Netcode

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter x Tekken
841

I know everyone has their own opinions but I don’t see how anyone can not like the netcode for Street Fighter IV. Back when I had fast internet the game was more than playable online with a green bar connection, and yellow bars was what I would expect from online play. I could still play footsies, react to specific situations and every once in a while I would drop a combo. Now that I have possibly the worst ISP known to mankind it’s still playable online. I’ve tried just about every new fighting game online except Soul Calibur V and Mortal Kombat with my slow connection and Street Fighter X Tekken(PSN) is the only one that is not playable at all, even if my opponent is local.

I adjusted to the sound problem but I still can’t anti air, and can’t play footsies due to the high amount of skipping and rollback. However, combos are a piece of cake because oddly enough the problem does not occur after I got that one hit from a random jump in. I’ve had better experiences in Tekken 6 and KOFXIII than in Street Fighter X Tekken so far.

TL;DR Version: My best online experience was Street Fighter IV and GGPO

842

…does your definition of playable include the words smooth or butter?

843

This problem is very rare for me, but sometimes I could swear I see someone either doing a hit animation or a block animation, and then suddenly it reverses. Like Ryu could be blocking my jab strings and then for a split second I see him block another jab but then it suddenly changes into a hit animation. I know this must have something to do with roll backs etc but man does it throw me off. I’ve only had it happen twice, just wondering if its my imagination or if anyone else sees it.

844

Yeah thats the netcode rollbacks at work. Should be happening to almost everyone

845

WHen someone says SF4 is a great netcode… they either

  1. Dont know what offline play is like on a consistent basis to differentiate it between a green bar in SF4 netplay
    or

  2. they dont understand how lag works and how detrimental massive input delay is when it comes to not only combos, but many of the defensive tools that are fundamentally required to play the game (throw techs, AA’s, blocking mixups, etc etc.)

846

Playable: 0 Frame drops/slowdown, and input lag that is slightly noticeable but won’t effect mine or my opponents ability to perform combos, anti-air, block, tech throws, etc.

Unplayable: Input delay that is highly noticeable, and frames dropping left and right resulting in random confusion.

Close enough but not as good as offline play: SF4 green bar connection and Virtua Fighter 5 online.

847

Close enough??? Close enough??? O God NO NO NO NO NOO NOOOOOO

Yo I’m bout to watch The Office now

848

Is that the followup series to Casting Couch?

849

I remember at the launch of Vanilla SF4 green bar connections did not exists in North America. It wasnt until the Championship Mode update that you could find green bars, and it wasn’t that they made the netcode better, they just lowered the standards for what a green bar was. I think SFxT’s netcode is a pretty good first attempt. It does a better job at handling good connections.

850

I can only play SF4 online with XBL friends or those I play regularly IRL if I don’t want to have an aneurysm. Yellow = forget it, and even Green connections are nowhere near indicative of how offline matches would be. There’s just way too much that happens online that would make me doubt myself and would cause me to feel less motivated to play whenever friends were not on. For casual playing, SF4 does have an okay enough netcode, actually enjoyable most of the time, but for anything that matters it’s not worth the bother.

I still fail to see how SF x T is any better though. Even though links on average seem to have a 1-2f larger window than in SF4, at least in SF4 I can get most of my links most of the time, and unless I’m playing some random yellow connection, I don’t completely lose inputs to special moves that often at all. Just about every “green” connection I’ve played with in SF x T has intermittent input drops through the entire match.

851

Just tossing my voice into the ring here…I had a difficult time adjusting to the sound glitch, but honestly I freaking love the netcode on this game. Link-heavy combos actually work, and you can finally react to things your opponent does and even consistently hit confirm from pokes. As long as it’s either a 2 or 3 bar connection, I’m a happy camper. The “teleporting” hiccups have been so few and far between (and even then only on zero or 1 bar connections) I wouldn’t consider it an issue at all.

It’s horrifying to me to hear some people would actually prefer input lag over rollback netcode. SF4, while a great deal of fun online, was so full of lag abuse that it couldn’t be taken seriously. In SFxT, if I lose, it’s because I failed to react properly or fast enough, not because the game dropped my inputs.

852

1-I agree that sound does help in your timing when learning new characters, It is so true, With this sound glitch it makes it harder to nail link combos.
2-lol That has been happening to me alot

853

Because unlike SFIV, SFxT does not slow the game down and change the input delay to respond to changes in latency. It just lets the game continue, then rolls back to the most recent fair state.

854

sf4 dropped inputs too ya know lol and it created variable input delay that no tournament player can take seriously. You’ve adjusted to a HORRIBLE net code system and you think the worse of the 2 is better now. That’s all it is.

ANY and I mean ANY good player realizes why roll back is 10,000x better than variable input delay. Not only that, roll back net code can be written to allow sf4 input delay style and GGPO style. Variable input delay, sf4 style, can never allow a roll back features because of the way it works. I don’t think that sfxt has the option for input delay, not sure, but they can be implemented with input delay as GGPO and HDR allowed you to do. It allows for both systems so if you like input delay you can just crank it up. Those of us who prefer roll back can have to. Its the best of both worlds and any argument you make against it is pretty ignorant. Roll back is the future, it does both styles where as input delay only does 1 style. It gives the people who know how to play what they want and scrubs can have smooth connections.

you’re hurting the community by saying we should be moving backwards with old technology that NO online developers would use these days if they want online to be a good feature. Its like saying computers from 1960’s are the way of the future. It makes no damn sense and its usually a telling sign whether or not you’re a good player. **If you play online for sf4 outside of Japan and you think its perfectly fine, you don’t know a god damn thing about SF\fighting games pure and simple. That style of net code prevents the entire game from being played properly. **

Honestly, its pretty simple. say you got 5 dropped inputs on a very good connection for sfxt online, that means 99.9% of the game was actually playable online. With variable input delay, the game is like 30% playable because its impossible to react to anything. Scrubs are getting exposed for bad strategy so they claim bad net code when they’ve been banking on shitty ass sf4 lag tactics that NEVER work offline. I’ve played around 3000 games online for sf4 and even in my own city, it was fucking awful. Just couldn’t play it. However for sfxt online, I’m playing people across my state, 500+miles and its barely dropping anything.

online can’t be perfect it never will be. You just have to get as close to perfect as possible and roll back gets closer to offline gameplay than input delay ever has. I haven’t heard of 1 good player saying anything bad about the net code. Its always been “newer” players and to be fair, newer players have 0 clue as to WTF is going on. Some of those guys can even barely pull off simple motions let alone understand the differences between the 2 net code styles and how they affect the game.

sound isn’t that big of an issue. Does it affect the game, sure but only slightly. However, the online experience you’re getting is far more important than sound will ever be. To me, thats like saying I don’t want this lamborghini you gave me for my birthday because the shifter handle is the wrong size. You’re missing the bigger picture, someone just gave your ass a lambo!!!

educate yourselves please for the love of god and stop spewing garbage on the forums. Developer read this shit and I hate seeing negative reactions when these games are finally playable online for once.

855

Thanks, I totally stand corrected. Lag that completely screws up inputs is superior. Got it. I love all of this talk about how only bad players think it’s bad as though you all have the exact same experiences or some crap. The way it is on XBL for me is nothing at all like GGPO. It’s cool though, continue to write essays about how anyone having issues with the netcode are complete morons.

It’s amazing how you gathered that when what you quoted actually states the opposite. It being more playable comparatively doesn’t mean I think it’s any good. I actually hate playing online with anyone other than friends, which is what I’ve already said and none of those matches can be anything more than casual.

856

It’s true that sfxtk netcode is not as refined as GGPO but it’s still fundamentally better then sf4. Like I said before, it’s mostly casual/beginners who keep arguing against this netcode being better.

If Capcom had used GGPO, then no one would complain cause everyone would use their preferred style of netcode. It’s a start at least, maybe with future updates or future games will have that option.

857

Its the casuals\beginners IMO who put us in this mess to begin with. I think if more people were aware of what good net code actually looks like, we would of received this MUCH sooner and sf4\umvc3 online along with sfxt would of been great online and who knows, those games could of been 2-3x bigger @ evo because players have access to steady competition with the ability to play great online. Not doing this sooner hurt everyone. The community could of have recieved a better product and more players and Capcom would of likely improved their sales with big games like sf4\umvc3 getting this net code treatment.

the casual market simply doesn’t understand that if you like sf4 input delay, roll back can give everyone what they want. Casuals can have super smooth matches, pros get the best online exp possible ATM. Its a win-win for everyone even the companies that provide that type of net code. So any player complaining about the net code just doesn’t understand wtf is going on. Complaing about not having input delay is moot, roll back allows input delay as a feature on GGPO and it can be implemented easily. If ponder can do it for free, surely Capcom can implement it too.

if you don’t educate yourselves on a particular topic, any opinion you form will simply be ass. My opinion isn’t the end all be all either but I’ve educated myself for 10+ years by playing every fighter I could online going all the way back to zsnes zbattle with 56k and people predate me with xband. IMO, casuals\beginners don’t deserve an opinion because they don’t know WTF is going on. Would you ask a 1st year medical student whether or not you should attempt a risky surgery to save your life? or would you ask someone with 20 years of experience and thousands of surgeries under his belt?

858

I hate when it lags and Characters start to teleport all over the screen.

859

I see what your getting at but not everyone’s online experience is the same as yours. For example, I heard Blazblue had some godlike netcode but for me it was so bad I can count to 5 before my input would register, HDR was fine, SF4 is fine, SFxT takes me at least fifteen minutes to find a decent connection and still the game isn’t all that playable but my current ISP is terrible anyways so I haven’t had the chance to play with a solid connection, KOFXIII I can’t play against anyone local or not, Dead or Alive 4 was pretty godlike but I couldn’t stand that game, and back when Guilty Gear X2 #Reload, KOF02, and CVS2 were still playable on Xbox Live they weren’t even worth playing, not even for casuals.

Then you have to realize that there are players such as myself that play online and offline frequently and have a good amount of fighting game knowledge. Some of us can adapt to the slight input delay that’s given in SF4 online while others can not. There’s also the fact that the input delay isn’t the same for everyone since we all have different ISPs, with different data plans, and live in different areas of the world. Honestly, I think a lot of players are taking the SF4 netcode for granted. It’s not perfect(because online play may never be perfect) but it’s definitely a step up over GGX2, CVS2, and KOF02/03.

860

I played cvs2 and ggx2 online for xbox 1 or w\e people call it and sf4 is in the same league as cvs2 IMO. Its just as bad. I even believe that sf4 and cvs2 share the exact same net code because they act pretty fucking close online.

sf4 is far from fine and no, you can never adapt to variable input delay because its an unkown number that changes, those are incredibly ignorant things to say. To properly tech throws online for sf4, you have to tech shit before your opponent even thought about throwing you sometimes. That shit is awful. You take that same timing offline and what ends up happening is that you tech throw so fast that its at the wrong damn time and you either wiff a stand throw or a crouch tech. Any game that forces input delay to the degree sf4 does online is impossible to play properly outside of Japan. Fighting games are mostly based on reactions and when input delay is there, its impossible to react properly because it will delay the shit out of your reactions.

This is what I mean about people not understanding the differences. Sf4 online is far from fine, its shit fucking garbage. I played soooo many games online hoping it could be good and the timings I had to adapt to were preposterous. Teching throws before any throw animation singled you to do so. Proper shoryuken AA timing online would make you have offline trade SRK timing and fuck punishing any bad footsie. To punish some moves online you had to swing so early that offline it would make actually run into the pokes @ times if you tried the same timing. Not to mention that the input delay changes on a frame by basis. Sometimes its 7 frames, other times its 15+ how the fuck are you supposed to “play” like that?

anyone who says sf4 online is good\great\fine is saying its good\great\fine to play big ass tournaments offline with laggy TV’s and you know what, tournaments don’t use TV’s that have input delay.

why you ask? because the input delay prevents the game from being played properly. If TV’s with input delay prevent the game from being played properly offline, why in the holy fuck does it magiclaly make sense that online input delay is any better? as a community, we strive to make sure we don’t have anything that causes lag and if the net code forces it, its fucking awful.

there is no better explanation for why input delay is bad than this. Its a perfectly written explanation by mike Z who developed skull girls. So you’re getting a veteran player perspective mixed with a video game developer perspective. Where as Ono\capcom crew don’t know the first thing about playing properly. They fucking suck as players.

http://skullgirls.com/2011/09/skullgirls-ggpo-and-you/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=skullgirls-ggpo-and-you

*-and thus the game feels “laggy.”Any extra input lag means bad news for playing fighting games – it may mean you can’t react to visual cues, can’t tech throws properly, or can’t perform difficult combos… *

-If you practice online, you can certainly get used to playing with lag, but this isn’t ideal, either – this practice won’t apply as well to in-person matches or tournaments because the extra lag isn’t there offline. All of your combo timing will be off, reacting to things will seem harder, and certain tricks or tactics you have learned simply won’t work anymore because the other player isn’t able to properly react in time.