PSU netcode

Just so the rest of you know, I get no lag in this game regardless of what I'm doing, and I'm not the only one. I can dodge out of the way of projectiles and back off just in time to avoid attacks. I get the same level of responsiveness online that I do offline (more on that later). Not all people have lag problems in PSU, though some definitely do have it bad. I think those afflicted are fewer in number than those that aren't, though that doesn't make the people with the problem feel any better.

I'm not praising the game's engine, though. It is among the worst I have ever seen, even within a genre prone to inefficiency in that regard. Even if you get zero lag like me, I guarantee that you'll eventually find yourself watching your teammates slashing at what seems to be the air, only to see the damage numbers appear on some enemy across the room. Why? I honestly don't know the mechanics of the problem in their entirety, but I do have a general understanding of what's causing it.

Most online games have the server track what's happening and perform the calculations necessary, sending the client only what data is needed. PSU decided to do things differently. They went for a hybrid client side/server side system for determining location and attack timing. As far as I can tell, most of it is done on the client side. I believe the only server checks made are to ensure that a person isn't obviously hacking. Why did they do this? I'm guessing that it was the easier way to ensure the viability of a twitch style of gameplay regardless of server load. That's the reason you can make split second attacks and dodges in PSU, even while the server manages thousands of players.

Unfortunately, they seemed to implement this with zero finesse. I'm not sure exactly why, as I'm obviously not privy to the internal workings of the game's servers, but there are serious problems that I can see. The game will display characters in locations that they're not really in, and it will do the same for monsters, though the latter case is usually much less severe. Sometimes you'll get caught in AoE's based around monsters that should be out of range. These things happen even when you're not lagging at all. They could have been completely avoided if SEGA chose to design the game differently.

What bothers me more than the bugs, though, is that they actually did things with the game's engine that should never be done to an online game. Most games will drop frames if the computer can't draw what's happening fast enough. PSU also has a frame skip cap which you can't disable. In PSU, you can only have so many frames dropped before the the action is actually slowed down to the rate your PC can handle. So rather than having your FPS drop any further, the game starts to look like bullet time; your character running, attacking, and being attacked in slow motion. If you don't believe me, try it. Set the game's resolution to the highest you can run, turn the settings to max (which includes a zero max frame skip), turn on 6x FSAA, and then run into a crowded area.

This is the ridiculous part: this affects you online. Because the location and attack timing of your character are partially calculated on the client side, if your computer cannot draw the game fast enough, your character will actually be moving and attacking slower than normal. To clarify, it won't just seem that way to you. You will actually be slower. I have tested this. This also applies to other players and monsters, though they'll eventually warp to their correct location. The emphasis is really on the eventually here, though.

The worst part is, they made these sacrifices to make the game run smoothly and be responsive, but it only works for some people. Even after cutting corners, they still have some players like me without problems and others with huge difficulties. Even Guild Wars, which relies just as much on timing (1/2 second interrupt windows, anyone?), achieved better results with their network performance without charging a monthly fee.

I'm not a hater, really. I like this game and subscribe to it. I don't plan on quitting, either. For me, the experience is highly enjoyable despite everything I've said. I might have sounded fatalistic, but I believe that most people who play this game like it, even if they wish there was more content. Yes, there is hacking now, and there will be further exploits, but I think they will be fixed. It might take a while, but I doubt SEGA will let them be.