The main issues I’ve been having is when I play with my friend and join his game, I get disconnected every few minutes and then sometimes it will unsync to the point where I will load back in and all of the crates that we just spent an hour or two stocking with materials are now empty on my screen, but they’re perfectly fine on his.
I don’t see any specific mention of issues like that elsewhere or in the update notes, so is there anything being done to address the desyncing issues and the constant disconnect issues for player two in a multiplayer game? The game is super fun but it is incredibly disheartening to spend all that time gearing up to embark on a journey just to get disconnected halfway to the island and then my buddy has to turn around to save and reload me back in which, by the way, isn’t exactly a quick process.
I love the fact that you guys are updating the game though, definitely gives me hope. I just don’t know what to do about the constant disconnecting and crates being empty when they shouldn’t be. It throws everything off. Most of the disconnects seem to be “Fence Time Out”
Yea happens to me all the time. Literally unplayable pos game. Unfortunate. I loved it. 100% it. And then trying to help my bro play and 100% it? nope. Wont happen. Every time i join his game theres empty crates, disconnects, you name it. Literally just gave up on it again. We tried 4 times. Restart the game, restart the playstation, doesnt matter. It sucks. Straight up unplayable.
I have been having the same issue as player 2 on the ps4 when playing with my buddy. As soon as we start sailing to another island, about halfway, it starts getting real choppy and then I get kicked out. It forces my friends to have to turn around and save and then we have to start over by reloading only for it to do it again. Sometimes it will kick me when I’m not even near the raft and just doing stuff on our home island. Additionally, after it loads me back in all of the crates are empty on my screen, but they are stocked full on his. The disconnects, and the disappearing items in the crates is one of the biggest issues. As soon as we start to approach the new island while it is lagging me out, none of the landscape or items appear, it’s just a big patch of sand and then, as soon as it disconnects me everything loads for my friend. I made a separate post about it recently, I understand you’re busy but if there’s any advice on how to circumvent these issues, that would be awesome as the game is very fun but almost unplayable with 2 people. @Clare
I’m sorry you’re experiencing issues with connections in your Multiplayer game. I’ve moved your comment from another post here to prevent confusion / the same info across multiple posts. While I have no problem with users tagging me to get my attention if they feel I may have missed it, I will always get to a post asap to respond. There is no need to post in multiple locations.
The team are constantly working on stability improvements for both gameplay and multiplayer. While there may not be specific issues mentioned in release notes, the team are working to find and resolve the issues around desyncs and disconnects. Players may experience desync issues in different ways and the team investigates these issues to determine if they are single issues or a trickle down effect caused by other issues they are working on. Unfortunately, due to the nature of some issues, they can take longer to investigate and resolve than others. I completely understand how disheartening issues around disconnections and desyncs can be for yourself and other players.
Please let me know:
Are you and your friend on the same internet connection in the same household, or across two different households?
What Router and ISP are you both using?
What region are you using to host the game?
What is the NAT type for both of you? This info is in the network connection settings on your console, if they’re different, please indicate which one is the host.
If you swap who is hosting (though understandably this may not be preferable as it is a separate save) do the issues still occur with you as host?
Did the issues start from the beginning of gameplay, or have you noticed it getting worse as the save becomes more established / you build up your base island?
Any additional information you can provide about your gameplay setup would be greatly appreciated and may help me to provide some suggestions on what to try.
Regarding the crate desync, currently the only known workaround is having the host remove the items and replace them in the crate. You should be able to see the contents then. However we understand this is not an ideal workaround and can be time consuming for players.
Thank you so much, I appreciate the quick response and all the assistance for sure!
So just to touch on some of your questions,
We are in 2 separate households, in fact my friend who usually hosts is in New York and I am in Ohio. We are both using the PS4.
Both of our NAT types are - Type 2
My router is a Netgear Nighthawk, his is through Spectrum from what he said and we both have Spectrum as our ISP.
The server region we used to host it is set to auto according to my buddy.
Unfortunately when we play together we generally try to keep it all in one save file aside from a couple restarts but I have actually not tried hosting and having him join. We can try that for the sake of science and I can report back with how it works although ideally we would prefer to just continue our main save file obviously.
It was fine to start out, the disconnects were few and far between but as we started progressing it became more and more prevalent. I can tell you now that literally every time we set off to sail to another island to gather supplies etc., about halfway between islands, my screen (player 2) gets very skippy and nothing flows smoothly. Like the waves are laggy and it’s just obviously losing connection and then I get booted soon after. Now that’s become more and more common the further we progressed (bigger raft, more crates/items etc.) so I had assumed it’s like a data limit issue or something, idk. It’s not so much a desyncing issue tho cuz the time of day, weather and all that is generally (but not always) synced up. The only real desync issue is the items not appearing in the crates pretty much.
Please let me know if any of this info was helpful and if we can maybe test some things to help out or if there’s any other details you need.
Hi Sizely,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions and share those details about your experience playing Stranded Deep.
Firstly, I know that Sam (Developer) has mentioned in another thread that Spectrum ISP has been known to have issues with the third-party Photon relay servers that the game uses. While I understand it’s not ideal, it may be worth attempting to host a game over a mobile connection to rule out issues there. I’m not sure if it’s the connection itself, or just routers that can be affected, so if you can successfully host a game, it might narrow down if one of the routers is struggling.
Thank you for describing your experience of losing sync with your host and what a lead up to a disconnect looks like for you. I know from single player games, that lots of loose items on an island, or large builds can contribute to lag build up in a game so this could also be a contributing factor.
Can you confirm for me…
if most items are in crates / pile storage or if you have loose items on your island too?
Have you built a large base on your home island?
Do you cycle islands (use custom islands to gather materials and then refresh them to gather items again) ?
Would disconnects be more likely to happen when leaving your home island where it is built up / has a lot of items rather than when transferring from island to island?
I know Sam is also looking into stability when it comes to larger builds and cycling islands to gather resources, so if this sounds like your gameplay style, this may be a big contributing factor - especially as you mentioned it’s gotten worse over time.
If you tried swapping who was hosting, please let me know how you got on.
On our main island, we primarily have things set in piles along the beach. We have a couple of containers that we stock items in but the majority is in piles and loose items strewn about. The piles are unaffected and show up every time as well as the loose items. The crates are primarily used on our raft so we can transport a large amount of items back to our main island.
The disconnect issue does happen on the islands occasionally but is far more likely to happen on the raft where we store 90% of our crates, so it’s starting to feel like something in regards to the crates equals disconnect for whatever reason.
On our home island, we haven’t built anything too crazy, in fact we’ve only really used about 15-20% of it as we’re trying to preserve resources for now. I built a small hut (3x2 with walls and roof) and a small dock consisting of like 4x4 wood foundations and a tower. Aside from the crafting items like the hobo stove and smoker and all that, we haven’t built too much in my opinion.
As far as cycling islands, I haven’t hosted one yet so I’m unfamiliar with how that works but we haven’t respawned or refreshed any islands mid game to my knowledge, I didn’t know that was a thing lol
Unsure how to answer the last question though as we mainly go to a new island, strip it of as many supplies as we can (using our crate loaded raft) and then go back to our main island to drop everything off. So the only islands we depart from are our home island (built up) and whichever new island we’re farming from (not built up at all). It’s hard to tell as it seems to happen both ways, it’s just more likely to happen from the home island cuz that’s where we start from and half the time I can’t even get to the next island as it disconnects me halfway there. I believe it gives a couple of different disconnect prompts when it boots me but the one I remember most says “Fence Time Out”
Hi Sizely,
Thank you for taking the time to share the details of your island and gameplay style.
Would you consider the disconnects and desyncs more likely to happen as you reach the midway point between two islands? There is a point between two islands where the island you’re leaving starts to unload and the island you’re heading to starts to load in proper. If it’s at this crossing point the disconnects occur it could be due to the loading from one section to the next.
If you travel on separate rafts, does the issue still occur as much?
Please also confirm for me how many crates you have on your raft when looking for resources and if you would add larger loose items to the raft also or if you just stick to crates.
Have you ever experienced the crates shuffling position at all in game or have they stayed in the positions yourself or the host have placed them in? (this is likely a separate issue experienced by some players but it would be good to know if it has occurred in your save too.
I’d like to pass further details about this onto the team for their investigation into multiplayer desyncs and disconnects but I’ll of course pass on everything you’ve shared with me already.
Thank you again for all the info you’ve shared so far.
