Allow Mobile to Temporarily Leave App Without Leaving Game

Platform Feedback Mobile Features
#1

As a Roblox developer/player, it is currently extremely frustrating for Roblox to exit the game you are in whenever you exit the app (whether intentionally or unintentionally via accidental notification tap).

If Roblox is able to address this issue, it would improve my experience because I can play without the worry that I will be kicked from the game when I tap a notification on accident. This applies especially to instance based games like Break In, where leaving means you essentially have to start all over again because you can’t go back to your old instance.

I propose that there be a 15 - 30 second window in which you can still return to the game if you leave the app. This would stop the frustration of progressing in a game for it all to be lost unexpectedly, while still preserving phone battery should the player have turned their phone off or otherwise forgot about the open game.

EDIT: This request mainly pertains to iOS. Some androids are already capable of this.

42 Likes
#2

I agree with the idea behind your mobile feature request, but I’m not sure if this is feasible granted the rather heavy toll that running a virtual reality engine in a backgrounded app might have on a mobile device. In fact, iOS/Android may even suspend backgrounded application processes to optimize battery life, CPU usage, etc.

I wish we could keep the game running in the background, but there may be some API limitations dependent upon the operating system. I’m not too sure, but I feel like if they were able to keep the connection to the game instance active, they would have done that initially in the app. It seems to pose a performance / ux / programming challenge. But I’m just speculating—maybe a mobile software engineer will reply and explain whether this is feasible.

3 Likes
#3

Low ram devices like iPhones aggressively close background apps. If you watch those phone speed comparison videos on YouTube you’ll see that when they run the test the second time on iOS the phone has to re-open every app. I’m not sure how this can be solved.

5 Likes
#4

On Android you can already do this. I often hop to a different app and hop back to Roblox and it’s still in the game. Very useful for a quick notification or to send a message on Discord.

Not sure what happens to Stepped, RenderStepped and Heartbeat events though. If I switch for too long it leaves the game, possibly because of the effect on these events or just mobile phones closing background apps that take up battery.

5 Likes
#5

On stock Android (Pixel 4 XL in my case), the game will keep running in the background. Presumably it’ll stay open until Android needs to free up RAM, but I’ve never had issues with it.

If you’re on Android, you may be able to turn off background restriction in either app info, or your main settings:

Screenshot_20200311-160247
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1 Like
#6

I was not aware that this was possible on Androids, as I do not have one. Thank you for clarifying. I will edit the post to address that this is mainly an iOS issue.

1 Like
#7

I think this only applies to iOS.

My S10e is able to leave the app or even press the button to turn off the display and then enter the app and you’re still in game.

Of course, if you’re out for too long, I think like a minute or so, Android will kill the app and you’ll need to reopen it.

1 Like
#8

I mostly support this, I don’t get why we need to limit it to 15-30 seconds though. The max timeout length (or if timeout is allowed) should be able to be sat by the developer just in case the timeout would cause issues in their game.