Fix the Pause Button

Falnor
Falnor Posts: 2 Just Dropped In
The in-game pause button is no longer usable unless the board is settled on Your turn.

Comments

  • JSP869
    JSP869 Posts: 820 Critical Contributor
    edited August 2019
    The in-game pause button button has never worked if the AI is about to wipe out your entire team on its current turn, however...

    OP is absolutely correct in that the in-game Pause button does not work at all on the AI's turn even if you're not about to lose the match. I just tested this multiple times in The Big Enchilada, and at no time would the in-game Pause button work during the AI's turn.

    What DOES work as a Pause for me even on the AI's turn is swiping up from the bottom right corner of my phone's screen, as this gesture now acts as my phone's back button.
    (I have 'swipe up' now for a "Back Button" because MPQ's Devs have forced the ridiculous "Immersive Mode" on us with no option to disable it. Thanks for making me change my phone's entire UI because you want us to use "Immersive Mode".)


  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2019
    Where is the in-game pause button? I didn't know there is such a button. I'm on Android here. Any visuals?

    The only pause I'm aware of is that the game will pause by throwing up a box which has "options" and "retreat"for me if I minimise the apps to do something else.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    I finally saw it.  :D 
    I've been playing since Nov 2017 and that button has been invisible all the while. 

    Double tapping on the back button is really fast because it is so natural and that's where your thumb rest when holding your phone.

    I think iPhone menu/home/back button are floated on the screen?

    After discovering the pause button,  I tried to press it during AI's turn and it doesn't work at all.

    A workaround now might be switching back and forth apps, if it is faster.



  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
    Falnor said:
    The in-game pause button is no longer usable unless the board is settled on Your turn.
    All input is frozen until it's your turn.  There are gameplay reasons for this.  I posted a detailed reasoning for this a long time ago.  I'll see if I can find it, but basically it boils down to this:
    1. you take your actions until your turn ends.
    2. Game resolves your move(s), all cascades, the computer powers, all computer moves
    3. Game sends those results in a "call-stack" to the display engine.
    4. Display engine plays those results back one at a time.
    5. Once the call-stack is empty, the display engine tells the game to read player inputs.

    Now, if you are stun-locked, or the computer gets a lot of match-5 cascades, the display make take a LONG tine to resolve, but all the moves have already been calculated and applied in the game engine.  It is just waiting for the display engine to show them. 

    This is why the pause/back button was set to only work on your turn.  People mistakenly thought they were avoiding the CPU's damage by retreating mid-turn, when in actuality, all the CPU damage had been done, they just hadn't gotten the message yet.

    Think of it this way:  If an earthquake happens on the other side of the earth and you are reading "real-time" updates of the destruction on twitter, closing twitter doesn't erase the damage.  It's already done, you're just waiting to read about it.
  • JSP869
    JSP869 Posts: 820 Critical Contributor
    R185 is live, Immersive Mode has been disabled, but has not been added as something the User can enable or disable on their own, but the Pause button still does not work during the AI's turn.

    With Immersive Mode disabled now though I do have my phone's virtual buttons back, permanently, so while the Pause button may not work, if you're playing on Android you can at least hit your phone or tablet's back button to bring up the "pause" menu.
  • JSP869
    JSP869 Posts: 820 Critical Contributor
    ...if you're playing on Android you can at least hit your phone or tablet's back button to bring up the "pause" menu.
    And now that's been "fixed" too. The only way to pause the game on Android now when it's the AI's turn is to minimize the game.

    Neither the Pause button nor the Back button work while it's the AI's turn.
  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
    JSP869 said:
    R185 is live, Immersive Mode has been disabled, but has not been added as something the User can enable or disable on their own, but the Pause button still does not work during the AI's turn.

    Has it, though?  I still have no button bar... (on android)
  • JSP869
    JSP869 Posts: 820 Critical Contributor
    On my Galaxy S8+, after I saw R185 had gone live I switched back from swipe gestures to the navigation bar w/ buttons, and it's currently permanently displayed while MPQ is running. You did just make me check though, in case they changed it back again on the sly, but my navbar is still permanent displayed while playing MPQ.
  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
    JSP869 said:
    On my Galaxy S8+, after I saw R185 had gone live I switched back from swipe gestures to the navigation bar w/ buttons, and it's currently permanently displayed while MPQ is running. You did just make me check though, in case they changed it back again on the sly, but my navbar is still permanent displayed while playing MPQ.
    My navbar hasn't come back :(
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 9,572 Chairperson of the Boards
    The In-game pause button exists just to torture you. I mean, is it really too much to ask that I can save my last character who is down to 451 health? Oh wait, you have another cascade that I simply *must* eat and die. And dead. Now I don't need to pause. Good one, game.
  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
    DAZ0273 said:
    The In-game pause button exists just to torture you. I mean, is it really too much to ask that I can save my last character who is down to 451 health? Oh wait, you have another cascade that I simply *must* eat and die. And dead. Now I don't need to pause. Good one, game.
    You can't because you're player is already dead.  You just haven't been notified yet.  See my comment above for what is happening and why.
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 9,572 Chairperson of the Boards
    abmoraz said:
    DAZ0273 said:
    The In-game pause button exists just to torture you. I mean, is it really too much to ask that I can save my last character who is down to 451 health? Oh wait, you have another cascade that I simply *must* eat and die. And dead. Now I don't need to pause. Good one, game.
    You can't because you're player is already dead.  You just haven't been notified yet.  See my comment above for what is happening and why.
    @abmoraz Yeah I just read that and it makes perfect sense, not sure why I missed seeing it before posting.

    It also made me realise that I had the AI down as the wrong villain - I always figured that the AI was like a Bond villain - it had you captured and was explaining it's plan to kill you but you still had a chance to escape. Now you have made me realise that the AI is in fact Ozymandius from Watchmen and it had already done the deed half an hour ago. Ouch.
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 9,572 Chairperson of the Boards
    THEY FIXED IT!!!!!!
  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
    DAZ0273 said:
    THEY FIXED IT!!!!!!