Automate Halfline unfairness.

[MidCap]

I just watched some videos of JP players, and noticed how much better their AHL is. I wonder how many fewer deaths I would have if mine was that fast?

I think it's pretty unfair that the game has NO PROBLEM calculating the damage you take client side, but that AHL is server side. If the game is lagging, why not just resolve the damage / healing after the lag spike ends? "Nope, we're too lazy to calculate events in the order they ACTUALLY HAPPENED. We'll just kill you."

Why is there a difference between these two? I don't see why healing should be affected by lag but damage versus the player is not. Is this to prevent some type of cheating? If so, why aren't BOTH things server side?

Can anyone explain the rationale behind this unfair mechanic? It gives players closer to the servers an unfair advantage. Seeing AHL activate that fast, and knowing I'll never have it, really sours my day. I could play so much more aggressively if I knew it would never fail. I don't even want to use my HU anymore after seeing what I'm being screwed out of.

Nice work, Sega. Make a great game that EVERYONE wants to play, but then only give it to some people. To add insult to injury, add mechanics that deliberately screw outsiders even more. It wouldn't even surprise me if this insulting crap was deliberate.

[Chdata]

lag is unfair! someone should spend a billion dollars per hour so everyone can have lag free internet!

They way you're acting as if this is intentional or something they can easily work around is annoying. For one, calculating the damage you take isn't client side. Hit detection is. But you can lag and take like 50 hits and have the damage all be calculated a minute later when those hits finally catch up with the server.

Also, this is not a game for EVERYONE. The minimum age for signing up is 20 and they explicitly say that people outside of Japan should not be connecting to this game.

Not to mention, AHL is fine. Your internet must be really bad, or your ability to play this game must be really bad, if it's not making you pretty much invincible against everything that doesn't one shot you.

[Kondibon]

Somethingsomething non japanese players aren't supposed to be on the servers anyway.

This is just the nature of online games. They aren't "deliberately" doing anything.

[UnLucky]

You can manually heal after getting hit and the events will catch up in the order they occurred, you just won't see the numbers until later.

Skill activation requires a server check, though, so yeah that's affected by latency.

Just don't get hit and it's not a problem.

[wefwq]

It basically just like how stances activated, you can press the button anytime but if it lagging the stance wont active seconds later.

[Nitro Vordex]

git guud 2: electric lagaloo

[Achelousaurus]

ITT: Hate to say I told you so.
Well, Don't hate, not at all.
Just get rid of it, all things considered it's not very reliable in keeping you alive without requiring manual mates.

[branflakes325]

It's pretty annoying that lag affects whether or not Automate and Iron Will invincibility even trigger before you die. Prime example is in TD3 when AIS users ignore the infested ships that rain hell onto one random person. Whether or not these skills are optimal is an irrelevant discussion. They should at least work as they're intended to work, rather than being bound to server lag and stability.

[Xaelouse]

The fastest method of taking down Fire Apos/Luther is to tank their projectiles while landing Holding Current over and over. So if you can't do that then you're missing out on big damage opportunities. It sucks, and the servers have been awful for -everyone- during Japan primetime. If you still lag during their morning hours then you should find a method to fix that.

[starwhisper]

What about Iron will that procs after you are dead? ^^

[Maenara]

In my experience, Iron Will always procs regardless of lag, the invincibility frames just take their sweet time getting there.

[wefwq]

Sometimes Iron Will fail to protect me when i got caught in the middle of combo attacks even the proc animation shown.

[TehCubey]

In my experience, Iron Will always procs regardless of lag, the invincibility frames just take their sweet time getting there.

This. With bad latency, you often see a multihit attack lower your HP to 1, you even get the Iron Will proc sound - but the invisibility frames are not there yet so that 1 immediately gets turned to 0 as the next hit strikes you.

Very frustrating.

But what can you do? It's an online game and servers are in Japan. You'll get lag. You have to deal with it.

[Vampy]

Get rid of monomates if you are carrying them they go by monomate then dimate then trimate even with bad latency you shouldn't die instantly unless it is more than what your HP is.

[Achelousaurus]

But when you get hit hard and you are at like 10 HP, a dimate will not mean you are safe, next hit could kill you.
And if you only got trimates you can get hit exactly 10 times before you have to restock.

[isCasted]

But what can you do? It's an online game and servers are in Japan. You'll get lag. You have to deal with it.

The lag is there, but it's not a reason to code events to go in an illogical order, especially if it is an online game. It doesn't matter if its servers are far away from us, there are always coding standards.

So, now I got some thoughts... Since Episode3 update much more people started specialising into Iron Will and Automate Halfline, so servers started doing additional checks and operations much more often. What if it's partially a cause of the extra server stress?

Some notes about damage calculation:
[SPOILER-BOX]Smart developers usually cache stats and multipliers somewhere to reuse them every time a player deals damage to something, but in this game it's possible that every single piece of your gear is checked over and over (it might sound dumb, but it's actually more or less hacker-proof), and so do all possible multipliers.

I am not sure what computer architecture is used for PSO2 servers, but our X86-64 machines are optimized to speed up addition and sacrifice performance of multiplication. This game is a multiplication hell and many multipliers can't be even cached properly. Fury Stance is 1.6x (or whatever, don't feel like calculating) for a player, but for a game it's 1.3*1.05*...*whatever Fury Combo Up is for this particular attack. FCU is not only extremely conditional in terms of coding - it also starts ignoring most of its conditions at lv10 in terms of player experience. Skills like Hight Time are just weird from both perspectives.[/SPOILER-BOX]

Here I'll break down how Automate works again:
[SPOILER-BOX]1. Player gets hit, information about it is sent to the server
2. Server calculates the damage and changes HP value
3. Client receives new HP value
4. Client asks server to activate Automate if it has been learned and there are usable mates in inventory (talking about the case when HP is actually below 50%) (also, not sure if those checks are handled by client or server)
5. Server checks minimal mate in inventory, calculates amount of HP that should be given by it, changes HP value and amount of mates in inventory
6. Client receives new values.
[/SPOILER-BOX]

The process described above needs to be optimized by throwing out steps 3 and 4 and merging step 5 with step 2. Not only this is going to improve player's experience - it will also reduce load on server. And it is also natural for people's thinking.

Now, modeling situation when Iron Will procs but you still die:
[SPOILER-BOX]1. Player gets hit and client sends information about it to the server
2.1. Player gets hit again
2.2. Server calculates the damage for the first hit. It turns out that the hit was lethal, so IW activates
3.1. Client receives new HP value and information that Iron Will should activate. Now player is not affected by any attacks, because invincibility in this game means being ignored by collision detection with enemies.
3.2. Server calculates the damage for the second hit. Oops, IW can't proc twice in a row (or can it? I never had it)
4. Cliend receives new HP value and... dies. Because, as stated above, invincibility is connected to collision detection and so it's fully client-side. Got hit? Get damage.
[/SPOILER-BOX]

For that one to get fixed you'd have to introduce an additional check, so it was an extra operation most of the time. But potentially for hits that appeared after one that started IW damage calculation would be ignored completely, so it's not as bad.


But when you get hit hard and you are at like 10 HP, a dimate will not mean you are safe, next hit could kill you.
And if you only got trimates you can get hit exactly 10 times before you have to restock.

This is why Automate is only advised for use with high HP and DEF values. Also, if you know that infected Crys Draal will give you 1200 damage with his attack - you deal with it and dodge.

[Maenara]

Actually, damage is calculated client-side in PSO2, from what I've heard. Which is also one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

[Achelousaurus]

So, IW may effectively do nothing because the server derps out and sets your HP the 2nd time, overwriting the 1 HP from IW with a 0?
._.

Also, the order and formulas for a variety of things is BS in this game.
During my first TD3 when lag was truly biblical I had a Katana Combat lasting over a minute.
But not in one piece, it would be active for 5 seconds, then inactivate for 15 and if I got hit while it was inactive I would die.

Sadly, this could be avoided if stuff was actually client sided. And sadly it's a measure against hacking than, as always, hurts regular players by far the most.

In the end lag wins, period. I tried max Step Advance on hu sub before last week and now that I run around without it, I don't see the difference.
It's unnecessary in general if you know enemy / boss patterns and it does jackshit against any lag.

PS: It's time to update those class build images, UnLucky.
You still got Gunner Sroll as a very good skill ._.

[Maenara]

Unlucky made the class build thread without realizing how much work goes into one.

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

rather than being bound to server lag and stability.

... every skill in an online game is tied to this in one way or another as long as your PC, or w/e platform is a client...

[branflakes325]

Your own use of mates isn't reliant on server stability as far as I know. Only the HP display is affected by the lag, and the game is programmed so that AH is bound to the server's internal timer or something. My point is that it could have been programmed otherwise. It would be foolish to say that something like this is impossible for Sega to fix, even though I highly doubt it's going to be fixed regardless.

Isn't sega currently trying to fix server instability issues anyway? Who's to say that players in Japan aren't experiencing the same issues for the same reason?

[Achelousaurus]

It's possible that sega may fix this and a billion other cases of bad coding.
But sega being sega makes this highly unlikely to happen anytime soon, if at all.

[Schrodinger]

It's possible that sega may fix this and a billion other cases of bad coding.
But sega being sega makes this highly unlikely to happen anytime soon, if at all.
In 1996, Sega dips it's toe outside of the console market, and releases Sonic CD for the PC. Alt-Tab crashes the game.

In 2014, after 20 years of experience for developing for the PC and 2 years of updates, Sega currently maintains Phantasy Star Online 2. Alt-tab crashes the game.

(Also Sonic CD got released on steam 2 years ago and it still had the alt-tab issue lol)

Some things never change.

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

In 1996, Sega dips it's toe outside of the console market, and releases Sonic CD for the PC. Alt-Tab crashes the game.

In 2014, after 20 years of experience for developing for the PC and 2 years of updates, Sega currently maintains Phantasy Star Online 2. Alt-tab crashes the game.


Well that made my day.

[Stealthcmc1974]

In 1996, Sega dips it's toe outside of the console market, and releases Sonic CD for the PC. Alt-Tab crashes the game.

In 2014, after 20 years of experience for developing for the PC and 2 years of updates, Sega currently maintains Phantasy Star Online 2. Alt-tab crashes the game.

(Also Sonic CD got released on steam 2 years ago and it still had the alt-tab issue lol)

Some things never change.


Well that made my day.

I beg to differ. I alt-tab all the freaking time in PSO2 and have not once crashed this game.

Perhaps I'm just a wizard. :wacko:

[Sizustar]

I beg to differ. I alt-tab all the freaking time in PSO2 and have not once crashed this game.

Perhaps I'm just a wizard. :wacko:

Are you using virtual full screen, windowed or real full screen?

Try it with real full screen mode.

[Maenara]

Alt-tab tends to crash ANY full screen game. Alt-tab crashes Skyrim. That's why I either play games in windowed mode, or virtual fullscreen as long as they support it.

[infiniteeverlasting]

SO TRUEEE i though that this was only me cuz i had a shitty computer.

[Stealthcmc1974]

Are you using virtual full screen, windowed or real full screen?

Try it with real full screen mode.

I use Real full screen

[Kondibon]

My experience also supports the fact that alt tabbing tends to crash full screen programs. Especially if you do it too quickly, while something is loading, or stay away from the program for too long. It's not just PSO2.

It's worth mentioning that I actually crash from alt tabbing GW2 more than PSO2... buuuuuut, I can set GW2 to window mode while it's playing so... :wacko:

[EvilMag]

Alt-tab tends to crash ANY full screen game. Alt-tab crashes Skyrim. That's why I either play games in windowed mode, or virtual fullscreen as long as they support it.

It's usually "consolized" games that always end up crashing when hitting Alt-tab. There are a few games that we're developed for PC that does as well.

[Stealthcmc1974]

My experience also supports the fact that alt tabbing tends to crash full screen programs. Especially if you do it too quickly, while something is loading, or stay away from the program for too long. It's not just PSO2.

It's worth mentioning that I actually crash from alt tabbing GW2 more than PSO2... buuuuuut, I can set GW2 to window mode while it's playing so... :wacko:

Most of my games don't crash when I alt-tab at real full. Only one I can think of is Star Wars KOTOR, but I attribute that more to the game being old than anything.

[Kondibon]

Most of my games don't crash when I alt-tab at real full. Only one I can think of is Star Wars KOTOR, but I attribute that more to the game being old than anything.Like I said, it depends. It's likely a computer thing. My point is that it happens, but it doesn't happen all the time to everyone, and isn't exclusive to PSO2.

[Schrodinger]

Alt-tab tends to crash ANY full screen game. Alt-tab crashes Skyrim. That's why I either play games in windowed mode, or virtual fullscreen as long as they support it.
Out of the dozens of games I've played on steam, I've only had issues with alt-tabbing with one of them. I've played a lot of mmos too, and most of them don't explode when you hit those two buttons. Maybe I'm just lucky with my picks in games.

Sega/Sonic Team has always had this issue though. I haven't played all of their pc ports, but the games I have played have always had this problem. I know for certain Phantasy Star games all have it (PSOBB, PSU, PSO2).