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Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

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Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#141

Post by causality0 »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #58
jchw wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This strategy is commonly referred to as being in the class of “latency hiding” as it doesn’t actually improve latency, it just allows you to reduce apparent latency. In practice it’s still useful but I think it’s mainly useful because it allows for local input to be buffered significantly less than if you were to compensate for lag by adding buffering only. However, that is not always useful. It is mainly useful in…

LoL is not using lockstep. Lockstep has two big disadvantages for a competitive game. Tt requires both client to have the full game state to run the simulation, which makes creation of maphacks trivial. The second issue with lockstep is that if one player is lagging, all players are lagging, which is also not something you'd like to have in a fast paced competitive game.

Maybe I'm just a fuddy-duddy, but for me there's no room for remote competitors in a serious competition. Either it all happens on the same LAN or its just playing for funsies.

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#142

Post by __turbobrew__ »

SeriouslyChad wrote: post #132
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike games which rewind state based upon latency. It penalizes people with good ping and can lead to very weird game states where a large rollback can cause teleportation of a laggy player as seen by non laggy players. Team Fortress 2 is particularly bad where high latency players can teleport around or you can shoot and hit a laggy player but it doesn’t register by the server due to a rollback. Some play…

every game in existence where you can shoot at someone by simply clicking where they are either uses lag compensation or clientside hitreg, it's simply impossible to get around this also players only teleport around on your screen in tf2 if you set your cl_interp very low

I’m not a game dev but I don’t really buy that being able to shoot other players requires compensation or client side hit reg. If you assume players have 35 ping (as Riot did) that is only 2 frames at 60fps which may make a small difference in edge cases, but I believe the game would still be very playable.

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#143

Post by spmurrayzzz »

mleonhard wrote: post #117
spmurrayzzz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`tc` would give you non-deterministic microbursts that would be hard to quantify as to whether they impacted competitive integrity. This is an incredibly complex problem if they actually care about millisecond level precision in small duty cycles.

Are you saying that Linux's packet delay function is imprecise? Can you link to more information about this?

That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm describing an implementation detail of traffic shaping. In order to traffic shape, you need to buffer packets. And at some point, you flush that buffer. There is a duty cycle (read: loop) by which you decide when to buffer and when to flush, the timing of this duty cycle is arbitrary/configurable. But no matter the duration of that cycle, when the flush occurs, you naturally get microbursts. So on average, you might be able to target a given millisecond goal over time. But in competitive gaming, average network performance doesn't matter if critical win-or-lose moments are lost to latency fluctuations. The microbursts I spoke of can lead to one team winning the input race over the other as a latent effect of the artificial buffering mechanism (namely the flushing).

Now consider on top of the fact that there are more buffers than just the `tc` buffers involved. This leads to non-linear, non-deterministic fluctuations in latency performance when bursting occurs.

tc is purpose-built to shape throughput, not for tuning precision latency.

(for some context: traffic shaping is a big part of what I work on in my day-to-day helping build and run a wireless ISP)

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#144

Post by Lapsa »

tester756 wrote: post #52
colinmhayes wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference was .01 seconds. It's not immediately obvious that there is a problem.

>The difference was .01 seconds. It's not immediately obvious that there is a problem. in games you really feel ping differences if you were playing e.g for a year on 5ping and then jumped on 30, then you'll feel that in games like LoL and probably CSGO? idk about the second one.

LoL is actually a slower game. in CSGO ping is even more important.

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#145

Post by Lapsa »

I'm into music production. Try to process some sound through the compressor and adjust its attack - my ears quite easily can discern difference as small as 2ms. Another exercise - try to sing in a group over the internet (you gonna rage quit in five minutes guaranteed).

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#146

Post by tylerhou »

grog454 wrote: post #137
tylerhou wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m guessing that even SC2 uses lockstep, as (in some cases) I’ve seen one person lag because their opponent has a spotty connection.

This is independent of lockstep vs. predictive and more to do with topology. SC2 (and most RTSs) are peer to peer, there is no server game state, just two clients that synchronize to each other. In that case, one client lagging will absolutely effect another. Also in that case, its incredibly difficult to not have both clients simulating full game state. Prediction could mitigate that (and possibly does, even in sc2)…

Source on SC2 being peer to peer? I see it's server-client based. https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/145084-starcraft-2-netcodin...

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#147

Post by f1refly »

Lapsa wrote: post #144
tester756 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The difference was .01 seconds. It's not immediately obvious that there is a problem. in games you really feel ping differences if you were playing e.g for a year on 5ping and then jumped on 30, then you'll feel that in games like LoL and probably CSGO? idk about the second one.

LoL is actually a slower game. in CSGO ping is even more important.

LoL is just as fast, but there's so many effects that average players can't react with appropriate counteractions anyways.

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#148

Post by russellendicott »

causality0 wrote: post #141
skocznymroczny wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LoL is not using lockstep. Lockstep has two big disadvantages for a competitive game. Tt requires both client to have the full game state to run the simulation, which makes creation of maphacks trivial. The second issue with lockstep is that if one player is lagging, all players are lagging, which is also not something you'd like to have in a fast paced competitive game.

Maybe I'm just a fuddy-duddy, but for me there's no room for remote competitors in a serious competition. Either it all happens on the same LAN or its just playing for funsies.

I know right, what about home court advantage or any slight imbalance that great 70's movies are made of?

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#149

Post by troon-lover »

ben-schaaf wrote: post #120
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike games which rewind state based upon latency. It penalizes people with good ping and can lead to very weird game states where a large rollback can cause teleportation of a laggy player as seen by non laggy players. Team Fortress 2 is particularly bad where high latency players can teleport around or you can shoot and hit a laggy player but it doesn’t register by the server due to a rollback. Some play…

While the exact logic TF2 uses leaves a lot to be improved, you absolutely need this kind of lag compensation. Without rewinding any amount of latency results in having to aim where an enemy gamer will be by the time your packet reaches the server instead of where they are on your screen. If you remember before they patched the Pyro class you had to aim significantly in front of players because the flames weren't lag…

No post body was provided.

Re: Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors

#150

Post by troon-lover »

9935c101ab17a66 wrote: post #122
squaresmile wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RNG already have an advantage when they are allowed to play remotely from the comfort of their home. Yes it's not the team's fault they can't travel but it is what it is. There's another tournament in 6 months. There's a reason this Frankenstein ping is unheard of in bigger esports.

> RNG already have an advantage when they are allowed to play remotely from the comfort of their home Can you provide any clear evidence that indicates this is an advantage?

No post body was provided.
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