If you are asking why russian players are better than you...

Game Discussion Balance
81

I tried a few more games this morning on RU servers, and the packet loss problem’s back. Averaging ~5-7%. I’ll use these tools to check my own routing, and come back with results.

 

Note: I’m not even at script kiddie level of understanding networking. So I may need some help interpreting results.

 

EDIT: Also, it looks like the RU forums has some pretty great resources that I don’t think the ENG forums have. So I’ll just ask Doombot and Error (and maybe Aliskosan?) politely myself:

 

Could you please start some initiative or dedicate someone on the team to translate these resources for us English-speakers? I know we’re a minority in this game but I feel like if we started translating some of these resources, some of the technical frustration we players have will probably disappear. It’ll probably improve peoples’ attitudes towards this game in general. This obviously doesn’t have to be your main priority right now, but as a side project it might be worthwhile. Thanks!

82

 

Yesterday i set region to europe, got most games there (a few 2vs2, the rest with 4vs4 or more). Almost no trace of USA servers, only a few games in USA prime time

83

Mecron, read the first chapter of my WoT last page. or well, i simply repeat it in other words:

 

mtr is really easy. you mtr a specific server ip (you can find server ips in the game log), it shows you all hops between you and that server, you let it run.

 

then you look at where packet loss (the number which is given in %) begins along the way. early / top of list: your end. late / bottom of list: their end.

 

how to log and record, and the other tools mentioned is a different topic, but only for yourself, getting to understand the mtr tool helps you forever to be above the script kiddie level in networking.

simply said, if you know what a traceroute is (the nodes any message from your pc to the destination has to pass), and what ping is (a small message that gets reflected and measured), mtr is basicly just combining both in one, by providing a traceroute, where each of the nodes is individually pinged. its a bit more behind the scenes, but thats it.

 

if all nodes have packet loss, its probably your router.

 

early packet loss which subsides during the test, or packet loss inbetween the nodes on a singular node can be a false positive. otherwise post it in a quote spoiler somewhere, what you record, people can read it and tell you what your bank account number issue is.

let it run for a long time to get more accurate results. (5 min)

84

I’m actually going to disagree on you with this one.

 

I think there might be something else going on that nobody has really considered yet (other than the post about World of Tanks). And yes, this is mostly conspiracy, though not on the dev team’s part.

 

Consider the current political state between the U.S. and Russia. We’re not at war, but we’re not the best of friends either. As such, I can imagine that data being sent to a Russian-based server might get monitored. So perhaps what we are actually looking at is the following:

 

  1. Russian game company is severely limited on which servers they can purchase in the U.S./E.U. due to real world politics. Thus servers for other countries are of lower quality. (Explains why I can have 5 to 10% loss on US server.)

 

  1. Data transmissions both outbound and inbound from Russia are monitored for suspicious content. (Explains ping spikes.)

 

Just something to think about that I was mulling over. And considering I’ve bought items from this game with U.S. Dollars, that could be something that marked me for ‘surveillance’. Anyway, have fun!

 

P.S. I use Chrome, and on occasion it will lock up and give me a warning that my internet connection isn’t private. Wonder who is monitoring my internet use? [runs to get tinfoil hat]

Its curious that europe players get packet loss on europe only (maybe russ too). USA players get packet loss in USA only (maybe russ too). Im not either in USA nor Europe and i dont get packet loss on any server…however i had like 5% packet loss at rus in one game and about 20% for a few minutes in open space.

85

Very good example of server quality is the players that living close to them, like Milf for example, he has his 10 ping on US server, his proximity and the fact that he is actually good with computers, pretty much eliminates all the middle ground factors form the equation, leaving his side and server side, and now the question: how often does he have packet loss on a US server? - Exactly, unless it is one of those screw-up, server code get once in couple of months, where literally everybody lags, he does not have that. This goes to many-many people out there.

kost, the point is that many players are having issues that they did not had before, and they havent made any change (their ISP remains the same), so question is: wheres the problem? its clear that its not client side (i would go for the route instead of servers).

86

things n stuff

Okay, so I’ve went into the game.net logs like what you said, and I copied the first IP down for WinMTR. I have no clue if this is the right server IP or not:

 

12:08:30.413      NET| connecting to lb 91.230.61.97:3801 [0]

12:08:30.574      NET| connected to 1

12:08:30.745      NET| <–( op: SCMD_LB_CVARS, resp: 0 )

12:08:30.745      NET| <–( op: SCMD_ASSIGNED_SHARD, resp: 0 )

 

Also, after running MTR for a few minutes to this IP address in the logs, I see that most packet loss is occurring at my end. I have no idea how my university’s internet works, but it is known to not be the best for online gaming. The packet loss is occurring right up to the first IP address (Which I assume is my own).

 

Any way to mitigate this problem?

 

Pic related:

oQ1JEUP.png

87

kost, the point is that many players are having issues that they did not had before, and they havent made any change (their ISP remains the same), so question is: wheres the problem? its clear that its not client side (i would go for the route instead of servers).

I don’t deny issues, high ping sux no doubt, packet loss is just terrible, but what I am against is the attitude “blame everything on servers” and each next messages gets louder and louder in that regards. It is like war cries of tribes, they cry loud to pump them self to cry even louder, same thing around here. I can guarantee that 99% of those blaming everything on the server have not done a true troubleshooting, developers can not do for them, and with out proper troubleshooting there is no knowing if the issue is actually something devs can fix or that is out of hands. The most people do is they do to “speedtest.net” and post a screen how “awesome” their internet is, which means absolutely nothing.

88

Guys, please tell me, have you noticed that the number of players on the EU and US servers is increasing or not (I mean yesterday and today)? 

nope haven’t seen any more USA, only EU. Set the region to USA only and waited. no games. 

 

 

Also, it’s not that the reaction time is so horrible with ping. it’s the wobble. All of a sudden i turn and crash into a wall or something. 

 

TBH, i would be surprised if there was nothing the devs could do about that. Maybe it would be worth looking into wobble reduction?

 

Can i get an amen? 

89

Okay, so I’ve went into the game.net logs like what you said, and I copied the first IP down for WinMTR.

 

The IPs of the session servers (aka games) are usually found in the pattern

datetime | client: connected to _ IP _|PORT, MTU NUMBER. setting up session…

 

somewhere near ====== starting level: … of the appropriate game mode (note, also the hangar is a level)

in the game.log

 

what you took is the master server, that does not host games most likely. So do not take the first one, first search where you started the game (not that hard, logs are pretty straightforward, this game has indeed mostly awesome logs); searching for “=== starting level” in the text file jumps between “level changes”.

 

but yeah, try mtr on any other server (you can use our ts, its in germany), also as you mtr, try to look if the packet loss numbers are only from “early” connections, which means if the % is just going down after a few bad attempts in the start, or if they “reappear” after a while; that means its again false positive, if its only at the start but then the numbers stay sane. the longer you do it, and the longer it stays on a specific percentage or even rises, the more likely you can see where the issue is.

 

once you got this, you can always end your session after a bad ping game, look which was the last ip for the last game you played in the logs, and mtr it, to check if its you or the server.

 

again, this is not me trying to fish your fish, more like trying to help you learn how to fish. from what you posted it is uncertain if the packet loss is even there, since its very small percentage (~17 packets of 390, and 9 packets of them did not even reach europe), so seeing how that developed would be helpful. but yes, it seems, some packets misfired already at your router. Try running it longer, 2-3k packets should have better numbers. I whish, WinMTR could “reset” its numbers after a few seconds, to get clearer results, but unfortunately, you gotta watch it yourself.

 

edit:

There might be some ip list somewhere from all servers, at least, snibs tool had them all, but probably he just figured out himself; maybe also one of the linked tools actually has a list of ips. i know its some work, but on the plus side, this helps you in the future with any connection issues, and you can easily find out, how the weather is: is whole europe lossy? is it the internet? is it just specific servers in a country? or just one server from a lot?

 

I also hope anyone else reading this can use it aswell, helps also nailing down issues for the staff (I do not believe in tools, I believe in users)

90

For those that are lazy as I am:

Use instructions form this link:

[http://forum.star-conflict.com/index.php?/topic/25324-info-connection-losses-high-ping-and-related-issues/?p=301106](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/25324-info-connection-losses-high-ping-and-related-issues/?p=301106)

and scroll to “Option B: Using the script (Windows 7 and above)”

the hardest part is to read it once, than it is easy as pie, you can run it during the game you have packet loss on or right after the game is over and you are in a hanger (as long as you did not get into new game) or you can just run it in background and it will collect the date through your game session, but it has a trigger of 10% packet Loss ( I guess it is suitable for ArcTic since he claims 30% all the time)

P.S. of course it is better to do manually and try to actually understand what is really happening there.

91

still +1 for tool.

92

That script doesn’t work for everyone. I always said that. No one cared.

You where refeering to my post in help desk when you were talking about " fancy speedtest" results. I did that just to prove my isp had no issue since it can happen here that they litterally cut your line for “tecnichal issues”.

What you can understand from a traceroute or a pathping is if the problem stays between your pc and the router or between the router and the isp. That’s it. All other information can only help devs to understand how your isp reach their server, no way the players can solve things once they ensure the problem is not from his side. It can help devs to improve their " servers"? Yes… In some cases, but i seriously doub that something can be done about since we are talking about a small company with a small playerbase.

 

I’ve also translated by myself that topic on russian forum. There’s no rocket science there.  Tracert, pathping and mtu tuning. 

 

Mtu tuning is something quite useless since you can only decide the mtu between your pc and the router and between the router and your isp. Than from there you can’t control it. And honestly tweaking mtu is quite useless with modern infrastructure. Something could be done with the RWIN value but only on old pc, since starting win vista (iirc) windows manage that by itself.

 

So basically what can we player do? Wire the pc, make sure that you have no problem between your router and the isp. And that no one else is using your line. That’s it. Pretend that a phone call to your isp will solve problems between the frankfurt node to moscow is something to literraly laugh about.

 

Those we experienced in last weeks seems much more problems related to hardware (server side), and laziness on coding. 

 

STOP ARGUING THAT SOMETHING CAN BE DONE CLIENT SIDE when anything can be effective.

Also stop pretending that posting the results from a script that don’t even works for every one will help devs to improve the situation. This is job for international testers and server’s isp company. Once a player is sure that beetwen his pc and his isp ther’s nothing wrong: our job is done.

93

Right, and when it is out of EVERYBODY’S hands, lets still blame the Devs/Servers, you gotta blame someone am I right?

94

No i will start blaming russian politicians that “firewalled” their nation.

Just a joke but as i said: once you explained to a player what to do in order to be sure that the problem is not on his side (something that i honestly never seen on this forum), nothing can be done client side. End of the story

95

Well, I actually did change my ISP after conducting some of testing, and i gained 20 ping on RU and EU servers while I lost about 30 on US, but since US still got <100 and EU/RU dropped me 120-150 border, I found that as a good trade off, and supposedly I have a cheaper and “worse” ISP now. I know couple of guys in RU and US that actually did call ISP and they managed to work out some of the issues imposed by ISP’s hardware. Of course those are just isolated incidents, but at-least people should do the ground work before they have a right to blame anybody, but people don’t do that, English forum proven. Another thing is that a lot of people form US come here with “my internet is great”, while the fact is US and NA in general have a 3rd world quality level of internet infrastructure and services (and-yet one of the most expensive in the world), still blaming devs/servers.

96

Come on, do u expect a small company with small and declining playerbase to suddenly spend more money in infrastructure? After the server problem has been lingering for about two years?

 

Just do the sensibly thing and post the weapons and builds that actually do still work. I have an acceptable connection yet have to play with low FPS, and i think the builds i fly with are also good for high ping/packetloss.

 

Normally all ships that rely on long range weaponry work better for me, especially Phaser, Positron with highened projectile speed, and Gauss also with high projectile speed. These weapons still work even with 25 FPS, so they should work with packet loss also. You can also fly Recon and rely on mines to do damage.  

97

STOP ARGUING THAT SOMETHING CAN BE DONE CLIENT SIDE when anything can be effective.

Also stop pretending that posting the results from a script that don’t even works for every one will help devs to improve the situation. This is job for international testers and server’s isp company. Once a player is sure that beetwen his pc and his isp ther’s nothing wrong: our job is done.

 

This right here. Not every problem is the server’s fault, true enough, but not every problem is client-side either. Very few problems can be fixed client-side.

 

My problem, Kost, with you saying that the problem is our routing, is that in most cases, our routing is fine to every other game we play. Like for me, I play War Thunder and World of Tanks and World of Warhips, created by Russian game companies, and have Russian servers, but when I play on those Russian servers, I never have any packet loss, and the ping is typically better. But when I play on Star Conflict Russian servers, I get packet loss and higher ping. How is this my routing? My routing to Russian servers for other games is fine, but not for SC. This only leaves the conclusion that there is some issue server side. It may not be controllable due to the server quality or w/e, but it is server-side nonetheless. This is why I complain that the devs should get better servers. It seems that other Russian game companies can get servers that don’t cause any problems and people have no routing issues, why can’t Star Conflict have servers like this.

 

@ErikErikson, that is the issue a lot of us have. Like I said before, players are being forced to compromise in order to play effectively. 

 

Anyways, I think we are missing the biggest problem of all, a problem that needs to be addressed. The devs do nothing about the player base. If they put some effort and resources into trying to increase their player base in regions other than RU, we wouldn’t have to have these discussions/arguments. Everyone would get to play on their own local server. We should direct our anger from blaming the servers/devs for bad latency/packet loss towards blaming tthe devs/PR team for not doing anything about increasing their player base outside of Russia.

98

I can agree with you about us players that pretend to have low ping on a russian server with “their best internet in the world” (even france have better infrastructure than them, i mean really… No way). That can’t be solved in this century. 

Also a lot of people pretend to play without jitters even when someone is torrenting down something with their wifi.

 

As players we can write a topic here to explain basic rules to “internet gaming”, but then? When you are sure (‘cause i’ m sure) that there’s nothing else i can do as Eu player when i see my connection to the game getting worst without any problem related to my isp or w/e?

 

About " calls to isp that can improve your connection" there’s only one thing you can ask to your isp to improve the ping if you are on adsl (+, 2 or w\e) it’s asking for a “fast path” instead of interleaving, but not all isp offer that (also that can give packet loss in some cases). And when they do, it’s usually a paying service. Dunno about fiber or vdsl since i can only dream such things.

 

Eu servers had problems since yesterday xkost. We are not imagining things. Also connection to ru server has started getting some big issue for us. I know i bitched a lot, but i also saw a lot of good guys giving up on this game in the last weeks 'cause of this. I have seen some improvements in the last days, let’s see how it goes. 

99

Since yesterday evening I have 200+ ping to russian servers 100% of the time, and fluctuating packet loss between 2% and 10%. No idea why all of a sudden. I didn’t even get to try EU and US servers because I rage quit after 3 battles, each of them with stupid ping and packet loss. Did they modify something? Either way I cannot play the game anymore, it’s that simple. And I can still play other games fine, as other people have been saying…

 

So yeah. GG.

100

I can agree with you about us players that pretend to have low ping on a russian server with “their best internet in the world” (even france have better infrastructure than them, i mean really… No way). That can’t be solved in this century. 

Also a lot of people pretend to play without jitters even when someone is torrenting down something with their wifi.

 

As players we can write a topic here to explain basic rules to “internet gaming”, but then? When you are sure (‘cause i’ m sure) that there’s nothing else i can do as Eu player when i see my connection to the game getting worst without any problem related to my isp or w/e?

 

About " calls to isp that can improve your connection" there’s only one thing you can ask to your isp to improve the ping if you are on adsl (+, 2 or w\e) it’s asking for a “fast path” instead of interleaving, but not all isp offer that (also that can give packet loss in some cases). And when they do, it’s usually a paying service. Dunno about fiber or vdsl since i can only dream such things.

 

Eu servers had problems since yesterday xkost. We are not imagining things. Also connection to ru server has started getting some big issue for us. I know i bitched a lot, but i also saw a lot of good guys giving up on this game in the last weeks 'cause of this. I have seen some improvements in the last days, let’s see how it goes. 

You forget about google fiber. Google fiber is good internet, just not available everywhere.