Instancing works with VPN, not without.

[Nick Sticks]

As you are in Australia I wouldn't be surprised if your broadband provider is Optusnet.
This might be the cause of the issue, them doing some kind of traffic shaping.
A lot of Cmdr's have problems with Optusnet just downloading the game updates.
.

 

[GraXXoR]

A lot really depends on the ISP's involved, how they view VPN traffic, and their peerage deals.

FD themselves, and their P2P model, are pretty blameless in this.

Blame thieving infrasturcture companies, Hollywood demands, and cheap ISP's who sling absolutely everything they can over awful backhauls.

There is nothing wrong with using VPN, and if it helps your instancing then that is great - but it's really not helping actual instances or your traffic flow. The speed of light isn't changing any time soon.

Actually it *can* help with traffic flow since a lot of P2P traffic is put at a lower priority than "generic" packets on purpose in traffic shaping algorithms.. or in some cases blocked altogether.

.. but I suppose you could just call such traffic shaping as something due to "thieving infrasturcture companies, Hollywood demands, and cheap ISP's who sling absolutely everything they can over awful backhauls."

 

[babelfisch]

Dunno maybe but it would require changing the netcode they use since we don't use a traditional server like most mmo do.

AFAIK most MMOs also have different servers for different countries.

On topic: I guess you already added each other to the friend list, did you try private group?

 

[babelfisch]

FWIW, my latency is still only about 260ms. That's perfectly playable. I'd rather deal with the latency than have no connection with outside players.

No, it's not. 260ms is absolutely catastrophic and not playable at all. That's the equivalent of having 4 FPS.

 

[Soopyyy]

As you are in Australia I wouldn't be surprised if your broadband provider is Optusnet.
This might be the cause of the issue, them doing some kind of traffic shaping.
A lot of Cmdr's have problems with Optusnet just downloading the game updates.
.

IInet actually. They're not fantastic, but they're not terrible. I have FTTP NBN 100/40 connection so downloading isn't an issue and latency is about as good as its going to get for the forseable future.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Asp is generally right about VPNs not helping with lag and latency (although there are edge cases) but that's not the issue here. OP only wants to connect with a given peer or peers, and ED's server-based geolocated matchmaking in combination with the VPN endpoint is getting the job done. The quality of the subsequent gameplay is irrelevant.

ISTR FD's original stance was that P2P latency was so critical that only clients from the same general geographical area could be "guaranteed" (loosest sense of the word) a satisfactory experience, hence the geographic matchmaking. We now know that all sorts of other factors come into play and that even players in the same city can see terrible rubberbanding and other undesirable effects due to factors both within and without their control, so maybe FD will rethink it at some point. If they provided a "disable geolocation" option that only matched with other players that had also set the toggle, that might allow folks who really want to play worldwide to do so without adversely affecting the gameplay of those who prefer to use the existing matchmaking rules.

One final thing: when someone mentions "blocking" a player, most of us are thinking about the in-game menu option but there's a chance Asp may be thinking of something else entirely. It might explain some of the confusion further up the thread.

 

[babelfisch]

Do you ever get sick of being complete wrong on just about everything you post about?

Didn't happen yet, how about you?

 

[Space Dandy]

...snip... The quality of the subsequent gameplay is irrelevant.

....snip....

The only confusion here was Asp and his dogged determination to miss the point entirely in his harping on about lag when this wasn't relevant at all to the topic.

 

[Soopyyy]

Asp is generally right about VPNs not helping with lag and latency (although there are edge cases) but that's not the issue here. OP only wants to connect with a given peer or peers, and ED's server-based geolocated matchmaking in combination with the VPN endpoint is getting the job done. The quality of the subsequent gameplay is irrelevant.

ISTR FD's original stance was that P2P latency was so critical that only clients from the same general geographical area could be "guaranteed" (loosest sense of the word) a satisfactory experience, hence the geographic matchmaking. We now know that all sorts of other factors come into play and that even players in the same city can see terrible rubberbanding and other undesirable effects due to factors both within and without their control, so maybe FD will rethink it at some point. If they provided a "disable geolocation" option that only matched with other players that had also set the toggle, that might allow folks who really want to play worldwide to do so without adversely affecting the gameplay of those who prefer to use the existing matchmaking rules.

One final thing: when someone mentions "blocking" a player, most of us are thinking about the in-game menu option but there's a chance Asp may be thinking of something else entirely. It might explain some of the confusion further up the thread.

I was under no impression that the latency would be better with the use of a VPN, infact I was expecting it to be completely unplayable. I was, however, very delightfully surprised by the fact that it wasn't any worse.

 

[Taluss]

No, it's not. 260ms is absolutely catastrophic and not playable at all. That's the equivalent of having 4 FPS.

LOL clearly babelfish has never dealt with Australian internet. I remember when the internet was young and hopes of online connectivity where newly optimistic in my australian guild we took down early WoW raid bosses at 600ms-1500ms with the occassional lag spike of 2300ms to 3200ms beyond that success was impossible. Of course that was then and this is now. Currently I have a Fibre 100/40 connection in a major metro area through australias biggest provider and the other night playing Diablo 3 I got 332ms. The lowest I can remember seeing (I pay less attention to it now as aussie servers are now often a thing) is 120ms for overseas servers. I may have gotten as low as 50 but I don't know if that particular game has aussie servers. Point is australian internet often has high latency to the rest of the world. Update: Just ran a speedtest and got 180ms to Los Angeles...

 

[babelfisch]

LOL clearly babelfish has never dealt with Australian internet. I remember when the internet was young and hopes of online connectivity where newly optimistic in my australian guild we took down early WoW raid bosses at 600ms-1500ms with the occassional lag spike of 2300ms to 3200ms beyond that success was impossible. Of course that was then and this is now. Currently I have a Fibre 100/40 connection in a major metro area through australias biggest provider and the other night playing Diablo 3 I got 332ms. The lowest I can remember seeing (I pay less attention to it now as aussie servers are now often a thing) is 120ms for overseas servers. I may have gotten as low as 50 but I don't know if that particular game has aussie servers.

Games like WoW aren't really comparable. Try playing Counter-Strike with 3200ms. You'll get kicked after a few seconds on most servers. Actually you already get kicked with 200ms.

Point is australian internet often has high latency to the rest of the world. Update: Just ran a speedtest and got 180ms to Los Angeles...

Point is: Most latency sensitive games aren't played with the rest of the world.

 

[Soopyyy]

LOL clearly babelfish has never dealt with Australian internet. I remember when the internet was young and hopes of online connectivity where newly optimistic in my australian guild we took down early WoW raid bosses at 600ms-1500ms with the occassional lag spike of 2300ms to 3200ms beyond that success was impossible. Of course that was then and this is now. Currently I have a Fibre 100/40 connection in a major metro area through australias biggest provider and the other night playing Diablo 3 I got 332ms. The lowest I can remember seeing (I pay less attention to it now as aussie servers are now often a thing) is 120ms for overseas servers. I may have gotten as low as 50 but I don't know if that particular game has aussie servers. Point is australian internet often has high latency to the rest of the world. Update: Just ran a speedtest and got 180ms to Los Angeles...

Yep, its largely impacted by the physical distance so not much is going to change any time soon. 260ms is absolutely playable, I can even PVP without issue.
I remember playing Unreal Tournament over a 56k connection in the late 1990's. Elite, with 260ms latency is not even worth a mention

Games like WoW aren't really comparable. Try playing Counter-Strike with 3200ms. You'll get kicked after a few seconds on most servers.

Elite is more comparable to WoW than it is Counter-Strike.

 

[babelfisch]

Elite is more comparable to WoW than it is Counter-Strike.

Why?

PS
To clarify:
Timing is essential for combat in ED and CSS. For WoW it's not.

 

[Soopyyy]

Well, there it is. The first ever person i've put on a forum block list...

 

[babelfisch]

Well, there it is. The first ever person i've put on a forum block list...

Very mature. Because you disagree with someone about the importance of latency in online games.

 

[Taluss]

Timing is essential for combat in ED and CSS. For WoW it's not.

Actually this is incorrect, ED is far more forgiving even than WOW and WOW is far more forgiving than shooters. Consider the split second timing required for head shots in CS, COD and OW you can die in a split second. Unless you are griefing newbs in sidewinders in starter systems rarely is combat less than a few minutes long. Consider normal combat: first there is interdiction, then assuming it suceeds you target one another, the you try and get on the tail of your adversary, after awhile shieds go down and its either try to escape or go in for the kill, all of this while manourvering, controlling various subsystems, etc. Point is rarely is combat over in less than a handful of minutes. Probabably longer if you are both decent pilots in decent ships. WOW death was rarely instakill particularly in raid with healers keeping you up.

Secondly there is the difference between a server and peer to peer networking. With a server lets say client america has 12ms and the aussie has 260ms, it takes 12 ms for the americian client to sent his imputs to the server but it take 260 ms for the other client to recieve them and to respond. So by the time the aussies responds the americian has already made as many as 20 attacks and seen the results. Since WOW has servers like CS and COD they all share this weakness. But elite uses a Peer to Peer system which means the game client finds local games and connects each player directly to each other so with this VPN the americian is connect directly to the australian. So assuming there is no download limiting both will have 260ms latency to each other if its a true Peer to peer connection, therefore both are equal despite the latency. Therefore ED is far easier than WOW and CS and COD for Player vs Player interaction. The only reason WOW is more forgiving than shooters is it is rarely instakill in pvp but it still has latency issues.

TL;DR In no way is ED comparable to shooters like counterstrike.

 

[babelfisch]

Actually this is incorrect, ED is far more forgiving even than WOW and WOW is far more forgiving than shooters. Consider the split second timing required for head shots in CS, COD and OW you can die in a split second. Unless you are griefing newbs in sidewinders in starter systems rarely is combat less than a few minutes long. Consider normal combat: first there is interdiction, then assuming it suceeds you target one another, the you try and get on the tail of your adversary, after awhile shieds go down and its either try to escape or go in for the kill, all of this while manourvering, controlling various subsystems, etc. Point is rarely is combat over in less than a handful of minutes. Probabably longer if you are both decent pilots in decent ships. WOW death was rarely instakill particularly in raid with healers keeping you up.

Secondly there is the difference between a server and peer to peer networking. With a server lets say client america has 12ms and the aussie has 260ms, it takes 12 ms for the americian client to sent his imputs to the server but it take 260 ms for the other client to recieve them and to respond. So by the time the aussies responds the americian has already made as many as 20 attacks and seen the results. Since WOW has servers like CS and COD they all share this weakness. But elite uses a Peer to Peer system which means the game client finds local games and connects each player directly to each other so with this VPN the americian is connect directly to the australian. So assuming there is no download limiting both will have 260ms latency to each other if its a true Peer to peer connection, therefore both are equal despite the latency. Therefore ED is far easier than WOW and CS and COD for Player vs Player interaction. The only reason WOW is more forgiving than shooters is it is rarely instakill in pvp but it still has latency issues.

TL;DR In no way is ED comparable to shooters like counterstrike.

How many attacks / inputs / actions does WoW allow per second and how many attacks / inputs / actions does ED allow per second?

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

WoW and CS are both server based anyhoo. ED is P2P.

Stop bickering

 

[Xious]

Well this is some good information to have, OP.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Soopyyy]

Well this is some good information to have OP.

Thanks for sharing.

It completely transformed the experience for myself and my friend today. It's been literally two years of trying to make the hot garbage work, and the VPN made it work as if I had flipped a switch.