Point of No Return

Brigby

bobby_2613 said:
What is completely crazy is that (finger crossed) some of us almost never have any freeze. I think I can count to 3 the times I've got a freeze.  Ok, to be honest, if I know there's a problem with a card, I usually try not to use it (ex: sphinx decree) but other than that nothing.  

(Note: I'm not saying the freeze don't need to be their top priority.  It should.)

I wonder though if there would be a problem with some mobile OS.  I mean, I'm on a Galaxy S7, that's not the new shiny phone. But sometimes, I often hear people on Android not having problems. Am I wrong?  Is there many people out there on Android having freeze? Probably.  But if the problem lies on the hardware it might be even tougher to find a fix.  Anyways, in any case, I hope they'll fix it soon.  So everybody would enjoy this great game again.

*Update: To follow up on this though, would those of you that recently encountered a freeze or crash please message me with your UID and the name of your mobile device? Our team would like to investigate further to see what might be causing these issues to occur.

Thank you!
-----
The hardware someone uses is certainly a factor we consider. If hardware degradation wasn't an issue, then we'd never get new phones, right?

Another factor is the amount of storage space or memory the device has available. For example, I texted a lot on my old phone (Samsung Galaxy S6), but I also saved all of my texts. Over time, my phone became bloated to the point where the performance of my other apps were being significantly slowed down because the Messenger app was trying to reserve enough memory for me to access all of my texts at any given time. The second I force closed the Messenger app, the other apps performed much better.

So the challenge is determining to what extent hardware plays into performance issues, to what extent memory/storage space plays into it, and finally to what extent the game is responsible. 

Gabrosin

I think it's very important here to delineate between a freeze and a crash.

As a mobile game, there are always going to be users on vastly different hardware, some of it older and less capable.  Reducing the amount of stress that the game puts on your chosen hardware is valuable in preventing crashes, no doubt.  But I think everyone here can accept that hardware is imperfect and it will never be possible to guarantee that the app won't crash it.

What drives the playerbase absolutely crazy are the in-game freezes.  The spots where the game rules engine stops working.  These issues are hardware-independent and can occur to anyone at any time, and what's more, they're entirely within the purview of the software development team to find and correct/prevent.  We know that bugs happen and it's not always possible to predict when an action is going to have an unintended consequence... but it should be possible to have better systems in place for handling these events.

1. There should be a "Force Proceed" button available through the in-game menu, as a peer to Quit.  It can be on a timer such that it only becomes available after the game's most recent action is 30 seconds old or whatever, to prevent players from trying to use it to escape the negative consequence of a good play by Greg... but it should exist.  We should never be in a position where we can QUIT a game but not be able to PROCEED with a game.  The Force Proceed button should instruct the game to proceed to the next action in the current phase, or at worst, skip ahead to the next phase or even the next turn.  It should also cancel out of any choice menus that the user might be facing.  Just think of how many problems this one change would solve.  Stuck on a spinning after-effect of a spell that never concludes?  Force Proceed.  Token replacement bug?  Force Proceed.  Unable to choose a target bug?  Force Proceed.  Done right, it could even replace the ill-conceived Loop Prevention System.

2. There should be some way to tell whether a game has completed normally or not.  If a game has stopped on account of an error, a charge should be refunded to the user so they can try the node again.  I understand the concerns over players finding a way to abuse this system, and I'm all for levying harsh punishments if they're found to be doing so... but come on, this isn't a hard choice.  Do you want to maybe introduce the potential for bad apples to cheat, or do you want to definitely start losing longtime players because they feel like the game is no longer worth their time?

These two fixes are the 90% Solution for making this game better.  Speaking as an outsider to your codebase, but also as a software developer who has dealt with some of these challenges before, they both appear to be achievable, reasonable goals.  I can't imagine anything else going on in the game that should be a higher priority than making these fixes, or instituting something comparable/better.  They won't represent a complete and total fix of all that ails the app, but they ought to get us players to put the torches and pitchforks away for a while.

Gilesclone

Memory is likely an issue in freezes as well as crashes.  If your device doesn’t have enough memory it has to swap things in and out of storage.  Every one of those swaps creates an opportunity for something to go wrong.  If it goes badly wrong it will crash the app.  If it goes enough wrong it might not be able to figure out what to do next which could cause a freeze.

Brigby

@Gabrosin Could you clarify on what you mean by "game rules engine stops working", because based on my past experience in QA, it was to my knowledge that a soft-lock / non-progression is different from a freeze.

The game rules engine not working sounds more like a non-progression / soft-lock, where the game just doesn't seem to be executing any further actions or proceeding to the next phase, but things like graphical animations and menus are still functioning correctly.

Gabrosin

Yeah, perhaps freeze and crash aren't the perfect terms to use either.  I would say the differentiating factor is the ability to access the game menu.  If a player can hit the menu button and have the menu appear, then the application is still functioning, and should be capable of recovering from whatever bad state it has gotten itself into with the right tools.

If the application is completely non-responsive, then you've got a different problem.  The second point I raised, about detecting whether a game completed normally for the purpose of claiming one of the player's charges, would still help with these circumstances, but a Force Proceed style option would not.  I would consider that to be a "crash", just as if the application died because the device running it died.  If we want to call the other state a "soft lock" rather than a freeze, that's fine.

Theophilus

I guess what I encounter most often (almost exclusively) is what @Brigby is describing as a soft lock. I can still check the match objectives, open the battle log, open the chat, and quit. The  match itself will not progress to the next action. If it helps, it sure seems like most of the soft locks I've experienced happened during the recent coalition events. It doesn't seem to happen near as frequently in any other format. That's been my experience. 

iPhone 6S 64GB

rafalele

Again a soft lock appearing from nowhere. In Trial of Ambition white node with Tefery's third ability jn my side, BSZ running in my side and Smothering Tithe in opponents side. I had one creature with mana in my hand.

Each new set brings new ways to get soft locks. I could access to the menu and  battle log but only can exit. I waited to the Loop Prevention System triggered but nothing happenned after it triggered. 

I play in a brand new Samsung Tab 4, so no old/obsolete device problem.

This is what make players leaving the game, 2 very active and really good all time players in my coalition since the 3.3 version.

Machine

Thanks for your response @Brigby. I really appreciate that you took time for this. I totally understand that the game is complex and that a bug free game is a tall order, but I'm talking about the real basics here. There is a very big difference between a card doing things slightly different than what the card text reads and just not being able to play the game because it's unstable.

I like @Gabrosin's proposal (force proceed instead of quitting the match). In almost all of the cases, I can still access the game menu (to either check the battle log or quit the game). Skipping the action on whatever it was doing to be able to continue is way better that having to force quit the match. I wouldn't have cared in this specific instance if the remainder of my two creatures were not able to attack.

Please be aware that the relatively high radio silence also adds to the frustration. Just saying "we're working on it" is not enough. In the player XP thread, people keep asking and asking. Just giving a frequent update, say once a week, EVEN with the smallest piece of news, is enough for the majority of the players to know that you're still working on it and it has your focus.

PS: I use a Samsung Galaxy A3 2018.

PPS (and waaaay off topic): Ulquiorra is awesome! I liked his character a lot. There was so much more they could have done with him.

ertaii

I could be fine with the fact that, well, it's a very complicated game and that it is difficult to prevent each and every bug from appearing. 
I could be fine with the fact that, well, it's very complex to implement something like a force proceed button.
I could.

Well I can't. Why ? Because when you get an issue and spend minutes describing it to the support team, you get absolutely no compensation for the issue that forced you to quit the match and loose points and rewards and... All I got was a "thanks for reporting, we're really sorry but you won't get any compensation". I reopened the ticket but all I got was an automated response that told me the support was overwhelmed with questions and that if need be they'll get in touch.

So please, if you cannot fix the game or find a workaround, pleaaaase tell the support to behave decently and compensate for any loss due to a software lock.

Outersider

I have noticed a significant decline in the number of crashes I encounter since I actually started playing the game on my computer vs my cell phone. I use Bluestack to play on the computer). I'm betting the problem lies with memory management more than anything. I used to encounter a freeze about once a day. Now that I play mostly on the computer I think I've had like 1 or 2 game freezes. 

Machine

@Brigby: The story continues...

During the RGP event, node 2.2 I was playing with TED (The Eldrazi Desolation). I had Eye of Ugin on the board and a Spawnsire of Ulamog in hand. Since I was about to match an activated gem from the Eye of Ugin (knowing it would fetch another Spawnsire), I wanted to exile the Spawnsire I had in my hand. So, I exiled the card from my hand. When I wanted to match the gem, I noticed that I was no longer able to match any gems. The game still showed four cards in my hand, while it showed only the (correct) three when opening my hand. Apparently, this inconsistency caused the game to malfunction. This could probably have been solved with a "Force Proceed" button or any kind of other fix that solves the inconsistent game state. Again, I was able to open the menu to select Quit, which I had to do. Tip: when using the quit button, the text "Conceiding Victory" shows. Damn right it should have been a victory.

After the node refreshed, I tried again with the same deck. This time without any issues. However, when I came to node 2.2 again (so after three more refreshes), the exact same issue occurred. I think it has to be a combination of Eye of Ugin on the board and exiling Spawnsire of Ulamog from your hand. Nevertheless, two losses due to a bug.

To add insult to injury, the game was kind enough to present me the targeting bug on node 1.2 or 1.3, where I was about to win in that turn, but nevertheless cast a Groundswell to pump one of my creatures for a bigger overkill. Third loss due to game issues.

Summing up, the last THREE coalition events have been haunted by bugs, freezes and other issues. I received reports from other players in my coaltion that also suffered from random issues with the game. Luckily, there were also three perfect scores, so apparently not everyone is being hit by the instability of the game.

So, to get to the point: what's the current status of the force proceed / recovery option? Is the priority of this issue acknowledged and will it be implemented in the next update? It should be one of the developer's top priority, together with the XP fiasco.

Again, nothing but radio silence... I read this morning that one player took the effort to report on the forum he quit the game and you can be sure that a lot more have quit in the meantime without ever letting it know. Please keep us updated on the most important topics! I can't be that hard.

Thanks again.

ZW2007-

I think I suggested a "reset UI" button back in 2017. The thread was 100% ignored by anyone involved in any aspect of this game, besides a few players.

 Ironically, the much maligned LPS system has provided them with a way to easily implement this "button fix" without it allowing players to cheat the system. Simply make the button appear/be accessible only after the LPS has kicked in and prevents further actions. If you get the spinning swirl of death (soft-lock) from an action, it will eventually trigger the LPS and then...keep on spinning. At this point the button to reset whatever is happening should become available and skip to the next action/turn. You would never be able to use it on Greg's turn to stop him from killing you because if he somehow triggers the LPS, it proceeds quickly into the next action and would leave the button inaccessible.

I always figured it was something with the UI but it being the game's rules engine makes way more sense since part of the UI is still functional. Anyways, please consider this option @Brigby when you bring this up to the team.

arNero

@Machine & @Brigby

Yeah, having been victim of several game freezes and app crashes that cost me ribbons and thus rankings, I support your notion that game stability is the most important thing to do for this game right now.

It reminds me to a suggestion I once had but so far ignored: Give the game save states so that in events of freezes or crashes, we can still reload to that save state and continue the match. Of course, not sure how this can be implemented (as, indeed as some responders have complained, a wrongly implemented save state function may end up allowing players to restart a losing match any number of times until they win), but so far that's the best idea I have short of making a bug-free app.

And aside from that, I know it sounds crazy, but for some reason I feel like maybe it's time for the developers to just make a fresh app. I know, crazy, but the current app is like a decrepit house that if you fix one of the walls, a window on the second floor falls off, and so on.... something like that (and sadly, there's probably no such thing as a programming duct tape, but I'll shut up now).

Mburn7

arNero said:

And aside from that, I know it sounds crazy, but for some reason I feel like maybe it's time for the developers to just make a fresh app. I know, crazy, but the current app is like a decrepit house that if you fix one of the walls, a window on the second floor falls off, and so on.... something like that (and sadly, there's probably no such thing as a programming duct tape, but I'll shut up now).

This was something we actually proposed when Oktagon first took over, since at the time we figured it would be easier to spend the time remaking the app when we were already stuck waiting months for new content anyway.

The issue is, developing a new app takes a LOT of time and effort, and Oktagon appears to be severely understaffed as is.  No way they can spare the manpower to design and test an entirely new app while still maintaining this one.  I mean, they can barely test and maintain this one as is.  I do agree that the nuclear option is probably the best in the long term, but I doubt it'll happen with Oktagon.

LordDorwin

bobby_2613 said:

I wonder though if there would be a problem with some mobile OS.  I mean, I'm on a Galaxy S7, that's not the new shiny phone. But sometimes, I often hear people on Android not having problems. Am I wrong?  Is there many people out there on Android having freeze?

I can give you a personal answer: I run the game on a HiSense 5, OS Android 7.  This is about as basic as you get, as well as being a downright badly designed device.

I experience approximately 1 1/2 freeze/crash issue per coalition event.  (I am excluding the notorious first iteration of BOFT 2).  Most of my acquaintances and coalition mates have the problem more often.

Even if Android is somehow more stable than iOS, this does not excuse the designer from fixing the cause of the problem (which must be identical - the same interactions cause my infrequent and their frequent freezes).

If anyone is thinking of buying a HiSense 5 to play on - don't.  The thing will give you no end of grief.

Falizar

@Machine QuitAgain is always recruiting 

Gargoyle

Yeah, I'm relatively new and while I have a few other complaints this is just something that needs to be fixed, urgently. 
Definitely not interested in superficial features; even if they don't affect the problems directly they're still a liability if any focus is drawn away from real problems.

A bit fed up with things and thinking of taking a break from it all.

Machine

Well, the last coalition event was finally free of bugs for me, after being hosed three coalition events in a row. I know how you feel and if I would be a beginning player, I would have certainly looked for something else to spend my spare time on. I also wouldn't recommend this game as it currently is to anyone else.

The core of the game and my team mates still attract me, but that doesn't mean there's no Point of No Return for me. Everybody has one. It's just of matter of time and keep making stupid decisions and implementions before I'm out.