Connection issues that seem to have nothing to do with quality of network

Would it be possible to have a write-up of how lag is actually caused and individuals aren't actually responsible for lag (as it's peer-to-peer, two people at least must have a bad connection to eachother.) People from different countries are erroneously assuming that these connection issues are caused by actual networking issues and not issues with the coturn servers and ICE/STUN networking. People don't seem to understand how lag works and in FAF where there is a ton of it, maybe it would be helpful to elucidate it for people? People honestly think that if the game lags, and one person leaves and it resolves the lag, then they were responsible for the lag and they will lag other games so they have a banlist due to their lack of understanding, and it's really annoying in this small community.

Back in the good old days, lag was the players fault. Now that we have this huge technological mess, lag is a random thing AND caused by individuals and there is zero indicators to see the cause.

@closed I'd imagine that it's quite possible that 'back in the good old days', players were much more conscious about their connections for gaming.

I can't speak for individual players, but I will say that the gamers in the communities I played with seemed FAR more conscious about their connections 20 years ago.
The idea of using firewalls while gaming was frowned upon in those communities, using NAT-based routing was also generally discouraged (many games didn't support it), and using a VPN was considered absolutely demonic!
Nowadays, all those things are much more common, and many gamers are sharing their internet connections with other household members, too.

This makes me wonder whether maybe some of the connectivity issues being talked about are a less of a 'FaF developer fault' than they are made out to be?

I think what also is forgotten is that the world changed. It is hard to imagine that the internet routes that were available two years ago are now all still available.

@sylph_ There are tried-and-true ways of overcoming issues with NAT boundaries and other games are able to do it. Starcraft remastered is one that comes to mind.

Connecting your computer directly to the modem without a firewall was literally never a thing, especially not when this game was made, I don't really know what you're talking about there. Disabling your firewall and connecting directly to the modem is literally how you get flooded with viruses, so doing that is less conscious. Having a single computer consume a houses entire internet connection is ridiculous to expect.

I think that there are some issues with ICE/STUN networking code and perhaps the coturn servers that are causing lag beyond actual network issues. ICE/STUN are the technologies that are supposed to deal with NATS without forwarding ports.

I'm not suggesting that all lag and every time the drop screen comes up it's due to FaF networking. An investigation would need to uncover how often actual network issues are not the culprit. This stuff is pretty hard, especially doing it yourself, so hopefully we can resolve them.

@logic9867 said in Connection issues that seem to have nothing to do with quality of network:

There are tried-and-true ways of overcoming issues with NAT boundaries and other games are able to do it. Starcraft remastered is one that comes to mind.

Blizzard started the battle.net in 1996 and had much more experience than GPG. For internet they use TCP/IP while Supcom uses UDP. And now we tried to duct-tape some magic on top of it. And we're happy that it even works, it's not like we have network experts with decades of experience that know how to figure out any issues.

@brutus5000 Sorry, I didn't mean "If Blizzard can do it with Starcraft, why can't FAF developers do it?" I just meant it is possible. I acknowledge this stuff is hard and apologize for my previous post. Without you guys Supcom would be dead and I appreciate the work you've all done.

But that wasn't my point either. Blizzard can do these things because they have source code for their networking code and are working on it for decades and can patch it anytime if something changes or breaks. We have a binary and some reverse engineering knowledge, that's it. We can't touch it.

Some analysis and some guides would be the best checkout from this.

There are too many people who dont realise: its not just the other player... its them too ; or who are too ignorant to accept that.

Afterall most dont know how to fix it and are alienated by the concept. That is often the technological customer's world in a nut shell ( and probably why they are so hard to please)

Im in the usa and running download 500+ mbps and a upload of 50ish mbps but im tired of being called out for "lagging all time but when u look at the connectivity issues and ppl the drop out of games its not me how can i fix this or is it just the game? i just cant play it anymore because of this

Are you on wifi? When my computer was linked by wifi, I lagged in team games (but not really in 1v1s). When I was connected with ethernet cable, that stopped.

I don't know why. I can't explain it. It doesn't really make sense to me, because either way I'm connecting to the same router. But I'm not the only person who experienced lag with wifi but not with ethernet.

@arma473 I can think of quite a few reasons than the low ping associated with a wired connection would make a massive difference compared to wifi (ie. in addition to bandwidth priority).
I think using a wired connection is probably a smart first step if many games feature connection problems.
(From what I've read, it seems like a significant part of the problem of FaF networking is how quickly 'player XXXX has dropped' can convince players that they are not the problem.)

I don't personally ever (<1% of games) see disconnects, but I understand that many players do, and I think ensuring the best connection possible (ie. wired connection) is a great first step.

In anyone wants to know what else I do, they're welcome to PM me (although my post in this thread probably gives 90% of the answers I could give in PMs)

its about stability not sheer net speed or bandwith. but atm the con seems to have genreal issues, connections between players fail and its neither ones fault, just seach the forum for different threads about this topic. but as far as i know you can play lagfree with a 300 ms ping as long you dont have packet loss. its this way because the game checks every tick every players actions, its not like in fps games where the game just assume that when you have packet loss that you might be just keeping on pressing the w key. being on cable solves many con problems becaus you garantuee a stable connection in your houshold at least.

@conny_action It's probably important for everyone to understand that packet loss is so much more common on wifi connections!

This makes me wonder whether maybe some of the connectivity issues being talked about are a less of a 'FaF developer fault' than they are made out to be?
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I have to admit, I occasionally have a game not even start properly... (The forged alliance executable never properly 'starts', not even showing the animated 'loading' screen. )
If I quit these games, I get a lost match, which is annoying considering that even some matches I WIN get an 'unrated' result. But still, this is the only time I feel that 'client' problems are grossly at fault for me.

FAF lag ain't like picking on the slowest kid in gym class. It's more like everyone tripping on invisible wires 'cause the party room's wired weird. One bad phone line might slow things down, but blaming one dude's net for everything is like yelling at the janitor when the sprinklers go off. Chill, FAF fam. Lag's a team effort, not a solo act. Let's untangle the wires together, not point fingers.
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It'd be good if there was a button in the lobby that could do a mini load test and try to see in advance if there was going to be lag. no idea if this is feasible or not.

@ginandtonicbot I think it shows in lobby if someone has a ping >500 ms . There's no check for packet loss though I believe, which could be useful.