Client-server Action Synchronisation

"

t_golgari wrote:

"

kasub wrote:

"

by simply sending full state (/oos) much more frequently.

Beyond cost that is a horrible horrible solution. That would make the game incredibly clunk and unfun to play. The current situation is bad but that's way worse.

I don't want to really go over the original post, because he spams this BS all the time.

But kasub is right, Chris talks about it in his post: Auto-spam /oos feels more out of sync than not doing it. That is not the solution.

feels more - yes

is more desync'y? no.

in this game you dont die to 'feelings'. you die to mobs you havent had chance to see. for a hardcore game (that poe claims to be..) facts are more important than 'feelings'

if game is clunky and feels clunky then at least it is honest about itself

currently it is clunky and downright deceiving but instead of fixing that it lies to be smooth.

all predictive systems like poe are going to desync because there is one un-predictive element (player)s)) in such system. all were, are and are going to desync. and all previous games tried to limit that by resyncing quickly and constantly. it is only a matter of cost how often such resync is to be made. there is a reason why movie compression/streaming works the way it works - there are periodical 'resyncs' to preserve quality and make it less prone to transmission errors when streaming. in case of poe the cost is money, in case of movies - size (thus also money in the end).

you can remove this guessing game by going always-sync method (in video ie. mjpeg) - thin client that only displays stuff (world of tanks). with modern networks and good coding (also including elements of prediction system but also augmented with gfx tricks pretending that something is happening during the wait) you can play such always-sync games with 50-100ms pings without any issues

FPS tournaments with MONEY PRIZES are being played with 80ms+ ping and noone complains. it can be done.

"

kasub wrote:

"

by simply sending full state (/oos) much more frequently.

Beyond cost that is a horrible horrible solution. That would make the game incredibly clunk and unfun to play. The current situation is bad but that's way worse.

It's been tested. You are correct. The jerkiness is much, much worse than people would think. I still think my analogy of client+server as a bickering married couple worked well here -- sometimes they disagree but it does more harm than good to constantly force them to get along.

___

None of this stuff is news to me, I'm not happy with the situation; neither is GGG. We'll see what happens over time. The game isn't unplayable, and 95% of the time it's quite decent. I appreciate that GGG aimed for a model that allowed for high latency play (200-400ms would be suicidal on a lot of other games I've played over the years) but by the same token agree that they should be more flexible with their desync solutions: less floor clutter, less speedy mobs, wider doorways. These are sacrifices worth making even if the aesthetic value drops 30% to increase playability by 10% -- people value 1% of the latter over 1% of the former provided neither are at a point where things are drastically bad.

And this is why I'm all for PoE 2 on a new engine :3

people seem to have responded negatively in general so ill add some
of my positive feedback:

*ive learned to use the "oos" command correctly and i get a feeling for when
things are out of sync. other players can learn it too. see it as a skill you can improve

*ive also learned what not to do in the game that is likely to cause me to get stuck behind something for example

*im playing builds now that arent too much desynch-prone and ive found a playstyle that im happy with

so in general im happy that you are trying to improve things and that this is still an
open issue for you to deal with in the long run

"

ampdecay wrote:

And this is why I'm all for PoE 2 on a new engine :3

Proof of my statement on the previous page.

@amp: Wrong thread, you're thinking Client Performance.

"

Charan wrote:

less floor clutter, less speedy mobs, wider doorways...

That's what drives me up the wall about GGG sometimes... There seems to be a complete disconnect between level/monster/skill/balance designers and the technical part of the team. They just keep putting in things that further exemplify the problems with their sync code. Not to mention it comes off like the team doesn't play their own game.

"

sidtherat wrote:

desync is a fact of poe, but poe is designed for a sunny day scenario - very fast mobs, very narrow doors, very cluttered tilesets. in a predictive system pathing is everything and current CONTENT design makes sure that desync occurs

if you are unwilling/unable to fix desync reason - start from your yard and tone down mob speed and clean up the floor-clutter

+11!

Desyncs are a real problem. Mostly, can't be dealt with... The fun point is, how do multiplayer FPS work then? Yep, they trust the client in some cases and that allows cheating. Cheating can be dealt with and probably won't be SUCH a problem, as desyncs are now. If I am to choose: have cheaters out here or have desyncs... Well, cheaters won't be killing me and can be dealt with by devs. Simply check and flag all types of strange behaviour, that is not corresponding to the server's version of things.

IMHO, forced resync after using any type of movement skill will help a lot for fast builds.


Also, take a look at Storm Call. For some reason, I got out of sync a lot using it. Well, my char died on Vaal cause of it (Vaal was on the side of the screen, looking in the other direction, he starts raising his arm, then BOOM - I'm dead.

Pretty much looks like copy pasted from last manifesto.

Reduce movement speed of insanely fast mobs like snakes or this junkies with whirling blades from city of sarn.
Give quick property and haste aura only to slow base mobs.
Reduce chance to spawn quick/haste on areas with very quick mobs.
Wide dem passages, make doors much more wide.
Also get rid of that stupid bug - if mobs staying right behind the closed door, if you want to open it, you will click the mob, not the door.