Thank you all of your guys for discussing about this issue, and I wanna add more two cents about the TACTIC part as a part of people don’t have a deeper thought in it.
The new netcode itself isn’t totally a bad netcode, it may works even better, but only in the assumption of the widespread of the servers.
I’ll take this video as an example:
Everyone uses Pre-aim or percussion to kill others in the old server, this is because in that kind of hit detection in the server, this tactic enables everyone to play in a same standard, which is fair. Whereas the new server, where the hit detection lies in the local, produces lots of various standards, which are exaggerated badly due to the latency and results the kills by random.
The hit detection in the local has led to another issue which is player movements. Due to the ping, players send their movement info to the server in an such interrupted way, which directly gives rise to the interrupted movement (ie. Teleport on your screen). For one thing, players will be likely to see others who are doing self-boast or sth in a fast movement flashing in the moment. Not only that, the server can make false response due to the ping issue. For instance, when X jumps from A to B, the movement info is sent to the server but slowed by the ping, in this moment, Y sees X still lies in A, and then gives a shot to A and hit, the local immediately gives an hit info to the server and then causes X’s death while in X only sees he/she was killed by nothing. We can see the mistaken judge makes one side feel seemingly fair play, meanwhile the other side is confusing play. This is why many players, especially top players are disappointed with the game and left.
When I’m writing this article, it's not just for my sake, but I noticed a plenty of players who have witnessed the rise and fall of pb2, from 2012 to 2020, who plays day and night and got ten thousands of kills, who still wanna make pb2 great again, feel disappointed. I firmly appeal that the MP could go back to the one in the version 1.23, which is the most ideal version agreed by most of the top players.
It is those small but not crucial bugs that makes PB2 interesting, fixing them does not always mean a step forward. Correspondingly, by bring back one of the versions, does not mean the step back, but making the game better.
Im currently 14 yo and i play this game since 8 years (Yes, i literally learn english in this game and not in school lol) I quit playing this since the new netcode was implemented and my internet provider was downgraded.. I still play this game somedays like a guest) but i dont want to play in a game that i dont like anymore
Not sure what to say but... I just see players not knowing what they are doing and just mashing buttons including me in one shot maps. For new players, they see bullets go through them, and then dying by nothing at all. Then leave the game. I saw a lagging player 4 days ago, thousands of bullets was going through him, his ping was around 300, it took 3 minutes until the body was killed. It seemed like he was teleporting and was on a verge of getting disconnected, but couldn’t. I have never seen that in all the years of playing this game.
Sure it may be better for players with pings below 60 with good computers, but how many players have that in the current game? And they need to play only with each other for good gameplay. Which 98% of the California/EU servers barely has all the time. So... again this is a benefit to the lowest pinger with great devices, while the whole majority get weeded out? Like from 2013 but worse?
Just to add, does the separation between old mp and new mp cause the population to be far lower on one end?
Did the players who played for years vote yes because they were in the excitement MOSTLY for the whole update as a whole with the fan art updates? And overlooked the netcode all by itself? Or simply just because the functionality of the weapons worked far better in terms of shooting, although the collision/hitboxes are very terrible?
Has it really gone to this point? To be honest i like the effort and the stuff you'd spent on this topic, Appreciated that, I don't really had much problem with the new netcode at all, However it bothers me when the bullet doesn't hit me but it kills me, I'm not sure if it does affects ping by the game's speed, Fair enough that this is a controversial topic, I also don't think the old multiplayer is used a lot its utterly dead because you have to complete 42 levels for that if i remember correctly.
Girl_Power wrote:Couldn't agree more. I appreciate the information and such but honestly, no one is ever going to read all of it.
Regarding your shitty statement, That didn't age well. You just think everything is not experienced to stuff such as this.
Assassian4 wrote:staff team bad, well not all of them. Mainly wasted time because of the whole thing about banning 5 people from the discord without reason.
That has nothing to do about this topic, I hope you learned your lesson, And there is a reason why he did that, Now he is calm. Oh wait, Didn't you got muted by Tempus for 14 days for still being the same after you got unbanned? Oh shame.
In the meanwhile, I think the old netcode is more fair imo.
Based on the video, please rethink about the new netcode.
Basically by judging with psychological feedback on the hit register, it is undeniable that both of the netcode method sucks. But if we had to pick one of them during PvP, I am assuredly sure that old netcode could bring less negative impact. Let's make a virtual situation:
Would you prefer your bullet seems hit somebody but nobody happens, or your bullet really hit somebody, then someone's body will "resurrect" and kills you then? Keep the answer to yourself, I don't need your answer.
In psychological methods of gaming purpose, both old and new netcodes are working as: Old netcode: graphically seems your bullet had hit someone -> but someone is not died and act like nothing -> 50% of chance you would tell yourself you didn't hit him meanwhile another 50% of chance you are "sure" that you really hit him. New netcode: graphically seems your bullet had hit someone -> someone died in your screen. -> 50% of chance you are actually hitting him and scored meanwhile another 50% of chance you are actually not hitting him -> if you are actually not hitting him, that guy will just resurrect like the video had shown.
(not even to mention that you would just died suddenly through the wall by railgun. This may enraged players more and having them rage quit.)
If I had money and chances I would instead bring the game developer to Asian countries to test it out the pain of the reality of new netcode.
Meanwhile, I had to included that the game theory has a wisdom sentence: " If there's a bug which haven't been fixed in few years, it will become a "unlisted feature." From 2012, selfboost and glitch through walls are exist, but since nobody even cares about them, then we would told all players that "selfboost" and "glitch through thin walls" are one of the features in PB2 in 2020. This same applies to old netcode. When all old veterans are used to be, suddenly a switch of new netcode would sadden more old veterans and bring down all the way. If game developer is trying to switching the new blood to replace all the old blood, which ranked PvP old veterans supporters, I have nothing to say.
In the other hand, I would hope that the next year the netcode may probably being changed again, whatever it will be moved in HTML5 or adobe cloud, but one thing I am sure is the netcode will drastically changed again. PB2 had transformed from a free to pay games until a "better ping to win" games, which I would say is harmful in game era.
There's too many examples of the games which died like this, one of the famous examples can clearly describe PB2 PvP changes is CSO in Korea.
CSO in zombie mode once had a "bug" which when you switch the axes and the rifles, it can deal unimaginable and illogical damage to the enemy, which had been 4 years before it was finally fixed. But as the day the server finally fixed that bug, most of the players are angry and left the game. Imagine putting this example into PB2. Even the old netcode are not really a "bug" that affects the game balance (as the starting game environment is there), but changing how the game is played dramatically will be a big no-no to updating the game.
But as we are talking to whole point, does new netcode really useless? I would say not really, but indeed useless in ranked maps.
Look at roleplay games, escape/traps series and parkour series. The new netcode are surely executed better for those other type of maps.
Role play can be more realistic as the new netcode comes in, it would not becoming "bullet hitting player but seems fine", then if we are killing a player in RP, even the player will resurrect shortly, video editing would cut those part out so we are fine to go.
Escape/traps and parkour series would have improved a few, or slightly better advantage for runners. We could say a trap is flying through the player, by the help of new netcode we can see that how the player escapes/glitches/crushed by the falling door trap better. Parkour series would handle the hitboxes much better, which you won't just suddenly glitched out by entities hitbox and fall to your death.
In a nutshell, those are part of my ideas about the new/old netcode comparison. As I stated before, I stand in old netcode feature and hopefully the old netcode feature will get back to his throne before we would have better ping/ server there, after that we will discuss them again.
I actually prefer the new netcode. Besides the weird deaths and resurrections that happen at times, I feel rewarded for hitting my shots. It's a bit of a learning curve for older players like myself, but I'm cool with adapting to things.
For a lot of people, they're so used to playing in the old way, and that's okay. Me personally, I don't mind the change and I think it's ultimately better for newer players who will aim directly at their enemies to kill them rather than "anticipate movement" like with the old netcode
Recently we are discovering and analyzing the method of how new server netcode works. It turns out it is using the nowaday's common fast paced syncing method, which we will be called "entity interpolation."
But the only problem is, after we have been experimenting on various environment and situation, we have found that this new netcode indeed has a big flaw system in there, which is the entity interpolation only applied on the players, but not those bullets.
Idk why eric would only make the entity interpolation thing halved progress without taking care of the bullets that player had shot will affect the PvP zone too. But this explains why most of the new players are love to adapt the new system, since they doesn't even touch PvP area, which heavily relies on bullets hitting people. Not only that, this would also explains why people will bang to their death although they are hiding behind the wall and the rails shoots that wall.
Overall, after we had discovered this observation, we had to conclude that new netcode can be agreed by veteran players only if eric will make the entity interpolation affects every single system and aspects. Otherwise, let's just stick back to old netcode then.
entity interpolation is a ideal situation to resolve ping difference for most fast paced famed shooting games, but only if the bullets are applied to the server.
Yeah, netcode ruined the MP, and I'm in the US. Also, barely anyone plays ranked mode, so I can't even get my 200 kills. Good work, you did your research. Might be better if you put the different sections in to spoilers. No one's giving you credit for using MLA format.
Me in my imagination: Complete and utter annihilation through superior volume of fire.
mingo1 wrote:I actually prefer the new netcode. Besides the weird deaths and resurrections that happen at times, I feel rewarded for hitting my shots. It's a bit of a learning curve for older players like myself, but I'm cool with adapting to things.
For a lot of people, they're so used to playing in the old way, and that's okay. Me personally, I don't mind the change and I think it's ultimately better for newer players who will aim directly at their enemies to kill them rather than "anticipate movement" like with the old netcode
The difference I see between the old netcode and the new one (and I have a lot of experience with both) is that in the old one we had the ability to dodge incoming fire with the cost of our hits not always landing. With the new netcode it is exactly the opposite. We can hit an enemy when we see them get hit but we can not dodge anymore. Personally, if I was new to this game and you asked me if I would rather being able to dodge but not hit sth for sure or if I want to be bale to hit sth for sure but not dodge, I would rather the dodging (and that is without taking in mind all the tanking and ressurections that occur to half of my hits).
Another thing I would like to add is that with the old netcode by properly timing a shot you could always kill an enemy regardless of their ping. With the new one there are times that whatever you do, no matter whether or not you hit someone, you will end up dead and your hit will be like it never happened.
No. Simply no, first of all, PB2 was never the game with the biggest competitive focus, we did not get Plazma League until years after release, nor proper ranked gameplay differenciation at first, the biggest focus of the game is obviously allowing people to do what they want with the level editor and that is what made the game alive, PB2 was never a game made to be competitive or really taken seriously, why would it have such a developed editor and so many possibilities and customization if the main focus is competitive play? where do you get this from? it is not even the most defining trait or popular aspect of the game, all of that goes to custom maps, which are by far the most popular aspect and correlates with every single other one, from clans back then, to some very interesting and different maps like traps, bases, etc, what made PB2 stand out is the fact you can do basically whatever you want within a community, and it also happens to have a competitive side to it, which is not the core trait of PB2, not a single person remembers PB2 as "haha yes that extremely nice competitive game", actual competitive games make modding and customization something very secondary compared to the game itself, or at times does not even allow it, CS GO, DOTA 2, League of Legends, as much as the first two have mods, they are very underground compared to the main focus, the competitive side of the game, and that is why e-sports exists. What differs PB2 from other flash games is how PB2 kept evolving, without Eric's help actually, people kept making new things and it's technologies kept evolving, competitive PB2 is extremely boring and literally the same as Raze and Strike Force Heroes, it is repetitive and basically the same thing, being mostly dependent on changing the maps to something else that is interesting, and also the fact it offers a lot of different styles fitting the preferences of different players, snipers, rails, arena maps, etc, that within the scope of approved ranked maps.
Statistic 1
Yes, PB2 does not get many new players, what flash games gets many new players? is PB2 Fortnite? is it a new Steam game? older games lose interest mostly when people have already tried them out and gotten bored of them, they can regain it by making... people play it again! updates, advertisement, PB2 does none of that AND PB2 is a flash game out of all things, you will not casually browse Steam and find PB2 there.
Statistic 2
When something new comes out, people have interest in it, then after they get used to it or already have experienced it, people lose interest, think of this as a GTA 5 update, there is a big boom of players when the update comes out, because new people play it because they have not experienced it, they buy the new things and all, then they get inactive, that is how it works for the vast majority of players, same can be said for DOTA 2 (which is a game that in general involves more long-term players because of it's nature), new patch? Battle Pass? The International? more players in, after a while, they leave.
Statistic 3
Useless, irrelevant, I literally only know one person you mention and barely, Auditore, and even then wouldn't say he is a legend, turns out that when you put your focus on the combat which is extremely linear and limited to whatever is allowed in approved maps, it gets boring! wow! if you check for something like mapmakers, it is much more rare for them to leave, when I talk about map makers I'm mostly talking about those who are creative and make interesting things, other than the generic approved maps or base maps, but they also leave, and this gets to other aspects which actually make PB2 lose players.
Conclusion
Correlation does not imply causation AKA cum hoc ergo propter hoc, and this also even fits post hoc ergo propter hoc to an extent, the new server caused a boom, then the boom went out, think of this as keynesian economics by the view of austrian/chicago economics, boom and bust, the update did not make people leave the game, it made more people come in and then leave, see? there is a big difference.
New multiplayer
Yes, it is unfair for those with high ping, while before, it was unfair for those who lower ping, wow! what an amazing change right? turns out the people who mostly complain about new syncing are those with higher ping! while back then those who complained about PB2 were those with low ping! see, what happens is that, in every single game, if you have high ping, you have the disavantage, not an advantage, the second part of this makes no sense, DOTA 2, CS GO, League of Legends, GTA 5, PUBG, even Fortnite, all of those games give an advantage to those with lower pings, turns out they have the money to pay for servers for their respective regions, I will use the example I know the most about, DOTA 2: in high MMR DOTA 2, if you are from SA, you have to play on the NA servers, because there is a very small amount of SA players and the way the game is structured makes it very hard for you to find a match or win since your team will be inferior, so the high MMR players play with pings of 100-200 in NA versus players with pings of 10-20, and DOTA is a game where miliseconds really matter, it is what allows you to manta dodge or hit some Invoker spells, and well, these people are in a disvantage, so what? if there ever is a higher amount of SA players, the problem will be solved, turns out that people in SA are bad compared to other regions, but this really only happens to the 0.01% of DOTA, like 6.5k+ MMR, PB2 does not have this, but PB2 has a even smaller playerbase and cannot pay for specific servers for regions, and if that happened the playerbase is too small, the problem is lack of resources, what happens now is just the people who have a disvantage, and I actually still disagree because high ping players can have an advantage because of their delay still, like killing you before you kill them, this is very common if you have a player with 150 ping versus a player with 300 ping, it also did not limit the tactics, if fixed abusive problems for those with high ping, as Eric talks about already in a reply to this as mrblake213 has shown us.
The Chronic Poison
Correlation does not imply causation AKA cum hoc ergo propter hoc, and this also even fits post hoc ergo propter hoc to an extent, AGAIN, but this one is actually inferior, see, people voted for ping limit, it used to be much lower, I believe at some point it was 150 and went up as time went by, I remember not being capable of playing ranked even in Washington where my ping was better back in 2014 at some point, and this also generates a big problem, the ping limit is unfair, is it better to have an active unfair ranked or a not so active fair ranked? turns out if it is unfair, those on the disvatangeous side will play less! wow! most of this really comes out of a small playerbase, it is not the faul of the netcode or anything, it is just that this is an old flash game, just read that, it is so obvious the cause of the problem is that, people simply do not get to know the game or get interested in it, while older users leave for other reasons I will mention later. At most we can say that older players (the majority of the playerbase, really, but older I mean 1 year or older, not extremely old) with high ping stopped playing ranke... but wait, they already couldn't, huh, see? the people who supposedly are affected ALREADY WERE AFFECTED BEFORE by the ping limit. And yes, ping limit is not relevant at all, as is the newnetcode, thing is, by saying the ping limit is irrelevant you also also saying that the new netcode focusing higher ping players is not relevant because they are the same people, and also keep in mind, how many players actually have a ping higher than 250? this is a very important statistic you do not mention and I think only Eric could have, in my experience it seems like an extremely small part of the game has that, another thing, increasing the ranked ping limit, did the target audience get to know that? information rules the world, you have to know a thing before you change your actions and behaviour, this is a thing I am unsure.
The unfair mechanism in current game situation
No, this makes 0 sense, "Because the game could be played in one standard", what the deliciously exquisite pizza sauce does this even mean? high ping players kept eating bullets and tanking everything and teleporting because of their bizarre syncing, they still do that but now they at least die, or maybe end up shooting you in the 0.25 seconds before they actually die, it is still unfair for low ping players but not unfair while giving an advantage to high ping players, the players flashing in their screens can also be correlated with internet speed and not purely ping (ping is the delay, but the connection quality is how constant this information is going to be), when ping is much more correlated with server distance than internet speed and quality.
The seemingly thrive of the game in the short period
This says literally nothing, for the majority of the part, people were not addicted to the old one, people were used to it, nostalgia and already developed skills come to mind, also how people are biased to remember good memories from the past over bad ones (this gets into a very complicated area).
Well, this really says nothing in general, now lets reply to some comments.
Kostadin 8 wrote:college level document for a 9 year old flash game
College level document for a 9 year old flash game (KOSTADIN, 2020), this shows how you have experience and knowledge when it comes to 9 year old flash games (PHSC, 2020).
Girl_Power wrote:Couldn't agree more. I appreciate the information and such but honestly, no one is ever going to read all of it.
Turns out I did read it all, unless the PDF differs.
Raiye wrote:someone with a brain!
Yes, this does not mention RP or map making, yes the new servers are better in the view of newer players because that is how every single game I know of other than PB2 works, not to mention how it makes something like hacking much more complicated (I did not try it in modern times, but back then it was quite easy to achieve), and yes updates and patches are the key to keeping a game alive (just look at DOTA, outaged the game it was a mod for, WC3).
r1k1 wrote:the current version is more like a real 9-year-old flash game
Objectively not.
Resurrectionn wrote:I agree to essentially all that was said. Unfortunately the netcode update ruined the game, which caused the game to become even more dead. However it's more or less too late to regain players lost even if the game was fixed.
It is all because of the update, sure, find my a single game that pulls out an update that changes how it's competitive side works like and did not lose players, and also bring me a flash game that has an active playerbase without porting to Steam or something.
Sniper J wrote:a ton of stuff
Yes, the new netcode is just one additional thing to the decline of this game, which began around 2014-2015, and now I will explain the real reason why the game lost a ton of players: technological evolution, information and common sense. Back then people had bad computers, and instead of playing Fortnite they went on flash game websites and played flash games, that is literally it, people age and go out of specific games, not always because they dislike it but also because of lack of time because of adult life, and other things they prefer over it. Yes, gameplay is not like what it used to be, that is how it works in every single game, but PB2 does not update your own screen based on the server, that is a waste of resources, so what happens is that you die when you should not, that is how lag works in basically every single game, it is literally like playing a game with a delay of 0.3 seconds, and that is how it should be, it makes sense, the problem is not the netcode, the problem is the servers, but then, how to get more and better servers? And yes, the decline is affected because people like being comfortable, it is like when 7.00 came out in DOTA, people stopped playing because of how big the changes were, long term the vast majority kept playing, Valve did change some things back to how they were though, PB2 was never about "skill" and more about "who can break the games syncing the most to get an advantage", old tricks that were actually pretty much bugs, the game had a higher skill cap but it does not mean it was better, and even then, the skill cap was still extremely low compared to other games, turns out 2D flash side view shooters are not the most amazing style of game when it comes to skill, and when skill is knowing obscure stuff that greatly depend on using bugs, is it really skill? is that fair? building a competitive scene based on abusing the game's engine? a lot of it is still ingame but not some of the absurd stuff, that makes the game pretty damn hard to get into and annoying, people forget about those who are new, you shoot a dude and he eats the bullet, that is very annoying, dying out of nowhere also is, but dying to a dude who ignores your bullets also is, there is no way to solve this, but PB2 now is much better if you ahve low ping, which you should have. And yes, there is no way to go back, and how does new players correlate to this? they are the ones who do not know the weird-ass tactics people somehow found out about, or did not play at low 20 or whatever, but you are right, it would not ressurect the game because the game is already "dead", and it was not the fault of the netcode, this entire correlation is fallacious and really, people just want their opinion to be better than others, saying that the game should be how they want, and not everybody says that, but people forget that a lot of your opinion comes from the past, and that you are used to how the game was, the only objective way to check for people's opinions would be to go back and add the new syncing since the start, turns out that is impossible, this is a big problem with scientifical research correlating with things that are about human opinion, the book Problems of economics and sociology by Carl Menger greatly shows that, they are not scientififcal fields because of how you cannot check for a thing twice, you cannot simulate it and even if you do, the individual aspects of each person is too hard to deal with, which kind of makes this post a joke for those who know about such book. But back to the topic, yes, the game has been dying for years, just like every other game, and Eric did not add it to Steam like, let's say, ROTMG did it, and now the playerbase is small with a low income, PB2.5/3 might solve that, who knows. Keep in mid I am a 220 ping player, who used to eat bullets a lot and abused syncing and other things, and I never really had fun with PB2 as a competitive game, and I can say that the game is better now, it is not my preference but trying to be objective about it, it is a better game, it does not benefit me as much, but why should that be the biggest of all problems?
Zemai wrote:a ton of stuff
Pretty much the same as Sniper J said at first, the points that talk about changes in the mechanics of the games and a drop of players shows that people are just used to the game and do not want it to change, turns out that when you have been playing a game for years and it changes, the reason you were playing might not apply anymore, routine? being used to it? nostalgia? who knows, again this goes back to "people have formed their opinions based on past data which is often seen as more positive than it actually was", this happens with basically everything, DOTA 2 before 7.00 and before the Reborn update, everybody says it was nice, while if you think about it, DOTA 2 is a much better game, and if it released like it currently is back then, it would have had less complaints, the problem is that people already formed their opinions and are used to the past. This mentions the staff team which is a big topic which I agree with, it is a part of the problem, but I do not think that talking about this in the forums is the way to go, it realy comes down to the nature of PB2 and some other things, PB2 being analyzed by a Hayekian perspective on natural order and similar stuff, Taxis and Cosmos as he puts it, explains PB2 very well, and staff is core to it, kind of how Hayek and economics work related to social aspects, I could make a gigantic post explaining that but 3 people are going to read and understand, this comes from Law, Legislation and Liberty which develops on the topic from The Road of Serfdom which might have been what got Hayek his nobel prize. And the rest you mention I already replied to.
Assassian4 wrote:staff bad
Yes, but not like that, it is more about a higher level of analysis, Wasted is just a part of the system, the problem is not Wasted, the problem is the entire system, this gets very complicated.
Lord Blue Blood wrote:ton of stuff 2
Yes, changes made people leave, I already talked about htis, PP, physics, even the FPS and high/low physics changes caused people to leave, a big thing to mention, just because people in Asia could not play and Asia has a big population, it does not mean the biggest amount of people who could not play PB2 were from Asia, this is a false correlation which depends on data which I did not check, this might be true, but it is not true per-se because of the correlation. Yes, higher criteria constantly being set for ranked maps, should it be a problem? that is something that supposedly makes the game more fair and about "skill" at the same time or whatever, this gets to a more complicated topic which is Approval Criteria which there are also many problems in. And yes, PB2 is going to die, like every single game will die at some point, not adding it to more popular platforms was a big aspect to it, Eric owns the game and his decision is what really matters, if he did not want to do it, the game is his, he does not make money out of it pretty much and works on it for his personal reasons which as far as I know are noble in the way I see them, the game dying should not be the biggest of problems for him.
Acelammy wrote:ton of stuff v3.0 whatever im losing count rn
Yes, ROTMG was saved but not so much by natural problems of the game and instead marketing and approach to the audience, the biggest aspect being the port to Steam and advertisement and actually getting people to know about it, constant updates are a thing I already mentioned and it is core to keep a game alive, DOTA 2 being the best example of that outliving the original game it came from, selling the game would change too much and the audience is used to a non-monetary system and it would change the entire audience of the game and that would not be good for pretty much anyone in the current community, but it would make for a "better game", but not in the eyes of Eric, and he probably would not do that and I agree with him that he should not. The game does get a ton of updates but mostly to the level editor, which again brings me to my point, what made PB2 a successful flash game was not the ranked matches, yet the custom matches and the level editor, the way both of these things correlated with each other has to do with the decline of one over the other but this gets to approval criteria and many other things. Campaign changing is irrelevant, custom single player maps exist for a reason. Appeal to new players is a thing I talked a lot about in this reply. The points about custom maps is true, this is why people end up spamming many maps which are the same, paul308-base is popular because the 11 year olds who create such match do not get to know about other bases, this is a big problem once the playerbase gets small, distribution of information within PB2 for its target audience. The points about ping and meta are... weird? ok so... netcode is nonsense and I agree, the game changes, this is still correlated to people leaving but not the decline of the game itself, and yes, it always was unfair because people did not get servers close to them, but still, if with 300 ping someone tanks and kills everyone, why should they play at a server where their ping is 50? this would generate this problem, the new netcode would solve it, but it is a thing that came to existance too late. Advertisement is also a problem, this is because of the way Eric handles the game. The game does not feel clunky because of flash by itself, this is a false correlation. Not changing controls is a true problem, but I've never seen someone complain about it, I think it is possible to change controls by hacking or modding (back then swf modding worked without getting you banned and that would be much easier to do than using other programs like Cheat Engine to change something like keybinds). Plazma Burst 2 did not die in 2017, the definition of death and the date where it happens is completely arbitrary and pointless, in general the game has been going to a decline and the game has around 2.5% of the players it had around 8 years ago, that is pretty dead to me, but this is not an objective discussion and just a pointless semantics argument after its conclusion.
Krutz wrote:someone with a brain 2
The game is very bad for competitive purposes, the skill cap is low and when it comes to abusing things that were not intentional because of the game being poorly made, it is not the most skill based thing since there are many aspects that are extremely hard to control, such as FPS (not the limit, but the actual amount you run at), ping and internet quality, the pick your poison thing is true as I have already explained, PB2 is indeed irrelevant but it could've not been if Eric changed his approach, he does not want to and I do not think anyone is going to change his mind on that mostly after all this time. And this document is very weird but I think it is because the people behind it are like chinese or something???
QiLinXD wrote:content
The data loss was not the biggest aspect to kill the game, at most it deliciously exquisite pizza sauce people who were affected by it but inactive at the time, but yeah, it is one aspect. There is no real death time, it is like defining life or if abortion is wrong, or what is the age of consent, all of these things are arbitrary by its nature because they are language games after all, read the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein. stryde-sniper is popular because it is a map people like and people know about, why is that wrong? it is like saying that just because only one product survives in a market it is the reason other products do not exist, it is not the fault of the products, it is the fault of the people and those behind the products, propaganda, information is the key to everything, get people to know about your maps and magic will happen, but of course stryde-sniper is now extremely well known because back then people liked it and that pattern continued. A lot of the stuff in this specific post makes very little sense and are hard to understand, that name seems chinese, also what is up with the weird emotes??
Kiriakos Gr96 wrote:he likes old netcode!
As far as I remember you ping is decently high, those with higher pings are going to prefer the old system naturally because of how it was advantageous for them. The teleporting aspect can be fixed if we make PB2 purely about syncing with the server, you send information and the information updates for you after, just like CS GO or DOTA 2 does, but the problem is that, not only it requires better servers, it makes higher ping values much, much inferior, another thing nobody talks about in PB2 is packet loss and the quality of the packages (as in, packet loss as not a false dichotomy), which generates many of such lag problems. And yes, the game is better for custom maps in general, because the new syncing is much more server dependent and less user dependent, which is really, a joke when you think about it, a game that depends mostly on the user than the server? that is multiplayer??? pff, what could go wrong...
Lord Blue Blood wrote:old netcode better
The idea for a map for people with ping higher than a value could work, it is pretty ridiculous in my opinion, but it can be a suggestion and Eric could be open to that, suggest it to him.
Krutz wrote:p much saying the same thing he said before
That intuitive nature is natural because basically all games are like that, when a game glitches like when people get CS GOed, people get very mad, in PB2 this was quite normal, respecting the perspective of the shooter is how games in general work and that is why it is intuitive, at first it comes from the fact it is easier to program and in general from a game design point makes more sense, that is why the market said that is how things should be and why it became intuitive, the rest of the points made in this reply have been made by me already, comparing to other games etc, how the servers suck, etc...
The Demian wrote:someone with a brain 3
Yes, the biggest aspect is not the game itself and instead life, but also... why would they play PB2? DOTA 2 has a very old playerbase with players over 40 being decently common, because of DOTA 1 and Garena and all, people still kept playing DOTA when they were able to, DOTA also offers another service which is watching matches instead of playing, which is the most popular aspect, does that happen with PB2? no, DOTA is still a very fun game that is hard to get repetitive (because of how multiple variables change in every match), just like League of Legends, PB2 does not fit that, it is very repetitive after all.
king4k wrote:ton of stuff
Tactics, huh. The new netcode is not better in widespread, it gives an advantage to those far away, and because of how physics worked back then and other aspects made in general the game much more weird even for those with lower ping, allowing even them to eat some bullets, is this better? this is literally a failure from a game design point of view, imagine CS GO like that, or Rainbow Six Siege like that, isn't it ridiculous? Pre-aim was used, ok, should it be used? yes because there is bullet air time, but used like it was? how the deliciously exquisite pizza sauce are you supposed to get to know the values? trying them out and adapting to every player? isn't it ridiculous? this brings another point, internet and ping are not stable nor static, which means that the pre-aim could change, and for some users it did, and yes the fact the game is local is a bit bizarre, both netcodes are ridiculous and it should be purely based on the server as I have said, player positions being based on it, but then high ping players would keep teleporting not only in their own screen but also in the screen of enemies, making it unplayable, that is what happens in DOTA 2 and as far as I know in CS GO as well, and pretty much every decent multiplayer game. The server movement update thing would also be solved by what I mentioned, but back then those with high ping would still teleport, or move to places they were not in, making it actually even more confusing and bizarre, so what is the real problem? From 2011 to 2020*, is this some reactionary PB2 thing? the game is objectively better from a game design point of view, but not a "I have played this game for years and now it changed!" view, this is the equivalent of being a boomer in PB2, "music was better back then!" equivalent of PB2, and even then, what do you guys expect? for Eric to change that even considering he did not change until now? he made some very valid points which I agree with.
Star Fox McCloud wrote:uuh
Illusions of gameplay versus teleporting and dying when you should not (only if your ping is high in the second case), which is better and less confusing? huh? MAKE PB2 GREAT AGAIN The new netcode is better for newer players as I have already explained, also more intuitive, so it makes sense for it to be the one unlocked by default.
TheMeteor wrote:wow
Ok buddy, I started playing when I was 10-11, and now I am 18, you can still play, it will just be like every other single game in existance pretty much, go make maps, I think that is where the real fun of this game is at, also remember, custom maps exist.
mrblake213 wrote:eric stuff
Eric making actual great points from a more objective game design point, because he actually has an idea of what he is doing, not to mention that the ressurecting players problem seems to be much, much less common after some netcode updates happened, it is the best netcode by far, but still not better, the problem is the reactionary view PB2 have of games they keep playing because they are used to it or nostalgia.
star Fox McCloud wrote:some story with no evidence behind it
And how would that differ in the older netcode? this actually does not happen in the new netcode and I have a ping of 220, which is pretty damn high and I used to eat a lot of bullets back then, what you are saying makes no sense, back then that would also happen but much worse really, I have a video where some dude glitched so hard he literally was not syncing the fact I was holding a weapon, it was bizarre. Also nobody plays old MP so no, it did not affect it.
chaos dragon wrote:content
Completing 42 levels is ridiculous, yes, it should be unlocked by default, or maybe limited by the ingame account level feature at least? over the campaign at least??? And staff is part of this, mostly how Eric handles the community, it is part of what happened to PB2 and why it died, but not the core reason, it is relevated, but yeah, Assassian4 took it personally and in a weird way, but staff is part of the problems.
yi en wrote:weird ass video
Ok, now, let me show you a thing, first keep in mind I have already told Eric about this, this was an experiment on hacking the game, I told him the method I did it, it was a private match (approved map, however) and it seems to have been fixed, but the hacking is irrelevant to the issue, the big problem is the lag, this dude was playing in another dimension, his ping was not even that high, but the focus on his own syncing literally basically did not allow me to damage him, which is extremely bizarre.
That video is from 2015, the hacking does not cause the syncing issues, the fact I was taking damage is another issue but ignore that, that dude constantly ate bullets even if I was not hacking, I just did that so it was possible to record because the kid was retarded, that kind of problem is impossible in the new netcode, and as far as I know, that form of hacking as well. The new netcode is infinitely better, it makes hacking, and abusing the game's physics much harder, as well as fixing many absurd syncing problems of the old netcode, the ressurection problem seems to have been fixed or is at least very rare in my experience. The psychological part of your post makes no sense, why 50%???? where do you get that from??? wtf??? it is so arbitrary, it is a case-by-case analysis not something generalized, it depends on the specific situation, it is not a 50/50 thing, wtf? Same goes for the new netcode, this makes no sense, in my experience the new netcode does not suffer from that kind of problem, and not to mention how the new netcode made other style of maps better, other than approved ranked ones, nobody mentions that, also just because a thing was not fixed it does not mean they are a feature, that is literally a meme within the DOTA 2 community, things only get fixed when they generate competitive problems in the game, like the Fountain Hook that pretty much allowed Na'Vi to not be eliminated by Tong Fu in The International, it was a feature since DOTA 1, really, it is not a feature, flying was a feature in PB2, as well as moving foward and backward fast so it would look like you are in a position you are not, is that a feature? SHOULD IT BE A FEATURE? see, this falls by Hume's Guillotine, this is a SHOULD BE discussion, normative, not DESCRIPTIVE, and such game features such as self boosting are DESCRITIVE, this is obviously false since your proposition is a NORMATIVE + DESCRIPTIVE, which generates that amazing thing called opinion, not a factual or objective claim, so what about it? and yes the netcode is going to be updated and it should be. In DOTA 2 you could move towers, it took a while to be fixed, but it was, in DOTA 2 every time there is an update that changes Morphling or Rubick something breaks, and at times it takes time to realize a thing broke, is it negative? same goes to how the way damage was being calculated for some skills was a problem, or the values shown were different, is it a feature??? it is literally a meme in the game for a reaso. I agree with the part about the new netcode being better for custom maps (the vast majortiy of maps played, by the way), the rest of what you write on the topic of the custom maps makes no sense probably because of your english skills.
mingo1 wrote:his opinion
I prefer the new netcode at the moment because I don't play ranked, I am obviously on the spectrum of people that do not get an advantage anymore because of high ping, and since I always had a pretty good computer I always had good syncing on my part, which is a thing people often forget that greatly affects the game, as well as a good internet connection (lag is not only ping!), it is a learning curve and people do not want to adapt to modern times, the problem is that, the new netcode is much better for many people and other things, and well, the veterans can still play the older netcode... so why is this even a problem?
yi en wrote:entity interpolation
You realize how complicated it would be to apply the entity interpolation to every single bullet right? also how it would be complicated for the servers to run that as well. And why is it a big problem that it does not apply to bullets? and are you sure it does not apply to some styles of bullets? grenades? and the part about PvP is completely irrelevant since... people actually do have a problem with that, but the vast majority of people who play the game do not, but those in this discussion do care! Also what do you consider a veteran player? evidence that the bullets are not affected by that? you did not actually show evidence that what you are saying is true, which in my experience playing the game makes me doubt it since what I have experienced goes agaisn't that, in general, mostly considering how entity interpolation should make teleporting extremely rare? this video shows it quite well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoexBWfjWUg
The comments I did not reply to are kind of irrelevant of have been replied to before pretty much, I imagine nobody is going to read my entire reply but this was bothering me because there is so much wrong with this post I think, I guess thats all.
First of all the "bullet eating" is worse than ever. In the old multiplayer there could be tanking but there was always a spot where you could shoot and hit the enemy regardless of how high or spiky their ping. Now since we are talking about the new netcode and tanky people, the other day I met a guest that tanked EVERYTHING I fired at him for 4 minutes straight before he lagged out. And it was not just that one time. It happens commonly when someone spikes and there is nothing one can do to hit them. I never had such a problem with the old netcode.
As for the ressurectiong thing, I assure you that about half the people I kill in ranked ressurect, so that issue is nowhere near fixed. Of course I am a player with high ping (like the majority of players) but having someone ressurect is, imo, is worse than the enemy tanking (especially when in the old netcode you could hit tanks with some weird ways).
The new netcode update has been favourable on my side. Before the netcode update, there would always be a 2 second delay on my end, enabling me to kill other players by predicting their movement while their bullets couldnt register on my hitbox, giving me unfair advantage. However, as i understand for others, the update seem unfavourable. IMO, this netcode update was to bring the balance for both high ping low ping players. I think Eric didnt want to create a huge difference in lag for those with higher ping.
To summarise, prior to the update, higher ping players get a huge advantage in match. Although after the update, there are occasions that players with close to 1k ping teleports everywhere and kills u while ur bullet cant register on them. But overall i do experience a fairer gameplay, So i do think its a good attempt to balance the lag factor in the game.
yi en wrote:I would like to throw some 2 cents upon this one.
Credit to Pixelbyte for the footage.
Based on the video, please rethink about the new netcode.
Basically by judging with psychological feedback on the hit register, it is undeniable that both of the netcode method sucks. But if we had to pick one of them during PvP, I am assuredly sure that old netcode could bring less negative impact. Let's make a virtual situation:
Would you prefer your bullet seems hit somebody but nobody happens, or your bullet really hit somebody, then someone's body will "resurrect" and kills you then? Keep the answer to yourself, I don't need your answer.
In psychological methods of gaming purpose, both old and new netcodes are working as: Old netcode: graphically seems your bullet had hit someone -> but someone is not died and act like nothing -> 50% of chance you would tell yourself you didn't hit him meanwhile another 50% of chance you are "sure" that you really hit him. New netcode: graphically seems your bullet had hit someone -> someone died in your screen. -> 50% of chance you are actually hitting him and scored meanwhile another 50% of chance you are actually not hitting him -> if you are actually not hitting him, that guy will just resurrect like the video had shown.
(not even to mention that you would just died suddenly through the wall by railgun. This may enraged players more and having them rage quit.)
If I had money and chances I would instead bring the game developer to Asian countries to test it out the pain of the reality of new netcode.
Meanwhile, I had to included that the game theory has a wisdom sentence: " If there's a bug which haven't been fixed in few years, it will become a "unlisted feature." From 2012, selfboost and glitch through walls are exist, but since nobody even cares about them, then we would told all players that "selfboost" and "glitch through thin walls" are one of the features in PB2 in 2020. This same applies to old netcode. When all old veterans are used to be, suddenly a switch of new netcode would sadden more old veterans and bring down all the way. If game developer is trying to switching the new blood to replace all the old blood, which ranked PvP old veterans supporters, I have nothing to say.
In the other hand, I would hope that the next year the netcode may probably being changed again, whatever it will be moved in HTML5 or adobe cloud, but one thing I am sure is the netcode will drastically changed again. PB2 had transformed from a free to pay games until a "better ping to win" games, which I would say is harmful in game era.
There's too many examples of the games which died like this, one of the famous examples can clearly describe PB2 PvP changes is CSO in Korea.
CSO in zombie mode once had a "bug" which when you switch the axes and the rifles, it can deal unimaginable and illogical damage to the enemy, which had been 4 years before it was finally fixed. But as the day the server finally fixed that bug, most of the players are angry and left the game. Imagine putting this example into PB2. Even the old netcode are not really a "bug" that affects the game balance (as the starting game environment is there), but changing how the game is played dramatically will be a big no-no to updating the game.
But as we are talking to whole point, does new netcode really useless? I would say not really, but indeed useless in ranked maps.
Look at roleplay games, escape/traps series and parkour series. The new netcode are surely executed better for those other type of maps.
Role play can be more realistic as the new netcode comes in, it would not becoming "bullet hitting player but seems fine", then if we are killing a player in RP, even the player will resurrect shortly, video editing would cut those part out so we are fine to go.
Escape/traps and parkour series would have improved a few, or slightly better advantage for runners. We could say a trap is flying through the player, by the help of new netcode we can see that how the player escapes/glitches/crushed by the falling door trap better. Parkour series would handle the hitboxes much better, which you won't just suddenly glitched out by entities hitbox and fall to your death.
In a nutshell, those are part of my ideas about the new/old netcode comparison. As I stated before, I stand in old netcode feature and hopefully the old netcode feature will get back to his throne before we would have better ping/ server there, after that we will discuss them again.
About that video could your friend see chat? If not he probably had the immortality bug.
nightmar wrote:About that video could your friend see chat? If not he probably had the immortality bug.
Uhh, you may ask pixelbyte for that, for that statement I am just using his video as support of why new netcode is worse/ or at least same shit as old netcode.
im tired of this game now you see why new netcode 20 players terrible community and same maps over and over again i kind regret knowing about this game and searching "plazma" 6 or more years ago in flash games site
but yeah new netcode makes everything worse people are killing you after they died on your screen or resurecting or what ever you can imagine i just got new computer month ago and i dont see any sense in playing this garbage but still sometimes im playing it mostly because im bored of what i allready did
when pb3 will come out this game will have special pleace in my heart
My purpose makes more sense when i look at insanity around that world
When it comes to topics like this, i'd like to be broaden the scope of the topic, i agree with pshc and had to especially point out how Yi en and phsc are the only ones i read to actually consider pb2 on a bigger scale, or what it essentially is. That is, outside the competitive environment or just the pvp in general.
From what I see, people who strongly dislike the new netcode seems to have a long background with the competitive environment. Though, i think of myself as more of a casual guy, i could personally care less about the change systematically. But i'd be lying if either netcodes doesn't bring me any stress of any kind.
Ping itself, is an inherent problem, as phsc already said, that isn't going to be easily fixed by some new or old netcode, it's a fundamental problem. I won't repeat what pshc already said regarding that as he already made a good point.
Phsc is also right that this isn't a competitive game at its core. I don't think he disagrees that pb2 can't be a competitive game from what i read and i think can be competitive as well, it already had a decent potential when it comes to skill level, and i don't think the learning curve is too difficult for new players to do. It had potential, i didn't say it became fruitful.
But that shouldn't be the only emphasis that people should put on. I think casual gameplay is more valuable than the competitive scene since that's what i think that is most of the community are. In my pb2 maps genre, very crappily laid out i know but pvp is only a third of the mp genres. And the campaign genre itself is extremly dominant in the sp scene. The remaining being RP and obstacle courses.
Also yeah, pb2's death can be concluded to just the game getting old. It's kind of obvious why we can't get next generation players at a decent rate, there is no advertisement, it's a cancelled flash game (old flash sites now require you to download their respective launchers to run flash games), it's never ported to steam, people are just simply unlikey to know this game exists. The only way the game is going to get known is through word of mouth, and that form of advertisement is just going to get inherently slow. And the decline is also natural, it's been 11 years now, everyone's going to get bored eventually, and the updates also stagnated.
Lastly, wut is this topic supposed to be? It's titled "Appeal to pb2" but every single brain cell of the ppl who replied to this either talked about netcode or the death if pb2. I thought this would be a why pb2 was good or smth given the title.
No matter how the discussions are going, the current status and changes made by Lin would be a neutral solution for both sides. Making old netcode as exposure as the new netcode ones, letting all new players trying that out, and we would get the result in no time.
Surprisingly this thread still got some responses, but for now, if Plazma Burst 2 is transforming itself from PvP-based scroll shooter games into 2D-Roblox typed games (not judging, but Roblox somehow made a lot of recognizable reputation and it's a good transformation imo), this thread will become useless at some point.
But hey, as the new changes upon the multiplayer system doesn't get a lot of objections, we could consider it done... right...?