Warframe surpassed CS:GO and became the Most Profitable F2P game on Steam, this is the time to talk about Dedicated Servers

[Ersedu]

No not happening 

 

if you don’t want to play with phones simply turn off crossplay 

[CrownOfShadows]

4 hours ago, SDGDen said:

alright so.

number 1: there's no reason for DE to do this, considering they don't stand to gain anything from it. 

number 2: there are some major issues with dedicated server implementations.

 

when working with peer-to-peer, as you said, a poor host can mean a poor experience, HOWEVER, the great thing about peer-to-peer is that in most scenario's, there will be a host physically close to you, this means your latency wont be that high and as long as the host has a decent machine your experience will be great too. 

switching to dedicated hosting will make that good experience more consistently available to those with decent latency to the dedicated servers, however, to get good latency for *everyone* that plays the game, you'd need to place *a lot* of servers all around the world.

most dedicated hosting games actually ditch a decent chunk of the world, focussing only on europe, the USA and MAYBE asia. usually users in african countries end up with latency of 1 second or higher.

currently, those players simply play with eachother, with relatively low latency. forcing them into using dedicated hosting would permanently ruin the game for them.

switching to dedicated hosting will also mean that at the games EOL, it'll be more difficult to cut the game loose from DE's servers. AFAIK steve has said in the past that should DE go under, they'll ensure the playerbase can continue playing warframe through self-hosting things like the account server (which is what DE currently runs)

 

there's other implementations that would actually work a lot better. one big thing DE could do is to add matchmaking options for "public - host only" and "public - client only", as well as allow players to opt-out of hosting through settings (imho players that have consistently poor performance should be automatically opted out of hosting public missions)

there's also the option of a hybrid setup, similar to what destiny 2 uses. 

destiny 2 avoids host migrations by splitting the tasks between a peer2peer system and a dedicated system. they actually have three: mission host, bubble host and physics host.

mission and bubble host are two sides of the same coin, they're hosted on a bungie server. mission host for missions, bubble host for openworlds and social spaces

the physics host meanwhile is a player.

the mission/bubble host only handles some higher-level stuff, for example scoreboards, checkpoints, who's in the mission, etc. it usually runs at around 5 ticks per second (which is quite low) and doesnt handle ANYTHING super time sensitive. it knows aproximately where players and enemies are but that's about it.

the physics host knows the exact location of every player, every enemy, what they're doing, what buffs and debuffs they have etcetera.

every player actually does their own physics and AI simulation, and checks back with the physics host to see if there are any differences, if there are, the physics host is considered authoritative (meaning their version is considered the "true" one.) with one exception: every player is authoritative over their own movement (this is to prevent rubberbanding) 

because every player is running the whole physics and AI simulation, the only thing that needs to happen for a host migration in destiny 2 is for the mission or bubble host to assign a new physics host, from then on that player's simulation is considered "authoritative". 

this makes it *a lot* easier to swap hosts, and because the mission/bubble hosts are not time-sensitive (it's fine if it takes a second for the scoreboard, checkpoint or mission objective to update) latency to bungie servers isn't a big deal within this setup.

 

such a hybrid setup would be a much better solution for warframe than a fully dedicated setup imho. 

 

 

Hmm I didn't know this, very interesting and quite a smart setup

[UnstarPrime]

17 hours ago, Roble_Viejo said:

18 hours ago, Joezone619 said:

Nice as they would be, we didn't need em to get here, we don't need em now.

Its not "nice", is necessary

You're being dishonest.  That doesn't help you prove your point; in fact, it's does the opposite.  How much time would you be willing to devote to hearing someone out when they're not honestly engaging with reality?

If you have a worthwhile point to make, then be honest about every aspect of it, both its strengths and its weaknesses.

[Kaiga]

The bigger issue here isn't the lack of dedicated servers, but the fact that increasingly old hardware/platforms are holding back the performance of the mainline game, delaying hotfixes and needlessly gimping spawns if you're unlucky enough to have your host be a handheld gaming device from 6 years ago.

This is the downside, because you're sacrificing the overall consistency of your game to the altar of crossplay trendiness and a more integrated audience before all the technical hurdles have been cleared.
 

Prioritizing PC hosts until said hurdles are fixed, and adding an option to host would probably help.

Edited February 12 by Kaiga

[UnstarPrime]

9 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Monster Hunter has historically used Peer-to-Peer servers for around 10 years now, with the last game to use Servers being Monster Hunter 3.

I had no idea!  Assuming this is true, this really wrecks the idea that peer-to-peer is responsible for Warframe's woes.  I've put hundreds of hours into nearly every Monster Hunter game since the very first, and I have no memory of any issues like the ones we experience in Warframe.  That would strongly suggest that the cause lies elsewhere.

[trst]

I don't know why players think mobile is going to have some awful connections. Aside from someone turning the app off (literally no different from someone turning off their Switch/Laptop/Console or just closing the game currently) there's nothing that'd inherently make mobile any worse. I also doubt many players are going to be trying to play mobile on anything other than WiFi outside of incredibly short missions as who's going to be wanting to waste data in 30m-1h+ missions?

The phones that support the game have better hardware than the Switch, most players already play on WiFi connections, and phones are designed around planned obsolescence more than consoles are (meaning they can drop support faster than DE can drop Switch support). And if Switch players didn't cause massive issues before I don't see how mobile is going to somehow be worse than that.

Consoles and poor ISP quality are the bottlenecks here. Mobile ain't going to add anything that isn't already an issue on all other platforms.

Edited February 12 by trst

[Hobie-wan]

If only there were some sort of search to see previous conversations. Including one just in the last week or two.

[Hexerin]

The mixture of mental gymnastics, gaslighting, and industry conditioning on display in the responses to this thread is truly a sight to behold.

[Nekomian]

1 hour ago, trst said:

I don't know why players think mobile is going to have some awful connections. Aside from someone turning the app off (literally no different from someone turning off their Switch/Laptop/Console or just closing the game currently) there's nothing that'd inherently make mobile any worse.

Most mobile carriers use CG-NAT, and it causes a ton of networking problems in P2P / with UDP tunneling. Most modern phones are more performant than the switch at this point so I don't think the concern lies there, but more with players insisting on using spotty / inconsistent cell data to host (since Wi-Fi would be no different from existing devices). Granted, people can already do that with 5G home internet and/or mobile hotspots, but the barrier to entry becomes a lot easier when the phone itself isn't tethered to anything and can just natively run and use data anywhere.

Would I personally want to play this game while walking down the street or in a subway or whatever? Not at all, but I'm sure someone will solely because they can, and a mobile port will make this extremely easy to do. If it will actually be a significant enough amount of players to cause problems / be an issue I can't say, but I can at least see why there's some concern surrounding it since there's been no announcement on how the mobile ports will handle sessions in regards to hosting, and DE already kinda has a bad implementation of picking hosts (just using average RTT latency for a few seconds).

[DrBorris]

On 2024-02-12 at 6:05 PM, Hexerin said:

The mixture of mental gymnastics, gaslighting, and industry conditioning on display in the responses to this thread is truly a sight to behold.

It is indeed astounding how confidently people will stick their fingers in their ears.

[trst]

On 2024-02-12 at 6:30 PM, Naroxas44 said:

Most mobile carriers use CG-NAT, and it causes a ton of networking problems in P2P / with UDP tunneling. Most modern phones are more performant than the switch at this point so I don't think the concern lies there, but more with players insisting on using spotty / inconsistent cell data to host (since Wi-Fi would be no different from existing devices). Granted, people can already do that with 5G home internet and/or mobile hotspots, but the barrier to entry becomes a lot easier when the phone itself isn't tethered to anything and can just natively run and use data anywhere.

Would I personally want to play this game while walking down the street or in a subway or whatever? Not at all, but I'm sure someone will solely because they can, and a mobile port will make this extremely easy to do. If it will actually be a significant enough amount of players to cause problems / be an issue I can't say, but I can at least see why there's some concern surrounding it since there's been no announcement on how the mobile ports will handle sessions in regards to hosting, and DE already kinda has a bad implementation of picking hosts (just using average RTT latency for a few seconds).

But again how many players are going to intentionally load into any mission that takes longer than five minutes while on data? Especially with how players already are over failed migrations and the like I can't see how players would be willing to play in a situation where they might have to just drop out of the mission at a moment's notice. And even if it did cause problems it's just going to push players away from mobile and/or trying to avoid hosting via mobile just to avoid losing rewards.

All in all it just seems like players are primitively viewing mobile as some horrific addition when the issues it can introduce are ones we've already had for years. But unlike current issues of players being "stuck" on outdated hardware the issues mobile can have ought to be avoidable.

[nerfinator6]

should just make it so switch/mobile players cannot act as a host unless every other person in the squad is on a switch/mobile.

[Vaml77]

On 2024-02-11 at 7:58 PM, Roble_Viejo said:

I wrote a lengthy Post detailing how the Peer-to-Peer system works (EE.log, Host's FPS limiting other
Players Log Rate, which can lower your DMG if you play Mesa for example) and why is becoming
unsustainable because of Cross Save and Cross Play but ended up deleting it, Im gonna make it simple

All you need to know is this:
- Warframe doesn't have Servers, the "Server" is the Host's PC
This is single-handedly the reason why Host Migration exists.
- Warframe now has Cross Save and Cross Play, meaning the
"server" you are playing in is a PC, a Console or even a Switch.
- Warframe is also launching on Mobiles this year, meaning the
session you're playing in might be hosted in a Phone over wi-fi.
- Everything in Warframe, down to your DPS when playing Mesa
for example, is based on this system. If the Host has low FPS or
a laggy internet the whole Squad will be negatively affected.

If you think Host Migration is a core issue that should be addressed, the time to voice your concerns
and suggestions is now, because once Warframe launches on Mobile this problem will get much worse

Im posting this now at the start of 2024, because Warframe has now broken record profits, which
means the money to stablish Dedicated Servers and fix all of these core problems is right there

As always I wanna clarify I LOVE Warframe, I think it's the best F2P Game EVER and I will always praise DE and how they handle its development, that's
exactly why I wish to see these core issues that have been a problem for over a decade now get addressed, so we can have 10 more years of Warframe

Thanks for reading and have a nice day Tenno 🙏

I think it's funny to write something about a subject that involves investments and at the same time you don't even know about DE's finances. You write as if they are swimming in money. Do you happen to work in the financial part of DE? Explain it to us...if you can! haha ha

[SneakyErvin]

On 2024-02-12 at 9:59 PM, UnstarPrime said:

I had no idea!  Assuming this is true, this really wrecks the idea that peer-to-peer is responsible for Warframe's woes.  I've put hundreds of hours into nearly every Monster Hunter game since the very first, and I have no memory of any issues like the ones we experience in Warframe.  That would strongly suggest that the cause lies elsewhere.

It likely depends on the peer-to-peer setup and how the back end of your progress is saved. Warframe uses something called listen servers, which is a type of peer-to-peer, but with issues such as host migrations specifically tied to that type iirc. And everything is saved on their end aswell when it comes to progress. So it's bound to have other fail states than a peer-to-peer game where progress is saved locally. Not sure how it works in MH, if it's local or data-center based "account" saves and updates.

It's like in Valheim, where I can play with my friend in peer-to-peer. If something happens and I get dropped while he's hosting, all personal progress (skills, equipped items etc.) are intact and up to date for me if I jump into his game again, or if I jump into one of my own. That is because everything is constantly saved to the cloud, or locally depending on the setting. WF seems to only really access the account on mission start and then update as you exit, with minimal tracking and contact with the server during mission. Things like number of relics cracked does track, but things like items obtained from them does not. Since if you get dropped and recieve the relics rewards, it will always be the reward that was rolled in your own relic, never the ones from other players if you picked one.

That said. While dedicated servers would be a nice improvement, given the very optional co-op nature of WF it isnt needed, since solo play doesnt need it and everything can be soloed. However, if DE decides to add forced group content, then yeah, they should really consider dedicated servers, atleast for that specific content. Otherwise they may aswell not bother with forced group content, since it will just be a horrible mess with the current peer-to-peer system.

edit: Or they should atleast add hybrid peer-to-peer like Destiny 2, where a server kicks in during host migrations in order to allow a transition to be made with barely any impact at all.

Edited February 14 by SneakyErvin

[OniDax]

On 2024-02-12 at 2:16 AM, Aerikx said:

I'll just say what I always say when dedicated servers comes up as a topic...

When a company gets dedicated servers, prepare to pay:

A. A Monthly Sub

B. A Monthly Battle pass

C. Some kind of Premium Access Feature

Dedicated Servers are insanely expensive, and for a game like Warframe they'd need to have a static/reliable budget to keep them running.

The problem with Warframe being Free to Play and THE sole fairest Freemium games on the market is that it's profits are a rollercoaster. The amount of guaranteed revenue they bank on for development is far lower than subscription games. 

The community loves throwing a fit over stuff like the Heirloom Collections, paid story skips, and etc. And while I wasn't a fan of the ideas, I 100% understood the thinking.

(Tip: You don't have to agree or like something to understand it. Also, understanding something doesn't mean you are aligned/okay with it.)

1. DE is looking for other avenues to increase profits to account for their bad months.

2. DE is looking for ways to get people into the game and into advertised content faster so they become dedicated and spend money. 

Therefore, if DE were to purchase or rent the ungodly amount of servers a cross platform game like Warframe would need...

Expect to see Nightwave gets a "Paid"/"Premium" tier reward list, and/or some kind of "Zariman's Elite" subscription that gives all boosters, monthly or weekly plat, and exclusive rewards to those willing to pay monthly for it. 

Saw this very thing happen with Elder Scrolls Online, Phantasy Star, and other games...

Remember, DE is owned by Tencent. Dedicated Servers is just the excuse Tencent would need to squeeze money out of Warframe players.

Or they could sell more $140 content packs or they could sell more exclusive cosmetics within $50 content packs.

Let's not forget DE tried selling $1000 content packs for their alpha- and beta-state Amazing Eternals. I can purchase a Battle Pass in a game like MWIII for $30.00 or use the in-game COD points I've already purchased to acquire it; meanwhile, Prime Access can only be purchased with real currency. DE doesn't need Tencent to make them add something like a paid Battle Pass every few months when DE releases Prime Access every few months ranging from $50.00 to $140.00, padded with premium currency to hike up the arbitrary value of the pack. And since I know you'll bring up the "it's available for free" argument, the point is, DE already sells content that can only be purchased with real money. If they needed to try to bring in more money, they'd do it without Tencent forcing them to. And the easiest way to do that would be to start offering more Prime Accessories-like packs that can only be acquired with real currency.

Now, I've always wanted DE to have a permanent Prime Access page up with all the previous Prime Access Accessories packs. It must be more profitable, though, to have the rotating Prime Resurgence system (otherwise, they'd just have a permanent Prime Access store where you can purchase the previous Prime Access packs without going through the Aya system). Again, the point is, DE has levers they can pull if they need to get more money without them turning the game into a subscription service or adding an actual paid Battle Pass system (which DE hasn't been very successful at doing for free, let alone charging for it).

[Nekomian]

6 hours ago, trst said:

But again how many players are going to intentionally load into any mission that takes longer than five minutes while on data? Especially with how players already are over failed migrations and the like I can't see how players would be willing to play in a situation where they might have to just drop out of the mission at a moment's notice. And even if it did cause problems it's just going to push players away from mobile and/or trying to avoid hosting via mobile just to avoid losing rewards.

I think you're looking at this from the perspective of the mobile player, when it affects everyone. Idk about everyone else, but when I was a teen I would wait an hour for things to load sometimes, on my horrible one core 1.6Ghz PC with terrible 802.11g wifi that would cut out every 2 mins. Even if it was a barely functional experience, I still wanted to try it because that was all I had at the time.

I can totally see a ton of players with phones just downloading free game to play wherever or just to try it, and now every time they host it can cause the whole session to break, affecting more than just their experience. Host is on slow / inconsistent cell data and suddenly 3 clients are taking 5 mins to all connect to them at once? Now all 3 people have to force close their game or wait until it times out or finishes loading.

Assuming this is cross-platform (I haven't seen anything confirming it is or isn't, so this assumes it is since all other systems are), it affects players regardless of their device just due to how it's set up. Again, assuming it works and functions like all other devices, mobile users also would not be able to avoid hosting - it will auto create a session for them when one is not available. The mobile player will be able to play just fine (loads for host / game assets are on-device, with very little data needed other than like, account sync and some communication with the matchmaker to keep the session open) but now have the potential to cause constant issues with a spotty connection (i.e. people constantly attempting to join them, joining, being kicked due to timeout, repeat with like 20+ clients).

This already happens (sometimes plains sessions bug out and I've seen 100+ people instantly join and disconnect), but now the potential for it is a lot higher given the barrier for entry is just own a phone and have it with you, which most people constantly do. Like, yeah this is a rather worst-case scenario, but there hasn't been any additional info or anything said about the iOS release that leads me to believe it won't be just that. Unless they're putting some limitation in place for iOS hosting or implementing some new migration fallback (or even limiting iOS devices to their own ecosystem), I can definitely see why people would be worried or concerned; they don't want every single mission they try to join to now be loading for 2 mins, "Failed to Join Session" for like 50% of the joins, or random disconnects and failed host migrations in the middle of a mission due to someone's cell service (which is load balanced a lot differently than home internet and absolutely can suddenly deprioritize your traffic - I get random 10s dropouts even on UW 5G on an iPhone 12 due to this).

1 hour ago, SneakyErvin said:

edit: Or they should atleast add hybrid peer-to-peer like Destiny 2, where a server kicks in during host migrations in order to allow a transition to be made with barely any impact at all.

I'd love them to do something like this, or even just better migration handling / graceful degradation. No other game suddenly pauses you, reloads the entire mission and assets, and disables all your buffs, sometimes breaking the mission or failing to even migrate. It's understandable that worst-case scenarios of migration failure won't happen super frequently, but they still need to be able to handle them in the event that they do occur.

[Aruquae]

Don’t you think they would’ve implanted this feature if there wasn’t so many drawbacks?