Why didn't devs do P2P?

[Goof]

I'm sure once the server issues are resolved everything is going to be great...

HOWEVER, Helldivers 1 had peer-to-peer hosting with an online server that tracked player progress as well as war progress and it worked just fine.

Always-online games are great - when they work. But most of the time the games always have server issues the first several weeks after launch and it's ALWAYS THE SAME REACTION: "We didn't anticipate this many players!"

Instead of dealing with the massive headache that the devs are clearly working overtime to fix, why not do what worked in the past?

[Cryptic]

Because then they wouldn't have a way to make their microtransaction system fit into the game the way it does. They want all the data tracked, they want the microtransactions to be first and foremost and this allows them to keep better track of players and their stats so that there's less cheating and such.

If the game was peer-to-peer, none of these issues that are currently taking place would be happening. It would be 10x better that way

[Alex]

Cause my friend lives in Canada and I am west coast so it'll lag a bit? Then you got my other friend in the east coast. Their problem is not wanting to increase server capacity cause they're afraid a lot of people won't even play the game a month from now since their previous game only had 7k peak. They don't understand that third person shooters are fun and their old game which was top down isometric single screen sharing game is also fun but only to a very small group of people like the HD1 veterans. It's a big change and they lack the confidence in their game. It shows.

[PlutoIsAPlanet1405]

Originally posted by Cryptic:

If the game was peer-to-peer, none of these issues that are currently taking place would be happening. It would be 10x better that way

I completely disagree.
Even for P2P pairing you'd need a controller server that establishes the peeings. That server cluster can also be under dimensioned due to cost effectiveness. (Or whatever sony executives wanna call that lol)

P2P is generally worse in several points. Starting from cheat prevention, going over to personal security (leakage of own IP for example), lags and game synchronization between parties etc etc.
I also guess that as this is a sony title, the structure of the PSN is relevant too. There online play requires a subscription, which is not enforcable if you make the network connection peer to peer.

As to the reasons why you think they did it, thats pure speculation but the micro transaction part and data collection part is surely a factor the management considered during development.

[Sentient Bratwurst]

Originally posted by PlutoIsAPlanet1405:

Originally posted by Cryptic:

If the game was peer-to-peer, none of these issues that are currently taking place would be happening. It would be 10x better that way

I completely disagree.
Even for P2P pairing you'd need a controller server that establishes the peeings. That server cluster can also be under dimensioned due to cost effectiveness. (Or whatever sony executives wanna call that lol)

P2P is generally worse in several points. Starting from cheat prevention, going over to personal security (leakage of own IP for example), lags and game synchronization between parties etc etc.
I also guess that as this is a sony title, the structure of the PSN is relevant too. There online play requires a subscription, which is not enforcable if you make the network connection peer to peer.

As to the reasons why you think they did it, thats pure speculation but the micro transaction part and data collection part is surely a factor the management considered during development.

You're right. If only they'd released the game on a platform that comes with features built in to facilitate connecting to friends.

[Aldain]

Warframe player here, P2P might work but it also has massive inconsistency issues and one person with crappy internet can turn everything into a slog through lag.

Imagine an orbital strike being thrown, vanishing and then hitting 4 seconds later in a completely different place as an example.

The greater the need for long term precision and cohesion the less practical P2P is.

[Lieutenant Dan]

Because when Sony get's involved, is a gaas game, simple

[Sera]

I think stability might be why. I remember Peer 2 Peer games always being incredibly laggy if I didn't get host.

[kreeg]

Originally posted by Goof:

Why didn't devs do P2P?

Have you looked at the recommended specs for this game? Many people have ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hardware that is nowhere near capable of hosting Helldivers!

p2p is an absolutely terrible for a game like this.

[Jerubius]

From what I understand, the game does use p2p. It's more or less the same set up as the first game, but without the ability to snapshot the war status and play offline. The server tracks what planets are being fought over, validating missions rewards and purchases, and connecting players. Once you're actually in a match with people though, I'm pretty sure it's pure p2p.

[SESNut]

Originally posted by Aldain:

Warframe player here, P2P might work but it also has massive inconsistency issues and one person with crappy internet can turn everything into a slog through lag.

Imagine an orbital strike being thrown, vanishing and then hitting 4 seconds later in a completely different place as an example.

The greater the need for long term precision and cohesion the less practical P2P is.

ok? you only connect to the host in warframe, if he lags then everyone lags

so what you do is, you press escape and hit leave game and then join any other 100s of squads that are on missions

[Sir Seanicus, Esq.]

Lol crossplay and p2p

[Eudicots]

Is there even any game with crossplay to PlayStation that has p2p? Is this even allowed?

[Addex78]

Because P2P isn't safe.

You can have Player to Player P2P which is incredibly unsafe.

Or you can have Player to Broker Server to Player P2P which is slightly more safe but still not the best.


If Arrowhead just QA'd properly or stress tested the server setup they have would have been fine.

[beef1oz]

Originally posted by Goof:

Helldivers 1 had peer-to-peer hosting with an online server that tracked player progress as well as war progress and it worked just fine.

Thats exactly how this game works though. The actual games are all hosted p2p, the server is just for transactions and matchmaking

[Calv]

Originally posted by beef:

Originally posted by Goof:

Helldivers 1 had peer-to-peer hosting with an online server that tracked player progress as well as war progress and it worked just fine.

Thats exactly how this game works though. The actual games are all hosted p2p, the server is just for transactions and matchmaking

This.

Originally posted by Addex78:

If Arrowhead just QA'd properly or stress tested the server setup they have would have been fine.

They did.

They just didn't go high enough, which, when your previous game peaked at around 9-10k and all other similar games sit between 20-100k, testing for 10x players (100k) seems fairly reasonable.
Nobody could've predicted the game would sell as much as it did.