PvP: The tyranny of distance

In some games, lag has a 'rubber band' effect. In SotA lag seems to visually manifest itself with more of a 'move in a frozen state' effect.

Lag can be allowed for, to some degree, when programming for PvE - but not so easily for PvP.

In PvP, relative timing is critical. In real time. The 'padding' that is programmed-in, to allow for lag, in PvE, cannot be there.

Most players in Australia ping nearby regional servers at less than 10ms and servers in California typically at around 250ms. Texas is further away still.

Playing WOW Battlegrounds, for example, meant that if you were playing from Australia, you constantly had a 250ms disadvantage.

UO eventually added the Oceania server, which negated the lag problem nicely, in the Pacific region. In SotA, this will not happen because there is just one server.

Will SotA's server-player model 'help' with the lag problem experienced far from the US or does it present a whole new can of worms?

Has much forethought gone into grouping players geographically? I suspect it has, which is great because the lag problem, for 'distant' players in PvP, is something that needs to be acknowledged, right from the get-go.

 

The meta server is the answer to this.

 

I've always felt that PVP was poorly designed in almost all online games because the basic design puts so much reliance on timing. I can think of many ways to design around this (turn based, semi-turn based, long casting times...) but the average player has come to believe and expect that when they push a button it should instantly show up on their screen as an attack.

If I had things my way, this would change and I think the overall competitive balance of PVP would be much better.

 

The problem is that people like the twitchy playstyle. WoW simulates turned based play using global cooldowns and sticky targeting. This makes games feel less fluid and skillful and seems weird given the power of a modern gaming rig.

In my case it's not usually a ping problem, it's a bandwidth problem. Lots of people, lots of AoE, collisions, etc. just overload everything.

But I know people get frustrated playing on Korea / China servers. I know people use utilities like smoothping.

I'd be perfectly happy to see individual hexes hosted on regional servers. Perhaps if a Korean guild captures a castle, it gets hosted locally instead of in Austin or whatever.

 

Thanks Ristra. I'm not really up on Meta Servers?

Please explain a bit more?

Will SotA definitely be using one?

I've never really read anything about SotA's server type/configuration on these Forums? Or the server's location? I'm guessing that it is in Austin, Texas?

There is also very little info on Google.

I hope one of the Devs will give us an overview of how Portalarium is planning to tackle lag? In PvP particularly.

Can you tell us any more?

 

SotA is one large server. Not shards like UO. The meta server sorts the players together based on some unknown filter. (we have some info but not enough to detail anything out)

Basically, if there are 1,000 players and we all go into the same hex the meta server sorts us into instances of that hex. If there are 1,000,000 players and we all go into the same hex we have the same things only a heck of a lot more instances.

Localization is part of that sorting.

 

How lag are experienced are often related to the combat experience. SotA will not have a fast twitch based combat and therefore will the effect of lag be somewhat less than a fast paced combat.

 

I played a lot of Australians in the UFC Undisputed games. In fact my fight camp leader was Australian. Whatever mechanism they used seemed to eliminate lag for the most part. Although the pace of an online fight is always timed just a bit slower than career mode, or offline matches against the computer. I'm not sure how being logged into the playstation network played a roll in that, maybe it was a go between???

The only times I experienced lag was when I was playing over a wifi connection in an apartment building with 14 strong wifi signals to compete with. That was a bit of a problem. Switched to a wired connection and the latency went away.

There were certain individuals that seemed to have a more laggy connection, but I don't think it had anything as much do to distance.

***however since it was a two player game they could synchronize the session so that both people felt like equal lag, and while SotA could do this in mulitplayer it might be a little different since there are so many players.**** that's a question for Chris.

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Anyway SotA is a different game than UO. We won't be logging into a single server. The actual instances will be on people's computers. We will still be communicating through portalarium servers while somebody's computer hosts the session. I don't know what that means. Will it be better than logging into a UO shard located in the mid USA from Australia. Seems like there is a lot of hope for that.

 

Thanks Isaiah, for your thoughtful answer.

I'm stabbing in the dark as I wonder whether lag might be 'reversed', depending on which end takes the initiative?

For example, If I initiate an instance, which is a PvP instance, regardless of whether it is a hex or a basement arena, will I always be 250ms 'ahead' (read advantage) of anybody who then enters that instance and who is distantly located?

Conversely, If I enter an instance initiated in the US, will I experience a 250ms delay before I can see what has just happened?

In PvP, this could add up to something somewhat significant. You can imagine how some PKs could exploit this small advantage. Some games have a 'lag meter' that hovers between green, amber and red.

Anecdotally, I wonder about some curiosities with this server model.

For example: my game-buddy, who lives very close by, mouse-clicked to enter the Ravensmoor crypt just a few seconds before I clicked. We then proceeded to be in different instances and I had to /zone to him. So, for us to enter the same instance of the crypt, I think I needed to let him totally enter first?

During R5-R7, say someone in ICQ Chat mentions that Lord British and Starr are in the Tavern, and I go there, they are there. I see them and I can chat with them.

6, 000-8,000 backers log in during the R weekends. That's at least, say, 1,000 players at any one time. What happens if they all go to the Tavern at the same time, to see LB?

If 1, 000 players are logged in, how many instances of OH are there?

I wonder, with the small number of staff at Portalarium, whether they are able to do any 'distance testing' to Europe, Asia, Australia etc. I would be willing to help out with this, if there was something I could do to perhaps assist with some in-game measurements.

 

OK, computer illiterate here....

"What if the player's computer that is handling the instance sux?"

~Time Lord~

 

Another question for Chris. So far I haven't seen much of a problem. I've always had a good and rather lag free experience in the game.

However I wouldn't worry too much since computers on average are far more powerful than they were in the days of UO. You do realize a Galaxy S5 phone has far more ram and more powerful processor than the desktops back in 1997-1998 when they developed UO.

Also the type of information that is being sent back and forth between the host and the other players will likely be basic control information. Locations, special actions, etc. It's not going to be transmitting all the intensive graphics and stuff. It's just some bytes of info to let all players know the location of every other player, who's alive, whos dead, who cast what spell. Probably just stuff like that.

Otherwise our internet connection would have to be really fast too. I'm thinking this server portion of the game isn't going to be very resource intensive. I wouldn't worry about it. If you really want to know specifics you can try to ask chris when there is a dev chat. I really don't think this is an issue to bother worrying about.

 

Interesting post. I hope there is a way to measure lag?

 

A new game that just started Open Beta that I won't name out of respect for this game has an interesting system.

Movement is not important as there is no directional attacks or bonuses for being behind. You automatically turn to face the enemy so there's no LOS dodging behind someone. It essentially becomes two characters standing toe to toe (even ranged) and choosing what skills to use until one person dies. There are pushes and stuns that allow you some opportunity, but it is a formal exchange of wits as you figure out what of the 50 skills you should use next against said opponent. It doesn't sound exciting, but it actually is pretty fun.

I'm not saying that this is what I want SotA pvp to be, but it's a method used in a current game to combat the twitchyness of most mmo pvp

 

One of the intents of the card-based combat system is to add some element of this to the game by making the selection of the most appropriate action for the moment, among the (randomly) available ones, as important as timing, thus reducing the influence ping has on the result of combat.