Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[kcwong]

I stopped playing because I need to work on a bunch of other games... e.g. Goodbye Deponia, ToME4.

I still check everyday for daily sales and announcement though. BTW, Chris will be doing a live interview (by two forum members) tomorrow 9am NZ time on twitch.

[Chattox]

Do we have an active guild on here at all?

[nenjin]

Speaking of a big update....

Sacrifice of the Vaal

There's enough glam on it to indicate it's more than what've seen post-release so far. I.e a new skill gem or two, balance tweaks, a couple community made items and a new race type.

[Karkov]

Speaking of a big update....

Sacrifice of the Vaal

There's enough glam on it to indicate it's more than what've seen post-release so far. I.e a new skill gem or two, balance tweaks, a couple community made items and a new race type.

[sarcasm]Did they fix the desync issues yet?[/sarcasm]

[nenjin]

No, and I'm starting to suspect they never will. I think it ultimately has to do with network latency compensation. Game can't figure out where shit should be so it just arbitrarily decides, to the detriment of high level players. Then again, I've watched it ghost around mobs in a completely obstruction free environment, so who the hell knows. That's really my only one gripe with the game, one I constantly forget I have until it happens.

[kcwong]

No, and I'm starting to suspect they never will. I think it ultimately has to do with network latency compensation. Game can't figure out where shit should be so it just arbitrarily decides, to the detriment of high level players. Then again, I've watched it ghost around mobs in a completely obstruction free environment, so who the hell knows. That's really my only one gripe with the game, one I constantly forget I have until it happens.

There is no simple fix to desync. It's a physical limitation. It won't, and it can't go away, period.

Data takes this much time to travel from your end to server, vice versa. You either have the client stop responding waiting for data to arrive (that's how online games were written so many years ago, resulting in sucky player experience), or you have both client and server perform prediction (which makes fast-paced online action game possible) and synchronize periodically (which is rubber-banding, server correcting client about where things are).

You can only hope to make it less obvious to the players.

There is a giant thread about desync in the official forum, and GGG developers are kind enough to post a lot in there, explaining in detail what desync is and why there is no simple solution to it.

If you still think GGG is being stubborn and lazy about fixing desync, you need to go to read those.

[Aklyon]

As much of a problem as it can be, I'm more glad they haven't done what some devs do and just vanish from the internet to focus on 'the desync patch' or similar.

[aristabulus]

I can acknowledge that the nature of the server/client relationship is gonna have some desync.  What chaps my ass is how the server handles it.  Going from "cautious steps, looking for things to plink" to "lol, you were really facegrinding that blue mob, for like 10 seconds!  oh, btw, you're dead"...  Several shades of not-fun.  The game can be difficult and challenging without the surprise corpse mechanic.  If I die because I got cocky, or misread a mob, sure, fine.  Dead.  If I die because of server shenanigans I cannot control, nor detect in time to not-die?  That's bullshit.

It was enough not-fun for me that I burned myself off the game.  Autosold and deleted everything.  (sorry, fellow dorfs... no wealth redistribution this time)

[kcwong]

I can acknowledge that the nature of the server/client relationship is gonna have some desync.  What chaps my ass is how the server handles it.  Going from "cautious steps, looking for things to plink" to "lol, you were really facegrinding that blue mob, for like 10 seconds!  oh, btw, you're dead"...  Several shades of not-fun.  The game can be difficult and challenging without the surprise corpse mechanic.  If I die because I got cocky, or misread a mob, sure, fine.  Dead.  If I die because of server shenanigans I cannot control, nor detect in time to not-die?  That's bullshit.

It was enough not-fun for me that I burned myself off the game.  Autosold and deleted everything.  (sorry, fellow dorfs... no wealth redistribution this time)

That you'd be best to avoid online games with any real time action in it, because prediction is how things are done.

I'm using a Logitech mouse, so I have extra mouse buttons for macros. I mapped /oos to one and when playing I look for signs of or actions causing desync.

Signs:
Monster die here and loot appear there.
Minions acting weird - they are staring blankly into distance while enemies are nearby with direct path.

Actions:
I used a movement skill, like lightning warp and whirling blade.
I ran through the middle of a pack of monsters.
I ran through a narrow door way.
I was running for a while with quicksilver pot.

When I catch any of those, I quaff granite pot, stop causing further desync and use the macro button.

[Biowraith]

That you'd be best to avoid online games with any real time action in it

Disagree - you'd best avoid PoE maybe, but pretty much all of the other online games with real time action I've played recently this hasn't been an issue.  I'll not speculate on why not or whether GGG "should" fix it in their game - I don't know nearly enough about it - but PoE is very much in the minority for it to be an issue to this extent.

[kcwong]

That you'd be best to avoid online games with any real time action in it

Disagree - you'd best avoid PoE maybe, but pretty much all of the other online games with real time action I've played recently this hasn't been an issue.  I'll not speculate on why not or whether GGG "should" fix it in their game - I don't know nearly enough about it - but PoE is very much in the minority for it to be an issue to this extent.

Try Spiral Knights (SK). Desync is alive and well there too. Real time action, with narrow passages and monsters blocking your path just like PoE, so you get rubberbanded back and forth in exactly the same way.

Some games cut corners/make sacrifices to hide desync.

e.g. Turn off collision for terrain and have wide passages so even if client and server disagree, you often don't get stuck on terrain. PoE/SK keep terrain collision on so you can use those as a tactical option. You can hide behind walls to avoid ranged attacks for instance.

e.g. An attack will hit or not is already determined when the attack is initiated (vs. when the animation completes), so even if you move away quickly you still get hit, or in other words, exact position doesn't matter. PoE/SK allows you to use your own skill to dodge, but they have to know everythings' exact positions for that.

[Biowraith]

I'm sure there's other games that have the same problem, all I was taking issue with was the statement that you'd best avoid online (edit: action) games in general - it's really only specific games you'd need to avoid.

[kcwong]

I'm sure there's other games that have the same problem, all I was taking issue with was the statement that you'd best avoid online (edit: action) games in general - it's really only specific games you'd need to avoid.

And what I was saying was: They all desync. All of them. Some just cast a better illusion of not desync'ing, and to have that illusion they have to make some sacrifice.

[aristabulus]

It was enough not-fun for me that I burned myself off the game.  Autosold and deleted everything.

(words)

Perhaps you missed this part.  Soapboxing about how to fix desync at someone that has already moved on is myopic at best.

I do not suffer games that punish me for bad IO code that I did not write... Life is too short, and there are too many other ways to spend my time.

[nenjin]

*snip*

Going to have to agree with others. Only at the height of poor server performance in other games do I see the degree of rubber banding, teleportation and out right desyncs that I do in.....virtually every session of PoE. D3 may have and still lag, but it doesn't, for example, teleport me and/or my target halfway across the map. Basically, any time I encounter more than 1 mob, or a less than clear room configuration, it can happen. Which I'm guessing is related to server-side calcs, pathfinding, ect....and not just pure latency. I'm not claiming they don't care......but I am claiming their net code probably isn't as strong as it could be.

Like I said, I usually forget about it until it happens. But when you've been grinding for 30 minutes in merciless, and then the game bends you over and ****s you without warning and all that progress is gone, yeah, it doesn't endear me to GGG or their excuses. It's hard to take the high level gameplay or boss fights seriously. If the final boss had that level of desync problems, I most likely would have given up on PoE a long time ago. As it is, I pretty much give up on most bosses and resort to face tanking and a lot of lost experience. Because there's no way I'm going to actually try when the server will pull the rug out from underneath you.

Personally, they could save all their updates for the next six months and I wouldn't care, as long as they got the desyncs fixed.

Some just cast a better illusion of not desync'ing, and to have that illusion they have to make some sacrifice.

If that "illusion" results in fewer players arbitrarily dying, then who cares? Do it.