Crossplay: A failure that sacrificed the enjoyment of PC players to the altar of trendiness

[taiiat]

13 hours ago, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

I think this is where the conversation should remain focused on. Older gen consoles, and older HDD PCs, are the issue with this advancement.

I think an excellent option would be for us to have the ability to select between new gen, legacy, all or PC only. 

FWIW, before Crossplay, older PC's were generally fine for Hosting - stuff near minspec would have longer Loading and the Host would have a terrible Framerate, but if their PC wasn't that low, it was still fine.
there were ofcourse People with unstable Internet Connections, so occasionally there were issues stemming from that, but that's the same with and without Crossplay so i'm not blaming anyone for that happening. i'm sure some of the extended Loading screens is attributed to Hosts just actually being slow, if i were to guess probably Switch Hosts.

what could be useful, would be if affected types of Consoles were intrinsically set to avoid being Host at nearly all costs. ala will basically always prefer to join  Client into a Session rather than start their own as Host.
not a complete solution but will help significantly.

12 hours ago, Corvid said:

To say nothing of the fact that dropping potato PCs like some players are suggesting kind of goes against DE's ethos when it comes to accessibility. They want low-spec players to be able to run the game, which is something that I honestly admire them for (bear in mind that my own PC is pretty high-end).

the actual requirement changes only necessitate a CPU that's less than 12-13 Years old (depending on which exact CPU's) for support, it's really not asking for much.

and as a result ALL supported CPU's will get performance benefits from this cutoff. they've not been able to take advantage of newer SIMD Instructions because of having to still be able to perform all functions on the older Instruction extensions to anyways.

9 hours ago, sunderthefirmament said:

Before crossplay, ping limiters were really effective. Now, I feel like they’re only applying when matching with other PC players.  It might be that I’m not well versed enough in tech speak to understand whether the delays I’m experiencing are due to bad ping or due to the host console’s processing power. But the result is largely the same: a worse experience with greater delays and a nagging thought in the back of my mind (“Why couldn’t I be hosting?”). 

the setting has never been highly effective - the propensity for failures has always been because the measurements are spot checked, and will generally mean before the Mission has started.
so that's two potential 'failure' points - only performing a single sample, and that sample usually being taken before the Host is actually running the heavier parts of the Mission.

i'd believe that it would be 'worse' now, in that there's more Hosts that will fit the criteria for 'failures' of that setting being able to filter People.
which in a nutshell is like "yes that is correct, but not for the reason you think it is".

Edited April 10, 2023 by taiiat

[ToKeSia]

On 2023-04-08 at 8:48 AM, (PSN)thowed said:

I wish theyd drop last gen consoles also but I want PCs that aren't on par with new gen to be dropped too.  Or drop it entirely,  tired of carrying PC players that don't speak English lol.  I can be this type of person too.  Happy Easter.

well i don't speak English as well as my spelling is quite worst but i do type a lot

[Chollynn]

I think a dedicated server (instead of peer-to-peer) could solve this problem, but maybe that is not possible.

[Corvid]

5 hours ago, taiiat said:

the actual requirement changes only necessitate a CPU that's less than 12-13 Years old (depending on which exact CPU's) for support, it's really not asking for much.

I'm aware, it's just that if some people here had their way, DE would drop support for anything that isn't the absolute cutting edge.

[MagPrime]

2 hours ago, Chollynn said:

I think a dedicated server (instead of peer-to-peer) could solve this problem, but maybe that is not possible.

I don't know if it's still in use but DE did enable PC to act as a server for PvP.  It would be nice if we could use that function for regular game play somehow. 

[taiiat]

2 hours ago, Corvid said:

I'm aware, it's just that if some people here had their way, DE would drop support for anything that isn't the absolute cutting edge.

i mean, i do think there should be a stronger cutoff, i'd want to cut to:

• SSE4.2 and AVX support
  • for Intel, would be 2011 for Desktop CPU's
  • for AMD, would be 2012 for any Desktop support but those are weird CPU's almost nobody bought, would be 2015 for slightly less weird but still pretty weird CPU's almost nobody bought, would be 2017 for 'normal' Desktop CPU's
  • _{Mobile is probably way more convoluted/cursed but i couldn't be bothered with digging through those atm to find the turning point}
• Win10 v2004
  • to be able to cut to DXGI support and DirectX 11.x support

but even that is still not asking for that much?

[trst]

8 hours ago, Chollynn said:

I think a dedicated server (instead of peer-to-peer) could solve this problem, but maybe that is not possible.

It would only solve this specific issue if it made everyone have PC spawn rates and the servers were distributed well enough and have proper capacity to match loading speeds with good hosts currently.

The spawn rate problem introduces problems with players on older consoles which struggle to run parts of the game already and will struggle harder being forced to always have higher spawns. And the connectivity problems depends entirely on how well the server infrastructure is and how much DE is willing to invest into it.

Which all just further complicates the dedicated server question and, imo, further makes them a poor fit for WF.

[EdinaMonsoon]

i've hardly noticed a difference

[Sneyek]

I kind of agree that crossplay is half good half bad.

 

In fact, it's more a matter of how it's implemented, it should never be lowered down for any reason. Crossplay should be only possible in 2 tier:

- Old Gen: "old Gen" PC (I would say before GTX 9XX), PS4, Xbox One, Switch.

- New Gen: Modern PC (After GTX 9XX), PS5, Xbox Series X/S. (Someday maybe a Switch Pro).

Graphical differences would remain per machine, but the gameplay differences would include things such as: Ennemy spawn rate, Maximum Ennemies, on ground loot limit etc...

------------------- 

Then, for hosting issue, there should be tiers too. I even think of notation, they should be transparent about it and how they compute it tho.

Points could be given for connection type: Wired > Wi-Fi > 5G > 4G. When Wifi could be even more specific based on Wi-Fi protocols (802.11ax > 802.11ac etc...).

Then the Up/Down speed should be considered as well as the ping.

The result would be a notation, the scale does not matter, so let's consider 0 the worst and 100 the best (Wired + 10G ethernet + Fiber 10G if it exists). Anyway, this is just a concept, once every player has their notation, this notation is recomputed daily on login and it allow to define which one of the 4 player in a squad has the most stable and fast network to be host.
Off course, if you join an already existing game, score is ignored. (This won't force an host switch, makes no sense)

 

[Packetdancer]

20 minutes ago, Sneyek said:

Points could be given for connection type: Wired > Wi-Fi > 5G > 4G. When Wifi could be even more specific based on Wi-Fi protocols (802.11ax > 802.11ac etc...).

Then the Up/Down speed should be considered as well as the ping.

Depending on platform, that information could be extremely difficult to access with any degree of accuracy.

For instance, the nature of the connection -- WiFi or wired -- might require the game to run with administrator permissions on Windows. And it likely wouldn't actually give you accurate information when running under Proton on Linux, such as on the Steam Deck. For instance, I believe the Deck's WiFi shows as a dummied Ethernet within the Windows 'world' Proton creates.

Trying to get around all of that -- detecting that you're on Proton, trying to get outside of Proton to the hosting Linux box, trying to figure out the network setup of the Linux box -- seems like a whole pile of work for negligible benefit at best, and verges on behavior akin to malware at worst.

Yeah, it's annoying when a potato ends up hosting, but I'm not sure the benefits of this degree of granularity would be worth the effort required to get it with any accuracy.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

On 2023-04-07 at 6:19 PM, Kaiga said:

-Lowered spawn rates for no reason

-Terrible connections, host migration and slow loading performance 

-Unfamiliar, unresponsive players lagging behind in controlability and player performance 

-Hotfixes held up by cert on every console

-Non-crossplay being dead from it being turned on by default.

1. This one is on DE.  It's obvious from things like SP missions that at least Xbox and PS can handle higher spawn rates, because those missions have higher spawn rates, and did even before crossplay.  If Switch and Mobile can't handle those things, then they probably shouldn't have taken the game to those systems.  This isn't some PC thing.  Console players have been begging for higher spawn rates forever, and console, as already demonstrated, can obviously handle it.  
    
2. Terrible connection speed isn't limited to console.  The poor performance of last gen consoles is a legitimate point, but is also on DE for not keeping up with optimization.  A series X loads in as quickly as a fairly decent PC, if not faster, so this isn't just a crossplay issue.  Poor PC performance, and just interplay between next gen/last gen consoles of the same make were already an issue.
    
3. Hey look, it's all the PC master race bull crap that everyone said totally isn't a part of this community.  And it has quite a number of likes on it.  Slow or bad players aren't unique to console.  Being on console has absolutely nothing to do with anyone lagging behind.  Not only because Xbox can actually use kb/m but because there's literally nothing slowing anyone down with parkour if they're using something like an elite controller with back paddles.  How's your pinky doing with those bullet jumps?  Because I barely have to move my hands to parkour all over the place.  The idea that console is somehow automatically slower and lower skilled should be enough to get this topic taken down just for the baseless trash talking, but I know that won't happen.
    
4. Oh poor you.  It's not like PC is the only one that this screws over.
    
5. Crossplay is better for the game as a whole.  Every game, not just this one.  It's not some "trend."  It's literally what a lot of players ask for.  

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

14 hours ago, taiiat said:

intrinsically set to avoid being Host at nearly all costs. ala will basically always prefer to join  Client into a Session rather than start their own as Host.

Man, if only they would let us choose to host or not host.  Like we've been asking for over several years.  I've seen so many Switch players say here and in-game that they would never choose to host.  This one change, that we've asked for repeatedly, would solve a lot of the headaches with cross play.

That, and a better squad system that didn't just randomly DC people you're choosing to play with and not save their spot for a reconnect.  Or just... you know...  not timing them out at all.

Letting people choose to host and having people on older systems not constantly timing out, but just loading in slower would take care of pretty much every legitimate crossplay concern.

[TeaHands]

Being able to play with my IRL friends has been more enjoyable than running smoother public games.

 

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

On 2023-04-07 at 10:40 PM, sunderthefirmament said:

It's decidedly less great when it means you don't crack your relic.

There have been so many threads, including ones made by me, where people try to make the case that the reactant system is bad because it does precisely this, and it's entirely due to enemy spawn throttling and host/client connection, which we've also been complaining about forever.

And instead of any kind of solidarity, or listening to us, the only thing that happened was PC players showing up to those threads screaming "I don't have this problem so it doesn't exist."  We all got shouted down about how everything was fine, and we were just bad.  It was totally all a skill issue, because there was certainly nothing wrong with the game.  And I hope every single person that showed up to those threads to bash the OP and say that there was no problem gets nothing but Nintendo Switch and mobile hosts until the game shuts down.  Add onto that the amount of disgusting "plebs with worse systems than me shouldn't be allowed to play" elitism in this thread, and honestly, I'm glad crossplay is forcing PC to deal with the same crap we've been complaining about forever.

If they shut down support for older consoles, my alliance probably loses half its members until they pony up a large chunk of cash for a new system.  Maybe more.

[Kaiga]

20 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

Hey look, it's all the PC master race bull crap that everyone said totally isn't a part of this community.  And it has quite a number of likes on it.  Slow or bad players aren't unique to console.  Being on console has absolutely nothing to do with anyone lagging behind.  Not only because Xbox can actually use kb/m but because there's literally nothing slowing anyone down with parkour if they're using something like an elite controller with back paddles.  How's your pinky doing with those bullet jumps?  Because I barely have to move my hands to parkour all over the place.  The idea that console is somehow automatically slower and lower skilled

Why do pc master race beliefs exist. Why is that a thing, can you answer that for me?

 

Secondly, you cant tell me in good faith that someone on a Samsung galaxy is going to have comparable performance or aim precision as a mouse and keyboard. Not that the game requires much in the first place for starchart content, but it's a bit silly of a statement.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

Just now, Kaiga said:

Why do pc master race beliefs exist. Why is that a thing, can you answer that for me?

Because people like being crappy to each other.  Like you're trying right now.  Not to mention the fact that it's circular logic.  You're using the existence of a concept to prove the validity of that concept, without actually making any argument for it.  

As for your second point, mobile isn't out yet, and I'm not looking forward to that either.  But you're not talking about mobile, because you're speaking as if from experience, which means you're talking about console players, so go ahead and leave those goalposts where they already are.  Because console players aren't falling behind PC players in terms of skill or speed simply because they're on console.  That's based entirely on each individual player, and there's plenty of poor players on PC.  Apparently, plenty of toxic ones, too.

[Kaiga]

7 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

You're using the existence of a concept to prove the validity of that concept, without actually making any argument for it.  

I'm not making an arguement. You're the one who branded this thread pc master race-ism, and I'm asking you to defend your beliefs.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Kaiga

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

Just now, Kaiga said:

I'm not making an arguement. You're the one who branded this thread pc master race-ism, and I'm asking you you to defend your beliefs.

You're literally lumping every single console player in together and acting like all of us are automatically inferior in terms of game skill and ability.

[Kaiga]

1 minute ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

You're literally lumping every single console player in together and acting like all of us are automatically inferior in terms of game skill and ability.

Nobody deals completely in absolutes. Obviously the experience has gotten noticeable enough to warrant this level of feedback by the community, so I would say that's a reasonable point.

To the PC master race point: 

"Because people like being crappy to each other" isn't exactly an arguement, let me help you with a prompt:

Could this be because the concept of the gaming console is seen by many in the industry as being on the way out? 

Supported by the idea that the latest generation of consoles is spoken of as being the last, and already approaches dedicated PC specs and price tags?

[trst]

4 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

There have been so many threads, including ones made by me, where people try to make the case that the reactant system is bad because it does precisely this, and it's entirely due to enemy spawn throttling and host/client connection, which we've also been complaining about forever.

And instead of any kind of solidarity, or listening to us, the only thing that happened was PC players showing up to those threads screaming "I don't have this problem so it doesn't exist."  We all got shouted down about how everything was fine, and we were just bad.  It was totally all a skill issue, because there was certainly nothing wrong with the game.  And I hope every single person that showed up to those threads to bash the OP and say that there was no problem gets nothing but Nintendo Switch and mobile hosts until the game shuts down.  Add onto that the amount of disgusting "plebs with worse systems than me shouldn't be allowed to play" elitism in this thread, and honestly, I'm glad crossplay is forcing PC to deal with the same crap we've been complaining about forever.

If they shut down support for older consoles, my alliance probably loses half its members until they pony up a large chunk of cash for a new system.  Maybe more.

To be fair a lot of responses towards "play better" was players thinking it's some crazy idea to wait for enemies to get corrupted first, something you even need to do with PC spawns. But also not many players realized how big the spawn differences were, or that there even were differences in the first place, since most players don't have experience on multiple platforms. And only now with everyone being able to experience this difference first hand is it something we can expect players to understand.

But targeting the Reactant system, while it would "fix" fissures for now, only side steps the real issue of older consoles having a downgraded game experience and can now pass that onto other platforms. It'd work but it's a much larger issue than just slower relic cracking.

Really the minimum we need from DE is the option to prevent getting an old gen host which has throttled spawns or for those platforms to have crossplay disabled entirely. Just so that pub missions can return to full functionality without needing to worry if your game got downgraded or not.

 

It's also not entirely unreasonable if support was eventually dropped for weak systems. Min specs on PC have changed multiple times while the first consoles to see the game, to my understanding, released with reduced spawns meaning they couldn't run the actual game from the beginning. Paired with the growing performance problems those platforms are facing it's inevitable that something will have to be done.

[(XBOX)C11H22O11]

2 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

To the PC master race point: 

"Because people like being crappy to each other" isn't exactly an arguement, let me help you with a prompt:

Could this be because the concept of the gaming console is seen by many in the industry as being on the way out? 

Supported by the idea that the latest generation of consoles is spoken of as being the last, and already approaches dedicated PC specs and price tags?

It started as a joke from a reviewer, Ben Croshaw, apparently

"What quickly becomes obvious is that Witcher is very much a PC-exclusive game, which are typically designed to be as complex and unintuitive as possible so that those dirty console-playing peasants don't ruin it for the glorious PC-gaming master race."

"It was intended to be ironic, to illustrate what I perceived at the time to be an elitist attitude among a certain kind of PC gamer. People who invest in expensive gaming PCs and continually spend money to make sure the tech in their brightly-lit tower cases is up to date. Who actually prefer games that are temperamental to get running and that have complicated keyboard interfaces, just because it discourages new or 'casual' players who will in some way taint the entire community with their presence. I meant it as a dig."

Then later on people used as a way to insult anyone that doesn't play on PC just as there's people that say Xbot and Sony Pony, the usual garbage attitude of saying"my toy is better than yours".

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

11 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

Nobody deals completely in absolutes. 

Except you, when you made an absolute statement with no caveats or exceptions.

 

11 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

Obviously the experience has gotten noticeable enough to warrant this level of feedback by the community

You the whole community now?  

 

11 minutes ago, Kaiga said:

let me help you

Nah, I'm gonna pass, you keep that to yourself.  Your opinion on the matter is entirely irrelevant to me.

 

10 minutes ago, trst said:

To be fair a lot of responses towards "play better" was players thinking it's some crazy idea to wait for enemies to get corrupted first, something you even need to do with PC spawns. But also not many players realized how big the spawn differences were, or that there even were differences in the first place, since most players don't have experience on multiple platforms. And only now with everyone being able to experience this difference first hand is it something we can expect players to understand.

See, my natural inclination isn't just assuming people are lying.  It's also not my first response to defend the game if there's a situation I'm not a part of.  One of my biggest pet peeves anywhere is "I don't have that problem, so it doesn't exist."  That level of self-absorbed thinking is why so many things in and out of gaming are screwed up.  Players said there was an issue.  Everyone wanted to be the first to smack them down with the "git gud" mentality rather than listening.  It's not just reactant.  We've complained about spawn rates forever as well.  SP missions have higher spawn rates, even on older consoles.  It's always been possible.  They just wouldn't let us have it.  And they aren't going to listen to us while the dev defense force is in every thread telling us that we're all lying.  You're asking me to look at this from your perspective, and how could you know and all this.  Look at it from mine.  I've been getting called an unskilled liar for something that is entirely on DE's shoulders for years, and only now that it's your problem too are any of you managing to care.

Edited April 10, 2023 by (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan

[sunderthefirmament]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

There have been so many threads, including ones made by me, where people try to make the case that the reactant system is bad because it does precisely this, and it's entirely due to enemy spawn throttling and host/client connection, which we've also been complaining about forever.

And instead of any kind of solidarity, or listening to us, the only thing that happened was PC players showing up to those threads screaming "I don't have this problem so it doesn't exist."  We all got shouted down about how everything was fine, and we were just bad.  It was totally all a skill issue, because there was certainly nothing wrong with the game.  And I hope every single person that showed up to those threads to bash the OP and say that there was no problem gets nothing but Nintendo Switch and mobile hosts until the game shuts down.  Add onto that the amount of disgusting "plebs with worse systems than me shouldn't be allowed to play" elitism in this thread, and honestly, I'm glad crossplay is forcing PC to deal with the same crap we've been complaining about forever.

If they shut down support for older consoles, my alliance probably loses half its members until they pony up a large chunk of cash for a new system.  Maybe more.

I would be very much in favor of shared reactant, or just removing the system in general.

 

Beyond that, I'm obviously not enjoying crossplay much due to the worse experience with relics, the delayed fixes for bugs and glitches, and general wonkiness in matchmaking.  But a bigger issue that it has brought to light is the limited spawns on console.  Not to be disrespectful, but I now look at advice and feedback from console players differently than I do from PC players.  They're playing very different games.  Someone on console claiming that Ulfrun's Descent can keep up in the Steel Path, for instance, is likely having a very different experience with it than someone with PC spawns.  Certain things will be easier on certain platforms due to differences in enemy density.  Certain things will be harder.

 

I can only hope DE iterates on crossplay further.  A stopgap fix would be to implement shared reactant.  Later on, I'd like more hosting options.  No offense, but I don't want a console host.  Voruna's release made that painfully obvious to me.  The new (at the time) Lua Survival nodes were an absolute snoozefest whenever I wound up with a console host.  And I'm not trying to brag.  I've cleared the Steel Path.  I have as much MR as a nonfounder can.  But I don't do endurance.  I wasn't here for raids.  I just prefer when there are enemies for me to interact with, as opposed to the ghost towns that console players seem stuck with.

[-AncientWarrior-]

On 2023-04-08 at 4:47 PM, ReddyDisco said:

Times like these i'm thankful i play solo mostly

Yes me too.. DE keeps messing S#&$ up for squads like this crap cross-play, but then again DE have a bad habit of making the worse decisions possible on things like this, even though they know the outcome will be horrid.. doubling down on bad crap never makes it good :) 

[cute_moth.npc]

The console cert thing is weird to me, I guess I don't understand why bugs have to stay for so long because of it?

I played crossplay with Playstation players on Final Fantasy XIV for years and whenever the game had a bad bug they would stomp it out in days instead of months, crossplay wasn't really interfering with gameplay.

Is it something about maybe dedicated servers being able to handle users connecting with different versions instead of peer to peer, is it maybe a huge company like S.E. just being able to force the update on Playstation whenever they want or what is Warframe missing?