Implementation of PromptGroupJoin() and .PromptGroupJoinFinished

Introduction
As a game developer, it is challenging to get new players to join your group. Driving players to join a group provides benefits such as a community and a player base for future games. However, the feature set on Roblox can be pretty limited to help developers get new members.

Example
Many games offer unique rewards for joining a group, in ways like this:image

The Desktop vs. Mobile Experience
While as a desktop user, I would usually minimize the game to quickly click the group that made it and join, it would be a lot easier if stepping on that platform would open a prompt to join the group. If the prompt is successful, the game would then allow me to receive my rewards.

However, mobile users would have to completely leave the game and have a more challenging experience to join a group. As a result, games likely lose a chunk of their potential members as a result.

Potential API

Function
     void PromptGroupJoin(Instance player, int64 groupID)

Events
     PromptGroupJoinFinished(Instance player, int64 groupID, bool wasJoined)

Coded Example

--// Services
local GroupService = game:GetService("GroupService")

--// Constants
local GROUP_ID = 6273742
local PROMPT_PART = workspace.PROMPT_PART

--// Event handlers
PROMPT_PART.Touched:Connect(function(player)
      if Players:GetPlayerFromCharacter(player.Parent) then
             GroupService:PromptGroupJoin(Players:GetPlayerFromCharacter(player.Parent), GROUP_ID)
      end
end)

GroupService.PromptGroupJoinFinished:Connect(function(player, id, wasJoined)
       if wasJoined and id == GROUP_ID then
          local character = player.Character or player.CharacterAdded:Wait()
          character.Humanoid.MaxHealth = 200
          return "Player joined"
       else
          return "Player did not join or error"
       end
end)

Potential Issues

  • Could be used by free models to get players in groups.
    • This could be fixed with a setting similar to AllowThirdPartySales
  • Groups with manual approval
    • A “PromptGroupJoin only supports open groups” warning could be thrown.

How can you Help?

  • Leave a comment pledging your support!
  • Retweet the twitter post to spread the word!

Conclusion
I appreciate you all taking the time to read this! I believe this feature implementation could increase player engagement with groups and allow games to form stronger communities. If you have any suggestions or issues with this post leave them below!

110 Likes

I think this would be an excellent feature. It would compliment the upcoming subscription api.

14 Likes

Agreed, it’s the first step in further integrating Roblox groups to become a more robust social feature.

2 Likes

This would be an excellent feature, but I can see it being spammed by game developers to get players to join the group and refusing to hide it until they do.
If this were implemented, I believe it should have some form of a cooldown or be off to the side just like the friend request prompt where it being spammed would be less intrusive.
Overall this would make getting players to join groups so much more efficient and easier. Especially for the younger players who don’t understand groups.

4 Likes

I 100% agree having a cooldown of some sort could be useful. It could also connect to social features for players who don’t want any group prompts. Thanks for your response!

3 Likes

This would simply result in the player getting annoyed and leaving, in which case the developer is at no benefit, the game will get dislikes and players will get turned away from it. If a developer wishes to do this the only person they are harming is themselves and therefor I believe this is not an issue.

3 Likes

Really good point. If I’m correct Roblox has no cooldown for prompting gamepass purchases and spamming that is not an issue?

1 Like

I believe they do have methods in place to prevent overload (Only 1 being allowed open at once), but no I don’t believe they have something in place to explicitly prevent spam.

2 Likes

Yeah, I looked more and learned there are overload preventions. Similar methods could help the group prompt, but as you said, it only harms the developer. The only issue is free models which could be fixed with a setting similar to AllowThirdPartySales for groups.

2 Likes

Perfect idea. 100% support. In fact, I’d even say that you should still be able to join groups w/ manual approval-- the feature could be the exact same, it could instead just prompt a “Would you like to request to join GROUP” instead of “Would you like to join GROUP” when toggled.

1 Like

I thought the same too. The issue with that is what the groupJoinFinished will return. Would that manual pending count as joining, or would wasJoined return strings? It could return “Joined”, “NotJoined”, “Pending”. It’s a tricky subject there. Thank you for your support, I appreciate it!

1 Like

There could be a fourth parameter “isPending” which would simply return false for normal groups and true for manual groups.

2 Likes

True, but that might also bloat the code. The issue here is what happens to isJoined in that case. It’s a tricky problem, I personally think it might be best to stick to only working with open groups, but we will see where Roblox takes this if they accept it!

1 Like

Alright that sounds good for now then lmao. Baby steps I suppose.

3 Likes

I think a feature like this is important because as you said, currently it’s very hard to get mobile players to join a group. I could be wrong but I also think mobile users make up the majority of players on Roblox, which means there’s a good chunk of players that are missing out on the community you try to build for your game through the use of groups.
Groups have been getting an overhaul recently, maybe a feature like this can be apart of those changes.

2 Likes

Yes, a massive amount of the Roblox player base is on mobile. I would say 3/4 of mobile players are not going to LEAVE their current game to join a group. A few would join when they leave, some would forget, some would never join. An immediate prompt, with a FREE reward right behind it would massively increase group members.

4 Likes

Duplicate Feature Request: New Group Methods and events