only display a big red warning on start if invalid combo).

[Jest Phulin]

(I should add that we are not seing an increase of "refuse to start", so it seems that it actually does the trick).

I can understand this for real time games, but this is an issue with turn-based games.

Turn-based games require the player to accept the table settings before the table has been filled. If I join a 5-player game and agree to play to the end, and the table administrator starts the game with 2 players, I am suddenly forced into a game I do not want. Unless something else in the interface was changed, I have no option to refuse to start a game where the table settings were changed after I joined the turn-based table.

[voriki]

(I should add that we are not seing an increase of "refuse to start", so it seems that it actually does the trick).

I can understand this for real time games, but this is an issue with turn-based games.

Turn-based games require the player to accept the table settings before the table has been filled. If I join a 5-player game and agree to play to the end, and the table administrator starts the game with 2 players, I am suddenly forced into a game I do not want. Unless something else in the interface was changed, I have no option to refuse to start a game where the table settings were changed after I joined the turn-based table.

Exactly, for turnbased this is a bad move.
Sure, the tabler admin could before still change settings, but that required more clicks, thus was less likely to occur. Now it is just hit "start".

[Phoxtrot]

Yes, bring it back please.

Upvote here (or any other similar suggestion I might have missed)
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=46585

[Phoxtrot]

(I should add that we are not seing an increase of "refuse to start", so it seems that it actually does the trick).

But the auto-start is still there which is a problem for slightly less popular games in turn-based mode.

I also used the feature a lot with my group of friends as a way to let people "vote" on what we play next.
We are a group of 6 players with some playing at very different hours and this allowed me to open a high number of turn-based tables and only keep what friends wanted to play without lengthy discussions (over different time zones) to set it up.

[Romain672]

Could you add a "required" number of player to start. Something that the table admin could adjust but maybe wouldn't have to, but still helped to set the table expectations.

Like... I want 4 players. Check a box that says "require at least": 3 players... or something like that.

It's done Just put 4 players.
Then if nobody come in 5min, just kindly ask in chat if 3 players is fine too, and start

[Phoxtrot]

It's done Just put 4 players.
Then if nobody come in 5min, just kindly ask in chat if 3 players is fine too, and start

Won't work for a less than popular game in turn-based mode where getting enough people might take a few days.
And then the game will auto-start with however many players joined...