Covers on the vine being Trained illogically [Investigating]

JSP869
JSP869 Posts: 824 Critical Contributor
edited November 2018 in MPQ Bugs and Technical Issues
I have a yellow 2* Captain Marvel cover on the vine. I have one level 144 Captain Marvel spec'd 5/5/3 and a duplicate level 15 Captain Marvel covered 3/-/1.

When I tap Train on the cover on the vine, the game tries to apply it to my 144 max Champion and asks me which of the other two powers I want to lower in level.

The game should recognize that I have two copies of that character rostered, and should ask me which copy I want to use the cover with. It should not try to get me to waste the cover by using it to respec a Champion when I have a low level duplicate that actually needs the cover.

Comments

  • Spoit
    Spoit Posts: 3,441 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited November 2018
    It's probably a very niche situation, but I'm having a minor bug when trying to apply covers from the vine. I have a max-champ OBW, and a 0/2/1 base level one. When I try use "train" from the vine, it's trying to apply it to the max-champ one, asking if I want to reduce the blue or the black powers, instead of training the unleveled one. However, when I pulled another black cover, it trained the unleveled one perfectly fine. And of course, training from the character screen worked fine.
  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
    edited July 2018
    Yup.  This has a been a long standing issue since they first introduced championing.  It happens when you have the following criteria:

    1. A max championed character
    2. A cover for that character in one of the colors that is NOT level 5

    This is because the algorithm for applying a card from the vine is as follows:

    1. Create a list of all the rostered characters for that specific cover, ranked from highest level to lowest level.
    2. Choose the highest level from that list.
    3. Can the cover be to increase a champion level?  If so, do it and exit.
    4. Can the cover be used to swap powers?  If so, do it and exit.
    5. Can the cover be used to increase the power level of that color?  If so, do it and exit
    6. The cover is useless to this character.  Remove this character from this list
    7. If there are still characters in the list, goto step #2.
    8. Offer to roster it as new character.

    As you can see, step 4 doesn't care it the character in question is the highest, so it will try and use a cover on a max-champ character to switch levels before it applies it to lower level character IF AND ONLY IF that cover CAN be used to swap powers.  The code probably just needs to add a clause to the decision matrix of part 4 to say "Can this cover be used to swap powers AND the character is not max-champed"

    An example for those that may still be confused:
    I have a level 144 max-champed Ares at 5Green - 5Red - 3Yellow
    I also have a level 15 feeder Ares at 2-2-2.
    If I get a new Ares cover that is Green or Red, it will automatically apply it to the feeder.
    If the new cover is yellow, it will try and swap power on the level 144 Ares.

    1. Following the steps above we get:level 144 Ares and level 15 Ares
    2. choose level 144 Ares
    3. Can't add champ level (true for each of the three colored covers)
    4. Can't swap powers for green or red, but CAN for yellow (exit here on yellow cover and return to user the power swap interface)
    5. Can't increase the power level (only green and red left)
    6. remove level 144 from the list
    1. back to step #2
    2. select level 15 Ares
    3. Not championed, so continue on
    4. Can't swap powers yet, so continue on
    5. Yes, increase the power in either red or green.

    So ... there you have the why.  I have no idea why they haven't fixed it, but it's been this way since inception of champions.
  • TPF Alexis
    TPF Alexis Posts: 3,826 Chairperson of the Boards
    Fortunately, the workaround is pretty easy: temporarily re-spec the Champ so that the cover you're trying to apply is at 5, add it to the dupe, go back to your previous spec. It's annoying that there has to be a workaround at all, but at least it's easier than some others.
  • Spoit
    Spoit Posts: 3,441 Chairperson of the Boards
    Or like I said in the op, you can just apply it from the character skills screen.   Hopefully it will also be effected by The order of operations change to keep people from auto converting saved covers instead of using a vine one
  • TPF Alexis
    TPF Alexis Posts: 3,826 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yeah, I just like this way because it has no chance (as far as I can tell) of using your saved covers for it. I'm very much the "better safe than sorry" type.
  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yes, we've had about 15 threads about that.

    It's never going to be fixed.
  • JSP869
    JSP869 Posts: 824 Critical Contributor
    And yet it's not been acknowledged by the Devs.
    Why not?
    It's not working as intended because the cover is sometimes correctly applied to the duplicate, so when it's not applied to the duplicate, or you don't get you the option of applying it to either the Champion or the dupe, that's clearly a Bug.
  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
    JSP869 said:
    I have a yellow 2* Captain Marvel cover on the vine. I have one level 144 Captain Marvel spec'd 5/5/3 and a duplicate level 15 Captain Marvel covered 3/-/1.

    When I tap Train on the cover on the vine, the game tries to apply it to my 144 max Champion and asks me which of the other two powers I want to lower in level.

    The game should recognize that I have two copies of that character rostered, and should ask me which copy I want to use the cover with. It should not try to get me to waste the cover by using it to respec a Champion when I have a low level duplicate that actually needs the cover.


    I get to re-use this post again for the 6th time:
    I'm not going to type it all out again, so go here: https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/819667#Comment_819667 for a full write-up on what's happening with the champion covers trying to switch powers and why it happens.
    If this keeps coming up in the forums often enough that I get to re-post the reasons behind the poor algorithm that causes it, maybe it's getting pervasive enough to address and fix...
  • JSP869
    JSP869 Posts: 824 Critical Contributor
    Thanks, @abmoraz

    I remembered previously reading a comprehensive description of what causes this issue, so thank you for linking back to your post. I figured as the Devs still haven't even acknowledged this as an issue or added it to their list of known bugs, I'd make another post about it. While I realize it is more of an inconvenience which can be resolved through our own actions, the fact that the game correctly applies the cover to a dupe if the Champion already has 5 covers in that power means extra code can be added that will prevent this particular issue from occurring.
  • Tombstone
    Tombstone ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 1,208 Chairperson of the Boards
    @JSP869
    To be safe, I'd recommend selecting the character you want to train and apply the duplicate cover from there. To everyone else, I'd like to apologize for not updating you on this issue. I'll add it to the bug list right after this message. 
  • Tombstone
    Tombstone ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 1,208 Chairperson of the Boards
    //merged similar thread - Tombstone
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    JSP869 said:
    And yet it's not been acknowledged by the Devs.
    Why not?
    It's not working as intended because the cover is sometimes correctly applied to the duplicate, so when it's not applied to the duplicate, or you don't get you the option of applying it to either the Champion or the dupe, that's clearly a Bug.
    Depends on what is meant by intended.
    It works as it was intended (before saved covers or even champions existed) that if you don't have 5 covers in a color it offers you the ability to respec.

    I don't know how their code is written.  However, I would assume the most logical way to 'fix' this, would be to have it never offer you a respec of of a cover if that character is already championed.  The trickier thing I suspect is how to deal with multiple characters.  They could easily do this wrong and have it so you don't get the train option at all if you have 1 champed version of the character (which IMO would be worse than current state).
  • JSP869
    JSP869 Posts: 824 Critical Contributor
    For sure, Broll. It could be very easy for them to break this, accidentally of course, and make it worse than how it currently is.

    And Tombstone, thank you for at least acknowledging this. I realize it's a minor issue, and trying to fix it could break something else, so just having our voices heard on this is appreciated. Thank you.
  • abenness
    abenness Posts: 228 Tile Toppler

    Disinterring this zombie thread, because I am just so frustrated that this situation is still occurring. Having a constant turnover of 2* farm, and building a lot of 3* dupes, I am seeing it multiple times daily.

    Can we please just say that if an instance of a rostered character is champed, this instance should not be considered in the algorithm for how new covers can be applied?

    The only toons where you may want to re-spec with a new cover is 1*, and they can't be champed anyway.

  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/914178#Comment_914178

    Use the new "Characters that can be improved" filter from your roster screen. If you use that, the farm character will show as upgrade-able but the max-champ will not.

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