Dedicated servers serious discussion
With the dedicated servers now on Ps4, these are now live on most platforms, the experience is better in some areas and worse in other areas, let's talk about it:
Let's start with good things:
- Similar matchmaking queue times but way less errors than when it was p2p, also in case of killer backing out, no need to go for a search again, a new one enters the lobby not too long after. So overall less waiting in lobby so that is cool.
- Killers quitting a game is now smooth, everyone go back to the lobby easily and do not lose items anymore because of this.
- When connecting to a server in the same region of your location (as an exemple, I'm from France and connect to Europe servers), there's a very small latency to the dedicated server which means way smoother movements and way less rubberbandings in-game, it is very pleasant.
- Possibility to add DC penalties in the future.
Now the bad things :
- Sometimes the matchmaking connects you to a server located in another region and you end up with high latency (>150 ms), making the experience a bit worse. I'm not sure the reason of this, but I hope it gets fixed, especially if you're from Europe or North America where there are a lot of players, there are no reason to connect these players to servers from other regions.
- When playing survivor, the hit-registration is worse than before when the killer was host and create a lot of unfair situation. Let's have an example: both the killer and the survivor have a 60ms latency to the server. Survivor's actions are sent to the server in 60ms, and these are sent from the server to the killer in 60ms, meaning a 120ms total travel time, a 120ms advantage for the killer to hit you. If you're vaulting a window or dropping a pallet, you have to do it at least 120ms before the killer presses hit in real time, or he will hit you. Sometimes you will fully finish your action 100ms before him (and it will look like 220ms ahead on your screen) and still receive an unfair hit because he still had 20ms to do so on his screen. Whereas when the killer was host and you had a 70ms latency, it means there was only 70ms advantage for the killer. It was unfair, but it's even more unfair now with the servers. So even in the good connection games when connecting to a server in your region, the killer is at a big advantage even if nobody has a high latency. The reason for this is because most actions in this game are coded client-side, including the hit-registration. Also, the more the survivor and/or the killer is laggy, the more the killer will be rewarded and the survivor punished for it. If you have a good & stable connection and play as a survivor, it will feel extremely unfair to rely on killer's connection in-game. This problem also affects other things, like the dead hard perk.
- When playing killer, a lot of client-side coded actions are also worsening the experience and create few unfair situations: Both closing the hatch and escaping through the hatch are client-side coded actions. Let's take the same example, both the killer and the survivor have a good 60ms latency to the server. A total 120ms delay between both screen, on both side. In this hatch situation, let's say killer starts the close hatch action at timestamp 1.000s after hatch opens, the close hatch action will show at timestamp 1.120s on survivor's screen. In this instance, if the survivor starts the escape through hatch action at timestamp 1.119s, which means 119ms after the killer in reality (and it will even seems 239ms after on killer's screen), it would be right before the killer start his close hatch action on his screen and he will still escape. And this is in a good latency situation again, the more latency the survivor and/or the killer have - this time it is the contrary of the hit-registration scenario - the more the survivor will be rewarded and the killer punished for it. That is unfair, first one to do the action on server's timestamp should have priority. The exact same thing happens with grabs, if the survivor release his action before killer grabs on his screen, the grab will be canceled on killer's screen. That's unfair if the survivor released the button after in real-time. If the timestamp of the grab on the server is happening before the timestamp of the survivor's action release on the server, the grab should happens. The pallet and flashlight saves timings still have to be done in the same time-frame on survivor's screen but can create few unfair situations to the killer if the survivor has a poor connection.
- Every lagswitch usage are still possible, even though I believe there are far less lagswitchers playing this game than what people are claiming everywhere. Sadly nothing has changed regarding this as every actions are still coded-client side.
Conclusion :
The servers are a great addition to the game and are needed. They work well and are already good in some areas, but make the experience overall worse in-game for both killer and survivors because they both face unfairness in different situation regarding client-side coded actions.
The ONLY solution of every problems listed here is to code all these things so they work server-side and everything will feel way more fair for everyone playing with a stable connection, as the players with poor connection won't be rewarded anymore just for this, and most lagswitch usage won't be possible anymore.
If the devs happen to make the hit-registration and other actions (grabs, closing/escaping through hatch, pallets/FL saves,...) server-side, I know it would be a massive update and a lot of work, but really it will be perfect and I believe, the best addition for the health of the game since its release in 2016.
Comments
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Playstation 4 Dedicated Server first impressions
Location: Italy
Rank: 1 (surv and killer)
Ping: 50-65 ms (much lower than basically every game I had with p2p connection)
Match Making: the time to find a match seems the same overall, I saw some very low ranks playing with / against me in some matches but it could just be a chance and not related to dedicated servers.
Issues: from the survivor POV I'm getting hit during certain jukes when I shouldn't have been, while as a killer we have the fake grabs and, sometimes, a delay before being able to move after hitting a generator. I tried only Legion and Spirit so far though.
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Welcome to dedicated servers where you will never know what is a hit, whiff, or grab until after it plays out. Even if it appears to be a killer whiff after the animation there is a second or 2 where the server might say it was a hit. Exhaustion perk delays are terrible as well where you might as well use them before you think you need them because there is a high chance the server will just nope an exhaustion perk yet still grant a survivor the exhaustive state even after the perk never registered being used to the server which is basically a double negative which causes player frustration.
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I get matches that are ultra-frustrating now. Sometimes I am seeing a killer right behind me and other times they are 50' back and somehow manage to hit me.
I always maintain a 55-63ms latency to the servers.
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That's the servers desync issues. I play on PC and PS4, both have these issues. The devs are aware and are working on it, but I doubt they will ever make all the interactions in this game feel perfect, they seem to have their hands full just trying to keep the game breaking bugs under control. Currently, killers have the ping advantage with hits, but survivors have the advantage with grabs. It may be broken, but its somewhat balanced imo.
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