Tree of Savior Forum

Attack speed affected by Connection Quality

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Bug Description :
First of all, i’m not sure which Category should this post be in. But i felt like it belongs to connection more than game mechanics.

So here is the problem: apparently, the way ToS’s uses to Synchronize between Client and Server has “very Low” tolerance to High Latency connections. If your attack speed is higher than the time it needs for the server to respond, you’ll always have the same “slow” attack speed.
A second problem that comes alongside is: your character will “rubber band” when the Client received a confirmation or syn packet. There’s video attached and more description to make it more clear.

Steps to reproduce the issue :

  1. Having a ping around 280~320
  2. Use Normal attack
  3. Use Normal attack with Speed Buffs
  4. Compare

Screenshots / Video :
Firstly, two video comparing attack speed with and without speed buff. All attacks are performed by holding “z” without releasing it.
And please note that the “buffed” video is using a “level 15 Kneeling shot”, which give us +325 attack speed.

Without Buff: youtu.be/aEZ-5lwSGvY
With Buff: youtu.be/O5ep2Ds9j0U
You can see that the character rubber bands a lot and very often that arrows does not actually shot out.
In this case, the rubber banding is affecting us from actually observe our attack speed with arrows.

So let us test this with the character actually hitting a target, therefore we can see the actual numbers popping to check if our attack speed changes.
Without Buff: youtu.be/TdM9UgGpCMU
With Buff: youtu.be/LeUEzh_CBIo
As you can see, both with and without attack speed buff has a asp at around 1.2 sec/shot.
And beneath is a great comparison video for low ping game play.

Now we test with Melee attack, this time we used Swordsman as the subject. However, since Swordsman does not have self-cast speed buff. These video serves as the purpose of showing how bad the “rubber band” can be and how it affects gameplay.
Swordsman hitting air: youtu.be/8sJQCvecNCE
The attack speed is so inconsistent, since every time we de-synchronized, we will perform another “false” attack.
Lets see how it goes with attacking a monster.
Swordsman hitting a target 1: youtu.be/OwbDwNofHho
Swordsman hitting a target 2: youtu.be/QVMUbypd8Vc
You might have noticed that the damage numbers popped up so inconsistently, sometimes two numbers popped at once. Thus making it so hard to observe your attack speed.

The last video shows how bad it actually is by pressing “z” one at a time.
With every “z” pressed, there will be first an “false” attack, and then an actual attack after Server send back an acknowledgement.
Swordsman rubber-banding normal attack: youtu.be/jdFAJPmIA1k

This will give global players outside North America a substantial disadvantage. However, it should not be so hard to overcome, since there are already a few global MMOs that does not suffer from these kind of problems.

I really hope the Devs see this as a great deal.
Because for a MMO to became globally successive, the internet protocol, synchronize algorithm, and lag tolerance is very important. Take GW2 for example, players can come from all over the world but still participate in PvP or WvW without noticing lag occurrence.

System

  • CPU :

  • RAM :

  • Graphics Card :

  • Mainboard :

  • Storage :

  • OS :

  • Internet Connection : 280~320

  • Country, Region :

21 Likes

This is a huge issue, it’s like AA all over again where the game was designed with low ping only in mind.
I will say though that most of the iCBT the latency was quite good but the game does not handle it well when the latency goes above 200ms~

At least in this game there is time to implement proper ability queues or fix the netcode.

2 Likes

I understand the gist of it but will you explain it to a curious little layman like me in a simpler way? Is it like:

“The attack information from the client takes too long to travel from us to the servers so we attack twice before confirming and synchronizing with them, which only then the damage numbers pop up”?

Bump for visibility, the netcode in ToS is really bad. Here’s what a lv 15 Kneeling shot with low ping looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgxoBB1bdHE
The difference is noticeable when compared with OP’s example

4 Likes

not only attack speed but it also affects dmg count

even if you hit the target 4 times, with higher ping the output dmg cout will be only 2 or 3

Pretty much, it also makes you play the attack animation twice locking you in place both times which has gotten me hit and killed during boss fights as a melee class.

2 Likes

jesus I didn’t realize that my kneeling shot was that slow compared to what it should be. I have high ping but I didn’t realize it affected the game to that extent

Totally agree with this. It was frustrating for me to play in my country. It’s quiet a shame if a player’s location (a.k.a connection to the server) determines their game as a whole.

1 Like

as someone with an average ping of 300, please I’d like this addressed.

I’ve noticed this playing with a friend who is also a wizard. I had a high ping and he had a lower one.

I always used to comment that he attacked like a melee does when I attack with delay. Our attack ratio is 2:1 at times even 3:1.

Please fix this.

1 Like

Though I don’t expect much, this is something the game could use to improve.
While it wasn’t unexpected and I will still likely enjoy the rest of the game despite this…
I will at the very least bump this up a post and comment.

It may seem insignificant, but what we want is for IMC to notice this thread, not the replies themselves.


I was already aware that this was a problem from kCBT2, from the foreign players in it.
Not particularly game-breaking to me, it is a fairly uncomfortable aspect and it’s much more likely they will simply add more regional servers than try to address this.
I’d like to continue playing on the International server, so I am will prepared for the consequences such as lag and the like. If that does turn out to not be an option… well… I suppose it’s not absolutely necessary to play the game and my presence in ToS is not of any great significance.

2 Likes

Thanks a lot for the video link, it will serve as a great comparison.
Since i have a constant 280~300 ping, its hard for me to record a “legitimate” kneeling shot clip myself.

I’v noticed this as well, since my ping is low i found myself attack much faster then my friends and it took me a while to realize that the reason i was killing mobs faster then them even tho our damage was about the same is that i was squeezing in a extra auto attack every 2 seconds compared to them.

when playing without WTFast my ping is horrible, attack 5 times but only 2 or 3 hits show actual dmg

It is very important issue and if left like this will eventually deal a huge blow to the game. Imagine this at end-game when people are turning really competitive…
-kicking high ping players out of raid/party/pvp team
-achieving ranks, getting better loot just because you live closer to the server
-all auto-attack builds automatically become useless for at least half of the players base
-PvP ranks neatly sorted by connection quality

I’ve have seen people arguing and become salty because of much smaller reasons… I really hope this will not be the case.

2 Likes

The game is server sided, not peer-to-peer, so it’s natural to have lag between our input and the character’s output.

[quote=“Noah_, post:16, topic:31044”]
-achieving ranks, getting better loot just because you live closer to the server
[/quote]What…?

[quote=“Noah_, post:16, topic:31044”]
-PvP ranks neatly sorted by connection quality
[/quote]Any game server sided has better PvP environment than a peer-to-peer one.
Peer-to-peer games open doors for people to abuse intentional lag, which screw the fun for all players in the match. Server sided games are free from this menace, since lag will only cause trouble for the lagged one.

Even if you say “but it also screw for his teammates!”, well, try to imagine League of Legends being peer-to-peer… I doubt it would be the most played game like it’s now.

Also, you can take a note of Guild Wars 2. It’s a server sided game with only 2 servers (NA and EU) and I can play on NA without lag because they made dedicated conections for other countries where the game is published.

Yes,but that’s the case only if the protocol is not optimized relatively to your game.
Lockstep should be different in every game, if your protocol tries to sync every single packet and movement, it is more likely to end up badly and giving the server a lot more pressure.

My point is, my intentional goal about this post is about optimizing the protocol and sync method, instead of changing the whole into P2P. Thanks for making your point nevertheless.

One part of GW2’s optimization is dedicated servers, but not completely. In GW2 PvP match , you can have players from Asia, EU, NA, and all other places, but skills they used can still affect in msec(such as reflect and dodge), which is more based on local calibration and forecast.

1 Like

I just leave it here

Patch Notes kCBT3 August 15th
Patch #1
-Spawn location of field bosses has been randomized.
-Client slowness/lag has been alleviated.

Credit goes to zazabar from reddit for translating this. I don’t know if this fixes abovementioned issue or related to the topic at all, so I won’t comment it.

3 Likes

Thanks a lot for the info. I guess we will have to see when next beta launches.

I see, I don’t understand so deeply this matter, tho. But I hope IMC can take some of those procedures to make the game more responsive :x

Also, the patch saying they alleviated lag, seems like it was just for the lag spikes we had a few days ago. My delays are still somewhat the same.