How do you deal with the input delay?

Hi

there is one thing that is constantly grinding my gears when playing coh2 online and that is the input delay/lag. Compared to playing offline it makes the game so much less enjoyable for me.

And even if it is really hard to judge when not playing yourself I think that i have seen some streamers also playing with a constant delay between issueing orders and the actual execution of said order.

My question is: How do you deal with that?

In 1v1 where quick reactions to what is happening in the battle are one of the most important factors to winning, how do you cope with that delay?
Once a grenade is in the air, you will automatically lose men, even if you as the player react immediately (in the heat of the battle its not possible for me to always catch the throwing-animation of every infantry squad in time).

When reacting to an hmg that is setting up, the sluggish movement will often get you suppressed.

And evading that at-gun shot in the last second is so much harder than in offline play.

This problem probably has a varying effect on players as some live closer to the servers than others and some have better download or upload rates. So i especially want to hear opinions from people who like me immediately notice the difference of offline and online play and who experience a delay of ~1 second.

Unfortunately with a download speed of 16mbps and a crappy upload speed of 2,5 mpbs and a resulting ping of 95 to the US east coast (where the servers are located afaik) this game seems unplayable for me in competitive multiplayer.

I don't really have it.

Really you're best bet is to try to upgrade speed/Ethernet cable if you have the spare money...

I'm in Australia and it doesn't really bother me

You don't deal with it, it deals with you.

I'm in Australia and it doesn't really bother me

Im on the moon and it doesn't bother me

Well uh personally, it involved a cup of concrete and then drinking said cup. I did this when I realised I lived in one of the worst countries to be an online gamer.

Hi ICoH,

You will definitely get a lot of responses here like "I don't really have it/It doesn't bother me".

To say it bluntly, these people are clueless. The command latency in CoH2 is atrocious, and is up towards 500 milliseconds. Other RTS games like StarCraft 2 have a command latency that is around half of that.

People who are not bothered by this have most likely not played other RTS games at a competitive level, meaning they lack awareness of how bad the latency in CoH2 is.

There is nothing you can do on your end to fix it. It is a problem in the game's net-code, which is seen from the fact that there is no command latency in single player at all.

I have been trying to bring attention to this before, as it in my opinion makes the game nearly unbearable to play if you're used to the responsive micro of other RTS games. But you'll almost always see a group of CoH2-only players here either deny or downplay the importance of this problem. Sorry guys, but this is real.

CoH2 will continue to be a Mickey Mouse RTS until Relic takes this seriously. No matter whether casual 4v4 players can notice it or not. Sorry for the bashing, but this problem really bothers me, and there's simply no way to know if Relic knows or cares.

Denied all other options for internet, I just have to cope with it.

So I deal with it by playing Dwarf Fortress and using the WorldBuilder occasionally.

i dont really have any impact delay issues. sometimes it feels like it when throwing nades or trying to reposition a tank. THough i think those delays have ore to do with ai getting confused.

If you live far away that adds a couple hundred ms, but not everybody has to deal with that. For me it gets pretty bad so I often retreat squads that otherwise could've just moved. You get used to it though.

Really you're best bet is to try to upgrade speed/Ethernet cable if you have the spare money...

Sure that would be the most effective solution. But its hard to justify just for one single game. It of course has other benefits, but I really dont need it for anything else besides CoH2.

Hi ICoH,

You will definitely get a lot of responses here like "I don't really have it/It doesn't bother me".

To say it bluntly, these people are clueless.

The question is wether they are just clueless, or really have less of a problem with it.
If they play a comp stomp or the campaign once in a while they should notice a severe difference.
I personally dont expect the online responsiveness to be like the offline responsiveness but its just such a difference that it is hard to believe that anybody wouldnt notice it. And yes youre right: This is a coh2 specific problem, as it apparently is very demanding (THE most demanding game I know) when it comes to your internet connection.

So im really suprised to see so many people who claim that they dont really have any noticeable input delay. As I thought that quite a lot of people might have this problem I hoped to get some tips on how to cope/getting used playing with. But if i just happen to be one of the few who experience this then I guess CoH competitive multiplayer is unaccessible for me :/

The input delay is there and it's quite bad, frapsing at 60fps and counting the frames between click and movement its about 30- 40 frames before anything happens which is about 500ms to 667ms. The average human reaction time is about 200ms to 250ms, with input delay that high it makes it very hard to react to abilities such as grenades with really short fuses (volks grenadier grenade) in time online.

Upgrading your internet won't help, it's an issue with the games net code where there is added latency as my ping to the battle server is only about 120ms. So it's something Relic have to resolve with the game code but definitely won't look into until after Nov 18th or maybe never.

I deal with it by not playing their game

You're not alone. There are a LOT of people who would experience the exact same situation if they were still playing (multiplayer games).

Same here ICoH. This is CoH2 issue and only Relic can fix it. So nothing you can do about it.

I no longer play 1v1s or 2v2s because of my input delays and the constant 5 second freezing. I usually just play 3v3s and 4v4s now so I can have other people do the job for me while i watch the effects xD

Upgrading your internet won't help, it's an issue with the games net code where there is added latency as my ping to the battle server is only about 120ms.

How did you check your ping to the battle servers? Or did you just ping the US east coast as I did?

Its quite frustrating, as "not playing the game" sounds like a bad option. Playing but not enjoying is as well though.

Interesting to see that there are people who definitely have the problem, to an extent where they stop playing and others say they dont have it at all. So why do people think that a better internet connection wouldnt solve the problem? As that is the only explanation i have for this: Some people have better internet (/live closer to the battleservers) and therefore dont have any issues.

http://community.companyofheroes.com/forum/company-of-heroes-2/faq-known-issues/29785-network-connection-troubleshooting

you can tracert the IP of the battle server.

Living closer or upgrading your internet won't improve it because the input delay is added intentionally in the net code.

While I love the fact that if your internet drops for a certain amount of time(1 minute maximum) the battlenet servers keep you connected to your game(the only drawback about this is the fact that the game basically speeds up to where your opponent last issued orders, basically making it impossible to avoid possible grenades or artillery until you've finally caught up). I also notice huge input lag sometimes occurring if you have a lower-end pc, even with settings on minimum it gets ridiculous at times.

Gratuitous post invised

If you have nothing positive to add to a thread,just stay stumm, and read? Thanks