#Clarify race mode generate button

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

frigid scaffold
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Right now, we sometimes get new users generating race seeds and not realizing that there won't be a spoiler. This can then lead to unfortunate situations where people want spoilers but they aren't available. There's a tooltip on the button that explains this, but if you're not looking for it, you can easily miss it and just click the button. It would be more user friendly to make sure people want to generate a race seed and know they won't get a spoiler before they do so. A couple possible ideas for how to do this:

  1. When clicking the generate race seed button, open a pop up message confirming that they want to generate a race seed and telling them there won't be a spoiler. Could also add a checkbox to set a cookie to not show the pop up again.
  2. Replace the two generate buttons with one, and add a checkbox to generate as a race seed, with text on the page that explains that there won't be a spoiler. The checkbox would default to unchecked.
ivory root
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People will still check the box then wonder why they don't have a spoiler log.

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Putting up an confirmation window for something that isn't that damaging is fairly obnoxious to use.

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Even if you store a variable to remember the choice, someone will click it once without reading and then we're back into this same spot.

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Ever since we named the buttons "Generate Race ROM" and "Generate Normal ROM" we don't get that many mixups. I'm not against the suggestion, but if we're going to make a big change to the UI like that I want it to be for a really good reason.

frigid scaffold
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Right now it's easy to get no information at all. We just had a report of that happening in #randomizer. Of course we can't prevent it totally, but a new user wouldn't even know what "Race ROM" means.

visual tiger
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Okay sure we had a report

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but what about how we constantly don't have reports

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we don't want kneejerk fixes every time someone has a problem

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unless the issue is persistent and pervasive, it's not really an issue

glad shell
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If this will be considered later, IMO you could either:

a. Put the text about spoilers/no spoilers on the body of the webpage right above or below the two button choices. Right now, it only appears when you place your cursor over "Generate Race ROM."

b. Also have text about the spoilers appear over "Generate Normal ROM" for consistency.

Either of these would make the information harder to miss.

feral skiff
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Seems fine if someone accidentally generates a race rom now and then and can't get the log. Maybe they decide they don't want to generate another or they feel they never want to play randomizer again because of it. That's alright

frigid scaffold
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That's... alright?

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OK what about just changing the "Generate Race ROM" button to a "Generate Race ROM (no spoiler)" button. No changes in functionality, just a clarification on the button itself.

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Or putting the tooltip text below the button instead of it being a tooltip. There's plenty of room on the page.

feral skiff
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Seems like a solution in search of problem

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Doesn't come up that much where someone can't talk them through it or the tracker doesn't help them out etc. So just tell em you gotta hit the other button and pretty much every time they're like ah alright I'll remember that for next time

frigid scaffold
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I mean clearly it's an issue that people run into. It's a very simple fix. But OK.

feral skiff
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For reference this is what the UI looked like 3 years ago and we got a lot more complaints back then

oldui.png
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Of course maybe less people are playing or just talking in the server, but no matter what you put you're still gonna get someone saying they didn't know

frigid scaffold
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I guess that's basically equivalent, but I can see how some people might be confused that the button on the left could never get a spoiler. I think it would be better to explicitly call out the lack of a spoiler.

visual tiger
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People will always have issues, and it's going to seem like a lot when we have literally 10 million people playing randomizer every day and the small percentage of them that get confused pop in every now and then

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but that's forgetting that everyone else is having 0 issues

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it is not practical to address every problem all the time

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we also occasionally have people ask why they have to do escape, and someone explains that they selected standard mode instead of open mode

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do we need a pop up warning for that too?

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NOTICE
You have selected "Standard" world state, which starts out in Link's house and requires completing the escape sequence before the rest of the game is opened.

frigid scaffold
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I think that's a bit of a straw man and defeatist argument. Of course lots of people understand what race mode means and have no issues, but I'm thinking of the new user experience for people who don't. And of course we can't explain every setting on the main settings page, but whether or not you're generating a race seed is kind of on top of everything else. It looks like we used to have something similar, but it was less than optimal. I think there is room for improvement.

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Also at this point I'm not suggesting a pop up anymore, just some different explanatory text on the page.

visual tiger
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We've had reports for something that a new user wouldn't even understand.

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It's also not "defeatist" to be content with the current state of affairs, especially when we know they're working pretty well for 99.9% of users.

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I think the biggest complaint to have about race ROMs is that there's no explanation of them on the settings page

visual tiger
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Just, in general, don't think we need to scramble for fixes every time one person has some small issue.

red panther
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Also it's not a solution in search of a problem, this problem still comes up all the time

feral skiff
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People will still mistakenly click it even if it says that. But it's pretty rare at least in here. Don't think there's no way to reduce the number. I'd flatly disagree that it happens all the time

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Maybe if the spoiler generation button was on the left and race rom generation on the right but even then. But overall the odd case where someone generates with no spoiler and gets completely stuck isn't that bad. Unfortunate but most of the time I figure they ask and someone tells them or they figure it out on their own and it's all good in the end

ivory root
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Okay, so this is I think the 3rd or 4th time this has come up during the lifespan of the randomizer?

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We can adjust the wording on the buttons again, but you're not going to fully eliminate the issue short of removing the ability to generate race roms, which isn't going to happen.

ivory root
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I wouldn't, by any stretch, say that's all the time

ivory root
ivory root
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With it saying “Generate Race ROM” the user is more likely to say “oh I’m not racing”

red panther
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No-one is claiming it is going to fully eliminate the issue, people will always make mistakes
your search for race rom suggests that the issue crops up pretty regularly imo
adding something like "(no spoiler log will be available)" and/or Ezzelin's suggestion of putting the tooltip below the button will not help everyone, but it will help a subset of people to make the right choice
It will certainly not make it harder for them to make the right choice
Therefore, there is no downside

ivory root
visual tiger
visual tiger
visual tiger
visual tiger
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sorry but you can't respond to something without a message, and just pointing up would seem rude

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the debate isn't whether or not there's a problem, it's whether or not that problem needs to be addressed

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and given how smoothly 99.99% of generations go, it doesn't

ivory root
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I searched for "race rom" and found all of the instances in 2022 where someone generated a game as a race rom accidently, and then asked for help on this server:

12/22/2022
11/03/2022
9/05/2022
5/23/2022

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Only 4 instances this year (2022)

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it was talked about more than that, obviously

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there was a conversation about fanfare track length

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this conversation

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a conversation about vanilla preset speedrunning, due to the fanfare track length

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some people asking how to pull spoilers from a non-race rom if they no longer have the permalink

red panther
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to be fair I did assume you had factored this stuff into your original race rom post, so thanks for clarifying

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Also appreciate the acknowledgement that some people are still having issues, whether you think it's worth the time to change the site is up to you of course

ivory root
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Fair. My point really is no matter how much text or how ugly we make the button, people will still make the wrong choice.

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I still think "Generate Race ROM" is still the best text

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it clearly indicates the purpose of the button

visual tiger
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we will try to fix the fact that there's no explanation to be found of race roms on the settings documentation

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by which i mean i asked synack and he said "yeah"

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it's pretty easy for developers to take that sort of knowledge for granted

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so if there's something that isn't explained on that page, we wouldn't have any argument against adding it

red panther
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that's cool, cheers