30 DECEMBER 2016
A number of issues have impacted online multiplayer gameplay since the 0.5.0 beta release on 21 December some of which were patched in a recent server update, the key issues were that have compromised online and physics stability are:
Concurrent Players
There servers had a significant escalation in the volume of concurrent players (peaking at ~160% or 2.6 times more players than the previous record high), to address this we have added additional server capacity and will continue to monitor contention for servers and scale capacity if the number of online players continues to escalate.
Player Hosted Servers
A high number of player hosted servers registered (or attempted to register) with the master server in the days immediately following the release of the Gang Beasts server tool (on 23 December 2016), this negatively impacted on the performance of the Master Server. A significant percentage of player hosted servers that successfully registered with the master server (player hosted servers that were shown in the server browser list) did not have port forwarding configured or were otherwise inaccessible stopping other players from joining them.
To address these issues we have temporarily stopped player hosted servers from registering as public servers until the implementation can be modified (remote players can still connect to player hosted servers with the Direct Connection option in the online menu).
For discussion and support for the Gang Beasts Server Tool please use the forum at http://steamcommunity.com/app/497110/discussions/
Physics Instability
We have been testing to identify the source of the physics inconsistencies introduced in the 0.5.0 builds and have identified the issue is with frame rate independence (making the game physics fluctuate significantly when running on different hardware specifications). We have been testing a potential fix for this issue and are publishing this as the 0.5.1 beta build concurrently with this post.
The modifications to the characters physics (which are listed in the change log in the 0.5.0 posts are not the source of the issues with physics inconsistencies), the issue is with the game physics not calculating independently of frame rate which manifests as lower (weak) forces for systems with lower frame rates and compromises character stability for systems with exceptionally high frame rates.
Quick Join
We are working on the Quick Join implementation to improve the management of contention for server slots with less frequent disconnections; if you have frequent issues connecting to servers with Quick Join please connect with the Server List with geographical filters (to index servers in proximate geographies) until improvements to the Quick Join implementation are published.
The list of modifications and fixes made in the 0.5.1 beta builds are:
fixed an issue with the character system to make the character physics work independently of frame rate
- fixed missing collider on subway
- modified amplitude of RingDing SFX to lower volume by approx. half
- modified amplitude of warp SFX sample to lower volume by approx. half
- modified the master server to manage higher CCUs (Concurrent Users)
- modified the master server to make the server list populate faster
Information on switching to / from "stable" and “unstable” branches
To download the ‘unstable’ branch on Steam right-click on the ‘Gang Beasts’ game name on the Steam library page and select 'Properties' from the window that opens, from this window select the 'BETAS' tab and then the 'unstable' option from the dropdown menu (the menu labelled 'Select the beta you would like to opt into:’. To revert back to the last 'stable' branch select 'NONE- Opt out of all beta programs' from the same menu.
For reference switching between 'unstable' and 'stable' branches of the game forces the selected build to download to the Steam client (replacing the previously selected build).
Please note the 0.5.0 release replaced the previous default 0.3.4 and 0.4.4 "unstable" Steam Early Access builds, moving between the default and “unstable” builds on Steam will download the 0.5.1 stable build until the “unstable” build is updated to 0.5.2