Burritos can be used for bribing if necessary. π― :)
Music. Coding. Gaming. Life.
Previous post:
I Thought I Wasn't Going to Ever Blog about Trax in Space again...
Next post:
win-acme
Overload multiplayer was put together in around a month, went through another month of testing, and ended up being rather underwhelming to play. Ranked multiplayer queues died out after the first couple weeks, those that remained were either gaming the system or late to the party. Mercifully, ranked multiplayer did not survive very long.
However, multiplayer soon began to thrive in the form of the Overload Teams League. I founded the OTL in 2019 for pilots who wanted to play team games. It caught on pretty quick with 6 teams by its second month. At first, we dealt with the frustrating limitations of poor server choices, shoddy networking, and always demanding to Bammer "RESTART YOUR SERVERS!!!". But shortly after Revival Productions folded in February of 2019, a glimmer of hope appeared in the form of olproxy, a piece of software that allowed Overload LAN servers to act as Internet servers. For the first time, Internet games were playable without official servers.
Over time, this expanded to olproxy being incorporated into olmod, a collection of mods for Overload with the aim to improve multiplayer game play. A large number of improvements have been included in olmod since then, including larger game sizes, reporting to a tracker, sniper packets, lag compensation, and more. What hasn't been addressed is weapon balance.
Multiplayer weapon balance has not been great since Overload launched. Ammo weapons have been shown to dominate, and the energy weapons are a mixed bag with cyclone being dominant and reflex being weak. Hunters used to be super strong until an early nerf was added to olmod. Creepers and time bombs used to be excessively out of sync between client and server. Despite this, people still played, but bigger issues existed because people couldn't understand what they were seeing. Ship positions were not consistent. People were saying that 50ms in Overload felt worse than 100ms in Descent 3. (While seemingly unbelievable, this was learned to be a true statement since Overload intentally adds a minimum of 83ms of lag to game play; 33ms for processing controls smoothly and 50ms to be able to interpolate ships smoothly.) Slowly over time, the net code was deciphered and unravelled, and we learned some shocking things about how the net code was implemented. In addition to the intentionally added lag, your entire controls are sent to the server every frame for processing server-side. Every button press, mouse movement, or swing of the joystick would be part of that send. But because client and server frames don't match up one to one, this would cause errors in position and rotation, and weapon firing that was often out of phase, meaning what you saw on your screen wasn't what was happening on the server.
First, we fixed the weapons. Sniper packets made it so that every time you fire something client-side, that is what was seen server-side. This also eliminated some super bad parts of the game, such as disagreements as to how many missiles you have, what weapon you're using, what side of the ship you're firing a missile out of, and more.
Second, we fixed most of the intentional lag and made it so that it would try to compensate for lag, predicting where ships will be in the future, making them easy to hit. Then we revisited weapons, also compensating them for lag so that they'd be easier to dodge.
I say "we" because this is a team of developers doing this. Arne de Brujin created olproxy and olmod and showed us what is possible. I've contributed a bunch of code, and Tobias, Whollycow, and derhass have been instrumental in keeping things on track. We even have occasional contributors like terminal, luponix, and D.Cent provide extra quality of life for both players and developers.
And now we're ready to tackle balance.
Players are now seeing the game closer to the truth than ever before, and as a result they have honed in their skills better than ever, showing us that, yeah, there are serious balance problems with the game. It's not like we didn't already know this. However, now that we are seeing closer to the truth, we can begin to understand exactly what these balance problems are, and hopefully start finding common ground in regards to what needs to be balanced.
However, multiplayer soon began to thrive in the form of the Overload Teams League. I founded the OTL in 2019 for pilots who wanted to play team games. It caught on pretty quick with 6 teams by its second month. At first, we dealt with the frustrating limitations of poor server choices, shoddy networking, and always demanding to Bammer "RESTART YOUR SERVERS!!!". But shortly after Revival Productions folded in February of 2019, a glimmer of hope appeared in the form of olproxy, a piece of software that allowed Overload LAN servers to act as Internet servers. For the first time, Internet games were playable without official servers.
Over time, this expanded to olproxy being incorporated into olmod, a collection of mods for Overload with the aim to improve multiplayer game play. A large number of improvements have been included in olmod since then, including larger game sizes, reporting to a tracker, sniper packets, lag compensation, and more. What hasn't been addressed is weapon balance.
Multiplayer weapon balance has not been great since Overload launched. Ammo weapons have been shown to dominate, and the energy weapons are a mixed bag with cyclone being dominant and reflex being weak. Hunters used to be super strong until an early nerf was added to olmod. Creepers and time bombs used to be excessively out of sync between client and server. Despite this, people still played, but bigger issues existed because people couldn't understand what they were seeing. Ship positions were not consistent. People were saying that 50ms in Overload felt worse than 100ms in Descent 3. (While seemingly unbelievable, this was learned to be a true statement since Overload intentally adds a minimum of 83ms of lag to game play; 33ms for processing controls smoothly and 50ms to be able to interpolate ships smoothly.) Slowly over time, the net code was deciphered and unravelled, and we learned some shocking things about how the net code was implemented. In addition to the intentionally added lag, your entire controls are sent to the server every frame for processing server-side. Every button press, mouse movement, or swing of the joystick would be part of that send. But because client and server frames don't match up one to one, this would cause errors in position and rotation, and weapon firing that was often out of phase, meaning what you saw on your screen wasn't what was happening on the server.
First, we fixed the weapons. Sniper packets made it so that every time you fire something client-side, that is what was seen server-side. This also eliminated some super bad parts of the game, such as disagreements as to how many missiles you have, what weapon you're using, what side of the ship you're firing a missile out of, and more.
Second, we fixed most of the intentional lag and made it so that it would try to compensate for lag, predicting where ships will be in the future, making them easy to hit. Then we revisited weapons, also compensating them for lag so that they'd be easier to dodge.
I say "we" because this is a team of developers doing this. Arne de Brujin created olproxy and olmod and showed us what is possible. I've contributed a bunch of code, and Tobias, Whollycow, and derhass have been instrumental in keeping things on track. We even have occasional contributors like terminal, luponix, and D.Cent provide extra quality of life for both players and developers.
And now we're ready to tackle balance.
Players are now seeing the game closer to the truth than ever before, and as a result they have honed in their skills better than ever, showing us that, yeah, there are serious balance problems with the game. It's not like we didn't already know this. However, now that we are seeing closer to the truth, we can begin to understand exactly what these balance problems are, and hopefully start finding common ground in regards to what needs to be balanced.
Previous post:
I Thought I Wasn't Going to Ever Blog about Trax in Space again...
Next post:
win-acme
Previously in Coding:
I Thought I Wasn't Going to Ever Blog about Trax in Space again...
Next in Coding:
win-acme
Previously in Gaming:
OTL's player disconnection issue
Next in Gaming:
A Two Tiered, Untiered OTL
Previously in Overload:
OTL's player disconnection issue
Next in Overload:
A Tale of Two Communities
Comments
Add Your Comments
roncli.com Blog
This is my blog where I give my thoughts and opinions on various topics and share my creative endeavors with the world. I run two personal blogs, but combine them here for ease of access.
Blogger - My oldest blog using the Blogger platform contains posts full of opinions, gaming, and code.
Tumblr - Tumblr posts are all about my creative side, containing music, videos, writings, and updates on my web creations.
You can select a category below to view the latest post, or browse thorugh the posts using the navigation found at the top and bottom of each post.
Blogger - My oldest blog using the Blogger platform contains posts full of opinions, gaming, and code.
Tumblr - Tumblr posts are all about my creative side, containing music, videos, writings, and updates on my web creations.
You can select a category below to view the latest post, or browse thorugh the posts using the navigation found at the top and bottom of each post.
Categories
Coding (167)
Life (138)
Gaming (118)
Music (64)
World of Warcraft (48)
roncli.com (42)
Software (36)
Servers (29)
Hurricane Rita (27)
Six Minutes To Release (27)
Screenshot (25)
Hurricane Ike (24)
Projects (24)
Silliness (21)
Trax in Space (21)
Cent (19)
Crystal Space (15)
OSMusic.Net (14)
Blog (13)
Editorials (13)
LibWowArmory (13)
Lyrics (13)
roncli Productions (12)
VB.NET (12)
Descent (11)
LibWowAPI (10)
Descent 3 (9)
Due Process (9)
Backup (8)
CTG Music (8)
Node (8)
Overload Teams League (8)
Six Gaming Podcast (8)
ASP.Net (7)
Azure (7)
Buffalo (7)
League of Legends (7)
NWS (7)
Rendr (7)
SETI@Home (7)
The Nightstalker (7)
Video (7)
Diablo III (6)
Hard Drives (6)
Logs (6)
Overload (6)
Windows (6)
BOINC (5)
Cent Credits (5)
Cent Main Theme (5)
D3DSN (5)
Descent: Underground (5)
FreeBSD (5)
Google Desktop (5)
Google Earth (5)
Outpost Music (5)
Ron's Bronze Plays (5)
Sports (5)
UPS (5)
Birthday (4)
Buffalo Sabres (4)
Constellation (4)
Everytime (4)
JavaScript (4)
Preview (4)
Pwned Print (4)
roncli's Dumbass Award (4)
San Antonio (4)
Sigh of Excitement (4)
Six Gaming (4)
Steam (4)
Stripped Down (4)
The Observatory (4)
trac (4)
Twitch (4)
Visual Studio (4)
Winamp (4)
AJAX (3)
All In My Head (3)
Blackjack (3)
Chess (3)
Crypt of the NecroDancer (3)
D3TL (3)
DCL (3)
Gate (3)
Given Up (3)
Guitar (3)
Inspiration Edit (3)
jQuery Default Button (3)
MAME (3)
MediaTagConverter (3)
ModPlug (3)
NeonXSZ (3)
NetHack (3)
Numbers (3)
Paper (3)
PHP (3)
Rawr (3)
Sift (3)
SQL Server (3)
Tumblr (3)
Vision (3)
Year in Review (3)
AM Browser (2)
Asana (2)
ASP.Net RSS Toolkit (2)
Bicycle (2)
BlizzCon (2)
Cheevos FTW! (2)
Crazy Browser (2)
Descent Champions Ladder (2)
DMTB (2)
Docker (2)
Elbow (2)
Eternally (2)
Evans Blue (2)
Fire In My Heart (2)
Games (2)
GitHub (2)
GTR (2)
Houston Astros (2)
How To Play (2)
Hurricane Katrina (2)
iPhone (2)
IRC (2)
IsItUp (2)
Las Vegas (2)
Legs (2)
LibBeImba (2)
Minnesota Wild (2)
Miss Driller (2)
Module Sixteen (2)
Monitor Resolution (2)
NeKo (2)
New Zepsi Industries (2)
Niagara Falls (2)
Novus Compo (2)
Pittsburgh Penguins (2)
Poker (2)
Pwned Cars (2)
Reinstall (2)
Remake (2)
Retro (2)
roncli Productions Intro (2)
San Francisco (2)
San Francisco Rush 2049 (2)
slammy (2)
Sleep (2)
Solar (2)
SoundCloud (2)
Stress (2)
Strings (2)
Tempurpedic (2)
The Editor (2)
TNS Raw (2)
TopCoder (2)
Troupe (2)
w.bloggar (2)
Wedding (2)
XAML (2)
You (2)
Zepsi (2)
#modarchive Story 2 (1)
#occupygregstreet (1)
Absolute C++ (1)
Achaea (1)
Acronyms (1)
AdAware SW (1)
Adobe Acrobat (1)
AdventureQuest (1)
Alaska (1)
allen one (1)
AMD Settings (1)
Analyze (1)
APIs (1)
app.config (1)
Art (1)
ASSP (1)
Audiosurf (1)
Aveyond (1)
Awakening (1)
Bellaire (1)
BitTorrent (1)
Black Ox II (1)
Blackberry (1)
Blender (1)
Blogger (1)
BOINC Synergy (1)
BoincView (1)
Boom Bitches! (1)
Browserify (1)
Bullseye (1)
Byline (1)
CAD-KAS PDF Reader 2.4 (1)
CAPTCHA (1)
CDBurnerXP Pro (1)
CherryOS (1)
ChessCli (1)
Chick-Fil-A (1)
Child Controls (1)
clones (1)
ColdFusion (1)
Come Back To Me (1)
Compo (1)
Constellation Main Theme (1)
Cooking Lili (1)
Core Decision (1)
Crystal (1)
Databinding (1)
DataGrid (1)
DataGridView (1)
Deadly Drums (1)
Decade (1)
Dell (1)
Demogorgon (1)
Descent Rangers (1)
Diabetes (1)
Diamond Problem (1)
Doge2048 (1)
Doom's Day (1)
Double Buffer (1)
Dr. Jeffrey Masters (1)
Drama (1)
Dreamweaver (1)
Dudley's Dungeon (1)
Einstein@Home (1)
Ellon in the Dark (1)
Elon Musk (1)
EveryDNS (1)
Evolution (1)
Eyes (1)
Fedora Core 6 (1)
FeedPage (1)
Fiddler (1)
FlowDocument (1)
Foobar 2000 (1)
Foxit Reader (1)
Galveston (1)
Geocore (1)
GMail (1)
Google Calendar (1)
Google Chrome (1)
Google Pages (1)
Google Wave (1)
Grid (1)
grl (1)
Grooveshark (1)
Grunt (1)
GTR2 (1)
Guitar Solo (1)
Hackers (1)
HCC (1)
Hearthstone (1)
Heroes of the Storm (1)
HomesickAlien (1)
Houston Aeros (1)
ICallbackEventHandler (1)
If Paige Wins (1)
IIS (1)
Inno (1)
Internet Explorer (1)
Interview (1)
iPad (1)
Iron Chouquette (1)
Irrlicht (1)
Jaded (1)
jQuery UI (1)
jQuery UI Scroll Menu (1)
JW Player (1)
Kado Kado (1)
Kaspersky (1)
KFOS Inner Space Radio (1)
Know What (1)
Kromaia (1)
Let It Ride (1)
Let's Encrypt (1)
Let's Play (1)
LibWowHeroes (1)
LifeCast (1)
LINQ to Entities (1)
Linux (1)
Liquid Wars (1)
ListView (1)
Loading (1)
Lukan Schwigtenberg (1)
Mac (1)
MadTracker (1)
Mastodon (1)
Melbourne (1)
Melt (1)
Message From Beyond (1)
Micro Center (1)
Mistakes (1)
Monitor (1)
Mouse (1)
Moving (1)
Mr. Driller (1)
MSDN (1)
NASCAR SimRacing (1)
Network (1)
New Year (1)
olmod (1)
On Fire Series (1)
Opalus Factory (1)
Open Labs (1)
Open Source (1)
Operation Payback (1)
Overwatch (1)
PearPC (1)
Phony (1)
Piano (1)
Pingle (1)
pogo.com (1)
PowerStrip (1)
Programming (1)
PSP (1)
PXO (1)
Quadra (1)
Radeon (1)
Radio Shack (1)
Rant (1)
RedHeat (1)
Reject (1)
Release (1)
Religion (1)
Rendr Template (1)
Renegade (1)
Retrovirus (1)
Revival Productions (1)
RFLXT (1)
RIP (1)
RockMelt (1)
Scott Hanselman (1)
Self-Destruct Sequence Podcast (1)
Showsan (1)
Silverlight (1)
Sitemap Generator (1)
Smoke (1)
Sol Contingency (1)
Sound Blaster Audigy (1)
Speedrun (1)
Spelling (1)
SQL Reporting Services (1)
SSL Certificates (1)
Stanley Jakubowitz (1)
Starbase Arcade (1)
Starcraft II (1)
Starting All Over (1)
Story (1)
Sublevel Zero (1)
Swiss (1)
Tetris (1)
Thanksgiving (1)
The Crossroads (1)
The Time Now (1)
The Wight to Remain (1)
Time and Date (1)
Toronto (1)
Torrent Keeper (1)
Total Bollocks (1)
Trans-Siberian Orchestra (1)
TraxSurf (1)
Trillian (1)
Twitter (1)
Typing (1)
Ultimate Boot CD (1)
UpdatePanel (1)
US Interactive (1)
Video Bob (1)
ViewState (1)
Vince Young (1)
Vincent Lau (1)
Vocals (1)
Voyage (1)
Voyager: Ascension (1)
Walter Savitch (1)
Warlords of Draenor (1)
Weather (1)
Web3 (1)
Westward (1)
What Do I Know (1)
WikiLeaks (1)
Windows Defender (1)
winLAME (1)
Winter Classic (1)
Word Field (1)
World Record (1)
Worst Things in the World (1)
WPF (1)
Xamarian (1)
XBox (1)
XM Radio (1)
XML Web Services (1)
Yahoo! Pipes (1)
Yes (1)
You Are Not Alone (1)
Share This Page
Social Media
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
@shanselman Who at Microsoft do I have to bribe to fix ADO so that those of us on dark mode who copy/paste text from one task to another can do so without our friends on light mode seeing dark text on a dark background?
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I updated the blog post with a statement from Revival. While I'm not particularly happy with Revival's decision, I understand their motives. It's just a shame that it was someone from Interplay that had to go and do this. "By games for gamers" my ass.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Damn, got another Tetris world record! This time in the arcade variant developed by Atari. 6,008,005 points, 5,386 lines, round 363. Be warned, it's nearly FIVE HOURS. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2131759212
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I certainly didn't have "Overload but with web3 features" on my 2024 bingo card. WTF did Revival Productions just do?
https://roncli.com/blogger/3949527510668683306/wtf-did-revival-productions-just-do
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
@solitha New rule: cat tax. For every pun you post or repost, you're now required to pay the tax of posting one cute cat video.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Today was a special day. I scored 1,016,221 points in classic NES Tetris, the first time I broke the 999,999 maxout barrier.
With that maxout, I became the oldest person to get their first ever maxout at 46 years 319 days.
After I scored that, I learned that today would have been 7-time Tetris world champion Jonas Neubauer's 43rd birthday.
I am FILLED with incredible emotion tonight.
https://clips.twitch.tv/AverageImportantGoldfishHassaanChop-bRfUxo4q5SxEgJvI
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
"I'm Sorry, What?!" The biggest bailout in the history of Descent II! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLlTk7wa59A
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
βBART anime merch" are three words that I would not have expected to go together, but here we are. https://www.railgoods.com/bart/anime/
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Does anyone else sing the chorus to "Cherish" by Kool & The Gang to themselves whenever they play or watch streams of Balatro? Or is that just me?
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I'm fact that's what Lingo needs: a "phone" block. The clue is an incorrect autocorrected form of the answer. π
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
It's like my phone knows I've been playing Lingo. I typed in "exited" and my phone was all:
β¬οΈ EXCITED ------
βͺοΈ
βͺοΈ
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
A comparison of the classic Tetris and Descent communities. Not a post I write lightly, either.
https://roncli.com/blogger/3703157809000934742/a-tale-of-two-communities
martin
@luftlesen @mstdn.jp
Aptiz played #Pentis again. In the beginning you can see roncli asking in the chat for the right version. About an hour later, he broke the #PentisRankings record with 60K ! Congratulations roncli π π
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2052528360?sr=a&t=11267s
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Yeah, it's season 11. But the OTL Season 6 highlight reel is up, this time Fireball has taken the reins! Check out this video jam packed full of kills, deaths, silliness, and Sirius puns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXstLVjnaGo
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Over on #thatbirdhellsite, someone retweeted sympathy for the people being laid off today...
...and then said that Amazon Games was hiring. You know, the one that just had layoffs in NOVEMBER.
Honestly? Tech sucks right now.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Seriously. Why is it called Sagittarius, A Star? Clearly, it's Sagittarius, A Black Hole. Silly astronomers.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
This eslint/stylistic breakup is going to give me a headache. Don't developers have something better to do than give other developers busywork?
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Bing is so bad. https://otl.gg is being blocked in their search results, and Bing webmaster tools are absolutely useless, not telling me why it's being blocked.
Does anyone know of some way to get a human to look at this and see what's wrong with it? #bing #microsoft
Olivia W'
@WLivi @retro.pizza
it's not actually common for real hackers to use two keyboards at once; that's just a stereo type.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Me and my wife, despite buying a house of nice size, always seem to get in each other's way, be it in the kitchen, on the stairs, it doesn't matter. She's all up in my two square feet.
I often joke that all I want for Christmas is my two square feet.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Update 2: The record that beat Blue Scuti stood for one day. Blue Scuti got it back.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
I got the honor and privilege of calling the NES Tetris NTSC world record today while running Classic Tetris Wars on my Twitch channel for the very first time. It was thrilling. Congratulations to Blue Scuti for his 6,609,220 level 153 performance. https://clips.twitch.tv/DiligentDeadGoldfishDoritosChip-cx_vDMWAjKaZUK6N
TwistBit
@TwistBit @musicians.today
like, you used to use a phone line to access the internet
now the internet is accessible on your phone
nothing has changed actually
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Six Degrees of Sunday returns Sunday, January 7th, at https://twitch.tv/roncli. Cya there!
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Are you ready to get Six'd Off?
Six Degrees of Sunday, my 6DoF long play Twitch series, is getting revived for 2024. Plus, I will be producing Six'd Off, a companion YouTube series showcasing each game.
Check out the announcement for the game list and more! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeRbjjpQVZY
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
So I started a fresh YouTube channel some time ago, and yesterday I released the first real video to it.
Check out highlights from Argus Industrial Moons' run to the OTL Season 10 Best of the Rest title! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2x-GGW9FYI
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
People at work are calling Kubernetes K8, and I hate it. It's not "Kubernete"!
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
Want a preview of what CTWC will be like next weekend from a gameplay perspective? CTL Season 22 finals starting now.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
No airport hell this morning, but you know that lady that talks about security at literally every airport? I just realized, she sounds old AF.
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social
If this security line posted signs "5 minutes from this point", "10 minutes...", etc., They'd have to post them every foot. #airporthell
Join roncli on Discord!
Join the roncli Gaming Discord server for discussion about gaming, development, and more! 
Content Β©2000-2024 Ronald M. Clifford
Website Version 2.1.18, Β©2021-2024 roncli Productions
Website Version 2.1.18, Β©2021-2024 roncli Productions
Bugs? Report on GitHub