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Large Scale Combat

In my previous experience with MMOs that have large scale PvP I've experienced massive lag spikes which are partly due to too many particle effects going off in an area at once.

What I'd like to know is if the dev's are implementing anything to combat this.
Are the skill's effects going to be toned down slightly (comparative to other games)?
Are they going to implement strategies to force/encourage players to spread out?

I do understand that it won't be perfect in regard to this issue and I'm fine with that. But I'd like to hear the dev's thoughts (or anyone who has heard their thoughts) about this.

Edit: I forgot to ask.
For those who are fans of the large scale PvP, what would you like to see implemented to make it work?

Comments

  • This is a question I'm keen to have answered too :)
  • Original post edited to clarify and broaden topic.
  • Awesome question! So "Unreal engine 4 " (URE4) is the engine they are using in their game in case you did not know :P

    They said 6 years of previous hardware should be able to run this game 6 YEARS technology has Blown up especially with the 960 + Graphic card!

    Also they said URE4 will have a huge amount of video setting so if it dose come to this you can turn it down!

    Hope this helps :P
  • i think an option to hide effects from other players that are in your party/raid would be a good option.
    hiding player effects from your enemies can be an option too but only to be used in pve.
    also an option to hide pets and names/guild-names can be an optimising factor.
  • No actually the particle effects is a symptom of lag and not he cause.

    If the AoE cap is set at one, and you can cope with 100 people on screen, you will have no lag.
    The Graphics is driven by your pc using files on your pc and using your graphics card and cpu to some degree.
    If you can walk around a crafting town with 100 people you could 1v1 no issue.

    The problem arises with the back end netcode and calculations.
    Other than position and activity of other players, not much player-player interaction is actually taking place.
    Anything that does is normally 1 to 1 actions rather than group actions.

    When you go into combat with 100 people using 1v1 skills, again, there is little difference.
    But when you suddenly create AoE cap of 30 people, all in combat, in the same location, in parallel, hitting everyone;
    thats when the problems begin.
    There will be 1 file/record that is authoritive that contains your current live status for all things.
    Because there is only 1 authoritive version of you, only 1 person can access it at any moment in time.
    That means if 30 people hit you, they all want to make changes to your record....but they cant.
    Your data is write locked and single threaded.....the players are working in parallel and mutithreaded.
    So all those changes have to sit in a queue, waiting to commit their changes, to ensure your data is not corrupted.

    Now that is just you.....consider that its actually 30x30 people that that is happening to, you will apreciate you have created 900x the traffic of 1v1.
    You have reated a data storm of both calculations and traffic.
    Now you apprciate why every game to date, has simply collapsed into a whimpering mess, with large scale combat and big AoE caps.

    The solution is you have to somehow make that solitary version of you that is write locked and single threaded,
    into a writable mulitithreaded version....all without corrupting the data.
    To which I have already notified Intrepid of the solution and methods.
  • No actually the particle effects is a symptom of lag and not he cause.

    If the AoE cap is set at one, and you can cope with 100 people on screen, you will have no lag.
    The Graphics is driven by your pc using files on your pc and using your graphics card and cpu to some degree.
    If you can walk around a crafting town with 100 people you could 1v1 no issue.

    The problem arises with the back end netcode and calculations.
    Other than position and activity of other players, not much player-player interaction is actually taking place.
    Anything that does is normally 1 to 1 actions rather than group actions.

    part1
  • When you go into combat with 100 people using 1v1 skills, again, there is little difference.
    But when you suddenly create AoE cap of 30 people, all in combat, in the same location, in parallel, hitting everyone;
    thats when the problems begin.
    There will be 1 file/record that is authoritive that contains your current live status for all things.
    Because there is only 1 authoritive version of you, only 1 person can access it at any moment in time.
    That means if 30 people hit you, they all want to make changes to your record....but they cant.
    Your data is write locked and single threaded.....the players are working in parallel and mutithreaded.
    So all those changes have to sit in a queue, waiting to commit their changes, to ensure your data is not corrupted.

    part2
  • When you go into combat with 100 people using 1v1 skills, again, there is little difference.
    But when you suddenly create AoE cap of 30 people, all in combat, in the same location, in parallel, hitting everyone;
    thats when the problems begin.
    There will be 1 file per record that is authoritative that contains your current live status for all things.
    Because there is only 1 authoritative version of you, only 1 person can access it at any moment in time.
    That means if 30 people hit you, they all want to make changes to your record, but they cant.
    Your data is write locked and single threaded, the players are working in parallel and multithreaded.
    So all those changes have to sit in a queue, waiting to commit their changes, to ensure your data is not corrupted.
  • When you go into combat with 100 people using 1v1 skills, again, there is little difference.
    But when you suddenly create AoE cap of 30 people, all in combat, in the same location, in parallel, hitting everyone, thats when the problems begin.
    There will be 1 file per record that is authoritative that contains your current live status for all things.
    Because there is only 1 authoritive version of you, only 1 person can access it at any moment in time.
    That means if 30 people hit you, they all want to make changes to your record, but they cant.
    Your data is write locked and single threaded, the players are working in parallel and multithreaded.
    So all those changes have to sit in a queue, waiting to commit their changes, to ensure your data is not corrupted.

    part2
  • When you go into combat with 100 people using 1v1 skills, again, there is little difference.
    But when you suddenly create AoE cap of 30 people, all in combat, in the same location, in parallel, hitting everyone,
    thats when the problems begin.

    part2
  • There will be 1 file per record that is authoritative that contains your current live status for all things.
    Because there is only 1 authoritative version of you, only 1 person can access it at any moment in time.
    That means if 30 people hit you, they all want to make changes to your record, but they cant.
    Your data is write locked and single threaded, the players are working in parallel and multithreaded.
    So all those changes have to sit in a queue, waiting to commit their changes, to ensure your data is not corrupted.

    part3
  • There will be 1 file per record that is authoritative that contains your current live status for all things.
    Because there is only 1 authoritative version of you, only 1 person can access it at any moment in time.
    That means if 30 people hit you, they all want to make changes to your record, but they cant.
    Your data is write locked and single threaded, the players are working in parallel and multithreaded.
    So all those changes have to sit in a queue, waiting to commit their changes, to ensure your data is not corrupted.

    ...work damnit!
  • There will be 1 file per record that is authoritive that contains your current live status for all things.
    Because there is only 1 authoritive version of you, only 1 person can access it at any moment in time.

    part3
  • That means if 30 people hit you, they all want to make changes to your record, but they cant.
    Your data is write locked and single threaded, the players are working in parallel and mutithreaded.
    So all those changes have to sit in a queue, waiting to commit their changes, to ensure your data is not corrupted.

    part4
  • [work damnit!]

    That means if 30 people hit you, they all want to make changes to your record, but they cant.
    Your data is write locked and single threaded, the players are working in parallel and mutithreaded.
    So all those changes have to sit in a queue, waiting to commit their changes, to ensure your data is not corrupted.

    Now that is just you.....consider that its actually 30x30 people that that is happening to, you will apreciate you have created 900x the traffic of 1v1.
    You have reated a data storm of both calculations and traffic.
    Now you apprciate why every game to date, has simply collapsed into a whimpering mess, with large scale combat and big AoE caps.

    The solution is you have to somehow make that solitary version of you that is write locked and single threaded,
    into a writable mulitithreaded version....all without corrupting the data.
  • That means if 30 people hit you, they all want to make changes to your record, but they cant.
    Your data is write locked and single threaded, the players are working in parallel and mutithreaded.

    part4
  • Your data is write locked and single threaded, the players are working in parallel and mutithreaded.
    So all those changes have to sit in a queue, waiting to commit their changes, to ensure your data is not corrupted.

    Now that is just you.....consider that its actually 30x30 people that that is happening to, you will apreciate you have created 900x the traffic of 1v1.
    You have reated a data storm of both calculations and traffic.
    Now you apprciate why every game to date, has simply collapsed into a whimpering mess, with large scale combat and big AoE caps.

    The solution is you have to somehow make that solitary version of you that is write locked and single threaded,
    into a writable mulitithreaded version....all without corrupting the data.
  • Your data is write locked and single threaded, the players are working in parallel and mutithreaded.
    So all those changes have to sit in a queue, waiting to commit their changes, to ensure your data is not corrupted.
  • Now that is just you.....consider that its actually 30x30 people that that is happening to, you will appreciate you have created 900x the traffic of 1v1.
    You have created a data storm of both calculations and traffic.
    Now you appreciate why every game to date, has simply collapsed into a whimpering mess, with large scale combat and big AoE caps.

    The solution is you have to somehow make that solitary version of you that is write locked and single threaded,
    into a writeable multithreaded version....all without corrupting the data.
  • broke arse server!....you can have half a post then
  • 30v30 with an AoE cap of 30, generate 900x the calculations and traffic of 1v1.
    Option 1 - you invest in lots of hardware to cope with massive transient upscaling of sequential data load.
    Option 2 - you find a way to make write locked single threaded access into unlocked parallel access.
  • I see, so it looks like the Unreal Engine will allow us to tone it down ourselves which is good.

    Thanks for the replies all.
    Rune_Relic I understood most of your posts and thanks for the info. I think I understood the problem from the wrong perspective then. I assumed the server had to calculate on some level the effects, but from what you said it's more in line with what the skills are affecting/how many other people it affects.

    I'm kind of still hoping that the objectives spread the large groups out to some extent. Such as getting an extra reward towards the advancement of your node for killing the previous occupants guild leader/king etc (just a thought, not saying it's a good or bad one). It tackles two things in that regard, the players need to spread out to find him/her as opposed to just running to a static objective and if they want the reward they need to wait for the opposing players to be online (hence tackling "PvDooring"/offline raiding). I'm sure there are better ideas that the dev's have and to be fair if a guild is just too strong, offline raiding might be the only smart option I'm not entirely for or against it, but that's just my two cents.

    As you can tell I have a huge interest in guild warfare, looking forward to seeing what they come up with!
  • @Rune_Relic I know the Struggle ITS REAL!!! LOL!!!!!
    The main components would be

    1st Internet!
    2nd CPU
    3rd Graphic Card ( you can have amazing graphic card but your cpu still has the process the data! )

    @Krojick
    Raiding a Node during offline will be a little difficult , because Your government has to start the siege, Once the Siege has been approved!

    you have to get ready to make the siege so it will take time its not all instant it could take a week or 2 before you finally be ready to attack..... Also I THINK Steven said when this happens a world wide message will go out!

    Hope this helps!
  • ^ as stated.

    You can go instancing to control the load.
    But it still depends how many combat sessions you have going.
    Prime time is always.....unpleasant for that reason.

    But at the end of the day....the game is aiming for openworld, server wide PvP.
    So instancing that is not an option.
    You have to solve the write-locked single thread issue or nothing you do will really help.

    They do have something in their favour though.
    They havent gone down the mega-server route.
    The reduced population size makes things easier to manage.
    You are by default spreading everyone out.
  • I already told them how to fix the AoE single thread write issue anyway.
    So I dont expect them to have the issues everyone else has, if they choose to implement it.
  • Guess I missed that JcTuper, thanks for the info. That's awesome that they've implemented that already, sounds like they've put some thought into it at an early stage which is a nice change from other MMOs.
  • Glad to be assistance :)
  • <blockquote>Krojick wrote:
    I’m kind of still hoping that the objectives spread the large groups out to some extent. Such as getting an extra reward towards the advancement of your node for killing the previous occupants guild leader/king etc (just a thought, not saying it’s a good or bad one). It tackles two things in that regard, the players need to spread out to find him/her as opposed to just running to a static objective and if they want the reward they need to wait for the opposing players to be online (hence tackling “PvDooring”/offline raiding). I’m sure there are better ideas that the dev’s have and to be fair if a guild is just too strong, offline raiding might be the only smart option I’m not entirely for or against it, but that’s just my two cents.</blockquote>

    <blockquote>JcTruper wrote:
    Raiding a Node during offline will be a little difficult , because Your government has to start the siege, Once the Siege has been approved!
    you have to get ready to make the siege so it will take time its not all instant it could take a week or 2 before you finally be ready to attack….. Also I THINK Steven said when this happens a world wide message will go out!</blockquote>

    Also, keep in mind that a siege will typically last days, weeks or months - depending on the level of the node.
    I'm sure the leaders of the city will be killed several times during a siege.
    And I'm quite sure players will be logging out for sleep and logging back in to continue the attack or defense.
    Many other, more important objectives have to be completed to de-level a node.
    Might be other ways (diplomacy/politics/trade) besides killing the leaders to get the leaders to surrender.
  • ^ Indeed ^

    More content will be revealed as the time goes. Right now its still in pre-alpha so we will get further answers in the future!
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