Why is host migration a thang still?

[(PSN)Samsquanch-01]

Recently returned after a 2 year break. Today I was farming acceltra and low and behold it finally drops. Oh wait I lose it and everything else during a host migration? Why is this still happening?  Why do they refuse to fix such a stupid mechanic?

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

 

[Zimzala]

"Why does the world not work the way that is most beneficial to me?"

/s

[Soy77]

2 hours ago, (PSN)Samsquanch-01 said:

Recently returned after a 2 year break. Today I was farming acceltra and low and behold it finally drops. Oh wait I lose it and everything else during a host migration? Why is this still happening?  Why do they refuse to fix such a stupid mechanic?

First of all, welcome back, tenno.

Why host migration is a thing? Because the host left.

When the host migrates, you're supposed to be migrated to another host and continue the mission like nothing happened. So the host migration mechanics is not stupid, what's stupid is the bug that kicks you to mission failure instead of migrating you to the new host.

Why they haven't fix that bug or improve the online architecture so that bug won't happen again? I don't know, why the warframe display in my personal quarters segment still twitching when viewed by others?

[(PSN)Samsquanch-01]

2 hours ago, Zimzala said:

"Why does the world not work the way that is most beneficial to me?"

/s

This is a little much. I'm sure I'm not the only one to lose a rare drop to this flawed system. Not talking about the world here, talking about a dumb mechanic in a video game...

[Miser_able]

unless DE completely rips out the entire matchmaking system and redos it from scratch, then host migrations arent going anywhere

[RazerXPrime]

It's a free game so DE doesn't host servers for these things. It's the trade off for being free.

Deal with it.

[Krankbert]

vor 1 Minute schrieb RazerXPrime:

It's a free game so DE doesn't host servers for these things. It's the trade off for being free.

Deal with it.

Yeah, the devs provide the game for free out of the goodness of their heart so players shouldn't expect things like they would from a product with a business model developed by a multi-national corporation.

[(PSN)Unstar]

In regards to host migrations, the situation is double-edged.  Servers would provide a more seamless experience the potential for disruptive host migrations, but they would also be an additional expenditure for DE.  They would also have to change some amount of their code to work with this new architecture, which means other features would Go t  Without seeing their bookkeeping,  don't know what level of additional financial pressure this would mean for them, though it's safe to assume that they would need to introduce additional profit streams to make up for the expenditure.

So the question isn't whether you want it, the question is whether you're willing to pay for it.  How many people are willing to consistently open their wallets (more than they already do) to fund this service?

As for losing loot, etc, when host migrations happen, I honestly can't speak to whether it's possible to get rid of that without adding servers.  It might just be an unavoidable possibility?  I'm just not familiar with the technical side of that.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Okay, here's the thing you, as a player, need to realise.

Warframe does not have dedicated servers. It would take a lot of time and money to change the game over to dedicated servers, it would not be fast, and it would come at the expense of the Devs working on other content.

Please be aware, it would be possible to do this. But it's a genuine debate of cost/benefit that we don't have access to, because we're not DE.

Instead the game works on the most cost-effective method of co-op gaming (which they chose when they started the game because they were poor and desperate), called Peer-to-Peer.

In this process, you are connecting to another player's computer, or other players are connecting to you, instead of being connected to Warframe's servers. This is, technically, no different to you connecting to a Warframe server with one, very specific problem.

What happens if you disconnect from the other player that is hosting the game?

Ordinarily, just like disconnecting from any other connection, you will lose data. Like yanking out a USB drive before you've finished copying a file. This is not as much of a problem on Dedicated servers, because the data is still there on the main server, and you can re-connect and identify yourself to get your partial data back. When it's a disconnect from another person, DE have no way to verify that data because it's not on their servers, so it gets lost.

What DE have done is implement a service that attempts (doesn't always succeed) to save all your data and re-connect you to the other players making one of the remaining players into a new Host.

If none of you are suitable to be a Host for the other two, the service fails and you are dropped back to the Liset. This can happen a lot, because a lot of people don't have the internet capabilities to actually host others.

This service is called 'Host Migration'. 

You being angry at Host Migration is like being angry at a Fireman for not being able to save all your stuff while they're putting out your house fire. The fire burned your stuff, the Fireman tried to save it and couldn't.

The problem is that you are disconnecting from the Host. This can happen because of your own internet problems, it can happen because of the Host's internet problems. Host Migration is trying to save you so that you don't lose all your stuff.

Stop getting angry at Host Migration. It's trying to help you.

[Itsmez]

12 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Okay, here's the thing you, as a player, need to realise.

Warframe does not have dedicated servers. It would take a lot of time and money to change the game over to dedicated servers, it would not be fast, and it would come at the expense of the Devs working on other content.

Please be aware, it would be possible to do this. But it's a genuine debate of cost/benefit that we don't have access to, because we're not DE.

Instead the game works on the most cost-effective method of co-op gaming (which they chose when they started the game because they were poor and desperate), called Peer-to-Peer.

In this process, you are connecting to another player's computer, or other players are connecting to you, instead of being connected to Warframe's servers. This is, technically, no different to you connecting to a Warframe server with one, very specific problem.

What happens if you disconnect from the other player that is hosting the game?

Ordinarily, just like disconnecting from any other connection, you will lose data. Like yanking out a USB drive before you've finished copying a file. This is not as much of a problem on Dedicated servers, because the data is still there on the main server, and you can re-connect and identify yourself to get your partial data back. When it's a disconnect from another person, DE have no way to verify that data because it's not on their servers, so it gets lost.

What DE have done is implement a service that attempts (doesn't always succeed) to save all your data and re-connect you to the other players making one of the remaining players into a new Host.

If none of you are suitable to be a Host for the other two, the service fails and you are dropped back to the Liset. This can happen a lot, because a lot of people don't have the internet capabilities to actually host others.

This service is called 'Host Migration'. 

You being angry at Host Migration is like being angry at a Fireman for not being able to save all your stuff while they're putting out your house fire. The fire burned your stuff, the Fireman tried to save it and couldn't.

The problem is that you are disconnecting from the Host. This can happen because of your own internet problems, it can happen because of the Host's internet problems. Host Migration is trying to save you so that you don't lose all your stuff.

Stop getting angry at Host Migration. It's trying to help you.

So here is the fix for the whole problem.

"Warframe does not have dedicated servers. It would take a lot of time and money to change the game over to dedicated servers, it would not be fast, and it would come at the expense of the Devs working on other content."

Instead of pushing the content that they do now, make a pause and invest the hundreds of thousands atleast for working servers. Its a big win win in a long run.

I got angry at the host migration because when i had my S#&$ty internet connection for some reason i had no option to atleast to disable the function to be a forced host. I didnt want to be a host because it would ruin the gameplay for others but the game forced me to do it.

Atleast add a option to be able to disable the option to be a host.

The money is not a issue, they have alot of it and they could use it if they wanted so stop with that bullpoop

[Zimzala]

55 minutes ago, Itsmez said:

The money is not a issue, they have alot of it and they could use it if they wanted so stop with that bullpoop

That's about the funniest thing I have read on a game forum in a couple years.

[Rakosta_Kai]

1 hour ago, Itsmez said:

The money is not a issue, they have alot of it and they could use it if they wanted so stop with that bullpoop

Money is always an issue to the person responsible for paying it...

As to the rest?  I've lost fewer valuable items to host migration in 8 years of playing this game than I have in less than 6 months of playing Outriders ( or even in the time it took me to run screaming from Anthem). 

Certainly it can be argued that there should never be a concern for lost items in a Looter-Shooter but we all realize that it can happen. 

[nslay]

Everyone should just be the equivalent of a "host" with loose synchronization between the players. This kind of cooperative synchronization is probably very complicated... but nobody will suffer a host migration because everyone will have a copy of the game state running as if it were local to their system.

There, no servers needed. Just move the burden from a single player-as-a-host to some kind of loosely synchronized everyone-is-their-own-host.

[RazerXPrime]

1 hour ago, Itsmez said:

So here is the fix for the whole problem.

"Warframe does not have dedicated servers. It would take a lot of time and money to change the game over to dedicated servers, it would not be fast, and it would come at the expense of the Devs working on other content."

Instead of pushing the content that they do now, make a pause and invest the hundreds of thousands atleast for working servers. Its a big win win in a long run.

I got angry at the host migration because when i had my S#&$ty internet connection for some reason i had no option to atleast to disable the function to be a forced host. I didnt want to be a host because it would ruin the gameplay for others but the game forced me to do it.

Atleast add a option to be able to disable the option to be a host.

The money is not a issue, they have alot of it and they could use it if they wanted so stop with that bullpoop

If money if not an issue please send a message that you'll cover for the millions of dollars they need to invest.

Problem solved.

[trst]

From my own experiences and the discussions regarding it on these forums the primary cause of failed migrations is poor connection quality. And as the game seems to try to set the host as the player with the best connection to the server (not the players). If the host does drop you may be left with sub-optimal connections who need to communicate with the server to duplicate the session and resynchronize with the remaining players.

Sure they likely could implement more fail-safes to prevent failed migrations or drop loss but they can just as well create more issues. Like ending up with desynchronized sessions that end up unplayable or softlocked due to objectives not being completable/interactable. And if failed migrations are primarily the result of poor connections then having the players communicate to the servers more to "checkpoint" the drops obtained so far could cause enough strain to cause more drops and loss than before (plus a huge increase in server strain).

And as for the p2p to dedicated solution I doubt it's problem of cost but more so an issue with return on investment. Most missions are likely in the 5 minute range and who knows how many missions are successfully ran a day and what percentage of those even get a failed migration. The issue might be so insignificant to the overall playerbase that to solve it with servers could just cause more harm than good with bleeding money and causing more connection issues for players.

[(XBOX)Rez090]

3 hours ago, Krankbert said:

Yeah, the devs provide the game for free out of the goodness of their heart so players shouldn't expect things like they would from a product with a business model developed by a multi-national corporation.

DE isn't a multi-national corporation, they are only located in Canada. Now, if they had another branch in say Germany, then they would be a multi-national corporation.

[Lutesque]

3 hours ago, RazerXPrime said:

It's a free game so DE doesn't host servers for these things. It's the trade off for being free.

Deal with it.

 

3 hours ago, Krankbert said:

Yeah, the devs provide the game for free out of the goodness of their heart so players shouldn't expect things like they would from a product with a business model developed by a multi-national corporation.

You know what's funny... You are both Right.... I don't like that you are both Right but I can't deny it either.

That being said.... I refuse to treat Warframe any differently just because it's free to play.... I have principles and I'm sticking to them 😤 !!!

50 minutes ago, nslay said:

Everyone should just be the equivalent of a "host" with loose synchronization between the players. This kind of cooperative synchronization is probably very complicated... but nobody will suffer a host migration because everyone will have a copy of the game state running as if it were local to their system.

There, no servers needed. Just move the burden from a single player-as-a-host to some kind of loosely synchronized everyone-is-their-own-host.

Somebody needs to hire you ASAP because that's what DE should have done ages ago.

 

[RazerXPrime]

6 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

You know what's funny... You are both Right.... I don't like that you are both Right but I can't deny it either.

Scale has something to do with it and the amount of interaction in the game world. League of Legends is free, but the requirements of the serverplatform is minimal since it's a very lightweight game. That and RIOT makes so much money they don't even know what to do with it. DE is a small fry with limited options. Setting up and maintaining a server platform next to them trying for years to release the new war is something that's just begging for problems.

Other free games that employ coop use a very different approach to the host. In almost every case when the host leaves the entire party is disbanded and you return to the main menu.

6 minutes ago, Lutesque said:

Somebody needs to hire you ASAP because that's what DE should have done ages ago.

I don't think synchronization is going to help. The game is already being synchornized otherwise you'd lose the entire game content if the host crashes. That's not actually what happens. The only thing that happens is that the game host is being transfered and that takes time to set up by the client.

Sync is not the solution. Either everyone hosts or we have 1 host. And I really have no idea if 'everyone' is actually technically possible.

[(XBOX)Rez090]

2 hours ago, Itsmez said:

make a pause and invest the hundreds of thousands atleast for working servers. Its a big win win in a long run.

The money is not a issue, they have alot of it and they could use it if they wanted so stop with that bullpoop

Millions dude, not thousands. The money is very much an issue.

[(PSN)Unstar]

57 minutes ago, nslay said:

Everyone should just be the equivalent of a "host" with loose synchronization between the players. This kind of cooperative synchronization is probably very complicated... but nobody will suffer a host migration because everyone will have a copy of the game state running as if it were local to their system.

There, no servers needed. Just move the burden from a single player-as-a-host to some kind of loosely synchronized everyone-is-their-own-host.

Have you implemented this solution before, or have you seen this solution implemented in another game?  Do you know what the pros and cons of such architecture are?  I'm genuinely curious, because theoretically it is possible, but this is notably not a solution that has been widely adopted in technology, as opposed to Host-Client connections which are quite standard.

I would hazard a guess that trying to implement a solution like this has too many trade-offs and may not even actually solve the problem it intends to. Birdframe_Prime's post above mentions that there are certain requirements to be a host, which suggests that at the very least matchmaking would be more difficult, as you would need to pair groups together that could all act as both host and client to everyone else in the group.  It also might mean that players who can't be hosts just can't play Warframe anymore, which is definitely a huge downside.  Beyond that, the amount of information that would be passed around would be multiplied, which would affect network speeds and performance.

Perhaps the hardest part would be defining what it even means to be both a host and a client.  If player A's game says player A is at (10, 10, 0) and player B's game says that player A is at (10, 5, 5), how do you determine who is right and under what contexts they are right?  When there's one Host and 3 clients, it's easy to know whose data to defer to when there are mismatches like this, which is far from an uncommon situation.  As far as I'm aware, this would be a new model that would have to be pioneered...

[Rakosta_Kai]

Perhaps the simplest fix for this is to simply change the game to stop making mission completion be the pre-requisite (save point) for keeping items.

Have everything that gets picked up/awarded automatically save to the client regardless instead. 

[(PSN)Unstar]

8 minutes ago, Padre_Akais said:

Perhaps the simplest fix for this is to simply change the game to stop making mission completion be the pre-requisite (save point) for keeping items.

Have everything that gets picked up/awarded automatically save to the client regardless instead. 

It's a good idea, but they're unlikely to implement something like this because it would result in players quitting mid-mission whenever they get the drop they're looking for.

[Rakosta_Kai]

22 minutes ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

It's a good idea, but they're unlikely to implement something like this because it would result in players quitting mid-mission whenever they get the drop they're looking for.

Possibly. That said, It might also remove the burning need to get the mission complete once players got that drop they are looking for as well.

I completely agree that they aren't likely to implement it though as it would upend their reward structure and can be seen as making missions matter less.

I don't personally see it as a big issue but if the goal is to figure a solution inside the current structure I think that just having everything get saved automatically is probably about as close as it gets.

[nslay]

1 hour ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

Have you implemented this solution before, or have you seen this solution implemented in another game?  Do you know what the pros and cons of such architecture are?  I'm genuinely curious, because theoretically it is possible, but this is notably not a solution that has been widely adopted in technology, as opposed to Host-Client connections which are quite standard.

I would hazard a guess that trying to implement a solution like this has too many trade-offs and may not even actually solve the problem it intends to. Birdframe_Prime's post above mentions that there are certain requirements to be a host, which suggests that at the very least matchmaking would be more difficult, as you would need to pair groups together that could all act as both host and client to everyone else in the group.  It also might mean that players who can't be hosts just can't play Warframe anymore, which is definitely a huge downside.  Beyond that, the amount of information that would be passed around would be multiplied, which would affect network speeds and performance.

Perhaps the hardest part would be defining what it even means to be both a host and a client.  If player A's game says player A is at (10, 10, 0) and player B's game says that player A is at (10, 5, 5), how do you determine who is right and under what contexts they are right?  When there's one Host and 3 clients, it's easy to know whose data to defer to when there are mismatches like this, which is far from an uncommon situation.  As far as I'm aware, this would be a new model that would have to be pioneered...

No and no. No. To your first three questions.

Though I imagine early non-server games like Warcraft 2, Starcraft, maybe even Warcraft 3, used a strategy like this to hide severe lag/latency from players (from early Internet days). In Starcraft, anyone could leave the game at any time without disrupting the game for others (so long as it wasn't due to them lagging out or disconnecting). Warcraft 2 P2P worked flawlessly over dial-up (it was a 2 player thing... one player would have Warcraft 2 dial the other player) even though you might imagine intermittent latency and lag to be obvious... my guess is that Warcraft 2 hides this using the strategy I mentioned. Warcraft 3 is similar and the newer Warcraft 3 Reforged has/had so-called desync errors (if you watch youtube videos about the botched Warcraft 3 Reforged release)... which is a slight clue at how it works. Probably all game clients hold a copy of the game state and somehow they spontaneously don't agree and disconnect.

The big challenge will be reconciling inconsistent game states between the players... if you can't reconcile game states, then one or more players end up dropped.

If I had to guess about a downside... it will be mysterious desyncs/disconnects of team mates... essentially a spontaneous disbanded team (though everyone will still be able to keep playing solo without interruption)... probably owing to lag/latency in communication causing the state in one player's game to change too much to "fix."

EDIT: Maybe you can pose the game state among loosely synchronized hosts as a kind of Kalman filtering problem... you have several "measurements" of what the game state is and you use mathematical machinery like Kalman filter to reconcile that somehow. That's probably a crude perspective! But sounds like a similar problem... everyone has their own "measurement" of the game state. Estimate the true game state?

EDIT2: I may be mistaken about Starcraft... I seem to remember stuttering in severe lag situations. Perhaps Starcraft game is tightly synchronized and lag causes the game to wait for synchronization steps resulting in stuttering.