Retribution beta's going well balance-wise, Relic has made an effort to update as much and as soon as possible in response to player feedback. There is however one problem with the game that has been there from the start, affects everyone and that I believe has been overlooked - the interclient-lag. The game is run in a way such that you get the same performance as your opponent. So if your opponent is running the game at 15fps with hitches, you get the same framerate and hitches. A significant amount of the time, maybe about 15-25% of matches, some guy with a Pentium II decides to crank the game up to max settings and basically make it unplayable (for both players). This is especially a problem in 3v3 type matches, where the issue crops up more like 50-75% of the time (due to more players and increased probability that one of them is acting as such). It's an issue which almost everyone agrees is annoying, and some would even say game-breaking, yet Relic hasn't fixed it yet.
I see two logical solutions to this problem:
1) Rework the network code so that players play at their own local framerate...like pretty much every other multiplayer game out there.
2) Failing that, make players pass a performance test before going online. Under 30fps = gtfo. I don't mean to sound elitist or mean, but the game is not that demanding. Mid end cards can max it out fine. If your hardware is decidedly low end, you should have the common sense to not play the game at max settings, as it ruins it for all players involved. Taking 5-10 mins to set up a 3v3 only for some guy to lag everyone out is extremely frustrating, especially when it happens multiple times.
This has been mentioned several times on the Relic boards already, but no considerations seem to have been given to this issue. Such a small technical aspect shouldn't so heavily detract from what is otherwise an excellent game.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Retribution
Game » consists of 3 releases. Released Mar 01, 2011
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