Net Code Report for KOF 13

Shin_Oni · November 27, 2011, 10:51pm

The best chance anyone had was last night during the level up KoF stream when they had Atlus reps there. But some fool on the mic was saying not to bother Atlus because they didn’t do the netcode.

I’m only hoping someone bothered one of the reps anyway to pass word to SNKP that their netcode is still ass and to work on some type of patch anyway.

Terrastorm · November 28, 2011, 1:15am

Shit, I really hope someone did.

complexz · November 28, 2011, 2:17am

hey man I agree in a way, the bad netcode is absolutely SNK’s fault and wifi is not the issue here, but the difference between most wifi setups and wired is hugely significant in almost all of the popular fighters online, it could potentially bring your experience from absolute shit to playable, even if it’s snkp’s fault that it never really goes from playable to great.

XTG · November 28, 2011, 3:30am

No, you’re right about GGPO ST & XBL HDR, those games play like smooth butter online most of the time. More games need to try and get to that level when it comes to online performance.

Projectjustice · November 28, 2011, 3:57am

Hate to break it to you, it could be 2020 and we will still have lag. Nothing is ever lag free.

Been reading the thread, seems a lot of you are just nitpicking now.

What im really disappointed in is that the soundtrack the game came with doesnt have KOF95 Korea stage theme. WTF???

complexz · November 28, 2011, 6:12am

I think he just picked a poor choice of words, when you get a good game in 3s0, SFIV or even now UMVC3, it **feels ** lag free, it’s never completely lag free, but it’s damn close and you can play online and offline with minimal adapting. In KOFXIII the only way to get this kind of match is locally, if at all.

it’s a improvement over XII, and it’s better than vanilla mvc3, but it’s not up there with SFIV where it needs to be to blow up IMO. I can’t honestly recommend this game to my friends and say “seriously man this game kicks ass and they finally got the netcode right this time” and that is a crime as this is the most excited I’ve been to pickup a new fighter in awhile.

Femto_1 · November 28, 2011, 10:05am

It’s not Capcom, they will…

XTG · November 28, 2011, 12:07pm

I called this a long time ago.

Projectjustice · November 28, 2011, 6:07pm

Its a huge improvement over XII. You should all suggest to all you friends to pick the game up. The netcode is solid and playable at the moment. Its a patch away from being SSF4 levels. KOF series is the only sprite series left and its a well packed game at $50 bucks.

Im a Capcom fan and I approve of this game.

Mr.X · November 28, 2011, 7:10pm

IMO online should aim to be Blazblue quality. SSF4 is passable but BB is better.

J-Killer15 · November 29, 2011, 2:57am

BBCS is probably the perfect fighter for this generation when you look at it’s complete package. It has a Tutorial mode, although a little too text heavy, that helps beginners like myself to understand the game’s mechanics and the basics of fighting games in general. The online experience is probably the best out of all the fighters this gen when you consider how good the netcode is, the inclusion of spectator mode, and the ability to train while you wait for a match. Also, the extra modes are well fleshed out for those who want to take a break from online. I wish there was a way for companies like SNKP to make the engine and characters for their game and just let ASW handle everything else.

DeltaKyaku · November 29, 2011, 6:02am

It’s called Arcana Heart 3. SNKP still even self-publishes in Japan though.

Overall I’m struggling to see a consistent negative difference in the actual netcode performance compared to the SFIV series, just a much less reliable user pool.

complexz · November 29, 2011, 6:35am

I see a direct difference because I play KOF XIII with the same group of people I play SFIV and other fighters with, it’s definitely worse

I’m not trying to be a hater here, I love this game to death and it’s heartbreaking to me that I can’t get good games with my usual group of friends that I can play most of the other mainstream fighter releases with.

my connection is pretty good, my ps3 is DMZ’d and I only play on wired.

J-Killer15 · November 29, 2011, 8:11am

Honestly out of 10 matches, only two of them were unplayable, and that’s because I wanted to test 1 and 2 bar connections. The lack of spectator mode doesn’t bother me, but I do wish there were 8 player lobbies. However, with that said KOF13 is fine online based off my experience.

Shadow_VII · November 29, 2011, 8:30am

its ass

Shin_Oni · November 29, 2011, 9:43am

Keep riding on thinking this netcode is great. It’s golden at 4 bars. passable at 3. But rarely are we seeing 4 bars across the board like in Asia.

Even then this game loves to misread connections. You may see a 4 bard when you enter the room then it just magically drops to 3 or 2 and feels like ass.

kenuran · November 29, 2011, 10:24am

Non-rollback netcodes are worthless. Worthless. This game easily runs on a non rollback 17 year dead netcode, which makes matches have variable input delay DURING the match. It fucking sucks. Fuck this shit.

Saying that KOF 13 online is better than KOF 12 is as empty as saying that getting your left ear torn off is better than getting the right one torn off.

A quote from a KOF 13 forum on Altus’s website. Thread title: **Is there going to be Netcode patch? **

Iie-Kyo:

I think people are misunderstanding the issues we’re having here. (Afterthought: After writing this post, I realized this is gonna be a wall of text. But please hear me out as I’m trying to make a civil appeal to Atlus and SNKP to get this done right)

Firstly, regarding port forwarding. Ports are an all or nothing deal. If both sides don’t have their ports forwarded, they will not get a connection. If one side has its ports set and the other side doesn’t - it is possible to get the connection but only if the side with the improperly forwarded ports makes the request to the side with the properly forwarded ports to play; if i remember correctly this is something called like a passive mode connection. The main thing here is, usually if you have a connection, you have a connection. Port forwarding usually affects your ability to make that initial connection. Once it’s made, no matter how it’s done, it should have no impact on the quality of the connection. The route is open. The flood gates have been released. Data is being exchanged once you make that connection.

That being said, I don’t quite understand why setting up a DMZ suddenly increases your network performance - especially for only this game. I know what a DMZ does, and it’s usually used as a last ditch resort to get something to work that should be working in the first place through properly forwarded ports or properly coded network code. GGPO recommends forwarding certain ports so that you can get a connection started - if you have everything properly forwarded, it increases your chances of being able to connect to more people because you can both accept and make challenge requests/connection attempts.

I admit, because fighting game players have been “spoiled” by what they’ve seen as something that they initially thought impossible - input delay-free gaming over the Internet through the use of input prediction + rollback over sub-optimal Internet connections and subpar ping - we were kind of expecting more from KOF 13’s netcode. GGPO allows me to play in an almost input-latency-free match (I am from Hawaii) against someone from the Netherlands at 220 ms ping and only one-frame of input delay, which is VERY good and acceptable by most serious players. People can do WC vs EC matches in the US because of this and usually do it at 0-frame delay.

What worries me is the fact that these “bars” that games use abstracts the ping down to a point where you don’t have a clear idea as to what’s going on. Why aren’t we allowed to see ping times in console games? SSF4 is even like this - UMVC3, BB, 3sO, etc - is this some sort of policy that Sony and Microsoft has to say “let’s hide what’s REALLY going on from the common console gamer because they don’t give a toot about it”?

I can only guess 1 bar red = 180+ ping and up, 2 bar yellow = 120-180 ping, 3 bar “green” = 80-120 ping, and 4 bar is everything below that. If those pingtimes are the case - we should be able to play the game with no problems whatsoever even on 2-bar if he had the netcode to back it up, but because we are human, we have these “dumbed down” views of what netcode should be. We see 2 bar and automatically think “that’s not optimal” when it really means that this guy’s ping is rather high to me, but it should be playable if the netcode could compensate for it.

If I didn’t think it was possible for that to happen, I wouldn’t be posting this, but we have clear examples of games that can do it - ST HDR, MvC2 X360/PS3, BB, AH3, Third Strike Online, and so on. Some of these games don’t even use what the “whiners” feel is the holy grail of netcode - GGPO.

People who are saying that “it’s playable on 2-3 bars” are really saying “sure there’s some input delay, but I’ll ignore that”. If you cannot AB Recovery roll/Quickrise from a knockdown on visual queue in matches with different people - that is a clear indication that something is going on. We don’t want the Kaillera days where we were forced to only play against people who are living in close proximity to us with 10-20 ms ping on the same ISP to get perfect games. The possibility for perfect games is out there, and we were hoping that the netcode could do it. Sadly it hasn’t, but luckily you guys have a strong WC community that will play it no matter what offline, which is great - but the rest of the country wants in on that through smooth, input delay-free, moderate-ping-tolerant netcode with good matchmaking. GSS has shown time and again its matchmaking system is mediocre at best (I’ve played older KOFs that was using it - not just KOF 12). However, what puzzles me is that there are other SNKP titles that use the same system and netcode, but provide better results. I’m being told KOF 96 PSN does, and I have personal experience from playing NGBC with various people with varying levels of connection quality and distance that the netcode there is better too!

This brings me to my next thought:

SNKP has our money now and thanks to the awesome marketing and push by Atlus (thank you for your efforts!), are they willing to spend that money to perfect the game for online play to make the game even more popular and successful in the US? I get this feeling SNKP is already looking at the next thing now that KOF 13’s done, instead of keeping maintenance on the game because it would not be profitable for them.

Furthermore, look at how easily word spread about the netcode issue. Many people still bought the game even when they learned about the use of the GSS netcode (which has proven time and again to be shoddy - I have friends who can site JP players putting it on blast). Even ignoring early reports of the netcode because they had faith that it was just isolated. If SNKP made a decent money off of the console release of the game, they should now have the resources to make their product even better. Improve that netcode, and you will have the frontpage of every major fighting game site reporting that it’s great and you will have word of mouth spreading fast that this is the game to get. Leave it as it is now, and it will only be left to being played for offline tournies, and if you have a strong local tourney scene (and that’s highly uncommon for KOF vs SF or MVC3), great for you, but the rest of us would like to have a shot at being able to play this online and get more people into it.

I don’t have a means to contact SNKP myself because I cannot speak or write enough Japanese to tell them. A lot of people were hoping you guys, Atlus, since you have those links with them, could pass along the message that the game’s netcode needs more work, if not an entire overhaul because of its inherent roots (GSS). What I’m worried about is that either you will ignore it, because you are just the publisher and now that the game has been published you are “done” with the game and moving on to bigger things (i.e. the Persona fighter and your other great JRPGs), will disregard it because you feel that the game is fine as it is, despite the numerous reports clearly stating that it’s not, or that SNKP Japan will ignore it, because the netcode is sufficient enough for Japan itself, which has excellent Internet infrastructure and the smaller nature of the country itself naturally leading to lower pingtimes and near-guaranteed 4-bar games. This gives the impression that a company can get away with sub-optimal netcode because it doesn’t affect their country. I’ve also read many reports from the previous publisher of the failed KOF 12 that SNKP is very difficult to work with, so I was pleasantly surprised that they took a 180 with you.

I’ve actually heard consistent reports from Euros who got the game early that the netcode is fine there and even with 3 bar connections there’s input-latency free games and that it’s the US’ shoddy copper-based infrastructure plus the sheer country size is to be to blame. While I agree that our infrastructure is horribly outdated (and not going anywhere soon, if politics allows itself to have its usual sway on things), I’ve seen a future where it will be possible for us to have just-like-the-guy-being-next-to-you quality games through GGPO, and that’s why many of us have this outcry going on, because a lot of us were grinding 98 and 2k2 on GGPO for years and have gotten somewhat used to this possibility that cross-country and cross-international-lines play is possible.

That is why I’d like you guys to take a serious look at this issue again. I absolutely love how the game is now - it’s polished, it’s complete (sans the netcode), it has a great cast, great features, is tourney-worthy and has that KOF flair we’ve been missing for years. That’s why a lot of us are asking for the netcode to be redone. Denying it has serious issues is not going to be good for the longevity of the game. I read numerous articles stating that you guys have die hard KOF fans in the Atlus staff, so I am hoping you guys can understand that right now, this game is great, but it has huge potential to become even BETTER. Get that netcode down and everyone in the country will flock to this game and the KOF scene will only grow.

More copies will get sold and word of mouth will give the KOF scene the revitalization it needs. There’s already a scene brewing in the WC thanks to the dedication of the old Arcade Infinity guys, but right now the rest of the nation needs that kick - getting that netcode down so that members of the community can get to play each other from all over the nation is only good for the community.

Anyway, sorry for my long post, but I am very passionate about wanting to see this game succeed. I’m not expecting a day-1 fix for it, but I’d at least like to get this on the table for SNKP and have them at least saying “we’ll try and get this fixed, no guarantees but we’re hearing you”.

Thanks for reading!

DeltaKyaku · November 29, 2011, 12:05pm

Well there’s the constant I was lacking. I’ve had some complete ass 3s where you can’t even stop walking but then I’ve had 3s that were better than the crap I’d typically have to put up with in SFIV ranked, but I’ll believe you.

It’s definitely not great, but it’s just I’ve seen some shit everywhere. BB can be laggy as all hell when it feels like it. (oddly pretty much everyone seems to have lagged more in BBCS than BBCT and personally AH3 was better than CS for me too-and there is plenty of complaining about lag among the hardcore players for all of those still) Basically I’m not happy with it but when people bought MvC3 the game is probably getting panned harder for it than it relatively deserves. I don’t think I never played a match I could block a Disruptor while there’s the slim possibility of getting something good in KoFXIII, plus you know, the game being good.

bchan009 · November 29, 2011, 12:21pm

I play 4 bar lagless wired connections all the time - but I live in Hong Kong…

Sorry to hear other people aren’t having a good experience. =(

I haven’t had time to read every post, but PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD use a wired connection. It really DOES make a difference.

K4ever · November 29, 2011, 12:53pm

I guess I got scammed =/.
I play ssf4ae on the psn ( I know its not better than xbox live ), but if u just try to find matches against people with 4 bars is VERY playable ( tight frame links, but no crouch techs though ). I was craving playing a new fighting game online so I was on a quest. I tried searching for info to see which games have great netcode on the psn, and I came at the end to these games: ssf4ae, blazblue ( the best online ),and 3s online edition ( uses ggpo ). I really wanted to play mortal kombat but I heard negative reports. Now I was looking for feedback about how is the “new and improved netcode” for kof xiii after the failure kof xii was. I read articles here in shoryuken saying the online play was finally “done right”, and the matches were very playable. I though hell yeah! I bought the game yesterday and today I finally played 3 matches online, and they all sucked bad. Couldnt even block low after a jump in fast enough or even hold back to block a fucking fireball … what the fuck!? First match I was looking for players with a latency of level 3 and up, and then I made a room for peeps 4 bars only. Still the last 2 matches had only 3 bars, even though Im asking 4 so I dunno how this works.
In resume … online play is unFUCKING playable. I got scammed and got caught in the hype. They better make a patch and fix this or I will be selling this on craigslist for 40% off soon. I will keep the 4cd soundtrack collection though ^_~.
I live in los angeles california by the way.