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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TheWamp#17907 commented
you know there are people that pilot Sparky at random don't you?
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RRF3#92653 commented
Hmmm...
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Emperor_Zar#79402 commented
Happened to me just now, 6 months after your post. Only now it doesn't allow you to concede. Force shut down only.
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ControlNode#62192 commented
Still doing this after all this time. When I first started playing this was never an issue.
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TheOnlyVeso#56526 commented
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.
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Magic_Bus#34843 commented
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.
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Varuk#82555 commented
Can't even play casual with this since it always happens. I gueass that was it with playing magic in shool breaks
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aspiraga#03575 commented
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.
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furbi#95594 commented
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.
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Darthrc#87184 commented
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.
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TomH#59992 commented
Still not fixed. How pathetic.
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Schnoobie#49620 commented
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.
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MonkeyDoo#64046 commented
Stuck on Hhm also. Frustrating as it's about the 20th time this has happened now.
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Steelfire83713#67914 commented
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.
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Darkknight#84798 commented
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.
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Allirog#15154 commented
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 appNo use to comment on MTG's YT channels as that gives them better visibility. It's better to unsubscribe from those...
Cheers
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kkjamess#40524 commented
You should be embarrassed that this hasn't been fixed. It's the height of simply not caring about players.
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kkjamess#40524 commented
Why is this still an issue?
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Darthrc#87184 commented
Back to back to back to back (yes 4!) lockups against Sparky. Before giving up I noticed a MASSIVE frame rate dip to unplayable levels while Sparky "Hmm"ed out. I had a hard time even bringing the menu up to forfeit because of the interface lag.
This is getting worse. Somewhere in Sparky's code is a bug causing her to think in an infinite loop. Find it, fix it, please, Wizards.
I'm SURE most people I'm this thread would appreciate a little acknowledgement of this damnable issue. Let us know you know, Wizards.
I wish I could find who to write a letter or email to in order to actually get some service in this platform, or better yet hold these jokers accountable. Every one of you WizardsMS staff seem to just hide behind pre-written messages to appease the ignorant masses. So many issues on this forum go unresolved and unacknowledged!
We never know what issues you are even aware of! How does the CEO even allow this to happen. You are leaving your customers in the dark about critical, gamebreaking issues most of the time. So sick of the lack of quality service here. -
Allirog#15154 commented
Hello @Abraxxas80#19836, @VikingNinja47#92568,
Sorry to break it to you, this is not a bug: it is done on purpose.
After the last game update Sparky also stops responding when the player attacks. As such, I guess it's easier to hide this specific design as a bug.
Playing against the bot does not help this "pay to win" game earn money since the players are less likely to need powerful cards (hence lees need to invest money to buy better/new cards) nor the bot cares when the players brag about their new flashy cosmetics...
I recommend to everyone to use the default sleeves, one of the default avatars, remove any card style and not play the 3rd MWM game awarding a cosmetic in order to send the clear message that cosmetics improvement should not be the top priority nor detrimental to game's enjoyability or playability then maybe consider using the cosmetics again when the card search engine will allow the search "by artist" to start giving proper credit to the artists for their wonderful work.
@VikingNinja47#92568: even Magic Duels has a better AI design, don't know if it's still available on Steam/iOS but that's not surprising giving that Sparky get improved at playing bad with nearly every game update. Otherwise I highly recommend having a look at the community made MTG Forge: there are lots of decks, some are even machine learning improved and I guarantee one could have a hard time beating those. There are even some of the Possibility Storm's puzzles that were featured on ChannelFireball.com !
Kind regards