Netcode is a joke

[phil13hebert]

In case of some games, the netcode can be written so badly, that even slight delays cause major problems with registering hits in FPS games, so that what client sees on his PC is not exactly what happens on the server.

Example : Battlefield 3 and 4 ..

[novationx]

Well , in that case... I like the netcode... I mean, I played COD & BF3/4 and its worse than SM.
So good job NADEO!.

However I would like "lag compensation aka snapshot" removed. Just like in CounterStrike.
If 1 player laggs, the others dont need to have this problem....

Also in modes as obstacle or matchmaking lobbies... The snap is always high. It really gives new players a bad first impression. Especially the demo-players who only have acces to those particular lobbies.
And SM, with its small playerbase, really needs to make good first impressions so players actually keep playing the game.

If I just installed the demo ( as a new player ) and I join the lobby for the first time and its snap 120...
I wont even bother playing anymore and just play another multiplayer without lagg.
I consider this a BIG problem. Lagg doesnt belong in a multiplayer game.

So conclusion: I like hit/reg and for me it can stay like it is now ( it works in Elite , altho its not perfect ).
In bigger gamemodes as Royal, obstacle & Lobbies snapshot should be removed for sure. No discussion about that for me.

My 2cents

[Pile0g00]

...Also, let's now take at look at Battlefield 3:...

Wow, really, Battlefield... I have been playing Battlefield since 1942 was released and it has always be notorious for hit registration problem and even rubber banding. Even still that game is taking on 64 players in one game all playing in massive maps at the same time with extremely dynamic weapons, vehicles and destruction. Shootmania can't even handle 4 players in Elite playing at the same time. With that being said it can be frustrating sometimes to be on the receiving end of occasionally lag induced corner shots in BF3, but I would rather that than the constant lag that can be caused by one player in Shootmania that makes the game no fun; However, now you are taking us off topic and I could go on and on about hit reg in different BF games in the series (they keep changing their approach).

CS I will not touch, because I know nothing about it. A better comparison than BF to the map sizes and player counts would be Quake and I have been playing that game since the 90's and it's netcode is 1000 times better than SM. I played that on a shotty 56k modem back in the 90's with less problems than I see in SM on a broadband connection.

Netcode is all of the games components that are responsible for hit registration

Terrible when a player joins with a less than perfect connetion and not just for that player, but effects all players on the server. FAIL

and sending data from and to players.

Terrible when a player joins with a less than perfect connetion and not just for that player, but effects all players on the server. FAIL

How well the game handles lags and delays in player/sever connection

As you can see from the two above the FAILURE of this affects everything else and that is why the netcode in SM is so frustrating for me.

[promasterpl]

Hey, I've got a challenge for you.

What about you guys actually show some proof that the netcode is as bad as you say it is? With more than 300 hours spent in Shootmania I've seen maybe 3 or 4 situations in which netcode actually failed and it was pretty visible. Nothing apart from that.

As long as there won't be any proof your arguments are meaningless. Everyone can go on forums and say that netcode is terrible because they can't play.

[Wabbitface]

Hey, I've got a challenge for you.

What about you guys actually show some proof that the netcode is as bad as you say it is? With more than 300 hours spent in Shootmania I've seen maybe 3 or 4 situations in which netcode actually failed and it was pretty visible. Nothing apart from that.

As long as there won't be any proof your arguments are meaningless. Everyone can go on forums and say that netcode is terrible because they can't play.

If you're looking for video proof then I don't think that will be enough to explain or back up what people are discussing.

I've played numerous FPS online multiplayer games, clocked about 2000 hours in SM and played in different internet conditions (at home 'standard broadband & Fiber Optic', at LAN and play on NA servers every now and then).

Not only do I have a monitor designed in FPS games in mind, I can tell when things start getting laggy. That being when ping reaches 45+ you can notice your target teleporting right and left when they decide to change their movement and when they shoot their rockets, the animation of the rocket itself appears about half a meter in front of the target instead of from their shooting arm. (This causes problems when you want to dodge in close combat) When pings are higher then obviously these worsen.

For Snapshot - this has differed over the last few updates, but still continues to be a problem like what other people say, especially for large player gamemodes.

I now have standard broadband giving me 40-55ms ping to most EU servers and due to that I wont even bother playing competitively as it limits my playing level (Frustration tolerance is not high enough). Now I just play for fun (cups and all) and that keeps me happy

[djhubertus]

@prom
1. tak na marginesie to zwolnij bo chyba nie wiesz co piszesz.
2. Could you give me your connection speed ?

[Pile0g00]

Hey, I've got a challenge for you.

What about you guys actually show some proof that the netcode is as bad as you say it is? With more than 300 hours spent in Shootmania I've seen maybe 3 or 4 situations in which netcode actually failed and it was pretty visible. Nothing apart from that.

As long as there won't be any proof your arguments are meaningless. Everyone can go on forums and say that netcode is terrible because they can't play.

I am not claiming to be the best player or even a good player, but in most other games when I miss a shot I know why I missed. However in Shootmania I see "lasers" and rockets hit the player time and time again with no registration. When a player joins with a poor connection everything goes to crap.

[promasterpl]

Not only do I have a monitor designed in FPS games in mind, I can tell when things start getting laggy. That being when ping reaches 45+ you can notice your target teleporting right and left when they decide to change their movement and when they shoot their rockets, the animation of the rocket itself appears about half a meter in front of the target instead of from their shooting arm. (This causes problems when you want to dodge in close combat) When pings are higher then obviously these worsen.

Yesh, that's what happens. But... isn't that the definition of delay?

It happens in every game and it's unavoidable. Transferring data, computing data, resending data... all of them take time. With current technology we're not able to make internet connections faster. It takes time for data to register and travel.

45ms is relatively long time for an FPS game. That 45ms mean that for 45ms the server won't receive any new data and will wait for new packets to arrive. Until that time the game doesn't know what the player did in the meantime. He might have moved left. He might have moved right.

Animations in multiplayer video games are getting 'laggy' as ping rises because it's the way games are designed. The point is, some games do their best to make gameplay feel as smooth as possible and others fail to.

Shootmania is one of the fastest games out there, so it's quite obvious that keeping up with everything that is happening - every move a player takes, every mouse movement - make it harder and harder for the server to compute. In the end, the animations get broken, as in close range combat you often move faster, than the data are collected and stored. That causes sudden 'teleports' or rockets spawning some distance away from the person that shot it.

Obviously such things won't happen in games like Battlefield or whatever. Why? Because the pace in those is WAY slower than in Shootmania and you never find yourself strafing or shooting as fast as in SM. Those games handle animation calculating much better simply because there is not as much data to be received and stored. These games although fail in some other aspects that I spoke about before, proving, that Shootmania handles more complex and faster movements better than games with simplified, slow walking/running/jumping/strafing.

@prom
1. tak na marginesie to zwolnij bo chyba nie wiesz co piszesz.
2. Could you give me your connection speed ?

1. Wiem dobrze co piszę Po prostu tak wyszło że przez wiele czasu nie chciałem o tym mówić ni pisać żeby nie wychodzić na hipstera który mówi nie gdy każdy mówi tak tylko po to by być odmiennym. Ale w przypadku takich tematów poziom niewiedzy i ignorancji po prostu otwiera mi nóż w kieszeni i nie chcę żeby ludzie pisali bzdury jeżeli nie wiedzą o czym mówią.
/polish

2.

However in Shootmania I see "lasers" and rockets hit the player time and time again with no registration. When a player joins with a poor connection everything goes to crap.

This is the whole point of my previous point - prove it. I don't usually see such situations. God knows, maybe I'm wrong? Maybe for other people the whole thing is worse than in my case? Maybe I'm just a lucky guy with good connection that never sees such problems? I'd like to actually see it before I believe it.

[Wabbitface]

Yesh, that's what happens. But... isn't that the definition of delay?

It happens in every game an...

...that Shootmania handles more complex and faster movements better than games with simplified, slow walking/running/jumping/strafing.

I feel kinda guilty the fact you spent some time writing it, but I have some sad news for you as I am already pretty aware of that.

However I don't think what you said is directed at me, but it is to anyone else whom is not aware of this so thanks for the info.

[Pile0g00]

However in Shootmania I see "lasers" and rockets hit the player time and time again with no registration. When a player joins with a poor connection everything goes to crap.

This is the whole point of my previous point - prove it. I don't usually see such situations. God knows, maybe I'm wrong? Maybe for other people the whole thing is worse than in my case? Maybe I'm just a lucky guy with good connection that never sees such problems? I'd like to actually see it before I believe it.

That would require me to play this game again... Maybe after the next update. I am simply posting my opinion of how the netcode feels as a player, same as you and everyone else that has posted on here. I am glad it works so well for you, congrats

I have been playing online games long before I could send a packet to the server and back in 50ms (20 packes per second) I used to to get 250-300 ping on my 56k modem (less than 4 packets per second). My crappy ping had 0 effect on the fiber players getting 10 ping and I had to lead my targets. Even though I had to lead them the result was consistent base on my connection and I was able to adjust. I was not required to adjust every time another player joined or left the server.

The randomness in SM is what makes it hard for me to enjoy the game. Not only that but NA servers are often empty. When I would join a UK server, knowing full well that I would experience lag, other players would politely ask me to leave due to the lag they feel. This was not something that happened once, but every time I tried to play Elite on a non NA server. I would always leave and let them continue to enjoy the game, but that left me with no server in the NA to play on. I guess if NA servers were populated the netcode would not be such an issue for me.