I’m fully aware I’m not the first guy in the world with this problem, but it’s just been pissing me off since I got back into SFIV. It doesn’t matter how decent my connection is with other players, or how consistent my combo’s are in the training room, I hardly EVER get to pull a full combo off without some bs happening (blocked mid-combo, dodgy lag input, etc.) I’m maining Sakura the most, which makes her Tatsu loop combos more irritating to connect online.
Like the title asks, how do you experienced folk cope with online matches? Do you pick characters with reliable BnBs? Do you practice with other people online? Do you give a shit?
Your next option is to make sure you have a strong WIRED connection to your console, that you give broadband priority to your console via router options, or simply purchase a superior internet connection speed. But even after all that, you’re still subject to poor internet connections if your opponent either lives very far away from you, or their internet provider is essentially a Dixie cup with a string and some aluminium foil antennas.
For some reason I can’t find a lot of green bar connections, but the ones I do find are very tolerable. I just search for green bars on ranked. I don’t pay any attention to pp/bp since I’m only playing online to learn matchups and keep myself from getting too rusty.
In all seriousness though, like IglooBob mentioned, try to get a friend list going with people who have decently compatible connections and play them in endless. If you do play ranked, just be aware that this problem exists for everyone and don’t sweat it too much. I know it’s frustrating- I’ve been there plenty of times too, but I don’t see the problem going away anytime soon and it’s easier to just accept online ranked matches for what they are- fun, but not a good barometer for your skill level.
People don’t realize how bad the xbox 360 wireless adapters are on the old xboxes that don’t have internal wifi. I made my connection substantially better by hard wiring, but not everyone can do that. If you are unable to hardwire I’d recommend getting a network bridge. A really good N one is the next best thing to hardwiring and will make a substantial difference over those crappy usb wifi connector and will likely still be a speed upgrade over the newer xbox’s / ps3’s internal wifi cards. The usb wifi adapters for xbox 360 are especially awful due to the usb connection bottleneck. Basically the bridge takes the wireless signal then ports it through an ethernet cable (much faster than usb) to your xbox / ps3. A good network bridge should allow for a sizable speed increase.
When the lag is very bad I actually just let the other player win. I don’t want to learn how to cope with or exploit lag. I want to learn how to play the game.
If its just a little lag, or just a laggy moment during the match I just ignore. Even if it changes the match results it doesn’t really matter. But I learned to play people as close as possible to me. Long distance connections are almost allways laggy…
I see that some players do change their fighting stile to take advantage of lag, using safe stuff that don’t require reactions from themselves but do from the opponent. Its a great Idea to earn PP. It’s just crappy playing. I don’t mean minor changes in play stile, that are almost necessary for online. I mean this full attack auto mode frenzy that I see sometimes as soon as lag begins…
Or maybe its just my impression on it… Too new to the game to really tell for sure.
I don’t understand the connectivity bars in this game, it’s the only thing I’d say genuinely needs fixed. Case in point:
I played against a guy from Japan and a guy in Hong Kong, each had a red bar. Zero lag. Buttery smooth game. I play against a guy from the same country as me, green bars, and it’s lag-lag-lag-lag-laggy as all hell. Of course, when the game lags suspiciously just as I’m about to win a match, I assume lag switch or devious magic from Outworld and I leave. And curse their family’s name.