Has anyone else read this? Info on a possible title update

I think you're misunderstanding the example, I don't need to be host. The implication of this mistimed animation is that on the host's xbox (ie. the one which is taken as law), the gun fired before the person firing it died. However, for it to fire before I have died on the host's screen, but after I have died on my screen, that means the host's Xbox needs to know that I have fired my gun before my Xbox does, which is obviously impossible.

Latency can only be blamed when trying to inspect someone else's action and saying that it doesn't make sense based on what you saw on your screen, since they have to be communicated to your xbox and you will see them after the decision has been made (on the host's xbox) of what happened first. It cannot affect what you see of your own actions on your own screen.

Also, whilst me being host is irrelevant, there is actually a way to tell if you are host which I'm guessing you don't know about since you talked about not knowing. If your reticle unblooms at the start of the game and after every respawn, you have host. If it doesn't, you don't. This is a pretty useful trick.

I personally don't see that. Host was an issue in H3, but tbh it still is just in different ways (hence one of my arguments about bloom). The upshot of this is that yes the host advantage is decreased, meaning it isn't as much of a case of 1 person out of 8 having an advantage, but at the cost of every other person in the game also suffering in a different way. I'd rather have trouble with one person in particular in the game than suffer illogical trades with every single person.

I personally call bullshit much more in Reach than I did in H3, simply because seeing someone melee me after they've died, or continue to lunge and kill me after they've had a headshot landed, or kill me with a sword after I've shottied them is not only more frustrating (which is a personal thing, subjective) but actually much more frequent (which isn't subjective at all).

Like I said, it's accounting for bad connections at the cost of moderate to good ones, which I think is a step too far in accounting for latency

 

I guess I still don't understand the example, because I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work that way. The window might be generous, but I don't find it unreasonable, much less genuinely distinguishable from latency discrepancies.

 

If I see someone else's gun fire after I have fired the shot that killed them, this can make sense because on the hosts Xbox that person fired the shot before they died, and by the time this information has been sent to my Xbox they had already died, so it looked to me as if this shot was fired after they died.

However, If I see my own gun fire on my screen after I can see that I have died, this shot being fired isn't being communicated from anywhere. The information that I fired a shot is generated by my Xbox, so there's no way it can delayed in the same way above, in such a way that my Xbox has to catch up and think 'oh no, actually that shot was fired' and apply that information after death.

Basically, latency can only be blamed when there is connection between the Xbox of the person performing an action (obviously via the host which decides when this action took place) and the person viewing the action (ie. the one who would potentially call bullshit). Since I am both the person performing and the person viewing the action, there is no connection between my Xbox and itself for latency to affect.

Or, in other words, it can only affect a situation where the information of a shot being fired is being transmitted from one Xbox to another, which is obviously not the case when the shot being fired is mine and thus my Xbox knows instantly that it's happened.

I can pinpoint countless examples, just as the above, where it cannot be put down to latency. In fact, I'm playing FFA right now and it literally just happened last game, I trade DMR headshot kills with someone and get a revenge medal for it because they killed me shortly before my killing shot even on my screen, and no, they weren't the person responsible for my previous death so that's not where the revenge medal came from.

 

I don't believe you would know instantly, though. The reason we're seeing lag is because your actions have to be processed online before you actually see them.
That isn't to say I'm not aware of the window you're talking about; I think I've been clear on that. I even encounter it myself in Swat and occasionally Infection. I'm just saying it's not unreasonable for them to choose this more lenient method for awarding kills that are only milliseconds apart. It seems that you either have host-dominant lobbies, or you have a few more kills exchanged once in a while. Both have their faults, but either of them are functional.

 

I'm 99% sure that an action that I perform doesn't have to go from my Xbox to the host and back again (ie. for it to be confirmed by the host) before I see it rendered on screen. If that were the case then bad connections would see every action I perform delayed slightly on my screen (for example, shots not firing on your screen until a short while after you'd pressed the trigger, same with melees etc. The only exception seems to be grenades which are delayed even on my screen due to bad hosts), which is not the case. I'm talking about the animation of my gun firing, not the visible bullet being rendered, that is something which has to go from my box to the host and back again before it's rendered on my screen, but even the animation of my gun firing happens after I've died on my screen. If the host refutes the action it just won't appear on other people's screens since, according to the host's game, which is taken as fact, the action didn't happen. Also, the host agrees that it happened after I died even on their box as I'm awarded a Revenge medal.

However, even if this were the case then it still couldn't fully explain this. I've had it happen when I'm host, which I can be sure of due to the method I detailed above, meaning that all the processing between me performing the action, the host, and it coming back to be rendered on screen is being done within my box. I'll try and remember to clip it next time to show you what I mean.

I think it's more that you're lucky rather than me being unlucky if you only encounter it occasionally in Infection in particular. It's a well established complaint amongst Infection regulars since the whole playlist basically revolves around Shotty/Sword battles and the trade aspect is highlighted much more heavily there. I agree that there should be window, restricting it to one frame is just going to cause connection to define too many kills, but I maintain that there wasn't a big issue with kills not being awarded on H3. The H3 system accounted for latency enough to allow for the average connection, and when you suffered it was down to a poor connection in that instance. If it were a case of even average and above connections not being able to handle the stringently narrow window then I would have seen need for change, but I would vehemently argue that this wasn't the case.

 

That's what was confusing me, because it still occurs to the host. I really can't recall many instances of actually firing right after I die, but I feel like I've seen it occur while spectating other people, so it's hard to say.
I don't remember Halo 3's system vividly enough to recall any specific problems with lag, but I really haven't had many complaints about either game in that regard. Still, I feel like the trading is too closely tied to connection, not to mention other factors under the hood that we probably aren't even aware of. Sure, put it on the sprawling wishlist, but you have to admit it's still going to rank quite low.

 

In terms of what most people are asking for, yes I agree it's gonna rank quite low. But tbh my point in bringing it up was to try and raise discussion on more technical points rather than ones of balance which are more up for debate as you said. You're right that neither of us have access to enough detailed information to make truly informed and detailed assessment of the mechanic, I'm just going off what I see in MM (though I will say that even this seems pretty strong as a basis for my points, insofar as is possible). But in terms of what a TU could address, something which detailed inspection of the numbers at their end would yield a much closer to definite way to decide whether such a change would be beneficial, whether the current system is overcompensating etc. Closer to the 'under the hood' aspects that past Halo TUs addressed alongside more noticeable changes to the visible mechanics like melee.

 

To briefly answer your delay query, you cannot use the animations/projectiles of the fired shot as a way to determine differences in connection. They are entirely aesthetic, and unrelated to the formulae behind when and where your shots land.

Connections do practically have to go through the host. I do not, and i expect nobody here to know the technicalities behind it's functionality. However i am sure that some form of communication must go to-and-from host. That's just the way these connections work. If it worked any other way you would know about it. Therefore, you have to determine that the game plays out a law-of-averages between host and non-host. If you get a headshot-to-kill on a guy on your screen, and he happens to have fired the shot a little later on his screen, then perhaps sometime the game will just register both. It may boil down to simple mathematics, but we'll never know.

In layman's terms; what happens on your screen is just factored in with what happens on everyone else's screens, which is then averaged to produce a 'fair' result, that will always bias toward the host.

 

If even the animation of my gun firing (and I'm talking about the gun animation, not the visually rendered round in the air) has to go through the host, why is it not delayed on poor connections, and the same with melee animations? The round itself does, just like a grenade, which is why you see them delayed on poor connections, but the gun firing animation itself doesn't, it is exactly in line with when I fire according to my controller and Xbox. Therefore there is no way that, either on my Xbox or the host's, I can have fired the shot before I died.

I know this is going off logical inference rather than an understanding of the actual code and numbers involved, but I don't see how it can be refuted even with that information since it's such basic logic drawn from the order of events.

 

I don't know about that, because when I'm pulling the trigger in a laggy game, nothing happens at all until a few seconds later. I'm not seeing recoil every time i pull the trigger, then seeing a bullet appear later due to the lag; it all lags. The same goes for movement or melee.
Besides, I think they have this generally where they want it, especially considering they had the beta to iron out any possible guesswork involved.

 

I still don't know what you're talking about as even in the laggiest games I've ever had the recoil and melee animations render immediately. The actual action being delayed only ever happened in the Network Test FF playlist in the beta where literally every action was delayed, remember what that was like? Right, that's what I'm describing.

As for them having it where they want it, again I disagree. H3 had a beta, such things were changed post release, same with H2. Perhaps they found that the window was too tight in the beta, but then again they only had one shot at putting out a correction and perhaps they went too far the other way. To simply say that they had a beta thus they're perfectly happy with the final product in technical terms such as this ignores precedent once again. Even then (and I know this again relies somewhat on conjecture thus isn't worth relying on too much, but I still think it bears saying), there are plenty of indicators that, given more time, Bungie would have refined the game itself further. The gametype glitches and broken tidbits within the game hint towards at least a slight rush, and yes these are examples of aspects which aren't as important as the core game mechanics like netcode etc. but the argument remains that Bungie clearly didn't have time to get everything as perfect as they might have liked, which adds a further slight bit of doubt to the assertion that, because they had a beta, what we have now is exactly what they intended. There was even that oh so loved podcast which the MLG Reach-haters got so up in arms about (and I can't say I totally disagree with them...) where a programmer (can't remember who it was, though I'm gonna try and find this podcast now) basically said that Bloom wasn't exactly right but 'good enough' for the timescale available.

 

Yes, I think you've said it nicely: things aren't perfect.

 

Though I have to say that, aside from that, (and it's an annoyance but once again not gamebreaking), plus the gametype glitches, the technical side seems pretty awesome. The way the game deals with lag in other senses is a massive step up on H3, as is bullet registration etc. I obviously can't look under the hood and see if everything is running as well as possible but that's my single technical complaint with the the way the game is set up in the backend sense.

 

I agree with that - it's easy to complain when someone seems to have an advantage in a fight due to host or whatever (and for me it seems by far the most noticeable in Grifball, which makes me not want to play that game much). But in general Reach seems vastly improved in these areas compared to the two previous Halos - Bungie's had time to figure some things out, it seems, and they deployed the results of those lessons well.

 

While that is indeed true, I find myself calling Bullshit much more in Reach than I did in Halo 3 or Halo 2.

Either way, TU or not, I'd still play Reach alot. I'd just enjoy it alot more with one.

 

Frankly, I'm thankful for the incremental improvements we see in every new online game. Though there are always hiccups, they appear to be less and less frequent, and I always look forward to the possibilities as bandwidth and processing power continue to grow. It's tough for me to have qualms knowing that each game is still better than before, and that our current complaints won't even exist in the not-so-distant future.

 

Honestly I think H3 actually took a step backwards in certain areas of online play. Halo 2 was dodgy in terms of host and connection advantage but at the very least you could say it was consistent in how it dealt with those things. I know consistent disparity isn't the greatest claim any game can make but I think with H3 Bungie overcomplicated things just a little which resulted in the poor registration and jumpy character movement we saw even in slightly laggy games. Though this only further supports the point that Reach itself is a big step forward since they seem to have addressed the inconsistencies of H3 without reverting to such a lopsided system as was true with H2.

I agree with an overall progression, definitely culminating in Reach, but I'd also say that Bungie learned a lot from H3 even when compared to H2. As for other online games, I have to say I'm not nearly as clued up on any other series as I am with Halo, but from what I can tell I'd agree with you.

 

I see Halo one as a shining beam of creativity.
I see Halo 2 as the rush-for-release bastard child that strived and strived to win our hearts.
I see Halo 3 as the valiant but emotionless and unsuccessful attempt to turn the tide.
I see Halo ODST an as exercise in urbanization and blockbuster cinematography.
And i see Halo Reach as the culmination of the above.

The paint on the walls practically peels off as you play Halo 2, but that doesn't stop it from being the most ambitious and thrilling title in the series. Despite it's hardback copy of problems, it's still the best.

 

Banshee radius decreased even a little so I can at least evade out of the way when I that's what I'm planning to do.(or if its a evade glitch fix that up, Evading away from somewhere but "Your" still there and where your evading to.)
And increase bullet damage slightly to compensate?

Armor lock is fine, Personally jet pack pisses me off way more anyway if armor lock got nerfed to make it more viable in high competitive standards I wouldn't mind but still the way it is atm is still fine in general imo.