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Apparently Splatoon 2 tickrate is only 16Hz

1. Objectively this is worst, look at it at a vacuum and I just can't seem to wrap my head around why people are ok with this other than some dumb sentimental "boohoo I don't notice anything" bs. Why would you want a game where the lesser person in a 1v1 one situation gets rewarded. Why would you want a game where getting the drop on a person means less because the low tickrate gives the person in a disadvantage more time to react. Why would you be ok with a game that performs worse than it's predecessor?

Personally, because I don't have very good internet speed and probably kind of a garbage router. The only other online games I tend to play are MMOs usually, or maybe something like Minecraft on occasion. I'm not playing those really demanding shooters and fighting games. Splatoon 1 was great, but I had way more connection issues with it than in Splatoon 2. From what I read earlier, this was due to imposed changes in some of their patches that gave people issues if they had a low upload speed. Splatoon 2 seems less demanding of my specific networking situation so I can actually play it, as can lots of other people who might've had similar issues. Bigger, broader userbase.

Also I don't understand this "lesser person gets rewarded" thing. Can you give a more concrete example? Wouldn't this affect both parties equally, or reward the better person who perhaps knows about the tickrate and understands it intimately and makes choices based on maximizing his play while keeping that in mind? And in your other example, how does the disadvantaged person have more time to react, in such a way that could actually make a difference? You understand how few milliseconds we're talking about here, right?
 
Whatever they did to Splatoon 2, it's made it 10x more stable for me in terms of less lag and less disconnections on the same internet connection.
 
Tickrate matters a lot in terms of gameplay...

That said it has become a sort of "blame everything that goes wrong in my game, regardless of how much at fault I was, on tickrate". It gets conflated with latency, hit registration, all the time.

In the other thread on this someone posted a video of a guy who was behind cover for about a second then getting sniped by someone shooting at where he was 1 second ago. That's not tickrate related. That's latency.

Increasing the tickrate can reduce the effects of latency, but going from 20hz to 60hz doesn't mean you're suddenly going to have 3x less latency, for example. It's more that your late reports to the server are going to be a bit more precise.

Tickrate mostly affects high-impact, high-speed things. Things like aiming a headshot with an AK in Counter Strike. You might have missed by a pixel because your opponent's position was 1 tick out of place so to speak, and your shot landed just off it as a result.

It has more of an effect on these things in Splatoon than some other games (like Overwatch) because as far as I can tell, the game checks in with the server/host for confirmation rather than using an overwatch style favour-the-shooter system. People often wrongly blamed tickrate for getting bullshit hooked by roadhog, but it wasn't quite like that. The server knows you moved round the corner, but because the other guy had a 150ms ping the server favours the version he saw where you weren't around the corner. What tickrate does affect in Overwatch is something like getting killed by a Hanzo arrow when you're tracer because your dodge fell between ticks and your hitbox moved a tick too late to avoid the shot. With a higher tickrate, you might have survived.

Splatoon's system probably makes the effects more pronounced, but perhaps not how you'd expect. It'll affect stuff like splatterscopes a lot, with their fast projectile and instant kill on full charge. It'll definitely affect the dodges on the dualies. But a higher tickrate won't fix a poor quality connection. The shooters aren't going to be as affected by this as by and large they fire slower than the tickrate.

I see it affecting high level play a lot where the splatterscopes and the likes are more common. For casual and lower rank play... not so much.

Thanks for the explanation!
Does a higher tickrate necessitate a better connection from players and if so, by how much (i.e., would an increase from 15Hz to 30 Hz also double the required minimal bandwidth)? In other words, are lower tickrates being used to allow people with slower connections to play the game in question, or are there other reasons?
 

Maxey

Member
Look, even if you don't notice or know about it, what's the harm in increasing the tick rate?

If it leads to an even smoother experience, you should be in support of it.
 

Instro

Member
Nintendo's entire online strategy revolves around doing the bare minimum, so this isn't surprising. The want the money that games as services and esports can bring in without actually serving their communities a functioning platform.
 

El Sabroso

Member
So, in order to update the tick rate, the game has to change its netcode to work under dedicated servers first as the article suggests, leaving then room to work more updates per second and less bandwidth usage
 

Plumpman

Member
It's funny we are on topic of tick-rate and latency.
Last night was the absolute worst its ever been for me.

Its extremely exacerbated in League Battle where I seem to fight people from across the globe more often. I constantly get the "instantly die" or "die around corners" from the latency. Its no fun when you have no chance of fighting back!
 
Seems many people mistake tickrate for latency. If your internet connection has a high latency even the highest tickrate has no effect. Tickrate is only significant in rare cases.
 

nynt9

Member
Okay so since there's 2 sentiments in this thread I'll just do both of them. There's the subjective and the objective narrative. I'll start with the objective narrative first.

1. Objectively this is worst, look at it at a vacuum and I just can't seem to wrap my head around why people are ok with this other than some dumb sentimental "boohoo I don't notice anything" bs. Why would you want a game where the lesser person in a 1v1 one situation gets rewarded. Why would you want a game where getting the drop on a person means less because the low tickrate gives the person in a disadvantage more time to react. Why would you be ok with a game that performs worse than it's predecessor?

2. Subjectively I do notice it. Oh wait first comes the stupid "I'm a high level player so my opinion matters more!!!!" argument. Hi, I'm Burnburn and I've played 1000+ hours of Splatoon 1, a lot of those hours in the highest ranks or competitive and around 60-70 in 2. I've also been part of one of the more successful Splatoon teams. I'll be condescending now and ask what rank or mode the "I don't notice anything" are/play. I haven't noticed the low tickrate in TW or low ranked either because the people playing it there just don't play fast enough or do any noteworthy stuff while playing the game. In high level whenever you're in a 1v1 you often die while you can see the opponent's bullets clearly next to you. Let's not even begin with the amount of time you get one shotted, bullets don't even show up, damage calculating is off or the game tries to make up for the shitty tickrate with prediction.

But you know what, this entire second point, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you think or feel about the performance. It doesn't matter what I think or feel about the performance. It's just he said she said bs. If you drop the subjectivity, read the article and drop the boohoo people are mean to switch narrative then maybe, maybe you can wrap your head around why a low tickrate is an issue that makes the game not as good as it could be.

Thanks for the perspective of an actual pro player, those who will be most affected by this.
 
Splatoon works alright at that level, it's not like overwatch when that was something like 24hz that game really hurt itself at that lower tick, splatoon feels good for what it is.
 
The crazy part is that MK runs worse than it did on Wii U even with the patch.

Everything takes longer and stuff like track selection just hangs for ages.

Just played MKD online half the day without a single issue. It couldn't be more polished so no idea what issues you have but it isn't affecting me or any one I played with.
 

Yukinari

Member

Ok first of all my post had nothing to do with the comparisons between retail and digital or the load times.

Im saying the online is worse than it was on wii u. Its less bad than it was at launch but you still get some nonsense moments like the item wheel not stopping and connection issues.

Watch streams of the game on Gamexplain or Vinesauce.
 

Burnburn

Member
Personally, because I don't have very good internet speed and probably kind of a garbage router. The only other online games I tend to play are MMOs usually, or maybe something like Minecraft on occasion. I'm not playing those really demanding shooters and fighting games. Splatoon 1 was great, but I had way more connection issues with it than in Splatoon 2. From what I read earlier, this was due to imposed changes in some of their patches that gave people issues if they had a low upload speed. Splatoon 2 seems less demanding of my specific networking situation so I can actually play it, as can lots of other people who might've had similar issues. Bigger, broader userbase.

I think it's a great thing to give people an option to play even if their net isn't the best. But it would be nice to give both people with bad net and people who want to enjoy the competitive side options. In this case Nintendo chooses one over the other for indeed the bigger broader userbase. But Nintendo could've easily given both sides a great experience by making TW low tick and ranked a higher tick. Even something like opening modes locked behind ranked for more casual play (so not for rank) would've been nice.

Also I don't understand this "lesser person gets rewarded" thing. Can you give a more concrete example? Wouldn't this affect both parties equally, or reward the better person who perhaps knows about the tickrate and understands it intimately and makes choices based on maximizing his play while keeping that in mind? And in your other example, how does the disadvantaged person have more time to react, in such a way that could actually make a difference? You understand how few milliseconds we're talking about here, right?

As Geg pointed out before I wasn't 100% correct in saying this and I do agree that it can effect both parties equally. I do understand how few milliseconds we're talking about here, but it can be the difference between life and death. A blaster for example could turn around incredibly fast and direct you at a very fast rate. The lower the tickrate, the more the duels is dependent on at what time between the tick it was instigated instead of a level playing field.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
selfishly, I'm fine with this. I haven't had any connection issues over wifi since launch. I had more with Splatoon 1. it'd be nice if league mode was a higher tick-rate, or at the very least an option in custom games. probably hard to maintain two branches for something with so little perceived value on sales front? I don't know, haven't dabbled much with synchronised network stuff.
 
Actually, you might not suck as much as you think.

But it also applies to your skill, you might not be as good as you think lol.

Tickrate explains strange deaths. When you are like "Oh shit, did I just kill him ? lol" or "How did I even get killed ?". Definitely a problem when the players' level is very good and above.

I have not played Splatoon 2, but those "strange" deaths were already there in the first game.

Yeah, there's a lot of two-hit deaths from "weaker" weapons that shouldn't kill you that fast. Once you start noticing it, it's hard NOT to notice it anymore.
 

ngower

Member
Hm. So I'm not crazy when I feel like I'm getting killed posthumously. That said, this seems like something that could be patched so I'm not super concerned about it at the moment. I'm not competitive enough where this is something that's going to ruin my enjoyment of the game.
 

Peltz

Member
Splatoon works alright at that level, it's not like overwatch when that was something like 24hz that game really hurt itself at that lower tick, splatoon feels good for what it is.

That is not at issue though.

It feels good, but it could and should feel better. That is the whole point. No one is saying the game is bad or unplayable. All people are saying is that it could, and should be better.

Almost everyone agrees Splatoon 2 is fantastic. So let's ask that it becomes the best that it possibly can be with a better tickrate. That's all people want. Whether a charger will hit a fast moving player is practically a gamble at this tickrate. This is something that was better in Unreal Tournament way back in 1999. There's no reason why Splatoon 2 can't at least be as good as its predecessor at least.
 
Ok first of all my post had nothing to do with the comparisons between retail and digital or the load times.

Im saying the online is worse than it was on wii u. Its less bad than it was at launch but you still get some nonsense moments like the item wheel not stopping and connection issues.

Watch streams of the game on Gamexplain or Vinesauce.
Never had that happened. Sounds like you have issues with your connection.
 

Yukinari

Member
Nekketsu Kõha;245377477 said:
Never had that happened. Sounds like you have issues with your connection.

Nope, own both versions of the game and also bought them when they launched.

Deluxe definitely suffers online in ways Vanilla 8 did not and theres video evidence of it.
 

Patch13

Member
Question for people assuming that this is a cost cutting measure: I'm fairly certain that Splatoon uses p2p networking to run games, with one person's console acting as the server. If that's the case, how would tick rate affect Nintendo's costs? I assume their servers just come into play in the initial matchmaking ...
 
selfishly, I'm fine with this. I haven't had any connection issues over wifi since launch. I had more with Splatoon 1. it'd be nice if league mode was a higher tick-rate, or at the very least an option in custom games. probably hard to maintain two branches for something with so little perceived value on sales front? I don't know, haven't dabbled much with synchronised network stuff.

I have had zero issues with Wi-Fi or Switch online.

But when playing splatoon 2 I for sure notice what people are talking about.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Question for people assuming that this is a cost cutting measure: I'm fairly certain that Splatoon uses p2p networking to run games, with one person's console acting as the server. If that's the case, how would tick rate affect Nintendo's costs? I assume their servers just come into play in the initial matchmaking ...

is there any doubt here that the reason is to lower throughput and increase stability? (sincere question)
 

Peltz

Member
Question for people assuming that this is a cost cutting measure: I'm fairly certain that Splatoon uses p2p networking to run games, with one person's console acting as the server. If that's the case, how would tick rate affect Nintendo's costs? I assume their servers just come into play in the initial matchmaking ...

It doesn't. They could have a higher tickrate even with p2p.

But if we are going to be paying, it would be nice if they gave some dedicated servers someday.
 

HCgamer

Junior Member
I have noticed something like screen tearing or stuttering I do not know what it is called while playing online irritates me I do not remember seeing it in part 1.
 
If 2 different users with the same game and same console are having a different experience
1 having good results
1 having terrible results

Where is the issue? I see a lot of people stating the game is the culprit, but that would not explain why some people has no issues at all and why some people can't even play it

which are the factors that are completely different between those to users? and I ask this in a serious way, not trying to "prove a point" it's just that it's pretty interesting that two identical copies using the same infrastructure to provide a service are having extremely different results
 
Question for people assuming that this is a cost cutting measure: I'm fairly certain that Splatoon uses p2p networking to run games, with one person's console acting as the server. If that's the case, how would tick rate affect Nintendo's costs? I assume their servers just come into play in the initial matchmaking ...
The cost cutting is that Nintendo isn't providing dedicated servers for Splatoon 2.

Dedicated servers would probably enable a higher tick rate to be used without negative bandwidth implications.

Splatoon 2 still seems less laggy to an end user than destiny though. I've been pretty happy with the online, including in Ranked.
 
Nope, own both versions of the game and also bought them when they launched.

Deluxe definitely suffers online in ways Vanilla 8 did not and theres video evidence of it.

and I don't nor anyone I know suffers. I literally got off playing for hours without a single issue. Not seen anything happen once or anything like you describe. Don't know a single person expressing any issues with MKD either.

I can only describe it as polished to perfection.
 

deoee

Member
If 2 different users with the same game and same console are having a different experience
1 having good results
1 having terrible results

Where is the issue? I see a lot of people stating the game is the culprit, but that would not explain why some people has no issues at all and why some people can't even play it

which are the factors that are completely different between those to users? and I ask this in a serious way, not trying to "prove a point" it's just that it's pretty interesting that two identical copies using the same infrastructure to provide a service are having extremely different results

Some people, just like with FPS, do not see an issue with being killed behind walls, or having the drop on an enemy facing away from you and still getting killed first despite - on your end - hitting first etc.

Objectively there is an issue but people can see past it or close their eyes for it.
 

Peltz

Member
ITT people think there is a problem in a game only after someone has written an article about it.

People are reading facts and responding to those facts. Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean it's not affecting the outcome of your game.

The article may even (gasp) make you aware of a problem that you didn't know existed. The fact that you didn't know about something doesn't make it not exist.
 

-shadow-

Member
I have noticed something like screen tearing or stuttering I do not know what it is called while playing online irritates me I do not remember seeing it in part 1.
Do you perhaps mean players jumping around a few meters within a certain range? Because I've noticed that happen a couple of times during some Turf War matches before being disconnected from a match.
 
Question for people assuming that this is a cost cutting measure: I'm fairly certain that Splatoon uses p2p networking to run games, with one person's console acting as the server. If that's the case, how would tick rate affect Nintendo's costs? I assume their servers just come into play in the initial matchmaking ...

I figured it is to ensure as many people as possible can connect anywhere anytime. But with a game like this... or why not. Is it really esport material at the end of the day? So far playing I wouldn't lump it together with CSGO in an ESL event.
 
This. Arms and now Splatoon are being judged on their merits as esports. Who cares? They're fun multiplayer experiences that are not meant to be taken that seriously. What's next? Dissecting the internals of Mario Kart?

People can take anything serious. That's why there are speed runs of the most obscure games.

But hey, it's Splatoon, so 16hz is pretty damn good.
 

Yukinari

Member
Nekketsu Kõha;245377900 said:
and I don't nor anyone I know suffers. I literally got off playing for hours without a single issue. Not seen anything happen once or anything like you describe. Don't know a single person expressing any issues with MKD either.

I can only describe it as polished to perfection.

If you honestly want to sit there and tell me youve never once had the item wheel give you a repetitive item, had the item wheel spin longer than usual, had the track selector hang on a selection, had players get hit but not take damage or had lobby issues then alright.
 
People are reading facts and responding to those facts. Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean it's not affecting the outcome of your game.

The article may even (gasp) make you aware of a problem that you didn't know existed. The fact that you didn't know about something doesn't make it not exist.
Yep I noticed it all just don't know enough about tickrates etc to know that is what it is called and why it was happening in the game.
 
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