Main Difference Between Online and Offline

[Vowtz]

It is clear that playing online and offline offer a different experience, but what aspect of the game is most changed by online play?

For instance, I think most overheads become a lot stronger online, since lag will slow all your reactions, so you got to guess to defend while standing or couching on advance. That goes for all things that require reactions, like chipp's teleports, zato's mix ups, just defend, and so on.

To "Wake up" online is also a nightmare.

And for you, what's the main difference in your opinion?

[Grimsley-San]

There's a huge difference between offline and online play.

Even the tiniest bit of lag in netplay is completely different than offline where everything runs at a perfect 30fps or 60fps

[rubedo777]

There is a pretty massive difference between the two, that many netplayers often overlook.

 

Being unable to block some things on reaction is one obvious difference, but there's a lot more than that. Punishing things on whiff or block becomes much trickier. You have to judge when you have to hit your attack button to punish, because of the delay. In many cases, pressing the attack button based on a visual cue, will not work and the opponent might recover first and perhaps even reversal you. It becomes even harder if you have some moves that are punishable with a dash. Here, you have to judge when you need to start your dash and when you have to hit your attack button during the dash, both instances where input delay can make you lose frames and result in an unsuccessful punish.

 

This also starts to affect your mentality, to the point where a player that knows things should be punishable, starts to second guess whether they should attempt to punish things that they are accustomed to punishing. When you start second guessing yourself, it's not a good look...and if you let people get away with punishable moves because you second guess yourself, then this gives them many second chances in a match that should have already been over.

 

There are also a number of combos that are hard to do with muscle memory and generally require some visual cue. One example is comboing far S after a throw in the corner with Bedman. If you mistime this, it will OTG and if you jump cancel that far S(to continue the combo) and it happens to OTG, the opponent will recover and you are put into a dangerous situation. So instead of you possibly doing an extra 70 damage after your throw and knocked them down for additional oki, you are put into a situation where you can get airthrown or anti-aired. The match result can look completely different than what it was supposed to look like.

 

 

Because of all this, there's a ton of Ky players (for example) that are spamming greed sever...now here's the thing, I actually block almost all greed severs, even in lag...it's a combination of reaction, prediction and fuzzy guarding. Still though, I get hit with the occasional one that I know I should have blocked on time. These players...I tried to let some of them know that greed sever works more than it should because of netplay and that they need to watch some offline Kys to see that they play completely different because offline does not allow them to get away with it. Their response was either that I'm just complaining and that I need to "git gud" (didn't I just beat them and block most of those greed severs anywaY?) or that they simply don't care and they will play however they want to play. It is clear that they're more interested in just stealing matches they don't deserve instead of learning the game.

[Vowtz]

all

I agree with you!

I have the same issues you addressed about online Ky's Greed server and dusts, specially after charged stun edge oki. The same goes for AXLs unblockable, every time I get hit with that online I actually reacted on time, when playing offline that thing almost never hits. Also with faust's 6Hs.

Oki in general is pretty false online, that is maybe the greatest problem with online play in my opinion, naturally when you are waking up your options are already limited, like (defend, throw, backdash, reversal) depending on the character, but with lag it's a lot harder to do what you want, and a lot harder to react to your opponent overheads.

In my opinion the best solution would be an increased input buffer on wake up ( and just for wake up). I read that they will increase the buffer from 2f to 3f in all situations. But the most obvious time when the buffer problem appears is on wake up.

Some of the problems you mentioned, and that I also agree with (like whiff punish), are unavoidable, after all it takes time for the information to travel from one place to another. The "online wake up" likewise cannot be completely fixed, but a bigger buffer on wake up would bring back some options and make the game much more enjoyable.

[bluzenblazen]

Reversal back dash becomes high impossible. And forget about whiff punishing anything with a pile bunker. It is also a lot harder to tell when someone loses their composure. I watch for body language in between rounds and during combos.

Edit: etiquette also flies out the window. In person, you rarely receive an overly negative reaction to a match regardless of the outcome. Sure, saltiness happens, but I can't play online for a week without some kind of message about how bad I am and how much better they are even if they lose. The online fgc in general is like this though. Full of people that never make mistakes but lose somehow anyway. And if you lose and ask a question, be prepared for the inevitable "git gud" response most of the time instead of an actual explanation.

[Hollysmoke]

I just condition bad habits on my opponents so they think its working and then punish them afterwards when they still continue to use it. Makes them pretty free.

[XXXDC]

--

And for you, what's the main difference in your opinion?

Different as day and night. I can't play BB/GG online for the life of me, everything feels just so wrong and irritating, even with 3f delay. Not to mention that a lot of players develop terrible habits from online play... however there are a few who are actually good in both offline and online play (is like they have a switch to change modes :V ).

 

 

@rubedo777 has a nice summary.

[Graque]

There have been some great responses here.  How much of the difference is due to netcode though?

 

I don't know if this corresponds to rollback netcode, but some games (Skullgirls I think) allow you to play with fixed delay, so the delay should be something you could get used to.  Ping times (round-trip) on a good connection can be 10ms or less, so it seems a fixed two frame delay (two frames = 33ms) should be possible.  Reaction times can be 300ms or more, so online delay seems like it could just be similar to monitor and speaker delay, which I think can also add around 10ms I think.  So anyway I'm wondering if offline and online would be almost identical on a good connection if the netcode were good.

[Dude Butts]

the main difference is that they're completely different games.

[TheRealBobMan]

There have been some great responses here.  How much of the difference is due to netcode though?

 

I don't know if this corresponds to rollback netcode, but some games (Skullgirls I think) allow you to play with fixed delay, so the delay should be something you could get used to.  Ping times (round-trip) on a good connection can be 10ms or less, so it seems a fixed two frame delay (two frames = 33ms) should be possible.  Reaction times can be 300ms or more, so online delay seems like it could just be similar to monitor and speaker delay, which I think can also add around 10ms I think.  So anyway I'm wondering if offline and online would be almost identical on a good connection if the netcode were good.

 

They wont be almost identical, but if you could play with only 1-2 frames worth of added timing based on the connection it wouldn't hurt as much, especially if you had the appropriate monitors.  You're looking at delay imposed by:

 

1.  The minimum amount allowed by the hardware between your button press and the game responding.  Games are generally balanced around this unless the devs are incompetent.

2.  Display latency.  Your monitor takes time to display the image.  There are some sub 10ms monitors out there that you'd want to use, though CRTs introduce 0 delay.  We're moving away from CRT technology though.

3.  Any latency caused by your input device.  I think Teyah started a project where he compared some arcade sticks and found that some introduce 0-2 frames of delay compared to other sticks.  As far as I can remember there was no way to test for the actual delay amount in milliseconds, but there can be a discrepancy between input devices (Pad vs one stick vs another stick).

 

4.  Online latency.  You're tacking this onto whatever else you already have to deal with.  We're talking 2f minimum in most cases, where you can reduce other sources of lag down to around 1f.  Every frame adds up.  Since GG has delay based netcode you can experience spikes in latency, so timing that would allow you to IB one second is now getting you hit the next.  That's not cool.

 

 

Human reaction time is complicated.  I started writing an article about this a long time ago but I keep getting distracted.  I've been through at least 3 drafts so far...  Anyway, there are different kinds of reactions with different speeds.  Introducing latency to a situation where the game is balanced around your ability to react will create situations in which you react on time but get hit anyway.  You wont be able to punish things on reaction as well, you wont be able to block things as well, and you're boned in situations that demand precision to deal with a tight trap.  You might train yourself to block Zato unblocakbles 90% of the time under normal conditions, but then only get it 5% of the time because it's a 1-frame window, and that frame is constantly bouncing because of variable delay of 3-5 frames.

 

 

 

So uh... it's not so much that you can't benefit from online play, but it's enough that you should still prefer offline play.  You can still practice making reads, blocking obvious blockstrings, etc.

[TD]

Experience is experience. Even with lag the roots that make the game will not change, just the tactics. Any player could still try to have serious games online and win with strategies that are certainly not netplay tactics. Usually though this player must already love the game and actually have a decent connection and aptitude for learning to begin with.

Combos and other things for gg is harder than persona or bb, so it's understandable why more people wouldn't play this online compared to the former two.

[Uncivilized Elk]

Wait people message people in this game?
I haven't played for a couple months but I put in at least 400 random online games before that and I have never received a message, positive or negative. 

[Yakifufu]

Wait people message people in this game?

I haven't played for a couple months but I put in at least 400 random online games before that and I have never received a message, positive or negative. 

I do all the time.

 

And for me the main difference between online and offline play is that people offline don't say or do things that will get them punched like the people online playing with a mic.

[TITANIUM BEAST!!!]

In online, people think characters like Leo are actually good.

[BlackYakuzu94]

Online is kind of a necessary evil unfortunately, because a lot of people simply do not have the resources to go a major or even a local. For some, netplay is their only way of playing the game and improving against live opponents. It just has the unfortunate side effect of breeding bad players who think they're better than they really are...

[heavymetalmixer]

Online is kind of a necessary evil unfortunately, because a lot of people simply do not have the resources to go a major or even a local. For some, netplay is their only way of playing the game and improving against live opponents. It just has the unfortunate side effect of breeding bad players who think they're better than they really are...

 

Just this^. Online is my only way to play with other people in this country (Colombia) or the world, so, I deal with the lag or I don't play any of these games, it's that simple.

[Hollysmoke]

Just this^. Online is the only way to play with other people in this country (Colombia), so, I deal with the lag or I don't play any of these games, it's that simple.

 

People take the online for granted. Sure it may not work as well as we'd like, but 5-10-15 years ago we didn't even have online functionality. No local community? You didn't get to play, simple as that. Even if all you can play is online, at least you're playing. Doesn't stop you from learning the game and bringing up new discussions to the table. Just means more people for me to dustloop.   

[darklightjg1]

The difference is several frames...

 

Also, as someone who doesn't have nearly as much experience with this series as with SF, it's hard to identify when certain tactics are lag tactics and which ones more legit. It takes while, but usually whatever BS I encounter online, I recreate in training to see if whatever I was trying to do as a punish will work out or if I should go for something else.

[GSD-SPL]

Wait people message people in this game?

I haven't played for a couple months but I put in at least 400 random online games before that and I have never received a message, positive or negative. 

Yes, I usually ask people I have a good connection with if they want to grind out a set, but I pretty much always get ignored. I've been starting to play less because everyone just seems so cold and distant. I wish I had people to play sets with after work.

[indie_animator]

Sorry to hear that.  I'm in the Bay Area & don't ignore any PSN messages I get, but can only play weekends. I haven't been able to play vs. people from here for a few weeks despite sending out invites.  I suppose we all have different schedules.  Maybe most people on the w.coast & central US play during the week only or stopped playing the game or using this site.  Then there's real life stuff too, so I try to be patient.  Currently grinding through M.O.M. & found two people on the w.coast I watched play for a bit.