Lag screen and reconnection, revisited

[Astros]

Ufk.b pays for it.

The guy is probably so rich he doesn't even know he's getting billex for the servers.

That or he feels bad that there are still players and doesn't want to shut it down.

The other admins don't really do much but show up when camels are being mentioned.

Unitil does his best to ban VPN's.

Hazardous has commands above Unitil so he's needed to demote or promote someone.

Asking them for help is off the table. At this point, ENT is basically self-managed by the players which is why the moderators have more leeway to institute their own rules and decisions whereas before, they have to follow the guidelines strictly.

[Frank]

Would it be possible for Hazardous to give the reigns to someone active? I don't get the whole we're not involved anymore but we're also going to sort of manage it sometimes maybe.

[h3rmit]

This isn't really a topic about changes in the management of ENT, who's paying the bills or getting access to apply changes.

The proposed change, to have non-blocking laggers on ENT, was first discussed privately with HazarDous when he contacted me about it in late 2016:

Spoiler!

haz2016.png

I don't remember exactly why it wasn't implemented back then. But there were quite a few things going on at the time:

• Blizzzard continuously pushing updates with breaking changes, that eventually lead to Patch 1.30.2 and the Hostbot Crisis in 2018.
• uakf.b having very limited availability.
• I was the head admin and lead developer of MyMGN, a competitor community, so other than sharing some technical knowledge I couldn't directly work for ENT due to lack of time/conflict of interest.

Now, on the topic of lagging itself, it has been several days that the increase in synclimit was applied. How has it been so far? Has anyone noticed any difference? Have the repeated microlags gone away?

[dumpster_]

Don't let your judgement be clouded by the fear of the unknown and pessimistically focus on the few edge cases that might still go wrong.

Can you cut the condescension please?
Just because we disagree with you doesn't mean our judgement is clouded.
Just because we haven't personally experienced the new system doesn't mean we can't use our brain to visualize how it could behave.

[h3rmit]

Yes, you're right. After reading it back, I think that part was unnecessary. As a non-native English speaker, I sometimes get carried away in how I phrase things. I'm sorry if I sounded condescending. I'll edit it right away.

Your feedback is important, that's why I opened a thread to discuss it. And a few good points have been raised so far, that need to be taken into consideration.

There is always the option of leaving everything as it is. We all know how it works, we experience its pros and cons everyday, we know what to expect.

The question is whether there's a better option, that has more advantages and fewer disadvantages. For example, how about having a lag screen as it is now, but also giving majority the power to decide if they want to continue playing without kicking the disconnected player?

Ofc, there are at least two scenarios to consider, and perhaps decide a different solution for each:

• Long, infrequent disconnections
• Persistent micro-lagging that disrupts the game

Perhaps the latter has become more infrequent now that the synclimit had been increased?

[iambackk]

Since this change @h3rmit i have perma lags, every spells used, every 5 second i have 1 sec of droping, i am closely random attacking and random moving sometimes, do you know what can i do because my ping is arround 50ms

[h3rmit]

Since this change @h3rmit i have perma lags, every spells used, every 5 second i have 1 sec of droping, i am closely random attacking and random moving sometimes, do you know what can i do because my ping is arround 50ms

The change of synclimit doesn't affect much how lagging players experience the game. It mainly affects how the rest of the players experience it. The "Waiting for Host" screen would have been brought up anyway on your side, the only difference is whether everyone else will also see a "Waiting for Players" lagging screen every 5 seconds, at the same time as you.

Your game experience is subject to the network conditions all the way from the server to your computer. Here's a few factors to consider:

• Server load: Currently, the hostbot server doesn't seem to have any significant load. However, its network conditions are not being monitored. It could, at sometimes, face higher loads like the one we're experiencing in the forum.
• Your 50ms ping implies that you are far away from the server, probably on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In this wide distance there are multiple points that can have high traffic, network congestion or packet delay/loss.
• If you are playing over a mobile network (3G/4G/5G), packet loss over aerial transmission can always be higher than landlines.
• If you are playing over Wi-Fi, you could benefit greatly from switching to cable connection between your router and your computer.
• If you're sharing your connection with others, have in mind that whatever they do (e.g. even watching videos on YouTube) can delay your packets, unless you have set up some sort of sophisticated QoS (Quality of Service) in your router to prioritize your WC3 packets over theirs.

[dumpster_]

If the other players no longer see a lag screen in situations where they previously would, then how is that not a major difference?
Previously they'd wait for your lag, but now they don't, and your hero does random stuff.

"This change will delay the appearance of the lag screen, as well as the detection of disconnections, and should be enough to absorb most microlags. When a lagger's connection gets back to normal, they will see the game go in fast forward for a few seconds."

That seems to be exactly what's happening to ifck.

[h3rmit]

Yes, you are right. I meant that it doesn't affect whether the lagging player will lag and see the "Waiting for Host" screen or not. But it does indeed affect how their hero will move/auto-attack while they're gone.

Little can be done for the lagging player themselves, other than forcing everyone else to wait for them. But if they lag once every 5 seconds, the game is unplayable for them in either case. And the only real solution is for their connection to the server to stabilize.

The change was about the game not also becoming unplayable for the other 9 players. And since it was introduced, there have been much fewer votekicks, and I haven't seen any recent forum discussions about having certain players fix their connections.

That said, it's still interesting to trace any causes of lag and see if anything can be done for it.

[Astros]

This doesn't induce lag.

If the lag is that bad, the network connection is the root cause.

I guess you could revert it back to where everyone was just waiting if it's 'playable' for those who are lagging every few seconds but the root cause is still, the poor network connection. I honestly prefer not having to deal with a serial lagger. If they're seriously lagging that bad, it's their responsibility to leave, fix that connection, and then join only when it becomes playable for them. It's not the other 9 players responsibility to sit there like ducks waiting for what could be an indefinite amount of time.

I find that most people just blame ENT but don't really understand how they can improve their network connection on their end. Just run a long ethernet cable or setup a mesh wifi... literally takes an hour max.