UPDATE 5/24/2022: This is now available for all iOS devices
We just rolled out an exciting update for iOS devices! We now support backgrounding of the Roblox app while in-experience!
So the next time a user is in your experience and they get a text or a phone call, they can answer it and then come back to Roblox without losing their place in your experience! For this iteration, we support up to 30-180 seconds of backgrounding depending on your iOS version.
Edit: This is up to 30 seconds for iOS 13+, and up to 180 seconds for any iOS lower than iOS 13.
What does this mean for you?
Well, note that users won’t automatically leave your game now when they leave the app, so make sure you’re not relying on Roblox to kick users in those scenarios.
Next steps?
Enabling longer backgrounding time on Android (Android currently supports up to 30 seconds)
Improving the experience in case the OS suspends Roblox when you run out of backgrounding time
You have no idea how annoying to lose all my progress while I’m playing a game when I accidentally tap a notification that pops up in at the top of my screen while I’m in the app.
I no longer have to remember to turn on Do Not Disturb so I don’t have to worry about notifications making me exit the app anymore.
This makes my experience on mobile SO much better.
Time to cross this off my Roblox “wanted features” list.
Will we be able to detect if a device enters this “background app” mode so that we can handle it accordingly, for example, in an FPS game, if the user gets a phone call, we can give them a temporary forcefield to make sure people don’t get cheap kills on them because they’re technically AFK.
That is so great to hear! It’s been hard testing games on mobile and writing down notes when you’re out of anything to write on but the device you’re holding. Thank you so much for this!
For example, if someone is about to lose some battle of some sort, they could just exit the app for a little while, regenerate health (since games have health regeneration enabled by default), and then enter back.
Edit: Just look at @Gojinhan 's reply below mine. He explains it better.
The client would always be the one to determine if the app is in the background or not, therefore the client could just arbitrarily fire this event whenever it’s convenient to fool the server into giving them a forcefield.
Granted, that’s less of a problem with this event existing; and more of a problem of giving people a forcefield for being afk.
That’s the developer’s problem. Roblox shouldn’t limit the capabilities of the engine just because a few developers don’t know how to balance their game. I see no room for abuse within this suggested feature.
On top of this, I’ve noticed that all textures have to be re-downloaded after returning from backgrounding on Android, this causes games to appear fully grey upon returning for a few seconds.
I believe RenderStepped won’t fire on the client in this case, however note that this also occurs when minimising the program on Desktop too.
Your reply is relevant to Valiant’s, but it is not relevant to mine. Especially considering I said this:
Granted, that’s less of a problem with this event existing; and more of a problem of giving people a forcefield for being afk.
Indeed, roblox should not be limiting the engine over future user’s incompetency. However what I mentioned is still true, it could very easily be abused, because the server literally cannot know if they’re telling the truth or not. Maybe they’re actually just out of the app for a bit?
Yes but the developer can introduce a “dead” time where the event doesn’t do anything until that time has elapsed.
Regardless of if it can be abused in one game type, its down to the developer to patch these issues. Just because it can be abused doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a vital engine feature like that
In that case your reply is irrelevant to my original reply, as I never asked about how players could abuse the system, only developers. Doesn’t make any of our replies less valid.
If you really feel like stretching it, yes, my reply is still relevant, I’m just clarifying my position.