Dev Update #6 - MPQ Unity Launch Pt 3

Why do I see class of 2013? Anniversary comes early this year? Or is it a requiem?

@Chrynos1989 said:

@bluewolf said:
It would be awesome if the devs had some clear communication around expectations we should have around auto/forced updates and things.

It would be awesome if we had any kind of communication at all… and only if it was the devs telling me through @S0kun that I‘m an annoying pest for bothering them so much…

I am quoting @S0kun (taken form Discord)

"It's definitely on our radar. One of the potential improvements is lowering the frame rate like some have suggested. R326 is going to lower PC to 60fps and mobile to 30fps. Not sure if that will actually fix things while we investigate further, but we'll see."

Let's give them time to test it out.

@Krazy said:

@Chrynos1989 said:

@bluewolf said:
It would be awesome if the devs had some clear communication around expectations we should have around auto/forced updates and things.

It would be awesome if we had any kind of communication at all… and only if it was the devs telling me through @S0kun that I‘m an annoying pest for bothering them so much…

I am quoting @S0kun (taken form Discord)

"It's definitely on our radar. One of the potential improvements is lowering the frame rate like some have suggested. R326 is going to lower PC to 60fps and mobile to 30fps. Not sure if that will actually fix things while we investigate further, but we'll see."

Let's give them time to test it out.

Like it was this Unity Engine Deployment? 🤣

I apologize if this issue was already noted in the 53 pages of this topic, but has anyone mentioned the issue of when the opposing team makes a match, if there are no matches available, then the system is rotating the board during their turn(after the last match) giving them extra matches?

I have seen this happen about 3 times since Unity update, but I do not often see board rotation due to lack of matches.

For OS information, I see a lot of people advising newer devices don't suffer the same issues. I am on a Samsung Galaxy S21 Android version 15. I am not experiencing the crashes everyone else is, but the lag is crazy. Touch also seems extremely sensitive as I hit one button and its like the button hits twice. Its caused me to join several PvP matches without setting a proper line up. Something else I noticed is 3* Doom seems to get put on my team often but I rarely used him before. Not sure why that keeps happening.

Today I discovered that at least on iOS (presumably all platforms), the game is doing something new: it is pinging the servers while you're in a match, and if you lose a connection (turn on airplane mode for example) you get the "Comm link disrupted" message. Previously the game only pinged the servers at specific times and never during a match itself. So you would complete the match, then it would ping the server to notify the game of your results etc.

So, the game seems to have increased its data usage for some reason (perhaps collecting anonymized user location data for purposes of selling user lists to advertisers? who knows) but at any rate obviously higher data use by the app/more pings will result in more battery drain etc.

@bluewolf said:
Today I discovered that at least on iOS (presumably all platforms), the game is doing something new: it is pinging the servers while you're in a match, and if you lose a connection (turn on airplane mode for example) you get the "Comm link disrupted" message. Previously the game only pinged the servers at specific times and never during a match itself. So you would complete the match, then it would ping the server to notify the game of your results etc.

It's not pinging servers. It is exchanging and or streaming data. This never happened during matches before (besides loading assets).
There are points in the match (especially the beginning) where it seems like match data is being resolved server side and not client side.

If you have the ability to throttle your data and record it (wireshark) you can actually watch the game slow down as the data stream piles up.

When a lot of things resolve at the beginning of the match (passive powers, team ups, and things being thrown on the board) if there is not enough bandwidth the game will crawl and potentially freeze.

This is a big thing for me. I play during commute that doesn’t always have full cell reception. It’s a huge quality of game loss if it changes from checking servers in between games (I can stare out the window until it’s back) or during games (real time disruption)

@scottee said:
Sounds like the game is optimized for the newest phones (iphone 16, pixel 9 pro), but everyone else is getting lag and crashes.

So If I have an iPhone 16 I should update? I have been avoiding updating since it showed up in my available updates list.

@Kross said:

@scottee said:
Sounds like the game is optimized for the newest phones (iphone 16, pixel 9 pro), but everyone else is getting lag and crashes.

So If I have an iPhone 16 I should update? I have been avoiding updating since it showed up in my available updates list.

I have an iPhone 16 and waited until the upgrade was forced on me. That was this AM. Game has been fun (beyond things that affect everyone like no saved teams). Battery drain is what it always has been and system is fast. Faster than old engine.

@KGB said:

@dianetics said:

@bluewolf said:
Today I discovered that at least on iOS (presumably all platforms), the game is doing something new: it is pinging the servers while you're in a match, and if you lose a connection (turn on airplane mode for example) you get the "Comm link disrupted" message. Previously the game only pinged the servers at specific times and never during a match itself. So you would complete the match, then it would ping the server to notify the game of your results etc.

It's not pinging servers. It is exchanging and or streaming data. This never happened during matches before (besides loading assets).
There are points in the match (especially the beginning) where it seems like match data is being resolved server side and not client side.

If you have the ability to throttle your data and record it (wireshark) you can actually watch the game slow down as the data stream piles up.

When a lot of things resolve at the beginning of the match (passive powers, team ups, and things being thrown on the board) if there is not enough bandwidth the game will crawl and potentially freeze.

This is a catastrophically bad decision. It ties performance to your internet connection. I am 99% on WiFi (home or work) and still I see a lag on every menu. I've played a few matches on cellular (AT&T) and it's no different lag wise. On the old app, I could tell the difference between WiFi and cellular when it was pushing post battle rewards. Since I can't now it says their servers are overwhelmed and/or putting everything server side was a terrible idea.

They should not be streaming ANYTHING from the server at all. The only thing that should be sent is rewards / token results. Everything else should be client side.

This also explains why battery use is off the charts. It's very expensive power wise to send data over Wifi/cellular (even Ethernet cards on PCs increase your power pull from your power supply). I can't believe anyone whose ever developed anything for Mobile would OK this design decision...

KGB

Could one of you knowledgeable gentleman put this as a question for IceIX in the other thread? If I think I understand what is being said then this explains a lot to me and why my tablet is struggling.