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'Bot AI frozen' has been merged into this idea

Sparky stuck in "Hmmm."-ing out turn - Need a way to force Sparky's play

Bug: As of 9/7/23 Sparky is stuck in "Hmmm."-ing on their turn to play. Is Sparky teaching roping as a valid strategy now?

Situation: Sparky has any number of cards or even no cards in hand. It is Sparky's first main phase. I am in a winning position just playing cards to try to get to test a new card in my 100-card singleton deck. Sparky Hmmms for ~ 17 minutes, then I get the victory screen. Sparky doesn't even say "You got me!", such a sore loser! This happened today against Sparky's Blue, Black, Red, White, and Green decks.

The reason this is bad:
- Roping is bad enough vs. humans. It is no fun at all vs. Sparky.
- Getting a Time Out victory when testing a new card in my deck is not good. I may not even draw the card before this Analysis Paralysis state kicks in.
- The current timer is way too long to wait to have a game simply end.
- The only way to end the match is to drain my device's battery for over 15 minutes or to concede the match. Yuck.

Solution: We need a way to force Sparky's play.
Ideas:
- Set Sparky's turn timer to 15 seconds: Once time is used up "thinking" a play or pass decision is enacted
- If the player emotes "Your go" a number of times (maybe 3?) before Sparky has played, a play or pass decision is enacted
- Fix the code that has Sparky getting stuck in the first place.

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Galax#76516 shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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  • Imnuktam#01053 commented  ·   ·  Report

    Really wish they would put more effort into sparky. I get this same issue every time I play with that sphere of protection that makes her need to pay 1 mana for every enchantment you have in play to attack.

    As someone who often plays this game when doing a job that requires little attention but often need to go afk, sparky is the only way to play.

    Old magic games had so much better AI behavior and soooo many more decks they played. What happened WOTC, you fire all those guys and can no longer code a bot or simply dont care?

  • TheWamp#17907 commented  ·   ·  Report

    you know there are people that pilot Sparky at random don't you?

  • Emperor_Zar#79402 commented  ·   ·  Report

    Happened to me just now, 6 months after your post. Only now it doesn't allow you to concede. Force shut down only.

  • TheOnlyVeso#56526 commented  ·   ·  Report

    I can't remember the last time the bot decks were last updated. I think around Midnight Hunt/Crimson vow, so maybe several years at this point. Sparky has been forgotten. Hundreds of hours, dunno if I've ever seen it cast Feral Roar, and Ward or similar extra casting/targeting costs just break it. It is fun though to only have hexproof creatures on board and see it target a burn spell on one of its own creatures. But again, Sparky has been forgotten.

  • Magic_Bus#34843 commented  ·   ·  Report

    Say it isn't so. Did they finally fix this "bug"? I haven't been "hmmm'd" out of a game all day. I even lingered around intentionally too long without a Hmmm. I hope this lasts.

  • Varuk#82555 commented  ·   ·  Report

    Can't even play casual with this since it always happens. I gueass that was it with playing magic in shool breaks

  • aspiraga#03575 commented  ·   ·  Report

    I play on breaks at work a lot on my laptop but my hot-spot connection is ****, so I just test decks against Sparky instead of making that another player's problem. Please fix this already, it's been occurring for a while now.

  • furbi#95594 commented  ·   ·  Report

    just ******* fix frozen sparky when there are more than 6 creatures or something. stuck on "hmmmm" "hmmmm" that makes IMPOSSIBLE for testing decks. this is just a shame to wizards tbh, it just don't make me wanna play this stupid game anymore.

  • Darthrc#87184 commented  ·   ·  Report

    Pinged WOTC Ian regarding this and the poor service in here (forum as a whole). Maybe now we'll get help.

    Edit: Ian says they are aware. Didn't comment on the rest of it though unfortunately.

  • Schnoobie#49620 commented  ·   ·  Report

    I was swinging for lethal, and Sparky decided then that she needed to think about it. I have been "Hmmm-locked" at least 10 times now and I usually concede so I can move on, but this is the last straw. It feels like the AI version of a tournament player trying to time you out so they win on a technicality instead of your current board running them over and you getting to keep playing.

  • Steelfire83713#67914 commented  ·   ·  Report

    Sparky has been deciding what to do for about 18 minutes now. This is the second time I have run into this. If I am playing against a player, I have time outs, but Sparky seems to get the luxury of forever to choose a move. I am a developer myself and this is on the backend, not the client side.

  • Darkknight#84798 commented  ·   ·  Report

    Sparky keeps getting stuck in the "HMMM" animation with no outlet besides conceding. I just want to test my decks properly, plus we shouldn't be showing newer players that roping is an ok win con.

  • Allirog#15154 commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hello @Darthrc#87184,

    I guess preventing peoples from playing against Sparky ensures somewhat more peoples in the other play queues but they utterly ignore the reasons why people play against Sparky. If you like playing MTG against AI I recommend taking a look at the community open source project MTG Forge as there is no better choice.

    As for where to write in order to get listened to here are some suggestions:
    - MTGA's Steam page
    - MTGA's Epic page
    - MTGA's Metacritic page
    - Apple Store MTGA app
    - Google Play MTGA app

    No use to comment on MTG's YT channels as that gives them better visibility. It's better to unsubscribe from those...

    Cheers

  • kkjamess#40524 commented  ·   ·  Report

    You should be embarrassed that this hasn't been fixed. It's the height of simply not caring about players.

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