[April 12] Initial Development Manifesto Feedback

"

visiON123 wrote:

"Due to the fact that we want to have hardcore game mechanics (i.e. ones where position matters)"

Hah, nice one Chris.
So a hardcore mechanic where position matters, except you literally don't know where you are on the server after moving for a few seconds after entering an instance. Nor do you know where the monsters exactly are on the server. How can you make well made decisions based on faulty information? How does this translate into a hardcore mechanic? Without being 100% in sync with the server and letting the client predict where you are, and where the monsters are, you're throwing the word 'hardcore' around but it means absolutely nothing in this case. The game as it currently stands is unplayable on a 'hardcore' level simply due to desync being an actual problem, even more, an actual mechanic of the game, since the developers are too stubborn to admit they made a mistake with the netcode, it won't disappear. The desyncs will never go away, and even if you 'rubberband' every 3 seconds, it just makes the gameplay less fluid. You know when the gameplay would be the most fluid? When there would be no need for rubberbanding to disrupt the gameplay and players had the correct information on the location of their characters.

It's not hardcore to have to alt+f4 just because you desynced into a pack of swift, LMP dogs. It would be hardcore if you knew the dogs were there, you knew you would die if you went running into them, and take them on one at a time. That would be skilled, but that doesn't happen currently, can't happen.

And finally, to further address the 'hardcore' point, the only things you can dodge in this game are ranged attacks. If a golem rolls at you, even if you dodge it, you take damage. Golem rolls in and of itself are flawed currently with the sync mechanics, around a fifth of the time you don't even see their animations.

You're forced to spamming /oos every minute or so if you want to stay alive, and log out at any hint of desync.

Thank you for reading.

+1 Exactly what I feel and think! HORRIBLE netcode.

We don't really need a TwitchTv update, what we really need is a stability patch, a massive one I might add.

Also the latest CI nerf was a load of bs in my opinion. People need to stop crying and start to believe that ranged chars will always be more stronger than mellee.

CI Nerf was needed to balance melee, hopefully the Marauder and Templar tree will be next to change and get the same kind of changes the Ranger got (more interesting Life/Armor/melee passives).

Only the fact that so many players are crying about 2 out of 30 balance changes being nerfs to ES, proves that CI builds are by far the most popular simply because they are most efficient and easiest to play. This game is about balance, remember Diablo 2? Melee/ranged disparity was surely not as bad as in PoE. I actually owned ranged character with my Paladin in PvP most of the time.

So, I decided I'd give this game a go, thinking "oh man, it screams Diablo 2!"

I then, after playing a few characters up to Cruel difficulty, wrote an article on a nerd blog about how this game is awesome.

I'm almost afraid to keep that article up at this point, because the rubberbanding has gotten worse and worse over time, and this will not keep my interest. In fact, I'm debating quitting the game and moving to greener pastures; I understand that this is a free game, but I WANT to spend money on it. I -WANT- to have neat little stuff going on, but you guys are making it really, really hard for me to stay and spend my money.

If you fix the "built-in desync," not only would I rave about the game again, but I (and I'm sure others) would spend money because they could actually play the game without worrying about rubberbanding into a huge group of creatures that they didn't even know were there. I wouldn't worry so much about balancing the game right now, if I were you, as much as I would be fixing the netcode so that all players can play the game fluidly, and without having to type /oos all the time.

Please, GGG. I like you guys. You have a great game, but it would be SO MUCH BETTER if you'd just cave in and remove the "built-in desync" and trust the players. A compromised game is definitely better than an unplayable one.

It was good to see mention of white trash littering the screen, which is where I propose an item filter, as I suspect many have. I urge you to check out Torchlight 2's solution to a screen-full of items.

Keep up the good work, as they say. Loving what you're doing, and hope to see more kinks ironed out.

To the previous poster:

Apparently they are aware of the problem, is it would be impossible not to be, and are working on it; I guess we can only try to hold faith that this remains the case and will indeed be fixed. I currently avoid Kole like the plague, due to desync.

"

visiON123 wrote:

"Due to the fact that we want to have hardcore game mechanics (i.e. ones where position matters)"

Hah, nice one Chris.
So a hardcore mechanic where position matters, except you literally don't know where you are on the server after moving for a few seconds after entering an instance. Nor do you know where the monsters exactly are on the server. How can you make well made decisions based on faulty information? How does this translate into a hardcore mechanic? Without being 100% in sync with the server and letting the client predict where you are, and where the monsters are, you're throwing the word 'hardcore' around but it means absolutely nothing in this case. The game as it currently stands is unplayable on a 'hardcore' level simply due to desync being an actual problem, even more, an actual mechanic of the game, since the developers are too stubborn to admit they made a mistake with the netcode, it won't disappear. The desyncs will never go away, and even if you 'rubberband' every 3 seconds, it just makes the gameplay less fluid. You know when the gameplay would be the most fluid? When there would be no need for rubberbanding to disrupt the gameplay and players had the correct information on the location of their characters.

It's not hardcore to have to alt+f4 just because you desynced into a pack of swift, LMP dogs. It would be hardcore if you knew the dogs were there, you knew you would die if you went running into them, and take them on one at a time. That would be skilled, but that doesn't happen currently, can't happen.

And finally, to further address the 'hardcore' point, the only things you can dodge in this game are ranged attacks. If a golem rolls at you, even if you dodge it, you take damage. Golem rolls in and of itself are flawed currently with the sync mechanics, around a fifth of the time you don't even see their animations.

You're forced to spamming /oos every minute or so if you want to stay alive, and log out at any hint of desync.

Thank you for reading.

Exactly this. I quitted playing (and supporting) the game months ago, it's not a hardcore game, it's a random slot machine. I am very dissappointed of the latest patches, content is good but useless because the worst problem did not get adressed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6mbj3AT4aM

Man I didn't care about desync but now that I have spent almost a month farming for gear... I would be really angry when I die to desync. ._.

About desynch.




How it is currently working:

How I suggest it should work:


The "client trust" that would might turn into hacking would happen by tricking the server that you werent on a place anymore when the monsters wanted to attack you, in other words it would be something like this:


Non-manipulated client and you wouldn't move at all:


Manipulated client and you wouldn't move at all, but the manipulated client would trick the server telling that you moved
It would fix desynch but it wouldnt fix client manipulation totaly, but it would cap client manipulation to a perfect human behavior(you wouldn't be able to dodge attacks that a human player wouldn't for example speedhacking) if you just add a server method that would check if the movements received by the player clients are possible or not and it would be easily detected.

I understand your concerns about client manipulation but imagine you would implement a similar example of what I've said, there would be a possibility of someone creating an hack that would make you try to dodge attacks, what would be the downside of it? It would play as perfect as possible dodging monster attacks, but there would be a downside about that aswell, it would be easily detected. And that would be <1% of your total player base, and you would have to batle against that <1% of your player base. If you think implementing a desynch fix is hard, implementing a client hack that would dodge the monster attacks would be even harder, not to mention it would be detected.

PvP, PvP, PvP, PvP, PvP!

Are there any plans on removing sync issues for SINGLE play?

I mean, if there is only one player, then it is possible to build cheat-proof system without sync issues at all!

For example:
1. Server sends initial data to client
2. Client performs all calculations and responds to server with all input (keyboard+mouse) and calculated data
3. Server CHECKS client calculated data according to input data (keyboard+mouse). Given same input the client and server should yield same output.
4. If check fails (which should not ever happen unless program bug or client cheat) then server restores client with previously valid data.

There might be some complications to prevent possible cheats (crafted input):
a) Item drops should be done on server anyway, otherwise client might 'peek' what items will drop. This should be no problem since items are not interacting with the world.
b) Monster hit cases should be precalculated for every weapon player has (to prevent accuracy cheat)
c) Some extra server checks needed (for example speedhack check)
d) Rare cases of 'freeze' will happen when client has to wait until server completes calculation (for example: players changes weapon)

I like this game a whole lot. It provides me many hours of entertainment... until it rubberbands me and I die. Then the fun and entertainment turns into frustration and the drive to complete something and quit for the day.

My main character--a shadow--is more or less built to be fast-paced, 1v1 killing machine. I recently killed the Vaal Oversoul on Cruel... but only after dying 8 or so times. 7/8 of those times were due to rubberbanding. (One of the deaths was due to lack of concentration.)

I use Whirling Blades as my main escape. Well... I did... I'd use that to "escape" from the laser the Oversoul has... only to be rubberbanded back into its beam and getting instakilled. The same thing with ranged rogues. They fire their volley in the air, I see it, Whirl away, get rubberbanded back into it and killed pretty darn quickly... Or rogues/creatures that have a shield charge will use the ability and lock or kill me before they hit me.

So because of this Rubberband/Synch issue, I can't built a character the way I want to build a character. My escapes and crowd control (Cyclone as CC, also) are useless. I'll be rubberbanded and die. In a not-very-common case, it will prevent me from using any ability until I hide in a corner and type /oos. And I greatly dislike having to type /oos whenever I use one of my quick skills.

And during my time in the games dungeons, I will be rubberbanded into a room that I was merely walking by, and killed by the usually empowered mob that's in it. What is up with that? Or walking towards a mob, getting rubberbanded into the middle of it, and dying...

Do note that normally, in any game, my ping is between 30ms and 40ms. (36 being the calculated average) This game is 82ms or higher. And given that this is the ONLY game that has this issue... Something seems silly, and it isn't my internet/ISP/network. (And no other games have this "rubberbanding" or "synch" issue.)

And to be frank, if I have to 'Alt+F4' every time I smell desynch or rubberband into something that will kill me... I won't spend more than 5 minutes at a time in this game. And as I said, if I have to waste time in the middle of a fight to type /oos so I can actually do something properly... then what is the point? There isn't any...

But I still continue to play the game anyways. :) I love hunting for loot and taking on bosses and tweaking things! So now ya'll have my two cents. GGG better fix their issues. But the game is still great for what it is!