Platform, device and operation system
Android, OnePlus 8T, Android 11
Steps to make it happen
Cast a spell that creates colored gems on the board.
The board gets into a state where no gem swaps are possible, as a result of the board state after generating the new colored gems.
Although I have additional spells I want to cast, the game forces my turn to be over. It goes to the enemy’s turn, but I never actually matched any gems myself on my turn.
What were you expecting to happen, and what actually happened Expected: I am able to cast as many spells as I want before making any matches/triggering turn end. If the board has no swappable gems but I still have spells left that can be cast, a button appears allowing me to end my turn instead of manually matching any gems, if I wish.
Actual: If there are no swaps available, the turn end is triggered, regardless of whether the user still has spells they can cast.
How often does this happen? When did it begin happening?
This happens with relative regularity.
Chiming in to say that this is super easy to reproduce.
Steps to recreate with 100% accuracy:
Load up on gem creating spells (color does not matter, but choose the same color for ease of duplication of the issue).
Cast gem creating spells.
If any at any time after casting one of the gem creation spells the board state results in no moves available, then the board will self-resolve immediately.
If the board self-resolves to clear the frozen state, this counts as a player’s board movement for that turn.
If a valid complete row to generate a stun effect does not exist in the frozen board state, then the self-resolution of the board will consume that player’s turn even if the player still has additional eligible spells left to cast that turn.
EDIT: As a side observation, this issue can also cause a result where if a direct damage spell that has a gem creation component is cast and that damage component defeats the enemy and the result of the gem creation results in the board becoming frozen, then the enemy will be defeated, the game will move onto the next opponent, and then the board will immediately self-resolve as soon as the next opponent appears acting as the player’s turn for that round. Niche, but I’ve definitely seen it happen multiple times.
Find it concerning that the devs would even need additional info on this. It can easily occur 20-50 times just while doing the 2+ hour daily system, as well as any gameplay with rare+ spells, which would imply most of the devs never even played one day of the daily system on the live version of the game.
It looks pretty bad if people on the dev team play the game little enough that such a basic mechanic of the game eludes them.
This is about as bad as Salty, other community manager, not even realizing Paladin’s power gem gives barrier despite her only ever playing Paladin on stream.
Small delay as I was waiting to hear back from the teams about what is intended here… showed them my example of filling the board with skulls from my Ult.
Within the game, it currently does not recognise if you have more spells to cast while the board no longer has any available matches. So it resolves what is currently on the board.
While this is currently intended, I have passed this feedback on to the team. As always, being in Early Access, there is always the potential for this to change in future.
The follow up to this becomes, if it was to recognise you have spells left while the board is full, what if you don’t want to cast those spells?
Which is where, as you mentioned (and other players have also), the suggestion of an End Turn button or prompt is brought up. This feedback has also been passed along to the team!
In regards to the loading screen text, technically matches have been made, before the board resolves itself. But from spells being cast and creating matches as opposed to you creating the match yourself.
We’re not always going to have the same needs when coming to the end of a turn. Sometimes you’ll want to cast additional spells before ending the turn to dish additional damage or set conditions. If the game forces you to end your turn without giving you a choice, it can totally mess you up. In my opinion, the game should not assume you’re done with your turn simply because there are currently no moves that can be made on the board. The player should have the choice. I’d like to see something like an “End Turn” button. If the player initiates a move on the board, then the timer starts and the End Turn button is not needed for normal situations. However, it gives the player the option to cast additional spells when there are no moves left and it also gives the player the option to end the turn with the board as it is, even if there are moves that can be made… that’s something I’ve wished I could do more than once.
In my example from filling the board with skulls, I also have a spell that transforms Skulls into another coloured Gem. If I wanted that mana to be filled, over skull damage, I can see where having the option to have a choice to end turn is valuable.
As mentioned, the team is aware of players wanting this as an option!
