Game Log/History

[stinky472]

One thing I would like to request above all things personally would be a log of the game history. The log should record all the actions a player performed at the very least and preferably also include some notes about the result:

Example:
Level 5 uses blessing on golden dragon.
Golden dragon is now 13/13.
Stinky472 uses firebolt on golden dragon for 30 damage.
Golden dragon dies.

There are many benefits that the log could provide:

• Better feedback on what happened during the last turn: by having a log, players can see exactly what cards were played and what abilities were used in the last turn in case they missed it, which can be very easy to do when the opponent performs many things in a single turn.
• More accurate bug reports: having a log of the things that occurred in a game would be far more accurate and concise than relying on word of mouth.
• Potential development aid: being a professional software engineer myself, having a log can serve as a useful aid in debugging the application if there isn't a log already. I haven't used flash very much, but actionscript doesn't seem to come with much of a debugger if any at all so logging an output of things occurring in the client is probably one of the primary ways to debug the application.
• Players engaged in pvp can quickly spot desync issues: when the two players have logs that don't match or if the player's screenshot doesn't match the log (depending on how the log works and whether it's stored on the server or the client), they can easily verify that a desync did indeed occur and agree on a rematch. With tournaments taking place now combined with the numerous pvp desyncs that occur, at least a fair rematch could be given when desyncs do occur. Ultimately I'd like to see pvp desync glitches fixed, but I don't see that as a practical short-term solution as much as having a game log, so I think a log would be a great step prior to that happening and it might serve as fuel and an aid for getting pvp issues fixed.
• Community fun: this is a game with a very strong following which is obvious when looking through these forums. Being able to show histories of games to other players would make for very good discussions and would be very useful for beginners requesting advice on what to do in a particular situation or how to improve their deck.

[Waerloga]

I second this!

[stinky472]

My main thinking is that the game is wonderful as it is and has drawn so many fans. I never really got into fantasy card games much but this one really got me hooked. Still, the glitches are the main barrier to enjoying the game to the fullest extent for me, especially since I like pvp the most (I farm fgs just to build better decks for pvp mainly, but I prefer to put my deck against another human rather than a computer) and I live in Japan and probably don't have ideal connections to other players and hence suffer glitches in at least half the games I play.

I see the log as being a potential way to get a more stable, robust client. If we can see everything that it's doing, then we can better spot where things go wrong. Even if the zanzarino has detailed debugging logs for everything, it would at least help us report bugs. Of course the other benefits are appealing as well (ex: sharing logs and showing other players the things that happen in our games), but this is the main benefit for me.

[YoYoBro]

Your idea is just great. I hope zan sees this, it would really contribute bettering the game.

[Lucifear]

Game logs should almost be standard, if for debugging purposes alone...
Level 3 plays Golden Dragon.....Level 3 uses Blessing on Golden Dragon........      Golden Dragon is now 1/1
Things would just catch your eye. Then there's also the ability to study strategies, see what players did wrong, and what they're doing right. I haven't done much studying with AI, but something tells me that logs like this would help a lot out with figuring how to tell the AI what to do.

The only problem is, what do we keep, where, and in what form? Sure an exact play-by-play log of every match would be nice, but then we end up with about 20billion matches against Ai3 that are perfectly useless! Maybe the option to save a log? Like if a match starts going wrong, or when people want a log, it can be saved (somewhere else, or even personal logs?) I'm not sure.

But in some form or another, I would like to see this

[teffy]

You could put that as an option in the settings menu, for PvP, Duel and spectator mode only

[Pilchard123]

I first this, as stinky will, I'm sure tell you that I kinda started this whole thing (spectator mode thread). 

Whatever. If it gets added, I don't care who gets the credit.

As for how to store it, it stores if for that game only. At the end of that game, there is an option to show the game log, which is an alphanumerical string. Incomprehensible to humans, yes, but there would be a Code -> English translator, so it can be read. The string could then be also used in a "Spectator Mode" type thing, which take the code, and plays the game back. The game could be stepped through card by card, turn by turn, player by player, or whatever.


EDIT: Oh yeah. Storage.

The string can be saved as text, in a Notepad file, for example.

[YoYoBro]

Really interesting. And maybe one could download the most recent games and save them on his PC.

[Hells Devine]

This is a good idea, but i don't like the idea of having to save the log on ones comp. It might get annoying. And the log shouldn't be only for when people fight other people, since i use mostly AI as enemies the log would be unavailable to me, and i test my decks on AI to better them, and a log there would really help, especially against false gods since every false god i fought played a bunch of cards at once, too fast for me to catch