Client-server Action Synchronisation

Copy/pasting another post of mine since it belongs here.

The funny thing is this. Devs think economy trumps gameplay because they believe it's paramount to the game's long term credibility and success. Well guess what. I'll still probably fire up Diablo 2 in the future because it's fun to kill monsters in that game, you're not making builds to play around a shitty network prediction model etc etc.

Now 10 years down the road, I don't care how sound the economy is in path of exile, if the gameplay is still RUBBERBAND RUBBERBAND RUBBERBAND and "we have this really complex and huge skill tree but really if you don't invest heavily in mitigation you're fucked because of our crap prediction model", I probably won't give a shit about PoE anymore. And when I say 10 years I meant one or two.

Of course ARPGs are about the loot, and online ARPGs have to worry about "the economy". But if you start deluding yourself into thinking gameplay takes a backseat to that, you're fucking insane.

PoE for anyone who actually likes the gameplay part of ARPGs is obnoxious and frustrating to play because it behaves in random retarded ways repeatedly. How do you think that fares for the future? Do you think people are going to want to boot up PoE again and again because it has a "good economy"? Jesus christ get fucking real people.
Path of PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW
Last edited by Noobshock on Jun 18, 2014, 6:33:44 PM
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Felix35071 wrote:

Come on man, there's no reason to be toxic.


Yes there is, I've been around since closed beta and the synchronization is almost as big a joke now as it used to be then. You're still pigeonholed into much higher mitigation than would be necessary because of it (unless you plan on dying a lot to rubberbands), you still are discouraged from using such and such skills because they "don't mesh well" with this system. And generally the enjoyment out of the clean, aka not randomly teleporting hack and slash gameplay is very, very watered down because of it.

The fact that to this day there hasn't been much in the way of major changes to address this is downright shameful. I thought GGG was in for the long haul with PoE, I find out they're not interested in providing solid gameplay and predictably PoE will fade much faster than D2 did precisely for that reason.

How many players, over time, will really be willing to sacrifice proper gameplay and visual feedback for "the economy"? I don't think it will be that many, but feel free to bank on those guys if you really believe that's where the long term success is. I think it's completely foolish and if you're planning on sticking to this crappy prediction model you might as well turn PoE into a quick cash grab because it's only going to stick around until another decent looking ARPG comes in where you don't rubberband around all day.
Path of PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW
Quoting Chris here:

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Suggesting we switch to a synchronous action model like RTS/MOBA games really isn't a good solution. I understand that RTSs/MOBAs don't have desync, but they do have lag after each and every click. When the semantic is that you're ordering a unit around, this lag is understandable, but if you *are* the unit, then it feels really terrible. Right now, our client-prediction allows users in obscure countries to play Path of Exile while under 200+ms of latency. This would be a much worse experience under that alternate action model. In addition, it'd require rewriting most of the game.


I really, really question whether minimal input lag "feels" worse than a game where you're rubberbanding 3 times in a row because the paths your client found each time don't actually exist serverside, causing you to die because the game conveys a game state which is inaccurate at all times. In MOBAs, you are the unit too. Most of them feel a lot better to play than this POS prediction model. Go play League of Legends Chris. You may not like the game, but it sure feels better to control your unit than the random shit you experience all the time in PoE.

Basically I think Chris is just giving us excuses to cover for the fact that the RTS/MOBA model requires more servers/bandwidth and therefore money, also rewriting a lot of code. You could just say the game has to desync and rubberband because they couldn't afford to build it better, it'd be more honest than that mile-long essay trying to sell us a hands-down crappy design decision.

Also, the argument that it's somehow better to have a game that's more random and broken for everyone so that "people in obscure countries" can play with low latency is hilarious.
Path of PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/949495

Some additional discussion of specific desync situations is taking place in the above thread.
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Thought about a new Support Gem

What about a : "Cast on Desync" ?
Last edited by Kikoyou on Jun 19, 2014, 3:51:12 AM
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Kikoyou wrote:
Thought about a new Support Gem

What about a : "Cast on Desync" ?


Hmm, how about a new skill "sent desync whiners to D3".

Spoiler
Sorry chris, i had to. ;)
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Kikoyou wrote:
Thought about a new Support Gem

What about a : "Cast on Desync" ?


Would proc too often. Way OP.
No. Calm down. Learn to enjoy losing.
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gehirnmutant wrote:

As I said before: There is a difference between cheat prevention and cheat detection. PoE currently goes for prevention, i.e. all decisions are made by the server and therefore, clients cannot cheat even for a second. I think you can still have the same amount of security and a much better user experience if the client is allowed to make at least some decisions (like the position of your own character) and the server validates them.

For this to work, the server must not only know the outcome of the client's decision, but also everything that influenced that decision, i.e. what server commands had already arrived when the decision was made, and what input came from the user. With this, the server can just feed those inputs into the same logic that the client is using and check that it receives the same result. If it computes some other outcome, it means that the client must be cheating.

So, yes, cheaters would be able to teleport around wildly, but a second later, they'd be banned.

This becomes more complex if the game uses an unreliable protocol for its messages and the client can process server events out-of-order, but with some extra effort, it should still be feasible.

Edit: One drawback of this approach is that some changes that can currently be applied purely server-side would require client updates. As long as the client only handles movement, I can't think of anything (but of course I don't know the source code). Even then, I think we would all gladly download a couple extra updates now and then if this fixes most forms of desync.


This is what I'd like to see as well. I think the biggest problem with it would be more server overhead, which is why GGG doesn't use this method. Would seem to me that it would require more calculations to verify that each movement, path, and object placement was legitimate than to do the pathfinding serverside and send the state info. Still, it's not really an acceptable gameplay issue. If they want hardcore mechanics, but can't support those mechanics well, then they need to either find a way to support them, or alter the mechanics to something they can reliably support.
No. Calm down. Learn to enjoy losing.
I have played a LOT of MOBA and MMORPG games. Mu online, WoW, league of legends, Silkroad and many others. Not one of them had such serious problems with desync. It either didn't happen to desync like PoE does (randomly teleport character and monsters) or it happened VERY rarely. Since PoE has the worst synch problems and it also have hardcore modes in wich if you die you're out of the league, it REALLY should implement something to fix it. At least making the character invulnerable for like 1 second when he and the monsters randomly teleport on a desync (or rubber band as you like to call it). That's my attempt at making a constructive criticism. Improve and rise or stay the same and rot.
Last edited by cerebroso120 on Jun 22, 2014, 7:18:04 PM
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cerebroso120 wrote:
I have played a LOT of MOBA and MMORPG games. Mu online, WoW, league of legends, Silkroad and many others. Not one of them had such serious problems with desync. It either didn't happen to desync like PoE does (randomly teleport character and monsters) or it happened VERY rarely. Since PoE has the worst synch problems and it also have hardcore modes in wich if you die you're out of the league, it REALLY should implement something to fix it. At least making the character invulnerable for like 1 second when he and the monsters randomly teleport on a desync (or rubber band as you like to call it). That's my attempt at making a constructive criticism. Improve and rise or stay the same and rot.


Invulnerability on desync cant be added, as it will be abused by cheaters.

However, i agree, resync in PoE happens too late, while desync happens too often. I cant be considered a hardcore game until it's fixed. And yes, the only thing to blame there is GGG's poor coding of PoE engine.
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