Hey,
Just a few observations regarding the experience of playing at higher latencies at the moment.
Notes:
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I am presenting these with full knowledge that trying to play any online games with high latencies will produce issues. What I am hoping is that some of these issues once highlighted can be addressed and even mitigated through things like improving netcode, game server performance and other considerations that assist in high latency situations. These improvements may improve the overall online performance of everyone playing.
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I am able to play other more mature online games of various kinds with the same latency relatively successfully and am hoping that LE can get to that level.
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I am physically no-where near a server location so the best I can get is 160ms when the planets align. I do however have high bandwidth fibre which is in excess of 100mbits from my location to Western Europe when tested through services like speedtest.net
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All observations are to EU West.
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None of these occur when playing offline. (Obviously)
Observations
Rubberbanding
Surprisingly not experiencing it much. It does happen but I have experienced worse. Most obvious if immediately running when loading into a new map. Experienced a LOT in the Monoliths especially if trying to do a fast run rather than slowly progressing. Sometimes experienced when clicking for the char to run to open a chest etc.Ghosted animations.
A lot of skill animations and mob attacks simply do not register. The skills themselves are definitely "active" but the animations just dont play.For example, Lagons eye beams that rotate, break apart and dont show and then reappear a split second later. His single blast eye beam where he ducks his head doesnt show the animation of the blast sometimes. This happens on a lot of different attacks from lots of different mobs. Its especially evident on the more “special” mob attacks, like the telegraphed beams or rotating attacks.
Player skills dont show the skill activation - e.g. Ring oF Shields doesnt show the cast, but a second or two later, the shields just appear. Forge Strike doesnt show the actual strike sometimes, but the targetted mobs take damage etc. Area effects simply dont show for random durations, sometimes breaking up and dissappearing only to show again a second later.
Lag & Delays
These are the most obvious issues with high latency, but they are sometimes very odd and definitely frustrate a player.
It can take 5 seconds or longer to register a sort in the inventory or stash tabs (even with small amounts of items).
It can sometimes take 3 to 5 seconds when trying to do a forge craft - and the process gets out of sync so the client allows you to do an additional forge thinking the first didnt happen, only for it to suddenly catch up and show a “double” craft when you thought it didnt register the first time.
A similar thing tends to happen - but to a lesser degree when editing skill & passive points. Its less frustrating, but still very noticeable.
There are also delays - although less noticeable - in activing skills / attacks etc. This could be just not observing the animation as mentioned above but sometimes it looks like the game isnt registering a mouseclick or keypress or only firing it a second later. This is pretty noticeable with nuke type skills where you are very aware of them happening and the build up makes the delay very obvious. Hard to notice when spamming Rive but very noticeable when hitting Void Cleave and waiting for it to proc.
The usual delays on opening monolith boost with Coins still happens. Annoying in the middle of battle.
Picking up items - especially shards is really frustrating in Online mode with high latency. It was never a quick process to begin with, but now you actually have to pause to let the game update so that you are sure that the shards were actually picked up. It may only be a second but its VERY obvious when the shard name tags tick away one by one when you are trying to run to the next group of mobs. This is ALMOST as annoying as running back to pick up Dark Quiver arrows.
Bizzare Catchalls
Corpses of mobs tend to pile up and not dissappear as normal. This is easily observed in Monolith Arena echos where there can be so many mobs it is quite literally impossible to see the player char, let alone any AoE effects or even melee range mobs. Dont notice the same in offline play.
Strange Mob Graphic sizes. On occassion mobs will rush forward and seem to change size. E.g. a pack of spiders will rush forward small, then increase to the single larger spider size and then reduce back to the normal when hit. Almost as if they have the Rampancy modifier when they dont. Doesnt happen often but enough to have noticed it. It also seems like the mobs are not spaced correctly when this happens, i.e. they should be moving around each other at the larger size but they seem to pass through themselves. Again, dont notice this in offline mode.
Lack of Mobs. I am not sure if this is a latency issue or something else, but I have also observed very empty maps. Again, not sure if this is a different issue but I can run the length of a Forlorn Streets map and not find a single mob. In offline mode, there are a few occassions where the maps are very sparcely populated but usally not this bad so I thought I would mention it.
I am sure there are or will be more. I’ll add them if/when I notice others.
Feel free to add any you experience if you are also forced to play with high latency.