Update on Deterministic Lockstep

Once it's deployed, two options will be available to choose between:

• Deterministic Lockstep: When you perform an action, it is sent to the server for confirmation before it is shown to you. In this mode everything will stay completely in sync, including all monsters. There is a delay equal to your latency to the server. If you suffer from an internet lag spike, everything stops moving until you receive more data. This mode is amazing if you have low latency to the server.
• Client Predictive: This is the mode we currently use. Actions appear to occur immediately but can get out of sync under some circumstances. While things appear to happen immediately, the actual actions are still delayed by your latency behind the scenes. Many bugs with this mode have been uncovered during the implementation of Deterministic Lockstep and have been fixed. It's much better than it was before, and is probably the best choice if you have more than 100ms of latency to the server.

In its initial form on Beta, you'll have to select Deterministic Lockstep mode manually. In the future we'll be looking at making it automatic for players with low latency.

I want to clarify that while Deterministic Lockstep mode guarantees no desync in theory, the practical results depend on all the gameplay code being completely bug-free. We've fixed everything we have found so far, but there are still a bugs to iron out during the rest of the Beta. Even with it being 95% there, it's night and day compared to regular sync. If you find any particular skills that reproducibly cause sync problems in Lockstep mode, let us know and we'll fix those up quickly.

Deterministic Lockstep represents a gigantic amount of time and re-engineering. Substantial testing is needed to make sure that everything functions properly once it's deployed. We look forward to your feedback next Friday!