Desync is not a feature, and shouldn't be treated as one. It's completely unacceptable.

"

inoka wrote:

I'm sorry, but after a couple hundred hours, this problem that has been in the game since beta from what I've heard has made me sick of this game. GGG has lost a paying customer with their lack of support towards the technical issues that plague the ENTIRE community, not just a small portion of players that have slow internet. The ENTIRE playerbase has this problem and it's ignored by GGG because it's "not worth fixing?" That's an unacceptable attitude for a dev to take.

I'm not a big time streamer, I'm not some influential trader with the power and currency base to sway the economy. I'm just some guy who likes the game, who likes playing it, but is so frustrated that the by FAR biggest problem with the game is one that the devs have decided isn't worth fixing. The game could be so so SO much better if they just decided to take some initiative with the problem, but unfortunately they refuse.

So, sorry. I guess today is the day I stop playing, because desync is out of control, and the community does nothing but enable the devs in this literally cancerous habit of ignoring critical problems in lieu of more content.

Try Dragon age: Inquisition. Makes this game look every bit as pathetic as it truly is.

Desync can be 'fixed' to acceptable levels (fully fixed in single player) without sacrifying cheat-security.

The problem with actual net model is the quantity of information needed to fully represent the gamestate, which cannot be upgrade continuosly.

This is quite independent on the actual ping, except for the fact that a low ping gives less 'divergence' from the server gamestate between two updates. Between two complete updates, only some 'delta' are transmitted from server to client.

GGG should work on how to ensure a correct representation of the gamestate using less 'full updates' and more efficient deltas, and with less information.

Although this can be fully achieved using a deterministic model, it requires a rewrite of the game logic and of the netcode, but it is not impossible.

I really hope that this will be achieved as soon as possible, without desync this game could be as succesful, variegate and COMPLEX as Magic the Gathering (yes... solving desync allows far more complex mechanics...).

Without fixing it, this is what is happening:
http://steamcharts.com/app/238960#All

"

xxxmarok84xxx wrote:

They refuse to go the "trust the client" model which would totally eliminate the desynchronization in this game, because that would mean modifications in the clients aka cheating, hacking...

From my perspective... cheating ? so what ? Still better than playing with desynch ! Cheaters and hackers wont affect me at all because I play solo all the time. This is why I loved the good old single player games like Titan Quest, Nox, and D2 SP... nothing was multiplayer related, nothing was an issue. I played my own game. If someone wanted to cheat so be it, I decide to not.

TL;DR : Only way to fix desynch is to switch to the "trust the client model". Trust the client model allows chating and modifications. Desynch wont be fixed because people would cheat. GGG said this officially multiple times, so why create new threads ? Yes it is their fault and they know it but we have to live with it or stop playing. Desynch wont be fixed EVER. End of story.

And don't think that I am on GGG's side on this one, hell no ! because a lot of my friends quit because of this. I am just stating the sad facts here because I see that a lot of people still dont get it.

All they would have to do is have non shitty servers and use netcode similar to what DotA 2 uses. You'd introduce delay to people who are attempting to play on servers that are like 400 miles away, but that's what they get for attempting to do so. Literally everyone else's playing experience would be improved by a thousand, and they wouldn't even notice a fucking difference in terms of reactions. And in fact, many people here would probably put up with .05 seconds of delay on their actions in order to be rid of desync, which has pretty much been the #1 killer of HC players since the beginning of PoE's lifespan.

GGG tried to do something far too ambitious, something that even large game companies do not attempt to do for very good reasons. I personally haven't seen GGG's netcode, but I can tell you that literally no other solid programmer would ever code the way GGG did from the get go, because it's destined to fail. Not even major competitive FPS games attempt to setup their netcode how GGG did, because it would just cause major issues in terms of syncing.


Edit : Just as an example, many major FPS companies utilize alot of deterministic models for their recoil for guns. This makes it very easy to make a recoil hack, and yet FPS companies still continue to do so. One, it makes for a much higher skill cap (you can develop a skill in being able to predict your recoil on a consistent basis), and two, it makes hit registry a hell of alot easier. Why GGG doesn't like deterministic coding is beyond me, they do very minimal amounts which results in the mess that you have today.

GGG should work more on better level design (no needless obstacles, narrow passages and stupid doorways) and better mob AI. This wont fix desync, but will lessen its impact on gameplay.

Especially the mob AI is attrocious. Im laughing my ass of when playing beyond map mod and trying to herd mobs onto a certain map area... Just running behind a bigger obstacle, will make mobs desync like hell, as the client & server dont seem to agree which way the mob went past the obstacle, left or right, lol..

Also remove player stun from the game completely, as that shyt is a major source of desync.

"

Why GGG doesn't like deterministic coding is beyond me

There are a lot of problems with deterministic code, although they are eaisly solvable if you are aware of all of them and if you start form scratch. Determinism requires 101% exact same behaviour both on client and server. If you miss one thing, the game would not work.

Some examples:
1) You cannot use trigonometric or complex functions directly: they work different on different processors.
2) You cannot use JIT compiled language (e.g. .NET framework).
3) I do not know if 10K simultaneous deterministic instances would overload the server with respect to the current model
4) The net-code must be explicitly designed to be detemrinistic. This is not so easy, expecially in multithreading.
5) Massive code re-writing, testing and debugging (this is probably the main problem).

I think the problem with determinism and GGG is that, when starting coding PoE several years ago, they were not aware of such method. Why i think this? Because there is no mention of determinism in Chris sync-manifesto and in the description of other game techniques. Determinism is one of the most succesfull and old way to keep synced a complex multiplayer game ( http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131503/1500_archers_on_a_288_network_.php ). Even in single player, PoE can be seen as a multiplayer game (client VS server).

Although the detemrinistic model had only been used in lag-response games, it can be adjusted to PoE prediction model, in order to ensure a lagless gameplay experience ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GGPO ). This requires to write some good rool-back code.

However I trustly believe that GGG are working on this. Some time ago Rhys was triyng to implement a deterministic model to solve some problems with map generation. That was a first step in the right direction. (I do not know if the map-model has been succesfully implemented).

"

morbo wrote:

GGG should work more on better level design (no needless obstacles, narrow passages and stupid doorways) and better mob AI. This wont fix desync, but will lessen its impact on gameplay.

Especially the mob AI is attrocious. Im laughing my ass of when playing beyond map mod and trying to herd mobs onto a certain map area... Just running behind a bigger obstacle, will make mobs desync like hell, as the client & server dont seem to agree which way the mob went past the obstacle, left or right, lol..

Also remove player stun from the game completely, as that shyt is a major source of desync.

THIS.

This is probably the biggest source of desync in the game, although the PoE cheerleaders may want to say, it 'how you're playing'

PoE is probably the worst environment design I've seen in terms of communicating 'path' vs 'no path' in a modern videogame. It is honestly atrocious. You play D3, you play TL2 and even TL1 and it is clearly communicated to the player where your character can run vs where it can't. This, in my opinion, is game development 101, a class that the folks in GGG responsible for environments apparently missed.

Narrow corridors that break whirling blades, hell, open areas break whirling blades. Walk over 9 tent flaps on the barracks = 'path' kiting back from a group of blackguards ? backing over a tent flap ? well would you look at that ? 'no path'.

PoE is a great achievement for a group of indie devs. It plays, has unique great looking art, it's a legit 'GAME' but GGG dropped the ball on the technical foundation of the game. if you are going to build a netcode systems that expects near flawless internet, you can't have the amount of design mistakes that PoE has. This game breaks itself.

"

Powertrip wrote:

"

morbo wrote:

GGG should work more on better level design (no needless obstacles, narrow passages and stupid doorways) and better mob AI. This wont fix desync, but will lessen its impact on gameplay.

Especially the mob AI is attrocious. Im laughing my ass of when playing beyond map mod and trying to herd mobs onto a certain map area... Just running behind a bigger obstacle, will make mobs desync like hell, as the client & server dont seem to agree which way the mob went past the obstacle, left or right, lol..

Also remove player stun from the game completely, as that shyt is a major source of desync.

THIS.

This is probably the biggest source of desync in the game, although the PoE cheerleaders may want to say, it 'how you're playing'

Lol. Indeed. Or say that you're the owner of a potatoe, or that you're having a shitty connection.

Must be a user fault, right?

/end sarcasm