Play a mega random match for 2 hours, and crash with no reconnect.
Like obviously crashes are going to happen, it’s a video game but it’s incredibly frustrating to lose a match 2 hours in because my game closed with zero error prompt and there is no option to reconnect.
Without this feature, there is no possibility of any high-level competitive play even once they finish adding all the ranked options.
Due to the way RTS games are made, and the way they do network connections in Multiplayer, it is almost impossible to have a reconnect feature that doesn’t take a decade. MOBAS and FPS games are distinctly different in the way they are constructed so they can implement them to varying extents. SC2 didn’t have one, AoE games don’t…it’s just the nature of RTS multiplayer.
They probably can and will introduce it to this game but as with most things it’s a matter of priority for the developers right now, but who knows we might see a mention of this whenever the new road map is revealed for the rest of the year.
While I appreciate the compliment, I am not a developer, although to the unknowageable it could seem that way im sure
I simply used my search engine of choice and found numerous articles and discussions from 2021/2022 about the reasons why reconnects on general MP servers are not possible in most RTS builds.
I am also not the fine gentlemen who discussed zoom features with anyone. So…
As someone who works at a ISP company and networking infrastructure
All I can say, there is no simple thing as “just reconnect”
Several key features need to be in place.
Adressing.
Gateway.
User account identification. (Identify specific player)
Server administration
Data Synchronization
Just to name a few that has to be in the backend things outsidw the game engine.
Then you have the game engine itself.
There is no pause feature.
Let alone the game replays able to handle the correct player color allocation. Due to failiure from the game engine to correctly assign data syncronization and user account identification.
Even the chat function struggles due to their networking design being om server based rather than client based.
In order to compensate for latency and give player matches the same server tick rate flow so that its possible to actually play this game against players from across the world.
Which is an amazing feature in itself.
That being said.
Yea this game sorely need at the very least a Pause function.
Which can be a key to allowing reconnect feature
I understand that it’s not as simple as “just add a reconnect feature” but losing 2 hours of struggling into a comeback to a crash is a terrible user experience.
Worsened by the frequency it happens, this certainly isn’t the first or last time this has and will have happened.
The fun part is that all those features are in place. You can’t have a multiplayer game without those. You sound like an IT guy that’s trying to talk about programming.
All the fundamentals are in place to support replay functionality. They have the game state which you can see in replays. Replay files are just a listing of game actions taken in the game which is why they don’t allow previous patches replays to be seen. The game state in a replay is the same the game state in an actual game, it would be possible with the right code to take over a player in a replay so it’s possible to have a replay.
They have the data, they have the connections but they don’t have the interface to support it. Considering one of Relic’s biggest weaknesses is creating interfaces for functionality I doubt we’ll see reconnect functionality any time soon.
Oh I don’t mean that they don’t have these things in place, I mean by the point that such features needs to be added/adjusted into the reconnect feature and that itself incorporated and get to function with the game engine itself and allow itself to synchronize.
In the very basic, it shouldn’t be overly complicated to add a reconnect feature, I am just referring it is going to be a bit of work. Not just add a few lines in the code, press a button and now it works.
And if my memory doesn’t fail me, I don’t think Company of Heroes, the main title for Relic games, has a Reconnect feature.
So its something as you mention, Relic biggest weakness.
And even though its not an overly complicated feature to add, it still isn’t always as Solid.
I remember playing Civ5, and that had some notoriously bad Synchronization issues when players tried to reconnect to the game for some reason.
So even if its added, it not always smooth sailing.
Also I’m neither to much of an IT guy or a Programmer. I do dabble into it in my line of work quite a bit.
As I work for a major ISP provider in my country, building up infrastructures such as FTTH and Docsis 3.1
And I have fair amount of involvement in setting up subsentrals. So making sure people are able to connect and reconnect to the internet is pretty much my job lel.
I just wanted to put my point out there that there is a lot of puzzle pieces that needs to be in place, and those that already exist needs to be re-aligned to fit the puzzle of getting the reconnect feature to work properly.
I mean, AoE4 barely has a functioning lobby chat, I do have my doubts of a smooth functioning reconnect feature lol.