There are relatively few easy-to-follow explanations for what exactly rollback netcode is, how it works, and why it is so good at hiding the effects of bad connections though there are some. Because I feel this topic is extremely important for the future health of the fighting game community, I want to help squash some misconceptions about netcode and explain both netcode strategies thoroughly so everyone can be informed as they discuss.
Both companies and players should care about good netcode because playing online is no longer the future—it's the present. For many fighting game fans, playing online is the game, and a bad online experience prevents them from getting better, playing or recommending the game to their friends, and ultimately causes them to simply go do something else.
Even if you think you have a good connection, or live in an area of the world with robust Internet infrastructure, good netcode is still mandatory. Plus, lost or delayed information happens regularly even on the best networks, and poor netcode can actively hamper matches no matter how smooth the conditions may be. Good netcode also has the benefit of connecting regions across greater distances, effectively uniting the global player base as much as possible.
What about those who never play online because they prefer playing offline with their friends? Due to the COVID pandemic cancelling most of the gaming tournaments that were supposed to happen this year, the fighting game community has been relegated to online-only event.
This shift has caused a renewed focus on the implementation of "rollback netcode. For those that don't know, netcode is a broad term used to describe online play in video games. When gamers talk about their online play suffering from lag or latency issues, it is a result of bad netcode. While all online games can suffer because of this, fighting games suffer the most due to the need to execute precise inputs and button combinations in order to perform moves, which can be near impossible if lag prevents players from doing so.
Many fighting games use delay based netcode for their online modes, which waits for the input to be received by the other player before simulating the next frame. This practice has been criticized due to the high latency issues it causes when playing against other people. Even if two players have strong wired connections or are playing relatively close to each other, delay based netcode can still cause frame delays, which lead to missed inputs and slower reaction times against opponents.
Games that use delay-based netcode, when played by the best players, become something else — something not nearly as competitive or fair. This approach also assumes that players are geographically close and using stable, hopefully wired, connections. Delay-based netcode requires those conditions in order to work well, but those conditions are rarely met. Games will stutter and pause, which throws off players using strategies that rely on frame-perfect timing.
Players may also find their inputs lost in the transmission somewhere, often compromising the outcome of the match. Winning may not come down to who has the best strategy or execution, but rather, who was able to adapt to the shifting, uncertain nature of the netcode more efficiently.
This is death to any serious competitive scene. You can see what a lag spike looks like in Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 by watching the clip above. Note how the number on the top right of the screen changes from two frames indicating a much faster connection than average!
It looks bad to the observer, but it feels even worse to play. I only managed a combo by consciously pressing every button a quarter-second ahead of time. On more challenging connections — like cross-country players, or while using Wi-Fi — lag spikes take over, and delay-based netcode quickly becomes unplayable. And it teaches you bad lessons. Advanced players count on fast, precise, and consistent timing. Muscle memory and reaction time are everything in fighting games, and delay-based netcode has a very real probability of messing up how a player reacts to challenging situations.
It hurts the overall play of the most competitive fans, the ones that help keep games alive. Delay-based netcode was acceptable when it was a miracle to be playing a fast action game online with another human being. We were amazed that it worked at all.
But that was the time of the first Xbox, an eternity ago in video game years. Fighting games have always depended on grassroots communities to stay active and relevant, long before online play was ever a possibility. Offline meets and tournaments will always be the best way to play, but they represent only a sliver of the total player population.
Fans who buy a fighting game these days will usually only ever play versus mode online, if they play multiplayer at all. Again, this is death for a fighting game. When a game is new — like the recently released Granblue Fantasy Versus , which importers have been feasting on for a month before its U.
More players mean smoother connections between competitors who are closer together, so players rarely have to worry about bad netcode when a game is new. Indeed, for games like Samurai Shodown , this might be the only time players are able to find good matches at all. If you fast-forward about six months, though — after the add-on characters stop coming out? Things get grim.
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