The Halo 3 aftermath thread

[Guest alisdair]

What's this hiding system?

what's the difference between lag and latency?

Latency is hidden using client-side prediction. Basically, each Xbox tries to guess where the other player is likely to move next, so that your screen updates with an estimate of where the other players are before receiving their actual movement inputs. (More details in the Wikipedia article)

Latency is the delay between someone doing something (moving/shooting) and the host or your Xbox receiving that information. Lag is any strange side-effect caused by the client-side prediction getting it wrong, which normally only happens noticeably at high or inconsistent latency.

I'm not sure who hosts the custom games but in theatre mode I've been asked to switch party learder when the game deemed my friend had a better connection. Maybe that's an indicator?

I think it's an indicator of who has the largest uplink, which is not the only thing required for hosting normal games. Maximum and average latency to the other players is more important in gameplay.

[sir stiff_one]

2 quick questions:

What's this hiding system?

what's the difference between lag and latency?

Ok, so as far as I understand, information is sent in little packets - so you can only know where in space any player is based on the last packet received. Instead of showing you the slightly jerky motion this often produces, it smoothes it out by animating the player guessing where they should be. Watch a replay of one of your matches and put the camera on a different player and you should see it's a little choppy. Most of the time this is fine, but whereas in another game you can learn to adust for the lag (shoot just in front of the target say), Halo wants you to shoot where you think the player is and let it correct it/work it out afterwards.

[redman]

thanks for the info lads

[Talvalin]

I'm still very much a noob at this so how I do I best use matchmaking to avoid a situation like this in the future?

Don't play with cunts.

EDIT: what Panda said.

[dan_tm]

Meerman, just to be clear, your connection for Rainbow wasn't particularly great latency wise, it was just the only connection wide enough to be able to support the number of people we played with. I'm not saying it was bad (or we wouldn't have used your connection to host, obviously), it just wasn't perfect. When going into shootouts with other people on your server there was always noticable lag from firing shots to them going down, several times more noticable than Halo 3 infact - but that's due to Ubisoft's net code not hiding it as well as Bungie's. When shooting you however, the odds are stacked massively in your favour, if we shoot each other at the same time you'd always survive and we'd die - it's as simple as that. Halo 3's net code is several times better than any other FPS I can think of at the moment.

no, honestly I set up the room, there were only two of us, and I was asked to switch to make him the party leader specifically because he had the better connection and must host. Anyway I'm not sure how relevent/important it is but I'm 99% certain that viewing the films I was asked to fuck off and make someone else the party leader because of their better connection.

That's just them not realising how the system works. The party leader is purely the person that is in charge of setting all the game options, nothing to do with who hosts.

[Meers]

Meerman, just to be clear, your connection for Rainbow wasn't particularly great latency wise, it was just the only connection wide enough to be able to support the number of people we played with. I'm not saying it was bad (or we wouldn't have used your connection to host, obviously), it just wasn't perfect. When going into shootouts with other people on your server there was always noticable lag from firing shots to them going down, several times more noticable than Halo 3 infact - but that's due to Ubisoft's net code not hiding it as well as Bungie's. When shooting you however, the odds are stacked massively in your favour, if we shoot each other at the same time you'd always survive and we'd die - it's as simple as that. Halo 3's net code is several times better than any other FPS I can think of at the moment.

NOW you're telling me? So what when I asked people how the connection was, and they answered with "yeah it's good, no problems"?

Were they lying to me?

*goes to remove forum hosting legend status from his sig*

So how can this be solved at all? Dedicated servers? Or will there always be some amount of latency left?

[dan_tm]

NOW you're telling me? So what when I asked people how the connection was, and they answered with "yeah it's good, no problems"?

No, I meant what I said. The connection was good with your host, no one was going to be able to host it any better, no one else even had a connection with enough bandwidth to host 14 people anyway.

It wasn't bad and I didn't say it was, it was just 'good' for your average online FPS. Some games can hide the latency quite well (like Halo) and others won't do much if anything to hide it (like Rainbow Six), that's not due to your host but their net code.

[Meers]

I'm spoiled then.

Ok, second chance time then. I'll be on tomorrow night for a few games, and will try to tolerate the latency instead of raging about it.

Does Stilly give lag therapy?

[dan_tm]

You will get lag every now and then, you just have to learn to put up with it really. I'd say that so far (I've only played about 20 games) there's about a 3/5 chance of getting a good game latency wise, which is much better than the 1/5 chance I'd probably say for Matchmaking on Halo 2.

Yes, it's annoying when you're getting beat purely because of the bad connections but when it works it's easily the most enjoyable game on the 360 so far. It's worth going through the (less frequent) bad times to get to the very, very good ones.

[BeeJay]

You will get lag every now and then, you just have to learn to put up with it really. I'd say that so far (I've only played about 20 games) there's about a 3/5 chance of getting a good game latency wise, which is much better than the 1/5 chance I'd probably say for Matchmaking on Halo 2.

Yes, it's annoying when you're getting beat purely because of the bad connections but when it works it's easily the most enjoyable game on the 360 so far. It's worth going through the (less frequent) bad times to get to the very, very good ones.

I'd say that from what I've seen the improvement in netcode and general connection quality from 2 to 3 is huge. Halo 3 easily has the best netcode of all the 360 online games I've played.

[Kryptonian]

Meerman - I watched that 'lagging tosser' video and it was fine. The grenades have smaller splash damage than before so they didn't kill him then he blasted you with a Mauler.

[Meers]

Meerman - I watched that 'lagging tosser' video and it was fine. The grenades have smaller splash damage than before so they didn't kill him then he blasted you with a Mauler.

Again, if that's "fine" then I suppose online gaming still has a long way to go. If there's no accurate visual feedback of the exact whereabouts of my opponents, how can you play this effectively?

Just to be sure you've seen the same thing as me; I jumped over his head, and the second I'm above him, he kills me, without even aiming at me. That's how I experienced it as well, so the replay isn't different from what I've seen in-game. That guy was the host, by the way.

[Kryptonian]

Again, if that's "fine" then I suppose online gaming still has a long way to go. If there's no accurate visual feedback of the exact whereabouts of my opponents, how can you play this effectively?

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Just to be sure you've seen the same thing as me; I jumped over his head, and the second I'm above him, he kills me, without even aiming at me. That's how I experienced it as well, so the replay isn't different from what I've seen in-game. That guy was the host, by the way.

Oh, I thought he fired just as you were jumping.

How do you know he was host? (I can never tell)

[BeeJay]

Again, if that's "fine" then I suppose online gaming still has a long way to go. If there's no accurate visual feedback of the exact whereabouts of my opponents, how can you play this effectively?

Just to be sure you've seen the same thing as me; I jumped over his head, and the second I'm above him, he kills me, without even aiming at me. That's how I experienced it as well, so the replay isn't different from what I've seen in-game. That guy was the host, by the way.

I haven't seen the clip yet but I've had very similar sounding incidents against mauler wielders.

[Pob]

Okay, here's a question for you network/latency experts: very often, my connection will drop to a single red bar, while everyone else stays stable. This usually lasts for a few seconds, but sometimes takes a couple of minutes to crawl back up into the yellow, then into the green. It's accompanied by major on screen lag and voice comms breaking up, and tends to come at the most annoying times!

It's clearly a problem my end, but what would cause this kind of short-lived, yet seriously annoying lag issue? Wireless interference? Dodgy phone line? My router is plugged straight into the master socket, the 360 is connected to the router wirelessly using my PC as a bridge. I'm going to try using a different wireless channel for starters.

[kerraig UK]

Again, how is that acceptable? And you may be right with me being the host in most other FPS this gen, and not used to latency...but Vegas never took the piss like Halo 3 does. No-one ever complained about latency/lag on my host, and host advantage was almost absent because I've lost quite a few matches as well.

Its NOT acceptable. peopel are just not as angry about it as you are because we were angry about it in 2004 with Halo 2. Its why i've been saying for 3 years that matchmaking is broken and has ruined Halo. Yet players that aren't skilled enough to see the problems think it is brilliant.

And yeah, dedicated european servers would eliminate the latency problem for all of us. or at least, nobody would have a distinct advantage over anyone else.

[Asura]

Yet players that aren't skilled enough to see the problems think it is brilliant.

That's insulting and unwarranted. It's as good as it can be. If it pisses you off so much, just don't play it - the rest of us will continue to have fun without you.

[MalevolentPanda]

Its NOT acceptable. peopel are just not as angry about it as you are because we were angry about it in 2004 with Halo 2. Its why i've been saying for 3 years that matchmaking is broken and has ruined Halo. Yet players that aren't skilled enough to see the problems think it is brilliant.

Latency and host advantage isn't a product of matchmaking, it's common to all peer to peer online games. Matchmaking is brilliant, and the fact that I think that has nothing to do with any inability to perceive latency, and everything to do with how it enables me and others to play Halo as a team game against other people of comparable skill.

[Jumble Jumble]

He didn't mean "the system called 'Matchmaking' is rubbish", he meant that when you use matchmaking the game is broken at high levels because of latency/lag.

[kerraig UK]

That's insulting and unwarranted. It's as good as it can be. If it pisses you off so much, just don't play it - the rest of us will continue to have fun without you.

Sorry dude, that wasn't meant as an insult. It's a genuine observation that some players have not seen any latency and I think that's down to the fact that they eithjer havent played enough to KNOW that the 5 battle rifle shots they just put in some guys head should have dropped him, or that they're not good enough to get 5 BR headshots in a row.

Its hardly an insult, it is at the end of the day just a videogame and there's plenty of those that i am absolutely rubbish at. i wouldn't recognise a change to the super cancel in PES and i wouldnt know if i'd fairly lost a parry in Virtua Fighter 5 or if it was latency that saw me lose because I don't understand the game system in either of those games. The same thing could be said here. EVERY person who has ever played halo online will have lost at least 1 battle due to latency, i'm just saying they might not have realised they should have won cos they don't know that 8 carbine shots beats 25 smg shots or whatever.

Apologies if it sounded patronising though.

[footle]

I thought that the after match replay was "what the host saw" rather than "what you saw"?

[kerraig UK]

Latency and host advantage isn't a product of matchmaking, it's common to all peer to peer online games. Matchmaking is brilliant, and the fact that I think that has nothing to do with any inability to perceive latency, and everything to do with how it enables me and others to play Halo as a team game against other people of comparable skill.

the problem with matchmaking is that it doesnt allow me to search for a local host. With EVERY other game on live i can just search for a room filled with brits that will almost completely eliminate Latency. Halo doesnt allow that.

He didn't mean "the system called 'Matchmaking' is rubbish", he meant that when you use matchmaking the game is broken at high levels because of latency/lag.

This

[Guest alisdair]

I thought that the after match replay was "what the host saw" rather than "what you saw"?

I think it was in the beta, doesn't seem to be now.

[metallicfrodo]

I think it was in the beta, doesn't seem to be now.

It wasn't in the beta I'm fairly sure. It makes more sense that it's recording what you are seeing as opposed to what the host sees. Otherwise you'd have to be dling his record at some point (either during the match which would obviously take up more bandwidth), or after the game which would rely on the host staying around long enough for it to dl to all players.

[BeeJay]

I think I've been through the loop with latency. My first real online gaming experience, which I really played enough to justify comment was battlefield 2 on the PC. I never once had any noticeable lag and generally as long as you were on a decent server (50ms ping) and only playing 16 player games latency was never a big issue.

Then I started playing Halo 2 and, like everyone else, got really pissed off with it. Every night I'd be pissed off about it, yet every night I'd go back for more. With Halo 3, as far as I'm concerned, it's better (still nowhere near as good as the PC online services mind you) and I don't really care that it takes 5 BR shots to kill someone. I've accepted Halo online for what it is which is great fun and easily the best multiplayer experience out there. The fact that it doesn't have local server options is a shame but it doesn't stop me playing.

[Guest alisdair]

Maybe it's because I'm rubbish, maybe because I've never played offline, but in most Halo 3 games I don't have a problem with lag. Obviously there's the occasional total bullshit game where I lose every 50/50, but most games are fine.

Sure, weird shit happens: 4 BR bursts to the head and no death, shotgun to the face and I die instead, stickies that go right through people's chests. But it's part of the game, it affects everyone equally (since everyone hosts at some point), and so I just try to adjust my strategy to fit. Latency really doesn't bother me, and I can't understand why someone would call matchmaking broken because of it.

[MalevolentPanda]

the problem with matchmaking is that it doesnt allow me to search for a local host. With EVERY other game on live i can just search for a room filled with brits that will almost completely eliminate Latency. Halo doesnt allow that.

Erm, you can? Which games allow you to see whether games are hosted in the UK before you join them then?

Halo's 'good connection' option does far more to limit connection troubles than any other Live game I've played. I'm usually matched against UK people, and proper lag is very rare outside of BTB. Even if what you are saying was true, who wins in online shooters is far more dependent on skill than it is latency. In every other online game you'd be matched against people of widely varying skill levels, which would provide much worse games than matchmaking does. Of course latency is frustrating when you have evenly matched teams and it's connections that determines the outcome: everyone knows that. You wouldn't often be in a position where latency determined outcomes without matchmaking, not because there wouldn't be any latency, but because you wouldn't get as far as having evenly matched teams in the first place.

This

Erm, but that directly contradicts your previous paragraph.

[BeeJay]

It wasn't in the beta I'm fairly sure. It makes more sense that it's recording what you are seeing as opposed to what the host sees. Otherwise you'd have to be dling his record at some point (either during the match which would obviously take up more bandwidth), or after the game which would rely on the host staying around long enough for it to dl to all players.

Yeah, when you think about the mechanics, it can't be the host's view of the game.

[tyler]

Sorry dude, that wasn't meant as an insult. It's a genuine observation that some players have not seen any latency and I think that's down to the fact that they eithjer havent played enough to KNOW that the 5 battle rifle shots they just put in some guys head should have dropped him, or that they're not good enough to get 5 BR headshots in a row.

My BR kills in 4 shots. It's awesome.

[Jumble Jumble]

Erm, but that directly contradictions your previous paragraph.

Are you deliberately misunderstanding? What we would normally call "Matchmaking" is the system of deciding skill and looking for games with a similar level. What Kerraig is talking about when he says "matchmaking is broken" is that if he uses the matchmaking system, the skill part of which is FINE, the games themselves are sometimes broken because of the lag issue, and I suppose you could say it's a bot broken because of the fact that you can't filter for British hosts only.

Having said that, I always use the "good connection" option, and on top of that I'm not good enough to KNOW that someone should have dropped. I do have bullshit grenades though.