[Investigating] Game-crash in group-play

Bug Reports
1

Platform, device version and operating system
PC, using Steam for playing Puzzle Quest 3

What you were expecting to happen, and what actually happened
I tried first time the group-modus at first as leader in a single-group, then two times in a group with another player as the leader. Both times in a two-player-group the game crashed with an error-code, when my first round ends automaticly. Then I asked ingame in the chat, if there ist something, I have to look at, for example automatic round end, when I go in a group. They told me, gamecrashing is normal in group-play.

Steps to make it happen again
I could not try it again, there were no groups any more but I play with activiy-poinds and automatic round-end if no more moves left. It crasht both times, wenn my turn ends.

2

We was a three-member-group and I was sent out of the game, when it was loading after all were readdy, with the reference-code: RE-QBYYZNG6, the dungen was the first one in season 1.5 at about 15:55 Berlin-time.

3

Were you playing with the same people in each of those Parties?

4

It was the same leader in both two-member-partys where I was sent out, wenn my turn endet, but it was a complete other group, where i was sent out in the moment, the fight was started loading.

5

My experience with group fights is that when you play with skull damage, you get error codes and freezes much more often than when you fight these types of enemies with spell damage. I was a necromancer main, level 300, and have now switched to a different character with spell damage. Since I started playing with spell damage, the errors hardly ever occur. Also, to this day, you still can’t properly join group fights. If you use group chats on PSN and use the game invitation function through these chats, you can join other people in group fights more often. I don’t understand why that is, but that’s my experience with group fights.

6

This has been like this ever since i started playing. I have some small tips to improve things, but the netcode in this game is programmed very, very poorly, and on top of that it uses a rollback method which honestly shouldnt be used if you want to do live miltiplayer, fine for everything else like chat and leaderboards though.

Use a wired connection when possible

Put all graphic settings to minimum, even with an insane PC.

On console, for some reason i havent tested but others have that seems to help, turn off your internet connection, turn it back on, and then run a network connection test.

Do not spam inputs, or take extra actions you dont need too. Someone above mentioned skulls being an issue, but spells being better. This is a result if the netcode being designed as rollback instead of predictive. Casting a spell does damage quickly, skull damage is done at the end of your combo, so it sees enemy life at the end of movement, then you take a random amount of time to complete the combo (the longer the worse) and deal damage. If the target died during that time, issues WILL happen.

When trying to join a group, if you see “can not join party” that means they are in battle. If you see nothing do not click again, its a can not join nit showing the text box. It will display it usually after a proper can not join shows up, duplicating it.

If you get in a group, its best to be fast, as thats the point, but if you want smooth gameplay, the ideal situation is to kill the first enemy for all X players, and then have only your strongest members attack the second enemy. If you are 4 people, and there is 6 enemies, you all kill, and the 2 strongest then kill theirs.
They have to wait for you to kill yours if they do not get the boss/mini boss, and you have to wait for them to kill round 2, so this is slow.
If 1 person carries you, its better to afk then to fight, even if you can kill something.

All of that assumes performance > fun, which is sad, but the game still ties progression to group play sometimes, so…

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