[Gameplay?] In games with any lag, players appear to need host's permission to use skills.

[Own]

So I've played a few games with 200+ ping in the past and have noticed this.

If I use any skill, there will be a small delay before the game actually permits me to use my skill. Sometimes it will act as if I charge up to bronze level when the animation happens.

Why is skill usage for players 2-4 activated host-side instead of client-side? It's extremely frustrating. Because not only is your view of enemies 200+ off, your ability to use a skill against them is 200+ off as well, for a total of 400+ off. Basic attacks don't appear to have this delay in performing them.

 

[ark626]

I think that is generally the idea of a server

Meaning normally the client only sends the unser input (keyboard input) to the server and then the server determines how he handles this input.
The only exclusion are menues, in which the selected option will be pushed to the server.

So in gameplay that means you press the skillbutton for a skill, the server can only handle this request as soon as he gets it.

Also a intresting fact is that even if it seems to lag on your side, the host will see it as fluent, because he processes the information as they arrive, and then sends you the updates.

In other words if there is a ping of 200 ms it will take 200 ms or longer to process your inputs.

I think we had a similar discussion about the perfect shield, and the packaging there.
Maybee there is an error in the receiving of the attacks from skills in the packaging system, @Teddy can say more about that

FUNFACT:

The human brain has a tickrate of circa 100 ms, meaning everything over this value will feel like a lag.
So the ping should be at his best at less than 100 ms.

 

[KoBeWi]

normally the client only sends the unser input (keyboard input) to the server and then the server determines how he handles this input.

Teddy actually said that more actions are client-side, like projectile prediction. It was this post: http://secretsofgrindea.com/forum/i...ut-of-bounds-to-hit-anything.4363/#post-11949
So the skills could be indeed client-side (probably).

 

[ark626]

Yeah but in fact you need to compare each state with the server, which means if the server has different information or gets an update too late there will be a lag which will be mostly noticed on the client side

Because if the server says a player has been hit and the client of that player says the hit didnt happen usually the server has the last word in that discussion.

I dont know the exact update procedure of SoG but the described event sounds like either there is an update difference from skills to hit OR the skills involve a different update which they are waiting for....

An example could be you cast a spell => Spellupdate which needs the EPUpdate.
a normal attack wouldnt need that.

But i dont know if or which of those are right

 

[Teddy]

A large part of why this happens is that the server must (often) supply the client with a spell ID, and thus the client isn't permitted to release the spell even on its own screen. This doesn't actually lead to a disadvantage compared to basic attacks (same delay server side - which is what matters), but it does feel worse, and that's bad.

A change I could make to alleviate this a bit is what I do sometimes with enemy skills to compensate for lag, which is reserve IDs for them and distribute them prematurely to the clients.

In networking everything's a problem though, and there's a problem with that approach as well, namely that the player could cast a spell on his screen while on the server he got hit out of it. I do feel that's a bit less of a problem though, as far as player experience go. When it comes to responsiveness placebo is very powerful, indeed.