Latency no longer a Factor in Diablo 3 Combat?
Posted 14 September 2011 by FluxI know, it almost sounds like a dream, but it appears that it’s true!
According to a few sources playing the F&F Beta, it seems that Blizzard may have found a way to completely remove the delay of character combat actions resulting from network latency. This is further evident in many of the gameplay streams and youtube footage, in which nearly all combat actions appear to be instantaneous as if played in single-player. From what we understand, this only applies to combat actions, and not other gameplay functions, such as looting, chests, salvaging etc. The exception being big lagspikes, which will always cause a delay.
This has been corroborated further by F&F beta players who live in Australia. They are reporting that they are not seeing any delays in their combat actions, while having at least 200ms latency.
F&F sources have it that Blizzard are using a new method of client/server communication that provides a secure and tamper-proof method of using the local client to handle its own calculations, while sending the data to the server for verification. The Client doesn’t require the server to respond, hence removing Latency from the equation. The exact technical information of how this works is unknown, particularly how it protects the game from tampering with the client, however it is believed that the server checks all the data that comes from the client, and if it detects tampering it disconnects the client. This eliminates the need for the client to have to wait for a response from the server, and runs as business as usual unless the server doesn’t like what the client has sent it.
This is huge news, particularly for players in Australia, New Zealand and other high-latency regions that don’t have localized servers. Diablo 3 combat looks very fast-paced and the slightest delay would make the game feel rather broken. As well-illustrated by this monk gameplay video.
If this turns out to be accurate, huge props to Blizzard for getting rid of the plague we call high-latency!
Update: More F&F Beta testers have further corroborated this information. Naturally we can’t confirm this as 100% fact as we have not experienced the Beta, however it seems that all combat actions are instant despite your latency! All rejoice! (AU and NZ players especially!)
Update #2: I am extremely pleased to announce that we now have 100% confirmation that this is indeed correct! Latency no longer matters at all for combat! You can now safely be ecstatic without risk of getting your hopes up for nothing.
Proof you say? Here it is. This youtube video was taken a few days ago by a F&F Beta tester. We have since found out that he is Australian, and as you may or may not know, Australian’s have at best around 200ms latency to the United States, and if you’re an AU/NZ gamer, you know just how noticeable that is. His attacks are instantly being calculated and applied without any latency or delay. Check it out below the fold.
This is indeed the best thing since sliced bread. (In gaming terms…)
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This is great news. Makes a little less painful the always-online requirement. Yet I’m not liking the sensationalistic tone of the piece, but this is just me I guess.
FYI: this is nothing new in gaming. A few co-op online games have been using this approach already. Still great they are using this technology for D3.
Other things which will still be subject to latency: PvP Arenas, actions performed by other party members in multiplayer games, etc.
NICE! Good news for us Aussies
Yeah, I was seriously weighing up whether to buy it or not. This just made my decision much easier.
Why didn’t Bashiok say they were doing this back when the “MP only” stuff first became known?
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Also the way this works is probably through an encryption system similar to what those key fobs that you get for some bank accounts work (and I believe they have them available for WoW accounts). Your specific copy of D3 will have its own internal ID that is used to generate keys over time using a mathematical formula. Your account on the D3 server will be tied to your client using this internal ID. When combat data happens on the client it will be encrypted using the current key and sent to the server, which will decrypt it. If hacked data is sent to the server, it will need to be properly encrypted or the server won’t understand it, so unless someone can get the key out of the client they won’t be able to properly encrypt the combat data and so it’ll be rejected. The keys change over time, so even if one key is compromised, it won’t be valid for long.
No doubt the D3 server will make a record of invalid keys and if any particular account shows a high number of invalid keys, Blizzard will know the player is trying to hack the game and can ban the account.
If this is correct, it means you can pretty much give up on seeing a hacked b.net server any time soon.
That’s just part of the story. It will also need to verify that your ‘valid’ data is actually valid. Meaning that they will want to stop peeps with valid keys from tampering with the data they send to bliz servers during battles or at any other point in time.
Which is great since we can expect to see cheaters banned on the spot as it were.
Is there going to be a problem if packets get lost, that clients will be disconnected.
TCP packets can detect when the packets are lost and retransmit. As well as error checking and a bunch of other functionality so this shouldn’t be an issue.
Depends if they’re using TCP or not, though. Most games use UDP due to lower processing overheads and being able to deal with lost packets (usually just ignoring it).
D3 could of course use UDP and overlay their own QoS enforcement on top.
Im used to fighting games such as Tekken 6, and online latency kills it. Looking forward to lagfree DIII
I remember when everyone was complaining about the forced latency in SC2 and then Blizz halved it in a patch but didn’t tell anyone. No one noticed. I think the claims of having 200ms latency being unplayable are a bit exaggerated.
200ms is bad on a FPS, unless you’re used to it.
In D2 in the few times I tried playing online I got pings of ~250 and it just made it really annoying to play, to the point that I didn’t.
I don’t think 200ms being unplayable is exaggeration for a game like D3 at all.
Australians will tell you that 200ms latency feels completely different from single-player in D2. I play online because I like playing with others, but the game feels substantially different; more point-and-hope than a sensation of direct control.
I’m not sure North Americans can fully appreciate what this news could mean to us Aussies.
Having lived in NZ for a while, I sort of agree. 200ms latency does not make games unplayable, but it does provide a source of constant irritation.
Going from that to no latency is like Forrest Gump ditching his leg braces.
Maybe now people who complained about not having single player because of latency can finally be quiet.
You can’t really condemn people for complaining though as this is the first time this news has been documented. High latency is the reason I played SP extensively in D2 and I was very worried about D3 until now.
Why because there’s an unconfirmed rumor that combat actions aren’t as laggy?
Really?
I don’t think you know what the definition of a rumor is.
Is it confirmed? No, it’s unconfirmed. If it’s unconfirmed, then it’s a rumor. There’s zero from Blizzard on the matter, and look at the beta forums–nothing.
No, I sure don’t know what a rumor is.
That’s completely besides the point of leaping across the grand canyon of logic of saying that it invalidates the argument of latency because let’s assume some magical wand was waved and combat didn’t lag.
Yep, that sure means nothing for map generation, monster location and movement, loot generation and placement, etc etc.
/golfclap
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3123370082
posted 22 hours ago btw.
Hey Rising, I read that thread and it appears that the guy is being obscure. If you read his initial quoted post, he is describing lag-spikes, not latency.
Quote: “It’s pretty disorienting to see my character use their attack swing animation, move away from where he was standing, then suddenly warp back in place with the special effect graphic playing 1-2 seconds AFTER I see him swing. Many deaths were incurred as a result of this server tie-in on a single player playthrough.”
1-2 sec lag spikes, not latency. This fits in with how we think the new architecture works – it sends things to the server obviously, and is only affected by server lag / client lag spikes.
It’s been further confirmed by some other beta testers, one in particularly mentioned he is on College wifi with 1000ms latency, and his game is running as if he’s in single player.
At this stage, I would say that the results are speaking for themselves. People who have played all their lives with 200ms are saying that it’s instant, as well as many others.
People who’ve played at 200ms all the time would find 100ms to be incredibly fast… so let’s not jump to any conclusions yet.
Azzure, was there anyone who had around 2000ms latency that said single player was smooth? i got 2k and im freaked out that i wont be able to play this game
Good news for argentinian players
Sounds too good to be true, I wonder how it will do with the full load, but then again, what do I know about servers? So I remain skeptical but this is great news indeed.
You are right to be skeptical. Because this is not great news.
First and foremost this is not Blizzard’s unique method for client/server communication. Path of Exile uses the same thing too and I know there are more games out there uses the same thing.
But there’s a huge downside for this. Client/Sever sync. The combat will be out of sync very often and it will delay the actions more than you think. There will be times you won’t be able to hit a mob or die because of unseen monster or find yourself in a different place.
This can’t be 100% solved. But you can limit it. We’ll see if Blizzard limited this to unimportant level.
So the client does have access to combat calculations? That doesn’t sound very safe, but I guess it’s safer than loot being handled client side. We’ll see how it plays out.
This reminds me of the “new lag system” or “new netcode” that Valve developed as a Half Life patch. It was quite possibly the first big title client-side prediction system ever developed. It was the holy grail to online gaming. If you ever played Half Life before that patch, or practically any online game, you’ll know that you had to not only predict for something like a rocket launcher’s trajectory, but also for ~250 ping of latency, so you had to aim WWAAYY ahead. This required IMMENSE skill. Or immense luck
The “new lag system” (client side prediction) eliminated the need to predict for latency entirely, although you could sometimes get killed by LPBs (low ping bastards, i.e. ISDN subscribers, and maybe DSL subscribers) when you believed you were in no harm. Thats the cost of client side prediction: potential bull**** when your client catches up to the server. However, with a game like Diablo 3, each client should be able to predict monster movement with 100% certainty, preventing any potential bull****
Just thought I’d rant a history lesson for the uninitiated.
So brings back fond memories.