Cancelling Moves - Thoughts and Suggestions

A. The Simplest Approach. No card can be cancelled once it has been clicked. Pro: completely consistent. Con: completely unforgiving. I think I'd prefer this to the current system.
B. Are You Sure? Have a confirmation step for moves, say, clicking on the card again. So select card -> confirm or cancel card -> reactions trigger. Pro: moves can be cancelled; probably not that hard to implement(?). Con: an extra mouse click every time you want to play a move. Still not quite consistent with attacks.



Both of these could be very good. I do agree that "A" is very unforgiving, but you have the time to think your move through BEFORE you commit.

I like "B" because it does give you one last chance to think your move through.

Either one would be good for me.

 

I don't mind the unforgiving nature of decisions, the problem is when you didn't make that decision in the first place. Mouse glitching, graphic errors, even misinterpreting which character is which is NOT me deciding to play a given card yet there is no way to recover and chances are you lose for just one of these.

 

I've only just started playing the Neta but this was literally the only thing thats jumped out to me as being a bit off so far, and thought I'd give some early feedback as suggested. Excellent game guys - nice mix of compulsion and genuine strategy. Reminds me ever so slightly of D&D 4E

Its not totally consistent, but is there any reason that we cant do the following? I assume there are programming issues too?

The Move Sequence
1. Mouseover card, valid locations ignoring all modifiers are shown.
2. Select card.
3. Valid spaces to move to are shown (may be different from 1).
4. Player selects a valid square. Reaction cards, which may be chance-based, immediately trigger. Point of no return.

If thats not a goer I prefer either A or B. A might be a bit unfriendly to new players (I have cancelled a lot of actions, due to misclicks, or misinterpretations), and B is friendlier - but confirming each time might get a bit frustrating.

Keep up the good work.

 

That's currently how it works Imbecile. Do you see it somehow working differently?

You said you've canceled actions due to misclicks. You can not cancel move cards though. So if you misclick a spell you're fine, if you misclick a move you're stuck.

 

Exactly, I can cancel my actions, but not my moves.

The sequence I've shown is not quite as it currently works, and not as its originally posted in the op.

I've tweaked the original post so that reaction cards and the point of no return trigger when the move square is selected, rather than when the card is selected. At the moment my point of no return is once I've selected the card (as I get no cancel option). Does that make more sense?

 

Moves MUST be cancelable. Furthermore every card must have confirmation(toggable in options for each card type). When playing on touch screen it's extremely frustrating when yoг use cards just by accident.
For me it should work then same way attack does:
1) pick a card
2) possible moves are shown
3) click to move or click to cancel
4) if moved -> here comes triggers like slow, attached cards, card in other player hand and so on. If they hinder your movement you move only as much as you could (ie if you play 3mv card to step N-NW-W and then you got slowed by 1, you move only 2mv N-NW and then you're faced W)
5) if it was complex move card(ie attack-move) you play it's second part from your current position.

 

Not that I think that this is a problem, but majority seems to be of that mind.

Simple solution would be to remove Rushing Aura, Slow and all similar stuff.

Other solutions would be unnecessary complicated, atleast from UI point of view.

 

Oh, please not option A.

Accidentally clicking a move card when you don't mean to is annoying enough. If that attribute is given to every card, the annoyance factor would jolt straight through the roof. Sometimes it's nice to be able to plan out your moves by clicking an attack card and seeing what your range is or what you can hit rather than attempting to visualize it.

I'd much rather just stick with the minor irritation of dealing with the cancel-ability of move cards rather than upgrading it to a major irritation by making all cards uncancelable. It's one thing to fight against the game. It's another thing entirely to fight against the UI.

 

Is it me or is this also an issue for "move and strike" attack cards? Are these also effectively uncancellable?

 

The funny thing the AI can cheat and cancel its step attack cards to avoid attacking its own teammates.

 

We definitely should be allowed to cancel move cards.

 

That shouldn't be possible. If you see it again, get a log AND a screenshot, and report it as a bug.

 

Stupid question: if the big problem is the move/attack cards, why not just have the prompt on those cards?

 

Annoying when you click a step-attack card and are forced to attack your own party because it is the only option.

 

Option D.

Also, cards that involve multiple events such as a step then an attack should have an option to skip the second step, in this case the attack. If this isn't fixed, these cards need to have some hilarious flavor text along the lines of "I don't care who's side you're on, someone is going to get stabbed right now."

 

Reading the whole thread, my ideal solution is a combination of different suggestions:

How it works
How I think it should work

The Move Sequence
1. Mouseover card, valid locations ignoring all known modifiers are shown.
1. Mouseover card, valid locations showing all known modifiers are shown.

2. Select card. Reaction cards, which may be chance-based, immediately trigger. Point of no return.
2. Select card.

3. Valid spaces to move to are shown (may be different from 1).
3. Valid spaces to move currently are shown (same squares as 1). Can be cancelled at this point.

4. Player selects a valid square.
4. Player selects a seemingly valid square. Point of no return.

5. Player moves to selected square.
5. Reaction cards, which may be chance-based, trigger. If there are none that affect movement, player moves to selected square.

The great majority of the time, things will work just as expected, only one would be able to cancel moves. However, if reaction cards activate that affect movement and make the move no longer valid:

6. Valid spaces to move to are shown again. (move selected in 4 is now ignored)
7. Player selects a valid square.
8. Player moves to selected square.


As far as I can tell, there are no drawbacks to this change, other than that it may be very difficult to implement. I know next to nothing about coding though, so I really have no idea.

The worst annoyance would be having to choose a movement location more than once, however although it takes three steps in the list, in actuality it is a single click. I really think a single additional click made only when movement-affecting action cards make the chosen move no longer valid, is a small price to pay for being able to cancel movements made accidentally.

On a related topic, not having the option of choosing not to swing at your allies when red/blue cards are played and no enemies are in range is preposterous. Obviously if an enemies reaction card makes you no longer able to strike them, or even simply reveals a card, you should not be able to back out on the playing of the card. You should however be able to sacrifice the attack portion of the card and do nothing. A cancel button after the movement portion should be implemented, perhaps even renamed to something like "forfeit attack" to make perfectly clear that you are still losing the card.

It seems to me that choosing not to utilize the damage portion of an attack is penalty enough, and they could be used as strictly movement cards in a pinch. They can already be used this way in some situations, if there are no enemies nearby the attack is simply cancelled. It is not like you lunge forward and absolutely must stab something, running through your own foot if nothing else is nearby.

 

I do think it would be tactically interesting to have some sort of berserk charge card that specifically required an attack at the end that might target allies, but such a card should be a rare and special exception, and the disadvantage of potentially hurting a party member should be balanced by the card being a powerful one. Otherwise, and for all other instances, I completely agree with every word DragnHntr wrote above.

 

I approve of your suggestions.

I'd also like to be able to use step attacks to move even while stunned, and use them to attack even while halted.

Actually, it already is possible to injure your allies if you Charge them.

Or how about this as a card:
Berserker: Trait, attach to self. And the beginning of the round, deal 6 melee slashing damage to all adjacent chars. Duration 2.

 

Honestly I think A(1) is the best one to go with. It's like chess that way. once you hand is off the piece you've made your move. Once you have activated the card you have to deal with the consequences. That puts you in a more focused mindset so you're not just clicking whatever.

 

Touching a card isn't taking your hand off a piece, touching a card is touching a piece. Having to play a card after selecting it is like saying if you touch a piece in chess you are now forced to move that piece.