I've been curious to this question for a while. Why is it that shooting games, disregarding the ones with servers, tend to have better netcode or for a better way of saying it, more smooth online experience than fighting games? Fighting game netcode tends to not be as smooth and well, laggy at times, and although shooting games tend to get laggy as well, it always seems like fighting games lag a bit more so. My friend was telling me just now that it's because fighting games load more things frame by frame, although I'm curious about that because I notice FPS games have things like air strikes, bullets, rockets, a world vs 2D platforms that are in fighting games. I'm curious to know if fighting games really do use more resources for online than a FPS game, and why that is? Thanks.
From what I understand about how Valve does their net code, games like TF2 predict where the player is will be a few moments later to help reduce the amount of information going between the server and client. You can find in-depth write ups of how netcode works in TF2 on the Internet if you'd like to know more, but that's the gist of it. It might sound stereotypical, but with fighting games being predominantly Japanese in origin and Japan not really "getting" the Internet at the best of times, I suspect that game studios haven't even considered doing anything other than transmitting ALL of the game's data.
It's probably easier to hide lag to some extent in FPS games, but not so much in timing critical fighting games. I think it's just related to the nature of the gameplay. In a fighting game, the difference of a few frames can mean landing a hit, avoiding one, blocking, etc. Shooter games do have the same problem where a tiny bit of time can make the difference but they don't all follow the same method. In some games the player with the best connection to the server, or the host player in some games, gets an automatic unfair advantage because they can react quicker in the game world due to no lag. In other games it might be more fair, in the sense that if two people round a corner and fire at each other even though there is lag at play, both players get hit. In general because of the unreliable and slow reaction/ping time of the internet, netplay in action games is always a challenge. Lag can always be a factor in who wins and who loses. Gears of War for the X360 had a pretty awful host advantage in netplay. Particularly if the host had a less than stellar connection. In that game you actually had "bullet lag" as some people call it. What would happen is unless you were the host, you'd have to predict based on your connection to the host to hit a moving target, shooting where you think they will be slightly in the future. Most games like Call of Duty seem to use a system where if on your system you lined up your shot and hit your target, it counted. This leads to a different problem where a player that might be sprinting or moving behind some type of cover actually reaches safety and then falls dead despite there being no way a shot could have hit you. But thanks to lag, on the shooter's screen they had not quite reached cover and were able to connect with a shot. So anyway, I think lag is just far more noticeable in fighting games due to the nature of the gameplay. In shooter games often with hectic battles going on, players probably notice it less and many that play those games don't notice or just accept it. But many competitive fighting game fans do not accept lag. Edit: Something else to consider is that the internet within Japan might actually have lower average ping time than in Europe or North America. If you have generally really good connections to your opponents then the problem is minimized. But the only countries that come to mind that might fit that are South Korea and Japan.
I've never noticed lag much in fighting games (though the only one I've played online recently was KI, which has good netcode, and I suck balls at fighting games), but I do notice that you're more likely to drop a connection in an FPS, for what that's worth.
For me the issue of lag isn't in fighting game but FPS games. By the way, Japan has better Internet than most of the western world. How many of you have access to 1gbps connections? Not many I would imagine. Anyway, I find that fighting games generally play quite well over the net while FPS games always suffer with "Why the hell did I just drop dead?" Or "I shot the bastard no questions asked but he didn't die". Racing games are quite solid unless we have someone with a crappy connection. Then their car darts all over the track ruining it for everyone else.
I always hated being rammed by someone with lots of lag. Sometimes it can work in your favor though hehe.
Fighting games require reactions to 1/60 of a second, if you mistime these reactions you will notice and be severely punished for it. In FPS games I doubt you will notice this kind of lag so much, rarely are you and the opponent face to face responding to precise animations. I'd imagine it's down to what methods are used in order to hide the lag. In FPS games it's probably designed so that the opponents are in the correct position on screen when you pull the trigger, where as in fighting games what's most important is that your inputs aren't delayed. One particular fighting game net code called GGPO uses a roll back system that when presented with latency issues rolls the game back to the last known state so that inputs are preserved, this can cause visual issues such as skipping, but provides a much superior gameplay experience. Ultimately I think FPS games hide a lot of latency issues just from all the distractions on screen, where as in fighting games each and every frame makes the difference causing you to notice it a whole lot more.
Dead or Alive 4 on the 360 gives me a hard time every once and a while. Otherwise I haven't notices too much with fighting games, but they're not usually what I play online.
I think it has to do with the number of players though. In a fighting game 2 people are connected to the servers, whereas in an FPS it could be between 4 and 16-32 different users are on the server, which increases the chance that some will be from a different region (as a US player, connecting with a Japanese or European player increases the likelihood of lag, and I'm sure it's the same for users in different regions too). While most regions have their own servers, any geographic distance could harm a player as well (someone from NYC getting on Xbox Live in Washington state is going about as far as to Europe).
I hear people say this a lot, but it makes no sense. You can't press a button 60 times in a second. That's physically impossible. You would have to be Superman or a machine. Also, your visual system can't discern what's happening in a single frame at 60fps. Your brain may process it on some level, but you're not consciously aware of it. If you could see individual frames at that speed, then you wouldn't perceive motion; it would just look like a series of still images. Even the animations for each punch/kick/etc. last for more than one frame - so even if you were able to react that quickly, there would still be a delay between when you press a button and when you actually hit an opponent. I don't know why people think this is the case, but it's nonsense.
Crazy perhaps, but not nonsense. In some competitive fighting games (such as Street Fighter IV) 1 frame button presses are common place, both in combos and in general gameplay. You are constantly observing the opponent's character looking for openings and often you only have 1/60 of a second to press the button and take advantage of the situation. Players can do this because they have practiced repeatedly and seen the animations hundreds, thousands or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of times. Underneath it all fighting games are about postive, negative and neutral numbers, it's about knowing when you can and can't press a button. If you throw out a move and that move is -2 on block that means I have 2 frames to take advantage of your mistake, and if I have a move that comes out in 2 frames then I absolutely can time it correctly to an accuracy of exactly 1 frame. This happens all the time match in and match out, players watching, waiting and calculating when they can and can't press a button. Have a look at this video for example, the player is walking forward for exactly 1 frame and watching for precise frames of animation in order to complete the combo. It's extremely difficult to do, only the best of the best can play to these standards, but it's a reality of competition that people can and do play like this. Note he is employing tricks that actually make some of these 2 frame button presses but the principle is the same.
I think it's more of a Japanese multiplayer games vs western multiplayer games issue. Because not only the fighting games lag, but also Resident Evil games, Dark Souls games, Armored Core games etc. They all have very laggy online especially if you compare them to something like Halo or CoD. But Halo and CoD do lag too, if you really good at them you come to realize that connection is your biggest enemy. Because they are peer to peer based. FFS games like Titanfall or maybe Battlefield Bad Company are a lot more pleasant to play when your are good at them because there is no bad connection/bad host problems, because they are server based.
I have DOA 5 on the PS3, but have yet to play it online. I wonder if it would be any better on there in comparison to the 360 version. Sometimes I think it depends on who you're playing. In 4 I would have a perfect match with someone then the next person caused everything to freeze up multiple times over.
Fighting games can't really make use of client-side prediction. About the only thing that could would be projectiles, and I suppose when characters jump, otherwise there's pretty much no momentum at all. FPSes on the other hand use it for all kinds of things, since there is definite momentum to players moving, and all of the projectiles that fly around. This made a huge difference back in the day. As for the 'reactions' thing - noone reacts at 1/60th of a second. However, there ARE timing windows which require inputs which are 1 frame only - or for example throws may have a few frame (for some games, 3) window - and while it's very hard to actually react RAW to that, it is entirely possible to react to it when you are EXPECTING it to happen. This is a difference in reactions that is often overlooked. Very little in fighting games is actually raw reaction - it's more about building up expectations on what your opponent is going to do. As for Japanese internet, it has certainly been the case in the past that a few fighting games have suffered because they have been coded with super-fast, low latency networks in mind - and then when the game migrates westwards, the networks aren't up to scratch and the game is suddenly unplayable. But as Mike Z has said many times - 'just use GGPO, it works'
For me there are only two fighing games with good netcode - Skullgirls (GGPO rocks, 230ms ping - whatever, it will be fully playable) and KOFXIII (PC). Rest fall in three categories - more or less playable, like Soul Calibur V, barely playable - USFIV Steam, Naruto games in Steam, Soul Calibur II HD - play fine if your opponent got good connection and close to you (<1200km), and unplayable mess - Mortal Kombat, Injustice on consoles and PC.
It's 2AM so I'll summarize this as easily as I can in my current state. FPS netcode, as previously stated does predictions. You're already holding forward, or left or right, etc. Your characters don't stop entirely on a dime. Most games utilize "hitscan" for bullet projectiles. This also is why hit boxes aren't entirely strict on FPS games, infact the reason bungie loosened the hit boxes for headshots in Halo 2 is BECAUSE of this. Fighting Games require much more precision in button timing, and it is a lot harder to predict the next input.
