Why is host migration a thang still?

[Birdframe_Prime]

3 hours ago, Itsmez said:

So here is the fix for the whole problem.

So here's the balance, right? Let's break this down, especially with investors now actually holding a bit of sway.

Option 1. Move to dedicated servers.

Pros: Steadier service meaning that if a game drops you don't lose your progress. Better integration of events, such as the TennoCon relays, Scarlet Spear and so on. Achievable with enough fiscal investment from TenCent and others. Matchmaking is quicker, more reliable and DE can, after the change, begin working on other content such as Squad Link that was not possible before.

Cons: Every update kicks every player, meaning no more 'stay in your mission while we update', no more 'a new version is out, relog to update', when Hotfixes drop you drop. Servers have to be bought throughout the world, at hub positions such as cities, meaning that if you have a weak connection, this fixes nothing and if your 'local' server is too far away it could mean you permanently can't play Warframe due to distance. Update days can overwhelm servers, leading to horrendous wait times in the exact examples of Diablo, Overwatch and many, many more.

Costs: Hemorrhage players due to complete lack of content, leading to less money for the devs through less micro-transactions. Entire net-code has to be redone, meaning re-coding the game from the ground up. Implementing the change requires a 'hard-down' of the system for anywhere from a week to a month, where no players have access and the game is offline. Then, when the system is back up, game is now on servers, there is still no new content and the game is no different to when the process was started. Process could take up to a year of work, meaning a live service game has gone completely dark for an entire fiscal rotation (note; this particular thing of 'going dark' has literally killed other games).

Outcome; DE has lost players, cash flow and possibly even investor confidence and not progressed the actual game, they have put in all that effort to effectively stay still and start working again from there.

Option 2. Stick with Peer-to-Peer.

Pros: Game can continue creating new content, cosmetics, patching existing content and putting out things that draw new players to the game and old players back to the game. The same monetary investment from Investors can go onto acquiring new tech, such as their investment in the Mo-Cap room in the Studio, and bringing on new developers to help with improvements and new content. They can even spend more time developing a better Host Migration system so that even if the Host completely disconnects, your progress is saved better, meaning you don't 'lose' for somebody else's failure.

Cons: The system only gets iterated on, not replaced, meaning that until the Host Migration system is better, the same people who are already upset will keep being upset. No fluid integration of Events that span squads, and less ability to implement new squad-to-squad content.

Costs: Absolutely nothing that isn't being spent already.

Outcome: Game gets better over time with new improvements, maintains its player base consistently, maintains all cash-flow that it has, continues to bring new announcements that keep investors happy, and new employees make the process snow-ball as more people produce content faster.

...

I don't know...

Why could they possibly not have gone to dedicated servers sooner?

Could it have anything to do with just... for arguments sake... doing it is literally worth less to a for-profit company than doing anything else with the time and money?

[Krankbert]

If the game needed to be completely recoded to have all players be clients instead of just three of them that would actually explain why a lot of it is so bad.

[nslay]

1 hour ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Costs: Absolutely nothing that isn't being spent already.

Long term cost: "DE" becomes synonymous with low quality multiplayer gaming (if not already).

The current system is bad for players. The system deserves to be called vulgar names despite being a magnificent feat of engineering. These posts will continue to appear on the forums in perpetuity unless they come up with another better design. I don't think anybody cares about low level implementation details like P2P or server-based... as long as they can make something that keeps their valuable loot, respects their time, and keeps the game fun in multiplayer experiences (which the latter is uncommonly not the case in the current system... so much so that these posts continue to appear).

An easy workaround (until something less bad is invented) is to implement what exists for bounties and Void fissures! Mission rewards should be stored server side and if players lose their mission progress due to failed host migration, the rewards should be in your inventory already (bounties) or mailed to you by Ordis (Void fissures). This will make people less salty about losing their game progress when something goes wrong in a host migration.

[yarl5000]

You also got to remember this isn't just a quick switch thing for the game code.  You are talking about changing what is essentially the backbone of the game, DE made that choice years ago to have it be P2P and now the rest of the game has been built with that in mind and on top of that decision.  It would require an extensive team of people to just implement technically and I can only imagine the amount of bugs that would arise from trying to pull that switch over.  To be honest it would probably be easier to just make Warframe 2 built from the ground up with servers in mind and smooth out things with the vision that 8 years of messing with the game has given. 

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

4 hours ago, nslay said:

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.

This kind of reorganization would be great, as it doesn't require expensive dedicated servers (which sure isn't happening).

Destiny2 Open Worlds are a fine example of this kind of system working flawlessly.

But I do not think DE currently has the manpower to implement it. Near as I know there's only one real network specialist programmer on the team. note that the vast majority of game updates are 'content', 'scripting' and graphical updates, not major engine changes.

They're too heavily invested in artists and content creators than backend programmers. Shinies for the lowest common denominator brings in the most money.

[SneakyErvin]

9 hours ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

This kind of reorganization would be great, as it doesn't require expensive dedicated servers (which sure isn't happening).

Destiny2 Open Worlds are a fine example of this kind of system working flawlessly.

But I do not think DE currently has the manpower to implement it. Near as I know there's only one real network specialist programmer on the team. note that the vast majority of game updates are 'content', 'scripting' and graphical updates, not major engine changes.

They're too heavily invested in artists and content creators than backend programmers. Shinies for the lowest common denominator brings in the most money.

Destiny 2 is really no different from WF when it comes to how the game handles things. The difference is that the matchmaker may be set up to be more sensitive, meaning less risk ending up with hosts that are far away.

And if Destiny 2 arent using listen servers like WF, and instead run on a more old fashioned peer-to-peer setup, then it comes with other issues that simply arent present in WF. In the end, neither of the two are player friendly solutions when compared to dedicated servers, so we'll end up with something flawed either way. IMO that just doesnt make it worth reworking the system, since it will be bad in the end anyways.

The only thing that would benefit the game and introduce a player friendly QoL change would be dedicated servers. Everything else would be a waste of resources since what we have currently works well enough, given how little improvement (if any at all) another system would have. There is also the risk that with a few improvements we'd also see downgrades in other areas.

The only improvement DE could do that would only be beneficial is regarding how host migs work. Instead of trying to reconnect to a new host or set a player up as a new host, it would be better if you simply get reverted to single player, since that removes the risk of host migration failures, because you never run into a situation where you try to reconnect to a poor host. In a 4 man group player B and D may have horrible connection to eachother even though both have acceptable connection to player A the host. They wont notice it aslong as A is hosting, but if A drops and B or D end up as the new host, the risks of a failed migration grows.

edit: And that is before we start adding in potential hardware and software potato limitations for a new host.

[RazerXPrime]

Imagine the fallout when WF has dedicated servers and they crash forcing EVERYONE to lose their progress. People would love to go back to that once in a blue moon host migration that messes things up. 

[vegetosayajin]

[Zentun.]

i hate it too, host migration is the only thing in this game that drives me mad, i always alt f4 when it happens, even after 3k H it still hurts.

[RazerXPrime]

13 minutes ago, Zentun. said:

i hate it too, host migration is the only thing in this game that drives me mad, i always alt f4 when it happens, even after 3k H it still hurts.

[(PSN)Unstar]

14 hours ago, nslay said:

The current system is bad for players.

I mean...yes?  But it's also not the end of the world for players.  Warframe has a ton of problems.  It's riddled with bugs, it absolutely and utterly fails at onboarding/teaching new players, there are design issues and systems that could use a re-vamp, and yes, host migrations can be frustrating.  There are lots of things that could be improved about Warframe.  But I also think that being a Warframe player almost by definition requires that players come to terms with the state of what Warframe is, rather than what they want it to be.

To be clear, that's not to say that we shouldn't advocate that Warframe be improved in the areas we want to see improvement in.  But it also means that for the sake of our own mental health, we shouldn't expect or need those changes.  That's a good general rule, but I think it's especially worth mentioning here because it's just so incredibly unlikely that DE would exert the overwhelming effort required to change this.  When expectations differ from reality, that's when disappointment occurs.  In cases like this, where there is basically no hope for change, expecting change is synonymous with setting oneself up for disappointment.

I'm not saying that's good, but I am saying that it's good advice.

14 hours ago, nslay said:

These posts will continue to appear on the forums in perpetuity unless they come up with another better design.

This is true, but honestly, the amount of posts on this topic aren't very significant, all things considered. 

[RazerXPrime]

Host migration is only an issue for pubs. For friends and clans and solo play this is not an issue. And for those that want server side play, a server setup will ruin everyone's experience when they have issues. Not just the people that go into pubs. I say leave it as it is and those that enjoy pubs, deal with this side effect. Don't bring your sorrow into other peoples experience. Adjust ping so you're not matched with somene on the other side of the planet.

[nslay]

17 minutes ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

But I also think that being a Warframe player almost by definition requires that players come to terms with the state of what Warframe is, rather than what they want it to be.

No, nah uh. Us players should NOT just accept bugs, limitations and bad design as just the state Warframe... we should continue to ask for improvements. And host migrations need to go or need to implement workarounds (like found in Bounties and Void fissures). As long as these posts appear, you will find me supporting OPs within reason. As long as posts about other issues (like the lame foundry system) appear, you will find me supporting OPs. I will not simply accept these issues as the norm and I will call them out as "bad for players". And what is "bad for players" is bad for Warframe.

[Loza03]

For reference, servers have two issues. The first is that they cost a lot, and the second is that they're rigid.

 

Servers can cost in the millions to sustain depending on the type of game. It all depends on how much can be stored on one bit of hardware - one instance usually means one server (granted, these too vary in cost and power, but still). Some games this can be (relatively) inexpensive, but for games with lots and lots of individual instances, this gets more expensive. Warframe is one such a game.

This leads into the second issue - rigidity. How many servers should you GET? You don't have an unlimited number of funds and whatever you get has a strong chance to be inadquate. Everyone's heard of a new game being launched and the servers crashing, because buying that many new servers for a brief population spike is extremely inefficient spending. Likewise, if your game's in a slump, then you're getting less income but still paying the same for completely dead space.

P2P is both cheaper and more flexible, whilst still being reliable in a majority of instances. Whilst these complaints seem common, consider that there's likely many, many more cases where the host migration worked out fine, or the problem never came up, and so nobody had any reason to complain. It's not like servers are perfectly reliable either.

[(PSN)Unstar]

36 minutes ago, nslay said:

No, nah uh. Us players should NOT just accept bugs, limitations and bad design as just the state Warframe... we should continue to ask for improvements.

I specifically said in my post that we should continue asking for improvements though...?  I think you should re-read because you may have missed my point.

[FenricFox]

Personally, I wish DE would stop punishing the vast majority of players and accept a little bit of a risk of "exploitation" and save the results -even if- the host migration fails. They have your results, they just throw them away if you can't rejoin the mission for whatever reason and I'm sure it's to avoid collaboration or risks of some weird result-duplication glitch.

And sure, OK, I didn't technically finish the mission ... 99.999% of the time are the piddly pile of credits, fifteen more copies of bronze mods, and small stock of resources REALLY that game breaking?  Not going to spend plat (or in some important cases -can't spend plat if I wanted to-) on any of that stuff, ever: DE isn't losing money there. And yeah, this argument cuts both ways, but I'm the customer... DE should take the cut.

And on top that, they -already- have all sorts of stuff that automatically restricts your ability to trade because it looks like you were up to no good.

Ignoring the fact that I bet their server updates already have a hash so retries after "network not responding" don't stack up; for the "duplication" exploit worry, how hard is it to add "at the end of the sortie, you magically got 4 rivens instead of one: oops - trade ban for you while we review!" which will then get updated to a "banned until 2035" as soon as their team looks at it?

And if a group of four friends were to magically start to round-robin host migrate consistently that's got to show up in the logs, too.  Once again, they already look for this kind of stuff, so it's not even adding something new.

 

So with that, every once in a while you win the migration lottery and get all the current results without actually finishing the mission. I think that's a reasonable compensation for putting up with the other hassles of P2P.

 

[nslay]

3 minutes ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

I specifically said in my post that we should continue asking for improvements though...?  I think you should re-read because you may have missed my point.

I re-read it. I still don't really get a sense of that at all... I see more like a self-defeatist point of view in your post (no offense). Host migrations are not only a frustration, they are objectively the symptom of a bad multiplayer design. This is all about host migrations, don't downplay the OP's very real frustration, especially with implied the point-of-view, that the Warframe player should just accept bad game experiences as normal for Warframe ... playing endless missions for a long time and losing valuable loot or rare drops like Acceltra BP owing to something lame like host migration is completely unacceptable in 2021 IMO.

Now personally, I try to go one step further with criticism... I try to offer solutions. I gave, a probably intractable, theoretical design idea to completely eliminate this problem that doesn't even involve servers. Recognizing that it is probably unrealistic (based on you pointing out lack of known implementation), I have provided realistic workarounds that already exist in the game.  All they have to do is commit rotation rewards to inventory and at least players don't lose everything... it's not perfect, but it is inline with their current "rejoin squad" solution (only more reliable).

[RazerXPrime]

34 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

This leads into the second issue - rigidity. How many servers should you GET? You don't have an unlimited number of funds and whatever you get has a strong chance to be inadquate. Everyone's heard of a new game being launched and the servers crashing, because buying that many new servers for a brief population spike is extremely inefficient spending. Likewise, if your game's in a slump, then you're getting less income but still paying the same for completely dead space.

Well that's not true. And not an issue. I'm not in favor of serverside hosting, but virtual datacenters allow for near infinite scaling and such. How do you think Netflix runs things? They don't own a million servers and then add and remove 100K when their viewers change. They use a pay per use model and spin up additional systems as required automatically.

I mean buying servers is a stupid idea to begin with for an online gaming platform.

[(PSN)Unstar]

26 minutes ago, nslay said:

I re-read it. I still don't really get a sense of that at all... I see more like a self-defeatist point of view in your post (no offense). Host migrations are not only a frustration, they are objectively the symptom of a bad multiplayer design. This is all about host migrations, don't downplay the OP's very real frustration, especially with implied the point-of-view, that the Warframe player should just accept bad game experiences as normal for Warframe ... playing endless missions for a long time and losing valuable loot or rare drops like Acceltra BP owing to something lame like host migration is completely unacceptable in 2021 IMO.

I understand how this could look defeatist.  To clarify, I'm trying to advocate for two different and seemingly opposed things:

1. Keep letting your voice be heard, with the goal of encouraging the change you want to see in the world.
2. Recognize the unlikelihood of some changes being realized, with the goal of protecting your emotional and mental well-being.

I also don't intend to downplay OP's frustration at all.  That frustration is valid.  I will be the first to admit that host migrations suck.  On PS4 I lose a minute of my life and then load into the world without any of the buffs I had setup surrounded by enemies that aren't crowd-controlled.  I always wonder whether I've lost anything, or whether I will lose anything.  And sometimes, I have lost the big thing.  It sucks, and it takes the wind out of my sails.

But removing host migrations would be a super big change, and one that I personally don't see enough voices calling for to make it worth DE or the community's while to change it.  And as long as it doesn't change, there's just one thing I will always have the power to change, and that's my perspective.  If I accept that until DE changes things (which they may never do), that host migrations will happen, then when they do happen they don't hurt as bad.  And this is something I strongly recommend; I think it's one of the best solutions there is, because it's the most likely one to come to fruition.

A secondary solution that had slipped my mind until now is to make a support ticket.  Especially if you have screenshots or videos (which the PS4 always does as long as you remember to save them, not sure about other platforms), it's possible that support could help recover that one rare item you lost.  Though obviously that's a solution that has to be invoked with every loss, and sometimes it's just not worth the effort.

So to summarize, I'm encouraging people to continue reaching for the stars, but in the meantime make personal preparations for if you never snatch them.

26 minutes ago, nslay said:

 All they have to do is commit rotation rewards to inventory and at least players don't lose everything... it's not perfect, but it is inline with their current "rejoin squad" solution (only more reliable).

I agree that this sounds like a good solution!

[Krankbert]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb RazerXPrime:

I say leave it as it is and those that enjoy pubs, deal with this side effect. Don't bring your sorrow into other peoples experience.

In other words "#*!% you, I got mine."

[Lutesque]

24 minutes ago, Krankbert said:

In other words "#*!% you, I got mine."

In a nutshell ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ !!!

[(XBOX)Shodian]

Or maybe people should upgrade to better internet if they can.

Unfortunately network connections can be unstable sometimes. Can't prepare for everything. 

[Wolfdoggie]

It exist to balance good VS evil. If the game ran too well it would destroy us all in the searing radiance of the light.

[Loza03]

1 hour ago, RazerXPrime said:

Well that's not true. And not an issue. I'm not in favor of serverside hosting, but virtual datacenters allow for near infinite scaling and such. How do you think Netflix runs things? They don't own a million servers and then add and remove 100K when their viewers change. They use a pay per use model and spin up additional systems as required automatically.

I mean buying servers is a stupid idea to begin with for an online gaming platform.

Netflix is also worth 20 billion dollars. I don't have enough knowledge in this subject to know for sure, but I DO know that plenty of way bigger studios than DE use P2P for reasons along these lines.

[Krankbert]

vor 9 Minuten schrieb Loza03:

Netflix is also worth 20 billion dollars. I don't have enough knowledge in this subject to know for sure, but I DO know that plenty of way bigger studios than DE use P2P for reasons along these lines.

That's because for those way bigger studios servers still cost money and P2P still costs only a little bit of player satisfaction. This largely isn't a question of "can they do dedicated servers and stay profitable" or "can they implement dedicated servers on a technical level" but more "why would they pay for dedicated servers when they can also just not do it". They're obviously not losing a lot of players over it and half the people here are actually defending P2P as if it was better.