RSIcling

shteev

[with thanks to astralzero, who came up with the name ]

I'm taking a break from playing MTGPQ at the moment, for various reasons... one of them is that I think that Cycling is horribly overpowered to the point of being broken, which is a topic for another thread.

Another big one, tho, is that my RSI started going crazy recently, and it's mostly Cycling that's to blame. I know several members in my own coalition who've voiced similar problems, and others who try and play without Cycling to avoid the same problem, or just to avoid the amount of busywork involved in playing with it.

So I thought I'd start a thread where we could discuss changes to the UI which would alleviate RSI/busywork problems. Ideally, I'd like to keep these... er.... ideas as simple as possible so that they have some chance of being implemented. I'd love voice recognition in the game as much as the next man but let's be realistic here! TBH, even changing the UI so that all 6 cards in your hand can be seen onscreen at the same time seems much too big a change to ask for.

I know that m'colleague @majincob has had some thoughts on this subject too, so I hope he can join us in this thread and expound on them a bit, but here's what I came up with initially:

1) Deduct cycling mana cost from the card being cycled first

This one's pretty obvious; you're losing mana in the card anyway, so why prioritize mana from the first card in your hand? Cycling costs are very low, but often you want to cycle multiple cards in a turn, and those costs add up. Playing optimally always involves dragging the card you want to cycle to the top of your hand first, which is RSI inducing busywork.

2) Reopen your hand after cycling a card

When I cycle a card away, I've just draw something new, and my two most likely courses of action would be to rearrange the cards in my hand, or cycle the new cycling card that I've just drawn. In either case, I want my hand to be open, whereas currently it closes. That makes sense, since board actions might occur that I want to see (Triggering Draken Haven, or matching gems thanks to Shefet Monitor). However, the swipe that I must perform to reopen my hand after every single instance of cycling is, again, RSI inducing busywork.

wereotter

Very much yes on the cycling cost being calculated first from the card being cycled. I agree that it's incredibly obnoxious to have to rearrange your hand if you want to cycle cards multiple times, or cycle the card you just drew, so that the card you want to cast can keep its mana.

babar3355

Amen to this post Shteev. 

I refuse to play RIS-cling decks. Once you get your pieces on the board it is auto-win.  But its not actually auto... its 30 minutes of mindlessly dragging cards around.

Corn_Noodles

I think #1 would be enough to take a significant chunk out of the tediousness and shouldn't be too difficult to implement.

madwren

#1 would be a godsend.

#2 has the potential to be buggy. I've had some freezes where it gets confused between processing drakes and re-opening the card tray. If they could manage it, then sure. =p

Irgy

I'm surprised people think #1 even helps. I rarely cycle a card with mana on it anyway, it's a waste (unless it's just 1 of course but that's not a common case). I feel like one of us must be doing it wrong (and you can guess who I think it is).

khurram

Irgy said:

I'm surprised people think #1 even helps. I rarely cycle a card with mana on it anyway, it's a waste (unless it's just 1 of course but that's not a common case). I feel like one of us must be doing it wrong (and you can guess who I think it is).

I take it that you don't have 'New Perspectives'.

Sirchombli

I feel like it would be nice if you could click on a cycling card and get a cycle prompt. I think that the hand closes because of things like Drake haven, but it is really unnecessary. I, too have stopped most cycling shenanigans. It makes a 4 turn game last forever. It feels like cheating, too. You just draw a million cards. They kill your Drake, do it again next turn. Kill your support? It's cool, I got 3 more right here. You have to actively try to lose. I like cards and ribbons and all, but it feels like gold fishing  

Irgy

khurram said:

Irgy said:

I'm surprised people think #1 even helps. I rarely cycle a card with mana on it anyway, it's a waste (unless it's just 1 of course but that's not a common case). I feel like one of us must be doing it wrong (and you can guess who I think it is).

I take it that you don't have 'New Perspectives'.

I do not, and I don't tend to look at new cards since I'm so unlikely to get them. I now understand the people who #1 will help.

Also... what a stupid card. I already thought cycling was busted, the only thing holding it back (I thought) was needing to get mana to fuel it.

Furks

Shefet monitor is a card you DEFINITELY want to drag to the first position since it cycles for 8 (even though the text says it's 6)

shteev

madwren said:

#2 has the potential to be buggy. I've had some freezes where it gets confused between processing drakes and re-opening the card tray. If they could manage it, then sure. =p

You could be right there. Currently cycling each card takes 3 swiping actions, tho, and swiping is much more of an aggravator to RSI than tapping.

majincob

I've started attempting to play left-handed, but I keep forgetting. A big problem I have is that the pain from my budding RSI affects other common things I have to do all day such as typing and driving. Even QB wasn't this bad when I played it 10-12 hours straight. It's definitely the frequent swiping. I'd tap the garbage can on the card except people say that they've gotten freezes from that.

shteev

@majincob I was expecting you to advance the idea of tapping rather than swiping to open your hand. I liked that suggestion. The less swiping the better. Admittedly the swiping is worse when you have to actually pick up an object and move it somewhere, but I still think this is a worthwhile change to make.