A new type of desync [unconfirmed]

[10 men]

In two games now I think I have seen/experienced what I think is a new type of desync, which if you don't know about can be pretty upsetting.

What happens?

- There's a desync. It can either happen midgame or in the beginning of the game (one person never enters the game)
- Now, the timer does NOT run to zero. Instead the AI apparently takes over and it looks (at least to one player) as if no desync ever occured.
- Note: That AI's playstyle is highly fail. I think it simply presses spacebar.
- Eventually a normal timeout occurs, but this can take several turns.

Here's the two games in which I saw this occur:

Number1 (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,26364.msg359774#msg359774)
Budokan Stage 8, DesertKnight vs. 10 men, 3rd game. Here we desynced the turn after DesertKnight made an all-in attack. On my turn I played Bone Wall and killed one of his creatures, setting up a guaranteed win. However we had this new type of desync and DesertKnight did not know it. He did not notice a desync, and since my fail AI did not play a Bone Wall, he thought he had won.

Number2 (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,26472.msg360280#msg360280)
War3 Round 6 DSSCRA vs. tikotribe, 3rd game. DSS never got in, but his fail AI took over. Since it didn't play any pillars it looked to tiko as if he had a megafail draw and then bailed.

[Tiko]

Actually, he did draw the single pend on turn 3, and the 'CPU took over' sign came at the end of the next turn, when he did draw another (screen). I played for a few more turns (2-3) and he didn't draw any more till then, though he dropped an Abo. It was a fail hand, not 'fail AI'.

[10 men]

Actually, he did draw the single pend on turn 3, and the 'CPU took over' sign came at the end of the next turn, when he did draw another (screen). I played for a few more turns (2-3) and he didn't draw any more till then, though he dropped an Abo. It was a fail hand, not 'fail AI'.

Looking at that screenshot, that Pend seems to have been played not by fail AI, but by the AI that takes over after the game actually realizes it's a desync. (As you say you took the screenshot right after you saw him timeout.)
Of course it wouldn't have been a spectacular draw either way, but I would assume that the fail AI discarded one or two pillars, and/or always had the one that was played on turn 3, as the likelyhood of a zero pillar draw with DSS' deck is extremely low (0,006%).

[Jappert]

I have had the same thing happen and could still chat to the person after the AI took over. So we would still be able to chat, while both playing vs AI. This chat would drop out aswell after a couple of turns.

Is this a "normal" desynch or a new type aswell?

[Ryli]

I've seen the desync shown about half a dozen times while playing BL.

The worst problem with it is that it's impossible to know when it's desync, and when someone is cheating.

[EvaRia]

I experienced something similar while I was lagging...

It was really weird.

I was playing a CCYB deck in PvP2, with a voodoo deck.

1. I lagged, and a rapid click caused me to play a GPull and a SNova at the same time. Next turn I got an extra SNova.
2. My opponent played his game and won, but this type of desync happened, I think.
3. My turn was skipped after the discard message flashed quickly O_O. He played 2 turns in a row.
4. He fractaled lava golems. Shortly after, every single creature in the bottome two rows flashed targetting screens and died 1 by 1.
5. They all revived as 0 | 0 creatures, which disappeared on the AI's next turn.



It was all really, really, weird.

[SnoWeb]

I also had something very similar when I battled against Vagman13 in round 4 of war (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,25630.0.html). This desync happen because of a massive lag on the servers of my company.

[EvaRia]

I get the feeling this happens when you lag too much...

[kirchj33]

The fact of the matter is that these player imposed desyncs happen much more than people lead on in competitive PvP.  This is very unfortunate and causes people to be suspicious when these types of things happen in war and pvp events.  I am not saying anyone is at fault in these situations, but I feel like the plea for putting some serious work into correcting desyncs from a programming standpoint needs to be done.

[Onizuka]

I had this happen when I was playing a BL match against Scauduro. He had gone away due to parental problems, but the time would always end ~30s. Never played anything, just like pressing spacebar.