Original post:
Author: hired goon
Posted - 2010.11.28 02:48:00
Though most people would like Lag to completely disappear, at the current level of technology it is impossible to accomplish this. We must come to terms with this fact if we want to keep our ground-breaking single shard world. CCP are trying their hardest with 'need for speed' in a multi-faceted approach that involves upgrades to hardware as well as optimizing software and fixing bugs. Unfortunately if you are waiting for gameplay in a 3000 man fleet battle to approach that of a 10 man skirmish you'll be waiting a long time. My idea approaches the issue of lag by adapting to it, rather than fighting against it.
In a nutshell, I believe when the server is having trouble dealing with requests and lag is taking hold, the whole game should slow down, as in slow motion, or "bullet time", until it clears up again.
Here are a few reasons myself and others think this will be a good idea.
When lag takes hold, you have to remember
this is how the game is playing anyway. Requests from players are held in a queue, and you have to wait a long time for your guns to activate, or to target something, or warp out. At the moment the game is not designed to display it properly in the front end, so although you can 'feel' the lag, it appears as though everything should be working. My idea just makes it more visible and therefore usable.
It would give reinforcements a chance to arrive to the actual battle rather than at a standoff. This is what we all want when we are on the way and hear the targets being read out over voice comms.
It would look really cool and give the opportunity for some nice fraps.
The node would not crash any more, because it is taking everything at its own pace. It's like a teacher who is swamped with children saying "Alright I'll deal with you one at a time. It'll take a bit longer but at least you will all be sorted out" rather than "I'll deal with you all at once aaaarrrrrgghhhh" *brain explodes*
it doesn't alter any mechanics for the game itself within the slow down scenario. This keeps it from encouraging metagame "So if we bring this many we can have X effect, we can use this!", since all it does is literally slow the game down if it gets to a lag situation. (thanks to Kabaal S'sylistha in post #2 for this one Smile)
you could play it off fictionally as space-time distortion caused by a huge number of warp drives in one place, and because the communication channels aren't as jammed, it could actually lead to improved gameplay. Turn on the matrix music and slowly maneuver your interceptor between ships. (thanks Black Dranzer in post #3! Smile)
Because the game feels like it's working properly (albiet slowly), the problem will not be compounded by players clicking many times on each command, which as we know adds even more commands to the list and creates even more lag.
By slowing the game down, the server will be given a chance to handle all the requests that have been piled on top of it. Where as before it would be struggling to complete them all in real time, with the
physics engine breaking, and missing node 'heartbeats' resulting in player disconncetions, this way it will be able to complete them all successfully at a pace it can handle. Most importantly players will be able to play the game, albiet slowly, rather than being unable to play at all.
Remember the most important part of this suggestion is, this
slow down would only happen in a situation that would otherwise be unplayable due to lag. So a useless critique would be "nah that'd be annoying as hell if everything was all slow" because the alternative would be the game-breaking, server-crashing lag we are all used to. It's kinda making the best of a bad situation.