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

[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).