28 replies to this topic

[buttmonkey]

my suggestion is that pgi fix lag issues before dealing with non essential things like paint schemes that cost way way too much.
i mean listen, i know pgi need to make money on this game but cmon, theres a lot of people complaining about lag, bugs etc, and it seems that selling paint jobs tops their list of things to do.

Edited by buttmonkey, 09 February 2013 - 07:19 AM.

[Tolkien]

buttmonkey, on 09 February 2013 - 07:18 AM, said:

my suggestion is that pgi fix lag issues before dealing with non essential things like paint schemes that cost way way too much.
i mean listen, i know pgi need to make money on this game but cmon, theres a lot of people complaining about lag, bugs etc, and it seems that selling paint jobs tops their list of things to do.

Hi Buttmonkey,

I've been very critical of some of the choices designed in so far (ECM) but the artwork/other work question is one where I think the devs should be cut significant slack.

Reasoning being threefold.

1) They are advertising for expert network coders but these people don't grow on trees, so in the meantime progress is coming from the team at PGI organically growing and learning. There's a book out there on project management called "The mythical man month" that discusses how throwing people at a problem when it is already delayed can actually slow it down further as it takes a certain amount of time to bring those people up to speed and make them productive. You can't just hire 5 new "programmers" and expect them to contribute for weeks if not months.

2) The artists are already on staff and can't just be turned off like a tap - these are people with jobs, families etc. I would love to see them "retrained" for map design to have more throughput there, but at least they are producing quality if not quantity. The game looks amazing, and I'd rather let them keep the quality high than rush junk out the door.

3) Even if they are milking the cammo system they've dramatically improved it with the last patch to be less "greedy" in so far as you can unlock colours/patterns like skins in other established games, rather than having to pay for them every single time which was asinine and exploitative.

So while I agree with you in concept that the allocation of talent doesn't seem right from the outside, they are trying, they are making progress, and there aren't any magic short term bullets.

I too hope the momentum picks up visibly though.

[sycocys]

Lag is usually a local problem or cause en route of data transfer - I haven't seen a time when the server side was clogged up enough to cause this yet.

[Regrets]

sycocys, on 09 February 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

Lag is usually a local problem or cause en route of data transfer - I haven't seen a time when the server side was clogged up enough to cause this yet.

Not true for me. A couple patches ago gave me some serious lag problems. Previously a 50 pinger...

[Tolkien]

sycocys, on 09 February 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

Lag is usually a local problem or cause en route of data transfer - I haven't seen a time when the server side was clogged up enough to cause this yet.

It does happen - the lag/rubberbanding is sometimes server side and can be seen simultaneously by myself in Scandinavia/Europe and in Canada by a friend on skype.

Different ISPs on different continents both experiencing rubberbanding means it's sever side.

[Flapdrol]

Sometimes I have terrible pings ingame while my ping to a local site is a steady 22.

sometimes it's fine, a steady 114 ingame.

Edited by Flapdrol, 09 February 2013 - 09:04 AM.

[buttmonkey]

for me it was the last patch that really ruined my ping, before it was steady at 120 but now it can range from 120-300!
thats a big jump and it only since the latest patch, however a european server would most likely resolve all the lag problems (in europe anyway)

[roflplanes]

buttmonkey, on 09 February 2013 - 07:18 AM, said:

my suggestion is that pgi fix lag issues before dealing with non essential things like paint schemes that cost way way too much.
i mean listen, i know pgi need to make money on this game but cmon, theres a lot of people complaining about lag, bugs etc, and it seems that selling paint jobs tops their list of things to do.

Everyone forgets one critical thing.... they have several SEPARATE dev teams working on SEPARATE issues SIMULTANEOUSLY. Just because the netcode team is working slower (they do have a harder job to do, after all) doesn't mean that they're not working just as furiously to push these fixes out.

PGI (like any other software development company) is far more like a ship than a gymnasium. There are dozens of independently run and monitored compartments all working simultaneously and pushing their results to higher-level staff. It's not a moshpit of people sitting in a room together going "hmmmm, what to work on today?"

Just saying... everyone should get their facts straight before making comments like this.

[Rocket2Uranus]

sycocys, on 09 February 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

Lag is usually a local problem or cause en route of data transfer - I haven't seen a time when the server side was clogged up enough to cause this yet.

that load of ****. a month ago i was getting 30-60 ping even while downloading.
now i get constantly 180-240 ping.

its all local problem huh?


but good news... looks like the lagshield phenomena has vanished alnog with the mystical lag

Edited by Rocket2Uranus, 09 February 2013 - 01:17 PM.

[roflplanes]

Ping is a measure of the delay (travel time) it takes a packet of data to go from your computer, be received by the server, and be returned to your computer. Lag is caused when your computer is saying one thing but it's not getting to the server in time, so the server is telling the other players something entirely different from what YOUR computer is seeing.

[Codejack]

The problem is that the netcode issue has nothing to do with ping. I have very good ping, and I live in the U.S., so my connection should be fine, but I have terrible lag/teleporting/damage not registering/getting killed by missiles/lasers/shells going through buildings/bridges/hills problems.

As for cutting PGI slack, that would be an easier sell if it were not clearly getting worse. If you don't know how to fix it, quit ****ing with it!

Frankly, I think that they have the entirely wrong approach, but they don't seem to want anyone else's opinion. Maybe that is why they can't find anyone.

[Bhael Fire]

Tolkien, on 09 February 2013 - 07:35 AM, said:

Hi Buttmonkey,

I've been very critical of some of the choices designed in so far (ECM) but the artwork/other work question is one where I think the devs should be cut significant slack.

Reasoning being threefold.

1) They are advertising for expert network coders but these people don't grow on trees, so in the meantime progress is coming from the team at PGI organically growing and learning. There's a book out there on project management called "The mythical man month" that discusses how throwing people at a problem when it is already delayed can actually slow it down further as it takes a certain amount of time to bring those people up to speed and make them productive. You can't just hire 5 new "programmers" and expect them to contribute for weeks if not months.

2) The artists are already on staff and can't just be turned off like a tap - these are people with jobs, families etc. I would love to see them "retrained" for map design to have more throughput there, but at least they are producing quality if not quantity. The game looks amazing, and I'd rather let them keep the quality high than rush junk out the door.

3) Even if they are milking the cammo system they've dramatically improved it with the last patch to be less "greedy" in so far as you can unlock colours/patterns like skins in other established games, rather than having to pay for them every single time which was asinine and exploitative.

So while I agree with you in concept that the allocation of talent doesn't seem right from the outside, they are trying, they are making progress, and there aren't any magic short term bullets.

I too hope the momentum picks up visibly though.

Excellent post is excellent.

[blinkin]

roflplanes, on 09 February 2013 - 02:06 PM, said:

Ping is a measure of the delay (travel time) it takes a packet of data to go from your computer, be received by the server, and be returned to your computer. Lag is caused when your computer is saying one thing but it's not getting to the server in time, so the server is telling the other players something entirely different from what YOUR computer is seeing.

high ping is very often the cause of lag.

for reference i am in the US (northern colorado, basically the center of the continental US)
i will say this latest patch seems to be a step backwards from the previous patch. lag shield has made a minor come back. more information on my experiences here. it is still way better than anything before the "Death's Knell" patch (1.2.179), but the previous patch played much more smoothly for me.

in the last patch i was very reliably hitting light mechs that were moving at full speed with PPC. a hit was displayed on screen and the mech took damage related to that hit. i was able to lead and hit with srm effectively. since the last major patch i have had issue damaging hunchbacks at times with srm that clearly made contact and exploded on my screen (close range under 100m, it is unlikely that i misinterpereted what i saw).

@Codejack:
haven't you found a game you actually like yet? all your ranting has done is convince most of the people here that you will never be happy with this game and you are not worth listening to.

Edited by blinkin, 10 February 2013 - 12:08 AM.

[Codejack]

blinkin, on 10 February 2013 - 12:07 AM, said:

@Codejack:
haven't you found a game you actually like yet? all your ranting has done is convince most of the people here that you will never be happy with this game and you are not worth listening to.

I was playing DDO for 6 years, and don't even like to think about how much money I spent on it. I was playing EQ before that, since ~2000, so I can add up how much money I spent on that pretty easily (~$500). To my everlasting shame, I played WoW for about 6 months in between.

I'm a pretty heavy gamer, but I don't have a game right now. Neverwinter is coming out, soon, and there are a few other things on the horizon that look interesting, but while I'm just sitting here staring at the mechlab until I can summon the will to launch into a new game, I post on the forums and play Gemcraft Labyrinth on Kongregate; I have uncovered about half the map since MWO came out.

Now, why am I here instead of on another forum? Because back in the 90's, the Mechwarrior games were my absolute favorites, and this game had a lot of potential back in closed beta.

[Firewuff]

*head desk* I'm so tired of the "just fix it your crap" posts.... its really getting tiring and is totally not construcive

[CHWarpath]

Tolkien, on 09 February 2013 - 07:35 AM, said:

Hi Buttmonkey,

I've been very critical of some of the choices designed in so far (ECM) but the artwork/other work question is one where I think the devs should be cut significant slack.

Reasoning being threefold.

1) They are advertising for expert network coders but these people don't grow on trees, so in the meantime progress is coming from the team at PGI organically growing and learning. There's a book out there on project management called "The mythical man month" that discusses how throwing people at a problem when it is already delayed can actually slow it down further as it takes a certain amount of time to bring those people up to speed and make them productive. You can't just hire 5 new "programmers" and expect them to contribute for weeks if not months.

2) The artists are already on staff and can't just be turned off like a tap - these are people with jobs, families etc. I would love to see them "retrained" for map design to have more throughput there, but at least they are producing quality if not quantity. The game looks amazing, and I'd rather let them keep the quality high than rush junk out the door.

3) Even if they are milking the cammo system they've dramatically improved it with the last patch to be less "greedy" in so far as you can unlock colours/patterns like skins in other established games, rather than having to pay for them every single time which was asinine and exploitative.

So while I agree with you in concept that the allocation of talent doesn't seem right from the outside, they are trying, they are making progress, and there aren't any magic short term bullets.

I too hope the momentum picks up visibly though.

Your a bit of a bleeding heart, but sympathy for devs doing a job nobody forced them to do for profit matters to a sane consumer. Games don't sympathy, they run on consumers deciding to hand over their hard earned cash. If these devs are not up to task, they should have not attempted to make a video game for profit.

[Codejack]

CHWarpath, on 10 February 2013 - 10:00 PM, said:

Your a bit of a bleeding heart, but sympathy for devs doing a job nobody forced them to do for profit matters to a sane consumer. Games don't sympathy, they run on consumers deciding to hand over their hard earned cash. If these devs are not up to task, they should have not attempted to make a video game for profit.

Now, wait a minute; they are free to make whatever attempt they like. Liberty is not contingent on competence.

That being said, they will either fix the game or it will fail. I don't have the most faith in Capitalism, but some laws of the marketplace hold true, unless MWO is getting government subsidies for some reason.

[Dirus Nigh]

The people who make the skins, and models are artists not programmers. Even if they have some programming ability they are primarily artists. That is their job, that is what they are good at. It would be ridiculous to think that making them work on networking issues, or working on the game engine would have positive results.

The artists are doing a their job very well. Their work is making MWO a better game. They do not need to have other aspects of the business dumped on on them, especially when it is not their field of expertise.

[sycocys]

How many servers do you ping between you and the game server?

How many of these "may" be experiencing high traffic, or re-routing, or any of a few thousand other issues between you and the server?

I had some weird ping issues here, and throughout my gaming years and experience has taught me that generally there is something in between causing the problem and that something is usually my first routing - my isp.

Could they be dealing with issues? Sure, but most likely the issue is somewhere between you and them, not at their server.

[Regrets]

sycocys, on 11 February 2013 - 07:01 AM, said:

How many of these "may" be experiencing high traffic, or re-routing, or any of a few thousand other issues between you and the server?

It was definitely better yesterday than the day before, but a couple days ago was sick lots of 450. Yesterday was lots of 250. Just hit tab and look at the numbers yourself!