Difference between MOBAs and ARPGs in terms of desync

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Why desync has to exist and why rubber-banding is good

The key thing to understand is that Action RPGs have to use an action prediction system like this. If they wait for confirmation of every action from the server then it feels terrible to control.

When playing DOTA 2, I never consciously notice the lag between clicking to take an action and the action actually starting. I know there must be a delay of ~25-250ms depending on my connection, but I never really feel it and it does not "feel terrible to control". Given that DOTA 2 is all about microing a character and using skills (very similar to an ARPG, imo), I'm not sure why an ARPG would feel terrible to control when a MOBA does not.

In addition, the slight delay is predictable, and the brain naturally compensates for it. While desync and rubber-banding aren't an issue 95% of the time, the 5% of the time (or 100% of the time while fighting a boss like Brutus unless you take very specific precautions or play him a certain way) where the desync becomes an issue is a very discouraging experience.

Could anyone offer more of an explanation for why/how a slight delay in every action would "feel terrible to control", but de-syncing periodically does not feel even more terrible?

no "hit roll" in MOBAs, the attack is launched, opponent moves out of range, behind terrain, etc, still gets hit.

Stupid comparison is stupid.

It's like sometimes the desync load builds up and it messes it up for itself. I've tried sitting in over 6-12 seconds flicker desync while my chat was working and people posting trades and i could reply :D

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Robert_Paulson wrote:

no "hit roll" in MOBAs, the attack is launched, opponent moves out of range, behind terrain, etc, still gets hit.

Stupid comparison is stupid.

There still are rolls wether someone deals a critical strike or misses. And those also never seem to be out of sync.

I really love Path of Exile, but I still think people should not ignore the issue or pretend that it cannot be fixed.

Chris already said that they are working on solutions to improve the situation.
Hopefully we will see some progress in the near future.

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Metastase wrote:

Hopefully we will see some progress in the near future.

Hold your breath for a fix, I dare you.

That delay is specific to DotA 2 and not MoBA's. I've probably played 300~ games of DoTA (coming from LoL) and the main reason I stopped was because of that. I'm fairly certain it is intentional and not to optimized server code but it may be. Regardless, in LoL there is no delay like in DotA it is completely fluid constantly and there is no server side synchronization problems. If you have lag on LoL it's from latency. I've played several thousand LoL games and reached Plat 1 (top 2%~) and never experienced anything like "desync".

The reason there's desync in Path of Exile is because the server code is poorly written, well (intentionally written like this to save bandwidth/complexity). PoE servers communicate less with the player so you get out of sync with what's going on and they have to re-sync you ala desync. This most certainly doesn't have to exist. From their standpoint they have to find a way to patch up the problem to where it's not so bad. Because as it stands there's no way they are going to spend the money to rewrite there entire server on top of the huge bandwidth increase if they did. Frankly I don't blame them and you have to remember this companies roots and the great game the created.

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Robert_Paulson wrote:

no "hit roll" in MOBAs, the attack is launched, opponent moves out of range, behind terrain, etc, still gets hit.

Stupid comparison is stupid.

Actually, in Dota 2, there are characters with evasion, so there is a "hit roll" for those characters. Also, when one character is on higher ground than another, the lower ground character has a chance to miss the higher ground character.

OP, it may have something to do with the constant RNG of item drops, as well as the objects, doodads, and enemy objects that may/may not move around constantly as you move around. It's a relative positioning problem between the Server's perspective and the client's perspective.

Another thing is that once Dota 2 launches a game, it creates its own 10-player network for those players (and therefore relieves the server of the stress of maintaining that particular connection). I imagine this may be a similar case for the 6 players in one instance, but I'm not sure.

Diablo 2 and 3 had desync problems too. I remember those lovely black walls that made you try to run around it as if it was a maze you had to try to escape from.

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Odori_no_Mai wrote:

That delay is specific to DotA 2 and not MoBA's. I've probably played 300~ games of DoTA (coming from LoL) and the main reason I stopped was because of that. I'm fairly certain it is intentional and not to optimized server code but it may be. Regardless, in LoL there is no delay like in DotA it is completely fluid constantly and there is no server side synchronization problems. If you have lag on LoL it's from latency. I've played several thousand LoL games and reached Plat 1 (top 2%~) and never experienced anything like "desync".

The reason there's desync in Path of Exile is because the server code is poorly written, well (intentionally written like this to save bandwidth/complexity). PoE servers communicate less with the player so you get out of sync with what's going on and they have to re-sync you ala desync. This most certainly doesn't have to exist. From their standpoint they have to find a way to patch up the problem to where it's not so bad. Because as it stands there's no way they are going to spend the money to rewrite there entire server on top of the huge bandwidth increase if they did. Frankly I don't blame them and you have to remember this companies roots and the great game the created.

The delay is intentional but it has nothing to do with server code, heroes have different turn rates which adds to the game's complexity.

It's called Dota-games or ARTS, jfyi. Calling ARTS games "MOBA" is like calling a car a HADS (Half-Automatic Driving System), because in the 1950s some car producer chose that term over "car" for their cars, and every idiot adapted it. Call whatever game you like "MOBA" (because it fits every game basicly - one of the reason why the term's so bad), but leave Dota alone, ty.

OT: That's a veeeery very (very very very) bad comparison.

- ARTS can use a very different net code, as there's no chance to miss, the action is a lot slower, and the units controled by the AI are basicly only the neutrals and lane creeps that follow a very easy pattern. Watch the Athene interview of Chris Wilson, he explained for example why D3 suffers from a lot less desync/rubberbanding.

- ARTS is player vs. player, not player vs. enviroment. One of the main reasons for Desync in ARPGs is that the whole game takes place on a server so you can prevent people from using cheats, like invincibility, godmode-damage, all the items they want etc. Something like this is simply not possible in Dota-games, because you always have your team allies and the opposing players to check on you. A cheater that uses ANY sort of cheat that is the slighest bit recognizable will be called out very quick. That's one of the reason the only known cheats for Dota for 10 years now are maphacks (which are a huge deal nonetheless). Basicly, the netcode doesn't have to be that resctrictive and therefore is quicker.

Same thought process could be made for basicly EVERY online game including shooters for example. Ever experienced rubberbanding/desync there? I highly doubt it. Games simply work differently and have different needs regarding their net code.

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That delay is specific to DotA 2 and not MoBA's

Not only is there a turn rate, but also a pre swing, damage point, backswing, and a "cooldown time" for each attack.

What LoL or HoN players experience as "delay" is simply the much higher complexity and skill requirement even on the micro-level in Dota2. I'm playing Dota sind 06 and if there's one thing Valve made right, it's this very aspect.

Nothing wrong with a very easy and caual approach (Diablo 3, LoL), but if you want complexity and high skill requirements even on the highest level, you'll have some sort of drawback on another end (like in Dota2 or PoE).

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On the "hit roll" topic: there's no such thing in Dota. Every hit hits. Just some do no damage (miss, evade) or the target is healed back up (e.g. Backtrack). At least this is how it worked in Dota, not sure how they made the transition into Dota2 in this regard.

But even if there IS some kind of "miss/evade" mechanic in Dota2 nowadays, keep in mind that attack speed is capped at 400% (equal to Ursa's Overpower). Even at this very fast attack speed, the amount of attacks that have to be rolled in ~1sec is multiple times lower (i'd estimate around 5 to 100 times), depending on how many targets you hit in PoE at once.

Basicly, there are only so much calculations that should needed simultaneously in every ARTS, whereas in PoE with 40 or more monsters on the screen and 6 players attacking them at once, this count can be pretty insane very quick. The data send to you has to keep track of status alignments, debuffs, auras, buffs, damage, crits, hits, status effects like blind, stun etc. before it can actually calculate YOUR damage and YOUR action properly. Just imagine the sheer amount of data the server has to calculate, compared to what the server has to do in ARTS games. And all that because GGG chose to make PoE "hardcore". They could've chose to make it simple and casual like Diablo3, but they didn't, and so we have to deal with Desync.