high latency compensation buff

Disclaimer: Discussing beta without being a beta tester.

Premise: As lockstep is introduced into the game, balance changes are made to account for it. Namely, Leech Rates and Mana consumption as well as the removal of automatic Immortal Call through Cast on Damage Taken are all made with the premise of low latency, locked game-play.

Problem: This game-play mode is only available to a fraction of the player base. If the game is balanced to account for it then the predictive mode players suffer greatly. If the game isn't balanced for it then the locked step players become over powered.

Proposed solution: I propose a high latency compensation buff applied server-side in a linear fashion. For example - but not limited to, a linear multiplier limited between 80ms - 190ms that increases life leech-rate and offers a total flat or percentage life. The idea being to compensate for the inability to dodge slow moving but hard hitting enemies and missing attacks thus depleting life and mana pool over lacking leech. Another possibility to consider is adding accuracy and/or dodge/evasion to players suffering from bad latency.

Conclusion: Instead of averaging game mechanics to the worst common denominator, it would be preferable to focus the game on being the best for all players by addressing latency as an in game modifier to be balanced against.

UltraCoward

Its worth noting the automatic immortal call thru cwdt is NOT removed at all, although I would like it.

They removed enduring cry from the combination which means the combo still works if you have another way to get charges or manually cast enduring cry (which is much smoother to do so in beta)

I think GGG will be careful not to make those that have bad enough latency not want to play lockstep and that play predictive to not suffer from the changes.

The leech changes are mainly so you can't outleech boss encounters at least thats the goal.

Next - world peace.

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TheAnuhart wrote:

Next - world peace.

Sign me up

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goetzjam wrote:

Its worth noting the automatic immortal call thru cwdt is NOT removed at all, although I would like it.

While true, the inability to counter burst damage through careful game play or automatic means remains the problem. Low latency could dodge threats while high latency will die without the setup.

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goetzjam wrote:

They removed enduring cry from the combination which means the combo still works if you have another way to get charges or manually cast enduring cry (which is much smoother to do so in beta)

A fair point. Unless of course you're getting killed by invisible threats that were desynced right out of view. #insert any streamer's\ranking racer rip vid

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goetzjam wrote:

I think GGG will be careful not to make those that have bad enough latency not want to play lockstep and that play predictive to not suffer from the changes.

I'm sure they'll make the best effort at it. What I'm suggesting is merely another tool to do just that. Hopefully they'll consider it.

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goetzjam wrote:

The leech changes are mainly so you can't outleech boss encounters at least thats the goal.

That's the intended purpose; Yes. But for the predictive crowd it could make the same boss encounters are doubly lethal since they're missing the good hits and their chance to portal out since they can't dodge AND can't leech.

I blame common core education system for stuff like this. Everyone passes and get s red star.

I play with 180 ping and just deal with it. Do uber too. Everyone is not born pretty or smart or with good internet its what you do with what you got that counts. I want no buff.

Besides they are getting local server for many so just hold up before asking for hand out.

considering how well the prediction model works when you actually play it, who cares about ping.

Also balance changes are not made based on lockstep, that is a stupid assumption

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goetzjam wrote:

The leech changes are mainly so you can't outleech boss encounters at least thats the goal.

Youll always be able to out leech boss encounters. even 1% leech and 100% resits will. 95% resits and mere blood rage and so on. Maybe at 75% you wont.

Mitigation and leech are just inverses(or is it reciprocals) of each other. anyway improve one need less of other.

Unless they do like D3 and remove leech. Game sucks so bad tho. hit and run everyone is like life AR.

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Aim_Deep wrote:

I play with 180 ping and just deal with it. Do uber too. Everyone is not born pretty or smart or with good internet its what you do with what you got that counts. I want no buff.

Anecdotal, build dependent, and relates to the current trees (live or beta). As lockstep goes live more and more balance adjustments will get introduced to address it's advantages while creating disadvantages for everyone else.

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Aim_Deep wrote:

Besides they are getting local server for many so just hold up before asking for hand out.

Then the buffs will not trigger. The beauty of such mechanics is that it can't be taken advantage of since it's a real world disadvantage not being able to react in time.

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UltraCoward wrote:

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Aim_Deep wrote:

I play with 180 ping and just deal with it. Do uber too. Everyone is not born pretty or smart or with good internet its what you do with what you got that counts. I want no buff.

Anecdotal, build dependent, and relates to the current trees (live or beta). As lockstep goes live more and more balance adjustments will get introduced to address it's advantages while creating disadvantages for everyone else.

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Aim_Deep wrote:

Besides they are getting local server for many so just hold up before asking for hand out.

Then the buffs will not trigger. The beauty of such mechanics is that it can't be taken advantage of since it's a real world disadvantage not being able to react in time.

tinfoil hat

GGG dev's (some of them) have said they still prefer predictive and are using it.

Tinfoil hat has been crushed by basic intelligence