Slow response and massive battery drain - Android

Astronomy

Hello!

I'm a recent joiner, I like the concept of the game but I find the execution poor and I cant figure out why. I'm unwilling to spend any money yet if there aren't app performance improvements planned.

This game isnt a graphics hog, I mean there isn't any graphics to render except for static 2D images and a few small animations. It barely dents RAM, it really has nothing about it to me that seems like it should be running so poorly.

I'm running Android on decent (now midrange) hardware - an 808 with 3GB RAM, with a typical 4-5 bar LTE connection (if not WiFi) and this game is crazy slow and buggy. I have no issues with other much more resource intensive 3D games.

-Screen presses aren't acknowledged 9/10 times when using quick improvements

-general game play frequently locks up for up to 10 seconds and is slow to respond when switching

-battery drain is abysmal, 30% in 30 minutes

-CPU gets crazy hot (also leading to batter issues)

Is this normal for the Android app?

KGB

I run on an HTC One M8 (a 2 year old phone that was top of the line then probably mid-high range now)

Astronomy wrote:

-Screen presses aren't acknowledged 9/10 times when using quick improvements

Not sure what Quick Improvements is.

Astronomy wrote:

-general game play frequently locks up for up to 10 seconds and is slow to respond when switching

What do you mean by switching? To another app or between characters in the battle screen?

Astronomy wrote:

-battery drain is abysmal, 30% in 30 minutes

Yup I see this (been playing almost a year now).

Astronomy wrote:

-CPU gets crazy hot (also leading to batter issues)

Yup I see this too especially after doing several battles in a row. I have 'UseMon' installed which monitors CPU usage on all cores (I have 4), Ram usage etc and this doesn't go that crazy (1 core gets busy, overall 40% usage, RAM is 87% for all my apps). Not sure why this means the CPU gets that hot as that doesn't seem overly taxing.

KGB

Astronomy

Thanks for the reply!

KGB wrote:

Not sure what Quick Improvements is.

In the Android version, when viewing a Planeswalker on the bottom left you can hit "Quick Improvements" where it will auto-suggest card replacements for your deck. I'm a newb so I do rely on this feature at the moment until I figure out a play style I like. In this feature, you hit "Quick Improvements" then it will suggest replacing one card with another, you can hit "Next" to skip the suggestion or "Add to Deck" to replace the card per suggestion. Either option takes me quite literally 9+ times of tapping to get acknowledgement for it to either skip or add to deck. It's very frustrating.

KGB wrote:

Astronomy wrote:

-general game play frequently locks up for up to 10 seconds and is slow to respond when switching

What do you mean by switching? To another app or between characters in the battle screen?

I meant when switching within the app between battles, or switching between story & quick battle, switching from the end of a battle to view the Activity Hub, etc etc. I basically mean navigating from one area of the app to the other is a frustrating and slow experience.

KGB wrote:

Astronomy wrote:

-battery drain is abysmal, 30% in 30 minutes

Yup I see this (been playing almost a year now).

Astronomy wrote:

-CPU gets crazy hot (also leading to batter issues)

Yup I see this too especially after doing several battles in a row. I have 'UseMon' installed which monitors CPU usage on all cores (I have 4), Ram usage etc and this doesn't go that crazy (1 core gets busy, overall 40% usage, RAM is 87% for all my apps). Not sure why this means the CPU gets that hot as that doesn't seem overly taxing.
KGB

Good to know it's not just me - have devs ever responded to why this is? It makes no sense, a game with static 2D images and minor animations should not be causing my phone to turn into a hot plate. The only guess I can make is it must so heavily or constantly use data that even when on WiFi just the traffic alone is causing the over-heating. This is madness - please tell me this has been brought up before and is being considered for a fix? Is it just the android client? I assume there is an iOS client - has anyone complained about that one?

Nightglider1

Astronomy wrote:

Thanks for the reply!

KGB wrote:

Not sure what Quick Improvements is.

In the Android version, when viewing a Planeswalker on the bottom left you can hit "Quick Improvements" where it will auto-suggest card replacements for your deck. I'm a newb so I do rely on this feature at the moment until I figure out a play style I like. In this feature, you hit "Quick Improvements" then it will suggest replacing one card with another, you can hit "Next" to skip the suggestion or "Add to Deck" to replace the card per suggestion. Either option takes me quite literally 9+ times of tapping to get acknowledgement for it to either skip or add to deck. It's very frustrating.

There's the confusion. You've posted in the Marvel Puzzle Quest forums, not the Magic the Gathering Puzzle Quest forums.

Astronomy

Nightglider1 wrote:

Astronomy wrote:

Thanks for the reply!
There's the confusion. You've posted in the Marvel Puzzle Quest forums, not the Magic the Gathering Puzzle Quest forums.

Now I'm confused - I thought you were right so I went to copy/paste into the right area but I checked and I'm in the Magic forums...

Maybe a mod moved it? If so thanks!

Either way - Since it seems like I'm not the only one, is there some sort of explanation for the insane battery drain?

I can only assume it is data related since it seems to require a constant connection to play ( cutting out during transit going through tunnels ), but I guess there's no easy fix and probably no plans to address the issue.

majincob

I think having your screen on for a long time is what drains the battery most. I've seen this in the few phone games I actually play, they all are massive power hogs.

As for slowness... well it's gotten better than it has been in the past, but's it's definitely not super-responsive.

Astronomy

majincob wrote:

I think having your screen on for a long time is what drains the battery most. I've seen this in the few phone games I actually play, they all are massive power hogs.

As for slowness... well it's gotten better than it has been in the past, but's it's definitely not super-responsive.

Sure the screen being on for an hour straight doesn't help but it also shouldn't drain 60% of my battery. I'm not exagerrating when I say I have played much more intensive fully 3D games ( including some of the MMORPG's out there ) and not one drains the battery as fast as this game does.

I like it and am more than happy to buy something ( anything ) within the game to support the developer but I just can't bring myself to do it when it is SO slow and drains SO MUCH BATTERY.

I guess it's too much to hope for some sort of explanation from a dev/D3 or some sort of acknowledgement that it is poorly optimized and will be improved?