Lockstep

Hey there GGG, long time player. Since Ambush, honestly. Not as long as some. At some point, my computer just... couldn't take the game anymore.

Then, it was released on Xbox. I actually specifically bought an Xbox for path of exile. no joke. Sold it when it released on my main console, PS4.

There's been... a lot of issues with PS4. On consoles in general. But there's one that just stands out to me more than any other. And though I don't think it gets mentioned much... a quick search revealed less then a half dozen posts, I think it's an important one.

Are we going to, at some point, get lockstep. Is it in the works? is it just impossible? I'm disheartened that this subject has been brought up before, but has seemingly gone without GGG response.

There's a reason lockstep was added to the PC version of path of exile. a lot of skills simply don't function without it. Hardcore game mode becomes much more frustrating. Leap slamming as a form of travel? Not okay. We as players are reduced to arguing which of the travel skills is less likely to get us killed. It's flame dash, if you were wondering.

Personally for me, I still log into standard on console and test flicker once every league... just to see if maybe... but no, it is still completely unplayable. The most recent patch notes were a roller coaster for me. The Unshattered Will Jugg I'd adopted had become gutted... but behold. Slayer is now a infinite flicker strike ascendancy. But not on consoles.

If it can't happen, it can't happen. If it's a long and arduous process, that's fine too. If it's something that's on the slate for POE2: great. If it's on the to do list, but like chat and guilds, the person responsible for such is no longer with the company, great. I'm asking, kindly, as an advocate of this game, and a player, could we kindly receive some sort of information regarding lockstep for the console?

Thanks.

Just in case you have not read it:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2036693

My relaying this information should not be taken to mean that I buy in to all of it. De-Sync and the hobbling of Trade are continuing points of discussion for many Players. But GGG has spoken. And after some bad experiences all round, my observation is that GGG tries to refrain from talking about future Console changes and to stick to announcing changes that have already been completed.

Why does the Xbox One version have desync? Wasn't this solved with the Lockstep update on PC?

Desync is when the player is in a different location (out of sync) on the client and the server. This means that monsters can hit you when you think that they're far away, for example. It's often noticed when the server re-syncs you to the correct position. This is also called rubber-banding.

Short technical explanation:
The lockstep network model has too much input latency to be used with a controller, so on Xbox One we use a hybrid predictive/lockstep model where actions are predicted locally but the simulation freezes when data hasn't arrived from the network. This is a compromise between fast response to player action and desync reduction under network latency.

Long explanation:
In online games, every action has to be checked with the server (to prevent cheating). This can take up to a few hundred milliseconds, depending on your distance to the server. During that time, the positions of any relevant entities are at best unconfirmed, and at worst, wrong. Over time, this can compound to a significant divergence between the clients and the server (with the server being the authority).

Historically, Path of Exile used a "predictive" system, where your actions take place immediately on the client, and the results are predicted while waiting on confirmation from the server. This meant that there were immediate responses to your actions, but desync could build up and would only be corrected when it was detected. Rubber-banding would then occur. A big problem with predictive mode is that if there's a lack of data from the server (for example, when a lag spike occurs), then the system keeps predicting away with the old data, getting quite out of sync.

In the 2.0.0 release of Path of Exile on PC, we added an alternative "lockstep" system, where confirmation is required from the server for every action. This added a delay between when you click the mouse and when an action occurs, which is tolerable with low latencies but feels terrible if you're far away from the server. Approximately 85% of Path of Exile users are close enough to their server to use this mode.

For Path of Exile with a controller, lockstep is not an option. Having to wait up to a fifth of a second after pressing the stick just isn't an option (it feels like playing drunk). However, we were unhappy with pure predictive mode, due to its propensity to get out of sync. Our solution was to create a hybrid mode that works as follows: Actions are predicted immediately, so you get snappy responses to your controls. However, if data from the server is delayed, instead of continuing to predict (the wrong stuff, getting really out of sync), the game pauses until data has arrived. This means that the only desync that can occur is from tiny differences in timing, rather than the significant exposure that can happen when there's extra latency. For a controller, this mode is superior to either the pure predictive or pure lockstep approach.

Unfortunately, it can still occasionally get out of sync, which is a bad experience for users. We are planning to tighten this up as much as we can and to be smarter with how we detect and correct sync issues.

Why does Path of Exile occasionally stutter/freeze and then speed up again afterwards?

This is related to the previous answer. Check out the "long explanation" there to see the technical details. Stutters of this type occur when your game client hasn't received data from the server and the game doesn't know what to do next. This is likely because of some bad network route between your home internet connection and the game servers. Sometimes it's caused by Wifi connections that have poor signal strength (such as ones that have to go through too many walls).

What are you planning to do with Trade?

For a detailed background on the evolution of our trade systems, please check out this post. It's important to note that some difficulty to trade is intentional.

Overall, we are happy with the fundamentals of how the trade market system on Xbox works. We do plan to make improvements to the user experience based on player feedback, but have been devoting resources to other areas so far. We expect to add the trade board to hideouts in 2018.

We also plan to allow community trade sites access to items in public stash tabs and trade forum posts on Xbox, in a similar way to how the PC ones work.

"

PunieToade wrote:

Hey there GGG, long time player.

Thanks.

I very much agree with everything here. This is the singular issue that is causing long-term players to quit. It’s brutally disheartening to invest countless hours into planning, leveling, and gearing a build - excitedly awaiting the point where you can reap the rewards of your precious time investment by destroying the endgame.... only find out when you get there that the build is unplayable due to constant deaths from desync. I personally had a group of friends who all quit because of this issue.

I know GGG has stated that full lockstep is impossible due to input lag... but my question then becomes:

Why is POE the only game that appears to have this issue? I’ve played many, many games on ps4 (heck, even ps3 & ps2) that work flawlessly with ZERO input lag and ZERO desync. POE is far and away the worst performing game I’ve ever played...

But it’s just such a great damn game. GGG: I WANT TO GIVE YOU MY MONEY - please let me do that by showing you care about console and by fixing this issue. It is possible - you just need to dedicate the resources to it. I know it will be a worthwhile investment long term. Until then I do not feel right supporting you if you’re not supporting the console playerbase.

Why is only PoE affected by this problem?

There are a few reasons, however the single biggest culprit is the high level of security built into the game.

PC online games have to deal with hackers on a constant basis. On PC, pretty much anyone can run a memory-hacker tool or "trainer" alongside the main game which can edit the values stored in memory. That means people can externally mod values such as HP, mana, ES and even the contents of the inventory.

The only way to properly deal with this kind of possibility is for games to simply not trust the player's own process, by having all calculations and validation done server-side. That way, even if you *do* mod your HP to be 100-million, the server still knows your true HP value, for example.

This means the client and the server have to be continually sending data back and forth; interruptions and delays in the verification process can introduce lag.

Diablo 3 on console didn't have that problem.

The reason why is simple: Blizzard realized console users cannot mod the game's memory directly. That means the console player's process *can* be trusted, so there is no need for the game to simulate and verify every single action online. Some things are still verified (for example, dropped loot), but movement is not.

Diablo 3 console *did* have a hacking problem, but that was solely related to it's ability to be played offline. Players were able to modify their saved games. As PoE is completely online, there are no saved games stored locally, so that isn't an issue.

PoE console could safely eliminate the need to check and verify each and every action and movement - it's an overdone and extreme level of security when you realize that the things it's trying to prevent cannot occur on console anyway; so all it ends up doing is introducing lag and desync.

I had not seen that, and it was indeed, precisely what I asked for; A concrete response. A sad one, but a concrete response nonetheless. Thank you for pointing it out!

"

UnclePobatti wrote:

Why is only PoE affected by this problem?

There are a few reasons, however the single biggest culprit is the high level of security built into the game.

PC online games have to deal with hackers on a constant basis. On PC, pretty much anyone can run a memory-hacker tool or "trainer" alongside the main game which can edit the values stored in memory. That means people can externally mod values such as HP, mana, ES and even the contents of the inventory.

The only way to properly deal with this kind of possibility is for games to simply not trust the player's own process, by having all calculations and validation done server-side. That way, even if you *do* mod your HP to be 100-million, the server still knows your true HP value, for example.

This means the client and the server have to be continually sending data back and forth; interruptions and delays in the verification process can introduce lag.

Diablo 3 on console didn't have that problem.

The reason why is simple: Blizzard realized console users cannot mod the game's memory directly. That means the console player's process *can* be trusted, so there is no need for the game to simulate and verify every single action online. Some things are still verified (for example, dropped loot), but movement is not.

Diablo 3 console *did* have a hacking problem, but that was solely related to it's ability to be played offline. Players were able to modify their saved games. As PoE is completely online, there are no saved games stored locally, so that isn't an issue.

PoE console could safely eliminate the need to check and verify each and every action and movement - it's an overdone and extreme level of security when you realize that the things it's trying to prevent cannot occur on console anyway; so all it ends up doing is introducing lag and desync.

A good compromise would've been store characters online, but be able to play play offline, you can store temp data that can sync later to the servers that isn't in the save folder so it is safe.

That would've been ok with me.