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TiDi - A bandaid solution to a Big Problem
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Starlight Kouvo
Howl at the Moon
#61 - 2013-11-25 19:02:42 UTC
Kagura Nikon wrote:
Jythier Smith wrote:
So how do we change the mechanics to go against blob warfare?



Create several targets that can be hit and disabled by smaller gangs and that are economically or tactically relevant.

Example: Make jump bridges have 200 k EHP. Put Moon mining structures outside pos shield and have 200 k EHP (before the disablign is reached). Remove POS scramblers and warp disruptors (makign easier to a small gang to hit and run).

That type of thing. Woudl add another field to cripple the enemy, withing timed and fast attacs that woudl demans several smaller gagns patrolling,k not a single huge blob to coutner it.

Some will eventually escalate, but now there is real action with strategic relevance that is not made under TIDI.


Billion EHP targets as the only relevant warfare objectives lead to the need of large fleets and long time operations, creatign the oportunity to be counter blobed, what escalates in the need of every operation to be a Huge blob of as large as possible scale.



Give us hit and run, and that will create less field battles. Players will gravitate to the most efficient way of winning the war. Just make possible for other tactics than massive blob to work, and players will use them.


Now those are the sort of ideas I think CCP should be looking into, make it more about small engagements, say 500 ships a fleet max, strike multiple target systems at the same time allow smaller gang raids to have some effect, put in penalties that apply as the fleets start going over a certain size a leadership negative that shows that over a certain limit C&C becomes a problem and make it a penalty mechanic incentivising not blobbing.

These are some of the things that should be looking into, not just multi-thread the system so we can blob more, yes multi-thread to make it run smoother but create a set of mechanics and tactics that discourage super large fleets.
Baaldor
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#62 - 2013-11-25 19:16:00 UTC
Starlight Kouvo wrote:
Kagura Nikon wrote:
Jythier Smith wrote:
So how do we change the mechanics to go against blob warfare?



Create several targets that can be hit and disabled by smaller gangs and that are economically or tactically relevant.

Example: Make jump bridges have 200 k EHP. Put Moon mining structures outside pos shield and have 200 k EHP (before the disablign is reached). Remove POS scramblers and warp disruptors (makign easier to a small gang to hit and run).

That type of thing. Woudl add another field to cripple the enemy, withing timed and fast attacs that woudl demans several smaller gagns patrolling,k not a single huge blob to coutner it.

Some will eventually escalate, but now there is real action with strategic relevance that is not made under TIDI.


Billion EHP targets as the only relevant warfare objectives lead to the need of large fleets and long time operations, creatign the oportunity to be counter blobed, what escalates in the need of every operation to be a Huge blob of as large as possible scale.



Give us hit and run, and that will create less field battles. Players will gravitate to the most efficient way of winning the war. Just make possible for other tactics than massive blob to work, and players will use them.


Now those are the sort of ideas I think CCP should be looking into, make it more about small engagements, say 500 ships a fleet max, strike multiple target systems at the same time allow smaller gang raids to have some effect, put in penalties that apply as the fleets start going over a certain size a leadership negative that shows that over a certain limit C&C becomes a problem and make it a penalty mechanic incentivising not blobbing.

These are some of the things that should be looking into, not just multi-thread the system so we can blob more, yes multi-thread to make it run smoother but create a set of mechanics and tactics that discourage super large fleets.


Dude, do you know how many peeps you can put in a fleet with FC5? Hint you can not put 500 in a fleet, just saying.

Also, how do you plan to dis-allow folks using Mumble, TS3 or what ever to coordinate these big blob fests? You guys think to linear, and really have no experience out side of dealing with lag in Jita.
Asura Vajrarupa
Doomheim
#63 - 2013-11-25 19:35:37 UTC
Sentamon wrote:
Root of the problem ....

1) No friendly fire ... guns fire through friendly ships, how nice.
2) No AoE damage from exploding ships.

You design a game for the mindless blob, you naturally get a mindless blob in return.


Someday this lesson will be learned. Or the sun will burn out, which ever comes first.

Ignorance is the cause of suffering.
Crumplecorn
Eve Cluster Explorations
#64 - 2013-11-25 20:28:35 UTC
Let's see, what we got here.

Suggesting that we fix lag by adding in anti-blob mechanics which exponentially increase the required calculations? Check.
Suggesting sharding the server? Check
Complaining that TiDi doesn't work just because it too has a limit on what it can handle? Check.
The forum's resident DBAs and software engineers telling CCP they how to fix it by reversing the polarity? Check

All in all, a great thread.

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handige harrie
Vereenigde Handels Compagnie
#65 - 2013-11-25 20:45:04 UTC
Yesterday I was in a fleet of 30 frigates in Lowsec bordering some nullsec systems roaming about, jumping gates gave TiDi, engaging targets gave TiDi. It feels like we're going backwards.

Baddest poster ever
Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog
B.L.U.E L.A.S.E.R.
#66 - 2013-11-25 20:51:22 UTC
I swear, if you're not underemployed or a part time student, TiDi makes this game unplayable (on the occasions where you have to deal with it).

But again, a low expectations playerbase doesn't just see TiDi as a necessary evil, but talk about how much happier they are with it than without it.

It's like Internet Stockholm Syndrome - why worry about fixing a serious problem when things could be so much worse? Amirite?

CCP is pretty unique in having a single-shard universe, and it's a major feature of EVE; but there is a pretty good reason why all MMOs don't do single shard . . . can you guess why? If you said unplayable lag, you win! And what you win is unplayable nullsec fights due to lag!

If one of EVE's several defining features (massive-scale battles) doesn't work, it needs to be fixed, not bandaged. The repeated node deaths of the previous few months show that things are getting worse, not better, and asinine solutions like removing drones or forcing players to use less ships aren't going to help. This is something that'll require a heavy mix of better hardware and much, much better software, and it would be nice for the Dev's to at least hint that it's something that's not only being actively worked on, but that it's a priority.

EVE is already one of the least-interactive video games out there, adding 8 hour fights (and 2 hour travel times to get to those fights) is pretty sad. But again . . . benefits of a low expectation player base, I guess :P

Or maybe there is some other fix (other than serious, dedicated software overhaul and the addition of some even higher-end hardware) that hasn't been brought up yet. Maybe . . .

1) Subspace Warp Core Interference: when x amounts of supercaps are on the field, the combined interference from their warp drives causes some sort of pulse that straight up kills all drones in the system (electronics are too fragile for it) but leaves bombers intact (hardened electronics) as well as all ships (again, hardened electronics). It would mean that all fights that escalate to supercaps would mean drone boats get the shaft, but I'm sure the meta could adjust accordingly, and smaller fights would be unaffected.

2) Voltron Drone Assist: when a fleet has deployed x amount of drones and assisted them to one ship, the drones interlock into one giant behemoth drone-cannon. Requires a new type of drones that have better tracking/damage/optimal than current T2 drones, making it ideal for fleet fights where certain engagement ranges can (hopefully) be predicted. Instead of 5,000+ drones on the field, you have two giant drones facing off against one another, or one giant drone just murderfacing the opposing fleet unless and until it gets blown apart by opposing battleships/cruisers. Added points if EWAR drones can pull the same trick, and a monster Hornet-god can AoE ECM whole fleets with tear-inducing goodness (might be overkill on that one).

I am not an alt of Chribba.
Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog
B.L.U.E L.A.S.E.R.
#67 - 2013-11-25 20:52:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog
Crumplecorn wrote:
Let's see, what we got here.

Suggesting that we fix lag by adding in anti-blob mechanics which exponentially increase the required calculations? Check.
Suggesting sharding the server? Check
Complaining that TiDi doesn't work just because it too has a limit on what it can handle? Check.
The forum's resident DBAs and software engineers telling CCP they how to fix it by reversing the polarity? Check

All in all, a great thread.


More sheeple coming in to defend TiDi, 'cause it's the best damn thing to ever happen and the alternative will literally **** our children?

Check.

EDIT (less snarky response): the proposed "anti-blop" mechanics by others are just ways to socially engineer less lag by changing player gaming habits. Because you don't seem to logic well, I'll explain: if there are overall way less people engaged in a fight, slightly adding the processing requirements on a per pilot basis is still an overall net gain.

Not saying any of the ideas proposed will achieve that goal, but that is the goal, and to ignore the point is pretty dumb.

I will say, my idea for combining a fleet's worth of drones into a giant MegaDrone is pretty inspired AND doesn't pretend to social engineer a solution to a hardware/software problem.

I am not an alt of Chribba.
Crumplecorn
Eve Cluster Explorations
#68 - 2013-11-25 20:58:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Crumplecorn
Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog wrote:
This is something that'll require a heavy mix of better hardware and much, much better software, and it would be nice for the Dev's to at least hint that it's something that's not only being actively worked on, but that it's a priority.
It's a shame that you spent all that time writing that post when all that's there at the core is the single greatest non-solution to scalability issues.

Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog wrote:
if there are overall way less people engaged in a fight, slightly adding the processing requirements on a per pilot basis is still an overall net gain.
Well, adding in new mechanics that would crush the server under the load would certainly reduce the number of people involved in fights, I'll give you that.

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Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog
B.L.U.E L.A.S.E.R.
#69 - 2013-11-25 21:00:46 UTC
Starlight Kouvo wrote:
Kagura Nikon wrote:
Jythier Smith wrote:
So how do we change the mechanics to go against blob warfare?



Create several targets that can be hit and disabled by smaller gangs and that are economically or tactically relevant.

Example: Make jump bridges have 200 k EHP. Put Moon mining structures outside pos shield and have 200 k EHP (before the disablign is reached). Remove POS scramblers and warp disruptors (makign easier to a small gang to hit and run).

That type of thing. Woudl add another field to cripple the enemy, withing timed and fast attacs that woudl demans several smaller gagns patrolling,k not a single huge blob to coutner it.

Some will eventually escalate, but now there is real action with strategic relevance that is not made under TIDI.


Billion EHP targets as the only relevant warfare objectives lead to the need of large fleets and long time operations, creatign the oportunity to be counter blobed, what escalates in the need of every operation to be a Huge blob of as large as possible scale.



Give us hit and run, and that will create less field battles. Players will gravitate to the most efficient way of winning the war. Just make possible for other tactics than massive blob to work, and players will use them.


Now those are the sort of ideas I think CCP should be looking into, make it more about small engagements, say 500 ships a fleet max, strike multiple target systems at the same time allow smaller gang raids to have some effect, put in penalties that apply as the fleets start going over a certain size a leadership negative that shows that over a certain limit C&C becomes a problem and make it a penalty mechanic incentivising not blobbing.

These are some of the things that should be looking into, not just multi-thread the system so we can blob more, yes multi-thread to make it run smoother but create a set of mechanics and tactics that discourage super large fleets.


I just defended the idea behind your post, but here's what you're asking for:

1) a maximum fleet size of 256 pilots ("make it more about small engagements, say 500 ships a fleet max")

2) the ability to reinforce multiple stations in a region at once ("strike multiple target systems at the same time")

3) the ability to bring frigate sized ships with battleship style weapons and AoE attacks to fleet fights ("allow smaller gang raids to have some effect")

4) nerfing off-grid boosting ("put in penalties that apply as the fleets start going over a certain size")

5) introduce Time Dilation ("penalty mechanic incentivising not blobbing")

you want to social engineer a solution to a hardware/software problem; it might be possible, but your attempts at a solution are woefully lacking.

I am not an alt of Chribba.
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#70 - 2013-11-25 21:07:27 UTC
Clearly mechanics that incentives simple structure shoots and structure reps are the way to go.

Less fighting over the structure and more just shooting or repping it.

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?
Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog
B.L.U.E L.A.S.E.R.
#71 - 2013-11-25 21:11:02 UTC
Crumplecorn wrote:
Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog wrote:
This is something that'll require a heavy mix of better hardware and much, much better software, and it would be nice for the Dev's to at least hint that it's something that's not only being actively worked on, but that it's a priority.
It's a shame that you spent all that time writing that post when all that's there at the core is the single greatest non-solution to scalability issues.


uh . . . . wow. Very wrong.

If this was an infinitely scalable issue, yes . . . but it's not. You must've taken a semester of computer science 101 to have formed such a complete and flawless opinion mate.

Tell me this: right now, would we be discussing all these node crashes/TiDi problems if EVE's code was not ten years old but was instead optimized for technology that existed in, oh, say 2011?

Of course, you'll still say "yes" because you're bound and determined to make this an intractable problem, meaning that best case scenario EVE is already hard capped on population and any further adjustments to the code or hardware would be spitting into the ocean.

Think about how dumb that stance is. Think about those old realm v. realm battles in Dark Age of Camelot, and how even they (as fun as they were) were effectively slideshows due to lag . . .

. . . and then imagine those same fights on today's hardware/software (client and server). Seemless.

I promise you, optimized code and compatible server hardware can run 2000 pilot fights without TiDi. There are software solutions to both optimizing the use of current hardware technologies and for optimizing the way that the EVE client interacts with the server. It appears that you disagree because if we go from 2000 pilot fights to 100,000 pilot fights that is no longer the case, which if you think about it, is a really dumb argument.

But enjoy your TiDi/node crashes at 2000 pilots. I guess we never have to worry about scalability under your plan, because the server is already population hard capped . . .

I am not an alt of Chribba.
Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog
B.L.U.E L.A.S.E.R.
#72 - 2013-11-25 21:14:59 UTC
Alavaria Fera wrote:
Clearly mechanics that incentives simple structure shoots and structure reps are the way to go.

Less fighting over the structure and more just shooting or repping it.


CCP should put all IHUBs/SBUs etc. into something like faction war complexes, restrict the size of ships that can enter to frigates, limit the total number of ships in the deadspace pocket to 2, and only allow one member of the corp that owns the structure to be inside and once.

SOV warfare should be a series of honorable 1 v 1 frigate duals.

I, for one, already welcome our Brave Newbie Overlords.

I am not an alt of Chribba.
Crumplecorn
Eve Cluster Explorations
#73 - 2013-11-25 21:19:24 UTC
Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog wrote:
I promise you, optimized code and compatible server hardware can run 2000 pilot fights without TiDi. There are software solutions to both optimizing the use of current hardware technologies and for optimizing the way that the EVE client interacts with the server.
I believe this is number 4 in my checklist.

Bonus points for including a version of "640 kB ought to be enough for anybody"

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Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog
B.L.U.E L.A.S.E.R.
#74 - 2013-11-25 21:35:09 UTC
Crumplecorn wrote:
Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog wrote:
I promise you, optimized code and compatible server hardware can run 2000 pilot fights without TiDi. There are software solutions to both optimizing the use of current hardware technologies and for optimizing the way that the EVE client interacts with the server.
I believe this is number 4 in my checklist.

Bonus points for including a version of "640 kB ought to be enough for anybody"


You selectively quote like a pro. I believe this is number one in my heart.

I am not an alt of Chribba.
Crumplecorn
Eve Cluster Explorations
#75 - 2013-11-25 21:48:39 UTC
Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog wrote:
You selectively quote like a pro. I believe this is numb
Years of practice, and you should see a doctor about that numbness.

Here's another tidbit: I'm not the one assuming the population is capped by anything. If it was, incremental improvements to server efficiency might be worth it. However, incremental improvements have led us to a situation now for which I made a sig in 2007. It's not the answer. Lag-free fleet fights are not just over that next rise, it's time to go back down the mountain and re-evaluate.

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Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog
B.L.U.E L.A.S.E.R.
#76 - 2013-11-25 22:30:42 UTC
Crumplecorn wrote:
Bizzaro Stormy MurphDog wrote:
You selectively quote like a pro. I believe this is numb
Years of practice, and you should see a doctor about that numbness.

Here's another tidbit: I'm not the one assuming the population is capped by anything. If it was, incremental improvements to server efficiency might be worth it. However, incremental improvements have led us to a situation now for which I made a sig in 2007. It's not the answer. Lag-free fleet fights are not just over that next rise, it's time to go back down the mountain and re-evaluate.


The speech-to-text program you're using is very solid, it nailed punctuation and shortened words without losing the context at all. Did you pay for it, or is it free? I've been looking for good dictation software for a while now that doesn't involve a lot of post-dictation editing.

I am not an alt of Chribba.
Cur Wulff
Doomheim
#77 - 2013-11-26 03:15:04 UTC
with TiDi - great idea - but definatley a band aid solution.

Expand on it CCP!

Like..... Stick in another server rack and link it to re-enforced nodes. The lag is caused by the time it takes for the server to calculate what 2000 people are doing, moving, firing, drones, etc etc. Have those calculations be done purely on this new rack.

So - System A is going to have a 2000+ fleet battle. CCP gets notified of when and where , that node is re-enforced. When a node is re-enforced it links to a box in the new rack. All combat related CPU calculations for that system are calculated on a box that's purely dedicated to doing the thinking. Have it delay or trickle information suchs as kills, deaths, yadda yadda back to the main server so it doesnt bottleneck there.

Forgive me if i'm wrong - but the lag is caused by the server trying to process what everyone is doing at once. So.. if having a few boxes setup so they get linked with a re-enforced system and dedicated to purely handling the numbers should make quite a difference, no?
Garandras
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#78 - 2013-11-26 03:19:56 UTC
Cur Wulff wrote:
with TiDi - great idea - but definatley a band aid solution.

Expand on it CCP!

So - System A is going to have a 2000+ fleet battle. CCP gets notified of when and where , that node is re-enforced. When a node is re-enforced it links to a box in the new rack. All combat related CPU calculations for that system are calculated on a box that's purely dedicated to doing the thinking. Have it delay or trickle information suchs as kills, deaths, yadda yadda back to the main server so it doesnt bottleneck there.



See there lies the main issue...

CCP doesnt get notified most of the time.. as with the bloc wars you are never sure when the fight will escalate to that point before hand..

you may know you are going to throw 100-200 guys at said structure and the enemy may only bring 1 dude, or they may drop a few hundred..

then you get some more friends to come help..

they get more friends...

so on and so forth..
Ivan Krividus
Cold Lazarus Inc
The-Expanse
#79 - 2013-11-26 03:22:30 UTC
I seriously don't understand why everyone hates TiDi so much. In any other game so much activity from so many players would render the game completely unplayable. We would rather have a slow-mo battle than a full server crash, but people fail to appreciate how useful TiDi is. I cant stress this enough so i'm going to say it again: if large battles like those in EVE happened in any other game the game would crash, instead of run. The fact that we can even have these kinds of battles or events is truly amazing.

TiDi is not a band-aid solution. Its a CCP-doesnt-have-infinite-money-for-better-servers-and-this-never-happens-in-other-games-so-no-one-knows-a-better-solution solution that we take for granted.

OP is just a fresh wording of "buy better servers CCP!" which is the complaint that gets tossed around far too often.
Rhes
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#80 - 2013-11-26 03:42:11 UTC
Ivan Krividus wrote:
I seriously don't understand why everyone hates TiDi so much.


Probably because they never experienced big fleet fights before TiDi was introduced. TiDi is annoying but it's a vast improvement on how things used to be.

EVE is a game about spaceships and there's an enormous amount of work to do on the in-space gameplay before players (or developers) are ready to sacrifice it for a totally new type of gameplay - CCP Rise