Head to Head Public Beta

[dave950lam]

Still having problems getting matches started. The room says 1 player in the queue, but it doesn't match us up to play.

 

[Stephen Snow]

Thanks Stephen!

The two biggest issues with matchmaking are always 1) how long I need to wait for a match to start, and 2) what happens when the other person finishes/quits early. I do hope you plan on making there be a way to play multiple matches against a player rather than always making us search anew once a game has ended. I say that not only to cut down on the frustration of matching each time, but because often people wanna have another crack at someone, especially if the outcome was close.

That is definitely a feature I intend to add, as well as playing with friends. I'm going to work on hammering out bugs first, before adding anything new though. Basically right now, as far as how long you should have to wait, once a match has been found the countdown should start within around 5 seconds or less depending on server traffic.

I'm working on getting a build with fixes for some of the issues here to our internal QA team today, and if testing goes well I'm hoping to get it out to you guys today or tomorrow.

Thanks for the input!

 

[Stephen Snow]

Just had a game with Shutyertrap, but when the game 'ended', MM's music kept playing and when I got to the menu the TPA music kicked in, so now I had 2 songs going at the same time, and couldn't get into a match again.

This is a known bug, and we'll be testing what I hope is a fix internally today... right now to play a second match you have to exit the entire game and then search again, hopefully internal testing shows it working and we can get the patch out to you guys today, if not, tomorrow shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Stephen Snow]

So yeah. Me and dave950lam had our Steam messager going on so that we could know exactly what was going on. We had a few times where it'd say it found the match, but then it never would start the game. I had it even happen where it found me a match with dave, told me the table, but then no countdown. I messaged dave and he said he wasn't even in the lobby at that point! So I was getting phantom matches.

Am I correct in that if I see the table and match type, that the other person was in control of the choosing? Because I had times where it only told me I had a match but no other info, and when the game started it was indeed using the settings I'd chosen. This is a source for confusion. It should show for both players what the table and match are.

Another confusing issue is this...when it does show the match and table, am I supposed to push the 'okay' button? Because I do that, and then it'll give me a 'searching for match' text, followed by (sometimes) the countdown. For those few seconds though, I think I've lost the matchup. Even if the text box said 'syncing players' or something, at least then I'd know for sure we're still connected. Right now there just seems to be a lot of assumption as to what is happening, and if it weren't for the Steam messaging going on, I'd be banging my head on the wall wondering what was going on.

Oh, last thing. We had a 5 minute match going, but there is no timer at all. We need that timer.

Yes, you are correct about the matching system, we'll work on updating the text to make it more clear, that flashing "searching for match" bug should be fixed in the next patch too, I noticed that myself and will see what I can do to both get rid of it and make it clear that the countdown is about to begin. Thanks for the input.

 

[switch3flip]

I would love the option to play 1-ball games if it is possible. Would make for great quick vs. games on some tables.

 

[Stephen Snow]

Happy to tell you guys that we've just confirmed the most egregious of the bugs are fixed:

The timer is working in 5 and 10 minute modes, we've seen no instances of it not working, if you guys are still seeing no timer in five minute mode, please try to provide clear steps so we can look into what's going on

You can now play multiple games in a row without having to restart the app

The "cooldown time" before you can safely search for a match was set to one minute before, I've just reduced it to fifteen seconds, so if you're seeing any strange matching behavior, wait 15 seconds and try again

Fixed a bug with the end of a five minute game overlay

The game should drop back to the head to head menu, instead of the main menu, when a match is over in all modes

several other minor fixes and counting, I just spoke with Mike, who is lead on TPA and Steam, and he is working on getting the next table ready and may not have time to update today, so if that's the case, I'll keep polishing and shoot these fixes and whatever else I can get done to you guys tomorrow.

Thanks again for the participation guys, keep the input coming

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

Quick question, does head-to-head work cross-platform or is only Steam-vs-Steam, Android-vs-Android etc. at the moment? Will it ever be cross-platform?

Also, judging by the table hint, should be a relatively simple table to do this month, eh? Basic rules, no ramps, no multiballs, no DMD, ROM already emulated (Centaur, Xenon). Plenty of time for other projects

 

[Stephen Snow]

Quick question, does head-to-head work cross-platform or is only Steam-vs-Steam, Android-vs-Android etc. at the moment? Will it ever be cross-platform?

Also, judging by the table hint, should be a relatively simple table to do this month, eh? Basic rules, no ramps, no multiballs, no DMD, ROM already emulated (Centaur, Xenon). Plenty of time for other projects

PC and mobile will be cross-platform, consoles will not due to our agreements with them, we're working on getting an android beta up and running right now.

 

[vikingerik]

I would love the option to play 1-ball games if it is possible. Would make for great quick vs. games on some tables.

For most tables, 1-ball games wouldn't be possible. TPA doesn't know how to set the balls-per-game count inside any of the ROMs.

For the tables that are scripted rather than emulated, it would be. But those are also the tables where you'd least want it as half of them go house-ball half the time anyway.

 

[shutyertrap]

What happens when someone doesn't own all the tables? Will we only be paired with people that have the same tables? Will it always default to the game that both people own? What if one person selects a table the other doesn't own, and vice versa? Will the game just select a random table for both then?

 

[switch3flip]

For most tables, 1-ball games wouldn't be possible. TPA doesn't know how to set the balls-per-game count inside any of the ROMs.

For the tables that are scripted rather than emulated, it would be. But those are also the tables where you'd least want it as half of them go house-ball half the time anyway.

Would it be possible if something triggered end of game? Like bonus count and tilt or something?

 

[shutyertrap]

Had a weird one occur today...

Big Shot was the table, and as soon as the match starts, my opponent's score is over 2 million. That score never changed for the duration, and was listed as their score when all was said and done.

Few hours later, dave950lam and we're trying to play. While my screen was showing waiting for match to start, Dave was playing all the way to completion. Never was able to have a match start despite trying numerous times and trying all manner of troubleshooting.

 

[Stephen Snow]

Had a weird one occur today...

Big Shot was the table, and as soon as the match starts, my opponent's score is over 2 million. That score never changed for the duration, and was listed as their score when all was said and done.

Few hours later, dave950lam and we're trying to play. While my screen was showing waiting for match to start, Dave was playing all the way to completion. Never was able to have a match start despite trying numerous times and trying all manner of troubleshooting.

I've seen the persistent score issue, and should have it fixed as soon as I can get a consistent repro on it, as far as the matching issue, the system should be more solid with the patch that should be going out today, I just got in. Mike Reitmeyer said he should have time today to update the Beta with the fixes I've put in over the last few days. I'll keep you guys posted, but keep the reports coming.

I'm assuming restarting the app cleared your issues?

 

[Stephen Snow]

For most tables, 1-ball games wouldn't be possible. TPA doesn't know how to set the balls-per-game count inside any of the ROMs.

For the tables that are scripted rather than emulated, it would be. But those are also the tables where you'd least want it as half of them go house-ball half the time anyway.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't think that's something we know how to do, I don't deal with the emulation programming, but since we have the coin door functioning, and one of the things you can change in the coin door is balls per game, we can definitely set those.

That being said, we do not have any plans to add a single ball mode at the moment, and no new features will be added to what's already here until we have everything already in functioning 100% as intended. I will run the idea by Bobby though, and see if it's something he feels we should add in the future.

 

[Stephen Snow]

Alright everyone, the latest patch addressing the issues I mentioned in a previous post is up... have fun and keep the reports and ideas coming! THANKS!

 

[shutyertrap]

I'll log in around 3pm Pacific if anyone wants to have a go.

 

[Stephen Snow]

I'll log in around 3pm Pacific if anyone wants to have a go.

I'll be here working, but I'll leave the code the same as I submitted and play a couple rounds, we have a tester here who can be playing as well. I might have caused a few issues for you yesterday, I was doing some development and had to delete you from the queue a few times to fix something I working on, sorry about that

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

I'm online but no idea how long I can play. 5 minutes may be my limit.

 

[Stephen Snow]

I'm online but no idea how long I can play. 5 minutes may be my limit.

It looks like mike didn't get some of my code changes, or the beta still hasn't taken the update yet, we're looking into it, sorry for the inconvenience.

 

[shutyertrap]

I got called into work, so no playing for me today.