rare disconnect/crash due to packet spam

I don't see what sort of testing they can do that would be more informative than monitoring a Rikti Mothership Raid. You get enough people to fill the zone with most of them concentrated in a small area fighting dozens and dozens of enemies.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Originally Posted by ShadowNate ;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!

It makes NO sense. Firstly, why would the game need to track the level shifts of your teammates? The effects of buffs and such are not calculated on your system - they are calculated on the servers. Therefore, it's the servers that handle that information.

Secondly, being supersidekicked to an incarnate is no different from being SSK'ed to anyone else. You are not SK'ed up based on their incarnate level shifts.

As for the game 'resetting' your character and that involving a knockdown animation and shifting to a different map position, well, that's a remarkable flight of fantasy.

First, you're exaggerating how slow my connection is. It's a lot faster than dial up, in feel at least.(Edit: Oops, that may eb what you meant by "real world". That may be correct, but it definitely is a lot better than dial-up.)

Second, it is not cellular though it uses similar infrastructure. My end has a large dish/antenna that requires line of sight and is much more powerful than a small cellphone.
This ensures reliability and smooth and fast performance even in the worst weather.
(Edit: I have more reliable connection, including less lag, often than people with hard wired and faster connections, from my experience teaming with others. I don't think my connection is somehow less stable. It is very stable, though I do have more packet loss in the game than I did during Issue 18 and before(evidenced by instantaneous red spikes on the netgraph that were much more rare, or nonexistent, back then). It is still not a problem unless a specific packet unluckily is lost or under heavy load that makes the losses nearly constant at times.)

It's fine so long as I don't have "the right packet" get lost that causes an issue or get into a really heavy load area without enabling "stop sending all buffs"(this helps a lot).





Though yes, my connection is great for stress testing the game.

How do you think my side knows what to display for health and endurance and damage to enemies or what effects need to play on allies and enemies and when they start and stop, not to mention the buff icons when I right click them?

Everything needs to be crammed down the internet connection. It's a LOT of information even with "stop sending buffs" enabled.


Also, the level of the team lead determines the sidekicked level of the other members of the team. No matter what the level it needs to check to see if the level needs to change and to what.
Level shifts are a dirty hack, according to the developers, which have had problems before and change the combat level of the players. Those combat level changes would change what level teammates would be sidekicked to, if they had not coded it specially to ignore the level shifts.

Obviously, if my connection loses the necessary packet that keeps the level shift from affecting my sidekicked level calculations then it will break.




I don't know how it works, but I sure know that every time I crash, with these circumstances, I have always been teaming and/or on a league with level shifted characters leading. Most often it also occurs during high load times while teaming under those circumstances.



1) My explanation for why was a complete fantasy guess, yes.
2) My character did flop(as if knocked down, including the knockdown sound) and get stuck. The BAF trial times, with their high load, did have my character flop(knockdown sound and animation) while spinning my view rapidly(tended to point my camera straight up) and then showing my character floating above the road around where Mr. G would be in Imperial City, while still on the BAF trial map, facing North.

How would you explain seeing the center of Imperial City while on a BAF trial?


This is all true. I'm not making things up because there would be no problem to solve if it wasn't a real problem. I wouldn't have any reason to post then.

The game crashes, not my computer or anything else, just the game.

It doesn't do it all the time. It doesn't do it every team. It doesn't do it every AE mission. It doesn't do it every zone event or big league(I join Hamidon raids every weekend mostly without issue, seems instances are more likely to have an issue than zones).

It's under predictable circumstances but at random times.



FYI, it also did not happen back in Issue 18 or before. It started with the introduction of level shifts and was most common on the BAF trial.
It actually was a more common occurrence back then, as others reported crashes on the incarnate trials(especially BAF).

I just happen to have worse internet so that it is still just often enough to exhibit a pattern for me, while others have had the issue mostly eliminated.


It's a problem with the game.

Explanation:

There was a bug I heard about, in beta before the level shifts went live, where a player sidekicked to a level shifted player would register as "level zero" due to being sidekicked up to 50, which was 51-1 due to the level shift, which the game could not handle(due to the 51 in the equation) and thus they would lose access to all powers, due to trays emptying, and even crash.

That is where I got the "resets my character" guess about my power trays emptying before the crash.
(Edit: Also, certain experiments with the costume slot selection window have shown me that the default position for a character ina zone is at the center of that zone. Which explains how my character saw the center of Imperial City while on BAF trials during this bug when my character was "reset position" to the center of the "map" which was all of Imperial City.)


Also, I did go to the trainer when this happened once, to try leveling to see if that cleared the issue, and it seemed I was being treated as a level zero, as if I had switched builds but certainly did not.
This really did happen.


I really wish this would be fixed so that I would not have to worry about crashes or my powers becoming unavailable and unusable temporarily due to the tray wipe(which won't even let me add a power from the powers tab to the tray to use).




Edit:
Essentially, the bug "resets to default" everything about my character when it happens. I think this is because it can't reconcile the bugged data with the correct data.

My point was that level shifts have no bearing on the matter. If a teammate is 50 and hits an enemy, they do X damage. If they are 50+1 and hit the same enemy, they do more damage - but the calculation is handled on the servers. It's just sending one damage number to your system, whether your teammate is level-shifted or not.


Frankly, I'm skeptical of this. Level shifts are now used by players, enemies and there are even inspirations that can boost you a level. It's a widely used system. Maybe it was a "dirty hack" once upon a time, but not any more.


No. There is no separate packet. It doesn't send a packet saying your mentor is this level, then a separate one saying ignore the level shift. It's all calculated on the servers, based on communication between the servers and your mentors computer. All it sends is ONE packet to you saying what level you get SK'ed to.


I'm not saying it isn't true. But, as someone else pointed out, no one else is having these peculiar problems. That really suggests the problem is at your end, and not with the game.

I now understand why some people are unable to take your comments and statements seriously.

In just a couple of posts you've managed to say that you have a better connection than most others and a worse internet.

You can't even keep things straight within less than 30 minutes of posts.

Also, where did the developers ever say that Level Shifts were a dirty hack?

The only time I recall them using that phrase was when they were talking about Ouroboros.

Then make a suggestion for what is causing it only under those specific circumstances. I'm all ears and want to fix it.

I don't think it is such a common enough problem as to be my end, and I can't change the game myself.




Also, level shifts matter because they affect the sidekick code. They were a "dirty hack" because the developers used the existing "combat level" and "experience level" metrics to make it work by shifting adding to one of them. The game was not built for levels over 50.
So, when it periodically rechecks my sidekicked level status, it sometimes registers as 51-1, like before they mostly fixed the error in beta, and my character becomes level 0 because I can't be sidekicked to level 50.

It essentially resets my character to "factory new" like the Y2K thing was supposed to do to computers.

The code just can't handle a parameter outside of the allowed range, like dividing or multiplying by zero(which is probably partly what happens that causes the crash and the tray wipes, it multiplies my stats by my new sidekicked level, which happens to be zero due to the issue). (That's just a guess as to why it does what it evidently does, in the parentheses.)

I have a "more stable" yet "less fast" connection.

That is both "better" and "worse".


I guess there can't be more than one quality to anything in your mind, right? There couldn't possibly be both accuracy and damage to a power in the game because that would be two different effects that could be different levels of quality so that the power is "great at one thing but sucks at the other" instead of just "the power sucks or is great".

Make it a little tougher to spell it out for you and refute your nitpick next time please.

True, but the problem is that my computer is also making calculations to compare to the server results and send to the server asking "is this correct?" which can be incorrect, due to losing that packet, and cause my client to crash.

It makes sense when you consider that the calculations are on both sides. It's the reason MMOs run some things server side. It's a form of DRM and anti-cheating code. It just so happens that it making the game unplayable does not just apply to pirated copies or private servers but also to lost packets occasionally on legitimate clients.


Honestly, why would anything need to be calculated server side, in regards to our characters and not just NPCs, if not to ensure that we only play on their servers(without knowing the exact code to copy from the servers) and can't cheat?


So, it makes sense when you consider the fact that there is a comparison and confirmation step in the client>server>client communication.
(FYI, that is why we have rubber-banding when moving and lagging. The client side, our ends, thinks we are in one place and lets us move there while the server doesn't get the packets on time or in the proper order and commands the client to push us back. Luckily, this doesn't become an endless loop like it does on another MMO, but it still happens here.)

No, that makes no sense at all. It would not be doing the calculations on both ends and comparing them. It just isn't done that way. The redundant computer systems on the Space Shuttle do that. This is a GAME.


"Why" is irrelevant. As long as we're both agreed that the servers do the calculations, it doesn't matter why.


No, it does NOT make sense. And we can't "consider the fact" because it isn't a fact. It's a made-up 'fact'.


That's correct, but there is no comparison involved. The server routinely sends updates saying "You are here". It doesn't ask your computer if it agrees. It sends the update and your client complies.

I said it's probably something about your computer. If it is, then I obviously can't make any suggestions about what to do.


And that makes zero sense. It's exactly because it's NOT a common problem, that I think it's at your end. Some of the problems you describe seem to be unique. No one else has seen these problems. That strongly suggests that it *IS* a problem at your end.

How do you think the client knows to "accept the master command of the server"?
It obviously works the same, moving the character to a specific position, but has a different priority. It requires comparison.

Also, the server doesn't just send "you are here" without first getting the movement and position data from the client to make that calculation.
Though, there is still a confirmation aspect that is proven by the fact that you can be standing still in an area and another character can move through the area, pushing you, and you are moved. That would never happen if the server always knows where you are and is the "absolute master". Instead, you would never move because the server knows that "you are on this spot" instead of it having to think "which colliding character is on this spot?".


1) My computer NEVER changes(due to proper maintenance, and the game certainly changes a lot more and is not "perfect" by far). It is such a RARE occurrence when this bug happens, and only when teamed evidently with level shifted incarnates(which would not matter to my computer as a whole, just the game code), that the only thing the issue could be caused by is my internet connection losing information by being too slow to get it all in the time it needs to or losing information packets despite having enough speed, which means it is software and the issue is the game's software.

2) The game is what crashes, not my computer or anything else. The game just locks up and/or says "City of Heroes has encountered a problem and needs to close".

If that were my computer then my computer would give me a much more descriptive error with whatever changed that caused the game to have a fit.

3) If it was the computer entirely, not the internet or the game, then my entire computer would be crashing much much much more often than just the game crashes(just freezes and closes) when I'm not even doing anything or am soloing on the game at least.

I don't crash while solo, unless you want to count the time I can prove I was still linked to a team I had quit because the team status no longer updates properly(it considers you on a team every time you enter an instance even if solo and doesn't quit teams properly under some circumstances) and thus "still teaming".





Seriously, how is it only a problem with City of Heroes and only under REALLY specific circumstances(which can be replicated) and then at random even under those circumstances....if it is a problem with my computer and not the internet connection messing with the game's communication or the game code itself being susceptible to imperfect internet?



I guarantee you this is a problem with the game's code not dealing well with communication errors between my game copy and the servers, but only under specific circumstances within the game program.
That makes it a problem with the game, specifically some code involved in those specific circumstances.

The randomness is just created by the fact that my internet rarely has a problem at the right time to mess up the information to cause the crash.

Somebody with better internet would never ever see the issue, despite it still being there IF they had packet loss at the correct moment.




Do you understand now?
The game is losing necessary information over my connection and unable to rectify the issue the second after the packet loss is no longer an issue.

It loses one packet, shows evidence of a problem(power trays empty, character spins and gets knocked down with sound and possibly stuck int he animation and transported to the center of the mapserver location that is loaded along with the team window and league windows either emptying or displaying as if everyone is in a different zone) and either freezes or closes the game(only the game) immediately or, usually, 1-2 minutes later(for some reason as if it has to fill memory before it fully crashes).




SO....
Other than spending more money on better internet, if there is even better internet available here, and still having the issue present despite a much lower chance of it occurring, why don't we get to the heart of the issue which is "unstable code involving teaming and likely also involving level shifts with the sidekick system" which only shows itself under random packet loss conditions and is unable to correct itself when those packet loss conditions are no longer present?


If you can't see that it is a problem with the game code being unable to resolve errors that will inevitably present themselves, no mater how rarely because no internet is perfect(meaning just lower odds for better internet but not impossible), then you know much less about how MMOs work and general internet communication works than I do.
That makes sense though. You probably do know a lot less because "you don't have experience dealing with problems" due to the fact that you always have "the least problems" with your better internet.

I've had to deal with problems that you would look at and just be baffled by. I've had to deal with them often enough to have figured out a pattern to them that allows me to minimize them(such as not teaming in CoH with level shifted players or minimizing information transfer through enabling the setting "stop sending buffs") or eliminate them or at least figure out what is the likely cause even if I can't solve it myself due to not having code access and the ability to do so without causing more issues.



FYI, rubber-banding does work as I say it does, especially for another MMO. I have seen that game send my character backwards, then receive the movement commands it "rescinded" when it pushed me back so that it then pushes me forward and then "re-received" the "you are here" rubber-band command and pushed me back again, only to "re-receive" the forward rubber-band location update.....such that it was stuck in an "infinite rubber-band loop" of ricocheting forward and backward until the game code could no longer keep it up and crashed my game, at which point it would start up the same thing when I logged back in if I logged back in too soon(due to the character still being online bouncing back and forth on the server side).
They're both games made by Cryptic with similar issues with rubber-banding, but luckily CoH included code to stop endless recursive loops in movement when lag/packet loss occurs.

Also, a different game does not have rubber-banding, and it is not because of "better performance". I still experience times, which we would call "loss of sync" here, where I am able to move in a world with no NPCs or objects that haven't loaded yet because I am under packet loss/lag conditions, but those issues solve themselves without saying "go back to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200".
This other game solved the rubber-banding issue by making the client side the "master" and the server just the "distributor of information" so that every bit of lag is only "one way" instead of "send the server data for confirmation then the server either send the correct information or disallows the data"(i.e. when you try to attack and it doesn't animate, let alone damage the enemy, until the confirmation comes back from the server) in what I call "exponential lag".

Believe me, I can look at a ping of 1000ms(1000 milliseconds or 1 second between command and action) in (another MMO) and know that my "powers" will activate exactly 1000ms/1 second after I issue the command(Edit: That allows me to play as if I am not lagging due to anticipation of the delay, and I enjoy playing more than I would because of it and have been complemented on my skill for it.) while the same scenario in City of Heroes would mean AT LEAST 2000ms/2 seconds between command and activation due to having to wait for the confirmation. That also slows down future communication that is dependent on the previous communication before it can follow through, making lag issues potentially infinitely ramp up until things just snap back to proper working ping, like it said "too many problems, just reset it all to default", if it doesn't crash in the process like the Y2K bug was supposed to have happen to computers(which didn't because the computers were patched or didn't care what date it was for essential functions).

An online FPS would be impossible under the network code CoH uses with the server as master. It would make lag at least double the problem it could ever be. That is unless they reduced the amount of communication enough so that the effect of lag was almost negligible, which is a good thing and should be worked toward by every game but far less easy than making the client "master".(Funny, that is likely why there are still a lot fewer MMOFPS games and fewer new ones willing to try it, despite other games proving it is possible with excellent results. They are just used to coding their communication the same old way with the server as master, with the added benefit of making cheating much harder, and don't want to change even for the better because it is "different" while they think it is "more difficult". Yes, humans are easily "stuck in their ways", especially with more education and experience. That is where the phrase "stubborn old man" comes from because they have done everything the same way for so long that they don't change and mandatory changes are fought "tooth and nail and screaming".) (It makes me sad this happening with my grandma when she needs care now instead of living alone.)



Edit:
Don't suggest I go back to the other game because I don't play it for 3 reasons.
1) It's all about grinding way too much if you even want a chance of getting a group for high level content.
2) There is not even close to the amount of customization that City of Heroes has. I really love options.
3) I will never ever pay for time to play a game again, at least not for one that takes away everything I paid directly for including the game box or cash shop purchases if I stop paying for the "time to use it". It's a ransom in that case.
(Edit 2: My first 3D MMO was CoH, so don't think that another game "corrupted me" when it just enlightened me to the flaws in CoH after I tried it. That is never a bad thing. I still have played CoH for 4 times as long as I did the other game, and for twice as long before I even tried the other game.)

I just expect, now, that "if an 8 year old game, which spent 5 years before that in development so that its network code is probably over a decade old, can eliminate rubber-banding and make lag a lot less horrible and be wildly successful" then a newer game, with the advantage of hindsight and more knowledge and options, should be able to do the same.
I also expect older games to at least try to change their network code to work just as well, even if they end up not being able to. I also hope those games seriously consider making a "remake" or sequel if they can't change their network code, especially since such an "inability to change" is likely pulling the game down in a lot more ways as well as making it harder to develop more content. City of Heroes falls under this category.

What game exactly are you talking about that is an 8 year old game that spent 5 years before that in development?

What newer games are you talking about?

1) Another MMO.
2) I meant any newer game than that 800 lb. gorilla, especially the most recent.
3) You're nitpicking.

If you truly believe that, then this is hopeless. Your computer is changing constantly. Drives become fragmented, hardware degrades, your "proper maintenance" involves updating security software, etc. Change is CONSTANT.


Why, yes, it's possible that your connection is slow enough that the game can not compensate. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the game.


Ah, sorry if I was unclear. When I said "problem at your end", I include the internet in that category. It's something beyond the control of NCSoft.


Again, I never said it couldn't be the internet messing up. I consider the internet to be a problem at "your end".


Well, no, it doesn't make it that. Let's say the game would run great on a T1 connection and fail completely if you were using two tin cups and a string. Somewhere between those extremes is a point where a connection just isn't good enough. You might be on the wrong side of the point.


Yes, I understand that: "The game is losing necessary information over my connection"


Because all the evidence suggests that the problem is with something at your end (including the internet) and not the game. The evidence being the fact that some of the problems you report are unique to you and your system.


My connection is pretty bad but I don't have any of these problems. So, CLEARLY, the game correctly compensates for bad connections UP TO A POINT. Your connection may simply be bad enough that this game will never work correctly. I can't say for sure. Neither can you.


I freely admit to having less experience (i.e. none) with your specific problem.


Back to making up 'facts' again?

That pop-up is interesting. It suggests you don't just have packet loss, but that somehow packets are getting horribly mangled so the game thinks it's receiving some sort of completely unexpected instructions from the server.

BTW, I PM'ed Zwillinger a link to this thread so someone with technical knowledge of the game can check out those screenshots. They are REALLY bizarre.

Thank you.(Edit: My guess was that it was a debug error code that isn't normally visible to players, maybe. I have no idea though.)


My connection is not that bad. It is more stable than quite a few people who have actual broadband, especially Comcast from what I hear.
Also, check Kitsune_Knight's post on the first page where he/she hasn't heard of these problems for dial-up users, so it likely is not that bad if it can be played on dial-up when mine is beyond dial-up(proven by my commonly sub-200 ping even while teamed, unless there is way too much going on).

Maybe I have more packet loss, but that seems to be a problem with Verizon, which is my provider after they bought the company I have internet with, and they own the hubs between me and the server.
The support people had me run a program called pingplotter a few times. They told me I had packet loss from the results, up to 20%. I watched the results in real time after that and half of the packet loss was over 100 miles away in the closest major hub and the other half tended to be in the middle of the 11 hops or at the game's end in the Dallas/Fort Worth(listed as DFW) hub of Alter.net(a Google search shows this as Verizon and Alter.net owns most of the hops between here and the game servers).

I can't change what happens at those hubs, sadly. I know my end is actually quite good, especially better than expected from my wireless antenna to the tower.

The only option I have is getting different internet(not an option right now) or getting them to figure out what info for the game my internet is mangling and do something to prevent it or correct it after the fact before it crashes the game.




Edit:
My end also compensates for the issues "up to a point". It just seems that there is one specific packet that rarely is the one my connection drops that causes this issue, which is why the issue is not that common.
I can solo or team just fine most times, especially without level shifted players. But when I get with a level shifted player, especially in AE especially in Atlas, it tends to crash a bit too often then.
Anyway, I just want to improve the game, eliminate crashes entirely so that there is a solid stable base to build future content on, same with my desire to eliminate rubber-banding(definitely possible easier than people think).

Edit 2:
So far, I have had less crashes in AE by disabling the "stop sending buffs" type of settings.