We know it wasn't viable in phase 1, but maybe something changed in the meantime. So: did anyone with a working phase 2 (US) accounn try a WASD-based map online and did it work?
I played one called crush company and it seemed to lag quite badly. It could have been on my end, as i only tried the map twice, perhaps at a bad time. But yeah, it was about a 500 ms delay from clicking the button and the character reacting. Same was with their system for launching non targeted missiles/bullets. I don't think it's entirely viable, and to be honest, being able to control via mouse is a lot nicer i think. What kind of feel are you going for anyways?
I played Crush Company on NA servers but I'm from Italy, I lagged for about 500ms...
I hope they will change sc2 netcode soon or the 90% of maps will be unplayable!
I played one called crush company and it seemed to lag quite badly. It could have been on my end, as i only tried the map twice, perhaps at a bad time. But yeah, it was about a 500 ms delay from clicking the button and the character reacting. Same was with their system for launching non targeted missiles/bullets. I don't think it's entirely viable, and to be honest, being able to control via mouse is a lot nicer i think. What kind of feel are you going for anyways?
I was hoping to introduce tactics into a hero-based combat/capture game by allowing people to move in different directions, shoot behind/next to them, strafe etc. where different units have different values for these.
Without these, the best you can do is just another Dota again.
Keyboard and Mouse input really had me excited for SC2, and I ignored the bad results during the beta, but if they don't change their net-code I will be severely discouraged knowing the editor has the potential but it is locked away so to speak.
Well, I think that lots of mappers will turn their back if those features wont be "usable" .
We all know how Wc3 had and still has long life coz of World Editor.
I played Crush Company in phase 2, and there was too much delay between me pressing the button and the character moving for me to want to play it again. I thought maybe it was so delayed because of how many triggers the game had to go through before activating the action; but reading some of these posts makes me think that maps with these kind of controls won't do so hot.
I had no problem with crushed company, it still worked fine for me
What you gotta remember is the face that its not really the wasd triggers that lag the game, its the super close camera to the character, because of this your camera is so close to the terrain and other objects they are rendered to a point that most peoples graphics cards cant handle it. Whereas the normal location of your camera wont cause the game to render textures as much but still make the textures look nice. If we are able to change the rendering process through triggers or in our maps then we can adjust the rendering distance to cut down on so many computers slowing down due to graphics problem and this in turn would speed up internet connections.
I tried it in waterworks using faster speed settings and, the delay was bad. Then I tried again using normal speed and the latency was decent and playable.
Maps with TPS or WASD should be locked to normal speed settings and should be designmed to work fast with such settings.
What you gotta remember is the face that its not really the wasd triggers that lag the game, its the super close camera to the character, because of this your camera is so close to the terrain and other objects they are rendered to a point that most peoples graphics cards cant handle it. Whereas the normal location of your camera wont cause the game to render textures as much but still make the textures look nice.
Wait what? I gotta raise an objection on this one.
The way it works is actually the exact opposite. Moving the camera closer to the ground will reduce the amount of objects displayed and thus remove lags. Textures do not rezise depending on your distance to them (at least not in SC2). This is why the textures look blurry when you zoom in.
On the other hand, when you zoom out the amount of objects and textures increases - thus more work for your computer.
The reason why FPS maps lag so much is the same. Since you're looking toward the horizon everything in front of you (until you reach the farclip distance) will be rendered, even if it's hidden for you behind cliffs or other models. This may lead to a HUGE number of things that need to be rendered at once.
Also, the lag that's caused by the WASD movement (I prefer to call it delay) is of completely different nature than hardware lag caused by your computer when it has to render too much.
Blizzard is working on it; Dustin Browder said as much during a fairly recent interview. It's just a hard problem.
The problem is, I believe, that there's a delay between a trigger-issued order and the order taking effect. So when someone presses a button, that information is sent out over the network. As soon as that information reaches all the clients (one network trip total so far), the triggers can know about it. The event couldn't be sent before because it has to be synchronously sent on all clients. The trigger issues an order, but the order doesn't take effect until the next network tick (two total network trips). So the apparent lag is twice as bad as if the order was simply issued normally.
Wait what? I gotta raise an objection on this one.
The way it works is actually the exact opposite. Moving the camera closer to the ground will reduce the amount of objects displayed and thus remove lags. Textures do not rezise depending on your distance to them (at least not in SC2). This is why the textures look blurry when you zoom in.
On the other hand, when you zoom out the amount of objects and textures increases - thus more work for your computer.
The reason why FPS maps lag so much is the same. Since you're looking toward the horizon everything in front of you (until you reach the farclip distance) will be rendered, even if it's hidden for you behind cliffs or other models. This may lead to a HUGE number of things that need to be rendered at once.
Also, the lag that's caused by the WASD movement (I prefer to call it delay) is of completely different nature than hardware lag caused by your computer when it has to render too much.
What your forgetting is that the objects that are now zoomed in take up alot more space on the computer screen and yes they are rendered, try playing around with the camera triggers and have you camera zoom in on a random object, you'll see the textures re render itself the closer you get. Water works is actualy a good example of this, load it up and run towards random object and see how the texture of these objects change.
Yah i've noticed this too with FPS, and i always wonder why people give units full map sight, i would just increase the seperate unit's viewing distance by 4x.
So what im gathering is that there is also trigger lag due to the trigger constantly re running? MAybe what you could do is have two triggers, one that detects when the button is pressed down, and another to detect when it isn't pressed down. When the button is pressed down the pressed down trigger is deactivated, the trigger that detects that the button isn't pressed down is activated, and unit moves in set direction. And when the player releases the button the button release trigger should be deactivated, the buttomn pressed down button should be activated, and the unit should stop moving in set direction. If this is possible then this would cut down on triggers constantly running drastically and possibly reduce lag caused by triggers.
What your forgetting is that the objects that are now zoomed in take up alot more space on the computer screen and yes they are rendered, try playing around with the camera triggers and have you camera zoom in on a random object, you'll see the textures re render itself the closer you get. Water works is actualy a good example of this, load it up and run towards random object and see how the texture of these objects change.
Yah i've noticed this too with FPS, and i always wonder why people give units full map sight, i would just increase the seperate unit's viewing distance by 4x.
So what im gathering is that there is also trigger lag due to the trigger constantly re running? MAybe what you could do is have two triggers, one that detects when the button is pressed down, and another to detect when it isn't pressed down. When the button is pressed down the pressed down trigger is deactivated, the trigger that detects that the button isn't pressed down is activated, and unit moves in set direction. And when the player releases the button the button release trigger should be deactivated, the buttomn pressed down button should be activated, and the unit should stop moving in set direction. If this is possible then this would cut down on triggers constantly running drastically and possibly reduce lag caused by triggers.
This is NOT lag caused by triggering.. just make a simple trigger that spawn an explosion in the point you are clicking your mouse.
Boom 500ms of delay... As Sublimity said it's a problem of sc2 netcode, nothing related to hardware or triggering problems.
For the guys that don't lag in this kind of games the answer is simple. If the max delay of players in game is low (50ms for example) your keyboard events will delay for just 100ms.
You sound like you have no idea what your talking about. I do the camera thing all the time, objects do not re-render everytime you zoom in an inch. Blizzard isn't that stupid. What your seeing is the textures get blurrier because your zooming in, and the textures aren't made to be seen that close up. And as everyone else says, it is the Netcode. When I play alone the game runs perfectly, with 1 friend. A little bit slower. 3 or more, and it is just hell. How is that rendering and trigger work? I always do the:
Another problem is how SC2 probably handles net traffic regarding key presses.
It basically only knows 2 states:
1 - don't send any key press data at all.
2 - send ALL the key presses to all other players.
Since triggers need to synch on all machines, every player needs information on all the keystrokes that run triggers. So far so good. But SC2 doesn't know which key presses to send and which not to. So it just sends every press as soon as you include a TriggerRegisterKeyPress anywhere in your map, even if it just catches a single button.
That is probably an important factor, as delay itself would also apply to every other trigger if it was just the normal transmission delay.
It mgith be that far-away objects have reduced texture quality as they're hard to see, but SC2 CANNOT raise quality on textures or models.
The textures only change because they're displayed larger. They distort depending on your angle of view and distance. But that's something totally normal. That even happens in reality (at least for our subjective view).
Ground textures are a good example. Zoom close to the ground and you'll see how crappy it looks suddenly. At closest distance you can *almost* count the pixels on the texture.
I still don't get the difference of delay between a keypress and an ability use on a unit... they should be the same thing but it seems that abilities don't need this sync wait.
Even triggers activated by abilities don't lag so I'm a bit confused on how this netcode works
We know it wasn't viable in phase 1, but maybe something changed in the meantime. So: did anyone with a working phase 2 (US) accounn try a WASD-based map online and did it work?
I played one called crush company and it seemed to lag quite badly. It could have been on my end, as i only tried the map twice, perhaps at a bad time. But yeah, it was about a 500 ms delay from clicking the button and the character reacting. Same was with their system for launching non targeted missiles/bullets. I don't think it's entirely viable, and to be honest, being able to control via mouse is a lot nicer i think. What kind of feel are you going for anyways?
@happy04: Go
I played Crush company and it didn't seem to lag for me.
I played Crush Company on NA servers but I'm from Italy, I lagged for about 500ms...
I hope they will change sc2 netcode soon or the 90% of maps will be unplayable!
I was hoping to introduce tactics into a hero-based combat/capture game by allowing people to move in different directions, shoot behind/next to them, strafe etc. where different units have different values for these.
Without these, the best you can do is just another Dota again.
Keyboard and Mouse input really had me excited for SC2, and I ignored the bad results during the beta, but if they don't change their net-code I will be severely discouraged knowing the editor has the potential but it is locked away so to speak.
@SCMapper: Go
I tried it during Phase 2 Beta and now it appears using a region to follow with the camera makes the camera turn to the right.
Well, I think that lots of mappers will turn their back if those features wont be "usable" .
We all know how Wc3 had and still has long life coz of World Editor.
I played Crush Company in phase 2, and there was too much delay between me pressing the button and the character moving for me to want to play it again. I thought maybe it was so delayed because of how many triggers the game had to go through before activating the action; but reading some of these posts makes me think that maps with these kind of controls won't do so hot.
One guy told me that its actually lagging(delay) coz people dont know how to code that thing properly.
Now, I wouldnt know...
I had no problem with crushed company, it still worked fine for me
What you gotta remember is the face that its not really the wasd triggers that lag the game, its the super close camera to the character, because of this your camera is so close to the terrain and other objects they are rendered to a point that most peoples graphics cards cant handle it. Whereas the normal location of your camera wont cause the game to render textures as much but still make the textures look nice. If we are able to change the rendering process through triggers or in our maps then we can adjust the rendering distance to cut down on so many computers slowing down due to graphics problem and this in turn would speed up internet connections.
I tried it in waterworks using faster speed settings and, the delay was bad. Then I tried again using normal speed and the latency was decent and playable.
Maps with TPS or WASD should be locked to normal speed settings and should be designmed to work fast with such settings.
Wait what? I gotta raise an objection on this one.
The way it works is actually the exact opposite. Moving the camera closer to the ground will reduce the amount of objects displayed and thus remove lags. Textures do not rezise depending on your distance to them (at least not in SC2). This is why the textures look blurry when you zoom in.
On the other hand, when you zoom out the amount of objects and textures increases - thus more work for your computer.
The reason why FPS maps lag so much is the same. Since you're looking toward the horizon everything in front of you (until you reach the farclip distance) will be rendered, even if it's hidden for you behind cliffs or other models. This may lead to a HUGE number of things that need to be rendered at once.
Also, the lag that's caused by the WASD movement (I prefer to call it delay) is of completely different nature than hardware lag caused by your computer when it has to render too much.
Blizzard is working on it; Dustin Browder said as much during a fairly recent interview. It's just a hard problem.
The problem is, I believe, that there's a delay between a trigger-issued order and the order taking effect. So when someone presses a button, that information is sent out over the network. As soon as that information reaches all the clients (one network trip total so far), the triggers can know about it. The event couldn't be sent before because it has to be synchronously sent on all clients. The trigger issues an order, but the order doesn't take effect until the next network tick (two total network trips). So the apparent lag is twice as bad as if the order was simply issued normally.
That's my understanding, anyway.
@Sublimity: Go
@s3rius: Go
Both of you, thanks for having good information. I appreciated that.
What your forgetting is that the objects that are now zoomed in take up alot more space on the computer screen and yes they are rendered, try playing around with the camera triggers and have you camera zoom in on a random object, you'll see the textures re render itself the closer you get. Water works is actualy a good example of this, load it up and run towards random object and see how the texture of these objects change.
Yah i've noticed this too with FPS, and i always wonder why people give units full map sight, i would just increase the seperate unit's viewing distance by 4x.
So what im gathering is that there is also trigger lag due to the trigger constantly re running? MAybe what you could do is have two triggers, one that detects when the button is pressed down, and another to detect when it isn't pressed down. When the button is pressed down the pressed down trigger is deactivated, the trigger that detects that the button isn't pressed down is activated, and unit moves in set direction. And when the player releases the button the button release trigger should be deactivated, the buttomn pressed down button should be activated, and the unit should stop moving in set direction. If this is possible then this would cut down on triggers constantly running drastically and possibly reduce lag caused by triggers.
This is NOT lag caused by triggering.. just make a simple trigger that spawn an explosion in the point you are clicking your mouse.
Boom 500ms of delay... As Sublimity said it's a problem of sc2 netcode, nothing related to hardware or triggering problems.
For the guys that don't lag in this kind of games the answer is simple. If the max delay of players in game is low (50ms for example) your keyboard events will delay for just 100ms.
@Dumorah: Go
You sound like you have no idea what your talking about. I do the camera thing all the time, objects do not re-render everytime you zoom in an inch. Blizzard isn't that stupid. What your seeing is the textures get blurrier because your zooming in, and the textures aren't made to be seen that close up. And as everyone else says, it is the Netcode. When I play alone the game runs perfectly, with 1 friend. A little bit slower. 3 or more, and it is just hell. How is that rendering and trigger work? I always do the:
Press "W" Down
Release "W"
So what your saying is invalid.
Another problem is how SC2 probably handles net traffic regarding key presses.
It basically only knows 2 states:
1 - don't send any key press data at all.
2 - send ALL the key presses to all other players.
Since triggers need to synch on all machines, every player needs information on all the keystrokes that run triggers. So far so good. But SC2 doesn't know which key presses to send and which not to. So it just sends every press as soon as you include a TriggerRegisterKeyPress anywhere in your map, even if it just catches a single button.
That is probably an important factor, as delay itself would also apply to every other trigger if it was just the normal transmission delay.
@Dumorah: Go
It mgith be that far-away objects have reduced texture quality as they're hard to see, but SC2 CANNOT raise quality on textures or models.
The textures only change because they're displayed larger. They distort depending on your angle of view and distance. But that's something totally normal. That even happens in reality (at least for our subjective view).
Ground textures are a good example. Zoom close to the ground and you'll see how crappy it looks suddenly. At closest distance you can *almost* count the pixels on the texture.
I still don't get the difference of delay between a keypress and an ability use on a unit... they should be the same thing but it seems that abilities don't need this sync wait.
Even triggers activated by abilities don't lag so I'm a bit confused on how this netcode works