Multiplayer Experts, We Need You!

in me, @edwardi @ManiacPumpkin @Ramshacklegamestudios @8-bit_Studio and @The_Undying game the mutliplayer isn’t acting right . when we try to play with each other, the match starts but we cant see each other, but we have the playable characters set to multiplayer objects so idk what going on, link: https://flowlab.io/game/play/1523416

@R0CK do you know what to do because you replying thing is going on and off and the anticipation is killing me

@grazer does this make sense?

Well, the multiplayer is still in beta. Plus grazer did he’s best to make the multiplayer better but grazer is not a multiplayer expert. Plus if I try to make a multiplayer-game most of the time it would be wierd and stuff.

Explanation of how multiplayer works:

WASD to move when pressed it would send a value of your player position to the server and back to you and other players updating their computer screens of your position and other players positions. That’s how multiplayer works but there are limits on how fast you could send a value to the server and back to all players some computers are extremely fast like unity or construct supercomputers, no wonder they have many plugins that cost thousands of dollars to keep their precious supercomputers running. But those computers cost thousands of dollars some millions. Grazer did a good job on the multiplayer but sending values to far places are very hard that’s why the multiplayer does not work and sometimes it does. And if you’re wondering flowlab has no supercomputers but they hire a company to run their multiplayer with their supercomputers.

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@XXD3G, Ta-Da.

( 20 characters )

it helps a little bit but doesnt help the real issue, but thanks…

Ive never used multiplayer but I have read the page on it. try using share behaviors

i think i tried everything now

hold on I’ve seen a tutorial on them somewhere. give me a second

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here ya go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq0OsdGweJs its a little old but hopefully it still works

oh and there’s also an official page on it here https://flowlab.io/multiplayer_handbook/

So I took a peek at the game and I noticed a couple of things:

Problems

  1. The game doesn’t really wait long enough for other players to get ready. It just takes the players to a match without making sure that both players are on. This can cause the players to be split up, and one of them end up in the wrong match.
  2. In the online mode computer, the one that detects if there are two players online, they roll a random number to select a map. However, for every player, that random number may be different between them. To make sure that they are the same, use the “shared” behavior. This will share the number for all users, that way they can end up in the same match (make sure to give it a correct label, or other people may get confused as to what the behavior does).
  3. If you’re going to make a timer with a visual countdown, I suggest making two separate timers: one that will trigger the NextGame behavior, and one that affects the countdown but does not trigger NextGame. Otherwise, the two users will end up being taken to two different matches (if they’re unlucky enough).
  4. I don’t see any player objects in any of the levels that indicate where the players should spawn, so…

My solutions?

  1. Try extending the timer to a fair amount to ensure that players have long enough for their systems to prepare for the switch, but not so long that they rot into bones.
  2. I just answered that. :joy:
  3. I also answered that. Now I’m just wasting text…
  4. Perhaps create a player spawner that is a player object. Player objects can only emit other player objects, so don’t worry too much about duplicates popping up.

Another thing I should warn you about is that the positions of both the player objects and the shared objects might act a bit funky. Multiplayer is still in beta and is bound to have some bugs. In my own multiplayer game, titled Stealthy Ninja, one of the enemies, the Tank, starts having spasms for no reason, lol. I think it’s because of the whole randomizer-behavior-not-syncing problem, but I’m okay with that because it looks hilarious. Not that spasms are funny, but this is a game, and a tank…

Anyways, hopefully these solutions should help with your predicament. I’m not 100% sure that it will work, but it worked for me after I tested out these solutions using Stealthy Ninja. Apparently I had been suffering the same issues as you, but I fixed those, so again, hopefully the solutions provided above will help you.

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90% of what you just said, i already did, but thanks for explaining.

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I think this is why its not loading “what the game does when online mode loads is it looks to spawn 2 of every player object but flowlab is designed to only have one player object at a time so then it doesn’t know what to load thus the characters not loading” so the players have to be shared objects

But then if the player objects were set to Multiplayer Shared, the object could be controlled by everyone, which can create confusion and bad gameplay. Multiplayer Player objects spawn one of these objects for every player in the level, and each object can only be controlled by the player who has been assigned that object. If what you said here was true:

…then none of the multiplayer games on Flowlab would work properly, because everyone would just control the same object. Multiplayer Shared objects are best used for stuff that need to share the same position throughout all player’s screens, such as pushable crates and enemies.
Also I’m not quite sure where you got that “quote” from.

Actually, now I have.

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I made a more specific request on multiplayer, It is still very limited, and if you want to make it grow further, you should try to show support on it to Grazer… I really want better Multiplayer too

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