Can this game render hundreds against hundreds ??

PredatorFour · 2013-02-06, 11:42 AM

There was talk of combat possibly even between thousands but until they sort out the render issue it's false advertising. It seems to of got worse with the latest patch too, i can fly over a hill and suddenly 30 enemies appear and start shooting me from 15m away.

This is a game breaker and anyone who is new that comes to a game which offers massive warfare is going to be put off by this surely.

Just wanna know if they are working to fix this ?? Or more so, if they can fix this ??

Ironside · 2013-02-06, 11:45 AM

from what i read and watched they can't fix it and its the reason there's so many bases/installations to spread out the population and why the lattice will never return

Phantomdestiny · 2013-02-06, 11:51 AM

the last update removed the rendering issue for me

Ironside · 2013-02-06, 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by Phantomdestiny

the last update removed the rendering issue for me

so you alone don't have dynamic rendering in game??
lucky boy

PredatorFour · 2013-02-06, 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by Phantomdestiny

the last update removed the rendering issue for me

Really ?? in crowded hexes its badder than ever for me, notably when the enemy cluster together.

bpostal · 2013-02-06, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by PredatorFour

There was talk of combat possibly even between thousands but until they sort out the render issue it's false advertising. It seems to of got worse with the latest patch too, i can fly over a hill and suddenly 30 enemies appear and start shooting me from 15m away.

This is a game breaker and anyone who is new that comes to a game which offers massive warfare is going to be put off by this surely.

Just wanna know if they are working to fix this ?? Or more so, if they can fix this ??

Correct. There is no way to properly render everyone if the entire continent is at the crown. Planetside had this same problem but as far as I remember it was less pronounced (with the notable exception of warping)
I know, I am disappointed as well. I was hoping this technical hurdle had been jumped like a shark.
Not to mention that a really clusterfuck fight would be hundreds vs hundreds vs hundreds.

Size always matters is just a marketing gimmick.

Tatwi · 2013-02-06, 12:00 PM

As much as people like to hate DICE, at least DICE did their research and made their game around the optimal player and area sizes (from what I have read on the subject). Any more than 64 players and the battle is just too full of "death by random", which isn't fun, so they found. I have not played any of the "modern fps games", but from playing PS2 I have to agree with DICE in principle. 30 to 80 players total is plenty, even in a large base like an amp station.

Mox · 2013-02-06, 12:00 PM

Ps1 could handle bigger crowds than ps2. Therefore, ps2 is a step backwards regarding its main feature. Massive fights yeah but please not too massive. Haha, that would be an honest slogan.

VR Draco · 2013-02-06, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by Mox

Ps1 could handle bigger crowds than ps2. Therefore, ps2 is a step backwards regarding its main feature. Massive fights yeah but please not too massive. Haha, that would be an honest slogan.

It is not that easy...

It depends on the refresh-rate of positions. In PS1 it was MUCH longer, which results in quite "laggy" movement, today you can't do this. You have to present "smooth" movement, which requires a high refresh-rate, which results in heavier server-load.

This problem is not trivial and can't be fixed in weeks and not in a single step.

One problem is the exponential increase of the server load depending on the players who see each other. Means double players, four times more load for the server.

So I believe they were working hard on this topic, but it is not that easy as you think...

VaderShake · 2013-02-06, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by Tatwi

As much as people like to hate DICE, at least DICE did their research and made their game around the optimal player and area sizes (from what I have read on the subject). Any more than 64 players and the battle is just too full of "death by random", which isn't fun, so they found. I have not played any of the "modern fps games", but from playing PS2 I have to agree with DICE in principle. 30 to 80 players total is plenty, even in a large base like an amp station.

This is kind of rediculous considering some Project Reality Servers for BF2 were running 128 people and it was great. Not to mention other Battlefield Mods that achived 128 player battles and how fun they were esspecially Nations at War mod.

As far as "death by random" not being fun.....well those were some of the most emotional moments "battlefield moments" that would happen in the pre-BFBC2 & BF3 world of battlefield that brought laughs from teamspeak and kept you coming back for more.

BF3 is ultra predictable and nearly on rails the way they force repetative action by limiting the maps and controlling choke point after choke point. BF3 is reduced to run'n gun action and shooting fish in a barrel scenerios.

Again I played the BF series for 10 years logging over 10,000 hours into the franchise.....mods and all. DICE lost the majority of it's vets with the release of BF3/

Sledgecrushr · 2013-02-06, 12:17 PM

If soe can not fix the render issues and allow us to have battles of hundreds versus hundreds then this game will fail. It will fail because it was built with the promise of massive battles. It was built with these great big islands that you can put 2000 people on and if they cant fight each other then this entire exercise was for nothing. Sony has to fix this or I and most of the other customers that want this game to work will quit. Fix this first soe.

Calisai · 2013-02-06, 12:19 PM

Originally Posted by Mox

Ps1 could handle bigger crowds than ps2. Therefore, ps2 is a step backwards regarding its main feature. Massive fights yeah but please not too massive. Haha, that would be an honest slogan.

This was due to the client side hit detection, which had it's many drawbacks... the biggest issue was being killed after you turned a corner because you hadn't yet turned the corner on the other guys screen.

When they switched to server side detection, it places massive load on the servers. I had hoped that server power had increased to the point they could do it, but I think they got a little ambitious and added in a few too many objects to track (each bullet, shrapnel, grenade, etc... has to be tracked) As well as all the calculations for bullet drop, etc.

There is a reason the majority of games out there only have a set number of players... It's very ambitious to push the envelope.

VR Draco · 2013-02-06, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

If soe can not fix the render issues and allow us to have battles of hundreds versus hundreds then this game will fail. It will fail because it was built with the promise of massive battles. It was built with these great big islands that you can put 2000 people on and if they cant fight each other then this entire exercise was for nothing. Sony has to fix this or I and most of the other customers that want this game to work will quit. Fix this first soe.

That is just stupid. Is is technicaly impossible to have all 2000 players fight each other in ONE place. They HAVE to split over the whole frontline, if they do so, the largest fight would be like 100 vs 100 and this is possible, even now.

The rendering issue could be annoying sometimes, but if they would render everything, you would play Lagside 2...because the servers can't stand the load.

Like I said, this problem is NOT trivial and PS2 WON'T die because of this...I hate this "this game will die because of...."-stupidness...

They WILL work on this, but the steps will be tiny and will need time.

Just to give some numbers...normaly I have about 5 to 10 Kilobytes/s upload, if I play PS2. Lets assume the 10KB/s for every player and lets calculate the server load. (Assuming the server has to broadcast all informations I am uploading)

100 players see each other, 100^2 = 10.000, 10.000*10KB/s = 97 MB/s

Now lets assume on a whole full server (6000) everybody is part of a 100 man fight. That makes 60 fights...
60*97MB/s = 5,7 GB/s

That is a HUGE amount of data.

Now lets assume fights of 300 players...
300^2 = 30.000, 30.000*10KB/s = 878 MB/s

Now we have only 20 fights, but this still makes a huge difference...
20*878MB/s = 17,17GB/s

I know this is just a simplification, there won't be even distributed fights, but it's an approximation, to give an idea on what we are talking about and to explain why this problem is not trivial to "fix".

Assist · 2013-02-06, 12:34 PM

I think why they seem unable to change the rendering distance doesn't matter. What matters is what a few people have already mentioned, it's game breaking as it is right now. It needs to be fixed, the game is based around large scale combat and the world is designed for massive numbers.

The worst part about it is I want them to fix it but at the same time I know it will ruin the balance of the game when they do.

Rolfski · 2013-02-06, 12:48 PM

It's technically possible to render a battle between 3000 units in a game at the same spot actually. Last week's major spontaneous meat grinder in Eve Online proved this:
Eve uses some local time slow-down system (1 sec = 10 sec) to pull it off.

If this could work any time soon for an fps is a whole different question of course..