ShinMaruku
Member
Some F2P games flop regardless of being free. It has to be free and accessible, fighting games have a way to go with communicating to people who don't have the fighting game vocabulary.
Fighting Games Weekly | Jan 19-25 | As Seen On WSHH
- Thread starter enzo_gt
- Start date
Some F2P games flop regardless of being free. It has to be free and accessible, fighting games have a way to go with communicating to people who don't have the fighting game vocabulary.
commanderpepper
Member
MiniBossBattle
Member
I stay at home so all I want is less dead air on stream. I don't think I would watch more if it was a four day event either. Super frustrating to steal sometime while at home only to sit through mostly quiet ads.
An awesome match.
hitsugi
Member
Karsticles
Member
Did we ever get numbers on KI's revenue?
I want the numbers to give publishers the interest to continually support fighting games. I want continual DLC updates and balance patches.
Nope. Supposedly doing good enough for a Season 3! And that PC port is all but confirmed at this point.
Is this a thing now? Games besides the CoDs and GTAs putting out revenue numbers?
Karsticles
Member
Microsoft is often cool with losing money in the short term, though.
A lot of games get sales numbers announced. KI can't do that, so I was hoping we got something else.
SloaneRisette
Member
I would definitely be interested in picking up a PC version
Karsticles
Member
It would harm next-gen fight stick sales. Interesting situation.
That's what I meant about integrating the meta and community part. There are definitely improvements to be made in teaching tools, but ultimately there are limits to what the game creators can teach. It's more often the case that they learn about their games from the players that take them to the limit. I think making the meta and community more accessible (curation of guides, videos, and tournaments) would help there, and would probably motivate more people to explore the depth of the games if they are shown and teased of what's possible.
KidA Seven
Member
Gods Garden didn't really die until after AE. Remember they threw that event when Daigo used Yun. Tokido and Mago split with KSK before that though.
I can't remember when KSK's arcade closed down.
I wonder why japan soft banned o. Sagat but not claw...
ShinMaruku
Member
I think we have the numbers for that for most of the keystone games. (Forget SNK they have no idea) could be some better numbers but they have to find people who can help them make the games more fun to learn than what they have now. Aside from that I think the numbers are just that. I think more we need wiser publisher too.
hitsugi
Member
I could only presume it's because there were only around 2 people that played him at that level so it was always "this guys claw makes him look broken"
...and they're right because it looks fucked up evey time I see it.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Literally the one reason why I started attending tournaments in the first place was because TvC netplay was hot garbage.
My Xbox Live subscription expired over two years ago and I don't miss it.
hitsugi
Member
This seems to be a universal request (in the US at least) that is (largely) going without resolution.
That Dude John
Member
serious question: not to take the burden off developers completely, but how much better can it get until the US' internet infrastructure is improved?
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Not to beat a dead horse, but GGPO and equivalent methods already exist and offer a decent enough solution.
The problem with that, though, is that devs seem to be clueless as to how to implement it. See 3SO tucking away the delay setting all the way back in the options menu instead of it being appropriately adjusted on a per-match basis. That and it's computationally expensive and needs to be factored into the performance aspects early in development if anyone hopes to get any mileage out of it.
I don't have much hope for SF5 doing the right thing with rollback netcode either.
Watch them give us two-color connection indicators saying "GOOD" and "BAD" when paired up. I can already see it.
i played against a lag switcher today
he has a pathetic bp to pp ratio like 700-5k and then the way he uses it was so blatant
when hes about to die with full ultra he will stop moving and it will lag for like 3 seconds. Im unable to do anything during that period and he just gets off a free ultra
he has a pathetic bp to pp ratio like 700-5k and then the way he uses it was so blatant
when hes about to die with full ultra he will stop moving and it will lag for like 3 seconds. Im unable to do anything during that period and he just gets off a free ultra
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Contrary to commonly held beliefs, bandwidth is almost irrelevant for online play in a 2-player fighting game, if the game is coded competently. (This is why I ignore anyone who posts a speedtest result when talking about their netplay experiences; that shit is usually pointless and often makes you look ignorant.)
All that's needed (oversmiplifying here to some extent, but bear with me) in order for a fighting game to faciliate netplay are the following two pieces of information:
- what each player inputs on their respective ends
- what exact point in time (frame) those inputs occur
That's a trivially small number of bytes that actually have to travel across the wire. The problems arise in the ways that the games try to reconcile the amount of time it takes to wait and see what the player on the other end is doing. Typical bad netcode does this by forcing you to wait until the other player's inputs are received on your end. This results in a lot of input delay that isn't even consistent; if your connection to the other player fluctuates between 50ms and 150ms throughout the match, then the input lag on your end is probably going to fluctuate between 50ms and 150ms at random as well. Or put you at the mercy of a lag switcher. And nobody likes that.
GGPO can't fix a bad connection, but it works because it allows you to function as if that lag isn't there (in good connections) or as if the lag is at least consistent (in bad connections).
GGPO allows the player to set a frame delay on their own terms. Let's say that you and I have a fairly stable 66ms ping to each other (4 frames). That means that it takes 4 frames for one of us to send a piece of information to the other and have it return to the original sender. Thusly, that also means that it takes about only 2 frames for one of us to send information to the other (ignoring the return trip). So if you set your GGPO delay to 2 frames, then that should mask any issues with the connection and give you a stable, consistent, playable delay of exactly 2 frames for the entire match.
If our connection gets rocky in the middle of the match and randomly spikes in latency, then you'll still only ever have 2 frames of input delay, but the game may rewind to a previous savestate every once in a while because my inputs made it to your side later than the game expected, and GGPO has to go "oh wait, he actually pressed a button a few moments ago that results in a different action than what's played out on your end, so I've got to go back and add that in so that things are correct now, sorry." But the beauty of this is that even though these rewinds may happen, at least some of them can be completely hidden because they don't affect the outcome of the on-screen action at all. Let's say that I'm hitting you with a 2-minute Dante infinite. If I have my timing down and can account for that consistent 2-frame delay, then it doesn't matter if our connection randomly spikes or you hit a lag switch or whatever. Once the connection stabilizes again and my inputs are sent through to your side, then you'll be right back in that infinite as if nothing happened to the connection. I'll never know about the lag spike on my end in the first place because it doesn't matter what buttons you're pressing while you're being comboed. In traditional netcode, the delay would increase massively once the connection falters and it would throw off my timing.
You can adjust that GGPO delay accordingly per connection and to your own preferences. On better connections, you'd want to keep it low, and on worse (high latency) connections, you'd probably want to increase it depending on your tolerance to rewinds. If you really value low input delay and don't mind rewinds, then you can keep it low and put up with those, but if you just hate rewinds altogether, you can crank up the delay as much as you want to get rid of them and at least still get a consistent experience for the whole match. It also allows each of us to set our delay independently; I could use a really low delay setting because I hate input lag and you could use a high delay setting because you hate rewinds. So whether you have a godlike connection or a terrible one, there's always a benefit to this type of netcode.
The drawback to GGPO, though, is that it's computationally expensive. Rewinds are dependent on having enough memory to actually store a handful of savestates in the first place. From what I heard from Arturo, this is one big reason why devs haven't bothered to use it much in previous gen games, as the overhead for netcode isn't set aside early enough in development in order for there to be enough room for GGPO savestates. Not that I expect things to really improve that much in the current generation either, though...
All that's needed (oversmiplifying here to some extent, but bear with me) in order for a fighting game to faciliate netplay are the following two pieces of information:
- what each player inputs on their respective ends
- what exact point in time (frame) those inputs occur
That's a trivially small number of bytes that actually have to travel across the wire. The problems arise in the ways that the games try to reconcile the amount of time it takes to wait and see what the player on the other end is doing. Typical bad netcode does this by forcing you to wait until the other player's inputs are received on your end. This results in a lot of input delay that isn't even consistent; if your connection to the other player fluctuates between 50ms and 150ms throughout the match, then the input lag on your end is probably going to fluctuate between 50ms and 150ms at random as well. Or put you at the mercy of a lag switcher. And nobody likes that.
GGPO can't fix a bad connection, but it works because it allows you to function as if that lag isn't there (in good connections) or as if the lag is at least consistent (in bad connections).
GGPO allows the player to set a frame delay on their own terms. Let's say that you and I have a fairly stable 66ms ping to each other (4 frames). That means that it takes 4 frames for one of us to send a piece of information to the other and have it return to the original sender. Thusly, that also means that it takes about only 2 frames for one of us to send information to the other (ignoring the return trip). So if you set your GGPO delay to 2 frames, then that should mask any issues with the connection and give you a stable, consistent, playable delay of exactly 2 frames for the entire match.
If our connection gets rocky in the middle of the match and randomly spikes in latency, then you'll still only ever have 2 frames of input delay, but the game may rewind to a previous savestate every once in a while because my inputs made it to your side later than the game expected, and GGPO has to go "oh wait, he actually pressed a button a few moments ago that results in a different action than what's played out on your end, so I've got to go back and add that in so that things are correct now, sorry." But the beauty of this is that even though these rewinds may happen, at least some of them can be completely hidden because they don't affect the outcome of the on-screen action at all. Let's say that I'm hitting you with a 2-minute Dante infinite. If I have my timing down and can account for that consistent 2-frame delay, then it doesn't matter if our connection randomly spikes or you hit a lag switch or whatever. Once the connection stabilizes again and my inputs are sent through to your side, then you'll be right back in that infinite as if nothing happened to the connection. I'll never know about the lag spike on my end in the first place because it doesn't matter what buttons you're pressing while you're being comboed. In traditional netcode, the delay would increase massively once the connection falters and it would throw off my timing.
You can adjust that GGPO delay accordingly per connection and to your own preferences. On better connections, you'd want to keep it low, and on worse (high latency) connections, you'd probably want to increase it depending on your tolerance to rewinds. If you really value low input delay and don't mind rewinds, then you can keep it low and put up with those, but if you just hate rewinds altogether, you can crank up the delay as much as you want to get rid of them and at least still get a consistent experience for the whole match. It also allows each of us to set our delay independently; I could use a really low delay setting because I hate input lag and you could use a high delay setting because you hate rewinds. So whether you have a godlike connection or a terrible one, there's always a benefit to this type of netcode.
The drawback to GGPO, though, is that it's computationally expensive. Rewinds are dependent on having enough memory to actually store a handful of savestates in the first place. From what I heard from Arturo, this is one big reason why devs haven't bothered to use it much in previous gen games, as the overhead for netcode isn't set aside early enough in development in order for there to be enough room for GGPO savestates. Not that I expect things to really improve that much in the current generation either, though...
GGPO is no panacea either. rollback netcode can make for infuriating situations where very quick hitconfirms cause you to commit to something unsafe, and then rollback to your opponent blocking. one of the most frustrating things i've ever had to deal with in a fighting game.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Then you just crank up the delay on your end so that you never have to deal with that.
If you've got the delay set to something as high as 8 frames and you're still seeing that kind of crap, then no netcode on earth can save your online experience at that point and you might as well be playing something turn-based instead.
call_kotaku
Member
Devs barely want to do 60fps nowadays, good luck having them set aside resources for rollback netplay. If they had to choose between extra particles or GGPO, I think they'd go for the particles every time.
hitsugi
Member
One thing, though:
Why is it that people throughout Asia seem to be able to play with minimal issue, whereas my friend and I, 8 miles apart with 100/25 connections have issues? I mean at some point things just stop making sense. It's noticeably different (better) on 360 than PS3 or pc though.
Why is it that people throughout Asia seem to be able to play with minimal issue, whereas my friend and I, 8 miles apart with 100/25 connections have issues? I mean at some point things just stop making sense. It's noticeably different (better) on 360 than PS3 or pc though.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Open a Windows command prompt and type "pathping [target]", where [target] is your friend's IP address or any website that you want to test your connection to.
It may not work for every target (some will block ping/traceroute requests), but this should in theory lay out the path between your computer and the destination and spell out the amount of time it takes to send/receive information to and from each link in the chain. You can spot where the connection goes to shit if the round-trip time numbers or the packet loss numbers jump up drastically from one node to another. It will also let you know if there is just a stupidly high number of nodes between you and your friend (which is what I'd expect if, for example, you're on different ISP networks).
Example:
Code:
C:\Users\Patrick>pathping google.com
Tracing route to google.com [74.125.137.101]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
0 Patrick-Laptop [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
1 DD-WRT [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
2 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
3 xe-9-1-0-32767-sur01.g1norcross.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68.85.90.89]
4 xe-13-0-1-0-ar01.b0atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68.86.106.1]
5 te-0-0-0-4-cr01.chicago.il.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.95.121]
6 he-0-11-0-0-pe03.56marieta.ga.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.87.222]
7 as15169-3-c.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast.net [23.30.206.142]
8 72.14.239.100
9 209.85.142.54
10 209.85.142.73
11 * * *
Computing statistics for 250 seconds...
Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 Patrick-Laptop [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
0/ 100 = 0% |
1 0ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% DD-WRT [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
0/ 100 = 0% |
2 8ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
0/ 100 = 0% |
3 11ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% xe-9-1-0-32767-sur01.g1norcross.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68.85.90.89]
0/ 100 = 0% |
4 10ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% xe-13-0-1-0-ar01.b0atlanta.ga.atlanta.comcast.net [68.86.106.1]
0/ 100 = 0% |
5 11ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% te-0-0-0-4-cr01.chicago.il.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.95.121]
0/ 100 = 0% |
6 10ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% he-0-11-0-0-pe03.56marieta.ga.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.87.222]
0/ 100 = 0% |
7 10ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% as15169-3-c.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast.net [23.30.206.142]
0/ 100 = 0% |
8 13ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 72.14.239.100
100/ 100 =100% |
9 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% 209.85.142.54
0/ 100 = 0% |
10 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% 209.85.142.73
Trace complete.
C:\Users\Patrick>i agree. in general i think fighting games are just not well suited to the netplay experience. i'm fortunate enough to have a group of friends who'll play just about everything, but i understand that's not the case with many people.
Speedtest result include ping which is the most important thing to look at in the connection when it comes p2p games, you can even ping the other guy's ISP to get a good idea of how good your connection will be with him(keeping the game net code into account of course).
But yea, most people post speedtest results to show how fast their connection is, which really doesn't effect FGs unless you're playing KoFXIII online where the other player can mash to make the game lag if one of you have poor bandwidth(WTF SNK!!). ;p
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
How is the ping between me and one of Speedtest's servers relevant to the connection between me and someone entirely different?
Those results are only relevant, imo, if the download/upload numbers that they're reporting are significantly lower than the download/upload numbers that you're supposed to be getting from your ISP. If there's a discrepancy, then that gives you reason to believe that you're either being throttled or that something is interfering with your connection.
Speaking of RNG, i sometimes look at all the poker machines around and wish they were fighting games instead, but not like a fighting game themed pachinko machine or something, more like play a match, then the normal poker machine runs, but you could have more lines available if you won the match or something. All these people addicted to boring ass poker machines and arcades virtually dead, why not just combine the two so we can be some kind of double scumbags.
Umm, you can check the ping between you and the Speedtest server that is on the same ISP network this person you want to play with is using, it gives a fairly accurate result of what to expect and wouldn't be much different from pinging the guy's IP address directly unless there's something very wrong on his end.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
I suppose that's true, but if the numbers are high, then it still doesn't give you much information on what point in the route is actually the culprit.
Shouta
Member
Infrastructure, of course. You might be really close to your friend but you might have more nodes or the nodes might might have issues (poor equipment, etc) compared to Asia which would cause problems despite your proximity. The US still has tons of issues in general.
19
Of course, but if it's a route problem, there isn't much that you can do about it. Maybe complain to your ISP, something you'd get a very hard time trying to explain to your regular ISP customer service person, and even then there's usually not much that they can do as those routes are usually based around your ISP backbone and not something they can fix per customer request.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
I've heard extremely rare instances of this kind of stuff actually being escalated to techs who can actually solve stupid and inefficient routing mistakes on an ISP's backend, so you never know. It's worth trying.
Thoroughly checking connection issues like this has actually helped me to diagnose problems in my own house in the past anyway. Found out that the power levels on my modem were all out of whack once and got my ISP to send a local tech to fix the wiring on the street for it.
Tizoc
Member
Yo I'd be asleep by then lol.
Well at least it can help me plan my annual leave from work =3
What's the excuse for fighters ported to PC for a better online experience or PC exclusives?
Rhetorical.
Thomasorus
Member
That would explain a lot about Arc games. I heard from dev sources that they are hitting the roof of the PS3 hardware since a long time because of their sprites in BlazBlue (even if I think they used delay because at the time of the first game GGPO wasn't so well known). Since Xrd also needs to run on PS3 and has problems being stable, going with delay netcode perhaps helped them saving memory/cpu?
toddhunter
Member
Unless things have changed, it isn't as simple as licensing GGPO for the 3D fighters we have.
Even with the extra power, the games would need to be made from the ground up to work this way and it is a long time since we got a game from the ground up.
SF5 and the new MK9 DLC are not going to change that.