Been away from the editor since 1.2 (been busy with college application stuff). Has Blizzard addressed the terrible latency issues with keyboard and mouse events yet? If not, do we have an ETA on a fix?
It depends what you plan to use it for. It can be great to supplement a system. For example, allowing users to bind a spell to the left-click button, similar diablo, works pretty well. It doesn't replace the current system. It adds another option for casting to the player.
However, changing the system to move on left-click and cast on right-click could be unfeasible. Doing so would not supplement the current system. It would replace it. I don't believe it's strong enough in the context of speed to do so.
I was thinking more along the lines of a good, old WASD system and online shooter functionality. Sounds like it still isn't up to the task (somehow I doubt it will ever be).
SC2 works with an authoritative server processing player actions, so you would have at least the latency of a round-trip ping. On top of that, the server introduces a small delay/lag on purpose so the game doesn't stall whenever a packet got lost for an extra 200ms. FPS games, to void any perceptive lag, instead work by having each client guess the future and later try to agree with each other.
As a side-note, I really think people should stop trying to turn a RTS engine into a FPS. The whole engine just wasn't designed for that.
SC2 works with an authoritative server processing player actions, so you would have at least the latency of a round-trip ping. On top of that, the server introduces a small delay/lag on purpose so the game doesn't stall whenever a packet got lost for an extra 200ms. FPS games, to void any perceptive lag, instead work by having each client guess the future and later try to agree with each other.
As a side-note, I really think people should stop trying to turn a RTS engine into a FPS. The whole engine just wasn't designed for that.
Why then, did Garena and Pickup Listchecker work so well for Warcraft 3 (made the game play at around 50-70 ms latency on average)?
It's not just shooters though. Everything is affected by this delay. Keyboard and mouse events are virtually unusable. Even clicking on dialogs is ridiculously slow. I understand what causes the limitation, but to say 'it's impossible and will never happen' is wrong. Blizzard can fix it if they choose to.
I heard that they know theres an issue and are working on it. They even showed a WASD + mouse TPS at blizzcon. I doubt it will ever be up to par for FPS games (blizzard said so themselves) but keep in mind that all that stuff works in single player, just not multiplayer. Also, having a mouse clicked event wont kill your game. Having full WASD + mouse controls and mouse tracking for 10 players is not gunna happen (unfortunately). But I do believe its going to get somewhat better than the way it currently is.
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I don't think that's a reasonable argument. There are plenty of uses for mouse click and keyboard events outside of Shooters, which are limited by these issues. Also, as zeldarules said, Blizzard showed a demo of a TPS game when they began showing off the editor. They intended it to be used for things like that, but at the moment, it's not practical.
Personally, I don't even want to make a competitive shooter. I'd like to make a co-op TPS campaign. Shooters are the only genre I had no experience with coming into SC2 editing, so I wanted to give it a try. The fact that we can make stuff that works so damn well and looks so damn good in solo just bums us out when we see it's wasted potential.
I wasn't trying to say they shouldn't improve these functions, as they certainly should. But, I do believe a FPS is just not practical or warranted in this engine. A TPS makes a lot more sense.
Also, as zeldarules said, Blizzard showed a demo of a TPS game when they began showing off the editor. They intended it to be used for things like that, but at the moment, it's not practical.
They should never have done that. It gave false hope and clearly they haven't delivered.
Why then, did Garena and Pickup Listchecker work so well for Warcraft 3 (made the game play at around 50-70 ms latency on average)?
1) Starcraft isn't Warcraft. Even if both are Blizzard-made. Since the Battlenet got completely redesigned it's probable that Starcraft's netcode is completely different.
2) Battlenet enforces a minimum latency of (I think) 125ms. This makes a ping of 250ms. (Warcraft also had such an enforcement.) There's no way around that as long as we host the games on Battlenet. Wasn't Listchecker games those you could join via LAN, just like Garena? Anyway, these programs simulate a LAN connection which is not affected by Battlenet's minimum latency. But Sc2 has no LAN.
3) It also always depends on the players and their connections. Games with "laggy" players will always have a higher ping than other games. So if you're lucky you end up in a game with low latency.
IMO the latency kills a lot of creativity, not just for FPS type games. I can't imagine making an online game that doesn't rely almost exclusively on native SC2 movements and commands which are extremely limiting. The things you can do in offline mode are pretty mind blowing, but they almost all rely on lag inducing features.
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Been away from the editor since 1.2 (been busy with college application stuff). Has Blizzard addressed the terrible latency issues with keyboard and mouse events yet? If not, do we have an ETA on a fix?
@wingednosering: Go
It depends what you plan to use it for. It can be great to supplement a system. For example, allowing users to bind a spell to the left-click button, similar diablo, works pretty well. It doesn't replace the current system. It adds another option for casting to the player.
However, changing the system to move on left-click and cast on right-click could be unfeasible. Doing so would not supplement the current system. It would replace it. I don't believe it's strong enough in the context of speed to do so.
I was thinking more along the lines of a good, old WASD system and online shooter functionality. Sounds like it still isn't up to the task (somehow I doubt it will ever be).
That won't ever happen.
SC2 works with an authoritative server processing player actions, so you would have at least the latency of a round-trip ping. On top of that, the server introduces a small delay/lag on purpose so the game doesn't stall whenever a packet got lost for an extra 200ms. FPS games, to void any perceptive lag, instead work by having each client guess the future and later try to agree with each other.
As a side-note, I really think people should stop trying to turn a RTS engine into a FPS. The whole engine just wasn't designed for that.
Why then, did Garena and Pickup Listchecker work so well for Warcraft 3 (made the game play at around 50-70 ms latency on average)?
@OneSoga: Go
A wizard did it.
@StragusMapster: Go
It's not just shooters though. Everything is affected by this delay. Keyboard and mouse events are virtually unusable. Even clicking on dialogs is ridiculously slow. I understand what causes the limitation, but to say 'it's impossible and will never happen' is wrong. Blizzard can fix it if they choose to.
I heard that they know theres an issue and are working on it. They even showed a WASD + mouse TPS at blizzcon. I doubt it will ever be up to par for FPS games (blizzard said so themselves) but keep in mind that all that stuff works in single player, just not multiplayer. Also, having a mouse clicked event wont kill your game. Having full WASD + mouse controls and mouse tracking for 10 players is not gunna happen (unfortunately). But I do believe its going to get somewhat better than the way it currently is.
@Karawasa: Go
Theyre still fun to play offline.
@Karawasa: Go
I don't think that's a reasonable argument. There are plenty of uses for mouse click and keyboard events outside of Shooters, which are limited by these issues. Also, as zeldarules said, Blizzard showed a demo of a TPS game when they began showing off the editor. They intended it to be used for things like that, but at the moment, it's not practical.
Personally, I don't even want to make a competitive shooter. I'd like to make a co-op TPS campaign. Shooters are the only genre I had no experience with coming into SC2 editing, so I wanted to give it a try. The fact that we can make stuff that works so damn well and looks so damn good in solo just bums us out when we see it's wasted potential.
I wasn't trying to say they shouldn't improve these functions, as they certainly should. But, I do believe a FPS is just not practical or warranted in this engine. A TPS makes a lot more sense.
They should never have done that. It gave false hope and clearly they haven't delivered.
1) Starcraft isn't Warcraft. Even if both are Blizzard-made. Since the Battlenet got completely redesigned it's probable that Starcraft's netcode is completely different.
2) Battlenet enforces a minimum latency of (I think) 125ms. This makes a ping of 250ms. (Warcraft also had such an enforcement.) There's no way around that as long as we host the games on Battlenet. Wasn't Listchecker games those you could join via LAN, just like Garena? Anyway, these programs simulate a LAN connection which is not affected by Battlenet's minimum latency. But Sc2 has no LAN.
3) It also always depends on the players and their connections. Games with "laggy" players will always have a higher ping than other games. So if you're lucky you end up in a game with low latency.
IMO the latency kills a lot of creativity, not just for FPS type games. I can't imagine making an online game that doesn't rely almost exclusively on native SC2 movements and commands which are extremely limiting. The things you can do in offline mode are pretty mind blowing, but they almost all rely on lag inducing features.