I think that's nonsense. (Destiny)

by Claude Errera , Sunday, January 24, 2016, 22:00 (3020 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

This is a problem that has been solved by many previous games, and it's weird that Bungie has insisted on reinventing the wheel when it comes to handling lag, and - sadly - their new wheel is a little bit square.

In all the discussion about this topic I've seen, this is the assertion (and you've made it multiple times, so I'm pretty sure I'm not misinterpreting something you mean in a different way) that bothers me the most - because as far as I can tell, NO previous game has solved this problem. EVERY multiplayer game I've ever played has lag issues - it's just that they're not all the SAME lag issues.

I won't put words in Kahzgul's mouth, but my interpretation of his argument is that lag will happen in any online game... it's just that the way Destiny deals with lag creates an advantage for the lagger that doesn't exist in other games. I don't have Kahzgul's expertise or developer-side knowledge, but my anectodal experience very much lines up with what he is saying.

I've spent more time playing online shooters than any other genre over the past 15 years... From Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 to the Halo franchise, Gears, CoD, Titanfall, Battlefield, Splinter Cell, and many more. Lag is always an issue (more in some games than others). Personally, my experience with lag in pretty much every case but Destiny is the encounter turns into a giant coin toss. Lag makes things weird, and sometimes you come out on top, sometimes you don't. But with Destiny, I feel almost certain I will come out the looser every time I go toe-to-toe with a severe lagger. Either their shots don't register as they hit, so I don't know I'm being hit until they all kick in at once and I drop dead, or I empty 2 clips into their face without scoring a point of damage, and their teammate gets the jump on me while I'm reloading.

So while I don't understand the technical nuances of what is going on, I can say I feel disadvantaged against laggy Destiny players in a way that doesn't happen in most other games.

And I think what I was trying to point out was that this interpretation (that you're coming out the loser in the majority of interactions) has a lot to do with your BELIEF that you will come out the loser in the majority of interactions - you're paying attention to the examples of that more than you are to the examples of the converse.

I was in a 6-person party the other night where lag (on the other team) was a pretty major thing; people were raging about the kills they were getting, the kills we WEREN'T getting... but then, near the end of the game, someone noticed that the two red-bar players on the other team were at the BOTTOM OF THE SCOREBOARD. By a significant chunk.

We won the game, and the laggers (who caused no end of frustration to all of us) were the folks who paid the highest price.

In fact, if you'd been watching the game as an objective observer, I think you'd have been hard-pressed to reconcile the rage with the final result.