To explain this quite well I will paste a complaint I made to steam regarding Magicka:
I today bought, downloaded and started to play Magicka. Singleplayer works flawlessly indefinately. However Multiplayer has an effect on my computer/internet connection which is terrifying me.
Every time I try to join a friend's game, or host a game and a friend tries to join, the Internet, at least of my computer, dies entirely - but not all at once. Slowly, different programs lose connection, and then skype (and my active call).
We've tried joining with hamachi instead (LAN) and it worked once, but due to a bug (my friend dying at the start of the tutorial due to fall damage being bugged) we needed to restart - we think this is because of lag.
Oddly, when I'm in a skype call and refresh the Magicka serverlist, if my friend is talking all of the pings are usually way above the norm (200+) and if he isn't talking for more than a second they are more usual (approx 50-150). I have never had such an issue before with any game. Why is magicka/steam ruining my internet connection? Why after I attempt to join a game do programs lose connection to the internet and then my PC's internet die entirely?
Also, if one of us tried to connect to the other, we get a "timed out" message sometimes, other times a "authentication failed". And note we are playing version 126.96.36.199 which was released approx an hour ago I think."
Today the same issue, along with other bugs - be it for game bugs, steam incompatibility or mere lag:
- Progressing a level tends to make bugs more common. As in the host sees a friend shooting a weapon while on the other person's screen, it stopped already.
- A shield being active on a person on one screen, and for the other person it is off - and then seems to be off when it's on. Waiting for the shield to expire corrects the issue.
- Fall damage bugging and people fall from higher heights - thereby dying. The jumping enemies often have this too, sometimes projecting to land on solid ground in the middle of the map - but actually falling through and off the map. (As far as I know, only the person joining the game can be dealt such damage, but enemies fall through the map for all players including the host).
- A more common version of the above occurrence are weapons and staffs falling through the earth or into hills. (for the person joining the game and the host)
- Weapons bugging - sometimes duplicating - more often than not simply shaking about and being hard to click (for the person joining the game and the host).
- I best make this one an example: A person stays behind upstairs in chapter 1 where we start, the other continues onwards. The person staying behind is never seen again. Then it tells him he is defeated. This is possible at many places where the team leaves an area. It seems they disappear as if they were thrown off the map, sometimes they can be revived later - but without their acquired staff/weapon. (For joining person or host).
- Staff abilities not working properly for joining player nor host. Character does correct gesture when clicked (such as summoning the living trees) but nothing happens, then later when trying again they can be summoned. It always seems to take 2 spell attempts to work? (For joining person or host).
There are more but I don't want to mention them at the moment. These need fixing. Alone the fact that when trying to join a game or host (and then someone tries to join), my internet of the entire pc usually dies, is horrific. Today at least my pc has restored its internet automatically after a few minutes without a reboot.
Fix your gorgeous little game please.