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Bungie explains why Destiny 2 doesn't have dedicated servers

Mesoian

Member
Making a PVP map is easier and less resource heavy than making a Raid.

What I mean to say is, isn't it kind of impossible to avoid PVP if you're not interested in it?

I hate 1v1 and 3v3 in overwatch, but I still have to engage with it if I want those free boxes.
 
Lmao what a shit answer. 4vs4 and they couldn't have dedicated servers handle that. Battlefield has 32vs32 dedicated servers and Activision couldn't spring for dedicated servers... what a joke.
 
30 fps on consoles and P2P, Bungie comfortably designing to previous generation standards on a game that is supposed to be a massive event, 10+ million seller. It's kind of frustrating that these core components are compromised because the mountain of quality of life features they are building can do nothing to make these aspects better.
 

Draft

Member
  • Dedicated servers are a cost/benefit decision. How much will they cost vs. how much will the player experience improve?
Destiny 2 will generate a billion dollars in revenue before selling a single megabyte of DLC. The dedicated services could be made of gold and maintained by endangered dolphins living in bespoke walking fish tanks and still not make a dent in Activision's profit.
 
They have engineers and designers that specifically focus on improving how the game performs over network. Luke's response was inelegant, but the points were valid:

  • Dedicated servers are a cost/benefit decision. How much will they cost vs. how much will the player experience improve?
  • The amount of players is a variable in peer-to-peer network games that makes things more complicated the higher it goes. Keeping things to 4v4 necessarily improves average match quality
  • Believe it or not, they've spent a lot of money developing things that facilitate better peer-to-peer matches, not just in networking and matchmaking, but also in sandbox, and undoubtedly other areas too

It's being hosted on the Blizzard launcher, all Blizzard games have dedicated servers because its fucking Blizzard. I swear Destiny 2 better not shit up the brand with its shitty game design decisions.
 

Mesoian

Member
The vast, vast majority will never care enough about the underlying systems to let that effect their sale or stop playing the game.

Only a vocal minority will make noise about P2P backend.

While true, I find it super baffling that their response for the reveal of the Destiny 2 PC stuff was all the right words (unlocked frame rate! Variable FOV! Complete rebinding! EVERYTHING YOU WANTED AND MORE!) and the thing that slipped their minds was dedicated servers...especially when they're partnering with Blizzard.

It's like dangling your keys in front of a baby and then promptly knocking a dish with all the baby's food over. Now there's a mess on your floor and everyone is either crying or cursing.
 

Iscariot

Member
As a sidenote, Titanfall's dedicated servers on PC feel worse than most p2p games. Doom isn't much better. No clue how these companies have managed this.

No clue how you're experience is that way either. Having played Destiny and Tf/Tf2 on pc it's a night and day difference.
 

Tusk

Member
Welp, dunno if I'll even get Destiny 2 now. If I do I'll just wait for the inevitable $60 game+all DLC edition to go on sale.

Or get a friend to buy it for me.
 

Iscariot

Member
What I mean to say is, isn't it kind of impossible to avoid PVP if you're not interested in it?

I hate 1v1 and 3v3 in overwatch, but I still have to engage with it if I want those free boxes.

I recall some exotics and other min/maxing endeavors requiring PvP participation, yes. I stopped playing before TTK came out though.
 
What I mean to say is, isn't it kind of impossible to avoid PVP if you're not interested in it?

I hate 1v1 and 3v3 in overwatch, but I still have to engage with it if I want those free boxes.

It's 99% avoidable, there are quests that ask you to play or do something specific in a PVP match, but you don't need to play PVP if you want to reach max level.
 
They have engineers and designers that specifically focus on improving how the game performs over network. Luke's response was inelegant, but the points were valid:

  • Dedicated servers are a cost/benefit decision. How much will they cost vs. how much will the player experience improve?
  • The amount of players is a variable in peer-to-peer network games that makes things more complicated the higher it goes. Keeping things to 4v4 necessarily improves average match quality
  • Believe it or not, they've spent a lot of money developing things that facilitate better peer-to-peer matches, not just in networking and matchmaking, but also in sandbox, and undoubtedly other areas too

Thanks for this post, we need more sanity in this thread.
 

Armaros

Member
It's being hosted on the Blizzard launcher, all Blizzard games have dedicated servers because its fucking Blizzard. I swear Destiny 2 better not shit up the brand with its shitty game design decisions.

Blizzard is only hosting the front end client aka logging in with blizzard app, the rest is Bungie.
 
Destiny 2 will generate a billion dollars in revenue before selling a single megabyte of DLC. The dedicated services could be made of gold and maintained by endangered dolphins living in bespoke walking fish tanks and still not make a dent in Activision's profit.

Thread. Over.

Best post I've read in weeks
 
No clue how you're experience is that way either. Having played Destiny and Tf/Tf2 on pc it's a night and day difference.

When did you play Destiny on PC? That's strange. :p

Really though, no clue how you got that either. I get 5-6ms ping consistently in Overwatch and CS:GO. I get 60-70ms ping in TF2 on average. Characters stuttering around the map every three or four games. Tons of rubber banding no matter where I set my server location.

Whereas in Destiny, I actually rarely - compared to TF2 or Doom at least - had "laggy" games. The issue I had there was the tickrate enabling incredibly easy trade-offs in situations where there was a clear victor. I don't think I ever had issues in Trials to be honest, while I generally had average to poor games in Iron Banner. So maybe they have something with this 4v4 p2p nonsense.

The bigger issue is how PC is going to work with p2p. I can understand why they might want to use p2p over dedicated on console even - easier data distribution and high scalability seems like things Destiny would find crucial. But on PC the lack of a neutral server will open the door to cheaters on the easiest platform to cheat on. Seems like a mess in the making.

Edit: I think a lot of this might be people seeing Dedicated Servers as being strictly better than P2P without realizing that as internet infrastructure improves across the board the gap between them - as far as performance goes - closes up fairly nicely. Again though, security issues and the fact that the internet isn't quite there makes the choice on Bungie's end pretty confusing without further clarification on how they intend to deal with some of these issues. Also, what is the tickrate going to be at launch? Tell us Bungie.
 
Blizzard is only hosting the front end client aka logging in with blizzard app, the rest is Bungie.

It's still being put out side-by-side next to the catalog of Blizzard games, Blizzard games all of which have quality behind them mind you. Does Destiny 2 deserve to be in the catalog next to WoW, Overwatch, SC2, etc.? So far with the news regarding the title I'd say no.
 

Bizazedo

Member
They have engineers and designers that specifically focus on improving how the game performs over network. Luke's response was inelegant, but the points were valid:

  • Dedicated servers are a cost/benefit decision. How much will they cost vs. how much will the player experience improve?
  • The amount of players is a variable in peer-to-peer network games that makes things more complicated the higher it goes. Keeping things to 4v4 necessarily improves average match quality
  • Believe it or not, they've spent a lot of money developing things that facilitate better peer-to-peer matches, not just in networking and matchmaking, but also in sandbox, and undoubtedly other areas too
So you're saying they spent a lot of money to develop a system that objectively is worse than dedicated servers AND has the added bonus of being making it easier to cheat as it's P2P?

And they're releasing on PC, noted bastion of gaming where no one would think to cheat?

And despite all that, they also dodged questions on tick rates which makes me think it's more and more a copy paste job from Destiny 1....

Granted, identical emote and weapon animations makes me think that too, but whatever lol.
 

FLAguy954

Junior Member
TLDR: We are cheap

Give us your money



Titanfall, gears of war 4, on and on and on and on and on

Modern shooters on console are 60fps with proper tick rates and dedicated servers...period

It is the bare fucking minimum

This. I hope people keep calling Bungie out on their bullshit.
 

AaronMT86

Member
Lmao what a shit answer. 4vs4 and they couldn't have dedicated servers handle that. Battlefield has 32vs32 dedicated servers and Activision couldn't spring for dedicated servers... what a joke.

...... that's exactly the reason why they *don't* need dedicated servers, because it's 4v4
 
Destiny 2 will generate a billion dollars in revenue before selling a single megabyte of DLC. The dedicated services could be made of gold and maintained by endangered dolphins living in bespoke walking fish tanks and still not make a dent in Activision's profit.
And what % improvement in average match quality would that buy them?
 
They have engineers and designers that specifically focus on improving how the game performs over network. Luke's response was inelegant, but the points were valid:

  • Fixed:Dedicated servers are a cost/benefit decision. How much will they cost vs. how much will the sales and player numbers increase?
  • The amount of players is a variable in peer-to-peer network games that makes things more complicated the higher it goes. Keeping things to 4v4 necessarily improves average match quality
  • Believe it or not, they've spent a lot of money developing things that facilitate better peer-to-peer matches, not just in networking and matchmaking, but also in sandbox, and undoubtedly other areas too

Minor revision.
 
And what % improvement in average match quality would that buy them?

Quite a bit.

Quality, properly maintained, appropriately dense (as far as number of servers in relation to player base) dedicated servers are absolutely huge improvements over P2P networking in every single way, shape, and form. Period.
 
Quite a bit.

Quality, properly maintained, appropriately dense (as far as number of servers in relation to player base) dedicated servers are absolutely huge improvements over P2P networking in every single way, shape, and form. Period.
And I guarantee it's not as big as you imagine it to be.

This whole thread is standard NeoGAF hyperventilation. We have no idea what the game would be like with various dedi solutions. There are engineers and business people that perform these cost/benefit analyses. I honestly wish they would summarize and share that stuff with us so we can have a more informed discussion on the matter.

Like, why not allow users to donate console time to act as dedis when not playing? You could even put investment hooks into it.
 

wbEMX

Member
The bigger issue is how PC is going to work with p2p. I can understand why they might want to use p2p over dedicated on console even - easier data distribution and high scalability seems like things Destiny would find crucial. But on PC the lack of a neutral server will open the door to cheaters on the easiest platform to cheat on. Seems like a mess in the making.

Edit: I think a lot of this might be people seeing Dedicated Servers as being strictly better than P2P without realizing that as internet infrastructure improves across the board the gap between them - as far as performance goes - closes up fairly nicely. Again though, security issues and the fact that the internet isn't quite there makes the choice on Bungie's end pretty confusing without further clarification on how they intend to deal with some of these issues. Also, what is the tickrate going to be at launch? Tell us Bungie.

So. Much. THIS.
Even IF the connection is all nice, cheating WILL ruin Destiny 2 in the long run. P2P makes this stuff so easy. Guess which games are the most cheater-infested? Yes, P2P ones. D2 on PC is pretty much done for. PS4 it is, then.
 

VeeP

Member
One of the reason's I'm glad Bungie is off of Halo. No 60 FPS, no Dedicated Servers. We've seen this for years with Halo, we've seen this with multiple generations on their games.

Destiny will be no different. Even if Destiny 3 launches on next gen, it won't be 60 FPS or have dedicated servers judging by their previous track record.

Gears 4, Halo 5, Titanfall 2, etc. all have dedicated servers. And people can defend Bungie and say oh its 4v4, Destiny doesn't need dedicated servers. I disagree. The net quality leap from Halo 3 & 4 to Halo 5 was such a huge change. The game felt so much better.
 

Lorcain

Member
I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that a huge AAA game built entirely around the MMO FPS social experience won't have dedicated servers.
 

Tecnniqe

Banned
So. Much. THIS.
Even IF the connection is all nice, cheating WILL ruin Destiny 2 in the long run. P2P makes this stuff so easy. Guess which games are the most cheater-infested? Yes, P2P ones. D2 on PC is pretty much done for. PS4 it is, then.

And how do p2p increase cheating outside whats done on the ps4 with lagswitching and such? Elaborate.
 

ornery

Member
ERROR

Removed from the game world. Please try again. There may be a problem with your internet connection

For possible solutions, visit help.bungie.net and search for the error code:
lolservers
 
And what % improvement in average match quality would that buy them?

How can anyone quantify a % improvement?

What is inherent to PvP, which has the potential to negatively impact every match played:
  • Host advantage or artificial latency to counteract it
  • Host migration if host disconnects
  • Dependence on wildly varying quality of consumer grade internet connections for game host
  • The ability of host player to manipulate their own connection
 
I find it hilarious that tons of way smaller games have dedicated servers but this and to a lesser degree the CoD games still don't have this when they are basically dead games without online lmao. This shit is fucked.
 

geordiemp

Member
For Destiny to challenge games like COD it needs dedicated servers, or it will always be a lag fest and full of cheaters.

Lag switches, DDOS on the players once cheaters get host (host is shared around), everybody is tired of it.

Obviously Destiny ambition is not high enough yet to really challenge the CODs and Overwatch's of the game world.

End.
 
How can anyone quantify a % improvement?

What is inherent to PvP, which has the potential to negatively impact every match played:
  • Host advantage or artificial latency to counteract it
  • Host migration if host disconnects
  • Dependence on wildly varying quality of consumer grade internet connections for game host
  • The ability of host player to manipulate their own connection
Metrics on network performance qualities, i.e. lost packets, game discrepancies, etc.
 

Brokun

Member
Guys don't worry, the first game had no prob....




Oh. Right.

Maybe they didn't tune the parameters. But this time guys! So many parameters will be tuned. Oh the parameter tuning that wil take place. If only you could see the amount of tuning these parameters will get. So much!
 
How about since you're the one originally claiming that it doesn't make a big difference, you can post the analysis proving your claim?

I'll wait here.
Sure, people working on the game did an analysis and determined it was not a worthy cost for the benefit.
They have the data. Why else would they choose an objectively inferior option?
 
What I mean to say is, isn't it kind of impossible to avoid PVP if you're not interested in it?

I hate 1v1 and 3v3 in overwatch, but I still have to engage with it if I want those free boxes.

Iron banner is considered one of the better ways to progress in Destiny. A fair amount of gear is behind PvP content as well. Hard to say if Destiny 2 will continue this trend.

Anyway to your question, 'impossible to avoid PvP' might be a bit strong. But your progression is definitely hindered if you avoid PvP.
 
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