Lag Fighter Horror Stories

[Maj]

Since there's no good place to put this thread, it's going here. We'll probably end up analyzing game engines along the way. Plus amassing evidence regarding the suckiness of online competition is logically equivalent to talking about how great training mode is.

I'll start with a story about ranked STHD beta matches on Xbox Live. It works a lot like GGPO where the game runs on both sides and the netcode tries to keep them in sync as accurately as possible. Sometimes things will resolve one way on your screen and then get undone if there's a delay in receiving the other guy's inputs.

There was this one rediculously jumpy Ken player who did nothing but alternate between holding down/back and mashing the hell out of jump kick trip. His connection is so bad that it's actually hard to come up with any consistent solution when luck is in his favor. Somehow he scrubs out a win the first round, but i even the score in the second round. Third round, omg this kid is so lucky, i actually catch him ducking on wakeup and land a crossup j.HK, F+HP, c.HP xx HP FB combo on him, and he doesn't get dizzy!! That's FIVE fierces! So i've got him down to like 1% life and i've got 60% to spare, but somehow i end up in the corner. I know he's gonna start jumping so all i do is mash s.LK nonstop. It doesn't work and next thing i know i'm on the ground, down to zero vitality. So i do a wakeup jab uppercut and i win!

Next thing i see is him killing me with a fierce DP. I didn't know what to say. The STHD judges had reversed their decision. I was literally speechless.

[Dark_Chaotix]

Since there's no good place to put this thread, it's going here. We'll probably end up analyzing game engines along the way. Plus amassing evidence regarding the suckiness of online competition is logically equivalent to talking about how great training mode is.

I'll start with a story about ranked STHD beta matches on Xbox Live. It works a lot like GGPO where the game runs on both sides and the netcode tries to keep them in sync as accurately as possible. Sometimes things will resolve one way on your screen and then get undone if there's a delay in receiving the other guy's inputs.

There was this one rediculously jumpy Ken player who did nothing but alternate between holding down/back and mashing the hell out of jump kick trip. His connection is so bad that it's actually hard to come up with any consistent solution when luck is in his favor. Somehow he scrubs out a win the first round, but i even the score in the second round. Third round, omg this kid is so lucky, i actually catch him ducking on wakeup and land a crossup j.HK, F+HP, c.HP xx HP FB combo on him, and he doesn't get dizzy!! That's FIVE fierces! So i've got him down to like 1% life and i've got 60% to spare, but somehow i end up in the corner. I know he's gonna start jumping so all i do is mash s.LK nonstop. It doesn't work and next thing i know i'm on the ground, down to zero vitality. So i do a wakeup jab uppercut and i win!

Next thing i see is him killing me with a fierce DP. I didn't know what to say. The STHD judges had reversed their decision. I was literally speechless.

Wow.....sounds really random indeed. Is the game a free dl for xbl?

[Maj]

You have to buy Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 for like ten bucks in order to gain access to the STHD beta. Can't call it free even though they try.

My brother just played a match that was so incredibly skippy that he had to kill his opponent no less than four times before he finally won. It was so bad that there was literally nothing to do except mash and hope for the best.

In another match, the opponent landed on a fireball that wiped off the remainder of his lifebar clean. The whole game slowed down throughout his knockdown arc so my brother thought the round was over. Then his opponent actually gets up and does wakeup super for the win. Totally baited by the lag.

[Maj]

Something cool happened today. My brother threw someone at the end of a laggy match and a second later the rollback showed him getting uppercutted. Of course he was all sorts of frustrated but to me it looked awesome watching Ken breaking out of a throw with an uppercut. Kinda made me want to see a video of crazy lag hijinks.

By the way, i got to play two matches against CigarBoB last night and he double-perfected me with that crazy Hurricane Kick to HP DP combo in the first two rounds. He had some crazy setup involving jumping after Ken's MK throw, or maybe it wasn't that crazy and the slight bit of lag made it harder to block. Second match came down to last hit in the third round but he clutched it out.

[Maj]

Been playing a fair amount of Burnout Paradise on Xbox Live lately and sometimes i'll score takedowns without even touching anyone. Kinda annoying cuz it gets in the way of accomplishing team challenges. Also i assume at least some of the times i've been taken down must have been the result of phantom contact.

[Xenozip.]

This is why I don't play on XBL.

Either proper controllable universal input delay or rewind or both are necessary to play online with most games.

nFBA has implemented both delay and rewind, which is what we use to theorize as the best possible method for fighting games.

And you know what? It is.

[Maj]

It's actually not so bad for Burnout Paradise, because the roads are all fixed which means oncoming traffic is the most common cause of death, but most of the shortcut routes avoid traffic anyway. Plus i can count on one hand the number of times that lag traffic has suddenly appeared in my path. Fighting games are a different story obviously.

[Goryus]

I've been holding off on saying anything, afraid I'd spill the beans, but we're actually patching the Beta (and introducing much better netcode) sometime "soon".

You can see videos of the difference here:

http://www.capcom-unity.com/avidmarxist ... tab=videos

Click the second video on the right to see the difference. For both videos, we were playing on 180ms ping, 15% packet loss, and dialup levels of bandwidth.

You can find an explanation and full patch notes here:

http://www.capcom-unity.com/avidmarxist ... _in_action

[Maj]

Sounds promising. I like how the very first thing they do in the "new and improved" vid is having the Ryu player deliberately jump into Ken's MP DP. I'm not sure if smoothing out the rewind is an actual improvement or digital duct tape but the second video certainly looks less skippy.

[Goryus]

Just to be clear, the new smoothing algorithm doesn't just apply to rewinds. It's uniform throughout gameplay, and it prevents teleporting from basically ever happening.

Before, if someone jumped on a really bad connection, you'd see <pause>, <sudden teleport up into sky>.

Now, you just see a smooth jumping animation.

Well, not perfectly smooth. The 200ms+ of latency has to go somewhere, so it winds up skipping a few frames of the animation to compensate. But that's a purely visual effect, and makes no difference to gameplay. The game still calculates hits correctly on the skipped animation frames, never drops inputs, and there's no input lag, ever.

[Maj]

STHD is taking too damn long so i went ahead and bought XBLA HF. Big, big mistake. It took me 76 matches to earn the 30 ranked wins needed for the last achievement. Out of all those games, every single one felt like we were playing over a dailup connection. Some guy had over twelve thousand wins and i could not figure out why anyone would play that dumbed down pale imitation of Street Fighter for so long.

Check out the rediculous nonsense that passes for advanced tactics:

1) Every player shamelessly repeatedly mashing on j.HK followed by c.HK, cuz the lag makes it into a scary mixup with high chance of dizzy.

2) Honda s.LP, F+MP throw looped forever in the corner.

3) Random Blanka Ball and Upball with nonstop Electricity mashing at every opportunity inbetween (anti-air, wakeup, whatever).

One time i was playing Sagat, and this Ken player started doing super early j.HK which made me stand up and block high on reaction. Except the j.HK would whiff and he'd do c.HK immediately. Got me three times in a row with that dumb lag fighter trick.

Never playing that game online again.

[ZenFire]

Hey, I didn't know Goryus was involved in teh development. I know I don't come on here a lot, but still, you'd think I would have caught on to that. That patched version does look much better. Can you answer my question in that other thread about Tony Cannon's visit to Backbone (I have no idea if I'm using any of those names correctly)?

[Maj]

Also i forgot to mention that in my 76 matches of XBLA HF, i counted something like 10-15 red fireballs. I don't know what they could possibly have altered to mess with Shoto fireball randomness, but 10+ red ones in 76 matches seems disproportionately high - especially since most people (including me) weren't playing Shotos often and even then, only about a dozen projectiles were thrown per match.

[Maj]

My brother was playing SF4 online against some Ken player who only used special moves. The dude got dizzy but managed to mash out before my brother's Vega could walk up to him. Except he ended up doing EX Hurricane Kick (one hit) canceled into Focus Attack for an awesome two hit combo to throw away all of his meter before dying. SF4 rookies make me laugh.

[Xenozip.]

This is who you're playing.

[Maj]

This is who you're playing.

It's awesome when you can see these fools get hit by an ultra and immediately decide they're gonna throw the fucker who did that to them. They're not sure how they're gonna do it, they're not even sure when they'll get up off the ground, but they know that at some point their character will rise again and you better believe they're gonna be ready.

It works on offense too. The only way to be sure is to mash throw the entire way down until way after your character grabs them. With the economy creating so much lag, mashing is the only safe investment.

[onReload]

This is who you're playing.

It's awesome when you can see these fools get hit by an ultra and immediately decide they're gonna throw the fucker who did that to them. They're not sure how they're gonna do it, they're not even sure when they'll get up off the ground, but they know that at some point their character will rise again and you better believe they're gonna be ready.

It works on offense too. The only way to be sure is to mash throw the entire way down until way after your character grabs them. With the economy creating so much lag, mashing is the only safe investment.

LOL at the last Gouken spamming Jab + Short for quick stand (not getting it) and then during blockstun for throws, and getting like one whiff visibly out.

I'm glad I don't play this online because I mash. I mean, yeah sometimes I twirl the stick or whatever during a super/ultra/hyper combo/desperation/exceed/orgasm but boy if people are really watching, and I get a chance to play online, I'm gonna steadily press both macro buttons and one direction on a controller if I get anything to work, just to make them wonder what the hell is wrong with me. That's what an internet connection is for.

In all seriousness though, I spin the stick to like 945° before doing an FAB. This is stupid, but I'm a pad player - "joint" pad player as I call it, meaning I press with the bone joint on my left thumb, not the tip. It makes 360s and 720s easier to do, but it's not very precise... but it usually works in my favor. There still are times when I realize my own scrubbiness; e.g. learning that to do a reversal shoryu, MASHING IS DUMB...but there's that saying about old habits...that they stay around forever.

Anyway, I play 2DF because for some reason GGPO doesn't work on this computer, and I'm too lazy to figure out why not. One weird thing is that 3rd Strike likes to desync, and let's say I'm doing reasonably well, when somehow I'll land a sweet jump in combo, or land a deep Body Splash with Hugo and mix it up with a running grab or tick throw, think I'm the shit for mindgaming my opponent to death, and then realize the following:

1. My opponent has desynched, so
2. ...they're not seeing any of this
3. They're not perceiving a loss
4. Essentially I beat up a ragdoll
5. They are beating "my Hugo" to a pulp as I input totally different commands
6. They have no idea we've desynched...
7. ...which means we both end up going on to play against the computer, asking the other person to press start already, when we both think we already have.
8. There's no way to tell if a person is lying during all this - so you could lose, claim you desynched, then reset for internet penis size points.

I have yet to pull a #8.

Also, fun thing I will FRAPS when I'm not lazy (and illegally download it): A ridiculous and enormous JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future (which is a good) glitch I must share with the world. My opponent didn't type, so I have no idea if he initiated it, was aware of it, and/or was able to control it. It's really...something I have to show, rather than describe. BRB... gonna get FRAPS.

[error1]

Also, fun thing I will FRAPS when I'm not lazy (and illegally download it): A ridiculous and enormous JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future (which is a good) glitch I must share with the world. My opponent didn't type, so I have no idea if he initiated it, was aware of it, and/or was able to control it. It's really...something I have to show, rather than describe. BRB... gonna get FRAPS.

What emu is it, most now will record avi's internally, or at least work with kkapture. Fraps is not ideal for emulators

[onReload]

What emu is it, most now will record avi's internally, or at least work with kkapture. Fraps is not ideal for emulators

It's just a replay off 2dFighter, so I'd have to go to the site, which will then open whatever version of FBAlpha, and play the replay, and it runs smoothly, I can record that fine, right?

[error1]

some versions of fba can record avis internally. I would try kkapture before fraps.

[onReload]

some versions of fba can record avis internally. I would try kkapture before fraps.

I'll go ahead and check that out, though I don't know how modified this version of FBA is, since it's limited for P2P purposes. Should I let you know what goes on with it over in Film Editing, or do you not want to be a personal troubleshooter? (I'd understand, it gets annoying walking my mother through MSWord and AOL Mail.)

[error1]

I took a look at it and it's heavily modified but I found a way to make .kkapture work
First find where freeplay_emu.exe is installed. For me it was
C:UsersError1AppDataRoamingDamdai2DFFreePlay
look in your replays folder and pick the record you want, whenever you watch one it stores it here
Go ahead and move it to the same folder as freeplay_emu.exe and rename it replay.2df.
In drag replay.2df to freeplay_emu.exe and it should play your demo.
In the select blitter menu change it to softfx
exit and run .kkapture
pick freeplay_emu.exe under demo
for arguments type replay.2df
then hit kkapture!
It will probably come up with an error message but the video will still play in the background.
Just ignore the error and when your ready to exit hit ctrl rather then press any of the buttons.
Yah so obviously fraps is easier to use
but fraps is lossey and encodes in real time so it will skip frames or add frames if it can't keep up.
.kkapture is lossless and never skips frames so it's better for this kind of thing.
I can record it for you if you want but I can't figure out how to get the sound to work

[onReload]

I took a look at it and it's heavily modified but I found a way to make .kkapture work
First find where freeplay_emu.exe is installed. For me it was
C:UsersError1AppDataRoamingDamdai2DFFreePlay
look in your replays folder and pick the record you want, whenever you watch one it stores it here
Go ahead and move it to the same folder as freeplay_emu.exe and rename it replay.2df.
In drag replay.2df to freeplay_emu.exe and it should play your demo.
In the select blitter menu change it to softfx
exit and run .kkapture
pick freeplay_emu.exe under demo
for arguments type replay.2df
then hit kkapture!
It will probably come up with an error message but the video will still play in the background.
Just ignore the error and when your ready to exit hit ctrl rather then press any of the buttons.
Yah so obviously fraps is easier to use
but fraps is lossey and encodes in real time so it will skip frames or add frames if it can't keep up.
.kkapture is lossless and never skips frames so it's better for this kind of thing.
I can record it for you if you want but I can't figure out how to get the sound to work

...Can't believe you figured that all out. However, I let it run and left for work, and came back to find that it was only like a minute in, with 2 clips, one 20 seconds, one 30 seconds, each like a gigabyte big. I know it segments them, but hell...I don't know how to make it capture at a lower resolution. the creator of kkapture says he uses "mode switches" but I have no idea what the hell that means.

And yeah, no sound, and colors are off as hell in VLC, but fine in MPC.

[error1]

I'm able to get the sound to work by opening the freeplay_emu.ini in the config folder and making

Code: Select all

// Sample rate
nAudSampleRate 22050

You can minimize it and work on other thing, it doesn't need to be active to capture.

I'm good at troubleshooting so it didn't give me much trouble.
Yah the raw video is going to be that big, compressing them will make them a decent size but it's better to just encode them. The color that should be fixed after being encoded.
The other blitters will let you change your resolution but if you use them you will have to crop the final video and won't really effect file size.

[Raine]

I remember playing against a Zangief in HDRemix using Cammy. I landed crossup j.LK, c.MP, c.MK and just as I go to do the Spiral Arrow, I suddenly see myself at the top of the screen about to get crushed by Gief's SPD. I know it's just a symptom of the rollback lag, but I was amazed at the first time of being thrown out of a combo XD.

[onReload]

error has graciously recorded, chopped, and uploaded to YouTube the crazy jojo glitchfest I encountered:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJqaWve_-KA

I know some of what I'm seeing (dummied out character's death screen? perhaps the start of a character's coding?) but I have no idea how this happens. Make of it what you will.

[Maj]

Crazy! I can't even begin to guess what the hell might have caused that ...

Good luck figuring it out.

(Very appropriate background choice though.)

[onReload]

Crazy! I can't even begin to guess what the hell might have caused that ...

Good luck figuring it out.

(Very appropriate background choice though.)

You mean the stage? It's a random stage choice thing, but I think that dummied out death screen may have been Gray Fly (the Tarot card "Tower"), so that would be his stage.