Default Client Feature Requests

[shubla]

Yes, of course game uses UDP protocol for client-server iterations, TCP is too slow for games.
It's really ultra laggy
Have you tried to ping game server? game.havenandhearth.com

I am actually a game programmer and I know that TCP is not slow. It only can be slow on bad or very slow connection, where as problem is far worse on UDP actually. Nowdays people have 100MB+ internet connections and choice of UDP will always be weird.

I think there are some reasons to use UDP, like real time voice transmission etc. no point in sending the data more than once. But with a game like HnH I don't think it would matter too much even if TCP was just being used for everything. I can't recall exactly but HnH has some kind of TCP-like thing on top of UDP anyways, at least for some messaging.

IIRC QUIC protocol originates from this idea.

It's not that UDP would be "better", and used because of that, but because of compatibility.

[MagicManICT]

There's some stats around about what the average connection rate is around the world. It's nowhere close to 100 Mb. If you only look at first world countries, it is probably closer, but still not there.

As far as UDP vs TCP... there are some very good discussions out there on network engineering and protocols to use. I'm not sure either of you can give a good rundown of the advantages and disadvantages of which protocols should be used. FWIW, TCP used to be terribly slow, but that was back in dial-up and early broadband days where top connections were only about 1 Mbps.

[ghandhikus]

I'm glad we are discussing client issues and mods are not jumping on a band wagon

[loftar]

Seems like some packet when undelivered would just be skipped

The server does of course do timely retransmissions in cases of lost packets. I can't really tell from just the video exactly what your connectivity problem is, but it certainly does exist; that is not normal behavior, and it really does look like a network issue, with all the periods of no activity followed by "catching up", whereas in case of server lag the game would rubberband back instead, and if the whole client were lagging, frames wouldn't keep getting produced. It also doesn't look like individual packets getting dropped, because that wouldn't block all activity as seems to happen in the video, only that activity contained in those specific packets. It looks like there are periods during which all packets are dropped.

As for the whole UDP vs. TCP issue, it's not at all about TCP or UDP being generally faster or slower (they aren't). Rather, the reason the game protocol uses UDP instead of TCP is to avoid unnecessary head-of-line issues. For instance, dropped object deltas can be ignored if an updated delta is available instead, and there's no reason for packet loss on one object to cause head-of-line blocking for other objects, or between protocol sub-functions.

I have noted that there seem to exist NAT routers which display some weird (yet unidentified) problems with UDP. Maybe that can be related to your problem? Just a wild guess.

[ghandhikus]

I've diagnosed the problem over 24 hours yesterday, and it seems like some lanes in UK have problem with congestion of UDP packets. They either don't arrive or they just arrive all the same time after a while. So pinging won't show me any connection issues even though packets are being held hostage at some point. Probably related to sending many small packets. Might be worth trying to combine some packets every 10-50ms into one packet instead. I only ever had this problem with streaming data over UDP so I can't tell where could be an issue here.

Hope you can make the client itself playable, don't try to focus on connection issues. I'm just mad at mobs range not showing.

[kirion]

Yep the default client need much love, especially now since most custom clients have been abandoned. Maybe if the def client was more newbie friendly, we'd retain more players over time, too.

What I'd like in the default client :
- Camera options, without using the console (seriously, i hate the default client's camera -- why does it have to snap to one of 4 direction? An option to not snap would be all i'd need imo); (EDIT: found out after YEARS of playing that you could do the console command ":cam ortho -f" and have it that way, i.e. no snapping. That's nice!)
- Toggleable plant growth indicator;
- Shift+click to quickly move something between containers;
- A bunch of key shortcuts from Amber, in fact (won't list them all here);
- Resizeable minimap;
- Aggressive mobs indicator;

And that's all for a start.

I cannot overstate the importance of QoLs in the default client.

[ghandhikus]

Black screen for like 10 seconds and badger decides its a good idea to start attacking. No spawn protection from animals. I couldn't even react due to loading on start

[Shadow7168]

Having a box on stockpiles/smelters etc. where you can take/add x number of things would be super nice and save a bunch of clicking. right now it's retarded either having to a) click 80 times(filling charcoal kiln) or b)quickly make a macro to do what should be a 2 click action.
it's what i miss most from custom clients

[linkfanpc]

Black screen for like 10 seconds and badger decides its a good idea to start attacking. No spawn protection from animals. I couldn't even react due to loading on start

Spawn protection from animals would be horrifically stupid.

Black screen definitely seems like an internet issue on your part.

Generally you can still move via minimap when that happens (used to be how i avoided it back when i used 200Kb/s internet)

[ghandhikus]

Spawn protection from animals would be horrifically stupid.

Black screen definitely seems like an internet issue on your part.

Generally you can still move via minimap when that happens (used to be how i avoided it back when i used 200Kb/s internet)

I literally only heard the sounds of me being hit and there was no UI. So I don't know what you are talking about.

Edit: There is a reason why albion online has bubbles on every map move, but when abused it's gone. It's technical and gameplay reasons, you shouldn't just spawn in the middle of fight or get in the fight before you can even react

Edit2: literally a few hours later this happens https://youtu.be/Tlc9Mp6IgK0