Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback

@galactic-geek said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

@theblackbellamy said:

I too feel that hitreg is the root cause of a lot of problems. But if hitreg is going to remain an issue, with no solutions in the foreseeable future, then maybe it's time to treat the symptoms.

Oh ye of little faith.

Hitreg will not remain a issue, because solutions have been made and will continue to be made, to address it. Treating symptoms may reduce stress, but does not a cure make.

The issue of hit reg can never be completely fixed. Even games like Call of Duty, CSGO, Halo, Apex Legends, Fortnite, etc. had/have these issues. It’s not so noticeable in those however because people tend to run automatic guns, and the optimization on those are far beyond what SoT can do due to hardware/network limitations. Sea of Thieves guns are a one-shot per chamber type of gun. There is no perfect solution for hit registration, there will always be some. At this point in time, decreasing the range would need to, like you said, be the baseline, and then tweaked based on feedback from the community.

@galactic-geek said:

Oh ye of little faith.

Zero.

@galactic-geek said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

I have been meaning to make and share this for the past few days. It suffers from the same issues I have espoused from any other video posted before, but I can consistently recreate this distance accurately time and time again, provided hit-reg and other online issues don't interfere, which is what leads me to believe that this is the true range of the sword.

Galactic Geek on Twitter / X

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@jibrran said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

The issue of hit reg can never be completely fixed. Even games like Call of Duty, CSGO, Halo, Apex Legends, Fortnite, etc. had/have these issues. It’s not so noticeable in those however because people tend to run automatic guns, and the optimization on those are far beyond what SoT can do due to hardware/network limitations. Sea of Thieves guns are a one-shot per chamber type of gun. There is no perfect solution for hit registration, there will always be some. At this point in time, decreasing the range would need to, like you said, be the baseline, and then tweaked based on feedback from the community.

@jibrran I think you're starting to mix terms. For example, SoT suffers from hit-reg, but CoD suffers from lag compensation - those are 2 entirely different things, but they both still fall under the wider umbrella of networking issues with online play. It may be true that these issues may never go away (I'm personally still holding out hope that a breakthrough in quantum physics/computing will fix that), but I have no doubt that it can and will eventually be reduced to such a degree so as to be imperceptible to the human eye.

COD was just one example. There’s a lot of other games that experience the same thing, but harder to notice due to automatic weapons vs single shot (and optimization). As far as that video, it’s like we’ve said before, test it on players. There’s no instance where I’m going to be taking damage from a mast. Not to mention if we follow your principle of “don’t trust your eyes” that very first slash may actually be hitting the mast, but just may not be showing the effect for it. That’s why testing on a player is better, cause they’ll be able to tell you if your hit landed.

@galactic-geek Reread what I said in my previous reply.
”Not to mention if we follow your principle of “don’t trust your eyes” that very first slash may actually be hitting the mast, but just may not be showing the effect for it. That’s why testing on a player is better, cause they’ll be able to tell you if your hit landed.”

@galactic-geek said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

@jibrran said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

@galactic-geek Reread what I said in my previous reply.
”Not to mention if we follow your principle of “don’t trust your eyes” that very first slash may actually be hitting the mast, but just may not be showing the effect for it. That’s why testing on a player is better, cause they’ll be able to tell you if your hit landed.”

I didn't mention that because I agreed with it - or at least the portion of having a 2nd set of eyes. The problem is that that 2nd set of eyes (or 3rd, like @d3adst1ck mentioned) has to be in an offline environment, like a LAN, along with you, in order to eliminate any potential online issues like hit-registration from the equation - and only Rare themselves are capable of doing that.

Yes, but as I've iterated before and I'll reiterate it again, just because something works offline/in a completely controlled environment, doesn't mean it's going to work the same online BECAUSE of all the different factors that come into play. You test it in live play with all the factors included, and tweak it based on that. It may be so that offline, the range may seem fine to Rare (even though offline it could also be too much), but again, you tweak it based on community feedback. This range / client-server inconsistencies / sword as a whole has been an issue since Stow/Unstow got patched, but hopefully with this thread, and providing in-depth feedback, Rare will have a better idea on how to approach the sword (especially since they just released new content and can shift their focus onto things such as combat).

@galactic-geek said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

@jibrran You base it off of community feedback?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

His exact words were, "you tweak it based off community feedback," only after he suggested, "you test in live play."

Not sure why that's hilarious to you. Kind of the point of this place, isn't it? They tweak mechanics and features based off feedback here and in the insider forums all the time.

@galactic-geek said:

Thank God Rare has the foresight to consider quality assurance.

My turn to laugh.

@galactic-geek said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

@jibrran You base it off of community feedback?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Your low comprehension skills are showing.

@galactic-geek said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

@theblackbellamy I laugh because most of the time the community feedback is ignorant and
/or just plain bad. Thank God Rare has the foresight to consider quality assurance.

That's the entire point of insiders, to offer feedback on any tweaks they make with stuff in this game. There's a lot of things that had been tested but didn't get pushed through to live play due to the negative feedback it received (obviously can't leak that information cause of insider NDA).

@xultanis-dragon

There's a clear difference between dedicated servers and cloud servers, and you scale based on the amount of resources that will be needed. You're not wrong there. I'm pretty sure games like COD use dedicated servers because they know exactly the resources that will be used, and how much memory/hardware is needed in order to support those resources.

The problem with the current cloud servers Rare uses (Microsoft Azure) is that compared to AWS, it lags behind in terms of capabilities. On top of that, I feel like the TPS is somewhere around 30 (this is just an assumption not based on anything but a guess, Minecraft runs on 20). I'm not sure what the TPS would be, but we know it's not high.

Like you've stated, ever since more and more content has been pushed out, it's caused more things to be in the game. One thing they can do in order for the issue you addressed about entities staying (loot staying on a rowboat for example), is deal with mob entities. You've probably noticed that skeletons will be on small islands even though there's no one there. I think if Rare can implement a check for if no one has been on an island (excluding forts possibly) for a certain period of time, then all the mobs on that island will despawn. Only when a ship comes near the island, or when a player touches the island, is when skeletons/snakes could start spawning. Another exception that could be made is for mobs such as pigs, chickens, etc. who won't get despawned if a player has a merchant quest on that island.

It'll be a little tricky in terms of entity clearing, especially because when it comes to loot, some wandering crew may want to come in, in order to grab that loot. I think they could make it work within the water however, for any random sharks that aren't near players for example, should get despawned. Another problem with all the content they've pushed is that there are way more mobs and entities in the world now. Megaladons, Skeleton ships, Flameheart ghost ships, Sirens, Ocean crawlers, etc.

There's a lot of factors, as I've mentioned, that come into play. In terms of the sword, fixing hit reg completely is going to be a very long process, but we do not want the sword to be in a bad state until hit reg is completely fixed, or fixed enough to a point where we can't notice it. It's why I suggested reducing the range of the sword currently, and then tweaking it based on the feedback received from the community on insiders (and that too mainly from the PvPers since they'll be able to gauge the range more accurately, considering all they do is PvP). The reason why I imply to take it with a grain of salt from PvEers, is due to them not getting involved in sword duels or high-intensity fights often. Any time I get an opportunity to sword duel against friends in adventure or arena, or even against randoms, I take that chance every time.

Hit-reg will be an ongoing process, and there's no cure for this disease itself, but it's better to treat the symptoms for now, until a cure can be found.

@galactic-geek said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

@jibrran Feedback is appreciated, but not when it's a waste of time, like when pirates consistently ask for things that clearly go against #bemorepirate. Besides, it's the bug reports and testing that Rare really wants from Insider. So many pirates blame Rare for the bugs when most of them probably aren't even pulling their own weight on Insiders.

As for my comprehension skills, I often post late in the day, after a long day's work - you know, when I'm tired. Because I'm human.

But the point of the insiders is for them to react and give feedback on changes that MIGHT make it to live play. They’re not for completely new separate suggestions, that’s exactly why we have the section in which this thread is posted in for; to give feedback on current Game content and suggest new content.

@xultanis-dragon said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

@jibrran

I think pretty much every game that is multiplayer is using Cloud services right now. Either AWS or Azure. There are no more dedicated servers. Everything is virtual.

Which is again why CoD, Fortnite, and the like are getting hit registrations when there used to be none.

From past tests within the community it has been discovered that the tick rating for SoT is around 28. Most FPS games have it around 64 or 68 I think. Some games have 120.

So increasing tick rating would definitely fix A LOT of problems but that would cost more money per server. I would pay a monthly subscription for this game to play with no bugs.

About sword.

Reducing range on the sword isn't going to help the hit registration problem. The range on the sword is not that long at all. Its actually really short. The reason why it feels long is because of 2 reasons, latency and back tracking.

Back tracking has become a real issue as of late but the latency issue has always been there. Latency differences between players and region cause the ghost range on the sword.

Anyone who plays on 120 or 240 ping will understand this perfectly. This is the same issue with majority of the blocking problems. The latency is allowing players to hit within the character model which is technically "behind" the block and the back tracking of the hit box itself is causing it to be hit at weird angles while blocking.

They could definitely mitigate the issues by reducing the speed of combat. Which is why I've been pushing for them to change sword combat BACK to what it was during launch and make sword mandatory to get rid of double gunning.

Sword combat was slower but more fluid and responsive during launch. Granted the stun on the sword was massive and the range was definitely longer, but that was again by design because of how the sword worked mechanically in the game.

It might sound BAD but trust me it wasn't. The stun gave you the ability to actually attack multiple targets without having them hit you through your combo. The range was because of the massive speed debuff you got when swinging the sword.

If you played during launch you know what I'm talking about. If you didn't, then look for any videos of Sea of Theives back during launch or before the first double gunning changes. Sword combat was so much better.

On the contrary, the range is not as short as you think it is. Back tracking, latency, FPS, client side vs server side inconsistencies, host, server stability, all play a role in what we perceive. However, range on a sword (when tested on a player, not a mast or object) is insanely long. The same thing goes for lunging. When your lunge animation has ended, you shouldn’t be able to hit your lunge. It’s already done, and yet people still manage to land it.

I agree with you that old sword was much more fluid and balanced. The stun time was good because of the slow combat, Stow/Unstow wasn’t a big issue back then (since slashes slowed you down), you could tell the skill gap between two players if they were to duel, and it was just more fun to use. I’m afraid however that if they revert to that state of the sword, with the current changes still there (such as the clunky unsheathing animation), it’ll feel even worse. The stun even now is fine, people just complain because of the 10 ft sword.

All these issues that we’ve talked about that are affecting the state of sword, are inherited from hit reg. That is pretty much the underlying cause of everything that’s happening (not to mention networking issues that come from Azure). However, having the servers hosted outside of Microsoft services is pretty much impossible for Rare, since this is a Microsoft owned game. It’s why reducing the range to match the current state of hit reg, as well as the other factors that come into play, along with backtracking, is the best route to go (for now). I’m positive once hit reg is in a very good state, then the range can be changed back to what it was. However, as it stands, hit reg is at its worse and it’ll be a long time before we see exponential improvements from it.

@xultanis-dragon said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

@galactic-geek

Slower as in less Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo with the jumping and the constantly running and everything.

Combat was the sword was definitely cleaner and more responsive, lot less frustration.

The constant jumping/movement was still a thing back then, it's like galactic said, the only difference was that your slashes actually slowed you down regardless if you missed, and that was it.

@xultanis-dragon said in Sword Combat Issues - (Somewhat) In Depth Review/Feedback:

@jibrran

You are getting bunny hopping for movement mixed up with bunny hopping while doing sword combat.

There was no bunny hopping for sword combat during before combat changes. The sword swing would kill any directional moment you had.

Could players bunny hop for running or just for regular moving around?? Yes.

Could players do it while sword comboing or during sword combat. No.

After the first swing you are jumping up and down in place with almost zero directional movement.

SIDE NOTE - Bunny hopping originally meant as a means for players to keep their momentum and actual move faster by jumping while moving. There was no bunny hopping for sword combat because there was no directional movement. Unlike now where players are moving at full speed regardless.

The way my movement is, I never got stun locked in place even if people got a slash on me so I guess I’m not a good example, but yes I get what you mean.

@sot-player30 I think just the biggest problem right now is backtracking, hit reg, breaking combos, and client-server inconsistencies. I don’t mind stow/unstow being removed, but if they can improve upon those issues i mentioned, then I think the clunky-ness won’t really be as noticeable. I do agree with you though, sword back then was much more fun.