drdev wrote:Agetian wrote:I think I may have noticed a funny way to learn about the exact position of practically all the cards in your (as well as opponent's) library (valid for r27990):
If you cast a spell that allows you to search your library, you can then look through the cards in your library (using the new card window) and meticulously write down the IDs of each and every card in your library, or at least the ones you care about the most. Then, provided that the IDs don't change during the course of the game (and I don't think that they do), you can just click on your library and take a look at all the IDs of cards (which are shown in the card detail box despite the fact that the cards are face down). I think the card IDs should be hidden for face down cards as well because they are too much of a potential spoiler.
- Agetian
I agree about hidden cards, but not about face-down cards. The ID for face-down cards is important for targetting and for helping you remember which is which if the opponent turns one face up then later turns it back to face down.
I'll fix it so IDs are hidden for hidden cards when I get the chance later today.
As for face-down cards, their true IDs should be also hidden (since otherwise you'll know which card it is even after it's, say, returned to hand or library and then re-cast). I'd suggest to maybe show their "names" (which are not real names, so they can display as whatever without impacting the game) as "Morph 1", "Morph 2", etc. With number of cards in a typical deck, there's probably no need to re-use numbers during the game, either, just increment it for every spell cast face-down, card entering the battlefield face-down (
Ashcloud Phoenix) or permanent turned face-down.
As for cards that were once revealed, but are no longer: This is actually a relevant problem -- eventually, AI will want to keep track of cards it can see. And there's actually a difference between digital and physical game: in physical game, you can have, say, an
Island in hand opponent knows about, then draw another
Island with same picture, play an
Island and nobody knows whether it was the known one or a different one, while in digital game, the ID will identify it (of course, smarter move in this case would be to play the known
Island, as this gives out no additional information).
So I'd say that if a card moves from hand to library or face-down to exile, the information about hand content is lost (partial information remains, but that would probably be too hard to model).
But I'd suggest to keep that information visible as long as it exists. It doesn't matter that much for cards in hand, but it matters a lot for face-down creatures. Even the official rules suggest various ways to keep track of them so they wouldn't get confused and in the digital game where cards might suddenly resize and move around the screen, this is very important. Once a player sees a face-down creature, it should stay permanently visible for him (especially in the case of
Ixidron).
Also, I'd like to mention one of my personal pet peeves. When AI uses first ability of
Jace, the Mind Sculptor on me, all I learn is that it used the ability. But I won't get any information about what it DID -- whether it left the card on top of my library or put it on the bottom. Similarly when AI scries (and probably when it clashes). When AI manipulates with top cards of a library, the information of how many cards went where should be public even if detailed information about individual cards is not.