More info: after having struggled with initiating communication we noticed the following:
* it works when you don't click exactly on the token but a bit above the token, so the 'hitbox' is a bit janky. It seems the button isn't part of the same area as the card.
* you can't initiate communication between the time another player has initiated and finalized his communication. This is OK in itself (though why not 'execute' your communication at the same time?) but it's visually not very clear since it's just a text in the status bar. A visual clue showing that another player is busy communicating (meaning you have to wait until he's finished) like highlighting his name or an icon or signal or so would help.

I got the same thing using Mozilla v5

I got the same with Brave Version 1.14.84 Chromium: 85.0.4183.121 (Official Build) (64-bit)

And I would also suggest on quite the same topic to make the communication step a phase of the turn by iitself.
If the captain or the 1st player of the turn is playing too fast (because he ignored the other player want to communicate) it often prevent players to communicate when it's possible.

Players should give a "ready" or "go" to the Commander before he/she is allowed to play the first cards. A fast Commander will prevent players to communicate, Not only is the "hit box" weird but you need to be alert and click "communicate" the second someone finishes his communication. Otherwise if the Commander is faster than you... The option to communicate shouldn't be a race or a struggle.

Clicking the green token on the middle did not trigger communication, but clicking reminder card worked.

Hi :)
It happens to me several time this last days.
Indeed, it happens in all my last games since I started to play.

It seems it's random. I mean, sometimes, when I click on the communication token, it's working immediately and sometimes, it's not working and I have to click several times to initiate the com.
It's happening as well when you try to anticipate and you click on the token during a round (to communicate before the start of next round).
I noticed that F5 can improve the case as almost everytimes when after 5 to 10 click the communication is not initiate, I put a comment in the chat to ask my colleagues to wait and then I refresh and its working.

I still have trouble starting communication, even when no one else is doing anything. I often have to click a dozen times before it registers.

We hit the same problem, multiple browsers: Firefox 81.0.1 (OSX High Siera 10.13.6), Safari 13.0.5 (OSX 10.14.6), Chrome 85.0.4183.121 (OSX 10.14.6), Firefox 81.0 Linux Ubuntu 16.04.

Hitting 'reload' allowed communicating.

We discovered that communication can only be done between between tricks (this may be by design). There is no visual indicator that communication can or can't be done.

I have the same problem with 3 different browsers and every game played since it went to Beta. I've notice that it works fine the first time (per player) in each game, and the first time after each refresh of the page in the browser. But rarely, if ever, more than once without intervention.

Table#117733638
Clicking on the token after having used it on a previous mission doesn't work. You have to click slightly above the token on the white card for it to be accepted.

table # 117825165
clicking on the communication token did not let me use it's power. It was clicked between rounds (after last card was played, and before first card was played of next round). Tried multiple times but did not work.

Same problem, only worked when refreshing the page (which was annoying specially after long time playing it had to reload all the long playing history).

Our table was id=118014391

sometimes need to refresh to be able to click communication token

Maybe it would help if when you cannot communicate for some reason, you received some kind of feedback telling you why.

Thank you for working on this game. In spite of the difficulty, I enjoyed the game, and I look forward to recommending it to and playing it with other players of my acquaintance after the communicator works reliably.

I played this game with three other players with lots of experience with both trick-taking card games and with board games. All four players have played games over 100 times on BGA, at least one close to 500. All four are computer competent, using computers daily in their work or volunteer activities. One has programmed a game for BGA, and has others in the pipeline. None of us could figure out how to make the communicator work consistently. Some of us only had it work once in the course of about 7 hands. From our point of view, the problems we had were either the communicator would not do anything, or, the card we were trying to communicate about would be played to a trick instead.

As a (long) career system and network administrator, I understand that it can be difficult to solve problems that you are unable to reproduce. I suggest that even if you cannot reproduce the (many) communicator trouble reports, you could make a real improvement by providing feedback to the communicator user. Maybe in the game log, maybe elsewhere. Messages like: "Your request to use the communicator has been queued, and will be activated after every other player has played into the next trick." Or, "Your request to use the communicator has been denied, because you are upstream (closer to the captain) of another crewmember who has activated the communicator". Or, "Your request to use the communicator has been neither accepted nor denied, but a decision will be made before the next full moon and you will be notified by passenger pigeon." (Yes, it really does look that random to a group of smart players with lots of relevant experience. Sorry.)

the communication action takes a very long time to trigger : nothing happens during 5-10 seconds after clicking the token

appart from being annoying, this often leads to misclicking and mistakes in the next actions

I can't click on the communication token itself, we have to click on the card _around_ the communication token. I think it would be better if clicking on anywhere on the card AND/or communication token would trigger communication. Communication is the #1 thing that caused confusion when I teach this game to others.

In general I have no issue hitting the target but it *never* works if i have already communicated since loading the page. Same for all my co-players.

Load game
communicate works
communicate doesn't work
reload game
communicate works

I love this game I already known, but the current UI make this game detestable and clearly need to be refine for communication usage.
- We never now when to click on it, sometime we click on it and nothing appends, color don't change
- Green/Blue color difference is not understable (not tooltip explaining each color) and the fact this is same kind of glow this is not clear when communication is ON/OFF
- When you succeed to switch in Green color, you are not able to select immediately your clue card, then you think it does not work, switch to Blue color or lost opportunity to give your clue
- Impossible to activate the communication by anticipation for next round, then when player play card too quickly impossible to activate communication at the right time
- Sometime the communication is Green during the round, so you think you can give the clue card, but the selected card is directly played instead of specify the clue
- As soon you select a clue card, it is immediately blocked and displayed for all players and then this is no more possible to change your clue if it was the wrong selected card
- The top/middle/bottom choice must be explicitly set by user when it could be deduced in most of cases

If you click the communication card, it gets highlighted in green whether the round has already started or not. If already in a round, the green highlight lets you think that you can play communication anyway. The card you select thinking it will be for communication is actually played.

La carte communication est surlignée en vert qu'un tour soit en cours ou pas. Lorsque la carte est surlignée, on a l'impression qu'on peut donner un indice, même si le tour est commencé. Si l'on a le malheur de cliquer sur une carte pensant donner un indice, elle est en réalité jouée.

Clicking the communicate *card* seems to always work, though clicking the *token* still (for a lot of us playing on chrome) requires a refresh if it has been used since the last time the game was loaded.

change the communication card to just a button that is clickable. I play with friends over facetime and we always shout at each other that we are trying to communicate because whenever we are clicking the card it takes multiple tries.

Often did not work clicking on the token, so we thought it generally is meant to only work if you click on the reminder card but not the token. Which seemed a bit weird but worked.

If you click on the token itself, it doesn't work. You have to click the card around the token. It's as if clicking on the card is the key, but the token blocks the card. The player thinks they are being more precise by clicking on the token, whereas you have to click around the token.

Clicking on communication auto selected the wrong token position for myself and the next two players.

@fitzgma was it a mission in a dead zone? When you're in a deadzone, it always auto-selects the middle position, but with a red color that is intended to indicate that the position is not actually indicated.

Hi @vynce Oh actually it was a dead zone mission! We were all really confused and didn’t realize it! Sorry for the confusion!

We had the same problem. It was especially bad when players clicked multiple times did not notice that communication had a blue halo, and then clicked on a card, resulting in playing it instead of using for communication. I've also seen other forum messages complaining about the same issue.

Below is a message I also sent on the forum:
Communication is very confusing. You can click on the communication card, but not on the little marker on it to communicate, Then when you do press on the card, it responds with a green halo, and when you press again, blue halo. Then, when you press on the card to communicate, sometimes you can't chose a card because it is not your turn to communicate. And when it is your turn to communicate, some cards don't respond because you can't play them (not high, or low, or only). And, when you do communicate, you are given the option to lie (chose wrong option of token placement).

What happened a couple of times in our game because of the interface is that a player pressed again and again on the communication card, because it didn't seem to respond. Then didn't notice it had turned blue, and then chose the card to communicate with, but instead of communicate it was then played, ruining the round.

I would like to have the following happen:
1. Make it easier to communicate, and clear why a card can't be used when it can't
2. Automatic message token
3. Make it impossible to play a card when you wanted to have it as communication.

I'm not sure how to do that.
Maybe instead of clicking on the brown communication card, you click on the card you want to communicate. If it is your turn to play, and you haven't communicated yet, then you are given the option to play the card or communicate it before the card is played out. So before any other player sees it. If you are not the player whose turn it is and you click a card, then if it can't be communicated you say why it can't be, and if it can be, you ask if it should be communicated.
And, maybe in addition there could be a way to halt the play of a card, so that you have time to communicate, before the leading player plays a card.

For me, it happened quite often that in order to start communication, it only works when you don't click exactly on the token but a bit above the token on the card area, so the 'hitbox' is a bit janky.

Failed often, but a reload of the page fixed it.

Nous avons constaté le même problème : pour communiquer, il est fréquemment nécessaire de faire un refresh de la page, sinon ça ne marche pas (sauf pour la première tentative d'une nouvelle mission)
Navigateur : Firefox 84.0.1

I also find the same thing -- the button does not always trigger: I often need to press multiple times.
This is especially true for placing the token onto the card.
When a card is my only card (and thus i have options for lowest, only, or highest), i sometimes have had to select a DIFFERENT option than desired, because i tried "only" many times without it "taking" so i click another and it works.

Yesterday, we found that somehow clicking the top half of the communication card was a lot more likely to succeed than pressing the actual token.

Quick question - is this a bug where clicking it just doesn't work, or where instead the interface freezes while updating with the server?

I have had this happen to me repeatedly in a game just today. It also happened to another player in the same game. Both of us were using Chrome, and a refresh of the page was required to fix it. A 3rd player in the game did not have this issue and he was using firefox.
It only seems to trigger while trying to use the communicate button before the first trick of a mission is started.

Reloading the page fixes this.

same as these bug reports - has happened on more than one occasion resulting in the loss of the game. the card was not displayed in the communication panel - it was played to there table and ruined the mission objective with a mission failure. very frustrating and wasting players time on line. "CLICKING ON THE RADIO COMMUNICATION TOKEN DOESN'T ALWAYS TRIGGER THE COMMUNICATION ACTION"

Put up a popup message when a comm is made in a dead zone that blocks all other actions untill the popup is clicked away.
And make all of the comm card better clickable when you have not communicated.