- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Agreed! Why?
This is why;
Subject: LAG AND LATENCY FOR DUMMIES
( there is a summary at the end of this post, just scroll down! )
I believe that latancy is a problem concerning more people than you realize and that lots of the criticism against many elements in the game (especially weapons reliability) is actually caused by latancy. Please read my explanation and tell me what you think! If you think it sounds reasonable you have to agree that this is a serious problem that should be addressed because makes it impossible for many people to play live games on equal terms to those with low latancy.
Many gamers seems to think that’s lag and latancy are the same, but they are not! Everybody has latancy all the time but seldom experience lag (hopefully). Many also thinks that green bars shows that everything is just fine but that is not necessarily the case. Green bars means that your are not likely to experience lag, unless the hosts connection goes bad, because it´s a matter of bandwith and other network factors. You probably know that the bars are reffered to as ping.
Ping is not the time it takes for the information to travel back and forth. In xbox live terms the ping checks the quality of your present connection to the network by measuring package loss. According to the people on xbox live the time it takes for information to travel from your xbox to the network and back is called latancy. You can check out both your ping and latancy via the main menu on your xbox.
Select settings, then choose network setting, then connect... when you are connected press "y" and a window with the information will pop up.
I almost always have a perfect ping with my 8 mbps connection but i suffer from a minimum latancy around 190 ms because i live in Sweden and the information has to travel all the way to the xbox live servers on the us west coast. Since the majority of games are hosted by people around that area it gives you a good idea of how your latancy will be against a likely host.
I can have a perfect game with no lag and still won´t be able to kill people point blank with the shotgun because what i see on my screen and react to is what actually happened a "long time ago" (perhaps 300 ms ago). So latancy is the reason why many people think, for example, the shotgun is unreliable on live.
Sure you can adapt your playing style but the point is that we shouldn´t have to because we would still not play on equal terms. I pay for this service - just as much as they do in the US and i want the same quality of service - and i don´t get it. That makes me mad!
That’s it! Do you have any solutions, suggestions or comments that might help? Or perhaps a little bit of sympathy….
One more thing: If you agree that something has do be done please join us and post your thoughts to Frankie!
Executive summary of this thread:
As this thread has proven to bee an enormous success, at least by looking at the attention it has gotten from forum members, and has reached over 500 post I think it will be helpful for newcomers with a summary. I can’t expect anyone to read through 21 pages on this subject before posting a reply, so hopefully this will help you to grasp its contents.
My initial post was not intended to provide final answers or solutions but rather to invite to discussion and, more likely, to raise new questions that might lead to suggestions on solutions.
And so it did in deed. In this thread you can read about people sharing their experiences, their thought and ideas without being flamed by anyone. Some of the posters has contributed more than others and taken very active roles where their professional skills come to use. Intelligent arguments, explanations and fact has been presented and analyzed.
The discussion has focused on issues ranging from consumer awareness, tactics to counter effects of latency, network architecture, network coding, importance of bandwidth and so on all the ways to laws of physics and philosophy. And everything has still been relevant to the topic.
Together we, the most committed posters in this thread, has this far come to the following conclusions:
Lag can occur for a number of reasons depending on network quality and bandwidth. It is generally easier to fix lag problems than latency by getting new ISP or increasing bandwidth.
There is no doubt that latency exist and that it exhibits the symptoms mentioned.
Latency will always be present to some extent and will eventually happen to everyone, mainly depending on the geographical distance to the host of the game.
Latency is ultimately depending on the speed of light and that is something we don´t expect Microsoft or Bungie to fix for obvious reasons.
American players are more likely than any others to be the hosts of any given game and therefore they will not experience the negative effects of latency as much. They are therefore also likely to have an unfair advantage when playing against others.
You can increase your probability to get to be host in the future, by improving your host record in a methodical way. The suggested solution is described on page 25 in this thread.
Latency and its effects on gameplay and the unfairness of its nature makes the world rankings pointless as they to not describe the reality.
We believe that Bungie can do something about this by implementing optional regional filters in the matchmaking. This will give us/anyone the option to choose games with less distance between players and as a result less latency and more fair gameplay. This will make world rankings voluntary and put the focus at regional rankings. It will most likely also increase the waiting time in matchmaking but we are willing to accept that.
Please note that any of these conclusions may be altered as new facts come to our attention!
End of summary.