vJill
u/vJill
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Some load issues developed with the TF2 servers over the weekend -- we deployed a few mitigations tonight*, and things should be a bit better now. We're keeping an eye on it and will have a few tweaks later in the week to hopefully keep things snappy.
*which didn't go entirely smoothly and now the XP bars are a little weird
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Sorry about this! We've shipped a hotfix to the Steam Client to prevent this. To ensure you've got the latest update without hitting this unfortunate bug, you can do the following:
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Switch to Desktop
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Open the Steam Client
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In the Steam menu bar, go to Steam -> Check for Steam Client Updates
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If there are any updates, hit Apply & Restart
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Ensure that it now says "up to date" and you are safe from this bug.
We will be shipping a SteamOS update shortly to prevent anyone else from getting into this state.
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The updates in question are controller firmware and BIOS updates, which the normal OS updater will provide even if you manage to skip this one-time nag.
Install OS 3.5.5 or newer on your previous SSD before swapping it to ensure it has the necessary bits to run the OLED and there shouldn't be an issue.
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Just a note, while it generally works to manually downgrade between recent BIOS versions, this isn't fully tested/supported. If you are trying it, it is always a good idea to reset BIOS settings when doing something like this: Power the Deck down, then power it up whilst holding the ... and Volume+ keys. (The display will take 10s+ to wake up when doing this and the LED will flash at you)
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There was also a small OS update earlier today for the preview channel, your Vampires should Survive again in gaming mode:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675200/view/3469488996651224898
For desktop users encountering this (including non-Deck desktop linux users), adding &>- to the game's launch options is a safe (if confuddling) workaround while we work on a proper fix.
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Support should be able to help you with the changing issues you're encountering, but you should be able to reset your BIOS settings, including USB disablement, with the following:
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Shut the unit down, either from the OS or by holding power button for 10 seconds.
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Check that the unit is off. Trackpads should have no haptic feedback.
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While holding the volume- and “….” buttons, press the power button once.
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Keep holding volume- and “….” during the power button press and a few seconds after that, then let go.
It may take upwards of a minute to boot when doing this, that's normal!
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The Steam runtime is a common set of libraries that come with the steam client, such that games (or tools such as proton) built against them will work on any system/distro via Steam. When using the scripts to create a container for building against them, it is based on precise which is the environment the libraries are based-upon.
There are some WIP patches to add Docker support to the Steam runtime's SDK tools, and a new set of buildscripts for proton that support them, which may work better for you:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime/pull/91
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/pull/793
The new build system also has an option to skip linking against steam runtime library versions, which will give you a less compatible build that will only work on your specific distro/library versions, but may be preferable for hacking on locally.
Edit: Fixed the Proton pull request link
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This is an oddly non-specific question. There's a few convars related to the party system, some new tunables for airblast, and some other odds and ends, but we usually don't document or encourage players to go digging through convars unless they know what they are doing.
Plus, the discovery is half the fun, isn't it?
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We actually missed the notes in this update relating to this, my fault!
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Players who leave a Casual or MvM match for any reason cannot be re-matched into
themthe match in question for a few minutes -
Players who are vote-kicked from a Casual or MvM match cannot be re-matched into
themthe match in question for several hours
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We are also updating the game client binaries. I posted some information about the beta here for non-server-administrators: https://steamcommunity.com/app/440/discussions/0/135509472115112472/
In theory this may result in better performance, but I would not expect the differences to be drastic.
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The MvM ping change was entirely on the side of the matchmaker service -- clients & servers already had the required bits.
The change you're seeing there is an unrelated tweak for official MvM servers more aggressively clearing their match state with the GC. It isn't relevant to community servers. If you really wish to, though, you can switch to the valve_ds branch to get that build.
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we were in party with beans and he is brazilian too, his ping later kinda matched up with ours so i dont know what really happend there
Routes in Brazil, in particular, can sometimes result in the Brazilian datacenter being unreachable or of poor connectivity for some users/ISPs. I suspect, given his ping difference, that said datacenter was a no-go for him, so the matchmaker had no good options.
I'll look into changing the decision making to more strongly prefer the party's average ping over the worst-member ping when latency is at that level.
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Were you in a party with beans, who has a very different ping?
When you party with users from different regions, the matchmaker picks a region with least-worst ping for everyone in your party. That is, it would prefer to give you all 100-200ms ping, than to give beans 400ms ping and the remainder 50ms. That behavior may need to be looked at.
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The Saturday morning hug of death was unkind to the matchmaking servers, resulting in excessive queue times for many players. This is related to the maintenance yesterday which included major changes to the networking back-end for matchmaking.
We've applied some changes that appear to have resolved the core of the issue, and queue times look to be back to normal levels for most players. We will continue to keep a close eye on things over the weekend.
We should have some more information about these changes and other MM work coming soon™
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Today's server maintenance caused some issues with the matchmaker, causing erratic queue times for some players. We're working on sorting things now, hold tight!
Update: This should now be largely resolved, and the queue times have come back down. We're keeping an eye on the system for any additional side effects. Apologies for the wait!
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May as well try and see what happens: what were you testing in that test branch you made and removed quickly, u/vJill?
Today's update caused the client to start streaming feedback on its network conditions to the game coördinators. There were a few anomalies in the incoming data that we didn't see in the beta universes. There was a small bug that could explain it -- but, since the issue didn't easily reproduce internally, I decided to create myself the world's smallest test branch. I threw some debug commands at my account to ensure everything was hunky dory prior to throwing a hot 5MiB at everyone.
Now, normally, I would have ran the updated build directly without bringing any poor Steam servers into my scheme. However, I was also testing a depot configuration change, so an opportunity arose to strike two proverbial birds with one Steam branch.
Aware of the inevitable website-based-snitching that this would risk, I nearly named it "stairs". I quickly decided I would not survive the attempt.
If you don't try, you'll never get anywhere.
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It will help, but, unfortunately, the GL builds are running into a genuine memory pressure issue that can't be solved so easily. OS X users hitting this will benefit from upgrading to 10.11 and lowering texture resolution (especially on intel graphics).
Linux users with intel graphics should use the newest mesa driver stack available. Those using a 32bit kernel should consider switching to a 64bit distro if possible, to maximize available address space to 32bit processes.
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( cross-posted from the blog: )
It's no secret that Casual Mode has had a rough launch. We wanted to give you an update on what we're doing to address your concerns.
Short version: We hear you. Later today, we will be shipping a patch to Casual Mode that will remove the penalties for abandoning a game, and allow you to narrow your game mode selections from two modes to a single mode before queuing. Additionally, in the very near future, we will be shipping a more comprehensive Casual Mode patch that will let you select the maps you will be matched into.
We've provided a more detailed breakdown of Casual Mode's issues and how we are addressing your concerns below.
First, and most important, queue times. The queue times you are currently experiencing are a bug, not a feature. It is something we are actively working to correct. Several backend issues appeared post-launch that culminated in long wait times. Removing this issue is our highest priority right now.
Second, abandonment penalties. We had put in a ten-minute cooldown period to encourage players to complete matches. Your feedback has convinced us that it is more important for players to be able to come and go as they please. Today's patch will remove abandonment cooldown penalties from Casual Mode.
Third, user choice. We'd intended to roll out the number of match options available to players incrementally, so as not to overload the matchmaking system with too many variables on Day One. In retrospect, of all the match options to hold back, map selection should not have been one of them. It is the next feature we are adding to Casual Mode, and you will get it very soon.
Fourth, Casual Mode levels. Levels are a cosmetic feature that show how much you've played. They can never be lost, and they do not affect matchmaking. We did a poor job of communicating that Casual Mode Levels are in no way similar to Competitive Mode Ranks (which do affect matchmaking, and can be lost).
Finally, we wanted to note that we value the role the community plays in the development of this game, and do in fact read all the feedback sent to us, as well as through reddit, the forums, streams, and more. We are not always as talkative as we perhaps should be, but we are listening.
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Hey Guys,
We've setup a Steam Community Group for the TF2 Competitive Beta here:
We'll be using this group to send out announcements related to the competitive beta as well as seed beta invites for the expansion of the closed beta. If that sounds like a thing you need, get in here!
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The TF Team
