greed.

[chairman_mentos]

it's a shame something like the Catan franchise allows itself to be mired in petty greed like this. they should simply produce a fully functional product that allows you to play with whomever you wish without constantly paying

[Stroom]

I agree that there should be a timer. But if you look at any other board game and how they implement the timer, they do it in a much better way.

Boardgamearena marks your user with a tag if you have run out of time too many times. Basically your reliability metric will go down for that. But the game does not end your turn automatically, nor are you kicked out. Any of the other players can choose to end the game, everyone else will "win" and that player will lose the game.

PlayCatan had players vote to see what to do if another player runs out of time. They can let it pass if they see that the player is actively playing. Or they can vote to kick that player out. It gives and OPTION which Catan Universe doesn't. I think this option would work best because then the majority of the players have to agree to kicking the player. Statistically, the majority of the players should be reasonable anyway. Otherwise in any kind of system you would have trolls abusing whatever system you give them.

Seriously, PlayCatan had so many things figured out about the UX and UI but the developers of Catan Universe decided to reinvent the wheel and completely disregard a perfectly functioning platform. The only thing PlayCatan was lacking was player reporting and graphics, although I prefer the PlayCatan 2D graphics to this 3D resource-hog which doesn't even look nice on older computers. This game should be a simple game which can be played on any computer, maybe even a browser based UI would work better than the current Unity overkill.

When it comes to making big moves... yes, you can make moves fast. But not always. Sometimes you still need to make some trades first. Then the speed depends on the other players replying to your trades in a timely manner. YOUR time is running not theirs. Therefore they can abuse YOUR timer and make you lose precious time. I have seen it happen in early access and it probably still happens now.

There are always edge cases when you just need more time. Maybe you had 4 cities next to number 8s - sheep and wheat. All 4 players rolled 8s during their turn so you suddenly end up with 16 sheep and 16 wheat. You couldn't predict that so you are taken by surprise. You also have the wheat and sheep ports and some other resources. You know the other players won't trade with you but if you make the 2:1 trades with the bank correctly you can pull out a win. Can you maybe steal the longest road with all these resources? If not, maybe you can build settlements? Maybe you need a combination of settlements and cities? Maybe you would have to go for a risk and buy a development card or two? You have to make the 2:1 trades very carefully because there are no undos in this game. If you know that in case you pass your turn, another player might win, you have to take the maximum out of the game. If you make even one non-optimal move, you can't get the win. I have had this kind of experience in real life games (and in PlayCatan) and I ended up with no cards in my hand after building the last thing I needed to win.

Automatic timer is a horrible solution to a problem which has roots in a bad community management. Punishing innocent players for something they do not do (intentionally stalling the game) is stupid. If you want players not to quit games, make a better system for creating games. For instance make a reliability metric which places players who do not quit or stall games together. And the players who do quit games are NEVER placed in a game with them. The current matchmaker is unable to do that because there are not enough concurrent players in the game AND it just does not penalize quitters as much, it still tries to find them a game within 1-2 minutes. In PlayCatan we at least had a lobby and the game creator could set that you need 3 stars (max in PlayCatan) in order to enter the game. Quitters had a visible penalty in their faces when they saw that they could not join the majority of games (you need to play maybe 20-50 games without quitting to get 3 stars). This is another plus side of the lobby compared to the matchmaker. Make the community better with bonuses rather than punishing innocent players, please. Oh, I have said that in Catan Universe forums but the admin there does not really read the suggestions.

[Stroom]

Also, this is a strategy game. It is not meant to be played like blitz-chess or whatever. The current timer makes it feel like it is rushing players through the game.

[enzynz]

Sure vote to take out the winning player while they are ahead. Lets feed the trolls...
There are already alot of players with terrible karma stats due to rage quiting and simply being babies about being in a poor position early game. Lets feed these players the ability to kick you out when you are wrecking them... Nice well thought out solution... Dumb...

[obliviondoll]

BGA's timer was actually a good mechanic, NOT a "vote to take out the winning player" mechanic.

If a player exceeds their allowed time, AND ONLY IF THEY DO THAT, players can vote to have them removed.

I'm not sure if you just missed the point there, or if you were deliberately taking it out of context and ignoring that it was connected to the time limit.

Also, the timer gives you a basic starting time, and adds to it each turn, allowing a player to have a handful of quick turns to build up a buffer, then take some extra time without exceeding their limit.

[enzynz]

I've missed a turn once in awhile, while in the lead. I SHOULD NOT BE KICKED FOR IT. And it should not be up to the other players to do that, so many will take advantage to kick you out.

[obliviondoll]

Originally posted by enzynz:

I've missed a turn once in awhile, while in the lead. I SHOULD NOT BE KICKED FOR IT. And it should not be up to the other players to do that, so many will take advantage to kick you out.

This is what the "skip" or "end turn" buttons exist for. If you're going to miss your turn, TELL THE GAME you're skipping your turn, so it doesn't burn through your timer. If you're going to hold the game up for everyone else by being inconsiderate, you absolutely deserve to be removed from the table, and "but I was winning" isn't a valid argument against that.

[Stroom]

You do know that the current timer will kick you out and treat you as if you got the last place if you miss the timer 3 times during one game? This is much worse than the timer with a vote kick.

I think you are intentionally trying to misinterpret my post about timers. As obliviondoll said, the PlayCatan game still has a timer. I think in PlayCatan it was actually 120 or 180 seconds default... But in case when the timer runs out, the game does not automatically kick you out. The other players can ONLY THEN start a vote to kick you. As long as you are finishing your turns in time, the other players can not abuse the system to take you out. If for anything, PlayCatan gives you more time to make your moves. Usually from my experience, all players made their moves in a timely manner. Especially because it incorporated metrics and a lobby for creating games so that more reliable players could play with each other. With the current anonymous matchmaker that option is taken away and this is why you get into a game with ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. The ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ are always going to have equal opportunities to be in a game with you.

In PlayCatan I didn't see a single case of the players kicking the leader. It was strictly used in case of inactive players. Also, if that happens, you can report all the voters for bad behavior and hopefully the admin will revert the changes, give you the win and warn/ban the other players. This is a much better way than punishing innocent players with automatically ending their turns.

[Darknuke]

Originally posted by Stroom:

@Darknuke
You know why this game is failing? Because the developers are totally screwing the old PlayCatan playerbase. Not only with the free-to-play ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but because they are also ruining the game experience with half-assed game implementations. They have even admitted that they are not going to implement some features from PlayCatan because they think they are not needed... After several players have demanded for these things.

First: Trading screen. Why is it hiding half of the map all the time someone offers a trade? You could make the trade offers like small text bubbles with response buttons. Why is it missing the counter-offers features? All players should be able to offer trades to the current player. Why can't other players see if any other player accepts/rejects the trade with current player? Sometimes knowing that another player accepts to trade wood for sheep, you would accept too, hoping that the current player trades with you and the other one does not get the resource he needs. Overall, trading is the key element of the game and the current implementation is seriously hurting the basis of the game.

Second: Lobby. People want to see how many players are online and what kind of games are being created. Are there any C&K players? Maybe someone wants to play with friendly robber option? With roughly max 400 players online at any given time (maybe 80% of these playing), the matchmaker is a horrible solution, especially if you want to use different expansions/optional rules (friendly robber, card stack). With some obscure rule set it would be impossible to get a game going with strangers if no-one knows there even is anyone willing to play like that.

Third: Automatic timer kicking in and ending your turn. In initial placement phase it also places a settlement for you. This is just stupid. The game could punish the player after the game for going over the time limit but do not automatically ♥♥♥♥ up someones game just because he took a longer turn. Sometimes you might have to go to the toilet or someone is at the door so you have to go and answer. I have not seen any other online board game implementation take such a forceful approach to ensuring the pace of the game. Also forcing players to make their moves in 90 seconds is stupid. Sometimes to make the best move you have to analyze things, make several trades and maybe use development cards. With this UI it can take a lot longer than 90 seconds. If a player is actively playing, the timer should never interfere with him.

Fourth: This game is a lot worse than PlayCatan for one major reason: Mobile players. Catan Universe will be a platform for all players. This means that PC gamers will get less features than they had before because these features can not be implemented on mobile games. The screen is too small to shoe trade offers from 3 other players etc. Basically the PC version of the game is a clone of a tablet version. The reasoning behind this is just very stupid. PC gamers expect more from a game than mobile players. Giving them the same casual ♥♥♥♥ that mobile users use is stupid. Everything about this is stupid.

Fifth: There were live statistics in PlayCatan - you could see what dice rolls had appeared throughout the game, you could see which player had received/used/lost how many resources. It would be a nice addition but as always, not implemented because the mobile version (which isn't even out yet) would not be able to display that information.

Also, the developers are generally not very competent. one example of many: the in-game chat is only saved locally at the moment. If you restart the client, all chat log is lost. It basically seems like a simple socket-chat-client code was copied from StackOverflow and hacked together into the bottom left corner of the screen. Initially it didn't even have word wrap so anything longer than 30 characters was cut off. The fix for that would be to add one line to the code. How long did it take to fix it? 2 months. No hotfix or anything. Since it was early access phase then they just did not care to do hotfixes, even if the games were constantly crashing. Even if there was the same map over and over again. Even if the map randomiser put 6s and 8s next to each other. There does not seem to be a competent in-house QA either.

I agree with everything you said except point 3, but only because from my experience playing board games online, they all incorporate hard timer limits. The devs are def not doing a great job, but it's not their fault PlayCatan went away. That's Catan corporate's fault. These guys just got hired to make a game. That's it.

Also, your points are valid only to the most hardcore on here. The main backlash that is happening is due to the mass amount of casual whiners who want free stuff. Plain and simple.

I hope this game comes around, and the usability fixes will come, if the devs are taking notes here. I just want a userbase though. I could care less about the meta features that PlayCatan had. That was the stupidest part of that system. I JUST want Catan. That's it.

[robherms]

Greed? It costs, what, $3? For hours of entertainment? That's not a bad deal at all.

[Stroom]

The game is ♥♥♥♥ compared to any previous version. Of course it is greed to use an already well known game to draw in players and make them pay for a game that could be so much better than it actually is.

[obliviondoll]

Originally posted by robherms:

Greed? It costs, what, $3? For hours of entertainment? That's not a bad deal at all.

And if it WASN'T MARKETED AS A FREE-TO-PLAY GAME and was a $3 buy in to have something resembling competent access to actual gameplay, then it wouldn't be getting called out for greed.

Unfortunately, the devs ARE being greedy by pretending to offer a free-to-play product and locking content behind a paywall which you absolutely CAN'T afford to do that with.

[Unleaded]

Originally posted by obliviondoll:

Originally posted by robherms:

Greed? It costs, what, $3? For hours of entertainment? That's not a bad deal at all.

And if it WASN'T MARKETED AS A FREE-TO-PLAY GAME and was a $3 buy in to have something resembling competent access to actual gameplay, then it wouldn't be getting called out for greed.

Unfortunately, the devs ARE being greedy by pretending to offer a free-to-play product and locking content behind a paywall which you absolutely CAN'T afford to do that with.

Last I checked you could play Catan all day against 2 other people for free, all day everyday.

[obliviondoll]

Originally posted by Unleaded:

Originally posted by obliviondoll:

And if it WASN'T MARKETED AS A FREE-TO-PLAY GAME and was a $3 buy in to have something resembling competent access to actual gameplay, then it wouldn't be getting called out for greed.

Unfortunately, the devs ARE being greedy by pretending to offer a free-to-play product and locking content behind a paywall which you absolutely CAN'T afford to do that with.

Last I checked you could play Catan all day against 2 other people for free, all day everyday.

Until you want to play with friends, of course.