Completely and utterly disappointed about multiplayer

[Grumpy Barnacle]

I recently bought the Torchlight 2 4-pack to play with three of my friends. I have not been able to play any decent match since. Multiplayer suffers from major synchronization and lag issues, especially in area's where bosses are around. Things like bosses spawning four times, dying six times in one person's game and then killing two other players while he's already dead are normal things to happen when playing. I've read through the game hub discussions, the Runic forums as well as Google, but most people seem to be playing fine (mostly playing either singleplayer or with only two people), but with four it's unbearable. We've tried to play LAN as well as via Internet, but both suffer from the same issues. Note that I don't dislike the game, I think the rest of the gameplay is nice, we were enjoying the game up until the moment that the first issues started occurring. In singleplayer there are therefore probably little to no issues and this game would work great there.

I would have expected this from a relatively new game, but you'd expect that three months after release that critical problems such as this have either been fixed or placed somewhere on top of the game hub / forums so that people buying the game can be aware of this BEFORE buying the game, but nope. I really hope that there will be a patch soon (like there seem to have been many which fix lots of things and are great, but none of them fix this issue) since this game is completely and utterly ruined for me. The whole reason I bought this in the first place was to play multiplayer.

Let this serve not only as a complaint and a request for patching, but also as a heads up for the people looking to buy it.

[Encarta98]

I would like to confirm this issue. It severaly dampens the mood of playing this game with friends, who are quickly getting tired of the network issues.

[Myke Hawk]

After spending 2 hours trying to bypass these network issues, nothing worked. It really ruins the mood for playing this game.

[Sugarbeard_Inks]

I havent had any problems of this sort. Played numerous games with more than 3+ players and everything worked fine if they had relatively good connections.

[Grumpy Barnacle]

I am happy for you that you were able to play fine, but I just wanted to mention that all our network connections are over 60 Mbps in speed, all of our PC's are relatively powerful (more than adequate for Torchlight 2) and we have no issues whatsoever playing other multiplayer games, so it's definately an issue with Torchlight II. I have no idea what's causing it however, it only always happens in larger area's (i.e. boss fights amongst others) and it's not always the same people having the same issues.

[DarkFox]

I would also like to confirm the issue. I bought the game to play it together with some of my friends. We tried everything, but the synchronization issues keep on ruining the multiplayer experience.

Edit: Hence I am only commenting on the multiplayer part of the game. I really like the rest of the game ( pets, quests, ... ).

[tuna]

Was going to buy it for me and some friends so, thanks for the heads up and sorry this game isn't as promising as it looks :(

[SupernastyPants]

I haven't tried multiplayer too much, but when playing with friends it helps a lot to set up a LAN connection (like with Hamachi or Evolve) and play it that way. I have heard that solves the majority of the network problems, and playing over LAN I haven't had so much as a hiccup when playing MP.

[YouGotOwned]

I have faced no such issues, and I've played a lot of matches with 6 people... :/

[incubeezer]

I'm having the same issue wth multiplayer being laggy yet single player playing just fine. I'm actually glad to hear it's not just my system, eliminates a lot of troubleshooting I was going to attempt. When I installed Hamachi to try it out, it installed a bunch of garbage software as well (like a browser toolbar and a program that automatically started to scan my computer). Is that normal?

[igortroy]

Torchlight 2's multiplayer is completely Peer-To-Peer. there are no servers, and load is distributed as evenly as possible between the participants of a game, and re-distributed each time someone (including the host) leaves or joins game.
so in theory, there's little difference between a 2-player game and a 6-player game.
and the 6-player game is actually better.

the problem with this, is it's enough for one player to have a crappy connection, a firewall blocking/filtering TL2's traffic, or paralelly using-up a large portion of bandwith - to potentially screw-up a game.

the game notifies such an event by flagging the players with *currently* bad connections with a yellow triangle.
so if you are like me and choose your games carefully - there are no problems.

you just need to know the limitations of P2P, and ask them to pause that porn torrent they're downloading while playing.

[Rex Smashington]

I play all day every day online no lag no issues. Sounds like you have some issues on your end. Only problem I had was the first day the game went on sale and the authenication servers were down.

[omgzappy]

Yes make sure whoever host has the best connection available. I have no problems with the game perfect and enjoyable a lot better then D3.

[Grumpy Barnacle]

It has nothing to do with the limitations of P2P. None of my friends were participating in any activity other than Torchlight II at the time of playing. I'm not talking just about "lag" where people just pop around a bit. I'm seriously talking about people completely desynchronizing from each other (i.e. people standing in the spawn during the game in player 2's game whereas in player 3 he's participating in the boss fight). If it was just lag, I'm sure the game would be able to compensate for it.

Also as I mentioned, it's not always the same people having the problems (it varies from fight to fight). Another problem we had is that someone died (while the boss in his game wasn't even near him), respawned, then suddenly instantly died several times at the start of the level where there were no more monsters (whilst no one was visible on his screen).

PS: I'm not trying to insult you at all, I'm just still frustrated about the problems :/.

[76561198069409126]

So, quick updates -

*We think we found the desync issue, but couldn't get sufficient testing to squeeze it into a patch before break.
*There is a content patch including a new tileset, new items, and other stuff that is in active production.
*GUTS is still trundling toward release (most of the work now is on making the lobby experience with mods really workable)
*We also continue to release localized versions

We certainly haven't left the game for dead, and it continues to be the only thing we are working on.
After release, we have to take some vacations though, or we burn ourselves right out - it was a long haul getting the game out, so continuously crunching post-release on these items hasn't been something we could sustain. We have to work on them at a 'regular' pace until our batteries recharge, so to speak.

[igortroy]

Originally posted by Creature:

It has nothing to do with the limitations of P2P. None of my friends were participating in any activity other than Torchlight II at the time of playing. I'm not talking just about "lag" where people just pop around a bit. I'm seriously talking about people completely desynchronizing from each other (i.e. people standing in the spawn during the game in player 2's game whereas in player 3 he's participating in the boss fight). If it was just lag, I'm sure the game would be able to compensate for it.

I've played this game for 200+ hours - mostly online and in LAN - and the sync problem is rare. even when playing with complete strangers.
strange thing is, this game doesn't "lag" - it's either in good sync, or no sync.
the only real "lag" is when someone joins the game or enters the map, and it lasts about 2 seconds.

the answer to your problem is Runic's match-making system. it's currently struggling under the load of so many new games after the sale.
just wait until the dust settles down, and play Single Player for a day or so.