Laggers

from Demigod Forums

I've noticed that some people perpetually have horrid pings (1k+), which really lags out the game and makes it unplayable.  There really needs to be a threshold that, beyond a certain ping, results in the player being removed from the game as to not subject the other plays to a miserable experience.  Also, a threshold would limit the potential for exploitation; where players intentionally elevate their ping to frustrate the opposition into leaving.

 

 

1,130 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Demigod Forums Top

I have yet to see a single person in any game who's entire tactic is to elevate their Ping to frustrate the opposition into leaving - which if I'm not mistaken voids the game anyway - and I've seen some bat-shit crazy tactics such as constant microphone bombardment, insults and 'n00b sp34k' all in an effort to put off their opposition so that they have an edge mentally.

Reply #2 from Demigod Forums Top

I'm not a big fan of coincidence, but when the same person begins to lag out, in two consecutive games, only after either a) their teammates leaves b) the lose is imminent, then I become quite suspicious.  Two games is a rather small sample, but the timing was hard to believe.  Also, it does not void the game; they remain connected and trap everyone in the laggy hell.

 

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Reply #3 from Demigod Forums Top

So... because a person lagged twice, instead of thinking that they're connection/computer is generally quite crap and/or that they're suffering from several of the issues that have plagued others - such as random lag spikes, progressively worse performance, random SIM Speed drops, etc - you believe they've ALT+Tabbed out of Demigod, without crashing I might add, and begun loading up programs to eat up the bandwidth to annoy their opponents into quitting the game instead of just leaving or pulling the plug because...?

Not trying to be rude, I just find the entire situation laughable. In the vastness of scum and filth that is the internet there could be at least one person who might do this, however I would have to see it to believe it; people with that kind of mentality would just pull the plug - leaves you sitting for 30 seconds and they're out of the game scott free.

Reply #4 from Demigod Forums Top
Because a person lagged twice, at times that only coincided with game events, specifically while losing, and until the end of both games.  If the person had lagged at random intervals, periodically throughout both games, I would have not mentioned this particular example.  But, in one of these games, the lag frustrated my partner into leaving the game and the other side began to win (the AI repeatedly fed itself to the enemy team).  Coincidently, it was only when the team pulled significantly ahead that the lag went away (in domination mode).  But, when they began losing again the lag predictably returned.

Alt tabbing or elevating your ping is incredibly easy.  I'll alt tab out of matches, periodically, when there is no chance of death and victory is assured.  You seem to be selectively attending to the later section of my first post and not the fact that there should be a general way of removing people with horrible connections from the game.  It would be nice if everyone had decent connections, but forcing three other people to suffer through five second ability lag and stuttering play makes the game intolerable.  I never stated that my particular anecdote was prevalent, for it may very well be an isolated incident, but because there are no safeguards in place to prevent this behavior it could happen to others.  A threshold, set around 500ms, would not be entirely unreasonable.  Even 1000ms would be adequate.  A more common, and less malicious, lagger I see is someone downloading something in the background and refusing to turn it off while they play.  In such instances you can only tough out the horrible gameplay or quit and accept the loss.
Reply #5 from Demigod Forums Top

Well I replied to the part of your reply which appeared to be directly responsible for your current chain of thought rather than the idea itself, which is currently available in several games.

In custom games, setting a Ping threshold is entirely plausible and acceptable. It will, no doubt, be used in the many US based Custom Games to limit the ping of the connecting people to numbers as low as 80 - however it is their game, and they control the rules. I wouldn't recommend limiting the Ping in Pantheon or Skirmish modes - the servers creating these games are US based, and as such limiting the Ping for these modes would restrict any non-US residents. Creating a better match making service with a focus on Ping first would remove the issue entirely.

As for using Lag to 'punish' the winning side, again, I find this proposed situation laughable. Lagging the game provides no benefit - do to the fact that game is synced rather than server based you can't use the technique known as 'Lag Forcing' to try and achieve a few free shots or misses. Regardless of your experience, I would have to see this practice in play to believe it. Having said that, the 'background downloaders' are usually Halo/Counter-Strike kids who are used to their super-fast connections being able to Torrent the latest releases while they play their client/server games.