Is The Net Code Ever Going To Be Fixed?

[Feldgrep]

So if I'm not host, does it mean I suck that I'm taking damage?

[TehJumpingJawa]

I don't know how. Peer to peer or P2P is an incredibly common term, it's what pretty much everybody refers to Xbox Live or PSN as.

 

Not meant as an insult... but your typical xbox live or psn gamer is a teenage kid with no specialist knowledge of networking architecture. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that they misuse terminology.

 

Of course there are undoubtably peer to peer games available on the aforementioned distribution platforms, but I can say with some certainty that most shooters are server/client not peer to peer. (A consequence of all the popular shooter engines using a server/client model)

 

 

So if I'm not host, does it mean I suck that I'm taking damage?

 

No.

You'll take some damage when you run into something like a room full of grineer, simply because the number of enemies targeting you will leave so few dodge vectors capable of avoiding all their fire.

 

The difference is that if a host were to do the same they'd die almost immediately because every grineer would hit.

Edited April 29, 2013 by TehJumpingJawa

[Xtorma]

I have to admit that i did not have nearly as much trouble with ME3MP than I do with this game. I have actually given up playing with groups and strictly solo. In me3mp I played with folks from all over the globe, hosts from europe, australia, africa, even the far east and russia, and was able to play with no problem. There were some issues with projectile weapons, but not to the extent that this game has.

 

I don't know what the problem is, but there is definatly a problem here.

[Inez]

Sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

 

The popular use of 'peer-to-peer' simply means not using a central server.  It is, literally, peers connecting to one another.  I can understand why a network engineer who hasn't played a videogame for the past 15 years wouldn't know the common accepted usage.  But its still there.

 

Is the commonly accepted usage 'wrong'?  If it makes you better, then sure its wrong.  Its completely subjective anyways.

 

As far as the lag goes, Warframe is a pretty demanding game.  F2P attracts a lot of people with old computers.   This is a bad combination.  That and for some reason lots of foreigners love to play on American servers.  When you have a Brazilian with a old dual core processor hosting the game, its gonna be screwed up.  For most missions, its not a problem, when you see things teleporting around, you simply leave.  But it certainly makes alert missions grueling at times.

 

What could DE realistically do about it?  I've proposed before that DE have a 'surrender host' option, because most of the people with ancient computers, or crappy wireless connections know they shouldn't be hosting, and don't wanna ruin everyone's fun.  It would be a simple way for the host to willingly migrate the host to another person.  Aside from this, things get a lot more complicated.  Like analyzing the connection and processing power of each user in a group and attempting to make a decision on who to make host in a group.  Except this wouldn't even work most of the time, because often someone just starts a game and people join in later.  Transferring host every time someone joins in could get jarring.  So there would have to be some sort of trhreshold over which the new players pc and connection would have to be better to force a migration.

[Dat_Krawg]

i havent found this at all ive had maybe 1-2 matches with teleporting enemys but havent had any lag or host probs yet

[Aggh]

What could DE realistically do about it? I've proposed before that DE have a 'surrender host' option, because most of the people with ancient computers, or crappy wireless connections know they shouldn't be hosting, and don't wanna ruin everyone's fun. It would be a simple way for the host to willingly migrate the host to another person. Aside from this, things get a lot more complicated. Like analyzing the connection and processing power of each user in a group and attempting to make a decision on who to make host in a group. Except this wouldn't even work most of the time, because often someone just starts a game and people join in later. Transferring host every time someone joins in could get jarring. So there would have to be some sort of trhreshold over which the new players pc and connection would have to be better to force a migration.

That's where proper match making comes in. Imo they should just get rid of the matchmaking regions (they're part of the problem since people are just joining the region with the most players) and when you select a mission , it sets you up with the optimal group to play with. If all the groups that are playing would be laggy for you, it should tell you (tell you what ping you'd get and that there would be performance issues) and ask if you would prefer to play the mission solo. On the other hand, if you would be an optimal host for a group you are trying to join, it should ask the group if they'd like to switch hosts if they've already done so once before and tell what kind of performance they'd get compared to the current host.

I've never heard someone call a host/client connection setup "peer to peer", someone with even a little networking or computer science knowledge would understand immediately why that is incorrect.The current model is just too unstable. This game could really benefit from dedicated servers but obviously the money isn't there.

This just means that you haven't been talking to many gamers for the last 15 or so years. It might not be technically correct, but it's a very common useage of the term. I honestly could care less what you think about it.Duh? DE is self publishing. That's enough of a risk in and of itself even without putting money towards dedicated servers. Not to mention that they'd screw over even more people since they definitely wouldn't be able to afford to put up servers in most of the regions that people are playing from. Edited April 29, 2013 by Aggh

[Chloroment]

To me thats the biggest concerns atm... my idea would be to let people put up dedicated servers. And in that way bind that server to their username.. the server then logs on with the same login as the player just like with the client... when the client see the server logged in it will use the server as hosting instead of a listen server... ( very old concept and pretty dead as the host will have way more load as its running the server also ). This should be pretty simpel as the Client is already able to do all the Things the dedicated server needs to do.. its just basically taking the hosting ( listen server stuff ) out of the client and into a text based interface and let it run on a computer...

 

in my case---

I would use my server at a hosting center.. it could easyly Work as a host for my games. It has way stronger internet and most people would get better connection to that server than my home connection would ever be able to do. So plz Steve / the Design director .... USE my idea its awesum if you guys could give us this option..

 

also for furture use id have nightmares to see BOSS fights with more than 4 players run on a home connecton on a Listen server..... GL with that LAAAAGGGGGGGGG ;stutter , LAGGG , mobs teleporting around on your screen.... FUN ? no....

 

this could be a very easy and not costly solution for DE, and im no programmer but i do not think it would require that much codeing to make a dedicated module of the Listen server from the client.. You basically already have most of the code.

 

Well thats my suggestion and what i think would help this game even more than MORE new weapons and warframes... as the OP stated it gets pretty boring to lvl up new warframes and weapons, only new thing is 4 abilities of the warframe and nothing else.. and most of em is pretty similar anyway so yeah...

 

my English is crap I know but im pretty sure most can understand why and what im trying to suggest.

 

I rest my case hope this will be taken into consinderation

 

  Chloroment

[Soulfighter]

Wow, only one reply to what is essentially the most important problem with warframe's gameplay at the moment.

Are people oblivious to this issue, or did I so completely cover the topic that nobody else has anything further to add?!?

 

or maybe we just have good connections and aren't experiencing that.

 

i'm playing with friends, sometime i host sometime i don't and none of us experience that. It only happens when i join online game and the host has a really really crappy connection.

[XRacKS]

the should be a regional choice like in dota 2...

central europe / russia / north america / southamerica / asia (you can checkmark the regions you wanna play with)

For example ger - rus connection just s***s... end of discussion...

The game should do a connection/speedtest and give you a rating (ofcourse in the background).

If you want to play a mission in a rnd group the one with the highest ranking is gonna be hosting the mission.

[Mietz]

the should be a regional choice like in dota 2...

central europe / russia / north america / southamerica / asia (you can checkmark the regions you wanna play with)

For example ger - rus connection just s***s... end of discussion...

The game should do a connection/speedtest and give you a rating (ofcourse in the background).

If you want to play a mission in a rnd group the one with the highest ranking is gonna be hosting the mission.

 

You can already select the region you want to play in.

 

[NotaCobra]

There is a lot of quibble and nonsense in this thread.

People acting like they know more than they do.

 

OP; unfortunately, this isn't some magical problem caused because the dev's missed a step with the programming, It's lag with bad hosts.

Your experiences may be bad, but that doesn't mean the games multiplayer is bad, it means your experiences are bad.

 

What I think needs to happen is some static, geographically diverse, server locations where DE can host the game on player's behalf. Unfortunately, I don't think they have the money nor infrastructure for this.

[Inez]

Mietz, on 08 May 2013 - 05:19 AM, said:

You can already select the region you want to play in.

The region is for gameplay or for chat or both?

I've played with Russians and Brazilians before, I thought the region select was just for chat.

[Eurhetemec]

There is a lot of quibble and nonsense in this thread.

People acting like they know more than they do.

 

OP; unfortunately, this isn't some magical problem caused because the dev's missed a step with the programming, It's lag with bad hosts.

Your experiences may be bad, but that doesn't mean the games multiplayer is bad, it means your experiences are bad.

 

What I think needs to happen is some static, geographically diverse, server locations where DE can host the game on player's behalf. Unfortunately, I don't think they have the money nor infrastructure for this.

 

To make this assertion, you need evidence, otherwise you are essentially blowing hot air.

 

Particularly as all the evidence points to the issue being netcode design choices being exacerbated by bad hosting, not just bad hosting by itself.

To put it in very very simple terms, there are ways to code around bad hosting and poor connections, and you can choose to favour certain parties when making determinations about what happens in the game. That is ultra-simplification, because you could write a book on that, easily.

 

Currently the choices that DE have made in designing the netcode (CHOICES, not errors) lead to a fairly common situation where off-host players have difficulty registering hits on enemies and enemies have difficulty registering hits on off-host players. This is due to the way that DE have chosen to design the netcode. They could, for example, have gone the opposite way - which would also lead to a lot of complaining about people being killed by enemies who didn't appear to be next to them and so on, people appearing to shoot around corners, and so on.

 

So the OP is right to mention the netcode.

 

Your suggested solution would not eliminate the issues, merely mitigate them, as better hosting makes them less obvious (for hopefully obvious reasons). Only changing the code design would eliminate them, though possibly at the cost of other issues. As you say, though, your solution is impractical.

 

A practical improvement would be making it clear where the host is in the world, and allowing people to choose to host or just join (as one can with most coop MP games), so people with poor computers/connections could avoid being the host. Combine that with some adjustments to the netcode and we could see a significant improved experience.

[Mietz]

The region is for gameplay or for chat or both?

I've played with Russians and Brazilians before, I thought the region select was just for chat.

 

Its filed under "Gameplay" in the options so I assume this is a region select for playing the game, not chat (that wouldn't make any sense whatsoever).

 

There is also nothing stopping a Russian or Brazilian selecting EU if they want to play with friends or just more players depending on timezone.

 

I work late evening so I switch to US at night to find more people to play with since US goes into primetime around 2-3am local, my connection can handle it.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Mietz

[Vanadio]

Yes, matchmaking would improve things.

 

1) Make it possible to decide: host/join

2) At match creation, the node hosting should qualify as good or bad for a particular region (brief upload/latency test towards a fixed node in each region, subregion)

2) Make latency and quality to host visible, so that clients can choose.

 

All of this crap would be avoided if they would run dedicated server with good enough network and computing power (but this free is a dream).

[Chloroment]

Yes, matchmaking would improve things.

 

1) Make it possible to decide: host/join

2) At match creation, the node hosting should qualify as good or bad for a particular region (brief upload/latency test towards a fixed node in each region, subregion)

2) Make latency and quality to host visible, so that clients can choose.

 

All of this crap would be avoided if they would run dedicated server with good enough network and computing power (but this free is a dream).

not if people put up dedicated servers themselves... there is ton of people today in diffrent countries that have access to optical fiber.. and in such way could put up a dedicated server when they host.. i for one would do it free of charge just to get more stable gameplay and no lag on my own game when hosting a game.

[Jalal76]

Waiting on some update on this one as well. I have to play on EU West servers even though I'm in Pakistan, because playing there still got me good speeds once upon a time. Aus servers lagged so much as to make the game unplayable. I used to have the ultralaggy game or two every now and then but nothing game breaking.

Recently though I've noticed that the game is frequently laggy. Enemies and players slingshot up and down the map regularly, I end up aiming and shooting at enemies that are already dead, cant pick up energy or mods etc. It wasnt this bad as recently as a week or so. But now, its gotten really bad. What happened? 

[psyanide]

I REALLY hope they release a dedicated server option. I would, post haste, set up a dedi at my workplace (we're an ISP so whoop whoop!) for the group of people I play with. It might alleviate the sporadic issues we have.

 

Granted, we live in southern Africa, (but not South Africa, which will ALWAYS have better interwebzz than us surrounding plebs...) so a linespeed of over 2mbps cannot even be bought by the general public. I pay about the equivalent of 150 Euros a month for my 1mbps down 256k up. My buddy has a 2mbps down and 512k up and we usually get him to host, but his machine is crap, which may explain why the levels start out OK but we run into issues when the heavy fighting starts. Or perhaps a 512kbps upload is not sufficient. Either way, a dedi server option would likely help resolve stability issues for those of us strong in will but lacking in means.

 

Also, I wanted to ask - if a group is set up on a LAN that has a working net connection and someone local hosts a session, do the clients communicate over the LAN or does the traffic still go out via the ISP and then loop back? Reason I ask is because we had a LAN set up one night and decided to play WarFrame. Much to our surprise, everyone experienced a definite lack of the usual high(ish) latency and instability that usually plagues us when playing this particualr game online (despite living not more than 60km from each other and all using the same ISP). Stupid me, I didn't think use a third party tool at the time to just check the traffic route myself. Lack of any in-game option to monitor latency has left me wondering.     

Edited May 10, 2013 by psyanide

[Vanadio]

The only wonder of these "no external dedicaded host" games is that they communicate each other directly (each client to the host and the host to each other). In a LAN scenario, where you share a private network NAT overloaded, the router that manage the NAT itself will address the traffic internally. Of course (but I do not know the details obviously) each client (or maybe only the host once it receives info from the clients) has still to send status update (kill exp, loots) to the DE servers, but it's only part of the traffic, hence the improvement,

 

DISCLAIMER: all the stuff above is result of an IT architect fantasy.

[bitlard]

The devs did mention that they're working on the netcode during the livestream.

[Mietz]

There will never be dedicated servers for WF, it would be a security nightmare.

[EV15ER8R]

as much as you guys are complaining you have to realise this is still beta and there is still plenty of time to work on the net code so just sit back and relax and it will be fixed when they get to it

[Llodraw]

I already posted this video in a topic of my own, related to hit detection. But you can certainly still get hit, even if you're not the host, in a laggy game, behind cover. You just get the hit markers and damage dealt much later than you expect.

 

In this video, at first, I think the hit indicator is bugging out or something, and try to take out one of the turrets behind me. A few moments later, when I stand in a doorway and start getting hit, I duck behind cover. But for about 4 seconds after I get behind the wall, I keep taking damage.

 

 

So, a word of advice: Play as if you're not lagging. Especially when considering ducking behind cover. Later in the mission, I ended up dying due to something similar to this happening with a Shockwave Moa. You're going to take damage for as long as you expose yourself.

[Tazmanyak]

Yes, matchmaking would improve things.

 

1) Make it possible to decide: host/join

2) At match creation, the node hosting should qualify as good or bad for a particular region (brief upload/latency test towards a fixed node in each region, subregion)

2) Make latency and quality to host visible, so that clients can choose.

 

All of this crap would be avoided if they would run dedicated server with good enough network and computing power (but this free is a dream).

i cant agree more on this :)

there could also be some kind of "advanced network tool" that could tag a client computer as a good host. if the host has slow machine/net, the host is automatically migrated to trusted hoster. but they have to fix the host migration issues before doing things like that :D

another option, DE could release a standalone hosting server, users could install on a dedicated.

[Aggh]

I REALLY hope they release a dedicated server option. I would, post haste, set up a dedi at my workplace (we're an ISP so whoop whoop!) for the group of people I play with. It might alleviate the sporadic issues we have.

 

Granted, we live in southern Africa, (but not South Africa, which will ALWAYS have better interwebzz than us surrounding plebs...) so a linespeed of over 2mbps cannot even be bought by the general public. I pay about the equivalent of 150 Euros a month for my 1mbps down 256k up. My buddy has a 2mbps down and 512k up and we usually get him to host, but his machine is crap, which may explain why the levels start out OK but we run into issues when the heavy fighting starts. Or perhaps a 512kbps upload is not sufficient. Either way, a dedi server option would likely help resolve stability issues for those of us strong in will but lacking in means.

 

Also, I wanted to ask - if a group is set up on a LAN that has a working net connection and someone local hosts a session, do the clients communicate over the LAN or does the traffic still go out via the ISP and then loop back? Reason I ask is because we had a LAN set up one night and decided to play WarFrame. Much to our surprise, everyone experienced a definite lack of the usual high(ish) latency and instability that usually plagues us when playing this particualr game online (despite living not more than 60km from each other and all using the same ISP). Stupid me, I didn't think use a third party tool at the time to just check the traffic route myself. Lack of any in-game option to monitor latency has left me wondering.     

The DE FAQs on their support site suggest a 2mbit upload.  The most I've seen the game use is ~125k kb/s so I'd assume a 1-2 mbit upload speed would be best; don't think a dedi server would fix much if it's not on a good enough connection to properly host.

 

 

as much as you guys are complaining you have to realise this is still beta and there is still plenty of time to work on the net code so just sit back and relax and it will be fixed when they get to it

Netcode is something that is so basic to a game's functionality and takes a lot of time to perfect.  It's something that needs to be mostly problem free by the time a game hits beta :|

Edited May 17, 2013 by Aggh