Game Freeze Followed by Fast Forward

I've stopped getting horrible freezez on 2v2, what I did was switching with my AT mate on who was hosting the games.

Now the fun part:

He got the freezes now thou not half as sever as mine old ones.

This problem first started after the march deployment patch, haven't seen a fix since - but it's not happening as often as it used to back then, at least for me that is.

This problem first started after the march deployment patch, haven't seen a fix since - but it's not happening as often as it used to back then, at least for me that is.

Didn't they introduce the battle servers then? In March?

Indeed after the March patch, it started to happen. I have 8gb of ram and play bf4 and warthunder on ultra with a ping of 15-30 in EU servers and and a ping of 70 in Russian servers.

The freezes happen in offline modes, replays and battles against cpus as well. This isn't a case of bad internet with almost every player, it isn't client side, it is something with the game!

Time for Relic to give a statement about that issue.

Read the thread guys: From page 2.

There is a thread about this over on our own forums - http://community.companyofheroes.com/forum/company-of-heroes-2/company-of-heroes-2-general-discussion/company-of-heroes-2-bug-reporting/86369-game-is-getting-outright-unplayable-again-due-to-lag

The devs told me that what you're seeing is due to the fact that they added reconnects to the battle server. So if for some reason you got disconnected, you are no longer kicked from the game, but get re-connected automatically. That’s why your game will freeze and speed up to catch-up with everyone else. Previously in these cases, you would have simply been disconnected from the game but now can continue playing.

We're looking into adding messaging to communicate this. But also want to investigate this further. Anyone that can provide dxdiags, replays and warnings logs - please let me know. It goes a long way in helping them diagnose things.

Thanks!

So think of it this way, any time this freeze happens, it's when a sync error would've occurred.

Which, imo, is still an incredible issue. But I honestly believe it has to do with matchmaking. People are being matched up from across the globe in a very suboptimal manner right now for a variety of reasons. For instance, having two to six players spread across the continental United States along with a player from Germany and a player from Korea is bound to cause extensive connection issues.

There is a thread about this over on our own forums - http://community.companyofheroes.com/forum/company-of-heroes-2/company-of-heroes-2-general-discussion/company-of-heroes-2-bug-reporting/86369-game-is-getting-outright-unplayable-again-due-to-lag

The devs told me that what you're seeing is due to the fact that they added reconnects to the battle server. So if for some reason you got disconnected, you are no longer kicked from the game, but get re-connected automatically. That’s why your game will freeze and speed up to catch-up with everyone else. Previously in these cases, you would have simply been disconnected from the game but now can continue playing.

We're looking into adding messaging to communicate this. But also want to investigate this further. Anyone that can provide dxdiags, replays and warnings logs - please let me know. It goes a long way in helping them diagnose things.

Thanks!

It's a good change, of course, but there's no reason for the freeze to also freeze your camera movement and client-side functionality. In that sense it is, unfortunately, poorly implemented. The actual gameplay should be the only thing that freezes; you should still be able to pan around the map and click, even if those clicks don't actually do anything. Forcing the entire client to freeze up makes the game feel extremely unresponsive.

Read the thread guys: From page 2.



So think of it this way, any time this freeze happens, it's when a sync error would've occurred.

Which, imo, is still an incredible issue. But I honestly believe it has to do with matchmaking. People are being matched up from across the globe in a very suboptimal manner right now for a variety of reasons. For instance, having two to six players spread across the continental United States along with a player from Germany and a player from Korea is bound to cause extensive connection issues.

This has absolutely nothing to do with sync errors. It just means that instead of every player having to wait for a single player who is lagging (which was the case in vCoH and other pure P2P games), only the lagging player is affected, while the other players continue playing without issue. This is because everyone connects to and gets their game commands from a server now instead of directly from other clients. When the lagging player re-establishes his connection, he receives all of the information he missed during the disconnected period, which causes the fast-forwarding. The problem is, it's poorly implemented, and it causes your entire client to freeze when the connection issue happens instead of just stopping the gameplay mid-simulation but letting the player maintain control of the screen.

Communication is now over the Battle Server.
If you lag, only you lag. Previously you would cause the game to slow down for all others and therefore not really notice your own lag. That's why people might not have noticed it prior to the switch to battle servers.

When I put my settings too high and actually have lag due performance power (FPS drop / freeze) I cannot move my camera. When I deliberately cause packet drops or connection timeouts the ingame action of the units stops, but I can still move the camera around. Afterwards it speeds up to catch up to the current action as Inverse said. Yet if you cannot move the camera, that seems to be an issue with your performance, not the connection. Feel free to do the same to verify if you do not believe me

This has absolutely nothing to do with sync errors. It just means that instead of every player having to wait for a single player who is lagging (which was the case in vCoH and other pure P2P games), only the lagging player is affected, while the other players continue playing without issue. This is because everyone connects to and gets their game commands from a server now instead of directly from other clients. When the lagging player re-establishes his connection, he receives all of the information he missed during the disconnected period, which causes the fast-forwarding. The problem is, it's poorly implemented, and it causes your entire client to freeze when the connection issue happens instead of just stopping the gameplay mid-simulation but letting the player maintain control of the screen.

Okay, I get what you're saying, but I was referencing what Cynthia had stated in that this happens in instances where people would have been disconnected from the game.

So maybe it wouldn't have been the "Sync Error" message popping up, but this apparently occurs in instances where you would've been dropped from the game. Point is, this issue equates to what would have otherwise been total disconnection.

Just want to add that I also suffer form these freezes (usually 3-4 times a game ranging from 2 secs to 10 secs).

I've tested it, and it even happens when I watch replays in steam offline mode, so I'm making an educated guess that it is nothing to do with battle servers.

However, it defo started happening after the battle server patch, so who knows.

The devs told me that what you're seeing is due to the fact that they added reconnects to the battle server. So if for some reason you got disconnected, you are no longer kicked from the game, but get re-connected automatically. That’s why your game will freeze and speed up to catch-up with everyone else. Previously in these cases, you would have simply been disconnected from the game but now can continue playing.

When it happens, couldn't it just pause the game for both people and continue when the other player has reconnected? Also a limit of 2 or 3 lag periods could be implemented - after which a player would be kicked from the game automatically by the server if he still continues lagging. However, this might increase the amount of drop hackers.

I believe it doesn't happen too often for most of us and it would provide a fair gaming experience for all players. In many occasions such a disconnect loses you the game since you can't do anything but your opponent can play normally.

Please for the love of god, fix this fricking issue. It's really starting to upset me now. Balls to disconnecting from the server, I have a great line, my connections to other servers are great and constant.

If there is an issue, it's your end relic...