GGG actively avoids good solutions to desynchronization.

"

Flickerflare wrote:

If the player character is hitting mobs that are nearby them client side, consider trusting us a little bit and permitting our attacks to hit mobs anyway. Sometimes introducing the risk of exploits is worth the QA it gives the playerbase.

Might as well have said "give us the ability to code in free no-cooldown flicker strike clientside", since thats essentially what such trust would be used for in short order.

Trusting the client with gameplay calculations never ends well.

"

etunne wrote:

Missing an attack because a dice roll says you did is so archaic. I wish games would do away with it already.

Agreed. Such mechanics hail from an era when hit/miss etc decisions couldnt be decided by player input (timing, aim etc), and so had to be decided by randomness (dicerolls, and later random number generators). With player execution now being able to replace those old dicerolls completely, theres no longer any need for such outdated and non-intuitive mechanics. PoE would only benefit from accuracy being completely removed from the game.

"

KoTao wrote:

"

Flickerflare wrote:

If the player character is hitting mobs that are nearby them client side, consider trusting us a little bit and permitting our attacks to hit mobs anyway. Sometimes introducing the risk of exploits is worth the QA it gives the playerbase.

Might as well have said "give us the ability to code in free no-cooldown flicker strike clientside", since thats essentially what such trust would be used for in short order.

Trusting the client with gameplay calculations never ends well.

"

etunne wrote:

Missing an attack because a dice roll says you did is so archaic. I wish games would do away with it already.

Agreed. Such mechanics hail from an era when hit/miss etc decisions couldnt be decided by player input (timing, aim etc), and so had to be decided by randomness (dicerolls, and later random number generators). With player execution now being able to replace those old dicerolls completely, theres no longer any need for such outdated and non-intuitive mechanics. PoE would only benefit from accuracy being completely removed from the game.

Just gonna say, I disagree. Randomness is a factor in life, from derived randomness (hitting traffic when driving. Random for you, but derived from logical sources), so complete randomness (at the moment there is still something we fundamentally don't understand about turbulence and no 'actual' equation for how it works).

So while some things should be player input (vaal smash, more skills of a similar nature might be nice, like an enemy who sort of yells and gets slightly bigger, then throws a hammer or something), inherent chance should still be utilised in games. To an appropriate level. I feel the randomness in accuracy at the moment is out of whack, where the accuracy starts out fine, but about level 40->60 it starts getting ridiculous unless you are stacking accuracy and dex nodes, AND +flat accuracy on gear.

"

Flickerflare wrote:

Server side communication with client needs improvement, and movement speed makes the issues with such mis-communication more noticable. I understand Torchlight is generally a single player game, but Torchlight also trusts the client, to an extreme amount, so even with hack gear, desynch is very rarely bad. While giving too much trust to the client is a bad thing, giving none at all only impedes progress greatly, as the client and the server work best when they aren't actively fighting each other.

Torchlight has no multiplayer, Torchlight 2 does, but it is entirely P2P. Torchlight 2 also features support for mods. Because of these things there is very little reason for a super secure network model because it's just waaaay too easy to hack. Heck save games are stored locally!

Torchlight 2 shouldn't be in this conversation at all! It's a totally different setup!

You can't trust the client at all without introducing massive exploits/hacking potential. If you have it so your attacks are still valid even when you're desynched then players will just intentionally lag they're internet and use hacks to reposition/manipulate enemies on the client then unlag they're internet connection. If the Client has dominance over speed/movement then players will just hack that and have an unfair advantage over legit players.

I like some randomness too- random drops, for example, define the genre. Same with randomized maps and monster spawns to a lesser extent. These sorts of randomness are fun, challenging or both.

Randomness in combat tends not to be so fun or challenging- it generally has the effect of reducing the effect of player decisions and making execution feel unreliable. Accuracy is the worst offender atm, as misses due to dicerolls are indistinguishable from misses due to desync- the mechanic essentially makes the game feel like its not working properly.

"

KoTao wrote:

I like some randomness too- random drops, for example, define the genre. Same with randomized maps and monster spawns to a lesser extent. These sorts of randomness are fun, challenging or both.

Randomness in combat tends not to be so fun or challenging- it generally has the effect of reducing the effect of player decisions and making execution feel unreliable. Accuracy is the worst offender atm, as misses due to dicerolls are indistinguishable from misses due to desync- the mechanic essentially makes the game feel like its not working properly.

True, accuracy itself needs to be improved to be more of a 'how well did you hit them' rather than 'did you hit'. Perhaps if you did like a glancing blow if you missed, so the arrow STILL hits them rather than doing the weird "am i lagging or did I miss" arrow flying through the enemy.

"

Real_Wolf wrote:

True, accuracy itself needs to be improved to be more of a 'how well did you hit them' rather than 'did you hit'. Perhaps if you did like a glancing blow if you missed, so the arrow STILL hits them rather than doing the weird "am i lagging or did I miss" arrow flying through the enemy.

I think damage spread and criticals do a good enough job of emulating glancing blows, near misses, deadshots and so on.

Of course we have other random combat factors such as dodge and block, though monsters cant dodge or block so the "looks similar to desync" and "feels like games not working properly" issues that plague accuracy never come into effect.

I doubt the PoE engine and netcode would be up to the task of handling user-controlled blocking and dodging anyway, much as id like them to be.

"

CharanJaydemyr wrote:

"

KoTao wrote:

monsters cant dodge or block .

Eh?

Am i wrong? Ive never seen a monster block, shield or otherwise, and while there are reduced enemy block nodes in the tree, iirc a dev commented some time ago that they were intended for pvp. Dodge would look identical to evade or desync at first glance (aka the players attack would miss), but i think that if monsters had that ability, it would have been mentioned on the forum at some point, as it wouldnt be hard to distinguish from evade when a build with restech reliably missed 1/3 attacks or whatever on specific monster types.

"

KoTao wrote:

"

CharanJaydemyr wrote:

"

KoTao wrote:

monsters cant dodge or block .

Eh?

Am i wrong? Ive never seen a monster block, shield or otherwise, and while there are reduced enemy block nodes in the tree, iirc a dev commented some time ago that they were intended for pvp. Dodge would look identical to evade or desync at first glance (aka the players attack would miss), but i think that if monsters had that ability, it would have been mentioned on the forum at some point, as it wouldnt be hard to distinguish from evade when a build with restech reliably missed 1/3 attacks or whatever on specific monster types.

Those act 3 shield charger guys block all the time, its rather annoying sometimes. I'm not sure how RT interacts with block though.

never seen a dodge though, since dodge is the same as evade, but IIRC it would work against RT

"

Real_Wolf wrote:

I'm not sure how RT interacts with block though.

No effect.

Also: Trusting the client for anything other than "hey, user just clicked at this location!" is to be avoided at all times and is the path to getting hacked to shit. Like I've said before, netcode overhauls -- like using UDP -- are the best answer.

Remove the hit/miss, evasion & dodge mechanic.

Instead all blows always hit, you get always stunned, but the stun duration is proportional to damage dealt. Weak hits stun duration should be so short it would be unnoticeable, resulting in the same perceived behavior as a miss.

Instead of evasion, you can have parry (or call it "deflection", or whatever..) - you are still hit and stunned (for an unnoticeable fraction), but no damage is dealt to you. Parry also replaces block (as it's practically the same thing).

This changes would result in a more deterministic behavior of fighting, while keeping the same gameplay distinction between absorbing blows (armor route) and nullification of blows (parry route), that we have now with armor vs evasion.

You would be always hit and stunned, the only matter is by how much. The client could be trusted with more data, thus having easier sync. (at least this is my educated guess :)

Of course this would require in some fundamental changes to the game, I don't think GGG would want to employ at this late stage.

------------

Also a note on speed:

Fast enemies in this game are absolutely ridiculous. Not only because of the desync they create, but also from the gamplay standpoint. I dunno what's the point of those snakes AI and movement speed, that makes them teleport all over the place, running back & forth, other than creating desync and annoy the player...