Platform, device and operation system
Android, Samsung Galazy s20
What were you expecting to happen, and what actually happened
When making my moves my time ran out has I was making my last move, instead of taking or not taking the move, it was left half done you could see the gems out of place. The npc took its turn then when my turn started it finished the half completed move and started my move timer so I was unable to use any spells that turn. Not sure if related, but I was under a speed reduction debuff at the time
How often does this happen? When did it begin happening?
once so far
Steps to make it happen again
Make a move right had time is ending, may need to be under a speed debuff
I also experiencing this a few times.
To make this happen, do a legal swap when the timer is run out. The swap seems failed, but if them didn’t change the place in this turn, they will be auto-swapped at the beginning of next turn and trigger the match timer.
This has happened to me multiple times. I don’t think the speed debuff matters.
When the move timer ends while you’re trying for that last second match, your move gets hung up and stuck. These two pieces remain “hung up” mid-move. Then your turn completes and any matches happen normally, including any windfall matches. The enemies turn continues normally. Then at the beginning of your next turn, the “hung up” move completes.
It doesn’t matter if it’s the same two pieces that you originally moved, or if the puzzle has moved those pieces due to your turns matches. Whatever pieces that are in the two locations of the “hung up” move complete at the beginning of your next turn, regardless of their new colors.
Fortunately if your pieces have moved in such a way that the hung up move doesn’t match, nothing happens and you can cast spells or move other pieces.
However, if your hung up move makes a match, then your move timer starts and you can continue to move other pieces until the timer runs out. As others have said, when this happens, you don’t have the chance to cast spells that turn.
I’ve experienced this issue multiple times. @Benito_De_Soto has the issue generally correct.
Adding my own thoughts onto their post,
As discussed in previous posts by others, the issue occurs when an attempted match is made by a player when the move timer expires. When the move timer is up, the game must make a judgment call on whether the move that is in-progress should be allowed or not.
I believe that the issue is caused by the following:
Similar to how GoW calculates on a diagonal motion by the player on which of the two directions in the diagonal to grant to the player, PQ3 likely makes a similar calculation when the move timer expires, with the likely breakpoint being whether the moved gem is more than 50% of the way from its original position to the player’s desired destination position.
IF the gem does not make it to the halfway point of the move animation, the game disallows the move and the two gems move back to their original positions.
IF the gem does make it more to more than the halfway point of the move animation, the game grants the player the move and competes the movement of the two gems.
[Suspected Issue] If the gems are exactly at the halfway point of their move animation. The gems become visually “stuck” on top of each other. The game does not grant the player the move that turn. HOWEVER, as discussed by @Benito_De_Soto , as soon as the player’s next turn begins, the game attempts to resolve the move from the end of the previous turn immediately.
IF the match would no longer be valid (they moved during between resolution of the player’s turn and/or the opponent manipulated the board in some way that invalidates the match), the game visually shows the match not being valid and returns the two gems to their previous positions from the end of the player’s previous turn.
IF the match would still be valid (the gems did not move or were not manipulated in some way from the end of the player’s previous turn), the game completes the match. The game registers this as a valid active gem movement for that turn and begins the move timer for that turn, without the player’s input.