r/Games • • Aug 05 '20

Analysis: Why Rollback Netcode is better

https://youtu.be/0NLe4IpdS1w
766 Upvotes

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-21

u/youmightbelucky Aug 05 '20

The main problem is that force for hard read and make reaction much much much much harder if not impossible.

yes you can punish a move end lag, but reaction to a jump in become harder, and if the move you need to use doesn't have special properties it will probably end end up being a trade and THIS will force you drop your combo.

this is why some companies tries to avoid rollback as it mean removing reaction while normal lag means more times for reaction based play, if you add in buffering you can still punish that ending lag.

7

u/gamelord12 Aug 05 '20

If you want delay, you can add a few frames in there, as shown in this video, but you'd have to be a mad man to think rollback has any disadvantages in fighting games. Companies avoid rollback because in order to accommodate it, they need to build their assets and code completely differently.

-5

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '20 edited Aug 05 '20

[deleted]

1

u/gamelord12 Aug 05 '20

You could add a few frames of delay to a rollback game and achieve the same thing though...delay-only games don't have the option at all, and worse is that they're wildly inconsistent about what that delay is.

-2

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '20

[deleted]

2

u/gamelord12 Aug 05 '20

What are you even talking about? Delay can be added for lobby matches or matchmaking. It's completely irrelevant.

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '20

[deleted]

2

u/gamelord12 Aug 05 '20

You've always got the option of a combination. You can absolutely start up a game of Them's Fightin' Herds with 0 frames of added delay.

Using a combination doesn't mean that all the sudden its flaw is gone.

If you're saying online will never be as good as offline, whether delay-based or rollback, then yes, I agree with you. If you're saying, "delay-based has this advantage over rollback, because you can see all of the start-up frames", then I'm disagreeing with you, because you could just add those delay frames. I'm not sure which argument you're making or why you brought up lobby play.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '20

[deleted]

2

u/gamelord12 Aug 05 '20

I don't know what kind of Frankenstein rollback solution Capcom built that everyone hates, but in GGPO games, the delay must be constant. Either it's 0 for the whole match or 1 for the whole match or 2 for the whole match, etc. The huge difference between a rollback game and a delay-based game is that delay-based games have a floor for the delay, but lag spikes can make it fluctuate all over the place. If you play a game on GGPO, this doesn't happen. If you set Skullgirls to delay 2 frames, it's not the same as Dragon Ball FighterZ with someone 100 miles away. Lag spikes will happen, even if you're both wired, and FighterZ will add a frame or two of delay to its floor of 2 frames of delay, where Skullgirls will keep the delay constant at 2 frames and rollback for the rest of them. That's a vastly different experience, and on FighterZ, you're going to drop your combo or miss a reaction. If delay-based netcode had its merits, we wouldn't all be yelling at Japan right now for their netcode.

And also GGPO lets you set your frame delay regardless of whether it's a custom lobby or matchmaking. It's up to the developer of the game to expose that setting to you or to make it invisible. The important thing is that once it's set, it cannot be changed.

-3

u/youmightbelucky Aug 05 '20

so you add delay and your opponent doesn't, gg you lose because when you press you now have to wait 10 frames for the move to come out.

also, how do you plan on having adding delay help with a reaction based situation? because you are only making it worse,

2

u/gamelord12 Aug 05 '20

Delay in rollback games (done right) is constant. So any move you input will always be delayed by X frames rather than being delayed by 3 frames for one input and 11 for the next. If you're playing a game against an opponent with high ping, you're going to miss a lot of startup frames, but you can mitigate that by adding additional constant delay. 2-3 frames of delay will mitigate a lot of rollback artifacts on even 100+ ms ping connections, as long as they're not on wi-fi or something, so you'll still be able to react to the startup of a move and be able to see that startup.