Latency equalization.

[Rocket]

Firefall had it. It was one of the best parts of the game.

Two people from opposite sides of the world could play together with an equal experience, even if one lived near the server and the other lived on the other side of the world. Just as long as they both came in under the 250ms latency that Firefall equalized them to. It was glorious.

You never really noticed it in Firefall. I say that as a West Australian who connected to the West Coast USA servers. It was just brilliant.

But I do notice the lack of it in other games. Take ESO for example. There is just no way I can run the sequences of skills/feats that others can. You simply can't compete. And so I don't bother any more. They do not get my money.

@Grummz @Ronyn

Will Em-8er have the same latency equalization that Firefall had? I have not seen this question asked here before. You know from the existing fundraising that 50% or more of your backers come from outside the United States.

Will we have latency equalization?

 

[Wyntyr]

Good question.

 

[Terib.Shadow]

It's certainly something i loved as well, even if i usually had very good internet, also being in Europe helped.

 

[Nunaden]

welp, i think i remember grummz sayign that we arent exactly goign to have one like in firefall cuz it made the melee just MEH! - and since we also are going to have atleast a minor melee focus (dual wielding light frames!) grummz is very likely to look into other solutions that are both shooter and melee friendly.

 

[MattHunX]

Ah, yes! Something like this would be very welcome, indeed. I noticed in my online experience that I definitely have some of the latency crap, as I often ran to cover or just briefly poked out, only to collapse, dead, when I already ran into cover or pulled back. To me, it looks like I'm leading my target perfectly, but none of the shots actually connect, which makes me think that as good as my connection is, either it could be better or latency can never truly be eliminated, even with good connection and a good rig. It's quite an annoying thing. I feel like a lot of players who made a name for themselves, veteran players and the like are partially good because they don't have such concerns and they can react faster than others, because of their connection speed and hardware.

If skill will matter, mostly, above potentially pay-to-win high-tier gear, than this latency equalization can also facilitate that and help players, no matter their location, to have the same experience, without one having an unfair advantage over the other (even if we're only talking about PvE and not PvP).

 

[Rocket]

welp, i think i remember grummz sayign that we arent exactly goign to have one like in firefall cuz it made the melee just MEH! - and since we also are going to have atleast a minor melee focus (dual wielding light frames!) grummz is very likely to look into other solutions that are both shooter and melee friendly.

There is one other solution currently known. Game servers in all quadrants of the world. Otherwise known as local servers. Which won't happen. And if it does, they'll die quietly.

Which means a divisive preference for a single weapon type that excludes anyone with higher latency (because melee doesn't work well with high ping), as opposed to an inclusive level playing field and the need for less servers. Expect to see @Grummz hammered with this question as we approach a Kickstater.

Firefall solved this problem. It was the games greatest strength.

 

[Bane]

As far as I remember, they used AWS back in the days, which however was not the AWS as is today, but still had a extreme amount of servers aroud the world already. I guess what they did they used as many region-dedicated resource as they could - we still do it in other projects and it works kinda.

The game engine and local installation also plays a part in this of course. If they used a solution we call it "rig", which is basically that your client tries to share information with the clients around you inside the game - imagine it that we form a group of 5, 2 from EU, 2 from APAC, 1 from USA, than the 5 clients shares information directly with these clients and paraell with the server. So, instead the damage, etc. info goes the route: client - server - other clients, it goes client - client directly and gets written to the server in a paralell channel or later. By later I mean seconds of course, but from those seconds builds up the lag.

I have to tell you I'm guessing, I never created an MMO before, but I'd imagine it something like this.