You were seeing these extended delays when trying to change teams before we released the 1.0.85 update on April 1?
If so, that’s a new wrinkle to this problem. In every complaint I’ve seen so far, the problem started with the launch of the update.
That wrinkle isn’t quite as new as I previously stated. The issue is just far more obvious since the update. Carry on.
The lag when you switch teams has been around since I started playing Gems of War on Xbox One in December. I’m not sure how fast it was earlier than that in any previous updates.
It hangs so bad it seems like the game is frozen, but if you wait long enough it will always work.
I have a hard time believing the dev hasn’t experienced this issue.
And all I have is 3 teams made. All the other 10+ slots are empty.
If it helps, the only common troop I’ve used since December is Boar Rider. Since then I’ve changed troop units, which from I first played in Dec has had these troops over time as well: Hero, Luther, Gloom Leaf, Shadow Dragon, Star Gazer, Centaur, Tyli.
I also experienced the lag prior to the update as well. It normally wasn’t noticeable since no team was prepicked. But if I made a mistake in my team selection and wanted to change the selection, things would delay before getting the option to pick a new team (specifically the highlight that you’d move up and down would not reappear for some time. Eventually it would and you could pick a new team.)
That is true. But I figured it was like the Troop menu. The lag is still there. Takes a bit for that to highlight again and allow you to click on something else. Must be a server thing really.
Ive been having extreme lag selecting teams as well. Its been going on since I started playing but seems to have become even worse since the update.
Well believe it! We don’t see it on our dev boxes, or on the live consoles we test with.
A thought - how full is your console’s hard drive? Our machines are practically empty - I’m just trying to spitball what could be different about our machines to drive this difference…
Also, have you tried hitting the home button, then coming back? One user reported that when the game hangs, he could hit the home button, then return to the game after a moment to clear the hang. Which, if true, would indicate that it’s an OS-level hang and not our code. Which could be due to fragmentation / full drives.
(It’s still on us to improve it, but knowing the cause would really help…)
One thing I can say for certain is that when I first started playing the game it wasnt an issue. But as I progressed the issue arose and continually worsened. Could it have something to do with how many troops or teams one has unlicked. During this time the contents of my drive didnt really change much and its not full. Since you mentioned OS level, could a recent PS4 update cause it too? But hasnt the issue been reported on both consoles?
Hi,
Yeah, I’ve done the dashboard button back and forth. I’m not sure if it works or not though, since it may be a placebo effect whether it makes it faster or not.
As for my HDD, I only have the Xbox One OS and apps on the internal 500 gb HDD. I save all my games onto an external 3tb Seagate drive. I have lots of stuff on it, but the total space used up (I think the system combines internal + external capacity) is about 25% according to the OS page that shows the game library and what % HDD is used. So tons of room left.
Back in December when I first started playing Gems, the capacity was probably still at 20% usage.
This doesn’t work for me. I’ve tried the very same thing, but I think the game “clearing” the hang is simply happenstance.
In my case, the hanging is 100% reproducible and is impossible to avoid if I want to switch teams. It was 100% reproducible prior to 1.0.85 as well, but it was at least avoidable.
My console’s internal drive is ~1/2 full. I also have a SSD connected with an external USB enclosure which is ~1/2 full as well. I usually download the games with gold promo games. I have played a fair amount of Fallout 4 and more Destiny than I’d like to admit for well over a year. But if there is fragmentation issues, lets blame Bungie/Destiny on that one. 
Gems of War is being run from the external SSD. I’ll test moving it internally and see if there is a difference tonight.
I’ll provide more information later regarding my team compositions, banners, etc…
Question - does this mean that you get the pause the first time you play? As in, your console is off - you boot it up, and can get the pause the very first time you switch teams? Folks have been reporting that they do NOT get it until a fair amount of playtime has passed. But if you can get it the first time, that would rule out certain potential problems.
Yes. But its so short, the first time wouldn’t be bothersome.
As stated previously by various posters (including myself), the hang is something that gets progressively worse the longer you play. The hang starts out at ~1s. To be fair, I wouldn’t consider ~1s to be a “hang” under normal circumstances. However, ~1s is just the first data point in an inclining line plot of the issue, so I think it is fair to address it as such in these particular circumstances. The same visual indicator and input unresponsiveness exist during this ~1s as it does during longer hangs.
Video Proof - Shortly after starting the game
The above video is from a day or so ago, but it is just after I’ve opened up the game (notice kingdom income at the start of the video). I open my troop list, open my “Main Team” and back out of it. When backing out, you’ll see the “glowy relic” effect on the team selection frame disappear for ~1s. The “X Rename Team” text is also displayed until the game becomes responsive and hides/clears it. Those are a couple visual indicators that the game is hung.
Video Proof 2 - After several matches have been played
This video is from several days ago, but I’m in the troop list screen and backing out from the same team. This was after I had played several matches (although I don’t remember if it was PvP, challenges, etc…) You’ll notice the “glowy relic” effect is absent for a much longer period of time.
Trying to provide as much info for this issue as possible. As of last night, here is my troop list.
Here is some more info in response to these specific questions.
After every game, you’ll notice the delay will be some number of seconds longer if you switch teams. Sometimes its 1-2s longer, some times it seems like it is 5-10s longer. Either way, it all accumulates to a greater hang - it never becomes a shorter hang unless the game is closed and relaunched.
That said, I’m not certain that the act of switching the team is what increases the delay, I think it has to do with matches played.
I also don’t think it is related to elapsed time, because I can leave the game idle for a bit, come back and switch teams, and the hang will not be noticeably longer than the previous hang.
No, that is not my experience. As I replied above, it starts out at ~1s even after coming right into the game from the console being off. Its not bothersome at 1s (linked video proof above), but it is a tiny/short hang.
Yes. 100% of the time. But I want to note that even though the hang occurs, it doesn’t seem like it gets longer unless you play a match.
The delay seems to always be pretty close to the length of the last hang, regardless of game mode I’m playing in. The hang progressively gets worse.
For example, the delay might be ~6s prior to going into a PvP invasion. I’ll do the invasion, go to start a quest and select a different team and the delay will have increased to ~7-8s. Finish the quest, go to do a challenge and select a different team, now the delay lasted for ~8-10s.
I’m not sure how that info could be ascertained in my situation - I’ve yet to figure out how to prevent it from hanging as its 100% reproducible in my case.
Yes. It doesn’t matter which team I’m switching from, the hang occurs.
I’ve made entirely new teams several, several times over and the hang still persists.
I recorded this last night. At some point someone mentioned not seeing an example of a hang that exceeded a minute or so. This one lasts for over 2 minutes before the game kicks back in: Video proof of 2m12s hang
So, the 1 second pause is deliberate - it’s part of the built-in transition animation. FYI.
I just played on both PS4 and Xbox - and after 10 matches, I still didn’t see any increase in that timing. I totally believe that this pause is happening for some players, but without being able to reproduce it locally we don’t have any way to fix it. (Because if we fixed it - how would we know?)
Since it seems so consistent for you, and for some other players, but isn’t happening for us at all, my inclination is to look for differences between our consoles. Maybe it’s some hardware variation? The presence of an external drive? Difficult to pin this sort of thing down.
Been away from this thread for a while, but I’d like to say that the answers to the questions given by Stormbarrier match the experiences of myself and that of a friend exactly. It always happens, accumulates gradually, increases in length per match played (regardless of type), and troop composition has no effect.
About my hardware, I bought my XB1 around the beginning November last year. I do not have a kinect or external HDD. My friend does have an external HDD. We’re both in the US.
I hope this gets fixed. The friend I mentioned before has pretty much quit playing the game due to this delay and the various crashes related to abilities (e.g., Chimera’s Triple Bite)
For the record, I copied Gems of War back to my internal drive and physically disconnected my external USB drive from my XB1. I launched the game and experienced the same hangs (although loading the game certainly takes longer).
I’ve since reattached my external drive and am using it again. I’d rule that one out, unless ever having an external drive attached (even if not currently) would be playing a part in the mix.
Don’t have kinect or an external hard drive connected to my Xbox One. No need to with a 1TB internal drive at this time. Controller is hard wired as well.
Its fast at first. Then it slows down whenever I change the make up of the team, or have played for many hours non-stop. But the delay is the same with the Troop Menu. Sometimes when filtering through kingdoms, the cursor disappears and the delay is plain awful. Only way to fix that is to exit the Troop menu and re-enter. Not sure why that happens. Perhaps, they’re related.
Last night I removed the troops from 18 of my 19 teams. I set the banners for team 2-19 to the blue/brown banner. I did a hard shutdown on my XB1 (the one where it takes a full minute or so to come back on).
I turned the XB1 back on and used my first team (the only one with troops in it) and was experiencing the hangs just as normal. I modified the team (and banner) several times and came out and back into the game a couple times and was still seeing the same hangs.
Unless there is some other special configuration I can do, I don’t think modifying the actual teams is changing this problem in any way.
Could it have something to do with unlocked troops in the troop list and/or the quantity of those troops? This isn’t something I can really manipulate without longstanding damage to my collection (i.e., not willing to disenchant troops for the sake of testing).
@Mr.Strange I reported previously that, for me, the significant game hang time (up to 3m17s back then) when switching Teams started with the December update, in other words the one that first introduced multiple Team slots. I was using the internal 500G HD on the Xbox One. Some months ago, we switched to an external SSD and the hanging lag was reduced to under 2 minutes. This suggests that it isn’t the HHD or SSD which is creating the issue directly.
I am able to compare my play experience on my XB1 account to that of another account on my console, and the progress on that account is much less than mine. The second player account is not experiencing the lag at all (save for the deliberate 1-second delay).
My suspicion is that it’s the grandfathering of players who had already unlocked all 17 cities, at the time of the increased Team slot update, which generated the lagging-hang symptoms most acutely.
[EDIT: To clarify, these players were grandfathered by automatically granting them 17 Team slots during the update]
To attempt to replicate the issue on your test servers, you may have to run a scenario like this again:
Download and install initial GoW release for XB1 from November 12th.
Play through 50+ player levels.
Unlock all 17 cities on the Map.
Fill, erase, replace some of the banner-associated troop slots (the version that filled the screen with 4 squares of space) with various troops.**
Download and install GoW release from December 22nd.***
Issue should become evident then, but if not, it became even more obvious after a few more Team slots were filled.
What happens if you hotfix a cap on all accounts limiting people to no more than 10 Team slots, for now? Would that reduce the lag issue?
**Incidentally, one of the odd things about that earlier version of GoW is that the game had automatically filled my Banner slots with Kingdom troops that I hadn’t chosen to put into those slots. I would erase and refill them but I always wondered how it chose to put some troops in place, while ignoring others, or while leaving slots empty when I actually did have enough troops for that Kingdom to automatically fill in all 4 slots above that Banner.
***EDIT 2: When I installed the December XB1 update, I didn’t do a fresh install. I allowed the game to automatically update itself. I reported previously that the size of the installed game apparently grew to 1.9G rather than 1.7G.
This was my case. Hopefully you’re on to something.