The show 21
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Get rid of home hunting
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If it goes cross platform pitch speeds could be slower, that is one of my worries. That’s just one of the many things that I’m worried about
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@LankyRyan said in The show 21:
@Red_Ted_is_back said in The show 21:
@LankyRyan said in The show 21:
@Red_Ted_is_back said in The show 21:
What benefit will dedicated servers bring? It’s a 2 player game. I’m not into networking so I just can’t see it helping. Any reference material I can read up on?
I'm not a networking guy, so if someone else here is, perhaps they could give more pointed info.
Here's a "broad strokes" summary of the disadvantage of a P2P setup
Aside from the cons listed in the linked post, think no more lost stats on dashboarding in H2H, no more home hunting, reduced lag, and a more stable experience.
I’m gonna stick with P2P.
The cost to Sony of hosting dedicated servers for 1v1 would be off the charts which would mean it would be passed on to users. A whole other thing for people to complain about.
I’m not convinced about the lag and I’m guessing dedicated servers would create more lag, although reprogramming to minimise swing latency could overcome the latency issues that using dedicated servers would introduce. Every other event in the game apart from the swing can handle a bit of lag (not input lag which needs fixing, but packet lag).
P2P host advantages could be overcome by prioritising which data gets transferred first. Baseball is almost a turn-based game so this is made much easier than free-for-alls like shooters and some other sports. P2P can still be a suitable method of connecting players. If the host advantages are eliminated, then home-hunting becomes a non-issue, and the dashboarding thing
can be fixed by completing the play locally on each machine (which should be doing most of the work anyway).The ping indicator mentioned by the OP is the key to improving the connection experience, although in modes like ranked seasons it defeats the purpose of matching people at random. The trade-off with playing ranked seasons and events games where your opponent is random is that you have to accept that connection quality is a lottery. Sure you could prioritise ping when searching for opponents but you’ll still end up with your share of players from Antarctica.
The problem is how the game matches players and how the game processes plays when playing online, not the connection type itself.
I disagree (respectfully so, of course).
MLBTS costs just as much at retail as games with dedicated servers, so I'm unsure of how the cost would be transitioned to players. I have no sympathy if the reason Sony doesn't make the transition is strictly budgetary. It isn't as though they're strapped for cash.
If we're looking at MLBTS as a turn based game, the issue there is MLBTS currently defines a "turn" as an entire play, and a game's entire results of its "turns" is only sent to the SDS servers on game exit. So if one opponent severs the connection after a pitch has been thrown but before the ball lands, only the thrown pitch is registered and not the hit, stolen base, parading giraffes, whatever.
The connection type has quite a large role in how the game matches players and how the game processes plays (based on the connection type's limitations), so I disagree with you on this and think it is the root of the problems at hand.
Maybe I'm not understanding well enough, but I don't see how a ping indicator would improve anything. It would tell you what your ping to your opponent is at that current moment. But P2P connections already account for ping when matchmaking. It's why we tend to match up with players geographically close to where we are. Ping fluctuates so much that an intermediary server to mitigate the fluctuation should theoretically (this is where my knowledge on networking ends) stabilize the gameplay experience for each user independently, rather than unilaterally (as in it's current form)
TL;DR - P2P makes for an unstable environment, which is a large reason many titles are phasing it out in favor of server-hosting games.
Additional cost would be for hosting and maintaining servers that cater for maximum of only two players at a time. As opposed to something like COD that would host up to 64 or whatever it is (don’t know, don’t play it). So given that each server hosts only two players, if there are even only 10,000 players playing a game online that’s 5,000 simultaneous servers. Unless of course a single server could host more than one game at a time. Given that you could potentially get away with swings being the only thing that has to be within milliseconds, they may be possible... unless two players happen to swing at exactly the same time but then again in COD this happens with bullets so I don’t know.
How do we know matchmaking takes ping into account? Isn’t the priority ranking when it comes to finding a match? Have we been provided with info that ping is a factor?
Also a server would most likely not be ‘between’ the players geographically therefore maintaining the same physical distance covered by packets; if anything it would be out of the way so packets would have further to travel and would then have some time for processing by the server before sending on; then there would be the issue of one player being closer to the server than the other, and don’t get me started on international... I’m from Australia and even if we got servers at all, they would be the first to go when culling starts when the player base starts to reduce.
I’m still not convinced... we’re having a good discussion though and I learnt some stuff from your link so thanks. I’d like to know if you’ve got any rebuttal on my above points.
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I think the show already uses servers for events, which seem to have less of the connection issues RS have. I would be ok if they would switch RS to whatever setup event games are already on.
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@Catman9186 said in The show 21:
@MHHW33 said in The show 21:
My list of major problems that need addressing for next gen. 1: we need dedicated servers, why this game is still on peer to peer baffles me.
2: Check swings on pitches your opponent is halfway into the next batters box, very rarely called strikes and happen way to often.
3: Outer pci needs to be a eliminated completely, very early/very late foul balls until your opponent makes some kind of contact.
4: We need 100% control over our pitchers again, if I do everything 100% right it shouldn’t end up hanging or in the middle of the plate. I’d also like to see any pitch on the black called a strike, right now it’s a guessing game and inconsistent.
5: ping based matchmaking, this is by far the worst game online to play when you play a person far away, or one that has bad internet.
I can keep going but those are my major wants for next year.I agree on #4. If according to the pitch window your release or timing was perfect, it should hit the spot 100%. Can't tell you how many times I released the pitch "perfectly" and it still missed the target.
4 times per batter, on three consecutive batters the other day. I've actually thought about taking a tally one game, I but I know the result will only drive me insane. There is zero skill involved in pitching whatsoever.
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I don't think we would see an additional cost for ded servers. I say that simply because of the revenue stream this game produces and how majority have switched over to digital editions which have next to no cost to produce. The revenue is there, not to mention stub purchases.
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@Red_Ted_is_back said in The show 21:
@LankyRyan said in The show 21:
@Red_Ted_is_back said in The show 21:
@LankyRyan said in The show 21:
@Red_Ted_is_back said in The show 21:
What benefit will dedicated servers bring? It’s a 2 player game. I’m not into networking so I just can’t see it helping. Any reference material I can read up on?
I'm not a networking guy, so if someone else here is, perhaps they could give more pointed info.
Here's a "broad strokes" summary of the disadvantage of a P2P setup
Aside from the cons listed in the linked post, think no more lost stats on dashboarding in H2H, no more home hunting, reduced lag, and a more stable experience.
I’m gonna stick with P2P.
The cost to Sony of hosting dedicated servers for 1v1 would be off the charts which would mean it would be passed on to users. A whole other thing for people to complain about.
I’m not convinced about the lag and I’m guessing dedicated servers would create more lag, although reprogramming to minimise swing latency could overcome the latency issues that using dedicated servers would introduce. Every other event in the game apart from the swing can handle a bit of lag (not input lag which needs fixing, but packet lag).
P2P host advantages could be overcome by prioritising which data gets transferred first. Baseball is almost a turn-based game so this is made much easier than free-for-alls like shooters and some other sports. P2P can still be a suitable method of connecting players. If the host advantages are eliminated, then home-hunting becomes a non-issue, and the dashboarding thing
can be fixed by completing the play locally on each machine (which should be doing most of the work anyway).The ping indicator mentioned by the OP is the key to improving the connection experience, although in modes like ranked seasons it defeats the purpose of matching people at random. The trade-off with playing ranked seasons and events games where your opponent is random is that you have to accept that connection quality is a lottery. Sure you could prioritise ping when searching for opponents but you’ll still end up with your share of players from Antarctica.
The problem is how the game matches players and how the game processes plays when playing online, not the connection type itself.
I disagree (respectfully so, of course).
MLBTS costs just as much at retail as games with dedicated servers, so I'm unsure of how the cost would be transitioned to players. I have no sympathy if the reason Sony doesn't make the transition is strictly budgetary. It isn't as though they're strapped for cash.
If we're looking at MLBTS as a turn based game, the issue there is MLBTS currently defines a "turn" as an entire play, and a game's entire results of its "turns" is only sent to the SDS servers on game exit. So if one opponent severs the connection after a pitch has been thrown but before the ball lands, only the thrown pitch is registered and not the hit, stolen base, parading giraffes, whatever.
The connection type has quite a large role in how the game matches players and how the game processes plays (based on the connection type's limitations), so I disagree with you on this and think it is the root of the problems at hand.
Maybe I'm not understanding well enough, but I don't see how a ping indicator would improve anything. It would tell you what your ping to your opponent is at that current moment. But P2P connections already account for ping when matchmaking. It's why we tend to match up with players geographically close to where we are. Ping fluctuates so much that an intermediary server to mitigate the fluctuation should theoretically (this is where my knowledge on networking ends) stabilize the gameplay experience for each user independently, rather than unilaterally (as in it's current form)
TL;DR - P2P makes for an unstable environment, which is a large reason many titles are phasing it out in favor of server-hosting games.
Additional cost would be for hosting and maintaining servers that cater for maximum of only two players at a time. As opposed to something like COD that would host up to 64 or whatever it is (don’t know, don’t play it). So given that each server hosts only two players, if there are even only 10,000 players playing a game online that’s 5,000 simultaneous servers. Unless of course a single server could host more than one game at a time. Given that you could potentially get away with swings being the only thing that has to be within milliseconds, they may be possible... unless two players happen to swing at exactly the same time but then again in COD this happens with bullets so I don’t know.
How do we know matchmaking takes ping into account? Isn’t the priority ranking when it comes to finding a match? Have we been provided with info that ping is a factor?
Also a server would most likely not be ‘between’ the players geographically therefore maintaining the same physical distance covered by packets; if anything it would be out of the way so packets would have further to travel and would then have some time for processing by the server before sending on; then there would be the issue of one player being closer to the server than the other, and don’t get me started on international... I’m from Australia and even if we got servers at all, they would be the first to go when culling starts when the player base starts to reduce.
I’m still not convinced... we’re having a good discussion though and I learnt some stuff from your link so thanks. I’d like to know if you’ve got any rebuttal on my above points.
You make some good points, as well. I think one thing most can agree on is something needs to change here. We're so used to connectivity issues that we've accepted disconnects as quasi-normal and that's just wrong.
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@Ikasnu said in The show 21:
I don't think we would see an additional cost for ded servers. I say that simply because of the revenue stream this game produces and how majority have switched over to digital editions which have next to no cost to produce. The revenue is there, not to mention stub purchases.
Well production and distribution costs of physical copies are minimal due to economies of scale (one of the reasons we don’t see digital games being lower in price). Probably less than $2 per game. I don’t know.
But the big issue here is that profit will go down. It won’t result in an increased user base. Imagine SDS going to Sony and saying we’re switching over to dedicated servers to improve our users’ experiences (which I’m still dubious about personally); our expenses are going to go up by $x to pay for leasing and maintenance of the servers but income per user will stay the same therefore your profits will go down. There will be less complaints on the forum and on Reddit though. How does that sound?
I just can’t see it happening.
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@simonsayz80 said in The show 21:
I think the show already uses servers for events, which seem to have less of the connection issues RS have. I would be ok if they would switch RS to whatever setup event games are already on.
Not for me they're a whole lot worse and always the same. That said right now for me the game is totally unplayable due to lag whether that's my net (probably)
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I have a huge complaint that needs fixed. Don’t make subpar defenders good just because the have insane hitting stats. Babe Ruth should not play diamond defense as a silver. He should not run down balls in the outfield like he trout mantle cobb or griffey.
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@beanball0571 said in The show 21:
I have a huge complaint that needs fixed. Don’t make subpar defenders good just because the have insane hitting stats. Babe Ruth should not play diamond defense as a silver. He should not run down balls in the outfield like he trout mantle cobb or griffey.
I have played Babe in the outfield quite a bit, and he is nowhere close to being on the level of Trout, Mantle or Cobb in being able to catch as many balls, he is noticeably slower.
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