BUG: games fork upon continuation

[Hullukko]

Description:
A public game when continued to next one diverges putting two parts of the group to separate instances of the new map.

Steps to reproduce:
Seems random, but frequent enough. Most runs from 2-5 in sloucho diverge at some point

This has now been happening at least three days. I think the first occurrence that I can vouch for was on Friday. For PUGs this is painful, but in guild runs can always be rejoined.

I mentioned this in the "Invalid password" thread (link (http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?38385-Invalid-Password&p=433073&viewfull=1#post433073)), but this deserves a separate thread in my opinion.

[CRUIZE]

Hmm. Is this a real bug?

[Hullukko]

What do you mean?

Perhaps you didn't check the link (http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?38385-Invalid-Password&p=433073&viewfull=1#post433073) or maybe I wasn't clear enough.

You see, when a map is completed a pop-up is shown "next map" and "back to base" (or something like that). When all of the 5 of us that completed the map choose the "next map" in sts games they've always wound up to the same instance. Moreover, in sts games when some of the guys haven't advanced to the next map a spot in the new instance is reserved for them (for some period of time at least).

What happens now (since Friday at least) is that two new instances are spawned when people choose the "next map" and the prior group is distributed between them arbitrarily. We now notice it easily in guild runs and just call out "map split" in guild chat and people join the one that made the call and ditch the forked game.

Most certainly a bug, trust me. I've been playing these games for a while, enough to say for sure that this is a new bug.

[Kakatoa91]

Indeed,

Seems like a bug. Ive encountered many but not always, not sure when it started. Split maps from the host, givin a 2 maps with same host name when u click next map.
Might be something if you on friend list of the host or not.

[tearacan]

it happened to me a couple of times a well. It's quite annoying when you have a nice run with your future to be friends (aka strangers) and you get spawn somewhere else. I haven't seen it happen before too. It seems to be a new 'feature' since last week.

It happened in lower map as well with my alt (lvl5) we got split into 2 groups. I already sent a friend request, so i could join the group again after the system dumped me in another game. Therefore i would say it is not only in slouch-o maps.

[BodMaster]

Both split and Invalid have happened to me also, but not with my mains lvl 30's only my lower level alts, unsure if this is related or not but always good to keep an eye out, after update this havent been fixed so may have snuck in since 'Event Update'.

[Hullukko]

Excellent point BodMaster.

My first reaction was "that's silly" and "we've had different kinds of split-ups to counter that assumption", but...

Now that I think about it, the first time I noticed this was when I was the only one that split out and yesterday it occurred at least twice with about the same guys, but this time markv split out with me on both occasions, but they weren't the same guys, markv had made 31 over the weekend.

So indeed, in my experience, it's the 31s that sometimes are forked to their own branch of the continuum. And on all those instances that I've seen it happen it's the 31s that hosted the games (me on Friday and Saturday and markv on Sunday).

This may very well be a coincidence, but there is a pattern at least in these few occurrences that I've stumbled onto.

((Considering that a chance for a particular split-up of five is one in sixteen and three confirmed split-ups in the same certain way is one in 4096. And since you initiated the idea we don't have to fully counter that with human patter recognition abilities. Two things are for sure, we'd need more data to know and they'd need to fix this. :)))

[ExperimentNebulaCore]

I make maps for me and my friend, whenvwe beat a lvl, we get forked. ALOT

[BodMaster]

Excellent point BodMaster.

My first reaction was "that's silly" and "we've had different kinds of split-ups to counter that assumption", but...

Now that I think about it, the first time I noticed this was when I was the only one that split out and yesterday it occurred at least twice with about the same guys, but this time markv split out with me on both occasions, but they weren't the same guys, markv had made 31 over the weekend.

So indeed, in my experience, it's the 31s that sometimes are forked to their own branch of the continuum. And on all those instances that I've seen it happen it's the 31s that hosted the games (me on Friday and Saturday and markv on Sunday).

This may very well be a coincidence, but there is a pattern at least in these few occurrences that I've stumbled onto.

((Considering that a chance for a particular split-up of five is one in sixteen and three confirmed split-ups in the same certain way is one in 4096. And since you initiated the idea we don't have to fully counter that with human patter recognition abilities. Two things are for sure, we'd need more data to know and they'd need to fix this. :)))

Hopefully we are able to get a few more players to explain their experiences so that we can find that common factor to explain in higher detail also work out how these occurrences are happening. Have the basics to start off tho which always comes in handy :)

[Pakax]

My party gets split when we go through portals. Happens often

[WhoIsThis]

Seems to happen in both PvP and PvE in both PL and SL.

[drewcapu]

I was in a group not too long ago that finished a Lost Expedition complete campaign run and it "continued" into Swamps. LOL

I dunno if that's a new intention, but I think it would be pretty interesting to actually do a complete game run from FH all the way through NH.

[Samhayne]

Thanks for the head's up about this. If I am interpreting the latest check in notes from the Programming Team, a fix for this issue is being tested now. Look for an upcoming patch.

[BodMaster]

My party gets split when we go through portals. Happens often

That can't be measured as that's exactly what it is meant to do.. we are trying to work out when creating an instance orbs level and trying to continue with the same group other than that group being split into seperate games.

Seems a high magnitude and not just on SL but PL also.. which is a whole new ball game.. hopefully a Dev can shine some light on the subject maybe over thinking it. (we are not worthy xD)

[BodMaster]

Thanks for the head's up about this. If I am interpreting the latest check in notes from the Programming Team, a fix for this issue is being tested now. Look for an upcoming patch.

Hehe ninja'd by Sam :O

Great work STS on the ball as usual :D

[bronislav84]

I heard both of these bugs were caused by anybody in the game in question having outstanding friend invites, but could be wrong. If it's still happening, and I saw it was to some people, the Devs might wanna try checking friend outstanding invites as the cause.

[tearacan]

if i'm right, this bug was fixed at the server-side. coz STS told us, and i haven't seen it in a while.
But last night after the client update, i got forked again all by myself in slouch. The other players in the group stayed together.

playing ipad2