Not a bug report… BUT…

[purplezyg]

a couple of questions about bugs

I’ve had a problem today and went to report a bug. Obviously first I checked to see if it was already noted. And I’ve found several reports that I believe are all the same problem as what happened during my game earlier.
#47417 (17 votes)
#87480 (11 votes)
#94776 (6 votes)
And #91125 -was possibly same issue too

If I understand correctly, the more votes an issue receives the sooner it is investigated.
Has it been noticed by BGA or developers that maybe some users just start a new report if the wording is not exactly the same as what they are trying to say?

One bug with more votes will of course be looked at sooner than separate, small number issues.
I’m still new to this game, and quite upset to have lost 20 Karma points due to what seems to be a known bug!


Explanation of why 20 points (to avoid questions)
1st game I played today - I joined a FAST pace game in error - Lost 10 karma points when opponent kicked me out as soon as time clock expired. I accept that was my own fault, I’m too new to play at that speed.

2nd game - #647160559
I ensured this was a slow game, but was unable to place a piece (move 17, if anyone looks at game). Kept being told it was an “illegal move” by the interface, even in several different positions - all of which were possible. The opponent skipped my turn.
I then had the same problem trying to place another piece on my next move (which I think was no. 22, as opponent had the next few moves).
And when I’ve watched back the game replay - move 17 HAS placed the original piece ! This was NOT showing during the game.
All irrelevant now as again my opponent (understandably) kicked me out for taking too long.

So - my 2nd question - do we just have to accept penalties when there is a bug causing the problem? I would accept another 10, but I’m pretty cross about 20. It is very harsh.

Apologies for the length of this query, but I’m now really put off trying to play Patchwork again. I rarely play turn- based but that seems to be the only way to get enough time to learn new games.

[Meeplelowda]

2nd game - #647160559
I ensured this was a slow game, but was unable to place a piece (move 17, if anyone looks at game). Kept being told it was an “illegal move” by the interface, even in several different positions - all of which were possible. The opponent skipped my turn.
I then had the same problem trying to place another piece on my next move (which I think was no. 22, as opponent had the next few moves).
And when I’ve watched back the game replay - move 17 HAS placed the original piece ! This was NOT showing during the game.
All irrelevant now as again my opponent (understandably) kicked me out for taking too long.

So - my 2nd question - do we just have to accept penalties when there is a bug causing the problem? I would accept another 10, but I’m pretty cross about 20. It is very harsh.

A similar thing happened in a different game where my friend was not able to move a piece that she should have been able to move. Rule #1 of BGA: if something weird is going on in the interface, refresh the page. This resolved the issue in her case.

There are intermittent bugs on BGA in which what the server thinks is the game state gets out of sync with what is being shown in your browser. The most common way this bug manifests is when your opponent is taking waaaaay too long, then you end up getting expelled. It's because the server thinks it's your turn, but your browser didn't get the memo for whatever reason. Refreshing gets things in sync again.

Even if it was one of these kinds of bugs that caused the issue, there may be no way to prove definitely that it was the issue (unless you happened to be capturing video of your game at the time). And even if there is theoretically some evidence in their server logs that could indicate this was the issue, they don't have the resources to investigate what must be 100s of similar claims, especially when simply refreshing the page would resolve the vast majority of the problems.