Platform, device version and operating system:
iOS 12, iPhone 8
What you were expecting to happen, and what actually happened:
The devs have cited “we don’t want to annoy you with too many popups” in the past, particularly when players were begging for more pet rescue popups. I seem to remember, vaguely, there was some code in place to limit the number of times you get the “Hey, wanna get a $40 troop?” offer.
I used to see that maybe once or twice a day and expected that to continue. Since 4.0, it seems to happen hourly. This is what happens when I check my tribute:
Open Gems of War.
The game does some kind of startup tasks.
I get the offer popup. I dismiss it.
I collect tribute.
I get the offer popup again.
How often does this happen? When did it begin happening?
It seems to have started with 4.0. I don’t remember it being this obnoxious in 3.5. It’s happened 3 times today so far.
Steps to make it happen again
Do something that’s not Gems of War for an hour.
Open Gems of War to get your tribute.
I get that you want to advertise these offers to entice people to spend. But Apple’s HIG points out if you are too obnoxious with your requests it has the opposite effect, which is why they cracked down on begging users for app store ratings.
my main annoyance with the popup is that i close it, collect my tribute or whatever, then it comes back again. it always pops up twice, back to back. so you think you’ve cleared it, then start clicking other things and boom, its back. i’ve accidentally clicked the second popup many times. its ridiculous.
That could be the bug. As far as I can tell if you do something that summons a screen like tribute after the offer screen is dismissed, you ALWAYS get the offer screen again.
Can you at least put some kind of $5 trinket option on the screen? I am never going to spend $40 on a troop I already have, but if you stick like “Hey here’s the $5 weapon pack from the shop” those dang ingots it comes with are tempting.
It’s like why my college has never got any Alumni donations from me. They send a card that asks me to check an amount: $100, $1,000, or ‘other’. Right off the bat I can tell I’m not rich enough for their blood so it goes to the shredder.
In Step 2, can you please clarify/describe exactly what you mean by “startup tasks”? Does this happen every time you open Gems? Or only after Daily Reset?
I’m in the middle of a marathon session so I don’t think I’ll be able to reproduce it, but here’s exactly how it went 2 or 3 times today that led to this post (with the requested clarification):
I’ve got a reminder setup on my phone to tell me when to check tribute. So imagine I’m at work, and I haven’t touched my phone for about an hour.
I wake my phone, it’s on the home screen.
I tap the GoW icon. It was backgrounded, so it comes back.
The annoying game center login happens, meanwhile the game displays the spinny “I’m busy” icon in the middle of the screen. I assume this is it thinking, “Man, I haven’t talked to the server in a while, I’m going to ask it what’s up.” (this is the “startup tasks”).
The offer screen pops up. I dismiss it.
I get my tribute and dismiss that screen.
The offer screen pops up again, I dismiss it.
Maybe I play a game or two, depending on if it’s break time.
I background the app and set a reminder.
Basically, “let a device sleep for an hour, then foreground the app” seems to be a reliable repro.
Here’s a screenshot of what I mean by “the spinny thing”, just imagine that annoying iOS game center dropdown is also visible:
after i left my comment here, i haven’t had the back-to-back pop ups. its crazy. i almost want it to happen again so i don’t look like an idiot for posting that message…but i swear, it used to happen every time.
Yeah, I’m not quite able to reproduce it anymore either. I see the offer popup from time to time, but never close enough in time that I think it’s obnoxious anymore.
No clue if you did anything to fix it, but if I can’t reproduce it it’s probably not worth time tracking.
Perhaps it has been patched?
There was a small update I noticed when launching the game on Friday I think??
Anywhere we are able to check smaller patches?
If you are leaving Gems of War open in the background and return to the app to collect Tribute, the game is more liable to run into this issue. Think of it comparison to if you just started the game fresh, it’s connecting to the server anew so you won’t run into the pop-up reappearing as it has a clean start. If you are experiencing this please try force quitting/closing Gems of War more often to see if it prevents it.
