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The Division Networking is Borked and so is Destiny (Destiny)
by Blackt1g3r , Login is from an untrusted domain in MN, Wednesday, April 27, 2016, 18:26 (3226 days ago)
I found this to be a pretty interesting read:
http://gafferongames.com/2016/04/25/never-trust-the-client/
His conclusion is basically that the Division on PC probably can't stop cheaters because of their networking model. I wouldn't be too surprised if both the Division and Destiny share a similar networking model based on what we already know about Destiny's networking model. If so that means that even if Bungie ever released a PC version of Destiny it would likely be prone to significant cheating.
I think the main problem with both games is that they've dumped the traditional client-server networking model in favor of a more distributed networking model. That model makes the whole "shared" world experience possible and is the reason Destiny doesn't feel like 4-player firefight in Halo Reach (with random slowdowns and stuttering). It's a great network model for that, but sadly it's not so good for competitive PvP.
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Destiny uses a mix of client/server and p2p
by Xenos , Shores of Time, Wednesday, April 27, 2016, 18:49 (3226 days ago) @ Blackt1g3r
The guy in the article is assuming Division is using a trusted client network model, which given the problems they are having there is a good chance that it's true. Bungie has freely talked about their network model and it is not a pure client/server model, but a hybrid of client/server and p2p. The issues that Division has suggest that it's VERY trusting of the client, to the point where the client can even tell the server how much damage it's doing and the server believes it. I'd be surprised if Destiny is the same.
The real problem Destiny has seems to have is they want to make the game enjoyable for a larger amount of people, which usually allows people with slow connections (especially sporadically slow connections) to have a little more lee-way on when the information arrives, but not whether the information would be accurate or not. This allows more people to compete in Crucible even if they don't have a <5ms fiber connection, but it also allows for more network manipulation.
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Destiny uses a mix of client/server and p2p
by Blackt1g3r , Login is from an untrusted domain in MN, Wednesday, April 27, 2016, 19:00 (3226 days ago) @ Xenos
I'd be surprised if Destiny is the same.
It seems like it could be pretty similar based on how lag switching works.
The real problem Destiny has seems to have is they want to make the game enjoyable for a larger amount of people, which usually allows people with slow connections (especially sporadically slow connections) to have a little more lee-way on when the information arrives, but not whether the information would be accurate or not. This allows more people to compete in Crucible even if they don't have a <5ms fiber connection, but it also allows for more network manipulation.
In theory, but when they talked about the new "Damage Referee" feature they made it sound like laggy players would be punished. Subjectively, that doesn't feel true to me. It still feels like laggy players can be at an advantage and didn't Beorn just post a video not that long ago that pretty clearly demonstrated that lag switching is still a thing?
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Destiny uses a mix of client/server and p2p
by Xenos , Shores of Time, Thursday, April 28, 2016, 02:42 (3225 days ago) @ Blackt1g3r
I'd be surprised if Destiny is the same.
It seems like it could be pretty similar based on how lag switching works.
The real problem Destiny has seems to have is they want to make the game enjoyable for a larger amount of people, which usually allows people with slow connections (especially sporadically slow connections) to have a little more lee-way on when the information arrives, but not whether the information would be accurate or not. This allows more people to compete in Crucible even if they don't have a <5ms fiber connection, but it also allows for more network manipulation.
In theory, but when they talked about the new "Damage Referee" feature they made it sound like laggy players would be punished. Subjectively, that doesn't feel true to me. It still feels like laggy players can be at an advantage and didn't Beorn just post a video not that long ago that pretty clearly demonstrated that lag switching is still a thing?
Yeah... that's basically what my point was. They both have issues with cheating, but to vastly different degrees, and not because ones on PC and ones on console (though I am sure that does contribute) but because they don't use the same networking models. My point was that Destiny's issue is one related to providing a better experience for laggy players, which allows for more network manipulation by cheaters. The Divisions issue seems to be that (especially at launch) they trust the client almost completely. You could not, for example, in Destiny increase the amount of damage you are doing past a reasonable point in a set amount of time because it trusts other hosts to a certain degree as well (and has limits set in place, so if you lost connection for 1 second you can't do 5 seconds worth of damage) but that's exactly what's supposedly happening in The Division. It's just that Destiny doesn't completely discount what each player experiences either, which is a hard line to balance.
Really the point of my post was that the Division and Destiny networking have VERY little in common. P2P and purely trusted client networking are similar in theory, but because of the intricacies of a complicated multiplayer game end up behaving very differently.
edit: Thought of too good of an analogy to not give. The Division's networking (as posited by this article) works like your standard fishing story: "Last time I caught a fish it was THIS BIG!" whereas Destiny's is one where the people you went fishing with are also there: "Well it wasn't quite THAT big..." The size of the fish may still get exaggerated, but not to the same degree as if you were reporting the story without any other witnesses present.
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Destiny uses a mix of client/server and p2p
by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Thursday, April 28, 2016, 03:18 (3225 days ago) @ Xenos
I'd think at this point we really don't know how Destiny would respond to memory hacks. There's at least a chance that if you could change your 335 Light level to 777 the other clients might just accept it and make you invincible in Iron Banner. Maybe you could set your heavy ammo from 0 to 100 rockets and Destiny wouldn't complain. This is where it's very nice to not be playing on a PC.
On the other hand, we can already see that Destiny doesn't put complete trust in the clients. We've all seen a heavy ammo box get delayed in opening because of lag. You hold down the button for the right amount of time but your Destiny client doesn't have absolute say on when the heavy ammo gets distributed. Sounds like in The Division it would.
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Completely agreed
by Xenos , Shores of Time, Thursday, April 28, 2016, 03:54 (3225 days ago) @ Ragashingo
Your second point was really my only point :)
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The Division Networking is Borked and so is Destiny
by uberfoop , Seattle-ish, Wednesday, April 27, 2016, 19:08 (3226 days ago) @ Blackt1g3r
I think the main problem with both games is that they've dumped the traditional client-server networking model in favor of a more distributed networking model.
According to their presentation, the core gameplay physics and whatnot in any given bubble are handled with what's basically a traditional peer-to-peer model with a single host.
and is the reason Destiny doesn't feel like 4-player firefight in Halo Reach (with random slowdowns and stuttering).
The reason it doesn't feel like Halo's classic campaign networking is that it's more like Halo's classic multiplayer networking.
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But this doesn't mean it doesn't trust the client too much.
Suppose that you're walking forward, when your connection clips out. You turn, move to the side, and beat down Enemy A. Then, your connection blips back in. During that time, other player's systems (including the host) just predictively saw your avatar continue to walk forward, and Enemy B has had you in their sights and been ARing you.
So, after your connection come back, the host has to juggle several conflicting reports. Your console is saying that you're 5 meters to the side and that you killed enemy A with a punch. Everyone else's console is saying that you're 5 meters forward and enemy B's console is hitting you with an AR.
Some various things the host could decide to do:
1-Trust everyone else. The host leaves enemy A alive and tells your console that you didn't actually kill them, forces you to teleport five meters forward and to the side on your screen, and tells your console to shave off lots of your health.
2-Trust you. Tell everyone else's console that you actually haven't lost any health to enemy B's AR, teleport you on their screens five meters back and to the side, and tell enemy A's console that they actually died a second ago by being punched by that character who, at that point, seemed to be seven meters away and looking in another direction.
Destiny's networking might just lean a little more toward #2 than people would like.
Of course, networking in general is complex, and a game could easily have all kinds of intermediate solutions, such as:
3-Trust everyone. Kill enemy A, shave off your health due to enemy B's AR, teleport you to back where you were at the beginning of the lag episode, etc.
4-Trust nobody, spawn a herd of space whales on the map that trample everyone, force players to respawn off-map where they die instantly.
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My experience in Destiny leans to option 3, actually
by ZackDark , Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Wednesday, April 27, 2016, 20:33 (3225 days ago) @ uberfoop
Well, at least it did back in Year 1.
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The Division Networking is Borked and so is Destiny
by Kahzgul, Sunday, May 01, 2016, 17:07 (3222 days ago) @ uberfoop
Yeah, it's pretty clearly #2. The game trusts each player's system to know where that player was and where they were shooting. In more traditional client/host PvP games, the game only trusts the host system. Personally, I think that's a better model, though I think a middle ground could be found if there was some sort of metadata of "how much can I trust this player" that would allow the host to offload some percentage of the computational work to other, trustworthy systems.