Clarifications about problems/crashes/freeze.

[Ze_PilOt]

Hi,

I'm aware that the lobby and the game have some problems. But I need to clarify a few things :

I won't be solved magically by itself.

Don't think "it will be solved on next patch" or "it will be solved at release", because it won't. I read that a lot.
If a problem exists, it will continue to exists until YOU help me find it. I can't read minds.. That leads to my second point :

I don't have some magical tool to detect where a problem is.

Sadly. That's mean that reporting reports saying "lobby crashs" or "game freeze" is as helping as telling me "I think there is a problem".
I know there is a problem. What I must know is how and when that problem happens.
I need steps to reproduce it.

You must investigate it yourself ! Try several things to reproduce the problem. Be careful to each thing that happen BEFORE the problem.

Ie in a lobby crash :
- How many people leave/join. Do they disconnect correctly ? Timeout ? Do the amount of player is correctly reflected in the FAF lobby ? Is it always the same person that cause the problem ? Did you clear a spot with some AI ? Is it when joining ? Quitting ? Changing slots ? Are you the host ? Did you use some UI mods for lobby ?
And I forget a dozen of parameters that can help me reproduce the problem. (because, for now, I'm unable to reproduce it and never encounter it when playing).

Reproducing a problem take hours and several persons.

Yeps, that's what you can guess by reading the previous paragraph.
If you think that it's a lot of work for you, imagine the amount of work for me (your problem + all the others + the new features to implement, on other things).
It's impossible for me alone (or even the whole dev team) to spend that amount of time. We are not professional, we have real jobs and do this on our free time.
So if you don't spend one hour or two to investigate your problem, we will have to do it. That slow down the process of fixing it A LOT because, as stated in the previous step, we can't even know where to look at.

This is an open beta.

You have to understand that you are ALL beta testers. It's your job to investigate the issues.

Sadly, I spend most of my time telling that you must report correctly, investigate, test, and give me steps to reproduce the problem (at best), and keeping my cool and explain that it's a beta when I read angry people in the chat after a crash or because their game doesn't count (at worst).

I'm also discovering problems while randomly reading the chat !

In fact, it become so much of a problem that I don't have any more time to really work on the issues. That's really the opposite of a beta test purpose.

Sadly, if it continue like this, I will have to put FAF on a closed beta.

[chvd]

My issues story.

First i apologize for my no good english, i hope you will understand.

It is a long history, so i'll try to be brief and factual.
After GPG net died i had many problems here (crashing, connecting).
I reported it.
At the momment problems are mostly gone.
I have some, but i had always some a little bit. I think this is problems because of some settings my internet provider.

So atm i have nothing to report...

[Casimus]

My observations so far,

Lobby Crashing

Ive seen this plenty of times and a pattern is starting to form. If 8 people all with decent connection join a lobby, there are no issues, none at all. As we know that never happens and there are some coming and going as we wait for a lobby to fill (im talking about big games ie Setons)

So, if a guy with a dodgy connection joins the host will normally ask that person to leave and rejoin, for me this is where things start to go wrong. If a guy with problems continually rejoins eventually the lobby crashes, it seems to not have a definitive number sometimes its the first others it could take many reconnects.

What I do always notice is that in these instances the number of players remains after the person with issues left ie number of players 7 with player still showing who left. To try and refresh the slot I will change spots to theirs and back, add an AI and close and open it this sometimes works but not always, again only seems a problem with those that have connectivity issues.

I always advise (from my GPG days) to restart FAF and try again, its difficult to know if that helps.

In essence I think the problem is with users that have connectivity issues, there are lots of people who have problems, a thread containing information and troubleshooting for these people may go a long way to helping all of us.

Game Crashing

There are 2 issues here I think,

1) Game crashes when people die - I thought this was due to Autogive being active and I have been telling the world to disable it, and also autoget? If thats not the case I will try to look into it again further

2) Game crases randomly - This one im not sure about, I think the vast majority are due to connectivity issues but then there are some where the game just stops and I have to use task manager to correct things.

From my point of view im more than happy to help and test where needs be, this is a community after all. If I notice anything more specific then ill post again.

[prototype]

I have also noticed the lobby problem that the number of players is not always correct.
Indeed it always happens if somebody disconnects for some reason (or perhaps leaves, not sure, havent seen it enough)

Also I noticed some problem while watching replays.
Unfortunately I cannot be very precise as I have to encounter the problem more often.
But what happens is that if say person X dies the Replay freezes/stops while the game continues.

So what I do then is restart the Replay and watch it again and see if it now passes the death of person X.
I might try to start the replay by selecting a different person in the Replays tab or perhaps the same .. dunno 100%,
But it happens I can pass the death of person X and can continue watching the replay.

I was gonna wait a bit and see if I could find some logic behind it but thougth Id just post something to let you know there are people trying to figure out what is bugged.

Also id surely like to help you guys somehow if I would know what I could do besides trying to find bugs.
I can program a bit, know the basics but am not that experienced, I like to figure stuff out so perhaps you got something I can help you with.

[Suspect]

80% of the time FAF works just fine I think. Considering it has been made 'not-for-profit' this is a fantastic achievement

[muzzl]

I keep getting this problem where people can't join my game when I host. It says "Connecting to player name" but never makes it to established connection. It seems to happen much more often when I Alt-Tab out of the lobby but I can't resist because I get bored really fast and want to see the chat / browse reddit until I see that my game has 2 players from the FAF client. Pretty much whenever it happens I can close FAF and login again, remake the lobby, and then people can join.

It may be related to Alt-Tabbing out, looking at the empty lobby again later, and then Alt-Tabbing out again, as that's a pretty common pattern for me.

Sometimes I see more then one person trying to connect to my lobby, but if one person fails to connect usually all the rest of them will too.

[ologus78]

WHY DONT CLOSE THIS MINDLIMITS LOBBY TESTER AND GIVE A REAL ENJOYABLE GAME OF FORGED ALLIANCE WITH NO PROBLEMS FOR A PLAYER,WHO DONT WANT ANYTHING ELSE THAT TO PLAY A GAME NOT SO SOLVE AN IT PROBLEM...GET IT???OR I HAVE TO EXPLAIN AGAIN???IT SO HARD TO HAVE A WORKING LOBBY??GOD PEOPLE ....THIS IS ONLY A GAME NOT A NASA SOFTWARE ...FIX IT OR LEAVE US ALONE WITH YOUR LOUSY WORK.

[Ze_PilOt]

You should be happy, I just found a way to leave you alone with my crappy lobby. Bye !

[Doompants]

Wow. Troll much?

ZePilot is my favorite NASA scientist evar.

[Raging_Squirrel]

NASA scientists lol
EPIC!