Inviting friends RELIABLY when playing through the PC

@sanni It's in the title of the thread, "Inviting friends RELIABLY when playing through the PC".

We're all playing on PCs.

The "invite" on the X-Box app is a bit flimsy, and most of the time no one gets any invites at all.

The best way is for someone to start a private game, and then the rest join in. Either by joining a game through the X-box profile of the friend who started the game, of through someone that has already joined the same session. That method has worked 98% of the time.

The whole X-box app is overly complicated and unstable compared to most other similar software. They should look at Steam or some other more refined game launcher/shop/communications platform. Just my couple of cents.

@triheadedmonkey said in Inviting friends RELIABLY when playing through the PC:

@ghostfire1981 I can't see Microsoft abandoning their own platform (which they are trying to grow and promote) in favour of paying to use someone else's.

Agreed, but they could have a long hard look at other software, and perhaps learn what works and do not.
Why invent the wheel again, if there already exists a perfectly good template of it. Instead of inventing the wheel again, they could simply take an existing wheel and hone it to perfection, or in the case of the X-Box app, at least make it round so that it works as a proper wheel. At the moment their "wheel" is shaped like a square... and perhaps in a couple of years they get to an octagon, and the experience feels a little more comfortable.

:)

I play on PC with friends who also play on PC.

I have invited people onto my ship in 3 different ways.

1. All load into the game menu. Someone loads into the screen where you can set sail. Click the option on the bottom or press 1 to bring up your friends list. Wait ages for the xbox friends list to load properly (impatience here is not your friend). Select a single friend to invite to group. Repeat until everyone is in the crew menu. Issues here: Friend needs to be ready for invite, if they miss it it does still show in the notifications part of windows that you can alt-tab out to see, but most people don't realise this so it's easier to invite them again. Also you can technically invite everyone at once, but I've found this doesn't always work properly so for best success it's better to do it individually.

2. Everyone loads into their own individual game as a closed crew has a look around for a skull fort, or check it's a nice day (ie you haven't loaded into Daggertooth or Galleon's Grave), or theirs a ship wreak nearby). Person who has the nicest sounding map alt-tab's out and open's the xbox app. They select each of their friends profiles and invite them into the game.

3. As above, but instead of the person wanting people to join them alt-tab out into the xbox app and opens up the profile of the person they want to join and selects join on that person's game.

Note everyone should check their status in xbox live app - it's possible that they have made themselves appear offline as that can cause issues with invites and joining people. I had done that once and I could invite people but they couldn't invite me, or join on me.

Things also load faster if you have the xbox app open first.

Also in game you want to make sure in crew settings that the crew is closed (unless you want to open it up to random people), and that you are allowing people to join your game.

Options 2 and 3 are also great for those times when you want to get on and start loading up the ship or get a quest started whilst you wait for your friends to join you.

@sanni said in Inviting friends RELIABLY when playing through the PC:

Do you use the Xbox app or the Xbox (beta) app?

I'm so sorry. I misread that and replied in error.

@murkrage said in Inviting friends RELIABLY when playing through the PC:

@vasduten said in Inviting friends RELIABLY when playing through the PC:

@sanni It's in the title of the thread, "Inviting friends RELIABLY when playing through the PC".

We're all playing on PCs.

Yes, and the question still stands: Are you using the Xbox or Xbox Beta app?

I have the XBox app, not beta.
Is one better than the other?

@ghostfire1981 said in Inviting friends RELIABLY when playing through the PC:

The "invite" on the X-Box app is a bit flimsy, and most of the time no one gets any invites at all.

The best way is for someone to start a private game, and then the rest join in. Either by joining a game through the X-box profile of the friend who started the game, of through someone that has already joined the same session. That method has worked 98% of the time.

The whole X-box app is overly complicated and unstable compared to most other similar software. They should look at Steam or some other more refined game launcher/shop/communications platform. Just my couple of cents.

Agreed. Maybe they should develop a widget or overlay that only handles this aspect of the system. No need to load a "news" feed or other junk. Bare bones, working 100% of the time unless a connection issue occurs.
Makes too much sense though.

@chellnz Thanks. Good info in here.

We'll try them all.

@luciansanchez82 said in Inviting friends RELIABLY when playing through the PC:

@vasduten You shouldn't need to have everyone in game to invite, and you can invite friends direct from the Xbox App if you go to their profile. Though what you might find easier is to start a game yourself, get everyone in a party, then in the party pane you should see "invite". In there you can invite party to game. When you hit that everyone in the party will get a notification to join your game.

I hope this is what you're looking for matey.

Thanks, dude. We tried this and it worked a lot of the time.

Update:
(In case other PC players are having the same problem,)

We found that having ONE crew member either loaded in the game or waiting at the "Set Sail" screen and having the other players click on the spawned player's name in the XBox app and then joining the "joinable" spot works most every time.

They have to be sitting at the "Choose Ship" screen, but it CAN launch OK from desktop without the game even loaded, but that's iffy.

If everyone is at the "Choose ship" screen aside from the host, (who is either spawned or at the "Set Sail" screen, it'll work 99% of the time.

Cheers for all the help!