作者：Zoran Cunningham

玩家众所周知的延迟，最明显的表现就是玩家输入和游戏响应之间存在时间上的误差。延迟对所有竞技型在线游戏都有恶劣影响，但对于在线格斗游戏，有些高级玩家往往计算动画的单独帧来决定招式和连续技。延迟的的后果是很严重的。它是格斗游戏比赛往往在线下举行的原因之一，因为玩家社区认为无延迟的比赛才是真正意义上的公平竞争。当出现延迟时，游戏的策略会发生显著变化，甚至完全颠覆游戏体验的程度。

Aris Bakhtanians是格斗游戏社区中知名的资深玩家，他在他著名的“Avoiding the Puddle”播客中简要地提到这个问题。这位同名网站的创始人还是《灵魂能力》和《铁拳》的世界冠军，多次获邀参加日本非常流行的“斗剧”，还经常往返于世界各地参加邀请赛。他的成就不言而喻，但最近的脚伤使他无法参加竞技比赛了，别无选择，他只好在线玩游戏。正是那时，他发现延迟大大改变了他忠爱的《铁拳2》的根本机制和玩法策略。

internet and latency(from blog.wtfast.com)

Aris表示，“我一直在尽最大努力玩好每一场比赛，就像我在线下联赛中一样，但我发现玩线上游戏因为存在延迟，玩法比严重影响了。当我与人类玩家对抗时，这也是两个试图击败对方的人在进行心理上的较量。”格斗游戏社区称之为“Yomi效应”，写手兼游戏设计师David Sirlin经常提到这个术语，这是指玩家学习和适应对手的策略，期以预测对手的下一步动作和反应。

“这就好像两名熟练的运动员在进行拔河比赛。延迟是一个存在于线上游戏中的永恒变量，是双方选手都要不断考虑的。”

大部分熟练的玩家都谴责游戏的线上玩法，认为网代码执行太差，导致线上比赛不流畅，不能模拟公平的竞赛环境。甚至休闲玩家也会失望地放弃格斗游戏的在线模式，如果他们‘觉得’网络不流畅，经常导致连续技和输入突然不响应、游戏突然变得很卡。如果线上体验与核心的线下体验完全不同，那就太让玩家失望了。但就在这样一个延迟似乎无法避免的时代，Aris提出一个有趣的假设。

“如果延迟是始终不变的，那么线上比赛就更加容易了。换句话说，如果我一开始就知道我自己具体延迟了多少帧，那么我就会在这个比赛过程中注意弥补这个延迟，尽管为此我仍然得调整自己的策略和招式排列。但实际上对于线上游戏，在整个比赛过程中你总是有这些巨大的峰值和谷值——不断起伏的延迟变成了另一名对手，除了对付游戏中的对手，你还要考虑这个游戏外的对手。”

延迟的不断变化导致顶尖玩家不可能玩到那种让自己真正觉得赢了的比赛。他补充道：“大部分玩家都理解，延迟的问题目前没有办法解决，但熟练的玩家有可能在比赛中就会表现得更好，因为他们能够前后调整自己的时间。非一致的延迟的结果是，在比赛的开始，你得向后调整一点，在中间时往后调整一点，在最后谁知道要往前调还是后往调一点。”

这些问题普遍存在于格斗游戏中，但3D格斗游戏受影响最甚，特别是因为3D游戏的绝对深度和复杂度——连续技太依赖走位、距离和定时。“甚至在实况背景下，《铁拳》玩家也得在心里计算什么时候施放连续技。他们要考虑连续技以前要用什么招式，对手被打中时的面向，如果对手被打到半空中，离墙有多近。那就是为什么那以多人在游戏中使用连续技，因为游戏迫使他们采用能产生最大效力的连续技。”

考虑到存在延迟，大部分玩家觉得自己玩的是完全不同的游戏，这就不足为奇了。Aris坦言：“延迟让你真心觉得某些招式和策略在比赛过程的大部分时候都用不了，而其他低级且不安全的策略突然间变得可行了。甚至有些我在联赛中用得很好的角色，一到线上比赛，因为延迟给我找了许多麻烦。”

这产生了一个有趣的情景：玩家使用在游戏有延迟的情况下最理想的角色和策略。这太出乎意料了，因为那些角色和策略在联赛中往往是不稳妥的选择，且防守型玩家很难理解，因为他们只有一场比赛来学习对手的特殊习惯。结果是花招诡计盛行，让甚至最优秀的玩家也措手不及。

各大格斗游戏网站如Shoryuken和EventHubs的玩家都致力于使用具有非常特殊和笨拙招式的低级角色，这些角色在线下游戏使用非常危险但一到线上比赛就突然变成非常难对付的家伙，他们原本不安全的招式一下子变成杀手锏。

他笑道：“《铁拳2》有非常多角色和招式是不适合拿来对付优秀的对手的。但在线上，延迟非常严重的情况下，优秀的玩家也无法看到那些招式，那些角色突然间变得非常好用。因为整个游戏过程中延迟起伏变化，所以游戏中的实际层级也变化。那就是为什么像Lili这样的角色会变得那么逆天。”

“对于主要玩线下比赛的玩家，我认为线上可能是一个艰难的过渡。需要非常多耐心和相当厚的脸皮。那些能很快看淡失败和学习经验教训的玩家更能适应线上游戏。但对于像我这样的家伙，输掉比赛且我知道主要是因为延迟，实在太让我郁闷了。通常，我不太喜欢反思比赛，因为我不想在脑内重播，毕竟知道延迟变化不是我能控制的。延迟事实上导致几乎不可能学习或进步。”

这个问题导致了另一个问题：玩家输掉比赛后可能故意制造延迟。论坛通常会排斥那些习惯性滥用这种手段以获得优势的玩家。Aris指出：“这通常是指使用‘延迟开关’。有些玩家有专门制造延迟的设备，但大部分作弊的人都使用非常简单的办法，也就是简单地预装载许多东西，当他们有可能输掉比赛时，就打开那些下载和，用数据占据流量以拖延比赛。我就遇到许多次这种情况，我原本占绝对上风。可是网络连接质量突然跌到谷底，我突然就处于劣势了。”

这些问题导致许多高玩抨击格斗游戏的线上模式，但这不是说格斗游戏开发者没有做好线上模式的网代码。网络延迟的变化不是设备制造商和软件开发商能够控制的，这基本上是个人的网络连接速度和稳定性的问题。甚至最好的网代码也可能产生延迟，如果玩家用50MB/s的速度与3000英里之外的对手玩游戏，而对方的速度是10MB/s的话。

Aris解释道：“我认为玩家不应该把错全部归于开发者，因为开发者真的尝试和改进了游戏。《铁拳6》简直没办法线上玩，我估计我只玩了四场比赛就彻底放弃了。《铁拳6》和《铁拳2》的品质飞跃可谓天翻地覆。虽然距离真正的联赛环境还很远，但至少是有所进步了。”

随着开发者的改进，格斗游戏最终实现完美的线上体验是非常有可能的。Aris回忆道：“宽带速度和技术的进步是有帮助的。唯一一次我看到顶尖玩家玩在线模式使用的策略和线下一样的是在日本和韩国，因为这两个国家的网络速度超级快，地理位置又挨得近。”总有一天，我们的网络速度都会达到那样的程度。但在此之前，玩线上游戏的玩家只能学着适应那些怪异和尴尬的策略。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

How latency creates divergent strategies in competitive online gaming

by Zoran Cunningham

Latency, or lag as it’s commonly known among gamers, is characterized by the visually noticeable delay between a player’s input and the game’s response. Lag derails all competitive online games but for fighting games, where high level players often count individual frames of animation to determine everything from move safety and priority to combo strings and damage, lag is crippling. It’s one reason why fighting game tournaments are held offline as the community sees lag-free competition as the absolute purest form. When lag is thrown into the mix, strategies and match-ups can change to the point where a fighting game becomes an entirely different experience.

Aris Bakhtanians, an accomplished veteran in the fighting game community, briefly addressed this issue in a recent episode of his popular Avoiding the Puddle podcast. Founder of the website by the same name, Aris is a world champion Soul Calibur and Tekken player, a multi-time qualifier for Japan’s prestigious Super Battle Opera, and has been flown around the world to compete in numerous invitationals. His record of accomplishments speaks for itself, but when a recent ankle injury prevented him from traveling and competing in tournaments he suddenly had no choice but to play online. It’s then that he discovered how lag altered some of the fundamental mechanics and gameplay strategies of his beloved Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

“I’ve been trying my best to play every match as clean as possible just like I would in a tournament setting, but what I discovered about playing online is that lag drastically changes how you play the game. When I’m playing against a human opponent there this interesting back-and-forth between two minds who are trying to outplay each other,” says Aris. Top players in the fighting game community call this the Yomi effect, often referenced by writer and game designer David Sirlin, where a player learns and adapt to their opponent’s strategy in an effort to anticipate upcoming moves and reactions.

“It always feels like a tug-of-war between two skilled players,” he continues. “While that exists online, there’s also this perpetual variable that is sort of like a Richter scale that both players have to continually take into account in the form of latency.”

Most skilled players often denounce a game’s online play if the netcode is so poorly implemented that it doesn’t provide for smooth online play that at least simulates a competitive match. Even casual players will give up on a fighting game’s online mode if they ‘feel’ that it is broken, often a result of similar frustration from combos and inputs that suddenly don’t work and matches that visually appear to be stuttering. If the online experience feels considerably different from the core offline experience it can be altogether discouraging. But in an era where lag is seemingly unavoidable, Aris posits an interesting hypothetical.

“Online would be so much easier if the lag were just consistent,” Aris believes. “In other words, if I knew at the beginning of the round that I had a very specific amount of frame lag, I could then compensate for that throughout the match, even though I would still have to adjust my strategy and move-set in order to do so. But with online play you always have these huge peaks and valleys throughout the match and having this constantly fluctuating latency is a lot like having a second opponent that you have to constantly adapt your metagame to.”

This constant shift in latency makes it impossible for most top players to have a match where the better player feels they honestly won. “Most players understand that its currently impossible to lock in the latency, but if it were possible it would be a lot easier for skilled players to cope since they would be able to dial back or dial forward their timing,” he adds. “Inconsistent latency makes you feel like you might have to dial it back a little at the start of a match and then suddenly have to dial it forward a bit in the middle of a round and then do who knows what by the end of the match.”

These issues are pervasive to all fighting games but 3-D fighters most especially due to the sheer depth and complexity of being three dimensional games where combos are so dependent on positioning, distance, and timing. “Even in a live setting, Tekken players have so much they have to mentally calculate just to pull off a combo string,” Aris admits. “They’re considering what move they used to start the combo, what direction their opponent is facing when being hit, if their opponent is in the air, or how close they may be to a wall. That’s why so many people drop combos in the game, because the game forces them to adapt mid combo for maximum effectiveness.”

Throw lag into that mix and it’s not surprising that most players feel they’re playing a completely different game sometimes. “It gets so bad that you honestly feel certain moves and strategies are inaccessible for large portions of a match while other cheap and unsafe strategies suddenly become viable,” he explains. “There are even some character match-ups that I never have problems with in tournament but they give me no shortage of touble online because of latency.”

This creates this interesting situation where players look for cheap characters and strategies that are optimal during lag. These things are often completely unexpected because they would be unsafe in a tournament and it becomes difficult for the defensive player to read that because they have only a single match to learn the opponent’s mannerisms. The result is a slew of gimmicks and shenanigans that even the best of players can’t predict or prepare for.

Entire forum threads on major fighting game sites like Shoryuken and EventHubs are dedicated to dealing with typically low-tier characters with very unique and awkward moves that are easily punishable when whiffed offline but suddenly become extremely difficult to deal with in online matches when their naturally unsafe moves suddenly become very difficult to handle.

“Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has such a huge roster that some characters and moves are a poor match against a good opponent. But online, where lag can get so bad that a great player can’t see those moves come out, those characters suddenly have a very good tool set they can tap into. The same way the latency goes up and down throughout a match, so does the actual tier list within the game. That’s why we see characters like Lili become unbeatable on a bad connection. The same goes for the bears and the capoeiras,” he says laughing.

“For guys who mainly play offline matches, I think online can be a difficult transition. It requires so much patience and really thick skin,” Aris points out. “Players that can quickly get over losses and take in the learning experience after they’ve lost a match will be better suited for online play. But for guys like me, it’s just too frustrating when I lose a match and I know that lag played such a huge role. Oftentimes I don’t have the willpower to reflect on the match because I don’t want to replay it in my mind knowing that the lag variable was well out of my control. It actually makes it seem impossible to learn or get better at the game.”

Compounding the problem are players who purposely create lag when losing a match in order to throw their opponents off balance. Entire forum threads are often dedicated to outing players who habitually abuse this in order to gain an advantage. “This often referred to as lag switching. Some guys have dedicated devices for this, but most perpetrators have an easy set-up where they just have a ton of stuff preloaded on their torrent client and as soon as they are at risk of losing a match they just turn on those downloads and flood their connection with data to slow down the match. I’ve been in plenty of situations where I’m absolutely dominating an opponent when the connection quality mysteriously bottoms out and I’m suddenly in a world of trouble.”

These issues have led many top players to denounce online modes in fighting games, but this isn’t to say that fighting game developers are simply terrible at programming the netcode for their online modes. There are so many variables to online latency that are beyond the control of the console manufacturer and software developer, most notably the individual user’s internet connection speed and stability. Even the best netcode can suffer when a player with 50mbps download speed has to play a promotion match against someone 3,000 miles away with a 10mbps connection.

“I don’t think players fully blame the developers because they’re really trying and improving with each release. Tekken 6 was literally unplayable online and I think I only played four online matches before I just gave up completely,” Aris admits. “The jump in quality between Tekken 6 and Tekken Tag 2 is night and day. It’s still nowhere near where it needs to be to simulate proper tournament quality play, but it is at least playable in some sense.”

With developers getting better with every iteration it’s quite possible that fighting games will eventually reach a point where they are perfectly playable online. “Improvements in broadband internet speed and technology overall will help. The only time I’ve seen top players play online and use the same strategies they would in a tournament is in Japan and Korea where their internet is super fast and they’re all geographically very close together,” he recalls. One day we’ll all get to that point technologically. Until then online play will be filled awkward and aberrant strategies that players will have to deal with and adapt to.(source:gamasutra)