The Community Deserves Some Clarity On The Desync Issue

Games Halo Infinite
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I’m sick of “unstable packet” loss every 30 seconds. I’m sick of “jitter” at all other times. I shouldn’t spend half of every match glitching backwards, teleporting around the map, getting shot behind cover, missing jumps, and running into walls. I know most everyone in the Halo Community is sick of it. It’s been being complained about since launch, and now, since the Yappening started, it’s pretty much what half the topics made in this forum are about.

343 simply refuses to give any clarification on the subject. They have given only one half -Yoink!- excuse for an explanation, in which they basically said “desync is happening because of normal lag, stop worrying about it.” That doesn’t explain why I’m losing firefights where I’m getting 7 head shots. That doesn’t explain why I’m trying to walk forward after I spawn and end up falling off a cliff. That doesn’t explain why youtubers that are playing on 250 ping are experiencing less lag than I am playing on 25 ping. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE 343.

WE AS A COMMUNITY DESERVE TRANSPARENCY AND A LEGITIMATE EXPLANATION. STOP BEING COWARDS AND HAVE SOME RESPECT FOR YOUR FANBASE.

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What if they don’t know what’s causing it?

What if they don’t know how to fix it?

Remember when they added a few playlists and it broke big team. The coding seems like it’s held together with bits of duct tape. They may not be able to do anything about it. Clarity and honesty is always great from a consumer standpoint, but not always from a business view.

That being said I’m still not experiencing desync, after 100s upon 100s of games. So for me, it legitimately is not an issue. I assume that’s the same for a lot of other people too.

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It wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t know the exact cause or how to fix it but if that’s the case it would be nice if they could just say that and maybe what they are doing to better understand the issue.

I agree with the OP in that I think as players and customers we deserve some honesty and transparency from 343.

343 really don’t seem to have a good record with honest communication with their customers and I think if that were to change that would be a big step in building/re-building some good will.

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If they don’t know the cause, then they should explain that. But they have told us they do know. They have an entire article where they try to pass everything off as just normal latency to be expected in any video game. Except we all know that’s not true and there is something fishy going on.

And if they don’t know how to fix it, that is something they should convey to us, too. Lying to us doesn’t make any sense unless they’re hiding something.

Obviously the coding is lacking severely in many ways. If they would communicate that they don’t know how to fix it, it would ease the minds of many players and at least let them know that they’re actively searching for a fix. Any other action is suspicious. And if clarity is good from a consumer standpoint, then it is good from a business standpoint too, as consumerism is what drives business. There are no good reasons for 343 to stay silent on this other than hiding something they’d rather the community was not actively aware of.
Which is suspicious.

And with all that being said, Ken, honestly no one gives a flying -Yoink!- if you’ve experienced desync. Most of the community does experience it, and none of us need your validation to make it true. Just consider yourself lucky and move on. It does for a fact exist and it just makes you look difficult and contrarian when you try to deny it.

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Would it make sense to explain why it rains to a toddler? I’d lean toward probably not.

This is not to say communication would be bad. But… it’s a complex subject. A lot of people still refer to their ISP connection as “my internet”. Yeah, yeah… this is a little nitpicky.

Every game operating over the interwebz in the past, present and future must navigate this problem though. Some are just much better or worse at dealing with it. It’s clear where Infinite sits on the spectrum.

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You’re quite correct that we might not all understand the full detail but I’m sure there is a way that (once they know the route cause of the issue) it can be explained in somewhat more simple terms.

Ultimately we’re their customers and there is an issue with the product, them making an attempt to try to explain why that issue exists and what they are doing to try and resolve it doesn’t feel like an unreasonable request.

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I’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to communicate with your message, but I’ll take you point by point.

Yes, you should always try to give toddlers the best explanation you can of the world. They are learning and taking everything in. They might not 100% understand the things you are telling them, but they are picking things up. Also, this is a terrible analogy, not just because it’s wrong about how toddlers operate, but also because 343 aren’t avoiding an explanation because it’s too complex for the fanbase to understand. Not everyone is a networking engineer, but anyone can follow a logically laid out explanation that covers the main points, or at least can believe the people who do understand it, and might simplify it. So don’t use lack of knowledge as an excuse for not communicating with the Halo community, that’s a poor excuse.

And yes, every game that has multiplayer connectivity deals with networking, but not all of them have problems this egregious and almost none of them have a studio that straight up gaslights and lies to it’s community like 343 has been doing to us. So to sit there and pretend like this is an unavoidable problem is absurd. And spreading around the idea of having a defeatist attitude is going to be of zero help in this situation.

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That makes sense because I only experience desync when I have problems with my internet.

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Okay, well it sounds like they’ve explained it and you haven’t accepted their explanation.

Don’t ask for honesty if you’re just going to accuse the answer of being a lie. It appears they’ve researched it and it’s an individuals issue to resolve, not theirs.

I have 1gb internet and my household uses very few devices connected to it, I don’t think luck has much to do with it.

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lol “I don’t experience it, so it can’t be true”. I can’t take you seriously anymore

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If I wrote that, I would agree.

Desync happens and it’s preventable, by the PLAYER.

I used to get it really bad in all multiplayer games at my parents house. They had bad internet and my entire family was using devices at the same time. Rubberbanding, desync, lag, I had it all.

Now I have good internet, our household has max two devices being used while I’m on my Xbox.

Sure I get the odd hammer or melee that doesn’t go through, stuff like that happens in every online game. If you’re experiencing desync frequently then I suggest you look at your household usage and setup as 343 have apparently debunked it.

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You’d be wrong there.

It’s a BIG issue. Granted, I didn’t start experiencing it until I played the CO-OP flight.

If it’s anything like what I felt, it’s an issue that needs fixing. Ask around. You’ll find plenty here who have experienced such.

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How is this even possible Ken? I’m pretty sure that if you play online Halo multiplayer then you experience desync. Maybe the level of it is not as much, but you’re still experiencing the impact of it.

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This looming impact on Halo is like no other and I truly believe at this point that 343i does not know how to “fix” or “change” the issue of desync.

I’m not sure 343i will ever come out and admit fault because then that will purposefully drive players away with a “broken game”.

Playing Infinite on LAN is so much nicer and surely what the game was designed to do in actual functionality.

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I experience absolutely inconsequential amounts.

As much or as little as any other game I play online.

I used to lag horrendously in Halo 3 all the time so I feel amazing playing any game now.

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You’re absolutely right. I’m just saying doing this may not be as productive as one would hope. It could easily spur more anger and distaste. Especially if the explanation is wildly misinterpreted.

None of this is to say they shouldn’t fix it either. 343 can shove as many cosmetics, features and content into the game as possible. It makes no difference if the experience fundamentally behaves like garbage.

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They know the cause but it not an easy fix as its at the base core of the engine & they need to work though tech debt above it to address it.
Engine physics, engine tick rates, server tick rates, intermittent frame timings all tied together, when frames get dropped engine ticks & server ticks get lost in transition affecting the engine physics & server interpolation causing desync & crashing.

Look up “One frame in halo infinite”

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Then you’re left with 3 options:

Ignorance,

Incompetence,

or…

Purposely ignoring the issue and hoping that most people won’t care and they can sell more cosmetics for their Spartan dress up game.

(I’m guessing it’s a combination of all 3)

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You kind of have to ignore the issue when it’s a buzzword for people every time they die online.

Everyone acting like they desync for 1 second, “miss” a shot of BR, die and it’s desyncs fault.

If you can’t tell what your connection is like without having ping info on, can’t tell the difference between rubber banding, lag or desync then how on earth 343 supposed to fix that. It’s a players misunderstanding.

So many clips people post of “desync” is them either rubberbanding which is 99% their own internet or them literally just missing shots. I’ve noticed the biggest desyncers of the forums don’t post any clips themselves despite it happening, all game every other game. Even Sean W who made a big YouTube video about it posted a clip where he got killed round a corner… They got a body shot on his leg, not his head, it was a legit kill. Another where the player killed him round a corner, except they weren’t and two clips of his shots not registering… When they missed. Had a few users post proof in one topic and half of it wasn’t desync. Half of it was, but that just proved the point that players can’t tell the difference. So user error is anplyifing an issue out of proportion. Even if they fixed desync completely and eliminated all lag forever, you’d still get people claiming desync constantly.

Halo is fast paced, I understand you thought you hit the shot, that’s not desync. Melee is the biggest source of desync in the game. But let’s be honest, don’t melee kids, it’s a losing strategy. You might lose a hammer kill or a rocket here or there, that was a huge problem in Halo 3 too don’t ya know.

Must be infuriating for the Devs to hear people asking for a fix for something the Devs want to reply to but can’t (you repeatedly missed your BR shots), reset your router, ask your lil sister to stop playing Roblox while you’re trying to play ranked. Or you’re playing against a bunch of other people on awful internet and you’re seeing the favour the shooter mechanic in action. But anyone who has lagged hard enough for that to actually happen will know that getting any kills in that kind of lag is a trial in of itself.

So in short, desync happens (stop acting like I’m saying it doesn’t) but it doesn’t happen that often. If it did, then you’d see it every time you watch a Halo streamer, but you don’t. Pretty much ever. It’s rare. It happens about as frequently as it does in any other video game. Rubberbanding is not desync and is usually caused by packet loss which is a you problem, not a 343 problem.

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Playing from Australia, I’ve always experienced lag playing online shooters. It’s always been most noticeable playing Halo.

My internet has been upgraded from ADSL 2+ to NBN, FTTN.

Halo Infinite has been the worst online game so far for lag / desync.

In my several years of experience, to say it’s only a player problem seems very naive.

I’m playing on an Xbox series S, and it’s choppy and laggy.

There is definitely a problem with the game. I believe the issues / features and bugs may compound the problem.

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