Blizzard, Please Comment On Latency

[Asp]

http://gibybo.com/sc2/latency.html

Not to induce a rush of people saying "well I don't feel anything" but there seems to be a forced latency similar to Battle.net 1.0. I think it's fair to assume that people who are aware of this unnecessary latency (ESPECIALLY when ICCUP and Garena can get rid of it without ANY hiccups) expected it to be gone in Battle.net 2.0. I could ask God himself right now to give me a reason why the latency is this bad and he'd be stumped. Will this be fixed for release?

[Loki]

http://gibybo.com/sc2/latency.html

Not to induce a rush of people saying "well I don't feel anything" but there seems to be a forced latency similar to Battle.net 1.0. I think it's fair to assume that people who are aware of this unnecessary latency (ESPECIALLY when ICCUP and Garena can get rid of it without ANY hiccups) expected it to be gone in Battle.net 2.0. I could ask God himself right now to give me a reason why the latency is this bad and he'd be stumped. Will this be fixed for release?Im curious also will this continue and be as bad as diablo lod?Its not to bad .but the small spikes in game cause me to stop getting resources faster or keep up.

[Darkness]

but the small spikes in game cause me to stop getting resources faster or keep up.

If you're having spikes then there's something wrong with your comp or internet connection. He's talking about the constant ~250ms latency that is inherently present in BNet, making it difficult to micro (especially in such a fast paced game).

That's a fancy bar graph by the way.

[Zakaria]

http://gibybo.com/sc2/latency.html

Not to induce a rush of people saying "well I don't feel anything" but there seems to be a forced latency similar to Battle.net 1.0. I think it's fair to assume that people who are aware of this unnecessary latency (ESPECIALLY when ICCUP and Garena can get rid of it without ANY hiccups) expected it to be gone in Battle.net 2.0. I could ask God himself right now to give me a reason why the latency is this bad and he'd be stumped. Will this be fixed for release?

Well they're still using a peer-peer type of network, so technically speaking, what was done with ICCUP to reduce latency can still be done with SC2... right?

[Asp]

Originally posted by Zakaria.kitlitleh

Well they're still using a peer-peer type of network, so technically speaking, what was done with ICCUP to reduce latency can still be done with SC2... right?
Yeah, there's literally no reason why it isn't in the game right now.

[Dreuel]

Yeah, there's literally no reason why it isn't in the game right now.

I'm sure there's *literally* some reason.

Possibilities include:

Not high enough priority.
Not enough developer time free to do the work.
A minimum latency is intended to solve a technical problem and/or even out the playing field.
The minimum latency hasn't been tuned yet.

However, you're unlikely to get an official comment by posting here asking for one.

[Asp]

Originally posted by Dreuel.poseidon

I'm sure there's *literally* some reason.

Possibilities include:

Not high enough priority.
Not enough developer time free to do the work.
A minimum latency is intended to solve a technical problem and/or even out the playing field.
The minimum latency hasn't been tuned yet.

However, you're unlikely to get an official comment by posting here asking for one.
Seven years in development and they couldn't do what a handful of people did in their spare time?

[Dreuel]

Seven years in development and they couldn't do what a handful of people did in their spare time?

With a different game engine and possibly a different networking infrastructure?

[Adamu]

What exactly is the problem? I've experienced zero lag in game, not even any lag between commands being issued and units following them. Its been pretty pleasant having all my units respond immediately.

This is in stark contrast to Warcraft III where there are constant latency issues between commands being issued and following through.

[Eloderung]

With a different game engine and possibly a different networking infrastructure?

ICCUP is Starcraft. It is NOT a different game. The problem has been proven to be an unnecessary, artificial limit imposed by blizzard on battle.net.

You can play Warcraft III games over BATTLE DOT NET and get <.1s unit response times if you host a custom game and use Warcraft3 Delay Reducer.

The moment SC2 is cracked and people allow it to be played on third-party servers, those servers will have significantly less latency and will offer far, far superior gameplay to that found on battle.net. See, ICCUP.

And given that Battlefacebook.net 2.0 is so crappy, I really don't expect people to stick around on the official servers if they care the slightest about being able to play melee games without ridiculously high latency.

A minimum latency is intended to solve a technical problem and/or even out the playing field.

False. The innate built-in latency is added onto everybody's latency. It is not a cap. This has been researched by hundreds of people over the years and has been brought up once again in SC2, with the exact same results as 12 years earlier.

In Starcraft I, WarIII, and SC2:

If you have 300 ms, your unit response time on battle.net will be 250ms+300ms = 550 ms or .55s. On ICCUP, it would only be ~80 ms + 300 ms = 380ms or .38s response time.

If you have 50 ms, your unit response time will be 250ms + 50 ms = 300 ms or .3s. On ICCUP, it would only be ~80 ms + 50 ms = 130 ms or .13s response time.

People with superior connections still get significantly faster response times.

Over ICCUP, people with terrible connections (aka dial-up) nearly see faster unit response times than people with good connections do on battle.net.

What exactly is the problem? I've experienced zero lag in game, not even any lag between commands being issued and units following them. Its been pretty pleasant having all my units respond immediately.

This is in stark contrast to Warcraft III where there are constant latency issues between commands being issued and following through.

1) Take fraps.
2) Record @ 30 fps.
3) Issue a command in a 1v1 against a computer, or a player, doesn't matter.
4) Stop fraps.
5) Convert # of frames passing between command issuing and unit response into milliseconds to get your delay.

Repeat steps 1-4 with Starcraft via ICCUP, or on HoN, or on SCI/WarIII.

It is physically impossible to achieve under .25s response times on Starcraft 2 over battle.net on the US servers under the current setup blizzard has implemented.

Official blizzard online play = 250ms + X, where X is whatever delay you see on HoN and SC via ICCUP, and every other modern game really adjusting for location of the server.

However, you're unlikely to get an official comment by posting here asking for one.

Yea, we already know that the Starcraft developers don't care whatsoever for the largest concerns of the community, based on how they've handled the Starcraft beta so far, how they refuse to respond to huge issues such as the latency over battle.net, inability to reconnect to games after disconnecting, open chat channels which are confirmed never coming in battle.net 2.0, and all the other complaints about battle.net 2.0's mediocrity.

Huge departure from how the WoW devs treat their fanbase.

[Dreuel]

Yea, we already know that the Starcraft developers don't care whatsoever for the largest concerns of the community, based on how they've handled the Starcraft beta so far, how they refuse to respond to huge issues such as the latency over battle.net, inability to reconnect to games after disconnecting, open chat channels which are confirmed never coming in battle.net 2.0, and all the other complaints about battle.net 2.0's mediocrity.

They don't owe you a response, all they have to do is read and consider your feedback, which I'm quite sure they're doing.

Huge departure from how the WoW devs treat their fanbase.

Before Ghostcrawler joined the team (or took on his current role, maybe) there wasn't a great deal of WoW developer presence there either, just a number of harried CMs who would post on various issues infrequently and with imperfect information.

[Eloderung]

Before Ghostcrawler joined the team (or took on his current role, maybe) there wasn't a great deal of WoW developer presence there either, just a number of harried CMs who would post on various issues infrequently and with imperfect information.

I was referring to betas, where you would see several new blue names who never post on the WoW forums except during betas, in order to communicate directly with players on big issues.

We don't even have CMs posting about or responding to big issues here. And since the CMs can only say what they're approved to say by the Devs and other higher-ups, the issue is not their fault. I'm sure the CMs are doing their job by bringing community feedback to the devs, but according to what has been done with beta so far (next to nothing) the devs are turning a deaf ear to what the community wants.

I'm not expecting a blue response to me. I'm expecting a blue response to the dozens and hundreds of threads/posts complaining about latency and asking simple questions, such as "Why do the European SC2 beta servers only have a 100ms innate latency when the American servers have 250ms innate latency?" (see Team Liquid forums)

[Asp]

Originally posted by Eloderung.eloderung

ICCUP is Starcraft. It is NOT a different game. The problem has been proven to be an unnecessary, artificial limit imposed by blizzard on battle.net.

You can play Warcraft III games over BATTLE DOT NET and get <.1s unit response times if you host a custom game and use Warcraft3 Delay Reducer.

The moment SC2 is cracked and people allow it to be played on third-party servers, those servers will have significantly less latency and will offer far, far superior gameplay to that found on battle.net. See, ICCUP.

And given that Battlefacebook.net 2.0 is so crappy, I really don't expect people to stick around on the official servers if they care the slightest about being able to play melee games without ridiculously high latency.



False. The innate built-in latency is added onto everybody's latency. It is not a cap. This has been researched by hundreds of people over the years and has been brought up once again in SC2, with the exact same results as 12 years earlier.

In Starcraft I, WarIII, and SC2:

If you have 300 ms, your unit response time on battle.net will be 250ms+300ms = 550 ms or .55s. On ICCUP, it would only be ~80 ms + 300 ms = 380ms or .38s response time.

If you have 50 ms, your unit response time will be 250ms + 50 ms = 300 ms or .3s. On ICCUP, it would only be ~80 ms + 50 ms = 130 ms or .13s response time.

People with superior connections still get significantly faster response times.

Over ICCUP, people with terrible connections (aka dial-up) nearly see faster unit response times than people with good connections do on battle.net.



1) Take fraps.
2) Record @ 30 fps.
3) Issue a command in a 1v1 against a computer, or a player, doesn't matter.
4) Stop fraps.
5) Convert # of frames passing between command issuing and unit response into milliseconds to get your delay.

Repeat steps 1-4 with Starcraft via ICCUP, or on HoN, or on SCI/WarIII.

It is physically impossible to achieve under .25s response times on Starcraft 2 over battle.net on the US servers under the current setup blizzard has implemented.

Official blizzard online play = 250ms + X, where X is whatever delay you see on HoN and SC via ICCUP, and every other modern game really adjusting for location of the server.



Yea, we already know that the Starcraft developers don't care whatsoever for the largest concerns of the community, based on how they've handled the Starcraft beta so far, how they refuse to respond to huge issues such as the latency over battle.net, inability to reconnect to games after disconnecting, open chat channels which are confirmed never coming in battle.net 2.0, and all the other complaints about battle.net 2.0's mediocrity.

Huge departure from how the WoW devs treat their fanbase.

Wow, great post.

[Pwn]

Yea, we already know that the Starcraft developers don't care whatsoever for the largest concerns of the community, based on how they've handled the Starcraft beta so far, how they refuse to respond to huge issues such as the latency over battle.net, inability to reconnect to games after disconnecting, open chat channels which are confirmed never coming in battle.net 2.0, and all the other complaints about battle.net 2.0's mediocrity.

Agreed. The game is great, but these things are among the largest of things that are ruining its perfectness, and it makes many things unenjoyable.

It's difficult to make friends (2/3 of my friends are real life friends who were lucky enough to get into beta); even if I get to do some 2v2s with somebody for a few matches, no matter how great we're doing, they don't tend to last. That 3rd guy on my friends list I feel won't even last very long.

I get random disconnects, and losing a game just because I disconnected is harsh and unncessary. I would rather lose a minute of gameplay time than have absolutely no chance at redemption.

I don't understand any reason to not have open chat channels. Spam? I'm almost certain it's coming in whispers and group invites then. Even then, how much spam is even expected? This isn't WoW where you have a virtual economy and you can sell in-game gold for real money. You can't make several accounts using one CD-key, (at this point) you can't spoof names, and you the spammer is going to have to spend $50 (or whatever the game's price will be) to spam anyway.

Is there something wrong with players being allowed to socialize within the game? You can't talk to people during a ladder match, you're doing way too much for that and your match is going to be over and done with soon enough anyway.

[Lazz]

I've commented on this before. The primitive nature of this Battle.net 2.0 compared to, say, the Heroes of Newerth network is unacceptable.

[Asp]

Agreed. The game is great, but these things are among the largest of things that are ruining its perfectness, and it makes many things unenjoyable.

It's difficult to make friends (2/3 of my friends are real life friends who were lucky enough to get into beta); even if I get to do some 2v2s with somebody for a few matches, no matter how great we're doing, they don't tend to last. That 3rd guy on my friends list I feel won't even last very long.

I get random disconnects, and losing a game just because I disconnected is harsh and unncessary. I would rather lose a minute of gameplay time than have absolutely no chance at redemption.

I don't understand any reason to not have open chat channels. Spam? I'm almost certain it's coming in whispers and group invites then. Even then, how much spam is even expected? This isn't WoW where you have a virtual economy and you can sell in-game gold for real money. You can't make several accounts using one CD-key, (at this point) you can't spoof names, and you the spammer is going to have to spend $50 (or whatever the game's price will be) to spam anyway.

Is there something wrong with players being allowed to socialize within the game? You can't talk to people during a ladder match, you're doing way too much for that and your match is going to be over and done with soon enough anyway.

It seems like Blizzard is really dropping the ball on these simple features that anyone could code in, and hasn't given a good reason as to why. Hell we haven't had ANY communication from Blizzard other than the Tech Support forum mod. In WoW's beta there were a ton more blue posts, seems surprising that they're just ignoring the forum altogether.

[Kralic]

It seems like Blizzard is really dropping the ball on these simple features that anyone could code in, and hasn't given a good reason as to why. Hell we haven't had ANY communication from Blizzard other than the Tech Support forum mod. In WoW's beta there were a ton more blue posts, seems surprising that they're just ignoring the forum altogether.

Maybe you can hope they are too busy coding in stuff to respond? This is phase 1 of the beta. I hope they change it, but who knows it is there game they will do what they want.

[Mut]

The idea that they "can't" do it is laughable.

Let me put it this way for you: The code is not going to induce a static delay for no reason out of no where. It was very purposefully added by the development team, both in this game and in the original starcraft.

My guess is that it's in place to attempt to "average" out latency among users, avoid constant small lag spikes, and even the game fareness between different connection speeds.

It's akin to the reason why the game pauses for everyone when someone lags a lot. It's so that the player does not lose due to lagging for a short period of time at a critical moment.

Now, whether or not this delay (of 250+ ms) is still necessary today is a topic that I would consider worth having an answer for from blizzard. It seems like a delay of 250ms might be a little out dated. A delay of 100 ms or something seems like it would be more applicable in todays world of high bandwidth persistent internet connections.

[Vonhenry]

What I'd like to hear from all those who are complaining so much about unit delay and micro etc etc is this: What's the big deal?

So far I've seen a lot of 250+X numbers (Where X is some fixed value) and I've seen a pretty color chart (see link in OP) that had pretty colors and static numbers as well.

If you guys are so good that you can honestly detect 250ms latency in an RTS (and honestly, I believe it's possible, 250ms is really a good chunk of time for a hyper mind that is pro at micro), then guess what.....you can easily adjust for said fixed latency!

If the latency were Y, where Y was some dynamic number that fluctuated greatly over time, then you might have an argument. But as it stands, it's coming off as a bunch of elitist QQ.

[Epic]

I absolutely agree with OP. SC2 feels like there is a very high latency. I hope they're in the process of optimizing their network code... right now it prevents good micro-ing from happening and just feels sluggish. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wish they'd follow HoN's server architecture... but that's a long shot given SC2's already in beta.

Would appreciate a blue comment on the matter.

[Eloderung]

What I'd like to hear from all those who are complaining so much about unit delay and micro etc etc is this: What's the big deal?

So far I've seen a lot of 250+X numbers (Where X is some fixed value) and I've seen a pretty color chart (see link in OP) that had pretty colors and static numbers as well.

If you guys are so good that you can honestly detect 250ms latency in an RTS (and honestly, I believe it's possible, 250ms is really a good chunk of time for a hyper mind that is pro at micro), then guess what.....you can easily adjust for said fixed latency!

If the latency were Y, where Y was some dynamic number that fluctuated greatly over time, then you might have an argument. But as it stands, it's coming off as a bunch of elitist QQ.


Sorry, I cannot predict the future. I'm working on being able to predict the future of an RTS game so that I can react to things that happen .25s before they actually occur.

Somehow, I think it would be easier for Blizzard to implement ICCUP-like latencies than it would be for the entirety of its playerbase to become psychic, especially considering that ICCUP and WC3DR did not take much development time at all by a random group of nobodies working on something in their spare time. Oh, and don't forget that European beta servers already are running with a 100ms innate latency, which is a huge reduction from the 250ms all US beta testers have as a base.

The .3-.4s latency is also going to have deleterious effects on custom game potential. For example, First and Third Person Shooters in custom games. Blizzard is putting in the technology in Galaxy to make these game types. But they simply won't be possible if every player has to wait at least .3s for their actions to go off. If anyone has played Counterstrike or other shooter games, you know how noticeable going from 50ms to 150ms is, and how going even further than that makes gameplay downright impossible.

The second and third custom game demos simply would not be possible in an online environment, at least with any sort of quality or fast-paced gameplay. Custom game developers would have to put in some sort of "If you shoot anywhere within 30 meters of this unit, you'll hit them!" for first and third person shooters to compensate for the lag, and that would just make for a shoddy multiplayer custom shooter game.

Oh, and high-end players already can predict a lot of actions and act accordingly. I.e., they're not going to wait until psi-storm is cast on their units before they begin splitting their army up. But with .3-.4s latencies, they might not be able to pull off such a slow move due to the delay between when they see the enemy high templar and when psi-storm is cast.

[Pedal]

I have to agree with the guy before you Elod. 250ms is minimal at best. I can tell my guys to run around in a giant circle and never notice a real difference in my gameplay. Nor have I ever encountered a game where I feel I lost a battle because of this delay.

If this was a shooter, 250ms would be horrible. Because it isn't, I could deal with up to 1000 ms of lag because the circumstances where I lose by only a second is possibly less than 1% of the time. The only times I can see it making a difference is, as he mentioned, the 'insane' matches where they micro some SCV around some other unit to block something etc.

These are not the majority of matches on Battle.net. You cannot balance this game around 1% of the population.

[Eloderung]

I have to agree with the guy before you Elod. 250ms is minimal at best. I can tell my guys to run around in a giant circle and never notice a real difference in my gameplay. Nor have I ever encountered a game where I feel I lost a battle because of this delay.

If this was a shooter, 250ms would be horrible. Because it isn't, I could deal with up to 1000 ms of lag because the circumstances where I lose by only a second is possibly less than 1% of the time. The only times I can see it making a difference is, as he mentioned, the 'insane' matches where they micro some SCV around some other unit to block something etc.

These are not the majority of matches on Battle.net. You cannot balance this game around 1% of the population.

Why is laggy better than not laggy?

Just because YOU do not notice the difference doesn't mean the rest of us do not.

Any sort of person who has played twitch online games before notices and despises this latency. That's why services like ICCUP became vastly more popular than the original battle.net for serious, top-end competitive players.

ICCUP has proven that it is possible to more than halve the innate built-in latency without affecting gameplay at all. You're in Vancouver, BC and playing somebody in Poland? You don't lag on ICCUP. You're in South America and playing someone in Russia? You don't lag on ICCUP.

Why is laggy better than not laggy? Please answer me this question. I cannot comprehend any reasonable answer for this question when the only possible downside - the lag box - doesn't even exist on ICCUP.

The current innate built-in latency was designed to handle dial-up. Guess what? A broadband connection is required for Starcraft II. It's time for blizzard to update their infrastructure from 1998.

And also, and the biggest reason that blizzard should change the latency:

European beta servers already run Starcraft II with an innate built-in latency 150 milliseconds LESS than the American beta servers.

Source: tests done by those on Team Liquid forums.

Why is laggy better than not laggy? Why does having an extra .15s delay improve your gameplay? Why?

[Beca]

Im sorry to say, but the lag is very bad
They could add a dynamic lantecy like ghostone does, it simply gets the highest latency from the players and sets it to that, so all players get the same latency
If all players have 50ms lantecy to the server, the dynamic lantency is set to 50ms (awsome responce)
If one player has 150ms latency and the rest has 50ms, it sets the latency to 150ms
It makes hudge diferences, if you cant notice, its because you dont play that much

[Perturabo]

If you have 300 ms, your unit response time on battle.net will be 250ms+300ms = 550 ms or .55s. On ICCUP, it would only be ~80 ms + 300 ms = 380ms or .38s response time.
I find it incredibly unlikely that .17s delay is an unbearable burden for competitive play, especially given that your own ping to server will fluctuate.

Even if it is a significant barrier for top-end players, you're talking about a portion of the userbase so minuscule that devoting resources to reducing sub-.5s lag is not a priority. (Considering how often my connection drops from SCII while remaining rock-steady in WoW, I'd certainly hope that their network team's priorities aren't on reducing sub-.5s lag. Bigger fish, and so forth.)

Back In The Day, everyone had dial-up, and blessed the lucky stars if they were able to connect to a server with sub-300ms ping. Somehow, we managed to play games and enjoy them. I'm confident that you'll be able to do so now, as well.

[Eloderung]

Back In The Day, everyone had dial-up, and blessed the lucky stars if they were able to connect to a server with sub-300ms ping. Somehow, we managed to play games and enjoy them. I'm confident that you'll be able to do so now, as well.

Or, you know, customers will just gravitate toward other games that do not have said problems.

Some cell phones today are more powerful than personal computers back in 1998. But guess what: technology changes. It improves. And people expect that games will improve to keep up with technology.

Hundreds of units at .3-.4s delays in a lock-step game was cutting-edge, amazing technology back in 1998 on dial-up. The same feat 12 years later is a joke to high-end players and an insult to the gaming community in general.

Are you saying that Blizzard should keep SC2 mediocre, because its name alone will sell game copies? What is this, Star Wars: Galaxies?

[Supersoldier]

To be honest, I can't really notice/feel the latency but there is no reason for anyone to say it shouldn't be reduced... I don't understand why people are trying to justify the latency in the game when, although unnoticeable to some (maybe even most) players, it is obviously noticeable to a group of players. And based on what is being said, it is very easy to remedy the problem.

Especially considering other services mentioned (ICCUP / HoN etc) already have much better performance in this regard. Battle.net 2.0 should be leagues ahead of these services.

Seems like a no-brainer on Blizzards part. They're supposed to be improving on battle.net with battle.net 2.0, I would think a legitimate update would involve reducing the latency compared to a 13 year old service ...

[Perturabo]

Or, you know, customers will just gravitate toward other games that do not have said problems.

[...]

Are you saying that Blizzard should keep SC2 mediocre, because its name alone will sell game copies? What is this, Star Wars: Galaxies?
The vast, vast, vast majority of their market will not be able to notice an additional ~.15s latency, and even of those who can, the proportion of people who can actually use that additional .15s is even smaller. Accurate go/no-go reaction times are on average .4-.7s, well within the range of any likely ping on a broadband connection.

You are railing about something that affects almost no one. In your defense, so do a lot of other people.

[Eloderung]

The vast, vast, vast majority of their market will not be able to notice an additional ~.15s latency, and even of those who can, the proportion of people who can actually use that additional .15s is even smaller. Accurate go/no-go reaction times are on average .4-.7s, well within the range of any likely ping on a broadband connection.

You are railing about something that affects almost no one. In your defense, so do a lot of other people.

Blizzard is designing Starcraft melee for e-sports and high-end players.

They've said this many, many times.

Also, I'd like to dispute your comment about nobody being able to notice it, unless the Starcraft fanbase is exceptionally slower than every other community base for every other game out there I've played. WoW players get antsy above 250ms (in fact, the in-game latency meter begins labelling 300ms and onward as "There is a problem with your internet connection" with a yellow indicator), and SC is a good 100ms above that for most people. Counterstrike players notice it at significantly lower levels. I'm not talking about high-end players, talking about random newbies who just start out on the game.

[Xnimativ]

actually this would be a pretty cool thing for a blue poster to comment on

[Deej]

The lag is definitely noticeable if you're paying attention and not just for pros, and it does affect gameplay. Boo for lag

[Eloderung]

http://forums.battle.net/board.html?forumId=25352531&sort=1&desc=true&sid=5010&pageNo=1

Not a single complaint on the first 5 page's worth of threads about latency in SC2, on the European servers. More evidence to back up the assessment from Team Liquid forum-goers that European servers have a 100ms built-in delay, while American servers have a 250 ms built-in delay.

Incidentally, I don't see any complaints about the lag box popping up too much relative to SCI, meaning that the Euro servers are running completely fine with .15s less latency for each and every person playing SC2.

[Golgo]

I also agree with the op. Really hope blizzard is paying attention and Eloderung I agreed with all your posts. Thank you for clearing up things about the latency.

[Asp]

The vast, vast, vast majority of their market will not be able to notice an additional ~.15s latency, and even of those who can, the proportion of people who can actually use that additional .15s is even smaller. Accurate go/no-go reaction times are on average .4-.7s, well within the range of any likely ping on a broadband connection.

You are railing about something that affects almost no one. In your defense, so do a lot of other people.


I don't see why you're so against less ping when it can easily be implemented without a hitch. Even if you don't care is it impossible to comprehend that other people might?

[Eloderung]

I don't see why you're so against less ping when it can easily be implemented without a hitch. Even if you don't care is it impossible to comprehend that other people might?

Some people want this game to fail. Don't ask me why, but they do.

[Jehova]

First of all, did we forget this was beta? Network problems can be fixed rather easily and I think the balance of the game is what the main concern is at the moment. I know that pretty much everyone else suffers from the lag so I don't complain. I'd rather it be somewhat equal for everyone playing than better for those with a better connection. I know its hard for people not to think exclusively about themselves but just try to think about the bigger picture.

And nobody should really be thinking that their lagging micro is costing them games. Only a few people are that good where micro is the deciding factor at the moment. And IT IS BETA. YOU ARE NOT GETTING A PRIZE FOR BEING THE BEST FOR A GAME IN DEVELOPMENT .

[Kralic]

http://forums.battle.net/board.html?forumId=25352531&sort=1&desc=true&sid=5010&pageNo=1

Not a single complaint on the first 5 page's worth of threads about latency in SC2, on the European servers. More evidence to back up the assessment from Team Liquid forum-goers that European servers have a 100ms built-in delay, while American servers have a 250 ms built-in delay.

Incidentally, I don't see any complaints about the lag box popping up too much relative to SCI, meaning that the Euro servers are running completely fine with .15s less latency for each and every person playing SC2.

Pretty cool how those Euro's get a better service... oh wait maybe they are testing it out over there, while we are testing it out with 250ms? It is a beta after all and it would make sense to get a few different latency samples. I say we give it one or two more patches and see if we should still bring this up.

[Stratosspear]

I'm sure there's *literally* some reason.

Possibilities include:

Not high enough priority.
Not enough developer time free to do the work.
A minimum latency is intended to solve a technical problem and/or even out the playing field.
The minimum latency hasn't been tuned yet.

However, you're unlikely to get an official comment by posting here asking for one.

No. There is not one good reason that this isn't in the game. It should be a TOP priority because you CANNOT have a truly high quality competitive environment with built in lag.

And nobody should really be thinking that their lagging micro is costing them games. Only a few people are that good where micro is the deciding factor at the moment. And IT IS BETA. YOU ARE NOT GETTING A PRIZE FOR BEING THE BEST FOR A GAME IN DEVELOPMENT .

We are offering feedback on things that have been ALREADY IMPLEMENTED. And those few milliseconds make a difference for D-D+ players on iCCup. Trust me, it matters for anyone who is trying to be a ladder player.

[Eloderung]

First of all, did we forget this was beta? Network problems can be fixed rather easily and I think the balance of the game is what the main concern is at the moment. I know that pretty much everyone else suffers from the lag so I don't complain. I'd rather it be somewhat equal for everyone playing than better for those with a better connection. I know its hard for people not to think exclusively about themselves but just try to think about the bigger picture.

And nobody should really be thinking that their lagging micro is costing them games. Only a few people are that good where micro is the deciding factor at the moment. And IT IS BETA. YOU ARE NOT GETTING A PRIZE FOR BEING THE BEST FOR A GAME IN DEVELOPMENT .

Game balance can change considerably with latency.

Pretty cool how those Euro's get a better service... oh wait maybe they are testing it out over there, while we are testing it out with 250ms? It is a beta after all and it would make sense to get a few different latency samples. I say we give it one or two more patches and see if we should still bring this up.

This is probably the only plausible explanation I've heard so far about the US servers having a higher latency.

However, it would be nice that blizzard comments on this if this is the case. For example, nobody complains about being matched up against players in different leagues right now, because there is a big news post that states "Matchmaking is set to find fast matches rather than quality matches right now" which implies that this will explicitly be fixed for release, and is intentionally bad right now for testing purposes.

For all we know, blizzard has no idea that the American servers have a higher innate built-in latency than the Euro beta servers, and so it's important that beta testers raise the alarm.

[Kralic]

Game balance can change considerably with latency.



This is probably the only plausible explanation I've heard so far about the US servers having a higher latency.

However, it would be nice that blizzard comments on this if this is the case. For example, nobody complains about being matched up against players in different leagues right now, because there is a big news post that states "Matchmaking is set to find fast matches rather than quality matches right now" which implies that this will explicitly be fixed for release, and is intentionally bad right now for testing purposes.

For all we know, blizzard has no idea that the American servers have a higher innate built-in latency than the Euro beta servers, and so it's important that beta testers raise the alarm.

True maybe we should make it a technical issue and see if they notice the post and either answer it or shrug it off. Of course say I have x ping but my units are lagging when I give them orders or something.

[Asp]

There's a Twitter Q&A tomorrow at 4-5 PM PST, we should ask them about the latency there.

[Eloderung]

There's a Twitter Q&A tomorrow at 4-5 PM PST, we should ask them about the latency there.

I plan on it, but don't expect that question to be chosen. Who knows, I may be mildly surprised.