Maybe it's because I've been off and on in PvP in Destiny or maybe it's because I just haven't played that much Trials lately. But I feel like they were a problem, then there was a giant who ha about it and then the disappeared for a little bit.

All I know is that I played some trials a couple days ago with Beorn and Wildthing and we were playing good (well they were playing good) for the first 5 or so games. Then the shit storm hit. 3 games in a row we were hit by lag switchers. I mean I didn't feel like it was that bad when I was dueling some guys (you have to hit someone to actually tell that it the player took no damage). However there was a couple times where I Fist of Havoc'ed and a player just simply walked away from it. And I mean he was standing right next to me.

The best one is where I hear a warlock resurrect right next to me and I was like "down boy" and immediately I FoH him. I couldn't see but his flames on my screen but right afterwards I die and I hear beorn say "he just walked away from that!" luckily we still won the round but I'm like WTF!?

So what does Bungie have to do to fix this problem? I mean seriously fix it. I would gladly give up PvP for a month if from here on out there was no more lag switching. I also wish they could have a daily list of people they have banned for lag switching. Like a wall for all to see their heads on a pike.

That's so frustrating :(

I can't speak to whether or not it has become more common. I haven't run into a lag-switcher in months (Trials or otherwise) but maybe I'm just lucky :-/

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Maybe there is a way to characterize lag switcher network traffic in a way that would never find false positives. But unless Bungie can create that, the answer is "you know lag switching when you see it" and you report them and have Bungie look into it.

Even if Bungie did have a sniffer that caught lag switchers and created no false positives, it would inevitably let some slip through. Again, the answer to that would be to report them.

The only surefire way to get rid of them instantly is to have everyone that experiences a moment of bad connectivity be auto banned, or auto forfeit. But that would suck for a lot of legit players really quickly. Most games can handle a truly random spurt of lag, because in most games you'd never even notice two players being out of sync for half a second because they aren't actively engaged. Again, lag switchers become a "you know it when you see it", because to experience lag happens, to experience lag at exactly that point in the game is... how does Beorn put it? Or yes, "bullshit".

The way to prevent lag switching is to have a true host player whose system broadcasts all player and projectile movement. Hosts are picked for stable, fast, reliable connections, so anyone who lag switches would fall off the "potential host" list pretty quickly (and switching while hosting would result in a host migration). Under this set-up, any lag switcher who stopped sending outbound traffic would stop moving and shooting as far as the host system was concerned. They would still take damage as per normal, so lag switching would be a complete detriment to their play. This is the system Call of Duty and most competitive FPS games use.

In Destiny, the netcode is designed to favor smooth visuals over reliable hit boxes. The game interpolates movement paths for laggy players based on their last available packet (which is why you see laggers running into walls sometimes), but it doesn't interpolate their hit boxes. Rather, it seems to broadcast to all players where bullets went, and rely on reply packets from those players to say "I was hit by a bullet!" which means that, when someone lags, your system guesses where they are and shows you that, but they're actually somewhere else - and you won't know until their packets catch up.

So fixing this issue would be a complete rewrite of the netcode for the entire game (I'm guessing the game uses identical netcode for PvE and PvP scenarios. Not likely to happen, ever.

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A seemingly smaller (but still hard) change, would be to turn off graphic interpolation during PvP matches, so you'd never see a phantom lagswitch character running around where his hitbox isn't. But this may actually be a fundamental feature of their game engine, so it could be just as much work as rewriting the netcode to be more trustworthy all around. I can't say.

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What's clear to me is that the current model of reporting bad actors sucks. The deterrent isn't enough to keep them from lag switching, and they're ruining competitive play modes of PvP for all of us.

So I'm guessing when they developed Destiny they were thinking about PvE more than PvP. I'm not saying it would be easy to rewrite the netcode, but isn't the host method a pretty tried and true system by now? They would just have to integrate it into Destiny. Also, why does PvE and PvP have to have the same netcode? Other than size of Destiny I would imagine it would be a good idea to have the best netcode for the situation.

They could share enough where it matters, but there was a talk by Bungie some time ago where they laid out some of the differences, and how PvE netcode was really whacked in an awesome way. The entire partial host and host bubbles for PvE, and how the player host for an area migrates on average every 8 (if memory serves) seconds. Truly amazing stuff for the PvE spaces.

But yeah, you are correct that the PvP doesn't use the traditional setup, and no doubt some of that was because they wanted to reuse some of the work they put into the PvE code.

the model you are describing is exactly what Bungie used for Halo's co-op campaign and Firefight matchmaking, which was a lag-filled nightmare due for a variety of reasons (mostly not the fault of the networking itself, more due to overall lack of players with quality connections). The real catch with that kind of "synchronous" network model is that a single player with a laggy connection (or someone suffering from packet loss) will slow down the game for everyone, since the host can't update the game state until they receive refresh info from all other players in the game.

the model you are describing is exactly what Bungie used for Halo's co-op campaign and Firefight matchmaking, which was a lag-filled nightmare due for a variety of reasons (mostly not the fault of the networking itself, more due to overall lack of players with quality connections). The real catch with that kind of "synchronous" network model is that a single player with a laggy connection (or someone suffering from packet loss) will slow down the game for everyone, since the host can't update the game state until they receive refresh info from all other players in the game.

Close, but no. The CoD model of PvP networking means only the host has a perfect connection, but their connection is perfect 100% of the time because the entire match is served on the host's machine. Anyone else connecting to that machine is just telling that machine how to move their player, when they shoot, etc... and all of those things happen when the host system says they do (broadcasting that data back to the other players). There's never a pause for syncing or anything like that. The host system doesn't give a shit about synchronicity at all. BUT, because the servers keep track of who has reliable connections with minimal lag and favor those players as the hosts, synchronicity a'la the halo games is not really an issue. The more people play, the more data the servers have to determine whose connection is most reliable (and thus, most in sync across all players).

It sucks if there are no reliable servers near you because you'll always be handicapped (unless you're the host), but for most players it works out really well, with pings in the 20s of milliseconds.

So I'm guessing when they developed Destiny they were thinking about PvE more than PvP. I'm not saying it would be easy to rewrite the netcode, but isn't the host method a pretty tried and true system by now? They would just have to integrate it into Destiny. Also, why does PvE and PvP have to have the same netcode? Other than size of Destiny I would imagine it would be a good idea to have the best netcode for the situation.

So per Earendil the netcode isn't the same, but I'd guess from the behavior that they borrow large portions from one another. In fact, I'd guess that PvE was built first and PvP was tacked on at some point in the development process, done to be as quick as possible rather than as reliable and solid as possible. Bungie has often said they aren't trying to make Destiny PvP into an e-Sport so they are less concerned about "fair" gameplay. I think that sucks, because they do have competitive modes with rewards that can be had more easily if you cheat. Fairness is extremely important in any player versus player mode, esport or no.

They could share enough where it matters, but there was a talk by Bungie some time ago where they laid out some of the differences, and how PvE netcode was really whacked in an awesome way. The entire partial host and host bubbles for PvE, and how the player host for an area migrates on average every 8 (if memory serves) seconds. Truly amazing stuff for the PvE spaces.

But yeah, you are correct that the PvP doesn't use the traditional setup, and no doubt some of that was because they wanted to reuse some of the work they put into the PvE code.

Good info, thanks. And I agree that the PvE netcode is amazing. It's truly a new frontier and works really, really well most of the time. PvP code though... god it sucks.

So I'm guessing when they developed Destiny they were thinking about PvE more than PvP. I'm not saying it would be easy to rewrite the netcode, but isn't the host method a pretty tried and true system by now? They would just have to integrate it into Destiny. Also, why does PvE and PvP have to have the same netcode? Other than size of Destiny I would imagine it would be a good idea to have the best netcode for the situation.

So per Earendil the netcode isn't the same, but I'd guess from the behavior that they borrow large portions from one another. In fact, I'd guess that PvE was built first and PvP was tacked on at some point in the development process, done to be as quick as possible rather than as reliable and solid as possible. Bungie has often said they aren't trying to make Destiny PvP into an e-Sport so they are less concerned about "fair" gameplay. I think that sucks, because they do have competitive modes with rewards that can be had more easily if you cheat. Fairness is extremely important in any player versus player mode, esport or no.

I agree, it doesn't have to be e-Sport level, but it shouldn't allow for cheating. But to me that just sounds like they are saying "we care more about adding more content than making the PvP experience fair" So what is the point of adding more content to PvP if it's not even fun to play?

the model you are describing is exactly what Bungie used for Halo's co-op campaign and Firefight matchmaking, which was a lag-filled nightmare due for a variety of reasons (mostly not the fault of the networking itself, more due to overall lack of players with quality connections). The real catch with that kind of "synchronous" network model is that a single player with a laggy connection (or someone suffering from packet loss) will slow down the game for everyone, since the host can't update the game state until they receive refresh info from all other players in the game.

Close, but no. The CoD model of PvP networking means only the host has a perfect connection, but their connection is perfect 100% of the time because the entire match is served on the host's machine. Anyone else connecting to that machine is just telling that machine how to move their player, when they shoot, etc... and all of those things happen when the host system says they do (broadcasting that data back to the other players). There's never a pause for syncing or anything like that. The host system doesn't give a shit about synchronicity at all. BUT, because the servers keep track of who has reliable connections with minimal lag and favor those players as the hosts, synchronicity a'la the halo games is not really an issue. The more people play, the more data the servers have to determine whose connection is most reliable (and thus, most in sync across all players).

It sucks if there are no reliable servers near you because you'll always be handicapped (unless you're the host), but for most players it works out really well, with pings in the 20s of milliseconds.

It's all coming back to me now. I believe Bungie went with the strictly synchronous model for co-op/firefight in order to avoid crashes that would be caused by divergent AI behavior that would occur if players were allowed to fall out of sync with the host (and each other).

Of course, Destiny PvP doesn't typically need to worry about AI... until SRL showed up. Hmmmm...

So I'm guessing when they developed Destiny they were thinking about PvE more than PvP. I'm not saying it would be easy to rewrite the netcode, but isn't the host method a pretty tried and true system by now? They would just have to integrate it into Destiny. Also, why does PvE and PvP have to have the same netcode? Other than size of Destiny I would imagine it would be a good idea to have the best netcode for the situation.

So per Earendil the netcode isn't the same, but I'd guess from the behavior that they borrow large portions from one another. In fact, I'd guess that PvE was built first and PvP was tacked on at some point in the development process, done to be as quick as possible rather than as reliable and solid as possible. Bungie has often said they aren't trying to make Destiny PvP into an e-Sport so they are less concerned about "fair" gameplay. I think that sucks, because they do have competitive modes with rewards that can be had more easily if you cheat. Fairness is extremely important in any player versus player mode, esport or no.

I agree, it doesn't have to be e-Sport level, but it shouldn't allow for cheating. But to me that just sounds like they are saying "we care more about adding more content than making the PvP experience fair" So what is the point of adding more content to PvP if it's not even fun to play?

I have no clue. Which is why I'm playing CoD BLOPS 3 now.

the model you are describing is exactly what Bungie used for Halo's co-op campaign and Firefight matchmaking, which was a lag-filled nightmare due for a variety of reasons (mostly not the fault of the networking itself, more due to overall lack of players with quality connections). The real catch with that kind of "synchronous" network model is that a single player with a laggy connection (or someone suffering from packet loss) will slow down the game for everyone, since the host can't update the game state until they receive refresh info from all other players in the game.

Close, but no. The CoD model of PvP networking means only the host has a perfect connection, but their connection is perfect 100% of the time because the entire match is served on the host's machine. Anyone else connecting to that machine is just telling that machine how to move their player, when they shoot, etc... and all of those things happen when the host system says they do (broadcasting that data back to the other players). There's never a pause for syncing or anything like that. The host system doesn't give a shit about synchronicity at all. BUT, because the servers keep track of who has reliable connections with minimal lag and favor those players as the hosts, synchronicity a'la the halo games is not really an issue. The more people play, the more data the servers have to determine whose connection is most reliable (and thus, most in sync across all players).

It sucks if there are no reliable servers near you because you'll always be handicapped (unless you're the host), but for most players it works out really well, with pings in the 20s of milliseconds.

It's all coming back to me now. I believe Bungie went with the strictly synchronous model for co-op/firefight in order to avoid crashes that would be caused by divergent AI behavior that would occur if players were allowed to fall out of sync with the host (and each other).

Of course, Destiny PvP doesn't typically need to worry about AI... until SRL showed up. Hmmmm...

Hilariously, lag-switching in SRL provides no real advantage, unlike in normal PvP.

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It seems I'm always the one bouncing off of opponents, yet they never seem to be moved by my sparrow. I suspect my opponents really are being bounced around, but I don't see it because of the netcode & latency, they probably don't see me getting jostled by them either.

Instead of making it impossible for cheaters to cheat, they allow it and then bring out the ban hammer.

To be fair, it sounds like the route Bungie went makes for a better and more fair game if not one cheats. The alternative (used by esport games) is inherently less fair, but makes it harder to cheat.

I'm not sure I can blame Bungie for designing a system that is better if everyone is a good person. Perhaps they thought they could catch people faster/better than they currently do. Perhaps they are banning ten thousand people per day for cheating. Who knows...

I've found one trick that might also explain why you notice one and not the other. In general, the front end of a sparrow is a feather, and the back end is a brick. That means that if your back end makes content with someone's front end, you are more likely to throw them off and also more likely to not see the after effect. Conversely, if your front end plows into someone's back end you are more likely to see them skating off into the distance unaffected.

I'm not positive that's true, just an observation I've made that I've intentionally not tested out. I find it way more practical (and faster) to avoid pitched fights. The only time I battle is if it's for first place on the second half of the last lap, especially on Mars. Otherwise I assume I can beat them without hitting them.

;p

I was actually beginning to wonder if Character objects had a Weight property associated with them based on gender and class type. I play primarily as a female hunter (originally made to share with my wife, but in the end, she's just a bad ass so who cares), which I figure puts me as perhaps the lightest character in the game. I thought this might be why I never win the momentum battle.

I still don't buy that it's as simple as you make it sound. SRL races seem to be Crucible matches yet have fully functional AI enemies. Crucible matches can have their scripting hang temporarily when a player exits (example: you can't pick up heavy ammo or motion sensing doors won't trigger) which seems a lot like the scripting renegotiation described by Bungie that happens when your host leaves your world bubble during Patrol.

I also question how much lag switching is really going on. I've seen Destiny do some weird stuff just based ion DBOers with Internet known to be terrible. ShedNet and for a while ChewieNet were epically disruptive to Crucible matches for a while. Claiming cheating and lag switching with proof that consists of not much more that what one can observe from normal (if extreme) lag just doesn't cut it for me.

Does legitimate lag and even cheaters occur and cause problems? Sure. But all in all Destiny does a much better job than say the past Halos where you'd see no enemies, take random damage from seemingly impossible directions, then keel over for no reason and watch your body drift down a river for three minutes before the entire match went to another minute of the dreaded black screen before the finally getting around to ending.

It seems I'm always the one bouncing off of opponents, yet they never seem to be moved by my sparrow. I suspect my opponents really are being bounced around, but I don't see it because of the netcode & latency, they probably don't see me getting jostled by them either.

We could test that theory by recording and analyzing a few DBO SRL matches.

I still don't buy that it's as simple as you make it sound

It's not simple at all. I mean, the theory behind it is, but to implement would be a complete and total overhaul of their existing netcode. It's like writing half of the game over again.

SRL races seem to be Crucible matches yet have fully functional AI enemies. Crucible matches can have their scripting hang temporarily when a player exits (example: you can't pick up heavy ammo or motion sensing doors won't trigger) which seems a lot like the scripting renegotiation described by Bungie that happens when your host leaves your world bubble during Patrol.

Yess.... They're borrowing the same net code back and forth. It's really good for the purposes of PvE, but really poor for the purposes of PvP. The two types of game mode have very different requirements.

I also question how much lag switching is really going on. I've seen Destiny do some weird stuff just based ion DBOers with Internet known to be terrible. ShedNet and for a while ChewieNet were epically disruptive to Crucible matches for a while. Claiming cheating and lag switching with proof that consists of not much more that what one can observe from normal (if extreme) lag just doesn't cut it for me.

Cheating aside, normal or extreme lag would behave completely differently in a CoD pvp environment.

Does legitimate lag and even cheaters occur and cause problems? Sure. But all in all Destiny does a much better job than say the past Halos where you'd see no enemies, take random damage from seemingly impossible directions, then keel over for no reason and watch your body drift down a river for three minutes before the entire match went to another minute of the dreaded black screen before the finally getting around to ending.

I mean, this is very similar to my recent experiences with Destiny's PvP. I've been rocketed by a ghost, shotgunned through walls, and suddenly died when there was no one near me, no shot fired, no sound effect, and the "death cam" showed a dead body halfway across the map (with lots of geometry between us).

Instead of making it impossible for cheaters to cheat, they allow it and then bring out the ban hammer.

To be fair, it sounds like the route Bungie went makes for a better and more fair game if not one cheats.

Sort of... but if people just have normal lag, it looks (and feels) like cheating in the bungie game, whereas it actively hampers the lagger in the CoD game.

The alternative (used by esport games) is inherently less fair, but makes it harder to cheat.

I think you mean *more* fair, right?

I'm not sure I can blame Bungie for designing a system that is better if everyone is a good person. Perhaps they thought they could catch people faster/better than they currently do. Perhaps they are banning ten thousand people per day for cheating. Who knows...

Again, I dispute that it's better, ever. It's prettier, but when your bullets aren't actually hitting what you're aiming at because what you're aiming at may not be there, you have a problem. Cheating makes it obvious, but even average latency can cause you to miss what appeared to be a dead on headshot.

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I've definitely been paying attention to this the past few days. Part of the effect, though not all of it, is based on speed. If someone is going faster than you they will bump you. Also if they have a higher top speed than you they bump you around.

The front/back end thing seems somewhat plausible too, though I think odd lag spikes can cause problems too. One too many times I've pulled apart from people and missed a gate because some invisible something bumped into me.

I've seen Destiny do some weird stuff just based ion DBOers with Internet known to be terrible. ShedNet and for a while ChewieNet were epically disruptive to Crucible matches for a while. Claiming cheating and lag switching with proof that consists of not much more that what one can observe from normal (if extreme) lag just doesn't cut it for me.

The big exception, however, is in Trials of Osiris, which is supposed to prioritize “connection quality” above all else (at least according to what we were told last year). Given that foundation, the number of red-bar opponents we have encountered in the last couple weeks on both PS4 and XB1 is surprising. And the number of times we’ve solidly won the first two rounds and then had opponents “conveniently” become red-bar (and un-damageable) until the end is just astonishing.

The cards fall one of two ways: If these are legitimate connection quality problems, then the Matchmaking system is not doing its job. And if the Matchmaking system is doing its job, then these opponents are specifically causing networking disruptions to gain an advantage. Either way, there’s something that needs fixing.

On top of it all, the new Trials matching system that attempts to match you against similarly-performing teams means that the further along you are on your Card, the more likely you are to run into cheaters. So that’s fun. :-\

I swear that thing always throws me short and turns my 1st place into last when I slide off the edge of the cliff even when I hit it at full speed.

I swear that thing always throws me short and turns my 1st place into last when I slide off the edge of the cliff even when I hit it at full speed.

That's almost certainly whatever gear you're wearing that gives you the Air Control perk. (Pitch forward to fall faster, pitch backward to fall slower.) On flat ground, pushing the stick forward tends to keep your speed at max - but in the air, with that perk active, pushing forward makes you miss that jump. ;)

(As an aside, I've found that pulling back right as I enter that jump, then pushing forward halfway to the landing, I can actually pass people who entered the jump before me before we land. Not paying attention, though, will get you killed. :) )

(As an aside, I've found that pulling back right as I enter that jump, then pushing forward halfway to the landing, I can actually pass people who entered the jump before me before we land. Not paying attention, though, will get you killed. :) )

I thought that helmet perk would be stupid when I first read it, but it's invaluable. And you're right about how you hold the stick before you even enter the jump. It absolutely changes your launch trajectory out the other side, and actually effects height more than what you do mid jump, though you can certainly effect your height mid jump. Same is true of the shorter Venus jump after the short cut, I've just about hit the top of the arch by accidentally holding the stick back.

That's exactly what I keep telling people. It won't get you to the finish line any faster, other than maybe by helping you avoid a few collisions.

Lag-switching is definitely a thing but it seems like now that the knowledge is out in the world, people yell it when ANY latency-related things happen at all. Like lag can't just be a thing on its own, without intentional manipulation.

Everything the previous two said is true, but I think it's worth noting that even if you do not push the stick AT ALL on that jump, you still don't make it. There seems to be a bug and/or undocumented behavior where once you have the pitch control perk enabled, it automatically pitches forward a bit or something on that Mars jump. Consequently, you MUST pull back slightly in order to get enough height to make it across. Why it only affects that one jump, I don't know.

I agree, it doesn't have to be e-Sport level, but it shouldn't allow for cheating. But to me that just sounds like they are saying "we care more about adding more content than making the PvP experience fair" So what is the point of adding more content to PvP if it's not even fun to play?

Because it's a box to tick and helps sell games.

I'm not trying to be cynical, but seriously, a game that exists in the space Destiny does won't sell as well without PvP.

All this other crap sounds really complicated.

Everything the previous two said is true, but I think it's worth noting that even if you do not push the stick AT ALL on that jump, you still don't make it. There seems to be a bug and/or undocumented behavior where once you have the pitch control perk enabled, it automatically pitches forward a bit or something on that Mars jump. Consequently, you MUST pull back slightly in order to get enough height to make it across. Why it only affects that one jump, I don't know.

Maybe it affects ALL jumps, but that's the only one that's long enough to see the effect? (That is: it's a pretty minor change. I'll agree with you that it's there; the day I unlocked that perk, I crashed two or three times until I figured out that I NEEDED to pull back to make it. But it took 2 or 3 times, instead of 1, because I couldn't really SEE the difference, outside of the fact that I was crashing. :) )

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Even had an easy time with it once I forgot to switch back to my racing helmet. Definitely confirm that behavior.