Nintendo interrupts Smash Online Invitational Qualifiers commentary to defend its netcode

[lvl 99 Pixel]

I know that, what I still don't understand, and everyone refuses to explain, is why Smash netcode is supposedly so godawful compared to other fighting games.
As I said I don't have any other metrics except what I read about (what I believe was) Street Fighter, that allows the two players to be desynced filling the gaps with AI (and that was critiqued quite a bit too, since it allowed both players to win/lose the same fight without the other realizing).
No one bohered saying wich games do it right and why, and how Smash is different from it, in a coherent way.
All I got were joke answers and leading questions.

Honestly, I'm more and more convinced this is just another "Nintendo is DOOMED" level meme.

Click to shrink...

look up rollback vs delay based netcode. Street Fighter is comparably bad compared to GGPO games too but Smash handles it so much worse because the game doesn't even have a filter for connection quality so you're matched with people playing from shitty Wi-Fi from who knows where whether you like it or not.
Basically rollback at low latency feels like local, while input delay will always feel off and only gets a lot worse from there.

 

[GarrettInk]

look up rollback vs delay based netcode. Street Fighter is comparably bad compared to GGPO games too but Smash handles it so much worse because the game doesn't even have a filter for connection quality so you're matched with people playing from shitty Wi-Fi from who knows where whether you like it or not.
Basically rollback at low latency feels like local, while input delay will always feel off and only gets a lot worse from there.

Click to shrink...

So my understanding is that during a network slowdown one makes both laggy and the other makes one player teleport around like in Mario Kart DS, is that correct?
The advantages comes from a smoother handling of small hiccups and a more consistent input lag, correct me if I'm wrong.

They actually have connection quality filters tho, I believe Sakurai himself said so, but they are not absolute. The game tries to give you opponents with similar connections from nearby, but if there are none available then gives you whatever.
Anecdotal, but except for a couple of Japanese guys I only had opponents from nearby countries in 1000+ matches.
Sure I get occasional laggy fights, but once every few dozens is not what I'd call terrible.
I acknowledge the inconsistent input lag may be an issue especially over wi-fi.

What's the consensus on the game that handles that the best?

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

So my understanding is that during a network slowdown one makes both laggy and the other makes one player teleport around like in Mario Kart DS, is that correct?
The advantages comes from a smoother handling of small hiccups and a more consistent input lag, correct me if I'm wrong.

They actually have connection quality filters tho, I believe Sakurai himself said so, but they are not absolute. The game tries to give you opponents with similar connections from nearby, but if there are none available then gives you whatever.
Anecdotal, but except for a couple of Japanese guys I only had opponents from nearby countries in 1000+ matches.
Sure I get occasional laggy fights, but once every few dozens is not what I'd call terrible.
I acknowledge the inconsistent input lag may be an issue especially over wi-fi.

What's the consensus on the game that handles that the best?

Click to shrink...

The game tries to match you with players geographically closer to you, not necessarily players with better (or worthwhile) connections.
Ill put it this way, I played Skullgirls from NZ with someone in Texas and it was still playable because GGPO is witchcraft, and a similar style was used in Brawlhalla which is a 4 player smashlike and that was also playable internationally so theres precedent for this kind of fighter too, though apparently that one might be using servers to accomodate the 4 player aspect im not sure.

 

[Fancolours]

I know that, what I still don't understand, and everyone refuses to explain, is why Smash netcode is supposedly so godawful compared to other fighting games.
As I said I don't have any other metrics except what I read about (what I believe was) Street Fighter, that allows the two players to be desynced filling the gaps with AI (and that was critiqued quite a bit too, since it allowed both players to win/lose the same fight without the other realizing).
No one bohered saying wich games do it right and why, and how Smash is different from it, in a coherent way.
All I got were joke answers and leading questions.

Honestly, I'm more and more convinced this is just another "Nintendo is DOOMED" level meme.

Click to shrink...

What makes Smash's netcode awful in comparison to other decent p2p connection competitive games is how little it does to address connectivity issues. Netcode shouldn't be judged on how well it does on ideal circumstances, you need to look at how it handles bad internet, because most of the world doesn't have the same internet infrastructure and population density as countries like Japan.

Compare how Smash handles connections and how Skullgirls does it.

And I also find that Smash does significantly worse compared to delay based netcode like DBFZ. This is purely anecdotal, but it seems to struggle a lot more when it desyncs than most.

 

[GarrettInk]

Ill put it this way, I played Skullgirls from NZ with someone in Texas and it was still playable because GGPO is witchcraft, and a similar style was used in Brawlhalla which is a 4 player smashlike and that was also playable internationally so theres precedent for this kind of fighter too, though apparently that one might be using servers to accomodate the 4 player aspect im not sure.

Click to shrink...

What makes Smash's netcode awful in comparison to other decent p2p connection competitive games is how little it does to address connectivity issues. Netcode shouldn't be judged on how well it does on ideal circumstances, you need to look at how it handles bad internet, because most of the world doesn't have the same internet infrastructure and population density as countries like Japan.

Compare how Smash handles connections and how Skullgirls does it.

And I also find that Smash does significantly worse compared to delay based netcode like DBFZ. This is purely anecdotal, but it seems to struggle a lot more when it desyncs than most.

Click to shrink...

Indeed, and as per the article you linked on bad connections the game is choppy with GGPO, and it is choppy even in ideal situations with 0-lag setting.

At the end of the day, each has its advantages and drawbacks, as well as its case uses; Smash was not made with online-offline equivalence in mind, thus opted for a more traditional and simpler system (maybe also to reduce developing time, reworking systems from Smash4?)
Calling a regular delay based netcode awful just because a handful of games (18, as per Wikipedia) use a different approach is not justified. The fact that there are better/newer ways to do something does not make the old ones garbage, just outdated.

Is it perfect? No way, I'm sure they could do better than that;
Is it as horrid as everyone here thinks? Also no.
It does what it should, and it's made to react to network delays delaying the game for both and to make a CPU opponent take over if someone gets disconnected for whatever reason.