Command latency, revisited

Alright, I think there's still a noticeable command latency that's quite detrimental to the game, especially at competitive levels of play. It's something that really contributes to a high level of frustration if you're trying to dodge grenades, manoeuvring vehicles and repositioning/retreating weapon crews.

Basically I did some testing on command latency using FRAPS, and I found that I have a latency of around 600 ms from when I issue a move order until my squad starts moving. Over half a second!

Initially I thought this was because I was from Europe, but I then did some testing with a game that similarly relies on battle servers. I did a comparison with Starcraft, where I connected to the korean SC2 battle server. My ping to the korean server is 250-280 ms. However, my command lag was only 400 ms.

But in CoH2, with a ping of 140ms to the battle servers, I have a command latency of nearly 600 ms!?

This seems to point at a horrible latency problem in CoH2 multiplayer net code (single player is fine and very responsive).

My testing would also seem to indicate that even east coast american players would have a command lag of 500 ms. This is A LOT, consider the fact that this is half of the grenade timer?

Some might say that it's not a big problem because CoH2 is largely about strategy, but I disagree. In my opinion CoH2 is a very micro-intensive game, where small mistakes or late reaction have huge consequences. In my opinion micro means much more in CoH2 than in other games such as SC2, where macro plays a bigger role. If CoH2 wants to be taken seriously as a competitive game, I really think this is something that needs to be addressed.

TL;DR:
CoH2 has a command latency above 1/2 second, no matter location. It's too much and detrimental to gameplay.

So what was the latency when playing offline? I'm also a bit sceptical about your method of measuring command lag.

I share your problem. I just did a match vs AI and didn't witness even a single bit of command delay. Online the delay is about 300ms.

So what was the latency when playing offline? I'm also a bit sceptical about your method of measuring command lag.

I measured it by counting the frames from when the command was given (green command animation appears) until the troops starts moving. I record at 30 frames per second. I measured a latency of 17 frames, which is equal to 570 ms.

When playing offline the command latency is around 1-2 frames, which is equal to 50-70 ms. The difference is quite substantial, and it was measured in exactly the same way offline and online.

it depends on your connection to the battle servers, which are in new york.

it depends on your connection to the battle servers, which are in new york.

I know. As I say in my post, my ping to the battle server is 140 ms. There's quite a way from that to a command latency of 600 ms though.

Recall that I also tried SC2 on korean servers, and had only a command latency of 400 ms, despite a ping of 250 ms.

This leads me to believe that even US east coast players should have a command latency of nearly 1/2 second. Would be nice to get some hard numbers from the US though, if someone were willing to try it out.

i think sc2 servers artificially bumps up everyones latency by/to x latency to help give everyone closer ping. i forgot the exact details but i remember hearing that.

i don't know if the battle servers do this as well.

i think sc2 servers artificially bumps up everyones latency by/to x latency to help give everyone closer ping. i forgot the exact details but i remember hearing that.

i don't know if the battle servers do this as well.

Yes, SC2 does this. In fact, because of this I have the same command latency on the US and EU SC2 servers, namely 300 ms. This is about half of my CoH2 latency.

This again points out that it likely doesn't have anything to do with location or distance, but instead the net code in use. Basically, it seems like something that Relic could fix.

I have a very strong feeling, based on my knowledge of network principles that measurments are not being completed correctly. I am east coast american and my latency is small enough that it does not have an effect on my abilty.

If you ping the battle server, that gives you only the data regarding the round trip time for the data to travel. So why can your latency be higher than your ping? Other variables include things like the method of processing the information in the game in a network environment. How many servers are there? You can imagine that the server will likely add a delay dynamically based upon it's load at the time. If I understand the way the game works, it cannot proceed with processing new events until all data from each player is received, meaning that your game still runs at the speed of the slowest player. The response may also grow as the game goes on, with the increasing size of the data transmitted (although the data is of a small size, it might be possible that it cannot be sent all at once and that part of it will need to be resent, such a scenario would result in the doubling of your ping or more).

That said, I'll try to pay extra attention to it, I was also frustrated with long online delays, but recent changes they made in the software as well as the addition of the battle servers has really made the experience pretty good for me. I'm not suggesting you be ignored, but reporting that it's not the case for all players, myself included in that.