Community: Message List - Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:36:30 GMT

it nice to see im not the only one that on there side

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 11:50:23 GMT

You can't support every game forever, the resources each game takes is outragous. Once the game falls below a certain level of popularity you have to shut it down

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 07:25:53 GMT

too bad IW doesnt care about COD4 their are many people who want to still play it but cant becuase its ruined by hackers. Like i wanted to prestige legit but 2 matches later im in a hacked exp lobby

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 01:15:30 GMT

I played CoD 4 from it's launch, sadly that was so long ago though I vaguely remember it. I must say I did like the balance in the game. The perks were mostly subtle, the killstreaks were pretty dull but helpful, and the gun on gun fighting was the focus. No extra fluff holding the game back

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 01:12:24 GMT

COD4 is what brought this game to the masses, it was balanced, perfect in every way, if anyone disagrees to bad

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 01:12:01 GMT

MW2's host advantage was pretty nuts, but I'd rather one player have a slight advantage over a leveled playing field than 12 people running in different space time continuums

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 01:11:01 GMT

Regarding the first paragraph, that's just how good MW2's matchmaking was. There were plently of internationals playing that game. It sold about 22 million copies if I remember correctly, which is just about 4 million less than Black Ops 1. Honeslty, Cod4/MW2 are what made the CoD series really popular.

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:55:59 GMT

Jackal235 wrote:

I have not noticed host adventage in any COD games since MW2.
Does it mean that MW2 had perfect matchmaking, where the host was always dealing with low pings?
Or, MW2 host adventage came artificially from netcode??

oh mw2 had host advantage, so did cod 4 and cod 5 (W@W)

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:02:10 GMT

MW2 did put as much strain on the connection. The game also wasn't as popular as CoD games are now. And by popular I mean internationally. I rarely saw myself in a lobby with people who didn't speak the same language as me. You also didn't have all the craziness that goes on now with the likes of theater and intense stat tracking. These things are small individually but once they add up the difference is incredible

The best way to improve match making is strip the game of all the extra bells and whistles and take it back to the basics, improve match making so people are being paired up in closer areas, and tighten the ping limits so matches that are going to inevitable suck don't happen at all

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 23:51:16 GMT

Your comment on "lag lucky roulette" is unfortunately spot on. That is exactly where we are and it doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. That's why CoD sales are in decline and will continue to decline until they do something.

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 23:48:39 GMT

Lag compensation was set up differently in MW2, that's why it worked. Here are the words of someone who can expain it better than I can...

I believe the problem is client-side hit detection. Some people have touched on this a bit, but I don't believe nearly enough. The client-side hit detection, in its current form, is simply too forgiving, and gives the laggers--or at least the people with higher ping--the advantage, because laggers always see you first before you see them. Thus, when these laggers see you first, they shoot you first, on their screen, and therefore you die instantly--all this because of the forgiving nature of the client-side hit detection algorithm used in Black Ops 2.

The problem is that, even if you are lagging with a 3-bar or 2-bar connection, the client-side hit detection model in Black Ops 2 makes it so that all your bullets register perfectly and instantly. This isn't fair to other people with decent ping or 4-bars because, like I said earlier, laggers see you first. The person with the most lag/highest ping sees you before you see them, when they are turning a corner. Therefore, they shoot you--and kill you--on their screen, and you are actually dead before you even know it. This just isn't fair to people with good, low-ping connections.

MW2 used client-side hit detection also, but it wasn't forgiving. It actually delayed the lagger's bullets from registering depending on their ping. The higher their ping, the more delayed their bullets are before actually registering as hits. This is MUCH more fair, because people with good ping have an advantage, and people with bad ping have a disadvantage. NOBODY complained about MW2's lag or hit detection. Because it was FAIR, and made sense. For some reason, starting with MW3, they removed this client-side hit detection delay for laggers... and now everyone with decent internet is being punished and pissed off at how random gunfights are, and how they are dying instantly by 1-bullet by laggers running around a corner.

The bottom line is, Treyarch needs to change the netcode and hit-detection model to EXACTLY THE WAY MW2 was. If the hit detection and netcode becomes EXACTLY like MW2, or even COD4, then nobody would be complaining nearly as much as they are now. Period, case closed.

Treyarch responded to the request with - "the game has moved on and it can't be done". Personally, I smell BS and I dont live near a farm.

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 23:46:59 GMT

If there will be no dedicated servers or anyting else improving future COD games, what's the point of buying them? To play who's lag lucky roulette?

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 23:36:50 GMT

I have not noticed host adventage in any COD games since MW2.

Does it mean that MW2 had perfect matchmaking, where the host was always dealing with low pings?

Or, MW2 host adventage came artificially from netcode??

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 23:22:01 GMT

I wish the mods would sticky this thread, help prevent the daily cry for dedicated servers, or at least contain the endless thread repetition! This and one about matchmaking/ping, to contain those about "I have good connection so why do I get lag?" Oh well, I guess the mods like having endless repetitive threads to read through.

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 22:55:33 GMT

If everything is going great and the ping in the lobby is low then the host will have an advantage. However, most of the time the host is dealing with very high pings, this is when he has a disadvantage

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 22:46:28 GMT

ghamorra wrote:

HOW DOES A DEDICATED SERVER IMPROVE CONNECTIONS?

So essentially, unlike the hosting system we have now (which everyone connects to a general host who then connects to Activision's servers), everyone just connects straight to Activision. This means that as long as Activision maintains their servers players can reliably count on a virtually lag free connection. There will be no host advantage, lower tolerance for high ping (making lag switching an impossibility), no host migration, no hacks or cheats, and for the most part a worry free experience. Dedicated servers have one use and one use only, as I mentioned above.

I'm a little confused here.

In some posts you're talking about a host working like a horse, while here the host has adventage????

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 22:16:00 GMT

flameweilder8 wrote:

Or use consoles as deticated servers and divide the clusters by time zones.

That's basically how it works now, so it wouldn't cause a huge change. The way Dedis work is where a super powerful computer with all the info on board hosts the match

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 21:37:02 GMT

Or use consoles as deticated servers and divide the clusters by time zones.

That will take a very big chunk out of that cost and will help on the bandwith load.

OP is acting like servers have to be like that and they all have to be in one place.

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:35:37 GMT

Great info ghamorra! I'm glad the guys from Respawn Entertainment are working with EA. Their game is the one I'm REALLY looking forward to, although MW4 should be good if they have come to understand the lag issues.

Re: Dedicated Servers Explained "Warning: Wall of Text"

donotreply@activision.com — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:23:14 GMT

Crowd-sourcing?

Why should this "dedicated" server be centrally located at one or 2 or a few places? Instead - the dedicated host server for each game should be crowd-sourced.

What the hell does that mean - right?

Right now we have 1 out of 12 players being assigned host using some processing-logic. This host has to suffer because he/she also plays & has to process info from the other 11 players at the same time.

The idea would be to allow players to join a match as "Spectator-only". A tweak of their current CODCast system. After I've played for some 30 or 45 minutes - I just like to take a little break. May be walk for a few minutes - at this situation, I can simply join a game under "Spectate-only" mode - and not even be watching it. And my PS3 can be the host.

It'll be great if they could put in some XP points for such hosting.

Since the host can't play - they will not have any controls on the game-play. And if they still try to lag their connection - it's back to square one (although I seriously don't find it sensible for anyone to lag their own spectate-only connection). There could be a seperate ranking for spectating - and the best of hosts can be identified - and displayed on the player-card even. So, when I join a game & see who's host & what their ranking is - I can decide if I wanna play on that host or leave.

This will remove most of the cons - and (unfortunately) some of the advantages too (mainly pertaining to security). There may still be a lag - but at least the host will not suffer (because they're not playing). The entire concept of lag-switching will become redundant - or an excercise only in annoying fellow-players (with no kills or rank gain to the host).

I, for one, can say that I will be more than happy to keep my PS3 hosting BO2 matches when I'm not playing - with or without XP.

Opinions?