Platform, device version and operating system: any
Screenshot or image: not required
What you were expecting to happen, and what actually happened:
When you match a burning gem, quickly click your troop with a single target abillity. Game allows you to click ‘cast’ once the board stand still, meanwhile burning gem visual effect is still on fly. Once spell is clicked, targeting phase begins. And now when burning effect hits its target, that target becomes unavailable, even if fire doesn’t affect it at all by its trait. If you didn’t click fast enough any target (which is unlikely) its soft locked.
Also For any reason, burning gem animation takes quite a while, feels like enemy might even skip the very first damage instance if he gets to make a turn right After you have triggered the burn match.
How often does this happen? When did it begin happening?
For months already
Ironhawk’s 3rd trait can also trigger it on targets that are Submerged (e.g. Delve run with Tidal Affix).
Basically ANYTHING that alters a target during the manual-targeting prompt will for some reason remove them from the target selection, which can easily softlock the game because the manual-targeting prompt has no means of canceling it.
No, no, NO on so many levels.
A lot of bug report topics tend to end up stalling out simply because the one person who experienced it never took screenshots/video for proof and nobody else can figure out how to make it happen again for confirmation/analysis/resolution.
Some bugs can be incredibly esoteric with very specific requirements to generate (fortunately, this isn’t one of them) so you really NEED to “show your work” in as raw format as possible. Video captures are ideal, but not everyone can “always be recording” so if your platform has a feature like automatic video buffering (allowing you to capture video footage after the fact) then learn how to use it and include a snapshot of the bug actually happening with every report.
I’ve also noticed when using Fire Spirit, the match resolution takes a lot of time. I don’t think they tried this sort of mass matching of burning gems.
This issue has already been reported several times, it also happens for other special gems that visually home in on a troop. See also these bug reports:
In all videos it’s clearly visible that every player tried to cast the spell BEFORE the last instance off an status effect gem flying over the board has reached it’s destination.
@OminousGMan
Easiest solution would be imo:
Give us a cancel button if we dont wanna cast a spell and let the game “update/reload” the current game status by doing so.
This would also solve a longtime request of the community.
Some complications:
1 - You should match the special gem in a way that grants an Extra Turn so that you can spellcast while it is still homing.
2 - Special gems seem to home in on their target at randomized speeds, so the time window for the above (i.e. ability to reproduce) is unpredictable.
Per my hypothesis above, it seems like when you cast a manual-target spell, anything that triggers an update to a target’s status (like Ironhawk’s third trait vs. a Submerged target) somehow removes them from the internal list of eligible targets for that spell, which is a BIG problem when it happens (even when it does not happen often). In all these videos (but particularly the last one) you can clearly see that the affected troop is highlighted as a target UNTIL the special gem actually hits them.
Naturally, this problem did not occur until the implementation of special gems and Ironhawk’s release. And it wouldn’t be an issue at all if we could just cancel out of a spellcast in the first place.
It was easily reproduceable for me in my 1st attempt with the same team. I tested it several times with always the same soft lock.
Just make sure to get an extra turn and match at least one burning gem with Fire Spirit and try to cast Wrath Naga immediately afterwards while the spell of Fire Spirit is still resolving.
For the “Cancel-solution” I see some problems which should be paid attention on before.
1st: Pressing the “Cast”-Button already triggers traits like 3rd trait from Ironhawk which would result in an infinite combo of cast and cancel with any empowered troop on turn 1.
2nd: Adding some kind of “prevent you from selecting your own troops before the board state has resolved completely” will cause plenty of time delay where all preselection has to wait until everything is done at the current board state.
There are plenty solutions but the main bug is adding an effect causing troop to refresh its card making it unclickable. This must be fixed, should not be a big problem.
Yes, good catch. Literally the ONLY trait that should trigger during the target-select prompt is Stealthy. All other “on cast” traits must wait until the ACTUAL spellcast (i.e: popup of troop art & spell name).
If you play on console with a controller, you cannot interact with the board (e.g. inspect troop cards) during the opponent’s turn or during combos/cascades. It’s probably still possible to generate the softlock via controller, but the time window is that much tighter because you can’t queue up the spell mid-combo.
There shouldn’t be a trigger at all. The stealthy troop should remain locked as long there is another troop without stealthy in my team and it should be unlocked as soon the troop is stunned or one of the last remaining troops with stealthy.
If the stealthy troop(s) is/are the only left and
Okay, didn’t know about that. On Switch it works due touchpad.
So the 2nd issue would probably only affect Steam and Switch users. Would be a pain on Switch since the loading time for each battle is almost twice the amount of Steam loading time from my experience.
The visual reminder of “you can’t select that target right now because of Stealthy” is still useful to have, so technically it requires an event trigger – just not the same trigger as every other “on spellcast” trait.
Mouse input is processed more or less the same as touchscreen input.
And why there is no general keyboard input (or PC controller? can someone confirm?) is an age-old question.
Thank you to @DracoL1ch, @CaptainAwesome and @Stratelier for all the information you have provided on this issue you’ve been experiencing and how to reproduce this bug.
I have been able to encounter this issue and have logged this bug with the development team. I have also passed along the possible solution of adding a “Cancel Spell” button to Gems.
Also, thank you @Fourdottwoone for linking those other threads that appear to be related to this issue, I’m going through the process of looking into them using the new information everyone has provided.
I expressed myself incorrectly to this point.
What I mean is, there should be a trigger, but one that is already turned “on” from the beginning of a battle as along there is a troop with “stealthy” involved. This ongoing trigger should be turned “off” as soon as no troop without “stealthy” exists anymore or all “stealthy” troops get stunned. Turn it “on” again, when a troop without “stealthy” is respawned and so on.
I’ll try to make a bit easier:
1 or more troops with “stealthy” + 1 or more troops without “stealthy” = Trigger is turned “on” and prohibids selection of “stealthy” troops.
All troops or no troop have “stealthy” = Trigger is turned “off” and all troops are selectable
This should flip the conditions around and would allow us in rare cases to select a “stealthy” troop but it would prevent soft locks imo.
