Is MB2 the ultimate LAN party game? (R.I.P. LAN parties)

[Lessen]

I've been increasingly getting the feeling that MB2, when played "seriously" and not just apathetically fucking around, has a big design problem with regards to high pings. Namely: It's got fast moving characters with hitbox-dependent one-hit kill laser swords, and it's got gunners trying to shoot them.

A laggy saberist (Jedi/Sith) will teleport all over the place at random, making it impossible to consistently land shots on them. This makes laggy saberists very strong. Pass-throughs are caused by lag, I think, but so are "extendos" (weirdly long-range saber hits, especially on jetpacking mandalorians??)

(that might just be a thing about weird delayed hitboxes on jetpacking mandalorians though)

A laggy gunner will have all their shots happening on delay, making it much more difficult to aim. They are also prone to getting killed during their lag. This makes laggy gunners very weak.

The main "feeling" I get is that a game that's so extremely heavily dependent on precise interactions having to do with very fast and very unpredictably moving objects (such as lightsabers or jedi themselves) means that there's only so much you can do when playing a laggy player before you just have to pray for a good result.

I think this game would be super fun to play (even with not super-duper-serious people) in an LAN party, where lag isn't a concern and everyone sees the same thing on their screen instead of there being network-based "subjectivity." I hope the game sticks around or even grows. Maybe having a meetup for an LAN party would actually become plausible at some point. I can dream.

(writing this up made me realize I should do another check over my network settings to re-evaluate what I actually want in terms of choppiness vs accuracy/delay etc)

Topic: Do you think MB2 is especially vulnerable to lag?

 

[Dark Helmet]

Whenever I play, I've never really noticed MUCH lag on the part of other players, it's getting increasingly more rare. I've seen maybe one or two players over the course of the past few weeks with such intense lag that it actually effected my gameplay experience with them. But I do agree on the impact that lag has ON players who have problems with it; players with poor connections. Like you said, a gunner won't hit his targets, and a saber wielder will have a harder time being hit and hitting others. But that's the truth with almost any online multiplayer game. I think the real problem is just how outdated the game is. It's not up to par with today's standards.That's what my son would have said, at least.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Yes. It is.

That is what happens when you have obscenely slow projectiles with momentum-less fast movement.

 

[MaceMadunusus]

That is what happens when you have obscenely slow projectiles with momentum-less fast movement.

The majority of the problem comes from complete reliance on the server having to authenticate pretty much every interaction, and latency between players. Even if people have 90ms ping, it still is over 180ms in latency between each of the players if you include processing time required by the server itself (up to 50ms @ 20tick). Couple that with things like the game/server being limited to a single thread making overall tasks take longer to complete, an outdated network system that doesn't compress packets the way newer games do, an only 20/40 tickrate (depending on server), and other things. Clientside prediction only goes so far and when that prediction fails you often see bigger shifts in movement that is more greatly noticed while strafing and other fast-movement abilities. Newer games have gone to a mixture of server-side and client-side to get the best of both worlds for good reason.

So while I agree that the projectiles are slow, that really is far from the main cause of the issue. You can mitigate the issue with what you said only slightly. The problems will still be there even if you increase projectile speed and add more momentum to movement. Prediction will fail, people will still jolt sideways more than they should while strafing, low tickrate doesn't allow adequate updates to client/server, latency is a bigger problem because of reliance on server.

MB2 has always felt much better when I am locally hosting servers as a result. So yes, MB2 would feel much better and play a lot better to many in a LAN setting.

Quick test, I just wen't on a few servers. Noted my ping, time I pressed fire button, and when I got visual feedback of having fired. Numbers below. I was the only person on the servers.
AOD Stomping Ground 37ms Ping: ~70ms delay = ~9 Frames @ 125FPS
EU Official 126ms Ping: ~130ms delay = ~16 Frames @ 125FPS
AU Server 210ms Ping: ~240ms delay = ~30 Frames @ 125FPS

 

[Chaos the Chaotic]

Anything over 150 for me usually does it.

And let's not forget. An Ode to Supa.