Loop Prevention System - More Details *Updated (3/12/19)

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Comments

  • Dropspot
    Dropspot Posts: 200 Tile Toppler
    ZW2007- said:
    Wait a minute, I bet this is just a simple language barrier misunderstanding. Anyone on here speak Portuguese? 
    I do. But unfortunately I don't think that's the case. But if devs want I am available to talk with them and explain our concerns.
  • Iworb
    Iworb Posts: 61 Match Maker
    What about bad phones? My old phone supported the game, but animations was kidna much slower. It takes 5-6 seconds just to match gems and take mana. Do you deal with FPS, not server-side TPS?
  • tfg76
    tfg76 Posts: 258 Mover and Shaker
    @Brigby perhaps you could clarify on the original post that the video actually shows the timer system breaking the player's turn even when he didn't do any looping? It's not immediately clear that you get too few tokens. From the post, it seems like you want to show us "hey, the system works and doesn't cause any issue when the user isn't looping" when the opposite is actually true.
  • Fedaykin
    Fedaykin Posts: 47 Just Dropped In
    @Brakkis said: "Looping is a part of this game and taking steps to alleviate it should be done on a card by card basis for the most blatant offenders. You threw a nuke at it."

    I agree totally with that statement, and if this LPS severely hampers normal gameplay, then that nuke may end up blowing up in their faces, as a lot of people will stop spending money on a totally broken game, and perhaps even more people will leave the game for good and go play something else that isn't broken.
  • 0utcast
    0utcast Posts: 9 Just Dropped In
    edited March 2019
    ZW2007- said:
    Wait a minute, I bet this is just a simple language barrier misunderstanding. Anyone on here speak Portuguese? 
    Seems nobody of us speaks Portuguese. So i propose writing a petition to D3GO about changing developer to some company better understanding english. May be even Indian or Russian. First are cheaper and second are more creative. 
  • ManekiNeko
    ManekiNeko Posts: 4 Just Dropped In
    edited March 2019

    Wafflesauce said:

    [...]
    Does that mean Apex of Power/Days Undoing/Behold the Beyond might exile my hand, and then not draw cards?
    My 4th Approach of the Second Sun might only do 7 damage?
    Blue Sun Zenith might not give mana to cards?
    Dream eater may not bounce a creature?
    Plague Wind may not kill all creatures?
    [...]
    This is a concern! 

    In addition:
    I don't understand how the video should ease our voices regarding this issue. Its a loop preventing system and yet it prevents just normal cards from behaving as they are intended, no matter if they get played within a loop or not.

    Think about the new players experience. A new player, who doesn't yet really know how some of the cards work, is presented to this situation. When cards say "this effect does X" and the player plays that card and the card does Y, just because the card takes too much time to get to X, the app will be gone from that new players phone (and mine too) in no-time.

    I can understand why this is being implemented though. The voices which became loud for a infinite loop prevention system surely caused this LPS to be coded. And maybe they are missing manpower to implement a more complex system which could prevent real infinite loops and nothing else. 
    But I think we all agree than we would rather have none of such systems than the proposed LPS right here. I don't mind a switch in the metagame, the LPS will surely be a cause for that. But I do mind when cards dont behave as they should. 

    longtime lurker first time poster here by the way I wanna give a shoutout to the man @Brigby here, he does a great job with us custumer. Without you this mess would be even worse.


  • LordDorwin
    LordDorwin Posts: 78 Match Maker
    It seems that this comment may be a little late, but I will make it anyway.

    The explanation provided clarifies the following point:

    What is being touted as a "loop preventer" is instead a runtime timer with a hard stop at the end.

    Now infinite loops have long(in fact, infinite) runtime.  It does not follow that every process with long runtime is therefore an infinite loop. (This is a logical fallacy called arguing from the specific to the general, in fact)

    Let me give you an example of a non-loop process with long runtime in MTGPQ.


    The player uses Huatli 2 (green/white).  The first loyalty ability has been activated.  Also, the following are in play:

    Haazda Marshal
    Ajani's Welcome
    Path of Discovery, and optionally;
    Divine Intervention
    next
    Loyalty ability 3 can be activated, and  in your hand are Foundry of the Consuls and Skittering Invasion.

    You activate ability 3, partly filling Foundry.  Your gem match completely fills it, triggers Marshal and adds some mana to Invasion.

    Now the long run starts.  As every token enters the battlefield, gems are slowly converted, loyalty is slowly added, some mana(and loyalty) is gained due to matches and +2 HP are slowly added.

    When the circus is over, the next card has been filled.  I choose "Yes" and the action starts again, only five times over instead of four.

    This process takes excruciatingly long.  And you know what?  I didn't write the code for those cards and planeswalker, you people did.

    You could easily have made resolution of this process be rapid, i.e. gems convert instantaneously, HP counts up (without a big "+2" fanfare, just an accounting given at the resolution of the spell).

    This deck cannot loop unless heavily tampered with.

    And this is only one of hundreds to thousands of possible decks.

    I suggest you give this partial deck build  to your QC department.  I also suggest you get them an assortment of mobile phones popular with the player base (in all price ranges and with various connection methods), not a hot stuff gaming PC. Then let them play and find out what we're talking about.

    I understand the problem with the prominence of certain loops (which are mostly non-infinite, but make the game tedious).  The number of cards involved here is small, and minor changes can make such a loop too chancy to attempt.

    I understand that it is difficult to admit, often even to oneself, that one has made a gross blunder in any endeavour.  May I suggest in any case that the development department step back and ask themselves, "Is this really the best way to solve this particular problem, or will unwanted effects drown out any benefit derived herefrom?"

    MTGPQ, it seems to me, has always attempted to stay true to the basic philosophy of Magic: The Gathering (They have not always completely succeeded, but the attempt was there).  In this change, however, this tradition is being broken with and you have lost a great deal of my respect with this doubling down.

    (My last sentence was not aimed at Brigby, who is simply the messenger for the company, but rather at the company itself and specifically the programming and quality control sections thereof.)



  • Tourmaline
    Tourmaline Posts: 25 Just Dropped In
    Ive never seen a company so dependent upon their customerbase decide to utterly ignore thousands of replies with feedback.

    And to do it all in favor of a lazy, heavyhanded nerf makes me really second guess having any confidence spending any further money on your products. 

    Wheres the guarantee that you wont make them utterly obsolete within a month because you folks dont want to beta things like balance and listen to your playerbase?

    I bought jaya, for instance, because she offered a refreshing change of gameplay style that this change effectively destroys. 

    I dont think you folks are giving enough creedence to what precedents like this do to buyer confidence in your products. 

    It seems like you folks could seripusly benefit from someone on your team who at minimum understands basic economic function and principles. 
  • Matthew
    Matthew Posts: 605 Critical Contributor
    LordDorwin said:
    It seems that this comment may be a little late, but I will make it anyway.

    The explanation provided clarifies the following point:

    What is being touted as a "loop preventer" is instead a runtime timer with a hard stop at the end.

    Now infinite loops have long(in fact, infinite) runtime.  It does not follow that every process with long runtime is therefore an infinite loop. (This is a logical fallacy called arguing from the specific to the general, in fact)

    Let me give you an example of a non-loop process with long runtime in MTGPQ.


    The player uses Huatli 2 (green/white).  The first loyalty ability has been activated.  Also, the following are in play:

    Haazda Marshal
    Ajani's Welcome
    Path of Discovery, and optionally;
    Divine Intervention
    next
    Loyalty ability 3 can be activated, and  in your hand are Foundry of the Consuls and Skittering Invasion.

    You activate ability 3, partly filling Foundry.  Your gem match completely fills it, triggers Marshal and adds some mana to Invasion.

    Now the long run starts.  As every token enters the battlefield, gems are slowly converted, loyalty is slowly added, some mana(and loyalty) is gained due to matches and +2 HP are slowly added.

    When the circus is over, the next card has been filled.  I choose "Yes" and the action starts again, only five times over instead of four.

    This process takes excruciatingly long.  And you know what?  I didn't write the code for those cards and planeswalker, you people did.

    You could easily have made resolution of this process be rapid, i.e. gems convert instantaneously, HP counts up (without a big "+2" fanfare, just an accounting given at the resolution of the spell).

    This deck cannot loop unless heavily tampered with.

    And this is only one of hundreds to thousands of possible decks.

    I suggest you give this partial deck build  to your QC department.  I also suggest you get them an assortment of mobile phones popular with the player base (in all price ranges and with various connection methods), not a hot stuff gaming PC. Then let them play and find out what we're talking about.

    I understand the problem with the prominence of certain loops (which are mostly non-infinite, but make the game tedious).  The number of cards involved here is small, and minor changes can make such a loop too chancy to attempt.

    I understand that it is difficult to admit, often even to oneself, that one has made a gross blunder in any endeavour.  May I suggest in any case that the development department step back and ask themselves, "Is this really the best way to solve this particular problem, or will unwanted effects drown out any benefit derived herefrom?"

    MTGPQ, it seems to me, has always attempted to stay true to the basic philosophy of Magic: The Gathering (They have not always completely succeeded, but the attempt was there).  In this change, however, this tradition is being broken with and you have lost a great deal of my respect with this doubling down.

    (My last sentence was not aimed at Brigby, who is simply the messenger for the company, but rather at the company itself and specifically the programming and quality control sections thereof.)



    Excellent post, mate. Thanks for taking the time to write it. Unfortunately, I think it was a waste of your time because I can guarantee you what their response would be, if they even bothered to give you one, mich less actually read your post. They would just explain this away with a gentle reminder of the fact that with this update, there will no longer be animation for any loyalty accrued past the upper limit of 30.

    It’s a pretty awful feeling, realizing that the people whose livelihoods depend upon you are so out of touch with reality that they don’t realize how badly their decision will affect their players AND SUBSEQUENTLY THEMSELVES.
  • timthes
    timthes Posts: 60 Match Maker
    Agree with all the above posts, so LISTEN... and remove this abomination from the update, better call it FPS (Fun Prevention System), game not even letting you cast your hand without any loop whatsoever , WotC cannot endorse this update, your opponent has 48 lives left, got some haste giving support on the board, you cast your four marches, and think hey I won... wrong … time's up... 
  • Magic123
    Magic123 Posts: 11 Just Dropped In
    Yeah not sure about this, i feel like the devs should pick up one of the popular game players here and ask them for advice. They should have never done this without asking at least 1 of the players in the game. Im sure any one of them would have said NO.
  • KageTora
    KageTora Posts: 33 Just Dropped In
    I think this is a defining moment for all of us here. This is going to be a make it or break it. I'm honestly tired of ranting and complaining and feeling like the world is going to end, I'm just going to accept that this will be the end of this game as we know it.

    I mean, though I was not affected directly by it, the experience fiasco already lifted they veil on possibility that Oktagon are not willing to listen to their community. Again, I wasn't affected directly by it because I'm lazy regarding those repetitive, grind-oriented tasks. And it does not feel right to me that those that went through the effort of mastering their cards would end up getting the short end of the stick and getting screwed over people like me.

    If this turn timer goes forward and is not changed immediately after release, it will prove to me without a shadow of a doubt that Oktagon does not care about the community, that they are not willing to listen, that they are not willing to backpedal and admit they just might've been wrong.

    And I sure as well am not willing to devote my time and effort into a game spearheaded by someone like that. 



    As a side note and for curiosity's sake, what are the actual chances of the developer being changed over something like this?
  • Tilwin90
    Tilwin90 Posts: 662 Critical Contributor
    edited March 2019
    KageTora said:
    [...]
    As a side note and for curiosity's sake, what are the actual chances of the developer being changed over something like this?
    You raise a very interesting topic here. I'm actually very curious who has visibility AND input on the long-term strategy, changes, new card material, release schedule, backlog etc.
    - Is it Oktagon or D3? 
    - Does Oktagon have a dedicated requirements team or is it the actual developers "figuring it out"?
    - How big is the Oktagon team to begin with? What about D3 (working on MTGPQ)?
    - Is there a product manager? Is (s)he Oktagon or D3?

    Because if the strategic choices are handled by D3 actually, then changing Oktagon will achieve little. Pure outsourcing is very nasty to begin with, but it wouldn't surprise me in this context.
  • Laeuftbeidir
    Laeuftbeidir Posts: 1,841 Chairperson of the Boards
    ZW2007- said:
    I think the biggest takeaway here is that their white knight has yet to arrive. There's always someone that comes in and defends a bad decision. Not this time. Maybe it took him longer than 18 secs to get here and his turn ended before he could post in their defense. 
    The white knights took the "wait for it before judging it" position. That was the most optimistic option!
    I mean, I am even in favor of making this a turn based game again but this is no adequate solution.
  • LordDorwin
    LordDorwin Posts: 78 Match Maker
    James13 said:
    Some very vocal players asked them for this.
    Some players asked for a timer with a hard stop?  I stopped following the loop discussion after the problem with Divine Intervention/Murder Investigation was removed by fixing Divine Intervention, so I didn't see that.

    Even so, any competent programmer should immediately have seen the problem with such a "solution" and thought of something else, not run straight to his keyboard.
  • Tilwin90
    Tilwin90 Posts: 662 Critical Contributor
    James13 said:
    Some very vocal players asked them for this.

    I do hope the abject lesson is to not listen so much to a vocal minority.

    Put out feelers for major change ideas.  Use the in-app linked player polls like we've seen before.  NOT just the forums.
    Now hold your horses, just because some of us raised a concern doesn't mean we requested this **** timer  :)
    We raised the problem with infinite loops that were getting "fixed" by breaking various effects, such as copied cards not castable the same turn or the vampire fetching corner-case instead of having a proper wide implementation.

    That was the real source of concern! I even stated there that I think this is a complicated issue, as the "Halting Problem" is not something easy to tackle. Going from there to a "vocal" minority and then to this whole timer situation is a long long way.

    But if it makes some of you feel better, sure, blame the people (including myself) who entered this discussion, not the chosen implementation B) .

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