UI Improvements, Round 2: Match UI

[friarsol]

I can't quite tell why this is, but it looks like the AIs Mana Pool isn't actually updating with the right mana amounts when the AI gets mana.

1. Cast Eladamri's Vineyard.
2. Put a breakpoint in just after the Mana goes into the AIs pool

I traced this a bit and the getGreenLbl() is getting it's value updated to 2 like I'd expect, but I never actually see this change propagated to the screen. I'm not sure if the AI is clearing it's own mana pool somewhere along the lines, or what the deal is. But it seems like this mana just completely disappears.

[Doublestrike]

Do people mind terribly if I switch back the phase buttons to the red/green configuration?

Personally, that seems a lot more intuitive and consistent...after a few games with the new colors I've got a headache

[friarsol]

Yea I'm not a big fan of the monochrome phasing. Sometimes I can't tell where the active phase is if it stops on a phase I normally skip through.

[Chris H.]

Do people mind terribly if I switch back the phase buttons to the red/green configuration?

Personally, that seems a lot more intuitive and consistent...after a few games with the new colors I've got a headache

`
I agree, I vote for the red/green phase buttons.

[Tranberry]

I fear that for some of us it wont matter what colour it is, as we will get confused no mater what. What about adding a an arrow or other symbol by the phases that is skipped? Why not just have a text that says skipped or similar.

From a designer perspective having 100% green and red is darn ugly.

[Doublestrike]

What about adding a an arrow or other symbol by the phases that is skipped?

This is a good idea; I'll put in some sort of graphical indicator - an arrow or an X would be good.

Changing the text isn't really an option in my opinion, it would mess with the expected behavior of the UI.

Regarding red/green ugliness, the skinnable change (which unfortunately ended up monochrome) was a good step in the right direction, but it showed that specific colors will be needed from the palette. OTL!

[moomarc]

What about adding a an arrow or other symbol by the phases that is skipped?

This is a good idea; I'll put in some sort of graphical indicator - an arrow or an X would be good.

Changing the text isn't really an option in my opinion, it would mess with the expected behavior of the UI.

Regarding red/green ugliness, the skinnable change (which unfortunately ended up monochrome) was a good step in the right direction, but it showed that specific colors will be needed from the palette. OTL!

Perhaps a compromise then: Add two new color swatches to the skin's sprite. That way most of them can be defaulted to red/green, but users creating skins have the option to use different colours (or shades at least). For instance, the DKA skin I'd stick to green and red, but probably use a slightly darker tone.

Edit: Speaking of which, should the DKA skin be committed yet or is there likely to be another public beta before the main DKA release?

[Chris H.]

Edit: Speaking of which, should the DKA skin be committed yet or is there likely to be another public beta before the main DKA release?

`
I would like to release the next beta tomorrow as we have a bug fix now in place which helps to reduce the number of crash reports.

[Chris H.]

I had a thought that I want to pass on, not sure how other people might feel about it though. I am wondering if we should have two different max card pic size settings.

One would be for the card pics displayed on the battlefield as part of the game/match. Some people might not like that first card or two that is put onto the battlefield to scale up to a giant size.

The card picture displayed above the card detail panel (deck editors and battlefield) might be OK if they scaled over the normal pic size. If might be worthwhile to consider having two different max sizes.

[Doublestrike]

@Chris - one of the "big projects" approaching on my list is a refactor of the hand/battlefield.

Among other things, my vision has a dynamic slider that manages card size in the settings button from the dock, which would eliminate the "Settings" setting altogether. It's yet to be seen if this can become a reality, or if it's just some misguided dream that Java will stomp on hard.

[Doublestrike]

Perhaps a compromise then: Add two new color swatches to the skin's sprite.

Oops I must have edited this from my post - meant to say this.

Yeah, actually I'll throw in four new swatches in the palettes, easy enough, and hook this up again soon.

[friarsol]

I've seen some weird bugs with the assign damage to blockers window up while assigning damage. If I accidentally click on a phase, it seems to skip combat resolution and leave the assigned damage on the cards until the next combat resolves. I'll see if I can repro this with official steps, but I feel like it's happened to me more than once, so wanted to see if anyone else has seen it?

[friarsol]

Doublestrike,

I don't remember if you talked about this already, but I think on the left side of the "Game Over" screen we should have the you win/lose message and underneath it place the Game Log. This way people can scroll through the log to see exactly what happened when they don't understand why they lost.

[Chris H.]

We have a couple of fairly minor issues with the battlefield display.

1) I started a new constructed mode game and the Input Area labels this as a Sealed mode game.

2) Something recently screwed with the mana pool. See included pic.

`

[slapshot5]

2) Something recently screwed with the mana pool. See included pic.

I just fixed this. Except showing the Blue/Black as Colorless. I'm not sure if that was done on purpose or not (I don't think it was) and I kind of like it, but I left it anyway.

It's a real easy fix. Just change the coordinate for the COLORLESS enum in FSkin.

-slapshot5