The new tables?
BADA BING BADA BANG…
They certainly make me laugh…
Dear Replay,
The new table design is atrocious, full stop. Yeah yeah, there are a couple of improvements over the old design, but the issues with the new tables outweigh those improvements by miles.
I’ve submitted a ton of feedback since the new tables were introduced, but it seems that the developer is ignoring this feedback completely. (Does anyone else feel this way?) Of course I’m not expecting the devs to agree with everything I’ve commented on. But not even one thing? Not even one of the really serious issues, or not to correct a tiny bit of incorrectly-phrased wording?
Response to my feedback has come mainly from Sarah in customer support, but after have a few back-and-forths with her via email she steered me to use the feedback button to submit commentary. That’s a horrible little bit of business in and of itself, but that’s the least of the problems.
I don’t know who’s developing the new tables for you, but it has all the look and feel of “my first poker app”.
• The overall aesthetic of the card design is 3rd rate, at best.
• Spades and clubs are hard to distinguish (an issue when playing Omaha).
• With 4-color deck enabled, the blue of diamonds is hard to distinguish from black if the screen brightness is reduced. It should be lighter, more of a cyan.
• Every goddam thing is animated! This is not only highly distracting but in most cases completely unnecessary. This is one of the most amateurish aspects of the design, where bells-and-whistles movement is added to the most mundane things such as checkboxes. Checkboxes!
• The borders of the checkboxes and the checkmarks themselves are animated, taking sometimes as long as .5 to 1 seconds or more to render (either on or off) especially, but not exclusively, if two tables are open. Here’s a typical pre-flop situation… Let’s say I’m in the BB and I tick Check/Fold. Sometimes the lag is so great that the flop gets dealt before the checkmark ever appears!
• The value (quantity) of chips entered into the pot increments (counts up) on-the-fly. It is particularly noticeable when two or more tables are open (more on this below). But even when there isn’t a significant lag and the chip count appears more or less instantly, it begs the question of why that animation is needed at all. All that’s doing is needlessly wasting CPU cycles. And when, in any real poker game, are chips entered incrementally into a pot unless it’s a string bet? It’s a useless, CPU-consuming waste.
• Sometimes the red Check/Fold/Raise buttons appear before the 4th hole card is dealt (Omaha, obviously). That points to an order of operations issue.
• On two occasions I’ve gotten a “Please wait your turn” message appear in the chat. How can that possibly happen in an online game? That also points to an order of operations problem.
• After clicking the Sit Out button, the alerts/messages that appear in the in-table alerts and the chat window contradict one another.
• The speed & responsiveness of the tables slows to a crawl if two tables are open. Forget about having 3 tables open! This is a regression from the previous table design.
• The “check” and “showdown” sounds need to be EQ’d to reduce the unbelievably loud low end thud.
• Having a beep notification after every chat message is highly, highly annoying. OMG… On a chatty table? BeepBeepBeepBeepBeepBeep. What’s the point? Puh-lease, offer an option to mute that sound.
I could go on but I’ll stop there. Of course I understand that Replay is moving away from Flash. But the new table design is hardly an acceptable alternative.
=Uncle Frank=
5 Likes
I kindof wish that Replay had done a straight port of the original table design to HTML5, changing nothing about the look and feel, but then once migrated to HTML5, gradually introduce improvements to features rather than a wholesale renovation. Making a lot of changes all at once is never popular with users, who are comfortable with the old, warts and all. And any new issues only stick out like a sore thumb. This post is a prime example of that.
It’s a much better approach to take small incremental steps, test them rigorously, but roll them out quickly, to show responsiveness and agility in responding to user feedback. In general change should be done gradually enough that over time people may notice a small thing here or there isn’t the way it used to be, but at no point does anyone ever feel like usability suffers because they need to re-learn a new way to do something they’ve always done.
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Great idea. Wonder if RP thought of this. On a technical level maybe it wasnt possible to do this per say but they should have tried to replicate the old tables generally speaking. The old tables worked well. Sure the old tables could have been tweaked & had small improvements made as you mention but why fix what isnt broken?
To use an analogy its like we are all being forced to buy brand new cars using the technology of the 70s. Yes they are brand new but vastly inferior to the modern motor car in every way like fuel economy, reliability, safety, comfort & performance.
I’ll read OPs post consider addding/supporting some specific points.
Dogs
@UncleFrank Thanks for you post.
I agree with a lot of what you say. I wonder how many other players do. I really wish RP forums had a poll option to see what players wanted. Unfortunately if not enough players complain or voice their opinion about an issue/problem RP doesnt really know or care to do something about it. Honestly think a poll would be a great way to get better feedback from players like deciding on whether or not to address this problem:
I dont play omaha so no comment. Im happy enough with the 4-CD.
Agree. A good compromise would be to have the option to turn off animation, especially if this improves speed, performence & reduced lag. Agree about reducing focus on bells-and-whistles & drastically focus on performance & reliability.
You made reference to order of operation. I have had the flop dealt with only the first 2 cards visible & the 3rd not there a few times sometimes being displayed after waiting or the turn is dealt. I would guess this is part of the order of operations or maybe an animation error/problem & lag etc.
Lag and playability is a major issue from my experience. I wonder how much lag is a result of: “order of operations issue” & unnecessary bells-and-whistles & animation.
Yeah this can be irritating but also useful. It even Beeps when replaying hands in browser which is ridiculous IMO. Much more options, setting and toggles for stuff players need/want or dislike should be available.
Summary:
I think options for polls to vote on important issues, especially to improve the new tables and a priority system for issues/problems would be useful IMO.
I have a lot of suggestions for the new tables but at the end of the day I want & think the most important issues/problems should be fixed addressed first. A lot of the new tables inadequacies ill happily put up with for a while.
Dogs
Hmmm… Looks as though the moderators have merged my newly-started post from today into this older thread. Not sure that’s the best approach. But I’ll gloss over that.
Thanks for your replies Dogs and Puggy. At the end of the day I’d just like to see the tables operate efficiently so that game play is smooth. And the new table design is the furthest thing from. Usually I play on my laptop (2 core MacBookPro) but today as a test I tried running 2 tables on my work computer (8 core Mac tower). After the games got underway, both windows displayed an alert at the top saying something to the effect of “the content of this browser window is consuming a significant amount of computing power”, all while the graphics faltered.
=UncFrank=
1 Like
PuggyWug,
Having a coding background, I can tell you that … after 5-10 years of code being tweaked, it becomes whats call’d “spagetti code”. You can’t find something to save your life. I agree 100% Replay’s decision to write the table coding from scratch. As you said, they could’ve made everything look exactly the same, but with fresh code. Now, its more cost effective to add in some improvements now rather than later, but then that also applies to mobile. Also Puggy, they have said on many things, just wait that will be in the H5 update… so I can see why they are trying to honor that…
What most ppl don’t get is… Adobe Flash was specifically for graphics, and efficiency. If this is in Java… Java wasn’t written just for graphics. It was up to HTML5 itself ( the ppl that created the standards/environment ) to have in place ways to accomplish what flash does, and do it efficiently… so that Flash could be replaced.
I wish noone had ever posted that global poker hand… I didn’t need a D/L, nor did I see any warning for need’n flash… so is that just in HTML5 ?? cause I got to see the replay, and was allowed to mess with the buttons… It also worked just fine on my tablet.
On the Beta Tables, I’m not sure why purely asthetic items can’t be chg’d almost instatly. I also have no clue why all the options/buttons we have now, weren’t the starting point. From there a few things we’ve always wanted, couldn’t have been add’d later on as the testing ensued.
What more concerns me is how many ppl that could play on the Flash tables, can’t seem to, for various reasons, play the Beta tables. I also thought this was the way to add support for mobile, yet quite the contrary is occurring.
I must agree with alot of what @UncleFrank said, altho i have been spared any beep when someone chats… I have had a couple suggestions get thru, tho 1 was poorly implemented… My best suggestion, i think, is being overlooked…
I think the timing was bad, during this Global Pandemic, to displace so many players by a full Ring rollout of these tables. Sprinkle Beta tables in all stakes levels, even into some tournies… but leave most flash available. Obviously there are still many concerns to very many players, that need to be Fix’d before any full rollout.
From what I can tell, the background is 1 pic… all the green, and the table border. If thats really the case, and everything is placed “on top” of that pic, then making that alone look better should take 1 day max, then upload the new pic. Many poker sites allow players to chg backgrounds. It also allows Replay to offer a “final table” easily.
Take PLO (pot limit omaha)… at a certain point, I was not given the option as a button, to go all in… yet it wouldn’t let me “pot it” because I didnt have enuff. My only option was to use slider to go all in… Thats a functionality issue and it might take a few days to solve that one.
Wow, UncleFrank… an 8core Mac Tower had problems… stunning…
Add my name to list… give us what we got now in buttons, actions, functionality, reliability… and I’ll wait for all the stuff ppl have ask’d for for last 4-5 years. Please also don’t throw away all the mobile users currently who have found a way to play, especially those users almost lost when Chrome no longer did flash.
I applaude 
Replay, for allowing a robust conversation on this topic.
Sassy
3 Likes
Hey Sassy & Everyone,
@Sassy, I’m happy for you that you’ve been spared the chat beep! But as Dogs said, it even happens when replaying a hand, which is really kind of silly, innit? There’s the Quiet Mode option for chat, but it just blocks all chat messages. Not sure how useful that is (to quote Sassy, “poorly imagined”) though here, YMMV.
Regarding the lack of all-in button under the conditions you stated, yes, a glaring oversight. On the flip side is the Call(0) checkbox that appears after calling a bet. It’s both non-functional as a checkbox and entirely meaningless. And in the meantime, the Call Any Bet button has been deprecated.
Regards to All,
UncleFrank
(with warm regards from AuntieFrank)
Sent a couple feedbacks about this - thought I would check to see if anyone else is seeing this. On the SNG tables, I can no longer see the chatbox. It seems collapsed into the tab headers on the lower left. I checked the ring tables and there, I can see the chatbox just fine. So perhaps it has something to do with the new tourney info placement, which I like much better than the info tab, thanks. But now I can’t see chat. Screenshot below.
Uncle?
This really made me LMAO. its really sad that a very basic game with very basic graphics would cause this problem.
1 Like
Hey Dogs
In response to another thread, which you posted in another place, the opposite is true for me. The straw landed, the camel’s back cracked, and i went from almost exclusively tournaments, to just rings.
Well, not quite. I had three 7.5 tickets i had forgotten about. I’ve turned one of them into 18K, or so, so far.
Couldn’t sleep, so hopped on a 25/50 table, which is where my BRM lands me. Didn’t need to sleep. The nightmare came anyway. I can’t begin to list the hands that were instafolded, or i just got sat out of. There were just too many.
There was the hand where I’ve got the nut for the A high straight (no suited or paired board) , and 2 seats to my right, (whom i’d had in my sights for a while), is betting into me. I’m loading up my river bet when i’m sat out and insta folded. This represented a 4K swing in my stack. Was probably a push, but still… This was followed by pocket 9s, which were insta folded, and flopped the set.
My rings goal is 300% of my buy-in (6.5K). Not that tough. I’ve hit it every time i’ve played, since the switch (even with horror stories each time ). After 2 hours, I finally climbed back to about a 50% increase, and stood up in disgust.
Still awake, so i spent a ticket on an SnG. It was like night and day. Suddenly, I could think about my game instead wondering if every bet I make, is gonna make it through or not. Will spamming the fold button fold me this time, or sit me out for 2 or 3 hands again?
I’m not sure what to say any more. I’m tired of bitchin, and most probs are ones others are well aware of.
It seems to me that it’s come to the point where Replay does something to make the front end usable, or face the loss of many of it’s member base.
That would be a shame.
Consecutive error messages Unknown: intent call that appeared when changing my action from fold to call just before it was my turn to act (i.e., a last second decision). As shown, my hand was folded. As I see it, the code was able to recognize my action (hence the error messages in response) but didn’t act on my selection.
This is not the first time I’ve seen this happen, and it was never a problem with the old table design.
Error message Please wait your turn appeared after I won the pot. During the time a pot is awarded there is obviously no option to act, so it’s quite a mystery as to what this message refers to.
As with the error shown in my previous post, this was not a one-off occurrence.
Joined a table listed in the lobby as having 2 open seats, but when the window opened the table was full, with one person already on the waiting list. Notice that I had not yet clicked the Join Waiting List button, and note the error message.
I’m having a hard time cope’n with Covid-19, whether its food or just ciggerettes, everything is a hastle. I spend many hours by myself as I live alone. Now its 24/7…
Whether its sewing masks for hospital staff, delivering groceries to shut-ins, or free concerts online… Everyone is trying to pitch in. I’m doing the same just for replay. Donating what talent I might have, and having something to work on and get my mind off things…
My 1st post, didn’t display table, so I deleted it and reposted this.
Sure this couldda been in " I made this " or " Comments from testers on tables "
This is 100% to scale, and it was created in Paint (.bmp)…
I don’t know about you but knowing when next break is ( so I can Pee ), is important as is all the current 9 lines of status… Even T-Leader is important, and everyone wants thier 2 minutes of fame… To this end I found space up top to put 2 boxes with room for 5 lines. Having them back up top also helps for periferal vision, as bottom right corner forces most ppl to turn thier head rather than scanning up top. It also helps to brighten screen, cutting down on eyestrain.
The Table border is exact size, yet bottom seem’d lopsided visully so I cut a little off the felt so I could expand up the whole bottom section, thus adding 1 line of chat. ( to 6 lines )
I spent 3 hrs on different backgrounds, but in the end I went with off white-peach… having the background lighter, even working on it, cut down alot on my eyestrain… Prolly why noone likes the “sea of green/blue/purple”… it just makes things so dark…
Paint didn’t allow me to transfer logo or players over easily and look right, so I just stuck with what I got. Because the table is exact size, where the players go is where they are now. Players plaque, pot are overlayed… and table logo can be add’d easily .
This is how I’m cope’n , and yea… I made this…lolol… hope ya’ll like it. ( just suggestion )
Sassy
8 Likes
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, @UncleFrank, and all of you who replied since. All our player feedback is read, but I’m going to highlight these comments (and particularly helpful screenshots) in particular to our leadership team. I appreciate all of you taking the time to let us know the specific issues you’ve been having.
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While using Chrome 78, Table opened full screen only ( not size’ble ), instead of Flash tables @ about 70% of window… Also everytime I try to type a line of chat I have to click into the text box, plus clicking into bet amt box doesn’t still blank it out so betting errors occur all the time with add’d digits… Still cards flash on screen too.
I still don’t get why if the forum says Im using Chrome, why don’t tables work right ??
Hi fizzymint,
Thanks for letting us know that all feedback is read. I don’t mean to come across as cynical, but it’s one thing to read it, it’s another thing to act upon it. I have a very long history of working with software engineers and doing beta testing on major software titles and products that hundreds of thousands of people use. So when I use a beta and submit feedback and see nothing but regression for several weeks, it makes me wonder why I’m wasting my time. It makes the feedback process feel like nothing but lip service to the players, and that ultimately the devs are going to do what they want regardless.
And when there has been noticeable change, it mostly manifests itself in the form of additional graphics bells and whistles at the expense of performance.
It was most disconcerting when, just recently, the feedback button had been removed. FWIW, doing that sends all the wrong messages. And when the button was reinstated, the performance of the new tables was worse than it was before.
When logging in this morning there was a message from Ash saying that the new tables were being deployed in other parts of the site (I believe it said SnG’s). In the current state these tables are in you’re deploying more of them? Makes no sense.
My tuppence worth,
=UncleFrank=
(And BTW, AuntieFrank disapproves of what you’re doing too. But she sends her love regardless.)
2 Likes
Ah, maybe there’s some light the end of the tunnel! The long sought-after All In button. The graphics above it are ugly, but at least we have the button now. Danke.
1 Like