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What about client-sided debris?

Give us your input on how we may improve the game in future versions.
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Del Poncho
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What about client-sided debris?

Post by Del Poncho » Wed Jan 16, 2019 4:36 pm

NOTE: As far as I know, player movement is the only client-sided feature in the game. Please correct me if I'm wrong, this whole suggestion relies around this.
The suggestion is quite simple, but I still feel like it could have a bit of talk around it to discuss or add to it, hence the post.
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SFD has an incredible amount of debris that interact on the game only on a design level. Broken crates, weapon remains, metal pieces, none of them have an actual impact on the gameplay. They're there just because they look good.

By having the debris processed by the client instead, you could ease the pressure on the server, allowing for a smaller, thus faster stream of data.
The only side effect would be to have each client see the debris in a different way, but since they (almost) never interact with the actual gameplay, it would be a very small downside. Having that piece of metal over here or over there doesn't really change the game in a significant way.

Imporant note: I don't know anything about coding, networks, and all that voodoo. I started with the idea that something like this is possible simply because I've seen it work in other games. It's up to glorp and hjorp to say wether it's doable or not, and how much it would affect the ping.
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Post by Sree » Wed Jan 16, 2019 7:32 pm

player movement or any mechanic being client sided doesn't mean there isn't streaming of data between the server and client. server side movement only makes it so the player's position is updated after the server confirms it, data is still being transferred there and the same goes for client sided debris or whatever you are suggesting.
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Post by Del Poncho » Wed Jan 16, 2019 8:13 pm

Sree wrote:
Wed Jan 16, 2019 7:32 pm
player movement or any mechanic being client sided doesn't mean there isn't streaming of data between the server and client. server side movement only makes it so the player's position is updated after the server confirms it, data is still being transferred there and the same goes for client sided debris or whatever you are suggesting.
The point is that there is no need for information transfer about the debris, other than when it is created.
If a barrel breaks, the server informs each player to generate n pieces of debris in a specific coordinate, and then just goes on with it's life.

It's not something new, it's used in games with heavy "procedural" debris and stuff. Payday's bodies and Rainbow Six Siege's debris are the examples I can remember right now. And that's how I've seen it being called there (people screaming at the client side debris makes up for about 99.9% of Siege's reddit). I took the name from there, thinking it was the most appropriate name, but I might be wrong there.

Anyway, wether "client side" is the right definition, my suggestion is all about making each player process the debris on it's own, instead of the server. Wich is definitely something that exists, and that it's used to reduce the unnecessary stream of info.
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Post by Sree » Wed Jan 16, 2019 8:20 pm

Del Poncho wrote:
Wed Jan 16, 2019 8:13 pm
The point is that there is no need for information transfer about the debris, other than when it is created.
in that case, whenever the debris is moved or destroyed on 1 client's pc, it wouldn't be updated on the server or other clients.
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Post by Del Poncho » Wed Jan 16, 2019 8:22 pm

Sree wrote:
Wed Jan 16, 2019 8:20 pm
in that case, whenever the debris is moved or destroyed on 1 client's pc, it wouldn't be updated on the server or other clients.
Exactly.
Del Poncho wrote:
Wed Jan 16, 2019 4:36 pm
The only side effect would be to have each client see the debris in a different way, but since they (almost) never interact with the actual gameplay, it would be a very small downside. Having that piece of metal over here or over there doesn't really change the game in a significant way.
It's not the perfect fix, but if allows for better ping, and possibly allow us to have even more debris, I'm all up for it.

EDIT: Hell, imagine if we could keep bullet cases without impacting the server's performance.
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Post by Gurt » Thu Jan 17, 2019 7:38 pm

Del Poncho wrote:
Wed Jan 16, 2019 8:22 pm
Sree wrote:
Wed Jan 16, 2019 8:20 pm
in that case, whenever the debris is moved or destroyed on 1 client's pc, it wouldn't be updated on the server or other clients.
Exactly.
Del Poncho wrote:
Wed Jan 16, 2019 4:36 pm
The only side effect would be to have each client see the debris in a different way, but since they (almost) never interact with the actual gameplay, it would be a very small downside. Having that piece of metal over here or over there doesn't really change the game in a significant way.
It's not the perfect fix, but if allows for better ping, and possibly allow us to have even more debris, I'm all up for it.

EDIT: Hell, imagine if we could keep bullet cases without impacting the server's performance.
Some debris in SFD only exist on the client-side already, for example bullet shells (which only spawns if you have normal effect level). They despawn of course to not slow down the simulation to a crawl and to avoid them interacting with the world. Other debris do interact with the world (burning debris being one). The ping won't be better because there's less data to sync and we already have techniques in place to only sync what's moving around (debris tend to lay still most if it's lifetime).
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Post by Del Poncho » Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:34 pm

Gurt wrote:
Thu Jan 17, 2019 7:38 pm
Some debris in SFD only exist on the client-side already, for example bullet shells (which only spawns if you have normal effect level). They despawn of course to not slow down the simulation to a crawl and to avoid them interacting with the world. Other debris do interact with the world (burning debris being one). The ping won't be better because there's less data to sync and we already have techniques in place to only sync what's moving around (debris tend to lay still most if it's lifetime).
Well, I guess that's it then.
Also yeah, I forgot about burning stuff. That's an actual impact on the gameplay.

On a second note, is there some way (something to change in the configuration files, or funky stuff like that) to stop the bullets from despawning/increasing their time limit? I tend to have a few hundreds more fps than needed, it'd be fun to see how many bullets my pc can take.
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Post by Thwip » Mon Jan 21, 2019 12:04 pm

Maybe an option in the games settings the effects the derbies but for offline only (if having unlimited debris does hurt the server's speed), I would really enjoy this as my PC can easily handle it and I only play offline anyway (No server I've found has under 700 ping )

While it may not be important as of now most people would enjoy such an option when the campaign is done (so we can have huge bloody battles)
Now I will point out that my opinion is a bit dumb because nearly everyone plays this game online

but yeah I'd enjoy it
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