Multiplayer Stability Problems - Status?

from Sins Forums

I've been playing the Rebellion beta for about two months now, after seeing it advertised on Steam.  My first impressions are that it's an excellent concept, with a very rich and interesting unit set and a firm grasp of RTS fundamentals.  It's so good, that I don't think I'm over-reaching when I say it could be a major breakout hit - not just with the geeky RTS crowd (of which I am a part) - but with mainstream gamers.

So, why has it taken someone like me (an RTS nut) so long to hear about Sins?  After playing a dozen or so multiplayer games, the answer to that has become obvious: the online multiplayer experience is *simply unusable*.  Attrocious. 

It's absolutlye inexcusable for a game of this caliber to have such fatal issues with keeping multiplayer sync'd up.  At first, I assumed it was just an issue with the game being in beta... but reading forums going back to 2008, I see people complaining about de-sync issues and other multiplayer stability problems.  It seems that the only folks who play Sins today are a hardcore group who are willing to put up with frequent disconnects and game crashes.

Why isn't this being addressed as the priority #1, five-alarm, stop-ship issue that it is?  I see no notes in the dev blogs, little outcry from the user base (it seems they've given up), and zero improvements in the beta patches being released.

All this to say.... Stardock: You have much bigger problems that the "corvette balance issues". 

I want so badly to like this game... but I simply can't play another two hour game, only to Mini-Dump my way back to the Desktop.

How about an update?  Root cause?  Timeline to fix?

16,994 views 25 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

You cant fix minidump errors because each one is caused by different thing.  They can only fix causes one at a time.  I'm not 100% sure why the hell this game is prone to so many desyncs (more than any RTS I EVER seen), but here it is.  So unless they redo the entire engine from ground up, you will see many and often.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I hope your theory is wrong. Perhaps another angle would be to figure out a way for the game to recognise it's out of sync and advise the host to reload a previous save? I would say 50% of the games I have hosted we have only realised there is a problem when we have got into an actual battle and are seeing different things happening on the screen. The client is still connected to the host, just playing seperate games. As a side note I have noticed that when playing online my pings to other players who live in the same country as me are way higher than they should be. Though we can ping each other between 7-60ms, when we play Sins we ping 180-280 between us. I am guessing this is because we are in New Zealand and all data has to first travel to a Relic Online server in the States or Canada? This is inefficient and really I think Relic need to either offer an Oceania server or not require all data to first travel through their server. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this assumption.

CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

I have experienced a noticeable improvement since I have started playing in windowed mode: just relaying someone else's advice.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

For Game Crashes:

If you've had a game crash, try the following first:

  1. Make sure your computer is updated with the latest video drivers, sound drivers and patches from Windows Update.

Try to reproduce your crash, and if you can, please zip up your minidump file and send it along with a description of the issue to [email protected].  If you have a save game that reproduces the crash, please include that with your zip file as well.

Save games are located at (as of Beta 2 v0.76):

C:\Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion

Minidump files are located at (this location is hidden by default):

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp\Sins Dump 


For Multiplayer Desyncs:

If you're playing a multiplayer game and desync, make sure that:

  1. That nobody is using a mod - or - that everyone is using the same mod and version.
  2. That you can reproduce the issue from your last save game or autosave.

If you can reproduce the desync, please see this thread for how to help us track down the issue: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/415093. Please include as much detail as you can on what appears to be causing the issue or when it occurs. If the desync is caused only with a mod, we recommend you contact the mod author.

End of quote

It's only going to get better if people actually submit their desync information and/or minidump files.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

I thought Steam autosends MD files, doesn't it?

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

No, I don't believe it does.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

It will send minidumps, but those caused by desyncs don't tell us anything to resolve the desync problem. That's why we need checksum info.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

I can't even log into ICO, what's up with that?

 

The game just shows an empty lobby with a "login" button and nothing happens, until the game says it has been disconnected.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Yes, the desyncs are a total game killer. I cant see how people are not screaming about this. I get them 9/10 games. When you bring them up, you'll get people chiding you to report them.. but this has been going on even before rebellion. There is no way the devs cant reproduce this over and over on their own.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

It's happening for me every time I play a game with more than 6 players.  (100% of the time).

I completely agree with zifnab - saying that more dump files are needed to diagnose is not acceptable.  This issue is easily reproducible. 

I see there is still no response from anyone at Stardock.  I'm coming to believe that the first poster was right - that there is a flaw in the MP system at the basic level, and that they plan to launch Rebellion without understanding / fixing it. 

If that's the case, it's time for folks to start demanding a refund.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting VoxVeritias, reply 10
I see there is still no response from anyone at Stardock.
End of VoxVeritias's quote

Just skimmed the responses, didn't we?

Quoting Yarlen, reply 7
It will send minidumps, but those caused by desyncs don't tell us anything to resolve the desync problem. That's why we need checksum info.
End of Yarlen's quote

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting VoxVeritias, reply 10
It's happening for me every time I play a game with more than 6 players.  (100% of the time).

I completely agree with zifnab - saying that more dump files are needed to diagnose is not acceptable.  This issue is easily reproducible. 

I see there is still no response from anyone at Stardock.  I'm coming to believe that the first poster was right - that there is a flaw in the MP system at the basic level, and that they plan to launch Rebellion without understanding / fixing it. 

If that's the case, it's time for folks to start demanding a refund.
End of VoxVeritias's quote

First off, whatever is causing your games to desync may be different than what causes the OP's to desync, that's why cheksum data and save games of reproducible desyncs are needed, to find the root causes so they can be fixed

Second, in about 20 recent games of Rebellion, both via LAN and ICO, ranging from 1v1 to 5v5, I have had one desync, "easily reproducible" my ass, your circumstances are not everyones.

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

 

 You are in the minority, then.  I've finished maybe 10% of my 4v4 or 5v5 games without experiencing a desync.  Others I've played with have experienced the same thing.

 

If they want checksum/savegame information to diagnose the problem, then they should author a tool to upload it.  For such a fatal flaw, to rely on individual players EMAILING you data is laughable.

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting VoxVeritias, reply 13
If they want checksum/savegame information to diagnose the problem, then they should author a tool to upload it. For such a fatal flaw, to rely on individual players EMAILING you data is laughable.
End of VoxVeritias's quote

It tells how serious they are about fixing the problem.

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Mr., reply 4



For Game Crashes:

If you've had a game crash, try the following first:


Make sure your computer is updated with the latest video drivers, sound drivers and patches from Windows Update.

Try to reproduce your crash, and if you can, please zip up your minidump file and send it along with a description of the issue to [email protected].  If you have a save game that reproduces the crash, please include that with your zip file as well.

Save games are located at (as of Beta 2 v0.76):

C:\Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion

Minidump files are located at (this location is hidden by default):

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp\Sins Dump 


For Multiplayer Desyncs:

If you're playing a multiplayer game and desync, make sure that:


That nobody is using a mod - or - that everyone is using the same mod and version.
That you can reproduce the issue from your last save game or autosave.

If you can reproduce the desync, please see this thread for how to help us track down the issue: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/415093. Please include as much detail as you can on what appears to be causing the issue or when it occurs. If the desync is caused only with a mod, we recommend you contact the mod author.




It's only going to get better if people actually submit their desync information and/or minidump files.
End of Mr.'s quote

 

Like the man said, this issue has been going on since 2008 (4 years). How many submits do sins devs need to fix this. Objectively, this doesn't ever look like it will be sorted. 

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

omg wtf neco.

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Turthalion, reply 15
Like the man said, this issue has been going on since 2008 (4 years). How many submits do sins devs need to fix this. Objectively, this doesn't ever look like it will be sorted.
End of Turthalion's quote

It has been fixed to varying degrees at different times.  Desyncs were very rare (nonexistant) in Diplomacy v.1.34.  But new content (patchs) has introduced new problems.  Being its still in Beta, that should be expected.  The Devs have recently come out and said that they think they have squashed most of the desyncs.

Quoting 137, reply 3
I have experienced a noticeable improvement since I have started playing in windowed mode: just relaying someone else's advice.
End of 137's quote

The best advice I can give, is the above, try Windowed Mode.  I too, can say that it helped my situation greatly! [Either: Options or Menu>Video>click "Use Window Mode"]

Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

We are too busy to respond to the deluge of data sent to us but we very much appreciated it - we've been extremely busy analyzing tons of data sent from players and internal testing. Using this data we were able to track down all known desyncs - one of which has eluded us since 2008 as it was EXTREMELY difficult to reproduce. The more common desyncs were bugs only introduced in beta 2 and 3.

Again, we always look at the data sent by players and it has allowed us to make the necessary fixes for release.

Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

Excellent work Ironclad...I'd think the worst of the issues should now be well in the past...

Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Blair, reply 19
Using this data we were able to track down all known desyncs - one of which has eluded us since 2008 as it was EXTREMELY difficult to reproduce.
End of Blair's quote

Awesome!  Glad you guys finally killed that old bug!

Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top

One thing about Ironclad is they don't release a game and then end with a "final update" a year later and never go back to it again.  They leep tinkering on it until they get it.

The last version of Trinity was the culmination of work that fixed all the problems and actually improved game performance tremendously--i.e., they kept making fixes and improvements for five years.

That's a great commitment from an electronic game company.

Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top

So, how much is the game lagging after 6-8 hours of playing it ?

I was playing it with friend in 2008 & 2009 and it was unbareable on larger maps, taking 5-7 minutes for small colony ships enter neighbouring colony/planet. It was terrible, but such a great game! Smaller maps were okay for the first hours, but not that much fun as there weren't that many planets to explore/conquer.

I would love to get some insight on how the multiplayer is doing with Rebellion before buying it, does it still gets laggy after a while ?

 

Thanks !

 

 

Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top

there have been many many optomizations from 2008 to now, but there has also been many content adds between now and then. 

But, assuming you are not using the same computer as you were using in 2008, its better.

Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top

I was playing a 4v4 last night and the lag was pretty bad...the sad thing was we weren't even dealing with very large fleets...could have been one of the people in the game causing the problem but still, not comforting...

Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top

Multiplayer Stability Problems - Status?

 

End of quote

 

unplayable.