Sudog Northmead
Circuits of Time
6
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Posted - 2015.12.13 11:42:00 -
[1] - Quote
Let's examine this issue from a debugging perspective.
At the various points, where are packets going missing, shall we?
1) Packets are going missing on my end.
In this case, symptoms will likely be, my character continues running in a single direction, or simply stops moving entirely, or otherwise my gameplay pauses slightly. If the packets have been held back, then recovery might be, depending on programmer competency: everything I was firing at gets hit (which seems to be what it currently does), or everything I was firing at gets missed, and my movement up until then either plays back at super speed (like what you see in the warbarge if you have an SSD), or everything since the drop is lost, or movement is replayed but only the impulses: not the actual movement. (Packets that would eventually arrive at the server would cause this, back in Quake days.) You don't get super-speed, you don't end up where you wanted to be, you don't end up on the other side of the map as though you were running the whole time.
Differential diagnosis includes: pinging local servers, pinging my ISP, pinging Google (since their servers are ubiquitously deployed,) and comparing ping latencies with PSN disconnection events. It is not possible to ping the CCP servers directly: intervening networks reply that they are dropping packets on the floor. But in the case of e.g. 213-152.240-254.PXu259.above.net it *is* possible to ping them to help diagnose the intermediate routers.
What is not reasonable:
PSN disconnects me, I get booted from the game, I lose everything I lost in the game, through not necessarily any fault of my own. My character disappears from the game.
Or, alternatively, for players who "lag switch" slightly or only for fractions of a second, teleporting from side to side to dodge bullets, magically appearing above or below platforms when they weren't already there, running forward but actually running backwards, detaching a user's hitbox, or other in-game clear advantages.
What is more reasonable:
If I can reconnect to PSN immediately or within seconds, then I should be able to REJOIN THE GODDAMNED GAME AND MY SQUAD.
Or, alternatively, WHILE A USER IS DISCONNECTED FROM THE SERVER THEY SHOULD BE COMPLETELY AT THE MERCY OF EVERYONE ELSE WHO DOES NOT HAVE CONNECTIVITY ISSUES.
Yes, this implies that if anyone gets your IP, they can mess with you by DDoS'ing your cable modem. But they can bloody well do this already.
2) Packets are going missing at my ISP, near to me
In this case, symptoms will likely be similar, except everything I do, including file transfers (if any,) web activity, and everything else, will all probably be similarly broken.
Differential Diagnosis includes: global packet loss to other websites, but less universal. I can still communicate with my cable modem, and a few hops past that return pings in sub-ms timing.
What is not reasonable
PSN disconnects me, I get booted from the game, I lose everything I lost in the game, through not necessarily any fault of my own. My character disappears from the game. I can't rejoin combat.
What is reasonable
My character stops moving, I die, anyone can shoot me in the meanwhile, no big deal. I reconnect, I rejoin the game, I rejoin my squad, I continue where I left off.
3) Packets are going missing in "the Internet"
Symptoms will be similar. Packets are much less likely to recovery because core routers don't have buffers.
Differential diagnosis includes: path-localized disconnection affecting just my connection to the Dust servers.
4) Packets are going missing at the DUST server
Differential diagnosis: everything works, every hop between me and the final hop which refuses to pass anything else, returning ICMP "Communication prohibited" message (type 3, code 10, administratively prohibited), works perfectly with no real variance in RTT.
On the other hand CCP themselves can watch the server health and stats. CCP's OWN SERVER is unable to connect to the internet, as diagnosed by immediate/local ping response, upstream feedback, saturated network link, and a half-dozen other metrics which can clearly show that it has nothing to do with the players in this case.
What is not reasonable:
Some people get through, some people don't. Some people seem to run through walls, some people don't.
What is more reasonable
Once the DDoS/upstream problem is over, reconnecting me to the game, and my squad.
THE ONLY REASONABLE WAY TO WRITE AN FPS GAME
It is not reasonable to write the game where hit prediction and hit detection are impossible to predict by a player. Most players would whine quite a bit if there was a normal latency response the way Quake had it: lag itself was part of the experience. But maybe some players wouldn't have such a problem. Maybe some plaers *want* to be able to manually predict the lag? Maybe some of us want an accurate way to see whether where we are shooting is, in fact, where we are shooting: in any event, if the bullets aren't hitting the player, it shouldn't give us feedback that they are, even if the feedback is old.
Don't blip my damned screen and tell me I scored a hit with a blue flash of shields when that's not what happened at all dang it! |