If you're curious about how the match making system that Capcom uses in their fighting games works, Christian Svensson and Derek Neal provided a bit of insight recently on the Unity Boards. Hit the link below for more.
One concern that I wanted to express is the matchmaking capability. From HD Remix, SF4, SSF4 to MVC3, there's always this frustrating experience: Connection errors. In MVC3's case, when you get a connection error, you even get kicked out to the main menu, which is ridiculous. Can't we skip the error message and automatically retry? — Farplaner
Svensson: I posed the question to Derek [Street Fighter 3 Third Strike Online Edition's producer] as he has more detail provide on these topics:
The short answer is: We don’t handle the matchmaking, not really. Sony and Microsoft do. They provide us with a set of pre-made matchmaking tools that work on PSN or XBLA (and which we are required to use). The main function of these tools is to create and return lists of available games. (We don’t have any control over what games show up on the list.)
That said, it is still possible to do some things to sort out ‘bad games’ from the list. [...]
For example, we can ping every player that comes back on the list, and then remove any players with bad ping times, and then show you the list. But this causes several problems: first off, it slows the connection process down, and makes getting into every game (even good ones) take longer. Worse, the amount of time it takes increases with the number of people playing. If there’s a lot of people on the list, it could take a very long while to finish. This isn’t generally a good user experience.
Secondly, the lists we get back from Sony and MSFT are only useful for a short period of time. This is because, while you’re trying to join games, so are other people. This means that the longer you wait between searching for games and actually trying to join one, the more likely it is that someone else will have joined it, or the game will have been taken down, or something else will have happened. Any of these things can cause a connection error, so the longer we delay in showing you the list, the more likely it becomes for a connection error to happen when you try to join a game. For that reason, we prefer to be speedy about displaying them to you. By the way, this problem is worst when matches are filling up, completing, and being taken down very quickly (which is generally the case with fighting games). It is much less noticeable in games with longer match times, or that are server based, or that have a large pre-game lobby to join.
Regarding your suggestion that we automatically re-try when you Quick Match (or something) and a connection error occurs, we’re not actually allowed to do that. Sony and Microsoft both require, and pretty strictly enforce, that we display an appropriate message and wait for confirmation from the user whenever a network error occurs. What we could do (and I think this is what Blazblue does) is get the Quick Match target from Sony / MSFT, ping him, evaluate his stats, and if it’s not what your settings have specified, close the connection and re-search. But we would still have to display a message and wait in the case of an actual connection error.
Are you going to tell us the release date for SF3 Online Edition at the San Diego Comic-Con?
Svensson: Maybe ;)
I was wondering if Ponder actually worked on the SF3 OE GGPO net code for Capcom, or did you just use his code? — MasoDx
Svensson: Ponder provided us an SDK [Software Development Kit] which we've ported to the X360/PS3. In short, he provided us technology which we've applied to platforms that are different than what it was originally on. Same exercise as was done for Final Fight: Double Impact.
SSF4 has the best online EVER. I have never seen a game with less lag.
I was wondering why they didn't use the idea of seeing connections for ranked matches from SSF4 in MvC3, but I see it causes problems to bring up a list like that. still, I'd rather have a few 'unable to join session' messages but still pick my connection, rather than a faster matchmaking system with generally laggy games. hopefully OE is a mixture of the best from both, or something close.
Jesus, dude, Svensson with the ridiculous excuses again. Basically, if we actually were to believe this guy:
"No, we can't not boot you to the title screen in MvC3 after one of the many random errors because we're not allowed."
Actually, on second thought, I think Sven actually didn't understand the question - he is thinking that the person asked for the game to repeatedly attempt a match connection in an automated fashion. Which of course isn't correct, the person (rightfully) asked for the error message not to boot you out to the main menu each time.
While I'm talking about the Stuff Sven Says™ (lolol, I wish someone would make a parody video series about him), I'd like to mention what I thought up a while ago for enabling match replay in lobbies in MvC3.
Basically it is like this:
- first match gets played, and an input replay is saved.
- second match gets ready to play, and everyone in the lobby starts to watch the input replay of the first match.
- this repeats for each match, with the player next in the queue automatically taken out of the replay so they can click on "Ready" when their match begins.
This is an incredibly easy way to completely eliminate the resource drain watching a match online causes, and only requires that an input replay system be patched into MvC3. If it is truly impossible to implement real time spectator mode, which I do not believe for ONE second by the way, this is the next best thing.
However, that is assuming it is possible to create a match replay system. With some of the other questionably coded things in this game, I would not be surprised if the coding team could not do this.
The makers of MvC3 should learn how to do online from the ssf4 guys. It's crazy how two capcom games could have such different netcodes, especially considering that mvc3 was released much later than ssf4... I quit mvc3 online due to the terrible input lag. Even with 15mbps net hardwired to my xbox that game is unplayable unless you play wesker, wolvie, sent or phoenix... Fix MvC3 netcode!
What I really hate, is if there's a bad connection, and you get disconnected during a match in SSF4, you loose a HUGE amount of PP and BP. I understand that that was placed as a deterrent to keep people from rage quitting when they're getting bodied, but still... It's like, 500 some odd player points, and maybe an equal amount of BP, not sure... but that pissed me off because player points are harder to earn and keep than BP.... ARGH!!
@8 you can see your opponents connection before playing in ssf4. If you play only green bars and maybe even yellows, than you should very rarely get disconnected in a match. I Can't remember the last time I got randomly disconnected in ssf4... btw, you only lose PP points if the disconnect happens on your end of the connection.
Even if you rage quit you shouldn't loose PP. I paid for this damn game I can rage quit when I want. I'll sue them if they take away any more of my PP.
Whelp, this still doesn't explain why SSFIV:3DE has a rematch button but the console versions/PC version don't.
Netcode is so bad that people think SF4 netcode is good? GGPO or BlazBlue craps on it.
@13 you don't notice how bad mvc3 netcode is until you attempt the more advanced combos, with character that aren't so "online friendly".
like I said earlier I'm running 15 mbps cable internet hardwired directly to my xbox and input lag is ridiculous compared to ssf4
#2 lol, play Blazblue, or any other tbh. Although BB for me so far I think beats everyone in netcode (And in modes..and in button layout..and in..zzz everything (I like ssf4 more as a game, but I mean feature wise it blows most out the water, wish it sold more))
I can actually cope with MVC3's lag more than I can with SSF4, since MVC3 stuff doesn't require 1-2 frame links to be effective, while in SSF4 it does. I can do the craziest bold cancels in lag there so idc.
@19 but connection strength has quite a bit to do with it... It's much better to be hardwired than to use a wireless adapter
Its much better to have an amazing upload speed... coupled with a good download speed.
Doesn't matter who is responsible, online in simply every game nowadays is liquid crap. And GfWL leads the pile of badness for years.
gg Capco--- Microsoft.
Upload speed plays a bigger role in online matches than Download speed does.
I could care less what Sony/MS told Capcom what they can or cannot do, the net code for MvC3 is poorly written. I'm sure the same rules apply for every online game and not just MvC3. AE's netcode is great. I've played a lot of other online games and they are good as well. It seems like an excuse to me. Fire the software engineer in charge of making the net code!
Are you people completely retarded? Sven did not answer this, as shown from the first part of the response....
"Svensson: I posed the question to Derek [Street Fighter 3 Third Strike Online Edition's producer] as he has more detail provide on these topics: "
And I also do not understand why people complain so much about mvc3, I play pretty much every single day, and I get maybe a single laggy match per day, sometimes once every 2 days, oh, and I do "attempt some of the more advanced combos" and still don't notice it. I experience far more lag, input lag especially on SSF4. And I get a ton more connection errors with SSF4 than I do with mvc3.
So with MvC3 was it also not Capcom's fault that all ranked matches are paired blindly (often causing two players to play each other several times in a row), and that if you pick "same skill" you might still get someone like 6 ranks higher than you?
The MK match making is pretty good, I wish capcom used that... you can enter or create rooms and challenge someone in there. You can pick rematch as much as you and your opponent like. I like playing the same person a couple of times in a row a lot better than someone else every game.
@5: I dont believe the spectator argument either. If thousands of people can watch a stream coming from a bad internet venue, surely some people would be able to 'spectate' a match.
I think the reason why the Street Fighter 4's online abilities are better than MvC 3's boils down to how the game was initially designed.
Remember back when Vanilla Street Fighter 4 was still under development, Ono stated that SF4's online experience was going to be better than anything you've ever experienced before?
The reason why he said this was going to be the case was because SF4 was started from scratch with online play in mind.
So when the framework of SF4 was being first designed, every step of the design process was geared towards multiplayer between two seperate entities.
This is very apparent when you look at SF4 Vanilla and SSF4AE arcades. In order to play multiplayer SF4 in an arcade you actually need two complete SF4 setups.
This is only a guess on my part, but in the early stages of MvC 3's design I'm guessing that Niitsuma pulled a lot of design elements and code from Tatsunoko vs Capcom. Regardless of how much Capcom folks like to deny that this is the case, me being a software programmer myself, you don't go and reinvent the wheel.
As for why the MvC3 team doesn't go to the SF4 team to get ideas, I think I've got a theory on that as well.
I remember a few years back in conversation with a friend of mine who works within Capcom, my friend brought up the fact that there is a lot of politics and jealousy between the different development teams. The teams simply do not get along well together.
Keiji Inafune's (the creator of Megaman) departure from Capcom last year citing being tired of dealing with internal politics as one of his reasons for leaving further solidifies the observation made by my friend.
As to why there is so much politics, I've got a theory on this as well. Through my career as a software developer, I always assumed that internal politics and backstabbing stories from within large companies were grossly overexagerated or myths.
This was a very naive view of mine as a guy on the outside looking in since, up to that point, I had worked mainly in small to small/medium sized companies. It wasn't until I joined a large tech company (one of the biggest actually) was when I really saw the grim truth, corporate greed, internal politics and backstabbing is very much real...
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I've had it where I developed a really cool application for my company that was getting a lot of praise, only to have someone else in the company go to my boss' boss some how convincing him to give him control of the application I had developed. After the approval, he took the application away from me, gave it to a programmer on his own team, tinkered with my application (making it worse in the opinion of everyone who saw myh version of the application versus theirs) and then took all the credit for it.
When I complained to my boss about this he simply stated, "You can talk to [his boss] about it if you want, but I can tell you right now that is not a smart career move."
Why do things like this happen in larger companies? From my personal experience, when working in smaller companies, pretty much everyone is involved on a project.
Developers, artists, writers/linguistics people, quality assurance people all are involved in the development of a project because usually for smaller companies, the pipeline really only allows for one major product to be developed at a time. When one project is done, all the people who worked on one project move to the next.
In a bigger company, you have multiple projects going on, and the programmers, artists, writers etc. are split up and belong to seperate team since there is a bigger pool of personel.
However, there are always more projects going on as opposed to resources available to push that product through to publication. Decisions are made at an upper level of what projects will get funding and which projects will be scrapped. This, in turn, creates friction between the teams and many times leads to backstabbing which is what happened to me.
Everyone is trying to stay relevant within the company. If your project doesn't get funding, you could soon find yourself without a job.
Just imagine a developer who's project didn't get the green light because he got bumped out of the way by another project that has been getitng a lot of big press. Now imagine that the product that got a lot of big press had some major problems with their code, say very bad netcode. You've got great netcode, but the other guy's project which is in the public eye is the one that bumped yours from going towards publication. You know that if you give them your netcode, they will simply take it as their own and won't give you any credit for it. You will continue to struggle to get your project green lit even though it was better written. So what do you do?
Hey, for those of you that complain that Sven seems to have an attitude when he replies to forum questions.
How many other development companies give you such acess to a Vice President of the company in a regularly scheduled QA session?
Don't forget that this is the Internet. A lot of the questions that are posed take a very accusing tone. How would you feel if your boss told you that as part of your regular duties, you were now required to regularly answer questions from a very rabid and rude audience?
I only played Tekken5:DR for a very brief period of time so correct me if I'm wrong, but there was no option to either be a host, or search for a client to connect. There was just an option to join a ranked match. The game then went out and found somebody else that was searching for a ranked match, "Randomly" assigned one as the host, and started the connection.
Why can't SF/MvC be done in the same way?
@33
Questions are from people spending their hard earned money for a product that is usually incomplete such as MvC3.
Instead of Capcom fixing the issues with the game, they instead make a new version and resell the game over again to the same customers.
People get that tone with Sven because of that and the way he dances around the question is really annoying.. Oh, and I'm sure Sven is getting paid so don't feel too bad for the guy
^ read post #33 before you comment on my post... #33 and my last comment was not refering to this specific article but how Sven answer questions in general.
mvc3 online matching system was wack.
i quit after 2 days.
AE is still better.