Topic

Am I the only one who hates feats?

Sure, they look fun, and I can sometimes get a minimal goal to get some reward, but the feats get underway, the players notice, and the game becomes completely unplayable. It took me about a game half hour just to walk from my backyard to my door to try to get to my homestreet to try to reflect on my icons this game day. I was hoping to play the game and work on my tower some more today, but I guess I'll stay mostly logged off until the feat is done, since it's unlikely I'll get any sort of reasonable connectivity.  And it's not fun waiting a real life minute between actions while my browser pops up warnings about the flash not responding and sometimes the screen blinks to black while I wait til I can give one more command. Usually, I can play just fine, but during nearly each feat this happens instead. So, I'm pretty sure it's connected to the feats that the game is becoming unplayable. 

Posted 58 days ago by Larch Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I haven't ever had that problem, not even on the slow laptop I'm having to use while my other laptop is getting fixed. I only had a problem going to Cebarkul during the death feat on it, and that bogged down the whole computer. But away from there, I had no problems at all other than the general lag that I expect from that computer.
    Posted 58 days ago by Little Miss Giggles Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It does seem like others can still play during feats. I don't know why. I know my computer is old, but since I can play normally, it seems weird that it seems to consistently act up during feats and almost never at other times (never this bad, certainly). And this was happening in my own backyard with only me there... or anywhere else. Crowded streets are worse, but I mostly avoid them, and whenever feats are not in progress that is good enough. But my game was slowed for the collecting quions feat, it was hard to play during the death feat, and while it was fine last night at the start of this feat (at least, start of me noticing), it is unplayable today. I've been sitting large portions of feats out by being off the game, and then I come back and the game is again playable just fine. So, feats do seem to kill my gameplay. Which is sad, as they do look fun. I do wonder if this happens to others.
    Posted 58 days ago by Larch Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There is definitely no correlation between a Feat being active and Game/Flash performance on your computer. Many players will think that "the game running slow" means there is a problem with the servers but (at least) 99 times out of 100, it is the client side, not the server side. Some feats could impact client performance (when there are many people in the same location) but in general they have nothing to do with each other.

    We have our best people on improving client performance and are working hard every day to make it better. Indeed, over the last few years there have been many performance improvements … but then those usually get "spent" on cool new features. But … ever upward!
    Posted 58 days ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I definitely get laggy when I am around lots of other poeple, but even during feats my response time at home alone is great. I also have an old PC that I use on weekends and evenings. I can't play at work, so unless I am travelling and on my netbook, that is the only PC I get into the game with.

    ETA: too slow for stoot
    Posted 58 days ago by Kookaburra Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Then why has the game become unplayable during each feat, but is playable once the feat ends? I'm willing to assume there is some other problem, but the correlation is extreme. This does not happen when a feat is not in progress, it has happened for three out of three feats. So, what is causing it if not the feat? And it has happened in isolated areas during feats. Today on my home street, before while looking for quarazy quoins it happened on streets where nobody else was. The game got extremely laggy. 

    Maybe there is some way the feat uses up more resources for my computer; I don't know. But why would it keep happening during feats and not happen when there aren't feats if the feats aren't connected? It is a rather extreme coincidence. I waited through several feats before posting because it might have been a coincidence on one or two. But even while trying to die on a homestreet with nobody else present, I was extremely laggy during that feat. In fact, much more laggy than during Zilloween when I was actually at Cerebekul full of people and giving and receiving treats. That was hard on the computer, but it wasn't game-destroying the way it has become during three feats so far.
    Posted 58 days ago by Larch Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well Larch- I won't dispute your concern about lagginess, but 3 out 3 for one person is not statistically significant, especailly since the occurances took place over a short period of time. (I am a statistician) Perhaps there are a lot of Glitchen sharing your tube to the internet and you got clogged up in there. (I am totally not technical :) )
    Posted 58 days ago by Kookaburra Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Larch - I'm sorry that you are finding so much lag when you try to play while there is a Feat going on. I haven't had that trouble, I do find it laggy if there are a huge number of people (like Cebarkul during Zilloween). I sometimes have a bit of a problem on a home street when there are a very large number of animals. I can't explain why you are having such trouble, I do know there have been some issues w/a particular browser, maybe you might consider using a different browser to see if that helps. Good luck.
    Posted 58 days ago by Gizmospooky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If you are using chrome, be sure to look at the technical support threads regarding running multiple flash instances in chrome.   I was doing this and once I applied the simple fix it made all the difference in the world. 
    Posted 58 days ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • yes, look at the bugs forum regarding chrome fixes.  I had the 1/9th-of-a-step-taken issue while a real life ten seconds went by...so awful!  I switched from firefox to chrome and it was much less laggy.  But, I then had to do the fix (remove the wrong flash, put in the right flash) in order for it to really work.  I do get the "something went wrong" window every so often, but no where near as much as before.  I am now able to do those things on streets where everyone is congregating, finally!  And, if my glitch starts doing the "way too slow" mode, I just exit and return.  Not fun if I am trying to reflect on icons before the clock runs out, but it is still better than counting down the years flying by as I "walk" towards the door.
    Posted 58 days ago by Minkey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Also, Larch, it's hard to tell, but there hasn't been any time in the last four days where there hasn't been a feat active — each one just leads to the next and they all last 24 hours. So, when you say that the problem only occurs when the feat is active and goes away when the feat is over, did you mean recently? Or are you talking about the short test feats several weeks ago?
    Posted 58 days ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It is definitely more laggy today (8pm Monday), but I suspect that's because more people are playing and doing more stuff for the feat. Note that I use lag in the sense of slow server round-trips (long spinners, "Gardening is a leisure activity", etc).
    Posted 58 days ago by Janitch Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Edited out my rant.

    But I still hate feats
    Posted 58 days ago by Pickle Juice Subscriber! | Permalink
  • it's great that you don't have to participate in them then, eh?
    Posted 58 days ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I personally did not notice any more lag last night (the first time I've played during this string of feats, because I was out of town over the weekend) and actually, I find the game MUCH better than it was about a month ago, when I'd pretty much decided to give up playing because the lag was so extreme for me, regardless of what I did.
    Posted 58 days ago by Aliera Subscriber! | Permalink