Our Response to Issue with Cancel button while waiting (race condition)

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03-17-2018, 05:25 PM
Gondorian

Our Response to Issue with Cancel button while waiting (race condition)

I know this will get some backlash, but the Cancel button too often leads to people stuck in a waiting non-game due to a Race Condition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_condition) between client and server, so we're going to take it out of v3.60 and only bring it back when it works correctly.

Ideally, I could have taken time to understand the problem and fix it for v3.60, but I don't think I can nail this long-standing thing in time to have LLP2 come out on time as well. In terms of what it would take to fix, we are talking about risky client and server change to tackle a problem not fully understood. A rush job could lead to more bugs and we want to limit the chance of new regressions (i.e. errors and crashes and bugs not present in v3.52) happening in v3.60, since we want v3.60 to be the best ever Shadow Era experience for our players, making use of the long-awaited Lost Lands Part Two!

In the mean time, until I take the button away, I strongly recommend don't hit Cancel while Waiting for Opponent in v3.52, unless you wish to risk the Race Condition happening (which leads to you being told the game already started and you get stuck in it for 5 minutes or so and then a loss being recorded for you for that game). This Race Condition bug has been there a long time and was hidden for a while by taking away Cancel, but then we brought back Cancel due to popular demand and maybe forgot it had gone to hide a bug rather to stop people from getting out of the queue. For new or old players, the Cancel button Race Condition is bad and confusing experience. We need to prevent that and then do proper a fix in a future version.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What if we get tired of waiting?
A1: If you mean you want to go do something that isn't Shadow Era, and don't mind risking losing Rating and having a loss in your Best Score 50-match score window, then hit Cancel and risk it since the 5-minute inconvenience of not being able to play a game won't matter to you anyway.
A2: If you mean you want to stop waiting, then start waiting again, then just keep waiting since we have changed the pairing algorithm now anyway such that dropping out of queue and getting back in will serve no benefit (and actually mean someone might get in queue before you).
03-17-2018, 07:57 PM
Demnchi

So, what would happen if I closed the app because I wanted to stop searching? Is that identical to the cancel button if I haven't found a game yet?
03-17-2018, 08:24 PM
Ross013

What if you accidentally queue up while on the multiplayer screen? It's hard to present an example but sometimes I look for games to watch and accidentally tap the battle button, or a momentary lapse of judgement during setting up a custom match and end up hitting the battle button thinking it's the create game button (I know the answer will probably be 'don't be a dumbass!' Haha but it does happen)

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03-18-2018, 02:34 AM
jacelkos

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gondorian

I know this will get some backlash, but the Cancel button too often leads to people stuck in a waiting non-game due to a Race Condition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_condition) between client and server, so we're going to take it out of v3.60 and only bring it back when it works correctly.

Ideally, I could have taken time to understand the problem and fix it for v3.60, but I don't think I can nail this long-standing thing in time to have LLP2 come out on time as well. In terms of what it would take to fix, we are talking about risky client and server change to tackle a problem not fully understood. A rush job could lead to more bugs and we want to limit the chance of new regressions (i.e. errors and crashes and bugs not present in v3.52) happening in v3.60, since we want v3.60 to be the best ever Shadow Era experience for our players, making use of the long-awaited Lost Lands Part Two!

In the mean time, until I take the button away, I strongly recommend don't hit Cancel while Waiting for Opponent in v3.52, unless you wish to risk the Race Condition happening (which leads to you being told the game already started and you get stuck in it for 5 minutes or so and then a loss being recorded for you for that game). This Race Condition bug has been there a long time and was hidden for a while by taking away Cancel, but then we brought back Cancel due to popular demand and maybe forgot it had gone to hide a bug rather to stop people from getting out of the queue. For new or old players, the Cancel button Race Condition is bad and confusing experience. We need to prevent that and then do proper a fix in a future version.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What if we get tired of waiting?
A1: If you mean you want to go do something that isn't Shadow Era, and don't mind risking losing Rating and having a loss in your Best Score 50-match score window, then hit Cancel and risk it since the 5-minute inconvenience of not being able to play a game won't matter to you anyway.
A2: If you mean you want to stop waiting, then start waiting again, then just keep waiting since we have changed the pairing algorithm now anyway such that dropping out of queue and getting back in will serve no benefit (and actually mean someone might get in queue before you).

Could we get back the ability to offer draw to ourselves then?
That was a nice workaround when the cancel button was taken off.
Unless it suffers from the same race condition.
03-18-2018, 01:23 PM
Gondorian

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demnchi

So, what would happen if I closed the app because I wanted to stop searching? Is that identical to the cancel button if I haven't found a game yet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jacelkos

Could we get back the ability to offer draw to ourselves then?
That was a nice workaround when the cancel button was taken off.
Unless it suffers from the same race condition.

I'll need look into these two and get back to you. Just wanted to give a heads-up of the situation as best we can and what we are planning to do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ross013

What if you accidentally queue up while on the multiplayer screen? It's hard to present an example but sometimes I look for games to watch and accidentally tap the battle button, or a momentary lapse of judgement during setting up a custom match and end up hitting the battle button thinking it's the create game button (I know the answer will probably be 'don't be a dumbass!' Haha but it does happen)

Currently there are a lot of situations where you can be paired immediately now, due to improved pairing algorithm, so accidentally hitting Battle can get you straight into a match that's waiting for an opponent. Be more careful! You could just as easily close the app by accident. (Accidentally closing browser tab used to be the classic one when Unity supported playing in browser.)

But I agree there are times you could safely Cancel and get out due to a mistaken Battle press if the Cancel button worked correctly, so we will bring the button back when it acts as expected!