Head to Head Public Beta

[FlippyFloppy]

Definitely, Firefox. I do remember playing you and all the other folks I had a game with (and those who we tried to get a game with). Pinball is much better when competing against someone.

Flippyfloppy, any chance you reconsidering unpulling the h2h beta? TPA isn't the same without it.

We'll update it again soon for the release version on PC.

 

[Heretic]

back in my day(aside from walking up hill both ways) we used irc chat for small group or head to head games, 5 minutes per round, obviously you had to trust the others scores but it was all for fun and games. i enjoyed going nuts for taxi millions, lets face it is much better to destory your friends or a familiar face! looking forward to this

 

[dave950lam]

Now that the tournament is done, any news on getting this back?

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

Public Beta has been updated with new H2H fixes

 

[relaxation]

Public Beta has been updated with new H2H fixes

Couldn't play a second match without it loading the 1st one we played, the player I played with crashed.

After we reloaded the game and played out the timer, game crashed when it was 0:00 for both of us.

 

[dave950lam]

Had a few games with A-Jey a little while ago:

1 game on Big Shot, went fairly smooth. Had connection issues after that, including games where we had different tables during matches. Had a crash mixed in, and finished with some games of Twilight Zone and Gorgar.

Seems you have to leave the lobby, back to the main menu to have better chances of getting matches going.

 

[Stephen Snow]

Had a few games with A-Jey a little while ago:

1 game on Big Shot, went fairly smooth. Had connection issues after that, including games where we had different tables during matches. Had a crash mixed in, and finished with some games of Twilight Zone and Gorgar.

Seems you have to leave the lobby, back to the main menu to have better chances of getting matches going.

We're not seeing this internally, perhaps there are some more details repro instructions for some of these issues? If we can get a solid idea of how to reproduce the mismatched tables and any crashes, it'd be much easier to fix them. Keep the reports coming though guys, thanks.

 

[dave950lam]

If any FS employees who post/lurk here:

A good way to see 'live' bugs is to watch folks play the beta. Steam allows you to watch gameplay of anyone on your friends' list (they would have to allow, or have the auto approval, which I have).

And as I asked before, any of you guys with twitch feeds, play the beta while streaming.

 

[VirtualPinballFanatic]

We're not seeing this internally, perhaps there are some more details repro instructions for some of these issues? If we can get a solid idea of how to reproduce the mismatched tables and any crashes, it'd be much easier to fix them. Keep the reports coming though guys, thanks.

Good point, I shall play head to head in one of my next twitch streams, to provide the FS employees with some more data.

 

[dave950lam]

Forgot to mention, there seems to be a hidden score challenge mode in the beta. I just got done playing this 'mode' (CrazyNewt) where when the game started, CrazyNewt already had a score of 5.1 mil and it seemed like I had to beat the score. His score didn't tally, just was there at the start.

 

[Crazy Newt]

For high score games, when you finish a game, is the final scoring displayed anywhere? Do you have to wait until the game is completed by the opponent if your game ends first? I'm not confident that what I am seeing on my screen is accurate. It would be nice to know what is going on with the opponents game other than a score, if only just basic information, like what ball is being played or even if the game is still active or not.

 

[Crazy Newt]

Forgot to mention, there seems to be a hidden score challenge mode in the beta. I just got done playing this 'mode' (CrazyNewt) where when the game started, CrazyNewt already had a score of 5.1 mil and it seemed like I had to beat the score. His score didn't tally, just was there at the start.

I had played a solo Centaur game via the head-to-head menu before we played. I scored 5.1 million, exited TPA completely. When we played, I had restarted the game, selected find a match, despite there not being anyone in the queue, and our game started up. I thought it was odd that Centaur was the chosen game. I made a video. I did not score 5.1 million in our online game.

Here is the link to the video, but it is still processing as I'm typing this, so it may not be ready for a few more minutes.

 

[Crazy Newt]

Here is another video. Again, it is not possible for me to tell if the game is ended or if the other player just took a break when the opponent's score stops increasing. In this match, I had selected 5-Minute game, and then selected find a match. Some weirdness occurred at the start of the game. Seeing is believing.

 

[Xanija]

I had a few tests with dave950lam.

At first it was difficult to get a game together. It was on "searching" for one player, and on "Match found for the other. We hadn't picked a table.

Then we decided to pick a table with 5 min. We took Flight 2k. We eventually found a match and got to play.

First game: I was on Flight 2K, he was on El Dorado EM
He finished the game with 40,490. I always saw the score of 70,620, which was the score he achieved in the game before agains Crazy Newt! (see video above at the end)

Second game: Again, I was on Flight 2k, he was on El Dorado EM. The score I was seeing from him was 40,490 all the time. This was his score on El Dorado EM in the prior game. Even when the game finished, this was shown as his score.



Third game: Again, I was on Flight 2k, he was on El Dorado EM. His game crashed and I immediately got this screen:



Forth game: Both on Flight 2k (Yay!)
His game finished earlier than mine, he got the end screen with showing his score at 264k and mine as 202k. This was the score at the time he finished. When I finished my game, I got the correct score of 385k vs. 264k. This is an old, already reported bug.



TPA crashed 2 x for me, once during matchmaking, once after finishing the game before showing the end result.

I also got several times messages telling me I should purchase the table, sometimes with dummy text:




This is an old, reported bug (I own all table packs), but now instead of blue text I got a proper message box (with sometimes strange text - even when there is no dummy text there are errors in it, at least in the German version).

Conclusion: Few improvements, but way too buggy still.

 

[Xanija]

By the way: Is the message box about purchasing a table pack supposed to be shown at any time in H2H? I mean, when I don't have a table, but get randomly chosen to play it, it wouldn't make any sense to buy it at that time. By the time I have bought it the other player most likely has moved along to another match.

Plus: At the moment I wouldn't even know which table I am buying, as it doesn't tell me, which table pack is to be bought.

 

[Stephen Snow]

Here is another video. Again, it is not possible for me to tell if the game is ended or if the other player just took a break when the opponent's score stops increasing. In this match, I had selected 5-Minute game, and then selected find a match. Some weirdness occurred at the start of the game. Seeing is believing.

You should get a message asking you if you'd like to continue playing if your opponent's game ends while they're already losing, in the event that they were winning when their game ended, you won't be notified, but we could probably add the same overlay or something in the future... it's seeming like we're close to being able to release, keeping in mind that improvements and fixes will be continuing. The crash bug after a timed game is fixed now, and I'm looking into these leftover score bugs, we just can't seem to get those happening here in the building so I'm trying to see what the missing factor here is... and perhaps I have some code locally on my machine that I need to submit, since the build you all are playing wasn't built by me, I'm looking into that now.

 

[Xanija]

it's seeming like we're close to being able to release, keeping in mind that improvements and fixes will be continuing. The crash bug after a timed game is fixed now, and I'm looking into these leftover score bugs, we just can't seem to get those happening here in the building so I'm trying to see what the missing factor here is...

I can only urge you not to release it yet, before we have a stable version:

- The matchmaking is still unreliable, i.e. one player getting a "searching" message box, the other one a "Match found" message box and the game never starts. Still happens frequently

- 2 Players playing against each other on different tables - something that not only happened to me, but also to others

- Errors with purchase screens, although the player has all tables

Those are no-go's, really. I have no problem with getting a finished product, which maybe needs a few tweaks here and there, or improvements. But when talking about improvements, I think about missing features, not major bugs.

 

[Stephen Snow]

I can only urge you not to release it yet, before we have a stable version:

- The matchmaking is still unreliable, i.e. one player getting a "searching" message box, the other one a "Match found" message box and the game never starts. Still happens frequently

- 2 Players playing against each other on different tables - something that not only happened to me, but also to others

- Errors with purchase screens, although the player has all tables

Those are no-go's, really. I have no problem with getting a finished product, which maybe needs a few tweaks here and there, or improvements. But when talking about improvements, I think about missing features, not major bugs.

I need reproduction for these situations if we're to fix them, the first issue should simply not be possible any more, so if you can let me know steps to reproduce this, I can get it fixed quickly.

The second bug is another one I need more consistent reproduction instructions on, because it's not something we're seeing internally in any recent build

The last one is a new issue, and I'd like more detailed information as to when and where this comes up, what happens when the issue presents itself, etc.

Thank you all for the input, with some more info we should be able to get these last bugs fixed and finally release and start adding new features.

 

[shutyertrap]

I need reproduction for these situations if we're to fix them, the first issue should simply not be possible any more, so if you can let me know steps to reproduce this, I can get it fixed quickly.

The second bug is another one I need more consistent reproduction instructions on, because it's not something we're seeing internally in any recent build

The last one is a new issue, and I'd like more detailed information as to when and where this comes up, what happens when the issue presents itself, etc.

Thank you all for the input, with some more info we should be able to get these last bugs fixed and finally release and start adding new features.

Stephen, how about setting up specific times that someone from FarSight will be logged on specifically for testing head to head? Be available for an hour twice a day for one week, post the times here, on Facebook, and on Twitter. Friend the people playing so Steam Messanger can be used with whoever you are playing against. That is how we are all communicating and why we know specifically what tables are being chosen and scores that should be viewed.

 

[kaworu]

agree with shutyertrap: instead of waiting instructions how to reproduce bugs just contact some players and play several games with them via steam.