An example of how (good) rollback netcode can make high ping connections playable in fighting games

[Jaded Alyx]

There's something very wrong with my friend's internet connection.

He's using his landlord's internet via wi-fi which is obviously less than ideal, but I see no reason why we should be experiencing ping over 300+ (according to the games - probably not totally accurate) when we live less than 2km away from one another.

Anyway, a while back we tried playing KOF2002 UM online - a game that uses delay-based netplay. This was the result:



The game is slowed down, inputs are heavily delayed, and the entire game feels like it's being played underwater. It wasn't enjoyable to say the least and it's safe to say that we won't be bothering with it anymore.

Some time after, I watched this video where Adam Keits Heart talked about netcode at length and explained in the first few minutes that rollback netcode can help mitigate the effects of high ping connections - something delay-based netcode simply cannot do:



This made me think...how about we try something with rollback netcode and see what happens?

So we bought KOF 97 and Samurai Shodown V Special. Here's KOF 97:



Not perfect, but a million times more playable. Proper speed, much more responsive.

Most people who play fighting games know this already, but there are a few out there who claim delay-based is better than rollback. If rollback netcode is implemented correctly (i.e. not like Street Fighter V) I don't see any way in which that could be true.

 

[Dreamboum]

Japanese devs put this thread on ignore

 

[jacket]

Japanese devs put this thread on ignore

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[jdmc13]

Japanese devs put this thread on ignore

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I always wondered why this is the case. I understand that Japan has really good internet infrastructure which makes it less valuable, but lots of these franchises, especially Street Fighter, have an international audience.

 

[Atheerios]

That first video is still better than Super Smash Bros. Ultimate online.

 

[Kalentan]

I always wondered why this is the case. I understand that Japan has really good internet infrastructure which makes it less valuable, but lots of these franchises, especially Street Fighter, have an international audience.

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Street Fighter actually has a version of Rollback but rather than use GGPO they made their own version which isn't... great. Though MvCi actually had a better version that worked much better. Though those improvements AFAIK haven't made their way back to SFV.

 

[jett]

If rollback netcode is implemented correctly (i.e. not like Street Fighter V) I don't see any way in which that could be true.

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Even in SFV when I play with people very far away from me on the SFV era discord we usually have a good time, certainly not perfect but surprisingly playable (talking from South America all the way to Canada). You do get visible rollback artifacts from time to time, but it's manageable. Of course, we make sure that the connection is stable when we first start playing and if it goes to shit we let each other know :P If it was input delay these matches would be unplayable, as in your video. For someone like me, rollback is a godsend, since I live in a country with a small playerbase and am almost always playing with people from other countries.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

That first video is still better than Super Smash Bros. Ultimate online.

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The Smash Community need to join in with asking for rollback netcode instead of just being all "lol Nintendo online".

 

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

After playing SF5 for a while the best thing about it is that your inputs remain consistent.

With delay based you have to adapt to however much delay you get against a particular person.

With rollback what you did in training mode works regardless and you don't have to adapt on the fly to input delay depending on who you get matched with.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

For someone like me, rollback is a godsend, since I live in a country with a small playerbase and am almost always playing with people from other countries.

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Yep it's the same for me. I can often have very good 5 bar matches with people very far away, but with delay-based, it's 2-3 bars at best.

 

[Namtab]

Can rollback netcode melt steel beams?

 

[Sir_Bumble_Bee]

The Smash Community need to join in with asking for rollback netcode instead of just being all "lol Nintendo online".

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they don't worry about online much because playing human players in Smash isn't hard to do at all. Every school/college here in the US has a significant Smash scene, and convincing casual players to actually desire to level up their game is easy because they want to be good enough to style on their friends

Edit: But I agree though, every fighting game can benefit from rollback

 

[Zombegoast]

Even in SFV when I play with people very far away from me on the SFV era discord we usually have a good time, certainly not perfect but surprisingly playable (talking from South America all the way to Canada). You do get visible rollback artifacts from time to time, but it's manageable. Of course, we make sure that the connection is stable when we first start playing and if it goes to shit we let each other know :P If it was input delay these matches would be unplayable, as in your video. For someone like me, rollback is a godsend, since I live in a country with a small playerbase and am almost always playing with people from other countries.

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I can't even play against ChrisHu with the amount of lag there was and that's between Orlando to New York. That's around 40ms ping.

At that point I would prefer playing T7 because I wouldn't be seeing move's active frame start at frame 1.

 

[Delusibeta]

I always wondered why this is the case. I understand that Japan has really good internet infrastructure which makes it less valuable, but lots of these franchises, especially Street Fighter, have an international audience.

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I would wager it's a case of not fixing what isn't broken (from their perspective).

 

[jett]

After playing SF5 for a while the best thing about it is that your inputs remain consistent.

With delay based you have to adapt to however much delay you get against a particular person.

With rollback what you did in training mode works regardless and you don't have to adapt on the fly to input delay depending on who you get matched with.

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This is the best thing about rollback, no matter how fucked up (or not) is the implementation. Your inputs are the same inputs you have everywhere else. You don't have to adjust your timing in any way.

I can't even play against ChrisHu with the amount of lag there was and that's between Orlando to New York. That's around 40ms ping.

At that point I would prefer playing T7 because I wouldn't be seeing move's active frame start at frame 1.

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That is certainly sucky for you. When I play people from my own city it's as good as local play.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

I can't even play against ChrisHu with the amount of lag there was and that's between Orlando to New York. That's around 40ms ping.

At that point I would prefer playing T7 because I wouldn't be seeing move's active frame start at frame 1.

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As I've tried to explain to you before, this could be down to how badly SFV plays with certain ISPs and IP addresses/NAT.

I couldn't play with a friend of mine for about a year because one of our IP addresses changed, and our rock solid 5 bar connection turned into a 2 bar connection over a relay server. Are you getting connected via relay server in your Orlando - New York connection?

 

[skillzilla81]

After playing SF5 for a while the best thing about it is that your inputs remain consistent.

With delay based you have to adapt to however much delay you get against a particular person.

With rollback what you did in training mode works regardless and you don't have to adapt on the fly to input delay depending on who you get matched with.

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That's why, even though SF5's rollback is ass, it's STILL better than any version of input delay netcode.

 

[Spacejaws]

What's MK11 using? Because I thought it was using some kind of rollback but it seems to suffer severely with connections over 120ms. Sometimes I get wierd hiccups even with others on wired.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

What's MK11 using? Because I thought it was using some kind of rollback but it seems to suffer severely with connections over 120ms. Sometimes I get wierd hiccups even with others on wired.

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It is using rollback. You can be sure your experience would be much worse at 120ms ping with delay based.

 

[Zombegoast]

As I've tried to explain to you before, this could be down to how badly SFV plays with certain ISPs and IP addresses/NAT.

I couldn't play with a friend of mine for about a year because one of our IP addresses changed, and our rock solid 5 bar connection turned into a 2 bar connection over a relay server. Are you getting connected via relay server in your Orlando - New York connection?

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I've gotten a relay server once over a year ago. And that experience was better than the P2P matches I've gotten.

I've open ports for SFV and even changed modems because of the defective puma chip.

SFV just has a problem of skipping entire start up frames while other Fighting Games balance visual and input latency. It's just unplayable.

 

[Etrian Darkness]

I've just watched the Keits video and been playing Killer Instinct for the first time the past few days.

The problem was solved in 2007, and yet 12 years later. The biggest argument to be made is that rollback effectively makes it possible to play with nearly a majority of the world without issue. It expands the player base. Crossplay doesn't mean shit if you don't have rollback.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Crossplay doesn't mean shit if you don't have rollback.

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So far, we haven't seen a crossplay fighting game without rollback netcode. We really need both for every multiplatform fighting game going forward.

 

[skillzilla81]

I've just watched the Keits video and been playing Killer Instinct for the first time the past few days.

The problem was solved in 2007, and yet 12 years later. The biggest argument to be made is that rollback effectively makes it possible to play with nearly a majority of the world without issue. It expands the player base. Crossplay doesn't mean shit if you don't have rollback.

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But it's HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD! :'(

 

[Fudgepuppy]

Couldn't rollback be used to cheat the system? You have some sort of lag switch, use a fast character, and do lots of random back and forth movements. Now you can constantly do stuff that your opponent can't predict or see, because the system isn't showing what they're doing in realtime.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Couldn't rollback be used to cheat the system? You have some sort of lag switch, use a fast character, and do lots of random back and forth movements. Now you can constantly do stuff that your opponent can't predict or see, because the system isn't showing what they're doing in realtime.

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I really don't think so. Please take a moment and read about rollback (or watch the video).

Netcode [p1]: Fightin' Words

 

[Squishy3]

Couldn't rollback be used to cheat the system? You have some sort of lag switch, use a fast character, and do lots of random back and forth movements. Now you can constantly do stuff that your opponent can't predict or see, because the system isn't showing what they're doing in realtime.

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People want good netcode to play with their friends or via matches/lobbies organized on forums/in discords for the games as well. Nobody really cares about the ranked leaderboards, and what you're proposing isn't really a thing either.

Someone using a lag switch isn't really in it for the FG experience anyway because all it does is make the experience miserable for both players regardless of rollback netcode or not.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

People want good netcode to play with their friends or via matches/lobbies organized on forums/in discords for the games as well. Nobody really cares about the ranked leaderboards,

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Not sure I can fully agree. The reason many fighting games have to even be organised within forums and discord servers is because you can't find enough players to play in casual and ranked matchmaking, due to small player-bases and more importantly, due to delay based netcode hugely limiting the people you can be connected to.

A lot of people care about ranked. It's just hard to care in games where ranked is dead.

 

[Squishy3]

Not sure I can fully agree. The reason many fighting games have to even be organised within forums and discord servers is because you can't find enough players to play in casual and ranked matchmaking, due to small player-bases and more importantly, due to delay based netcode hugely limiting the people you can be connected to.

A lot of people care about ranked. It's just hard to care in games where ranked is dead.

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I agree it's nice to have quick matchmaking for when you just want to play a couple of matches but my point was more that most people really don't care about the actual points in ranked, rendering the proposed method of cheating pointless. It's mostly a meaningless statistic as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Kyo]

This is a great thread, OP.
Rollback isn't a silver bullet for the multiple ways online play can deteriorate, but it is definitely the best solution we have today and until that changes, every modern fighting game with online play should release with it.

 

[Sheng Long]

If only Japan would listen.

I have high hopes for Capcom in the future though, since they pretty much had it on point in Marvel Infinite.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

I agree it's nice to have quick matchmaking for when you just want to play a couple of matches but my point was more that most people really don't care about the actual points in ranked, rendering the proposed method of cheating pointless. It's mostly a meaningless statistic as far as I'm concerned.

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Well, I can't say whether most do or do not, but I'd say many do, which is why we still have so many quitters in ranked modes lol. But I do agree that posters concern is unfounded.

 

[FSLink]

Couldn't rollback be used to cheat the system? You have some sort of lag switch, use a fast character, and do lots of random back and forth movements. Now you can constantly do stuff that your opponent can't predict or see, because the system isn't showing what they're doing in realtime.

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In a properly implemented rollback environment it would affect both players so the amount of people trying to do this would be pretty minimal. Plus if the game has a blacklist feature/reporting feature it's a pretty solvable issue.

 

[BloodHound]

Bro, you are preaching to the choir. We all know this. The people who should know this, ignore it.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Bro, you are preaching to the choir. We all know this. The people who should know this, ignore it.

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My thinking - as with all my threads about rollback and crossplay - is about making as much noise about it as possible. I don't want conversation about it to go away. I don't want people to just sit back and accept things will never change. The more we talk about it, the more we educate people, the higher the chance something might finally be done about it. As slight as that chance may be.

There's also a recent disturbing trend of people going out of their way to defend delay-based netcode and criticise rollback on Twitter and that nonsense needs to be nipped in the bud real quick.

 

[Log!]

Funny thing is that there are Japanese developers that understand the value of rollback netcode, because the Xbox 360 port of Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram had it, and it was absolutely amazing:


It's not my footage, but I can attest that even 0-bar connections like in the video were absolutely playable, even against people halfway across the world.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

It's not my footage, but I can attest that even 0-bar connections like in the video were absolutely playable, even against people halfway across the world.

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Anyone who lives outside of Japan can attest to this, because probably 95% of that game's playerbase was Japanese lol.

I played the hell out of that port.

 

[What?]

My thinking - as with all my threads about rollback and crossplay - is about making as much noise about it as possible. I don't want conversation about it to go away. I don't want people to just sit back and accept things will never change. The more we talk about it, the more we educate people, the higher the chance something might finally be done about it. As slight as that chance may be.

There's also a recent disturbing trend of people going out of their way to defend delay-based netcode and criticise rollback on Twitter and that nonsense needs to be nipped in the bud real quick.

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I do think lately there's been a lot more noise about this issue that will become harder for devs to ignore so I'd say keep it up.

I've given up hope for the game series I want to play however. I want to play SNK games online but somehow the online and game features have regressed going from KOF XIV to Samsho 7. Broken lobbies full of glitches that cause them to become unusable and no replay feature at all, both features that KOF XIV got right. At this point I've no reason not to expect KOF XV to continue on the same path and offer an even worse game experience. I hope I'm wrong but I'm at the point where I can't in good faith support these companies anymore if they continue to offer subpar experiences.

 

[H2intensity]

That first video is still better than Super Smash Bros. Ultimate online.

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I play ssbu online pretty regularly with my friend, and it rarely act like in that first video. It's quite smooth actually (two player, battlefield, no item) and we are using wifi.

 

[KillLaCam]

Yeah just to see I played MI11 with a friend in America while I'm in Korea. I've had worse local area online experiences in Street fighter lol

 

[Jaded Alyx]

I play ssbu online pretty regularly with my friend, and it rarely act like in that first video. It's quite smooth actually (two player, battlefield, no item) and we are using wifi.

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He was generalising, but I can guarantee you if you played someone in Smash with very high ping, it would be an unplayable mess just like any other fighting game that doesn't use rollback.

 

[H2intensity]

He was generalising, but I can guarantee you if you played someone in Smash with very high ping, it would be an unplayable mess just like any other fighting game that doesn't use rollback.

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Ah I see... Yeah I agree with the thread topic.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

If only Japan would listen.

I have high hopes for Capcom in the future though, since they pretty much had it on point in Marvel Infinite.

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I fully expect both crossplay and rollback from Capcom. I can't say the same about any other Japanese devs, for either. It's infuriating how behind the times they seem to be. The whole industry is pushing for crossplay and in the one genre that really needs it, the historical big boys are largely treating it as either an after thought or acting like it doesn't exist.

 

[Mesoian]

Even with fight of animals, connections across the globe are pretty stable.



It's not perfect, but it's worlds better than delay and is more than serviceable. There's really no excuse not to use it at this point.

I play ssbu online pretty regularly with my friend, and it rarely act like in that first video. It's quite smooth actually (two player, battlefield, no item) and we are using wifi.

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Try playing in general matchmaking. It's a fucking mess 80% of the time.

There fact that Nintendo dares have online tournaments with actual stakes with the netcode in the state it's in is a joke.

 

[lucebuce]

There fact that Nintendo dares have online tournaments with actual stakes with the netcode in the state it's in is a joke.

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I wish I could find a clip of the ArcRevo finals in 2019 where they announced online qualifiers for next year for BBxTag and Granblue Fantasy Versus.

And their fanbase, the fans that give enough of a shit to actively compete and travel to the event, started laughing.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

There fact that Nintendo dares have online tournaments with actual stakes with the netcode in the state it's in is a joke.

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I wish I could find a clip of the ArcRevo finals in 2019 where they announced online qualifiers for next year for BBxTag and Granblue Fantasy Versus.

And their fanbase, the fans that give enough of a shit to actively compete and travel to the event, started laughing.

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This reminds me...a whole other topic, but:

 

[Mzen]

This reminds me...a whole other topic, but:

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Pretty ballsy move from Capcom, I approve 100%. From the majority of Japanese devs they seem to be the only ones who are paying attention in the classroom. If Infinite is an indication of anything is that their next big-budget fighter should have some fabulous online play, I hope they don't disappoint there.

Also, "lol Nintendo online" is the only reasonable way of describing their situation if we're being real here. Nintendo as a company, as much as I adore them, are absolutely tone-deaf when it comes to online, Smash will have to be dragged to the rollback side of things by its hair, kicking and screaming all the way. Not to mention that they have never fully embraced the competitive side of Smash, remember that these are the same folks who wanted to shut down the Melee main event at EVO a few years ago.

If the next Smash gets rollback, I will gladly eat not just one, but two whole crows. Unfortunately, I am of the opinion that no matter how much the community tries to make their voice be heard on this topic, Nintendo is gonna Nintendo. And to be honest, in some ways I can't blame them, one just needs to take a look at the insane amount of sales that Ultimate has gotten so far... why go the extra mile if the money keeps pouring in regardless?

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Pretty ballsy move from Capcom, I approve 100%. From the majority of Japanese devs they seem to be the only ones who are paying attention in the classroom. If Infinite is an indication of anything is that their next big-budget fighter should have some fabulous online play, I hope they don't disappoint there.

Also, "lol Nintendo online" is the only reasonable way of describing their situation, to be honest. Nintendo as a company, as much as I adore them, are absolutely tone-deaf when it comes to online, Smash will have to be dragged to the rollback side of things by its hair, kicking and screaming all the way. Not to mention that they have never fully embraced the competitive side of Smash, remember that these are the same folks who wanted to shut down the Melee main event at EVO a few years ago.

If the next Smash gets rollback, I will gladly eat not just one, but two whole crows. Unfortunately, I am of the opinion that no matter how much the community tries to make their voice be heard on this topic, Nintendo is gonna Nintendo. And to be honest, in some ways I can't blame them, one just needs to take a look at the insane amount of sales that Ultimate has gotten so far... why go the extra mile if the money keeps pouring in regardless?

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The thing with "lol Nintendo online" is that I never see those people address the actual issue of netcode. The most I see is "Smash has bad lag/awful online". They blame it all on Nintendo's overall online efforts being sub-par, not even understanding what they're actually talking about. I see people talk about "Nintendo's servers/infrastructure" when Smash is a fighting game. It's peer-to-peer - servers have nothing to do with the lag they experience. While the whole FGC is having a very specific conversation about rollback netcode vs delay-based netcode, the Smash fanbase - as huge as it is - seems very much absent from the discussion. Perhaps online Smash is not as big or important as I may have thought.

And really - it's Bandai Namco (again) we should be talking about. They develop the games, it's using their netcode solution.

 

[ShinobiBk]

The Smash Community need to join in with asking for rollback netcode instead of just being all "lol Nintendo online".

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Would rollback work well for Smash though? Considering it is not just a one on one fighting game?
I'm genuinely asking cause Smash is it's own beast the way it is played

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Would rollback work well for Smash though? Considering it is not just a one on one fighting game?
I'm genuinely asking cause Smash is it's own beast the way it is played

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Brawlhalla uses GGPO.
And I believe Keits has said it should be fine.

 

[Mzen]

Would rollback work well for Smash though? Considering it is not just a one on one fighting game?
I'm genuinely asking cause Smash is it's own beast the way it is played

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I've specifically asked Keits about that on Twitter, he said there is absolutely nothing that can prevent Smash from using rollback netcode. Even with 4 players and random items flying about, the Switch is powerful enough to deal with it.