Bugs and Annoyances

[Ke5den]

After a long time eyeing the game I finally got it. Mostly because the original PC version is difficult to obtain for new players these days. Anyway, after finishing the tutorial and playing one online match, I noticed the following problems:

1. Can't press Tab to switch between fields on registration dialog.

2. Online play as well as the abbot are only avaialble when registering on Asmodee's website? Will the game still work when the website eventually goes down? Why are the Steam facilities not being used? If you already insist on forcing me to create an account on a website I do not care about, at least have the decency to use Steam as third party login provider and not ask for my email trying to shove yet another newsletter up my inbox.

2.5 Can I haz more advertising plz? The two shopping buttons on the main screen and newsletter aren't quite cutting it for me. Sarcasm aside, I kinda appreciate that you hid those pesky social media buttons away in the Options - even if they make no sense there. Neither do Rules and Tutorials; could you get rid of one of the useless shopping buttons and put Tutorials on the Main screen?

3. Steam avatars aren't being used, which results in most people having a generic avatar.

3.5. What's the aversion against Steam if it's the only PC platform you're selling on anyway?!?

4. Lifetime points aren't tracked correctly. Possibly due to being kicked out, but other metrics are kept updated despite of that?!? Consistency would be nice.

5. You get completely kicked out of online games just because the timer runs out? With 1 tile left to place?!? SERIOUSLY? I want to at least see how it ends! FFS! Makes you want to quit immediately when I see the time's not gonna suffice - but oh wait, that would cause me to be punished twice instead of just once. Couldn't you have added a turn-timer (maybe even a fancy dynamic one) like every other game out there?

6. Impossible to place meeples on fields during tutorial (I doubted you even adhere to the official rules at that point)

7. Shouldn't you be able to put your meeples on small fields at city entrances too? Sure, they are only small patches of grass, but still (not sure right now if the official manual says anything on that).

8. Completed cities on occupied fields aren't being tracked in statistics.

9. Allow (soft) scrolling when mouse cursor reaches window sides (option).

10. It looks as if full-length animations are actually counted towards your turn time in online games.

11. Please show the next tile already after the previous player has finished his turn.

12. The interface is stupidly huge. (I read complaints about this, but after experiencing it first hand, I have to say: they sure weren't kidding)

13. No Tooltips for options, main menu buttons,.... The few modal info buttons *sigh* open out of place and can only be closed pressing its closing button. Admit it, you do not have a UX designer, do you? :(

14. No information on what the quality settings actually do.

15. Achievements aren't reflected on Steam.

16. Rendering of input fields is not done correctly in chat when text exceeds input field width (especially problematic in lobby as the field is small). Basically rendering should be done based on a window affected by the cursor position. If I want to add something to the beginning I can't even see what I'm typing.

17. Most input mappings in launcher make no sense at all. And keys like Horizontal (+) should probably called "Scroll right".

18. Rotating tiles automatically skipping impossible positions is annoying. Please add an option to disable this and just overlay the "no tile available" graphic over it for impossible placements.


I'm aware that 2 or 3 of these were mentioned or talked about before, but a reminder cannot hurt. I'm gonna play another match now hoping not to have to extend this list much further.


Edit:

19. On game creation screen there's a button asking me to buy the abbot (and all other expansions). They're greyed out, but still. At least remove the button if that expansion is already owned (and I do own all of them).

20. How about an option to report abusive players in chat to maybe eventually have them muted?

21. Scrolling through the open tile set using the mouse wheel is incredibly slow. (one unit should equal to a row of cards)

22. Would be nice if online matches that cannot be joined would due to restrictions be marked or could be filtered. Also a filter to only show your steam friends. (And why do filters also have buy buttons if I already own everything?)

23. It should be immediately visible if your last meeple left is actually just an abbot.

24. Map cannot be moved while tiles are being placed by your opponent (probably while tiles are being placed in general).

25. Oppenent's time ticks down only about every 5 seconds in multiplayer (fluctuates on occasion)

26. Score screen occasionally disappears without pressing a button (I had just noticed you can scroll the scoreboard horizontally when the scoreboard disappeared) - Edit: happens every time now. Edit: The game allows me to look at the scoreboard again.

27. glow from previously placed tile overdraws meeple placement for next tile

28. No anti-aliasing even in highest quality (best visible in slow-moving meeple field coverage)

29. Achievements are repeatedly getting unlocked

30. Why do the shields flying above city tiles cast no shadow?

31. During scoring, the last placed tiles should no longer be highlighted.

32. If chat becomes long enough to scroll, scrolling is tediously slow - if you submit a message, it doesn't jump to the bottom of the messages either.

33. You have the facilities to do smooth translation of the map, yet zoom works in fixed, coarse steps?

And more from day #2:

34. Sometimes the scoreboard immediately closes when displayed and kicks you to the main menu. Just let the people look at it as long as they want and close it at their own time. The interface is also so oversized that you have to scroll the scoreboard sideways on a FullHD resolution? (Which I only found out because I was wondering what that little bubble at the bottom of it was)

35. Markers for unavailability of matching tiles seems arbitrary; sometimes it shows, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it shows when you have a matching tile in hand?!? That last one might be to signify that it's the last tile? If so, the unpredictability of the other two makes this non-obvious.

36. The warning message popping up when leaving an ongoing game should state that you can rejoin it at a later point (and maybe mention whether the timer will keep ticking while both parties are out). This message caused confusion with everyone I played with so far and usually nobody dares to confirm.

37. Why would you leave the timer running when both people exit the game?

[ switched to the 1.5.2 beta branch in hope of improvements ]

38. Launcher cannot remember last configured resolution and keeps suggesting FullHD on a QHD monitor no matter how often I set it.

39. What on earth does that quickplay button do that's always greyed out?

40. Can you maybe decide on one dialog style and stick with it? Some have an x to close in the top right, others have just a button at the bottom, the "buy other games" screen looks like it's just copy&pasted in from a totally different game. Some modal dialogs can be closed by clicking on the darkened area, others cannot.

41. FYI, the link on your page requesting beta feedback is also broken - Error code: 2F176/1

[ switched to the 1.5.1 branch since nobody appears to use the beta ]

42. When you place a tile it centers and zooms in on it even if you have nothing to place. When you move to where your abbot is placed to withdraw it, after the click, it jumps back to your last placed tile, then scrolls over to the aboot and THEN withdraws it - this makes no sense.

43. Upon switching scenes all buttons are initially drawn as enabled and are only disabled afterwards.

44. Higher resolutions than 1920x1080 appear to be rendered only in FullHD and then upscaled causing suprisingly unusually severe jagged edges on QHD/UHD screens.

[Mazrael]

Single player doesn't need an Asmodee account.. Signed up for the Abbot and did the avatar on their site, by using the site we (if inclined) can play against people on mobile/tablets..
In the real game you don't pick up your tile until the previous player ends their turn..
skipping imposible placements speeds up the game

[Mazrael]

Playing online against people you know online is okay, but it's nothing compared to being at the same table.
The Asmodee account is free, gets you the abbott, and since the achievements aren't reflected on Steam, it doesn't matter so much if the site connectivity is pulled later.
Could agree there about the timer, if we set a fixed time, then we would allow the current player to place their tile before counting the scores or that the game ends when we've all had equal number of turns - Have over 200 tiles, so a game with 6/7 of us can take a while..

[Rhythim]

Just bought Carcassonne and started playing and, whilst I'm enjoying the game overall, a few of these issues really stand out for me so far:

10. It looks as if full-length animations are actually counted towards your turn time in online games.
Yes this places you at a distinct disadvantage if you are playing someone who has the animations turned off - especially in a short duration game.

21. Scrolling through the open tile set using the mouse wheel is incredibly slow (one unit should equal to a row of cards).
Yes one row per scroll wheel unit would make more sense.

22. Would be nice if online matches that cannot be joined would due to restrictions be marked or could be filtered.
Yes why even show those games if I can't join them?

23. It should be immediately visible if your last meeple left is actually just an abbot.
Yes why not show the abbot as a separate icon?

29. Achievements are repeatedly getting unlocked.
Yes it's nice to get achievements, but not the same ones every game!


And a couple more annoying issues taken from someone's review of the game:

Either disable the admin message every time an online game is started, or at least don't set the chat notification flag (every time you have to click into the chat screen, otherwise you never know if there is a new message or just the original admin message).

Don't display the config settings every time the game is started - or at least have a checkbox not to show this any more.


The release date of the game isn't that long ago, so I'd hope that the developers are still putting out fixes for these kinds of issues...

[Heikai]

Originally posted by Ginkgobitter:

29. Achievements are repeatedly getting unlocked

Oh my god this is so annoying!!!

[Mazrael]

The achievement thing doesn't (or wasn't) happen(ing) with just Dragon & Princess, although the AI should have a timer, as when it gets a DatP tile it can take 2 minutes to place it, (seen it take 8 minutes!), for what should be no more than 30 secs..
AI still needs to feel less bias (seems it'll share pts with AI, but needs to deny the player, so usually play 1v1 to stop that)

[JackSlater]

Changed my rating because of things mentioned but also because this stupid notification bug won't go away.

[Oleander Hume]

Wow i found a game i wont buy anytime soon !

[GCandy77]

FIX THE GAME ASMODEE FFS ITS NOT LIKE WERE ASKING A LOT, YOUVE SOLD US A BROKEN GAME WITH REALLY REALLY REALLLY BAD UI OPTIONS TOO - ITS 2019 FOR CHRIST SAKE NOT 1999

[Krandi]

Dass die selben Achievements bei jedem Spiel wieder kommen, ist tatsächlich ziemlich nervig. Normalerweise kommt 1 Achievement nur 1 x im Spiel vor. Dann hat man es und es kommt nicht wieder.

Es gibt doch irgendwo einen Button, mit dem man zu allen eigenen Achievements kommt. Es reicht doch, wenn jedes Achievement nur einmal errungen wird. Dann müsste es als 'Erreicht' dort angezeigt werden.

[kaibarnard]

If the AI didn't take 5 minutes + to place a tile, that's be nice. Clearly the princess and the dragon was too much for it's tiny mind

[Smith]

Originally posted by Ginkgobitter:

So, I noticed Asmodee has started reading the reviews - who knows, maybe they will actually start fixing things.

I'm not too hopeful there.
I've only played a couple of games but I must sadly agree with most things you've written here. The interface is terrible. Not much UX to be found. I suppose it's because this game can be played on cellphones too? Would explain why everything is so terribly big.
Some additional thoughts:

1) You can't really zoom out and see the entire game once it has reached a certain size.

2) The ♥♥♥♥♥♥ external account is really annoying. CATAN doesn't use it, so why do we need it here? And once you've reluctantly registered, you can choose between like 10 generic avatars or something. Upload of individual pictures is disabled. WTF. We have a Steam account already. With a picture. Should be enough.

3) I don't know why we even need a timer. And if it's supposed to speed up the game, then why is the minimum 15 minutes? Would be way more fun to play a basic game with 7 minutes each, or maybe even less.

4) It's super annoying that you have to try and join a game before you're informed that you don't meet the criteria.

5) I also don't get why I seem to earn the same achievements each time I play (once surely is enough) and still they don't show up on Steam.

6) However, the most annoying thing for me is that you don't see your next tile until it's your turn again. Why? When I play with real people on a table, I draw my next tile immediately after my turn is over. That way I have some time to ponder my options. I pusually don't care what tiles other people are drawing.

This whole thing is a hot mess, but at least it seems to run more stable than CATAN does.

[GCandy77]

Any dev want some easy money ... REMAKE THIS GAME AND JUST CALL IT " CASTLE " TO GET AROUND THE COPYRIGHT STUFF - PUT A POST IN HERE TO SAY ITS RELEASED SO WE CAN ALL BUY IT N THEN DOWN RATE THIS POS .... THESE DEVS JUST WANT URE MONEY N RUN .....I WILL NEVER TRUST ASMODEE AGAIN

[Smith]

I prefer playing these type of games on Board Game Arena now.