Lag in tournament games - Casters

[Riotcoke]

Your ping to Paris being 100+ ms is definitely not lag free when you consider that the game could potentially be under 30 - 50ms if all players are on the same continent. And I think I guarantee your ping is much higher to iamturk than it would be to Tit.

I think there's probably a bit of a difference between how players from NA and EU are "used" to lag. 100ms might not seem like a lot for us NA players, when we're constantly playing with people from other continents, or even just someone else on the other side of NA, but if EU players are mostly only playing with EU players they're going to be used to significantly lower latency.

This is why I usually drop out of games to screenshare when I'm casting and in general try to avoid being the one streaming the game.

I mean it's worse than that, the difference between someone like Interjection casting from the UK will have net like mine to Paris which if you have a game like Kynesie vs Kaiser when they're both French. So it's basically 10x worse than it needs to be

[Mitoe]

I mean it's worse than that, the difference between someone like Interjection casting from the UK will have net like mine to Paris which if you have a game like Kynesie vs Kaiser when they're both French. So it's basically 10x worse than it needs to be

Internet.PNG

Yeah for sure. Looks like my ping to Manchester (Interjection) is 135ms, which I imagine might be a little bit higher actually depending on Interjection's own ping to his ISP etc. Which means any series in which both Interjection and I are casting together means there's a minimum of 130-140 ms latency in the game.

Also the lag was not consistent, it was only happening during fights. Lag from me would be consistent throughout the entire game. Its not like my ping is gonna get lower. I meant more the type of lag it was was not possible from me.

Could be. Sounds like computer lag or possibly even hotkey lag. I know that there've been instances of conflicting hotkeys (e.g. if you have the attack move hotkey the same as a lot of other hotkeys for other units and stuff) causing lots and lots of lag.

[Hazza54321]

lagtoe

[Mitoe]

In any case, this is something Cometk has definitely been working to avoid. Usually he will always prioritize looking for casters of the same continent before anything else, so it's definitely something we're aware of. There's only so much you can do though, and eventually it comes down to whether you would rather have the match go un-casted or try to have it played out with slightly suboptimal latency.

[Riotcoke]

Yeah i agree, lack of casters as a whole seems like a problem

[gibson]

I mean it's worse than that, the difference between someone like Interjection casting from the UK will have net like mine to Paris which if you have a game like Kynesie vs Kaiser when they're both French. So it's basically 10x worse than it needs to be

Internet.PNG

Yeah for sure. Looks like my ping to Manchester (Interjection) is 135ms, which I imagine might be a little bit higher actually depending on Interjection's own ping to his ISP etc. Which means any series in which both Interjection and I are casting together means there's a minimum of 130-140 ms latency in the game.

Also the lag was not consistent, it was only happening during fights. Lag from me would be consistent throughout the entire game. Its not like my ping is gonna get lower. I meant more the type of lag it was was not possible from me.

Could be. Sounds like computer lag or possibly even hotkey lag. I know that there've been instances of conflicting hotkeys (e.g. if you have the attack move hotkey the same as a lot of other hotkeys for other units and stuff) causing lots and lots of lag.

Yes it reminds of when callen started playing again a few years back and the game would be smoothe and than during fights it would just freeze up. It wasn't that bad but felt similar.

[Kaiserklein]

The terrible trade turk got on deccan was not really due to lag, though it probably didn't help, but due to getting trapped. All he had to do was siege a wall down earlier to make sure he can retreat. Whenever you go heavy on skirms you have to be extra careful regarding where you position your units. Also it makes no sense to get like 75 skirms instead of adding hand cav... Especially when you know opponent is gonna get urumis lol. Cav blocks and tanks, and it's better than having more skirms than you can control. Need to stop the skirm/goon botness, 3-unit composition is always superior, at least in large numbers.

About lag overall and casters, well it's quite simple, players can just ask for a lag test, period. If they decide it's too laggy with 2 casters, they can go with one, or even without caster if really necessary. I definitely know it's frustrating to play in lag, but without a lag test nothing can be done.
We most of the time don't have the luxury to choose a caster that is located next to the players. We don't have enough casters to even cast all series sometimes... So your request is not realistic.

what do you even know about this game, casted by a pr20 is painfull, i watched the stream after games, you can't even cast properly
wiches trades xD, you are not even able to say yes or no, this gonna be a good trade for X battle

Gibson is actually a good caster, he easily has pr30+ knowledge and points out the relevant stuff, dunno why the hate towards him.

[gibson]

I will say I didn't do a great job this series, I don't do well with a cocaster no matter who it is. I just don't really synergize well with someone I don't know and end up missing a lot of stuff.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Although gibson is a decent caster is general, watching this serie was painful. He was extremly biased, it really felt like he spent more time flaming tit than talking about the game in this serie, especially in the India mirror. Also 100 ms is definitely not lag free lol.

[gibson]

Obviously online is never gonna be completely lag free but for aoe it's low enough that it just feels like your standard tiny amount of online lag. Source: I've played thousands of games with this ping and never had a lag complaint related to that.

[Dolan]

Well a lot more stuff happens during fights, so a lot more data need to get synched right at those moments. And if the connection is the bottleneck, then it takes way more time for the game to relay those data between every player in the p2p connection.
Higher ping makes data travel time longer. I don't think it's the bandwidth that's the problem here, AOE3 doesn't need a lot of bandwidth.

It's probably the ping between you and turk (largest distance between players). This forces the game to slow down the synch, down to the slowest connections. Those with lower ping can't get a faster synch, because it would go out of synch. So it's slowed down for everyone else.

[BrookG]

In any case, this is something Cometk has definitely been working to avoid. Usually he will always prioritize looking for casters of the same continent before anything else, so it's definitely something we're aware of. There's only so much you can do though, and eventually it comes down to whether you would rather have the match go un-casted or try to have it played out with slightly suboptimal latency.

We have always prioritised casters that speak good English, have a set-up good enough for high resolution stream and a stable and fast internet connection. Few people are in Europe that fulfill these criteria, like Kaiserklein and Castete. Unfortunately, it is impossible to rely solely on them for obvious reasons. Plus, we need players at such a level that are able comment proper insights to the game. We are more than aware of the problem, but we are in shortage of EU casters, who we compensate for having casters from other places. On the contrary, there is a plethora of co-casters, people that meet only some of these criteria, yet lack the streaming potential.

[Frost Bite]

I say we wait for aoe4 ...
*plays imperial march in the background

[gibson]

Well a lot more stuff happens during fights, so a lot more data need to get synched right at those moments. And if the connection is the bottleneck, then it takes way more time for the game to relay those data between every player in the p2p connection.
Higher ping makes data travel time longer. I don't think it's the bandwidth that's the problem here, AOE3 doesn't need a lot of bandwidth.

It's probably the ping between you and turk (largest distance between players). This forces the game to slow down the synch, down to the slowest connections. Those with lower ping can't get a faster synch, because it would go out of synch. So it's slowed down for everyone else.

It's not. I've played 3v3s with people from Asia and Russia that didn't lag and had 3 times the units. I've also casted tons of other games with people from Asia and Europe without lag. Its obvious why it lagged but its much easier to use the caster as a scapegoat than try to deal with the issue. Esocs been avoiding it for years already. Also when I say lag free I obviously don't mean like lan lag free, but with just the small amount of lag that you get since it's not lan.

[Frost Bite]

From asia, got a speed of 100 Mbps , (3times lesd than what gibson has.. ) but still streamed games with a green ping.

[Riotcoke]

From asia, got a speed of 100 Mbps , (3times lesd than what gibson has.. ) but still streamed games with a green ping.

It's not your streaming that matters, it's the extra delay that connecting to asia when both players are European has. Like my ping is 117 from Europe to India, and even though 117ms might not sound a lot it can still make a relatively large difference if each time you click you have 5x the delay you should have compared to EU ping

[zoom]

I, for one, am sick of Garja getting fucked over.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I, for one, am sick of Garja getting fucked over.

:(