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Ozan Yilmaz avatar image
Ozan Yilmaz asked

Does Playfab Meet My Needs?

Hey everyone,

I am new here. I used Playfab before for a simple project and I liked the platform. I am thinking of using Playfab as the backend of my new game; however, there are some questions in my mind. I will list the gameplay features of my game, and I wonder if I can do them with Playfab.

1) Players can buy a same car more than one and they can modify their cars differently. Is it possible to add a same item in their inventory with different title data?

2) Can I make a mailbox for every player in my game (Basic messaging system)? If so, how can I do that?

3) Players can interact with something in the game and thereafter, the result will be shown after 10 minutes. The result depends on some parameters. So that I need to generate a random number (or use a drop table) while considering the parameters. It is like timed events. I think, I need revoke a function in the script. Is that possible? (The players only click a button and the result happens automatically on the backend after 10 minutes).

4) I want to send a notification to a specific player (to their phone) after timed events. Is that possible?

4) If buy the Indie Studio package, can I make a matchmaking system with Playfab? If so, how can I do that? (A tutorial link would be great if there is any)

If I can do these gameplay features with Playfab, I am thinking of buying Indie Studio Pack since I have over 1000 items in the game.

Thanks in advance.

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Seth Du avatar image
Seth Du answered
  1. Yes, you can. What you have created in the Catalog is like a C# class and when an item is granted to a player, an item instance, with unique instance ID, is generated and added to this player. Besides its instance nature, it also contains a custom data field that can be maintained via UpdateUserInventoryItemCustomData API. You may use Cloud script to grant items then call this API to modify the custom data.
  2. If it is like a public news channel, you may just use GetTitleNews API and edit it on [Game Manager] -> [Content] -> [Title News]. I believe currently there is no native support for this. But there is work around solution. You may use Cloud Script with Player Data (Player Read-Only Data is preferred) to maintain it. Send the messages with target player’s PlayFab ID as parameters to the Cloud Script and Cloud Script function will retrieve the data from players and append the latest messages to the chatting dialog (structured JSON) then call UpdateUserPublisherReadOnlyData for both players. Meanwhile in the client side you can call GetUserReadOnlyData periodically or actively by player. Please note that this is only a work around solution and you should take care of the limits for your title. PlayFab has been working on a new feature to support in-game messages natively, meanwhile there is no ETA for its General Availability. If you are paid Tier user and are interested in it, you may refer to this documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/features/multiplayer/networking/.
  3. I think you may store the Event Buffs in Player Read-Only Data/Player Internal Data and use Cloud Script to read and dynamically generate the result. The Drop Table in the Catalog is pre-defined and cannot be changed dynamically for single player. You can edit the drop table via Admin API UpdateRandomResultTables, but it is globally.
  4. Yes, it is possible. However, We highly recommend you to use local push notification instead of remote push notification. You may set a timer for local push notification after retrieving data like the expiration time for events from the server side. Remote push notification usually should response for players’ active performance. Take Clash of Clans as an example, only one player attacked another player, will the remote push notification be sent. Passively triggered remote push notification is not a good idea.
  5. Of course, Please refer to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/features/multiplayer/matchmaking/. To implement Multiplayer server, please refer to: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/features/multiplayer/servers/. Moreover, we keep updating our documentation on https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/ and please always look for official docs on this website.

Please feel free to tell us if you have concerns about above questions, and it will be great to post the new questions in other threads. Thanks for the understanding.

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Ozan Yilmaz avatar image Ozan Yilmaz commented ·

Thank you for the detailed explanation.

It looks like Playfab will meet my needs. Speaking of which, I want to create a message system where the players can send messages to each other. I am not looking for real-time messaging. I think, I can handle this by using user data and saving JSON-format-data in it. Afterwards, in the game, I can refresh the message box in a specific period of time.

I also have a further question. Can I make an e-mail & password system for the game? I am thinking of releasing the game on multiple platforms. So that when a player plays the game on a different platform, I do not want them to play the game from the beginning. How can I do that? How can I secure the passwords on the database? (Saving as encrypted data)

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Seth Du avatar image Seth Du ♦ Ozan Yilmaz commented ·

Yes, you can. PlayFab have the email feature that can help player recover their password. Please refer to :https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/features/engagement/emails/using-email-templates-to-send-an-account-recovery-email

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