Cancelling Moves - Thoughts and Suggestions

Looking at the card before you select it is like touching the piece. Thats the time you weigh your options. When you select a card to play you've made a commitment at that point you've "made the move" as it were. You can't just take it back. When I play Magic in the real world once you lay the card down you don't get to take it back.
Likewise you don't generally get to know what the other player has in their hand. If you play your card and they have an instant that affects the outcome of that card you can't just decide to take it back. That is effectively what you're asking for.

 

That is a logical fallacy as I can select an attack and the attack does nothing unless someone is within attacking range who is an enemy unless said card makes me move first.

The attack when unusable but selected remains in hand and is also effectively cancelled nullifying your counter arguement.

Why should I, if I have not yet moved my character, be forced to move my character? The opponent has seen no action performed and to note there is no card I can think of that reacts from an opponents hand in response to a move until that move is finished.

 

Your argument is flawed when compared to attacking cards. You can select an attack and weigh your options then decide whether to go through with it or not. Selecting a card in this instance does not reveal it to your enemy. In the case of MTG, I imagine selecting a card to be like pulling a card from your hand and really analyzing the options of that specific card, in chess it is the equivalent of picking up a piece and considering its potential moves. In either of those games you are still free to put it back and choose a different move, just as in clicking an attack card. Only move cards have this strange "touching a card means you played it" function.

Hovering over a card would be sufficient if it actually showed all valid moves based on known effects, which it does not. As it currently works, hovering over a movement card shows that you can move just fine until you select it, then suddenly "oh no you actually have stacking frost encumber debuffs, you cant move anywhere." It is counter intuitive to be able to hover or click an attack and be able to decide whether to use it or not, but when selecting a move, where additional valid information (again based purely on known effects) is shown only after clicking, giving a different more precise picture of valid moves, now suddenly the card cannot be cancelled.

I want to point out that I do understand that the reason for locking in a movement is because of possible hidden reactive effects being revealed, but I have already posted a solution to this.

In most situations, there will not be any reactive movement affecting effects and movement cards are showing conflicting hover-over and on-click information and also not being able to be cancelled for no apparent reason.

Honestly the main issue with moves not being able to be cancelled would be solved if squares shown when hovering over a move reflected known movement affecting cards.

 

which is why I argue for no cancellation at all except in the cases where there is no valid target which is automatically cancelled. I'm not excluding attack cards. It's a little unforgiving yes but ultimately more interesting for it.
I do understand your argument however.

 

Sure if your goal is to defeat, punish and lose players then this is the perfect solution. Except it isn't because the ai will not make this mistake and automatically gives another edge of the ai over the human player.

So yes if your goal is to lose players this is a perfect plan.

 

Not really. You will make that mistake once or twice before you wise up. I already take into account my movement debuffs before I pick my card. It's not prohibitively difficult.
I also don't select an attack card unless i plan on attacking. If I make a mistake I try it over. As of yet I've never run out of retries in a dungeon.

 

You'd think so, but I routinely select a move card from the wrong character.

 

The chess analogy is flawed. You arent obliged to make a move in chess when you touch a piece, you are obliged to move the piece once you've moved it, and let go of the piece. In the game this would translate to clicking on the square that you want to move the character to.

You really do need to be able to cancel moves in the same way that you can cancel attacks.

 

I really like the idea of D (pick again on illegal target). It should preview what your movement range would be due to known cards, such as attached encumbrance or "move extra" type effects, then when you've selected your target, you are locked into moving, and stuff triggers. If your movement range expands beyond what would have been expected, also pick again.

 

I like the "Are you sure?" option for moves. I only cancel moves when i misclick it or figure out a better move last second. but You shouldnt be able to revert your decision if you figure out you cannot go where you want if a reactionary chance roll stops it.

Actually, many people play by touch-move rule. So the analogy works

 

Saying actually many people play by touch move rule does not make the analogy less flawed. This is a rule that is altered by people. It is an altered rule you are allowed to play by, and since this rule is alterable then the analogy is more flawed, I should in fact be able to cancel my movement card click. Because chess does not require me to play by such a punishing game mechanic.

 

It's an analogy. if you don't comprehend what an analogy means, let me help you understand:

So pointing out that clicking to move your unit, is similar to touching the chess piece to move IS a similarity. It conveys intention. There is no flaw in the analogy, you're talking about a flaw in the mechanic. And this is not just any optional rule. Touch move has been used for centuries and is IS the standard for every game played competitively.

 

[Citation Needed]

 

Actually no it is not the standard. More of professional chess players simply don't accidentally touch the wrong piece.

I grasp the analogy, you simply don't grasp why your analogy is flawed. Why should I play by your draconic punishing, and brutal rule, and then make thousands of player be forced to play by said same rule, when the example you come up with for comparing two games, is a game that players altered the original rule to in essence, up the difficulty.

Oh by the way want to know why touch move isn't the standard in professional play? Because brushing your finger on the piece is considered touching the piece? How do you prove that wasn't your intended piece? Well the player is under a lot of pressure and stress and their hand faltering can in fact occur, but using your ruling, the person who should have won this chess tournament would lose. All over your draconic, punishing, unfair, and in many ways, unfun rule.

This is a game. Your analogy is flawed based on the fact your game of comparison is not actually played like that with the form of consistency you are demanding of this game. Quit trying to make a game fun for only a select few. If you want to play you click the card you play the card, go for it. You and your opponent can agree to such terms at the start of the match.

Edit: to make double sure, I looked it up, the touch move rule is not referenced in competitive play ie tournaments as the official rule for tournaments involves removing your hand from said piece, but rather calls it by a different term, serious play.

Why aren't official tournaments ran like this and instead the rule is applied to something called serious play? Aren't tournaments serious? Well yes, but you see, in a tournament you want the best player to win, not the player who wouldn't have won without his opponent having placed his hand on the wrong piece.

So while there is a place for serious play, it is not set in the competitive tournaments.

 

Please allow me to cancel move cards when I select them in error. Also, please update the move preview to reflect Encumber effects.

 

Yeah, why isn't this part of the game? Right now the move system is crazy. There should be a giant warning tag on move cards, "CLICK ME AT YOUR OWN PERIL."

 

From my point of view, there are two main reasons I sometimes mistakenly play move cards.
1) I forget that the card can't be canceled, because every other card can. (This is particularly problematic with step+attack cards, because most attack cards can be canceled and sometimes I'm just not thinking about the step part at all.)
2) I thought I could move somewhere where I can't actually move. (ie. the mouse-over squares are different to the actual move squares)

I think that the frequency of mistakes would be reduced if both of these things were fixed.

For #1, I think the consistency problem and potential solutions are well described in the first post of this thread. In my opinion, solution A) is the best option - ie. remove the option of canceling other cards, to create consistency with being unable to cancel move cards. The "are you sure" option would be pretty annoying to play with, and it doesn't really solve the problem anyway. Option C), which calculates 'definite' and 'possible' move destinations after the card is selected, sounds OK but it may not work well for some cards, such as Maze of the Mind, or some future cards which may reduce movement range of nearby enemies or something like that. The other options change the rules of the game.

One advantage of the no cancellations option, in addition to bringing consistency, is that it would allow the possibility of Maze of the Mind like cards which affect spells or attacks.

I think the main disadvantage of not allowing cancellations for any card is that players will probably still make the mistake of playing cards when they can't reach the target that they thought they could reach - eg. they thought a particular enemy was in range of a spell or something like that. So it seems to me that if the game is changed to not allow any cancellations, then the interface needs to be very clear about what can and can't be done with each card before it is played. Perhaps the highlighting of potential targets needs to be even more obvious than it currently is, so that players can see just at a glance whether their cards can reach their intended target. For move cards, I think it would be great if the effects of encumbrance were shown in the mouse-over highlighting. -- But if the mouse-over information for cards makes it very clear to the player what the card can and can't do, then I think it's fair for the game to accept clicking on the card as confirmation that the player definitely wants the play that card.

For more cautious players there could be a game option which adds an extra step in the confirmation process. eg. clicking on the card would lock in the mouse-over information so that the player could move the mouse around while still seeing the card's info, and there would be a 'play card' near the card itself for the player to confirm when they are ready to play the card.

Cards which have no valid targets would simply be unable to be played. In general, whenever a card can't be played, I think there should always be a notification somewhere on the screen to inform the player why the card can't be played. eg. no valid targets / stunned / pinned down, etc.


[edit]
Actually, after giving this a bit more thought, I'm thinking that maybe option C) from the OP would work after all. Maze of Mind isn't really a problem because the game could allow the player of the move card to select their intended destination to confirm the playing of the card, and then the game could simply ignore that destination and allow the Maze of Mind player to select the true destination.

If all of the kinks in option C) can be worked out, then that would be a better outcome than what I was suggesting.

 

I really think that the simplest solution would be:

- when you play a move, show all squares you can move to with any Encumbered modifiers on you. Also, "Cancel" button is visible.
- if you don't click on Cancel now, instead you click on a square to move to, you don't yet move there if you have a card that may reduce your movement at the chance of a die roll.
- The die is rolled. if it turns out that your movement is reduced, and you no longer reach the square you chose, you have to choose another Square to move to. You can not cancel now.

This way you don't always get an Are you sure? every time you move.
also, if you want to change your mind just because a die roll turned against you: you can not do that.
but you can Cancel if you clicked on the move by mistake, before the movement reducing chance die is rolled.

 

I hope that some kind of solution can be worked out.

It doesn't matter to me Why you can't cancel a move action as it stands. The issue of the matter is that getting screwed over being unable to cancel a move Just Feels Bad.

 

Think of it as aversion therapy. You can only make the same mistake x number of times before it sinks in. The value of x will vary from individual to individual, of course.