Top Ten Words With Friends Bugs
Special feature today: Top ten bugs in Words With Friends
I can't guarantee all these bugs still exist, though some of them I see daily. Others are random and some of them rare, and one is actually fixed, but still noteworthy enough to be included in the list.
10. The slow ad server. It often takes longer to load an ad than the ad actually plays for once it finally loads. It's so bad that Zynga has implemented a workaround for it: If an ad doesn't load within about 15-20 seconds, it shows you one of the ads for a WWF feature instead. However, I have usually given up on it, and already closed and restarted the app before that happens. However, WWF isn't alone in suffering from this problem.
9. The new goal system. Recently they changed the goal system so that instead of completing a goal directly giving a reward (gift box), it awards points toward unlocking a reward. However, the system for claiming these goals doesn't do a good job of actually claiming them. You claim them, the points go toward your next reward, and you go back to playing, only to see later that you didn't succeed in claiming that goal or the associated points. Claiming rewards you have the points for is broken in the same way, but in addition, sometimes when you get the points to complete a reward, it displays "unlocking" but doesn't actually unlock.
8. The inventory notification. Ever since the new goal system rolled out, I've had a notification for one new item in inventory - except when you go there, there's nothing there. Because I play regularly, I've already completed all the "ink" for the basic tile styles. There are also some other tile styles I've unlocked, most recently several related to my level based on points from achievements which came out when they updated the requirements for these levels and everybody gained a whole bunch of levels. Switching to each of the 43 tile styles I have available did not clear it. I'm assuming I qualified for one based on level that they didn't make public yet, or which isn't loading for some reason, but the qualification for it exists.
7. Accomplishment notifications. On the main screen these used to be tangled with the inventory notifications. Since the redesign associated with the new goal system, it's separate. Sometimes when you complete an accomplishment, it pops up right away over whatever game you are playing. When it doesn't, it leaves a notification here... which usually won't actually show you the accomplishment. Eventually it will, sometimes when you do another of whatever the achievement was for, and sometimes when you visit the accomplishments page, but it can take days.
6. Claim all rewards. This one has been broken forever. "Claim all" actually only claims the first 16 rewards (if it works at all). Maybe this isn't even considered a bug, because stopping after 16 gives you a chance to avoid wasting coins when you reach the coin cap. Because in the old system you could get 3 rewards a day from daily goals, one from a match of the day, one a day from flash events, and a few per week from the solo challenge and weekly point challenge, and the new goal system awards a similar number of rewards, they can build up well past 16 fast. And it gets broken in various ways, so that it won't open rewards, often enough that I often ignore it. It's not been unusual, when the monthly challenge comes out, I can open "all" rewards 5 or 6 times and completely finish the event on day 1 - assuming it's working at all that day.
5. Facebook login system. I log in using a Facebook account because I have played WWF since back in the days when it was only a Facebook game and there was no phone app. Sometimes the game gets disconnected from Facebook, and asks you to log in, and that's fine. But sometimes it gets disconnected, and doesn't tell you. When this happens, opening rewards just gives errors, trying to play moves doesn't go through (though does not give an error) and you'll see the game waiting for you again in the same state the next time you open the app, basically nothing works. The workaround for this, provided by support, is to explicitly log out (Profile | Settings | scroll all the way to the bottom) and then log in again with Facebook.
4. Solo challenge star targets. This one is actually fixed. But for a long time, the targets to reach various star levels in solo challenge were wildly inconsistent. Usually 200 points would be enough except against the last few wordmasters, and sometimes as low as 180 points worked, but at other times even 215 points against some of the earlier wordmasters would not be enough. The progress bar at the top was highly nonlinear, and there was no way to know how many points were actually needed to reach 3 stars. This was fixed a while back, so that now the point levels are consistent, and 200 is always enough, except it's 210 on the champion wordmaster, and sometimes a popup in game explicitly gives the target if you have 2 stars already before your move.
3. Solo challenge wordmaster continues game after losing. When you lose a solo challenge game, you get the option of spending coins to continue the game. Sometimes, especially when most of the letters have already been used, this isn't likely to help, but the option is there. In rare cases (it has happened to me three times), after you beat a wordmaster, he goes into "processing" which should lead to declaring you have won the game and setting the timer before you can play again for free, but instead the wordmaster plays a sixth move. This completely breaks solo challenge, because now it's simultaneously your turn in this game and the game is over, and it just doesn't let you do anything. I submitted a bug report on this one when it happened, and once support was able to reset my solo challenge game, but more recently they could not help me and I was stuck until the solo challenge ended.
2. New challenges do not show up until you make a move. Often, when you start the app you'll have one or more games waiting, but no new challenges. While you are making moves in those games, new challenges will show up. Sometimes these are really new at that moment, because playing moves makes you show up in "active now" on other players' apps. But I play some people I have contact with outside WWF, and I've asked them, "did you just challenge me now?" and no, it was hours or even a day ago. In the previous version of the app, it was possible to drag down on the game list to reload it and check for games that aren't showing up. This seems to have been removed, but it didn't reliably make these new challenges appear.
1. You moved... oh wait, you didn't. Once in a while, you'll make a move in a game, and that game will show up in the "Their move" list in your app with the score after the move you made. (This is different from when you are not logged into Facebook, and the game immediately pops up in "Your move" every time you open the app.) But the server hasn't really accepted your move. You won't know, until your friend nudges you, or the game times out, or you open the stale game sitting at the bottom of the "Their move" list and find it is actually your move, ready for you to try again the move you previously made.
Bonus: 3 letter words played. A year or so ago, WWF added a bunch of new words that are not valid in Scrabble or most other word games. This includes a lot of prefixes, suffixes, and part words that only appear in set phrases, like the VU in DEJA VU. But the 2 letter and 3 letter words played graphs in your profile are based on the old total number of words. Having these at 100% does not mean you have actually played all the words, and there's really no way now to know you know all the words of these lengths.
I can't guarantee all these bugs still exist, though some of them I see daily. Others are random and some of them rare, and one is actually fixed, but still noteworthy enough to be included in the list.
10. The slow ad server. It often takes longer to load an ad than the ad actually plays for once it finally loads. It's so bad that Zynga has implemented a workaround for it: If an ad doesn't load within about 15-20 seconds, it shows you one of the ads for a WWF feature instead. However, I have usually given up on it, and already closed and restarted the app before that happens. However, WWF isn't alone in suffering from this problem.
9. The new goal system. Recently they changed the goal system so that instead of completing a goal directly giving a reward (gift box), it awards points toward unlocking a reward. However, the system for claiming these goals doesn't do a good job of actually claiming them. You claim them, the points go toward your next reward, and you go back to playing, only to see later that you didn't succeed in claiming that goal or the associated points. Claiming rewards you have the points for is broken in the same way, but in addition, sometimes when you get the points to complete a reward, it displays "unlocking" but doesn't actually unlock.
8. The inventory notification. Ever since the new goal system rolled out, I've had a notification for one new item in inventory - except when you go there, there's nothing there. Because I play regularly, I've already completed all the "ink" for the basic tile styles. There are also some other tile styles I've unlocked, most recently several related to my level based on points from achievements which came out when they updated the requirements for these levels and everybody gained a whole bunch of levels. Switching to each of the 43 tile styles I have available did not clear it. I'm assuming I qualified for one based on level that they didn't make public yet, or which isn't loading for some reason, but the qualification for it exists.
7. Accomplishment notifications. On the main screen these used to be tangled with the inventory notifications. Since the redesign associated with the new goal system, it's separate. Sometimes when you complete an accomplishment, it pops up right away over whatever game you are playing. When it doesn't, it leaves a notification here... which usually won't actually show you the accomplishment. Eventually it will, sometimes when you do another of whatever the achievement was for, and sometimes when you visit the accomplishments page, but it can take days.
6. Claim all rewards. This one has been broken forever. "Claim all" actually only claims the first 16 rewards (if it works at all). Maybe this isn't even considered a bug, because stopping after 16 gives you a chance to avoid wasting coins when you reach the coin cap. Because in the old system you could get 3 rewards a day from daily goals, one from a match of the day, one a day from flash events, and a few per week from the solo challenge and weekly point challenge, and the new goal system awards a similar number of rewards, they can build up well past 16 fast. And it gets broken in various ways, so that it won't open rewards, often enough that I often ignore it. It's not been unusual, when the monthly challenge comes out, I can open "all" rewards 5 or 6 times and completely finish the event on day 1 - assuming it's working at all that day.
5. Facebook login system. I log in using a Facebook account because I have played WWF since back in the days when it was only a Facebook game and there was no phone app. Sometimes the game gets disconnected from Facebook, and asks you to log in, and that's fine. But sometimes it gets disconnected, and doesn't tell you. When this happens, opening rewards just gives errors, trying to play moves doesn't go through (though does not give an error) and you'll see the game waiting for you again in the same state the next time you open the app, basically nothing works. The workaround for this, provided by support, is to explicitly log out (Profile | Settings | scroll all the way to the bottom) and then log in again with Facebook.
4. Solo challenge star targets. This one is actually fixed. But for a long time, the targets to reach various star levels in solo challenge were wildly inconsistent. Usually 200 points would be enough except against the last few wordmasters, and sometimes as low as 180 points worked, but at other times even 215 points against some of the earlier wordmasters would not be enough. The progress bar at the top was highly nonlinear, and there was no way to know how many points were actually needed to reach 3 stars. This was fixed a while back, so that now the point levels are consistent, and 200 is always enough, except it's 210 on the champion wordmaster, and sometimes a popup in game explicitly gives the target if you have 2 stars already before your move.
3. Solo challenge wordmaster continues game after losing. When you lose a solo challenge game, you get the option of spending coins to continue the game. Sometimes, especially when most of the letters have already been used, this isn't likely to help, but the option is there. In rare cases (it has happened to me three times), after you beat a wordmaster, he goes into "processing" which should lead to declaring you have won the game and setting the timer before you can play again for free, but instead the wordmaster plays a sixth move. This completely breaks solo challenge, because now it's simultaneously your turn in this game and the game is over, and it just doesn't let you do anything. I submitted a bug report on this one when it happened, and once support was able to reset my solo challenge game, but more recently they could not help me and I was stuck until the solo challenge ended.
2. New challenges do not show up until you make a move. Often, when you start the app you'll have one or more games waiting, but no new challenges. While you are making moves in those games, new challenges will show up. Sometimes these are really new at that moment, because playing moves makes you show up in "active now" on other players' apps. But I play some people I have contact with outside WWF, and I've asked them, "did you just challenge me now?" and no, it was hours or even a day ago. In the previous version of the app, it was possible to drag down on the game list to reload it and check for games that aren't showing up. This seems to have been removed, but it didn't reliably make these new challenges appear.
1. You moved... oh wait, you didn't. Once in a while, you'll make a move in a game, and that game will show up in the "Their move" list in your app with the score after the move you made. (This is different from when you are not logged into Facebook, and the game immediately pops up in "Your move" every time you open the app.) But the server hasn't really accepted your move. You won't know, until your friend nudges you, or the game times out, or you open the stale game sitting at the bottom of the "Their move" list and find it is actually your move, ready for you to try again the move you previously made.
Bonus: 3 letter words played. A year or so ago, WWF added a bunch of new words that are not valid in Scrabble or most other word games. This includes a lot of prefixes, suffixes, and part words that only appear in set phrases, like the VU in DEJA VU. But the 2 letter and 3 letter words played graphs in your profile are based on the old total number of words. Having these at 100% does not mean you have actually played all the words, and there's really no way now to know you know all the words of these lengths.