I am following my instructions:
I have made some research and I’ll like to confirm that yes there is abug in our end that other palyers are reporting as well, as for Customer Support we do not have a workaround for this problem, However, we are inviting players to report this bug in our forums for the developers to see, The reason the developers ask for those reports on the forums is not only for the community to come together to discuss them but also to show how many players are actively reporting it and how much they’re affected by it.
So, like others, here’s my experience.
Bug:
Free commanders (Raynor, Kerrigan, and Artanis) are stuck at level 5 with max XP and cannot progress further.
Impact:
- Affects free commanders only; paid commanders level normally.
- Prestige points are unaffected.
- Reported primarily on Americas servers (unconfirmed if global).
Observations:
- Previously, these commanders were level 15 before the issue began.
- Similar bugs have been reported in the past over a long time and were resolved.
- The issue persists after multiple times the issue has been addressed with hundreds of identical complaints going back at least 3+ years just from what I’ve seen.
- Commanders retain data such as prestige points and have XP capped rather than the cutoff where a paid one stops leveling, implying that underneath, the data is intact, so I doubt this is just a data issue, though I suppose it could be caused by data corruption.
Troubleshooting Steps Taken: (Understanding this is unlikely to help)
- Restarted the game and computer.
- Used Scan & Repair.
- Uninstalled and reinstalled the game.
- Submitted a support ticket.
Possible Cause (Speculative):
- Likely an issue with the commander ownership verification process.
- System may temporarily flag free commanders as “not owned” before their free status is processed.
- Could stem from a delay in loading pricing data, where free commanders are treated like paid ones with a $0 price.
- If limited to Americas servers, regional data handling or infrastructure might contribute.
- Depending on how data is processed and works, there could be some sort of things that impact data in a way that causes a delay, such as metadata or account information unique Americas, that only under a certain set of circumstances creates such a delay in processing, limiting those who experience it.
Suggested Focus:
- Investigate the timing of the commander ownership check and data loading process.
- Examine regional differences, especially within Americas server infrastructure.
- Cross-reference with prior fixes for similar bugs.
- Examine occurrences for similarities in data handling, including things that might append data or change latency. (Example: If they are largely in California, maybe check changes made for privacy laws)
- Focus on error handling for commander ownership verification.
- If there was found to be data corruption causing the problem for the limited players experiencing this, it would definitely consider a way of handling that specific to free commanders, such as making them owned in the data.
- I know it’s a bandaid fix and does not address the underlying problem, but if that data simply relayed owned as true for every commander under how purchases are verified, the way that a $0 item that was purchased would be, then I don’t think this problem would exist.
Additional Notes:
I develop online games and understand the complexities of bug testing. Based on my observations and reports from others, this seems to be a recurring issue linked to how free commanders are processed. I hope this feedback helps narrow the investigation.
Anyway, I understand that I’ve obviously never seen the specific code, but I wanted my post to be at least a little different even though I was suggested, for a good reason, to make it anyway. I’ve given my best consumer-level feedback the way it would be helpful for me as a game developer to receive it. Hopefully, this is helpful to someone at Blizzard reading it.
Good luck, and I hope this is resolved soon.
Testing & Updates:
- Update: Yesterday, this issue impacted me, but not my son whom I was playing with. Today, he is also impacted by this which was discovered shortly after writing this post. Something significant. My son has several capped level 5 commanders he has not purchased. All of those commanders currently display as level 5 with progress to become level 6. None of them indicate that he is capped. We’re currently testing, but it appears he can level his repurchased level 5 commanders but can not level his previously above-level 5 free commanders. I’ll update this with some screenshots later after some testing.
- Update: When he went to play one of those (Fenix), the game froze. Upon restarting, it now properly shows as capped for the paid commanders, but the free ones are still broken/capped. The only certain discernment I can make from this is that this is the very first time he joined the game and the bug existed which was the exact same time as when the paid commanders showed as free. I tabbed out to get a screenshot, so the crash may not be related, but the free commanders broken and the paid ones showing as free the first time are likely connected. We did play one co-op game before he noticed the lack of a cap on the paid commanders, so it persisted through a game where he gained mastery progress on another paid commander (he did notice the free were stuck at 5 right away).
(Edited for formatting and grammatical errors out of nothing more than my own obsession as a perfectionist in hopes of making this more helpful, as well as to add updates.)