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Eurogamer: Shot Standing Behind a Wall: Why Isn't Overwatch's Tick Rate Higher?

NeoRaider

NeoRaider

Member
-The blemish on otherwise exemplary netcode performance.

The Overwatch launch, in terms of server performance, is going very well. But there's an issue the community feels is being ignored and they would like to see changed. It's the game's tick rate.

The tick rate is how often a server updates every second. Generally the higher it is, the more responsive the game. In Overwatch it is the tick rate that's responsible for you sometimes taking damage even though you've run behind a wall, or for your ultimate not going off at that crucial moment even though you swore you pressed it.

The beef the community has is that Overwatch's tick rate is 20.8hz, which is comparatively low when compared with online games of a similar ilk, such as Counter-Strike: Go and Battlefield 4, which have tick rates of around 60hz. And it's not that Overwatch isn't capable: you can raise the game's tick rate to 62.5hz - but you can only do it in Custom games via a High Bandwidth option in the settings.
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More here: Shot standing behind a wall: why isn't Overwatch's tick rate higher?
 
It's would explain how many times I know for a fact I used something, but nothing happened until I was dead.
 
This is my biggest complaint so far about the game, really wish they would up the tick rate, the fact that it's there for private matches makes it all the more aggravating. It would make a night and day difference for Tracer and McRees roll.
 
note: article is semi correct. Server tick is 60hz, player tick is 20hz. So your info gets processed fast, you receive info just a bit less fast. When you die around the corner, it just means the game wasn't quick enough to tell you that you died actually before you reached the corner. The information is not incorrect thought, there is no mistake in the calculation. Servertick of 20, now that would be a really big issue.

I think for public this is absolutely okay. In fact most people won't realize this, the biggest online shooter is CoD which has even lower tickrate, and still people play that a lot (i guess). Also most people don't have any clue how netcode works and they don't care as long as the graphics are shiny. Third thing everyone always forgets: Its a balancing thing to give the corner-peaker an advantage (because they come around the corner, aim and shoot a couple of ms earlier) compared to the guy who stands behind the wall and waits for the attack. This defender sees the attacker due to latency a bit later than what the attacker actually sees on the screen, so there is an advantage for the attacker in terms of reaction time. Else Bastion would get really nasty.

Yeah, fans of esport won't like it and once in every 1000th death even amateurs will have a wonky situation, but for public it's okay. At the moment there is no reason to believe that this game is meant to be the next big esport anyway.
 
That tick rate seems really low. That said I'm a scrub so in the beta I just assume every time I died it was my fault and every kill I got was luck.
 
JDB said:
Yeah it's not like big organizations picked up teams back in the beta..
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Everyone picks up teams at the moment in any beta. Rainbow Six: Siege has esport with leagues and tournaments and professional teams, with Ubisoft pushing it. Still the scene is not relevant, the price money is not relevant.
 
I wonder if this is blizzard trying to prevent throttling by the ISP if the client side tick is low. They had this issue with wow for a long time
 
People in this thread will try to defend it and probably post that developer netcode video with the plastic cups
 
online games of a similar ilk, such as Counter-Strike: Go and Battlefield 4, which have tick rates of around 60hz
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BF4 hasn't got a 60hz tickrate. Some servers have a 45hz rate but only with lowered player counts; most run at 30hz I believe. Doesn't matter at either tickrate - you will still be shot a good 5ft behind solid cover.

Low tickrate sucks...
 
Great to see a big outlet pointing this out. 60hz should be the bare minimum for fast paced online action games.
 
ashecitism said:
It also happened with Evolve I think. I recall they had a $100k tourney around the game's launch.
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Exactly. The rapid growth of esport that is happening right now won't tell you anything about the success of this particular game as an esport.

bati said:
Great to see a big outlet pointing this out. 60hz should be the bare minimum for fast paced online action games.
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It does have 60hz, just not playerside. No one reads my first post i guess.
 
Shot behind a wall, that does not happen anymore in COD and it has a lower tick rate - but most servers are local to me (UK) and I get 16 m ping to those servers.

So 16 ms ping, low tick rate in COD, there is never a problem. It takes about 100 + ms lag to the server before you start seeing effects of lag like being shot around corners.

What this article describes sounds like higher ping lag to me, even though they claim the connection is 17 ms. Does not sound right imo

MAYBE the other players are lagging, that would mean they can shoot you where you last were - so enemies could have higher PING...
 
Well i'm glad this has it's own thread. The people that were complaining that it was "good enough" can come shit post here.
 
This guy may be able to help...

the-tick.jpg
 
I'm guessing they might mess with it later, you gotta give it to them to be able to handle launch day network pressure without too much issue. everyone wants everything immediately, give the game some time to breath.
 
I'm Spartacus said:
BF4 hasn't got a 60hz tickrate. Some servers have a 45hz rate but only with lowered player counts; most run at 30hz I believe. Doesn't matter at either tickrate - you will still be shot a good 5ft behind solid cover.

Low tickrate sucks...
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pretty sure i've played 60hz full conquest servers last month
 
I noticed that i have some weird input lag, or i am not even sure what it is. For example with Soldier: 76 when i want to shoot or use the rockets it's like game doesn't even register it at all, and i have to click twice to start shooting.

I never had these issues when i was playing the beta. So i am not even sure what is happening. I also have some performance issues.
 
DoublePayje said:
note: article is semi correct. Server tick is 60hz, player tick is 20hz. So your info gets processed fast, you receive info just a bit less fast. When you die around the corner, it just means the game wasn't quick enough to tell you that you died actually before you reached the corner. The information is not incorrect thought, there is no mistake in the calculation. Servertick of 20, now that would be a really big issue.

I think for public this is absolutely okay. In fact most people won't realize this, the biggest online shooter is CoD which has even lower tickrate, and still people play that a lot (i guess). Also most people don't have any clue how netcode works and they don't care as long as the graphics are shiny. Third thing everyone always forgets: Its a balancing thing to give the corner-peaker an advantage compared to the guy who stands behind it and waits for the attack. Else Bastion would get really nasty.

Yeah, fans of esport won't like it and once in every 1000th death even amateurs will have a wonky situation, but for public it's okay. At the moment there is no reason to believe that this game is meant to be the next big esport anyway.
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Should be in the OP.
 
I didn't even know that that a higher tick rate was available in customs. Now I kind of understand the outrage. Why would they deliberately gimp regular matches and set it lower?
 
Jotamide said:
I didn't even know that that a higher tick rate was available in customs. Now I kind of understand the outrage. Why would they deliberately gimp regular matches and set it lower?
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Because matchmaking is 95% (estimate) of all games played compared to custom games. So the additional work load is neglectable for your server infrastructure. If you triple the load for all games played, you have to upgrade your netcode/servers OBVIOUSLY aswell.

It's a question of cost efficiency. And i am very sure they will never upgrade the servers, ever. If we get a higher tickrate, it means the netcode guys came up with a smarter, more efficient netcode. But they won't upgrade the hardware.

Hari Seldon said:
Private Servers would fix this problem.
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But also create issues with matchmaking, especially skillbased matchmaking. Then just go ahead and create custome games, the option is in the game.
 
JDB said:
It's a lot harder to break into the MOBA scene with League and Dota.

With FPS there is just CSGO, which will most likely die soon thanks to ESL.
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There was halo and CoD before but CoD is on a sinking ship and Halo.... People talk about halo still?

Battlefield is just too big since you would need a dedicated team large enough to count and the modes that don't need those numbers no one really plays.
 
Jotamide said:
I didn't even know that that a higher tick rate was available in customs. Now I kind of understand the outrage. Why would they deliberately gimp regular matches and set it lower?
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Because it's not gimping, it's a matter of trade-offs. We've had this discussion for other games, where I believe a senior network engineer explained what are the trade-offs and why different games opt for different tickrates.

Which is the answer to the question; Blizzard felt that for Overwatch that tickrate would be the best compromise.
 
I hate low ticrates but higher ticrates hit the CPU harder. Be it server or client it adds up the more people you have in a game. Multiplayer fps games shouldn't be compromised especially if you pay for them.

As for eurogamer whining about this, why bitch if most gamers still won't use AQM. Hey lets complain about ticrate but not the fact our packets aren't organized properly be it router or os nor sent out based on priority/need.
 
_machine said:
Because it's not gimping, it's a matter of trade-offs. We've had this discussion for other games, where I believe a senior network engineer explained what are the trade-offs and why different games opt for different tickrates.

Which is the answer to the question; Blizzard felt that for Overwatch that tickrate would be the best compromise.
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Yep. I fully expect competitive to default to 60hz.

Leaving it at 20hz for quickplay keeps the servers from melting down when they're getting hammered at launch.
 
LCGeek said:
I hate low ticrates but higher ticrates hit the CPU harder. Be it server or client it adds up the more people you have in a game. Multiplayer fps games shouldn't be compromised especially if you pay for them.
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That's why it's 60hz for server and 20hz local, the actual server logic is on par the standard, but they manage to keep the local performance decent. But suggesting that it shouldn't be compromised is kind of wrong when any option is a compromise between the variables.

The End said:
Yep. I fully expect competitive to default to 60hz.

Leaving it at 20hz for quickplay keeps the servers from melting down when they're getting hammered at launch.
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As mentioned above, the server tick is still 60hz which is fine. Local tick at 20hz isn't as good, but it's definitely not comparable to 20hz on both ends. Local 20 is a compromise Blizz wants to make to ensure a more consistent experience between a variety of local configurations (as in consoles and low-end PCs, which they tend to cater to often).
 
I've actually noticed this happen several times to me since launch.. one time was getting killed by McCree's ult long after I had run behind a wall. it sucked!
 
_machine said:
That's why it's 60hz for server and 20hz local, the actual server logic is on par the standard, but they manage to keep the local performance decent. But suggesting that it shouldn't be compromised is kind of wrong when any option is a compromise between the variables.
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I meant comrpormised in accepting sub standard values. 20 is fucking low for the genre its basically akin to being back in dial up times.

Quite aware of the difference I just prefer FPS games where people have good responsiveness on both ends.

we both mentioned the issue which is cpu based, as networking will easily make any issue in any game it's heavily used. Being in to other blizzard games I know they want scaling and netcode not to be a problem. Seeing as how this is console too I know the game has been balanced for them shit cpus which when strained won't handle the interrupt or IO requirements of highticrate game.
 
Netcode sucks, so many deaths when I thought I was out of line of sight. They have to do something about this.
 
Kysen said:
Netcode sucks, so many deaths when I thought I was out of line of sight. They have to do something about this.
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Like make you a better player? As said, you died before you moved out of line of sight. Game just shows that too late. That's the whole issue.
 
Damn. I personally don't care about multiplayer-only games, but this seems like a really important thing.
 
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