So what's the explanation for the lag? (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Friday, November 18, 2016, 23:17 (3018 days ago) @ Durandal
edited by Kahzgul, Friday, November 18, 2016, 23:23

If Bungie is saying they're doing damage and health on a 30 tick (which is still half as often as Titanfall 2 and overwatch and less than 1/3 as often as Counterstrike), are they trying to say there's no lag? Because that's patently false. Even games where there isn't much lag at all still have a huge number of trades, which really shouldn't be possible. How the hell did I get a melee kill from beyond the grave? Lag. How did I do it five times in one match? That's a crapload of lag. I'm not talking about the red bar gods who snipe you from across the map through three walls and while facing the wrong direction. I'm talking about the average, run of the mill, every single encounter sort of lag that this game has. Other FPS games simply don't have it. I don't remember the last time I traded in Titanfall 2, for example (I honestly may never have traded in the 30+ matches I've played). In Destiny I trade all the damn time.

The statistical odds of both players firing at the exact same time are incredibly small. So you're talking about broad windows during which damage can occur. Bungie is claiming that they asses damage on every single frame of animation in this game (30 fps, 30 tick). If that's the case, the only explanation is lag. All those times you fired, saw your gun animation play, then saw the opponent's gun animation play, and then you both died? The only explanation for that is lag if the game is running at 30 ticks per second.

This problem is why the 10 tick explanation was plausible. Now Bungie says that's not the case, so there are only two other explanations possible:

First would be SBMM having a priority over CBMM, forcing people into games against players with poor connections. Bungie also states that this isn't the case, and they've insisted over and over and over that their game values connection quality over skill by a wide margin.

So we're left with only one, very disappointing option (that we've actually known about for a long time):

- Bungie's netcode sucks balls.

That's it. That's the only way to explain all of this lag. If the game ticks as often as Bungie says, and the matches are connected based on connection speed to the degree that Bungie insists they are, the only way we can explain the lag that we all experience in every game is that the fundamental netcode upon which the game has been built is complete garbage for competitive PvP.

Yeah, I think I'm moving on to Titanfall 2. God DAMN that game is fun. Bonus: It is never frustrating. You always know who killed you and how, and it's never around a corner, through a wall, or because of lag.

Edit in case it wasn't clear: I don't expect Bungie to ever fix the lag if the problem is, as it seems to be, the fundamental networking structure of their PvP systems. They may not even be able to. Des2ny is the only hope for things to improve, so pvp lovers like me should be praying that Bungie gets it right the second time around.