Feedback on paying mana costs

[Incantus]

I implemented selecting mana from your mana pool to pay a mana cost:


Suggestions/comments?

[Huggybaby]

Once you click on the beta tester's toolbox I lose track. You start with the amount to be paid, then it goes away.

I went to youtube to see things in a larger size, but there are no play controls for some reason.

[Incantus]

Yeah, I forget that noone knows what the Toolbox does. It has a mana ability that adds WUBRG to your mana pool. Anyway, I fixed some bugs in the implementation and made a video with a better example. Make sure to click on the video to watch it at youtube and make sure to watch it at 720p (HD)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRZBRaSgNoI&hd=1:



It's a bit unrealistic but it will show how you can select mana when you have more than you need. You cast Blood Cultist (cost 1BR) and tap 2 mountains. Then you tap Fire-Lit Thicket and generate RG. Finally you tap Arcane Sanctum for the B. Once you have enough mana to pay the cost, notice how it precalculates what it can of your payment (BR) and asks you to pay 1. Your mana pool is on the left side and the selected payment on the right. The rest of the interaction just shows what happens if you change your mind and decide on a different payment (BRR vs BRG).

[Malban]

Nice feature.

Right now I´m on my way to let the game decide what to pay with.
But if that does not work out in the long run - I might reuse you idea

Malban

[Incantus]

Oh, Incantus can already calculate the payment if you have exactly the right amount (including selecting colored mana for a colorless portion). The above UI is only if the algorithm can't determine the best way of paying the cost. For example, you need , and for some reason you have in your mana pool, it will preselect the and ask you to pick two more mana to pay . But if you had exactly in your pool it would use that for your payment without any interaction from you.

[ashsaver]

Is it possible to collapse mana that's the same (of course, it's problematic when the mana looks the same but behaves differently, like basic land mana or snow mana)? I can see this being really tedious for large mana costs, and possibly for X costs as well.

Also, I see you've checked in the code for the new interface, but not the images. Is it possible for you to do that, so people can try it out? I've able to get the code compiled but without knowing how the images are supposed to look I can't do much.

[Incantus]

Sure, the first approach I used to show the mana pool had them collapsed:

However, for selection purposes it was easier to show them individually. I'll have to think of a good way to combine them and allow for selection.

I've uploaded the missing data files to bitbucket. They can be found at https://bitbucket.org/incantus/incantus/downloads/data.tgz. Just make sure to unzip/untar from within the incantus root directory and the will be unarchived into the right spot.

[ashsaver]

Thanks. I was able to play around with it a bit (unfortunately, I'm used to MageKing's release versions but they're not checked into bitbucket so I had to merge in some changes manually). Some notes:

-It's impossible to figure out in solitaire mode who goes first, and who's mulliganing - it'd be nice to have the fadeout for the non-choosing player here as well.
-Holding the Right Mouse Button to pop up the card causes the second player's cards to go off the screen - this should still matter even in non-solitaire games, as you can see revealed cards.
-the library is revealed from the beginning of the game.
-Also, token directory is now incorrect, magiccards.info changed their token directory structure.
-Also getting a warning after closing (but doesn't seem like a big deal):
Incantus.exe\ui\anim.py:286: DeprecationWarning: object.__new__() takes no parameters

It does look very good right now though, even in a somewhat incomplete state.

[Incantus]

Thanks. I was able to play around with it a bit (unfortunately, I'm used to MageKing's release versions but they're not checked into bitbucket so I had to merge in some changes manually).

Ah yeah, MageKing and my repositories are a bit off sync since I haven't had time to integrate all the changes he's made in the last year.

Some notes:

-It's impossible to figure out in solitaire mode who goes first, and who's mulliganing - it'd be nice to have the fadeout for the non-choosing player here as well.

Yeah, that would be useful. It's a bit tricky since the game hasn't started yet - i'll have to think of a different way to signal the player being asked something.

-Holding the Right Mouse Button to pop up the card causes the second player's cards to go off the screen - this should still matter even in non-solitaire games, as you can see revealed cards.

Not sure what you mean. Can you post a screenshot?

-the library is revealed from the beginning of the game.

Oops, that should be disabled. I think this was a carryover from when I was implementing the zone popups.

-Also, token directory is now incorrect, magiccards.info changed their token directory structure.

Do you know the new structure?

-Also getting a warning after closing (but doesn't seem like a big deal):
Incantus.exe\ui\anim.py:286: DeprecationWarning: object.__new__() takes no parameters

Yeah, it's not that big a deal. I think it's from using a new version of python. I think fixing it won't be a problem.

It does look very good right now though, even in a somewhat incomplete state.

Thanks for the feedback. Let me know if you have any other ideas.

[ashsaver]

The images are in http://magiccards.info/extras/token/<EXPANSION>/<TOKENNAME>.jpg, see http://magiccards.info/extras.html

As for the screenshot, here's an attachment:
I held the right mouse button down on the card that's missing, but it pops up out of the screen area.

[MageKing17]

Actually, magiccards.info changed their format a long, long time ago. The problem was that they stopped supplying "thumbnail" images, which happened to be exactly the right size for use with Incantus. Of course, given that the newer rendering system ought to work, theoretically, for images of any size (although I have yet to test that theory), we could try making it use the new system anyway.

EDIT: Also, the problem with cards zooming off the top of the screen is due to incorrect leftover code in various widgets. I fixed it at one point in my local copy, but I have had no time to do it to the latest changes.