[Not a Bug] Great Maw + Copycat bug

Platform, device version and operating system:
Android

Screenshot or image:


What you were expecting to happen, and what actually happened:
Based on this:

the assumption was that new Great Maw spawned by Copycat should not be able to keep devouring.

How often does this happen? When did it begin happening?
Every time you Copycat a Great Maw.

Steps to make it happen again
Cast Great Maw, summon another Great Maw with Copycat.

:vulcan_salute:

5 Likes

Before @Slypenslyde becomes unavailable for a week, and since his comment in this thread was deleted too, I thought Iā€™d get this out there:

17 days ago, I posted the above apparently-conflicting behaviour of the Maw, and of course assumed it was a Bug given what Kafka said on May 14 ( (Not a Bug) Casting one Great Maw disables my second one - #16 by Kafka ).

A few related comments were shared on the thread, pertaining in part to the fact that this bug was not surprising (going from memory here, so forgive fuzziness).

Then 4 days ago, when Kafka decided to do the fortnightly forum rounds, she decided that from now on sheā€™d be deleting stuff she considered disruptive for the purposes of identifying bugs ( [Investigating] Queen Moonclaw never summons more than 9 Skulls - #10 by Kafka ), by summoning that oft-quoted forum rule about off-topic posts that devs tend to summon when they dislike something (but itā€™s ok to be off-topic if they like the post, or of course when they are the ones being off-topic, which presumably comes with the rank/power/authority :thinking: ).

Shortly afterwards, I noticed that every comment in my post about the Maw bug had been deleted, and the post was marked as ā€˜Not A Bugā€™. This seemed conflicting, since if it is not a bug, then surely it would not have been necessary to enforce the new ā€œOff-topic posts arenā€™t permitted in the bug report section and Iā€™ll be enforcing that policy more strictly from now on in an effort to stop this from continuining to happen on bug reports and allow us to address bug reports more efficiently without having to wade through irrelevancyā€, as there is no wading through irrelevancy necessary, no wading at all actually, since it is ā€˜not a bugā€™. No explanation provided either on how the apparent contradiction in Maw behaviours was considered ā€˜not a bugā€™.

During that same spree, that developer proceeded to mark another bug report by @Redi1 as ā€˜not a bugā€™ ( [Not a Bug] Bullserker hitting below apparent minimum damage - #8 by Kafka ), with the corresponding explanation of why this was not a bug.

Since I received no explanation, we were facing a possible double standard which, while possibly coincidental, may have had something to do with that dev feeling insulted by an observation made 30 days ago vis-Ć -vis how some players are more dedicated to forum interactions than the devs ( Translation Errors Masterthread - #68 by Kafka ). That claim has historically been observable by seeing dev activity (or lack thereof) in forums, especially during weekends and after their office hours.

The above interaction resulted in a second dev dropping by and summoning that oft-selectively-quoted forum rule about staying on topic, while taking the opportunity to comment about how balanced my life is through ā€œI also hope that you have a healthy work/life balance, as it sounds like you might notā€ ( Translation Errors Masterthread - #73 by Saltypatra ).

Given the above combo of factors (devs who selectively pull rank when they dislike facts and are willing to delete our posts), it has become apparent that continuing to try to contribute in the forum is futile, for the environment is too askew, and it will only become increasingly frustrating to try and keep evidencing factual actions/inactions, including:

only to have them potentially pull rank or delete our posts whenever the donā€™t like the facts.

As such, I am officially becoming a forum lurker (minus a couple of loose ends), wish almost all of you the best, and look forward to keep enjoying the information these forums provide (while wading through the misinformation :stuck_out_tongue: )

Live Long And Prosper
:vulcan_salute:

(with apologies if any of the links provided, or this post itself, get edited/deleted becauseā€¦ well, because they can)

6 Likes

Hmm. Interesting. I only knew of one particular post that was deleted and it sort of deserved it. I got a little grouchy and flew off the handle in a post Iā€™ve now deleted myself. It had some things that made me chuckle in it but for posterity Iā€™ll instead restore the sense of the OP that was apparently so inflammatory it caused widespread seek-and-delete ops that I need @Saltypatra to confirm as valid mod procedure on the forums:

ā€œAny player immediately wondered if Copycat interfered with single-shot spells. So of course the devs/their QA didnā€™t.ā€

If you donā€™t want to be accused of making very obvious mistakes, then spend a little bit more time every week checking if youā€™ve made very obvious mistakes. Play your game for an hour or two. Walk among the players. If you donā€™t have time to do that, tell the people who are overloading you they are damaging their investment. Donā€™t make the mistake I did. I spent 4+ years in a hostile work environment. So many things got better once I got out.

Salty, I think you do a pretty good job modding the forums. The other people arenā€™t quite so good at their jobs, so maybe let them stick to what theyā€™re good at and threaten to submit some code to 5.0 if they want to share responsibilities.

3 Likes

Iā€™ll discuss this with the team. Itā€™s been a relatively new practice that we are deleting multiple bug threads to keep the forums clean, but there are clearly unintended side effects. We will need to discuss this practice further moving forward, and Iā€™ll make sure that we do.

Thereā€™s no point getting into the reeds regarding accusations of bias, as they just arenā€™t true. Any threads being deleted were due to them being multiples, and I do trust Kafkaā€™s judgment. Moving forward it might be best that we leave them intact. I am open to suggestions, so what do you all feel is best?

Iā€™ve passed on the occurance regarding Great Maw, Copycat, and how Copycat interacts with single cast spells. The information I got back is the same information that Kafka gave you, we are happy leaving this working as it is, as we feel it is an advantage of using the Copycat.

I endeavor to let players discuss what they want, how they want, and when they want, as long as it doesnā€™t violate community guidelines. This is something Iā€™ve done since I started, and will continue doing. I also donā€™t delete posts unless they are abusive. I very, very rarely delete posts or replies, even when they insult us.

@AMT I donā€™t have any issue with you, outside of you demanding that we as developers work on the game more than we already do. This is our job, and I stand by my comment of having a healthy work-life balance. Players enjoy this game as a leisure activity, we work on it as a job. Do we love our jobs? Iā€™m sure most of us do, and we go above and beyond for this game time and again. However, we canā€™t work a full working week and extra hours, and on top of that only focus on the game when we need downtime. It isnā€™t reasonable to expect us to spend 12+ hours a day working on this game or being active in its community when we have lives outside of our work, which is this game. I want to re-iterate that, Gems of War is our work, and we work hard. In fact, we often work on weekends when necessary, and it is unreasonable to expect more from us when this is our employment. I donā€™t know how to be any clearer with this sentiment, so I will leave it at that.

Please feel free to be a lurker AMT. I want you to enjoy the game, and the forums, in the way that best suits you. If you have grown frustrated or disillusioned then stepping back might be the best thing for your continued happiness.

6 Likes

And I donā€™t have any issue with you, outside of you defending the practices of/working for a company that has been proven to lie to its customers ( Portal Drop Rates - the Why, the How, and the Solution - #74 by Grundulum ), allows plagiarized content to remain live for weeks after it has been highlighted by its customers ( Wild Horses - #13 by Shimrra ), and periodically patronizes its customers while ending every cycle with the assurances that it is ā€œlooking at our processes to make sure things like this donā€™t happen in the futureā€ ( 4.7 Update (Patch Notes) - #256 by Saltypatra ).

We are allowed to have different lines when defining Dedication and Morality. :blush:

Since I do not foresee many future direct interactions, I will take this opportunity to once again highlight the consistent disconnect between what the customers say, and what the company hears/wants to hear. So in order to clarify once again: Kafka did not give us any information, she just deleted our posts and marked this as Not A Bug.

The reason for the deletion remains a mystery despite @Slypenslyde 's request for clarification, and despite the fact that the ā€œdeletions approachā€ was allegedly justified to simplify the Bug Detection process, and in this threadā€™s case there is allegedly no bug. With apologies, but I am unable to explain the contradiction any clearer. You are free of course to trust said developerā€™s judgment, despite the evidence provided.

Speaking of which, I do appreciate that you have not deleted these exchanges, as I trust they remain factual and useful for others to better evaluate their decisions when it comes to forums/game engagement and expectations.

:vulcan_salute:

The reason is somewhat clear at this point: they donā€™t want you to post in a Bug Reports thread unless you are:

  • Confirming the bug and providing more information
  • Providing information that you tried confirming the bug
  • Explaining what you think is happening in a way that suggests the bug might actually just be poor documentation of the intended behavior.

If you want to sneak in information about how players find bugs almost before the content is released, or how professional developers make sure things like this donā€™t happen, you have to make sure you include one of the above things in your post. Otherwise depending on how accurate you are, they might choose to warn you for being off topic or delete the post to avoid confronting their own shortcomings.

Iā€™ve got a bug report queued up for a troop thatā€™s out next week~ I wonder if they can guess what the problem is and find it before I report it. Itā€™s really subtle and I can see how a playtester might not notice.

1 Like

@Saltypatra
If the team is fixing Archdeva then whatever is going on with Copycat needs to be fixed as well right?

A summoned troop thatā€™s one cast only should operate the same regardless of how it is summoned.

4 Likes

Adding another dimension to this issue - Mirror Queen, Doppleganger and this one stryx troop that copies enemy first slot.
Should one-cast-only apply to each side separately or the entire lineup at once?

EDIT.
If I copy disabled troop, does the copy come fresh or disabled?
If I cast copy before the original, does the original get disabled as well?
If I cast copy, then it gets killed, then I make another copyā€¦does the second copy come fresh again or already disabled?

4 Likes

As I said earlier, I cannot answer these questions until we implement the fix. (However, historically, summoning and copying have worked differently, so Iā€™m not sure what the team will decide to do.)