Why do 4 gem matches never Mana Surge?

[Lyya]

What you were expecting to happen, and what actually happened?
If I match 3 gems, I get Mana Surges proportional to the Surge percentage I have for that color. If I match 5 gems, I get an automatic Surge. However, if I match 4 gems, I never Surge. I’ve played thousands upon thousands of matches and I’ve never once seen a Mana Surge on 4 gems. There’s no indication (tooltip or otherwise) that this is the intended behavior, so I assume it is a bug.

What are the steps to make it happen again?
Play the game, make any 4 match. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but statistically speaking, over 10 matches with even 50% Surge chances, the odds of not seeing one Surge are about 1 in 1,000 if Surges follow 3-match rules.

Do you have any screenshots or video you want to share with us so we can see the problem? Attach them to your post!
None needed, self-evident via normal play.

[GemsCollector]

AFAIK it’s intended. Although I’ve also never seen any such indication in-game.
Besides I’m not sure why it is like that. Especially since, from what I read on this forum, on Consoles it works differently, like with 3-match.

[Lyya]

That’s part of what’s gotten me curious about it. Console allegedly doesn’t work this way, and their system seems like how things were intended – and yet, PC/mobile has not surged on 4 mana for as long as I have played. If this is by design, it would be good to know that.

[Studs]

It is odd. Really seems like a bug that was never fixed and everyone just got used to it. I honestly haven’t thought about it in months.

[Strat]

Yeah, the console setup seems to make more sense. 3, 4, and 5 all have a chance to surge. If they change this on PC you might have to give up the guaranteed 5-match Surge.

[Shiratori]

Maybe the thought was with 3 you have a chance at a bonus (extra mana)

4 your bonus is the extra turn.

5 being the hardest to get (yeah yeah color changers) you got all bonuses.

[Lyya]

That’s the only explanation I’ve been able to come up with, as well. It’s possible that this was the intent. Would love to hear a dev comment one way or the other, though.

[Eika]

Pretty sure this was the intent, but lets hear from the devs to be 100%.

[Jainus]

It is intended, confirmed by @sirrian in the past… broadly based on the logic @shiratori puts above…

[Lyya]

Good to know. Do you have a source for that?

Would then be interesting to understand why it’s different for Console. Just a matter of philosophical differences?

The only forum topic I see discussing the issue is the following, and that has no dev commentary, just player speculation:

4x-match = no mana surge

I’ve been playing GoW for awhile, but noticed it only recently: When I match 5 gems I ALWAYS get a mana surge. When I match 4 gems I NEVER get a mana surge. It wasn’t important or noticeable before, but as skill numbers grow and the chances for mana surges become tangible (like 50%), I started to make some tactics relying on them. And now to my surprise I find that sometimes 3x-matches are more beneficial than 4x ones. So was it always like this? Or was it changed by some patch? Is it by de…

[Strat]

@Lyya

Would then be interesting to understand why it’s different for Console. Just a matter of philosophical differences?

I think @Mr.Strange said he wanted to reduce to power of gem transformers on console. Hence the chance to surge a on 5-match rather than automatic surge.

I don’t have the link to that posting though…

[TaliaParks]

@Strat

@Lyya

Would then be interesting to understand why it’s different for Console. Just a matter of philosophical differences?

I think @Mr.Strange said he wanted to reduce to power of gem transformers on console. Hence the chance to surge a on 5-match rather than automatic surge.

I don’t have the link to that posting though…

I’d believe it except in the 7500+ I’ve played I don’t recall ever NOT getting a Mana Surge on a 5-match.

In fact, I match 5s knowing they give 10+ Mana.

[Jainus]

@Lyya

Do you have a source for that?

Not that I can find or share… Likely a PM conversation… Would have been nearly two years ago, memory gets scratchy at my age…

[Mitheithel]

Would it be from the old forum, then?

[Strat]

@Mr.Strange

Changing the 5 to MAY surge does a lot to curb the runaway power of gem transformers. Which is part of the reason they are less dominant on console

From:

Coming soon to a console near you! (Weekly Event: Khaziel)

This is a list of troops that are not currently available on the console but are in the PC version of the game. This will be an ongoing work in progress as troops do become available and new troops are added to the PC. Now the devs are working to bring the 2 sets of platforms to be as identical as possible but that is still some likely time off. The information here is being taken from the current versions of both the PC and PS4 versions and comparing what is missing. The current console ver…

Found the quote about Surges on the Console from Mr. Strange

[GemsCollector]

Hmm, I think we’re slightly off-topic here. It may be an explanation to 5 matches working differently (although @TaliaParks mentioned that they really doesn’t), but it says nothing about 4 matches… Any ideas? Maybe a dev will enlighten us?

[Lyya]

It would be nice to have an official answer on this. I expect @Shiratori is correct, and 4-matches are already rewarded by the extra turn. Pinging @Sirrian just the same.