Asia online play connection speed problem
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The Asia players have been playing with longer latency for many years, so that's not a news. The problem is, it appears that with the introduction of co-op in 23, this became worse, and even worse after adding 3x3 co-op in 24. You may say it's co-op and should not affect 1x1, but the thing is they must had to change the way they did connection to made co-op work, and that also impacted 1x1. This is becoming unplayable for Asia players and should be fixed asap.
In 22 my swing timing for outlier sinker in ranked games on HOF was to swing right when it starts its downward break. That can usually get me good or sometimes even just early timing. But now even 93~94mph sinker, I am too late in HOF if I use the same timing. I am sure the pitch velocity has not changed, because I always record 102mph HOF and legend online video each year and compare frame by frame. There has been no change since 21.
I tried to see what changed. First I tried to record input lag, but it appears that online and offline have same input lag. Then I noticed that there's a delay AFTER swing when playing online, and for me that delay ranges from 170~200ms. I mean after swing your bat stops there for a while, looks like it's waiting for the system to calculate swing results. My guess is that is where the difference in latency comes from. If there are US players can help record video and play frame by frame to see if what their post swing delay is, that may be the difference between US and Asia players in latency.
So on screen it makes the swing looks smooth and in time, but in reality it can give you late results even if it looks like your bat get to the zone in time. Below is the comparison of two swings. Left side is circle change and right side is fastball. Despite big difference in speed, in both cases the bat gets to the zone right when the ball passes through the plate. The left side got a good timing, while the right side got a too late timing. How can that possibly happen, if what's displayed on screen is correct? Turns out that the after swing delay for the left side was 22 frames, and 25 frames for the right side(120hz). So the delay definitely is a big factor here, and Asia players is definitely playing at a huge disadvantage now, if US players are see much shorter after swing delay.
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This is another reason SDS needs to stop making online exclusive rewards. 200ms seems about right for ping from Asia to the US. Something like mudfish might help with that, but it does make hitting suck balls and pretty much everything in the BR and Ranked programs requires you to hit well.
A large part of the community doesn't want us playing online in the first place sadly.