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Input System Update - Sept 2021: Discussion Thread

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  • Options
    horrendous_toohorrendous_too Posts: 227 ★★
    While the robot is a brilliant way to get at actual measurement and to be able to test fixes with a controlled "fixed" input and response. It definitely will be impractical to test on even the few models of iOS, let alone the multiple manufacturers and models of android phones and tablets. If I could suggest, you might be able to use something like the parry training ground to crowd source some data for a beta test. Have something where you have to parry like 10 medium hits from 5-6 different characters and you should be able to gather a bunch of data from hundreds or thousands doing the exact same test on the same characters.
    I'm not saying this would prevent a robot uprising...but maybe delay it a bit
  • Options
    horrendous_toohorrendous_too Posts: 227 ★★
    Kabam Miike said:

    horrendous_too said:

    While the robot is a brilliant way to get at actual measurement and to be able to test fixes with a controlled "fixed" input and response. It definitely will be impractical to test on even the few models of iOS, let alone the multiple manufacturers and models of android phones and tablets. If I could suggest, you might be able to use something like the parry training ground to crowd source some data for a beta test. Have something where you have to parry like 10 medium hits from 5-6 different characters and you should be able to gather a bunch of data from hundreds or thousands doing the exact same test on the same characters.
    I'm not saying this would prevent a robot uprising...but maybe delay it a bit

    Unfortunately, it won't help. As we mentioned in the post, there is no way for us to measure this in software because the issue resides between the Game Engine and the Hardware.
    Absolutely, I get that you can't actually measure the input timing that way. What I was thinking was more of a way to quantify if the fixes worked for players. So like if you repeated the "Does parry/dex feel better" experiment but instead of asking about feel could measure that it took say 16 mediums to get 10 parries on average for those with the released version, vs say 12 mediums to get 10 parries on the hotfix beta. Then no matter what they say parry felt like you would have data to show that parry was working better with the hotfix.

    It just seemed like that type of data (parry success rate) could be gathered, since the training mode already recognizes when you landed a successful parry. But I have no real idea if that data is available under the hood or not.
  • Options
    GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,247 ★★★★★
    TheManMythLegend said:

    I have a question for every android user who experience these problems? Are you recording when it happens? As a android user myself i was testing bishop alot when this bug first occured and def found it to be a big issue, but i was also recording every fight to share with my ally mates. Then suddenly the issues stopped and I figured i was just getting used to the new timing.
    Then some weeks later i was gonna record some stuff and the issues was back. I shared this info with the people i know and it seemed like the android users i known also had these issues only when recording.

    We ofc also experience the lag and framrate drop and the god awful game freeze when u throw a special so the foe suddenly recovers and blocks. But its important to keep these issues seperate. From trusted good players i know i can't think of any android users that struggle with a specific parry dex issue.

    I never record. Same issues.
  • Options
    BitterSteelBitterSteel Posts: 9,254 ★★★★★
    Haji_Saab said:

    BitterSteel said:

    Haji_Saab said:

    I have a bit of trouble digesting this whole “feel” thing .. if i can consistently produce the “bug”, how is it just a feel thing?

    I think all it means is that they couldn’t definitively find the problem by feel alone. They mention that in the beta test they gave half the players a fix, and half the control with no fix. And the results were inconclusive because players were asked to “feel” whether it was wrong. 61% of the players with the fix said it was better, 63% without the fix said it was better.

    Android users even said the fix was better or worse. And this shows that it was a psychological change, not anything measurable.

    All it means is that this test they tried didn’t work. It would be like a coffee company testing a new coffee and giving the test group a new one, and a control group the old one then, the control group says that their coffee tastes better than before, even though it’s the same coffee.

    They’re not saying the bug is just a feel thing, the feel direction was one way they tried to solve it, and in the end decided it wouldn’t work. They then decided to create the robot Sir Tapsalot, to give them something to actually measure.

    So instead of asking you or me whether we felt like parry was better or worse, they made the robot that can map when the window of input for parry is.
    But how did they select the players? I know people playing for 6 years who get hit by iron mans sp1, what good is their input to this process?
    They’ll have been chosen randomly from those who signed up for the beta. Any statistical test will be random to make sure there’s no bias
  • Options
    GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,247 ★★★★★
    I was in the Beta. I never experienced any issues with either Parry or Dex in it. I'm on Andorid.
  • Options
    GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,247 ★★★★★
    Not to say no one has any issues. Simply making a statement.
  • Options
    DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,660 Guardian
    horrendous_too said:

    Kabam Miike said:

    horrendous_too said:

    While the robot is a brilliant way to get at actual measurement and to be able to test fixes with a controlled "fixed" input and response. It definitely will be impractical to test on even the few models of iOS, let alone the multiple manufacturers and models of android phones and tablets. If I could suggest, you might be able to use something like the parry training ground to crowd source some data for a beta test. Have something where you have to parry like 10 medium hits from 5-6 different characters and you should be able to gather a bunch of data from hundreds or thousands doing the exact same test on the same characters.
    I'm not saying this would prevent a robot uprising...but maybe delay it a bit

    Unfortunately, it won't help. As we mentioned in the post, there is no way for us to measure this in software because the issue resides between the Game Engine and the Hardware.
    Absolutely, I get that you can't actually measure the input timing that way. What I was thinking was more of a way to quantify if the fixes worked for players. So like if you repeated the "Does parry/dex feel better" experiment but instead of asking about feel could measure that it took say 16 mediums to get 10 parries on average for those with the released version, vs say 12 mediums to get 10 parries on the hotfix beta. Then no matter what they say parry felt like you would have data to show that parry was working better with the hotfix.

    It just seemed like that type of data (parry success rate) could be gathered, since the training mode already recognizes when you landed a successful parry. But I have no real idea if that data is available under the hood or not.
    Tapsalot eliminates the need for that kind of testing. Prior to Tapsalot, the devs had to guess at what changes might have caused a change in player feeling. But now that this can be quantified, either the new build replicates the old timing sufficiently well or it doesn't.

    Keep in mind the task for Kabam is not to change the game until everyone's Parry skills improve. The task for Kabam is to replicate the old behavior. If they do and players are still missing Parries, that would be a psychological problem in their heads that the game client can't fix and can only be solved by the players readjusting to the old-new-old normal.
  • Options
    horrendous_toohorrendous_too Posts: 227 ★★
    DNA3000 said:

    horrendous_too said:

    Kabam Miike said:

    horrendous_too said:

    While the robot is a brilliant way to get at actual measurement and to be able to test fixes with a controlled "fixed" input and response. It definitely will be impractical to test on even the few models of iOS, let alone the multiple manufacturers and models of android phones and tablets. If I could suggest, you might be able to use something like the parry training ground to crowd source some data for a beta test. Have something where you have to parry like 10 medium hits from 5-6 different characters and you should be able to gather a bunch of data from hundreds or thousands doing the exact same test on the same characters.
    I'm not saying this would prevent a robot uprising...but maybe delay it a bit

    Unfortunately, it won't help. As we mentioned in the post, there is no way for us to measure this in software because the issue resides between the Game Engine and the Hardware.
    Absolutely, I get that you can't actually measure the input timing that way. What I was thinking was more of a way to quantify if the fixes worked for players. So like if you repeated the "Does parry/dex feel better" experiment but instead of asking about feel could measure that it took say 16 mediums to get 10 parries on average for those with the released version, vs say 12 mediums to get 10 parries on the hotfix beta. Then no matter what they say parry felt like you would have data to show that parry was working better with the hotfix.

    It just seemed like that type of data (parry success rate) could be gathered, since the training mode already recognizes when you landed a successful parry. But I have no real idea if that data is available under the hood or not.
    Tapsalot eliminates the need for that kind of testing. Prior to Tapsalot, the devs had to guess at what changes might have caused a change in player feeling. But now that this can be quantified, either the new build replicates the old timing sufficiently well or it doesn't.

    Keep in mind the task for Kabam is not to change the game until everyone's Parry skills improve. The task for Kabam is to replicate the old behavior. If they do and players are still missing Parries, that would be a psychological problem in their heads that the game client can't fix and can only be solved by the players readjusting to the old-new-old normal.
    Tapsalot will eliminate that need for testing for any device that can be tested using Tapsalot. Automatically extending results found with an iPhone 12 max to other devices that have not been tested with Tapsalot would decidedly be poor scientific method. It would be like me saying my research using mice is automatically applicable to humans just because both are mammals. And it would seem that expanding the robot army to test the numerous different apple and android phones and tablets would rapidly become cost/time prohibitive.

    So really what I was suggesting was like a phase I/ Phase II trials. In phase I, Tapsalot gives rapid data collection in a closed system with a relatively small number of devices. My theoretical phase II trial would then be releasing said potential fix to hundreds to thousands with multiple different devices and you could see if the fix works in the "wild" of a beta.
  • Options
    TyphoonTyphoon Posts: 1,750 ★★★★★
    Kabam Miike said:

    horrendous_too said:

    While the robot is a brilliant way to get at actual measurement and to be able to test fixes with a controlled "fixed" input and response. It definitely will be impractical to test on even the few models of iOS, let alone the multiple manufacturers and models of android phones and tablets. If I could suggest, you might be able to use something like the parry training ground to crowd source some data for a beta test. Have something where you have to parry like 10 medium hits from 5-6 different characters and you should be able to gather a bunch of data from hundreds or thousands doing the exact same test on the same characters.
    I'm not saying this would prevent a robot uprising...but maybe delay it a bit

    Unfortunately, it won't help. As we mentioned in the post, there is no way for us to measure this in software because the issue resides between the Game Engine and the Hardware.
    Can you please comment on the frequency of planned single player compensation packages while the controls issues persist?
  • Options
    DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,660 Guardian
    horrendous_too said:

    DNA3000 said:

    horrendous_too said:

    Kabam Miike said:

    horrendous_too said:

    While the robot is a brilliant way to get at actual measurement and to be able to test fixes with a controlled "fixed" input and response. It definitely will be impractical to test on even the few models of iOS, let alone the multiple manufacturers and models of android phones and tablets. If I could suggest, you might be able to use something like the parry training ground to crowd source some data for a beta test. Have something where you have to parry like 10 medium hits from 5-6 different characters and you should be able to gather a bunch of data from hundreds or thousands doing the exact same test on the same characters.
    I'm not saying this would prevent a robot uprising...but maybe delay it a bit

    Unfortunately, it won't help. As we mentioned in the post, there is no way for us to measure this in software because the issue resides between the Game Engine and the Hardware.
    Absolutely, I get that you can't actually measure the input timing that way. What I was thinking was more of a way to quantify if the fixes worked for players. So like if you repeated the "Does parry/dex feel better" experiment but instead of asking about feel could measure that it took say 16 mediums to get 10 parries on average for those with the released version, vs say 12 mediums to get 10 parries on the hotfix beta. Then no matter what they say parry felt like you would have data to show that parry was working better with the hotfix.

    It just seemed like that type of data (parry success rate) could be gathered, since the training mode already recognizes when you landed a successful parry. But I have no real idea if that data is available under the hood or not.
    Tapsalot eliminates the need for that kind of testing. Prior to Tapsalot, the devs had to guess at what changes might have caused a change in player feeling. But now that this can be quantified, either the new build replicates the old timing sufficiently well or it doesn't.

    Keep in mind the task for Kabam is not to change the game until everyone's Parry skills improve. The task for Kabam is to replicate the old behavior. If they do and players are still missing Parries, that would be a psychological problem in their heads that the game client can't fix and can only be solved by the players readjusting to the old-new-old normal.
    Tapsalot will eliminate that need for testing for any device that can be tested using Tapsalot. Automatically extending results found with an iPhone 12 max to other devices that have not been tested with Tapsalot would decidedly be poor scientific method. It would be like me saying my research using mice is automatically applicable to humans just because both are mammals. And it would seem that expanding the robot army to test the numerous different apple and android phones and tablets would rapidly become cost/time prohibitive.

    So really what I was suggesting was like a phase I/ Phase II trials. In phase I, Tapsalot gives rapid data collection in a closed system with a relatively small number of devices. My theoretical phase II trial would then be releasing said potential fix to hundreds to thousands with multiple different devices and you could see if the fix works in the "wild" of a beta.
    You'd have to find testers whose feedback meant something. In their limited beta test, humans were statistically incapable of being able to correctly identify when the problem changed or didn't change.
  • Options
    ShadowstrikeShadowstrike Posts: 3,088 ★★★★★
    horrendous_too said:

    DNA3000 said:

    horrendous_too said:

    Kabam Miike said:

    horrendous_too said:

    While the robot is a brilliant way to get at actual measurement and to be able to test fixes with a controlled "fixed" input and response. It definitely will be impractical to test on even the few models of iOS, let alone the multiple manufacturers and models of android phones and tablets. If I could suggest, you might be able to use something like the parry training ground to crowd source some data for a beta test. Have something where you have to parry like 10 medium hits from 5-6 different characters and you should be able to gather a bunch of data from hundreds or thousands doing the exact same test on the same characters.
    I'm not saying this would prevent a robot uprising...but maybe delay it a bit

    Unfortunately, it won't help. As we mentioned in the post, there is no way for us to measure this in software because the issue resides between the Game Engine and the Hardware.
    Absolutely, I get that you can't actually measure the input timing that way. What I was thinking was more of a way to quantify if the fixes worked for players. So like if you repeated the "Does parry/dex feel better" experiment but instead of asking about feel could measure that it took say 16 mediums to get 10 parries on average for those with the released version, vs say 12 mediums to get 10 parries on the hotfix beta. Then no matter what they say parry felt like you would have data to show that parry was working better with the hotfix.

    It just seemed like that type of data (parry success rate) could be gathered, since the training mode already recognizes when you landed a successful parry. But I have no real idea if that data is available under the hood or not.
    Tapsalot eliminates the need for that kind of testing. Prior to Tapsalot, the devs had to guess at what changes might have caused a change in player feeling. But now that this can be quantified, either the new build replicates the old timing sufficiently well or it doesn't.

    Keep in mind the task for Kabam is not to change the game until everyone's Parry skills improve. The task for Kabam is to replicate the old behavior. If they do and players are still missing Parries, that would be a psychological problem in their heads that the game client can't fix and can only be solved by the players readjusting to the old-new-old normal.
    Tapsalot will eliminate that need for testing for any device that can be tested using Tapsalot. Automatically extending results found with an iPhone 12 max to other devices that have not been tested with Tapsalot would decidedly be poor scientific method. It would be like me saying my research using mice is automatically applicable to humans just because both are mammals. And it would seem that expanding the robot army to test the numerous different apple and android phones and tablets would rapidly become cost/time prohibitive.

    So really what I was suggesting was like a phase I/ Phase II trials. In phase I, Tapsalot gives rapid data collection in a closed system with a relatively small number of devices. My theoretical phase II trial would then be releasing said potential fix to hundreds to thousands with multiple different devices and you could see if the fix works in the "wild" of a beta.
    The problem will ultimately be the people. Even if you announced ahead of time what the intentions the beta and specifically mention how only a handful of people are going to have access to it in comparison to the whole of the community, many will still jump to conclusions that the beta is really a fix and will have multiple threads of "how come mine isn't working when my friends is!?" and then people start complaining about NOT being chosen for the beta and that how do we know the people in the beta are "trustworthy" and turning this into a bigger misunderstanding causing more confusion and duress.
  • Options
    rockykostonrockykoston Posts: 1,505 ★★★★
    Shadowstrike said:

    rockykoston said:

    DNA3000 said:

    rockykoston said:

    BitterSteel said:

    @rockykoston to continue our conversation here, I’m not saying the unity engine only updated for IOS. I’m saying that update only caused the parry dex issue for IOS and not Android. I’d encourage you to read the entire post again, because I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood that aspect. I don’t mean that in a patronising way, just that if you think Kabam are saying Android players don’t have an issue with parry or dex, then you haven’t read the whole thing.

    Please read it again, but I’ll direct you to this part which explains the IOS issues.

    “ When we refer to the “Parry and Dex issue”, we’re not actually talking about an issue with Parry or Dex, but a framerate and control input issue exclusive to iOS devices that is most noticeable when trying to Parry or Dex, since these are two mechanics players rely on quite often.

    Marvel Contest of Champions is built on a 3rd Party Game Engine built by our partners at Unity, which has an input system built-in. We’ve relied on Unity's input system since the game was built, and have regularly updated the Engine as they have released updates. With the most recent update to the Engine, a bug was fixed where iOS devices had been operating at the device’s own frame rate, instead of being capped to 30fps as it was set to. This meant that iOS devices had a slightly different input window than Android devices, but this was never identified.

    Since this is how iOS devices had always worked with our game since launch, we had built game interactions around that input window. Now, because this bug in the engine has been fixed, it changed the input window of inputs for all iOS devices and pushed back the input window by mere milliseconds, but that is enough that it is noticeable when playing the game.

    This is the issue that we are working to address, and our fix for it is to integrate an entirely new control input system from our partners at Unity. But this is not a quick or easy task.”

    Only the IOS input window was pushed back, therefore it cannot be the cause of the Android issues.

    @BitterSteel
    I just don't believe it.

    Either they've not tested enough or they're afraid to acknowledge that Unity update is affecting android devices.

    Now you'd ask why would they not accept it, because of the sheer variety of android devices, models, OS etc. They've never really been able to fix the android issue so if this is the same thing then it's nothing new.

    iOS is clearly much easier to identify and fix because of the small environment.

    But the fact that they are dismissing android as a generic lag and stutter is what they've been doing forever.

    The fact that android now has configurable screen refresh rate with phones going UpTo 144hz and no update to make that compatible, tells us everything.
    They are not dismissing Android as a generic lag and stutter problem. And the fact that Android has configurable screen refresh rates means diddly, because the game is built upon Unity. As I'm not a Unity expert (certainly not 2020 era Unity) if there are any out there feel free to correct me, but Unity uses a composite clock. There's one clock that runs the internals of Unity - the physics, the geometry calculations, etc - and another that runs the rendering. In theory you can run the render pass at any refresh rate you want, subject to vsync limitations (to prevent screen tearing) but the update clock cannot run at arbitrary rates. I mean, you can, but if you attempt to run it faster than the platform can calculate you'll get strange behavior, and if you run it at an arbitrary rate calculated dynamically based on how fast the device is you will end up with weird update/render beat-mismatches.

    A custom game engine might use a single clock and cram everything into intra-frame calculations, or they might use staggered clocking and perform physics and motion in a divide down clock, but if you attempt that in Unity you'll almost certainly create problems in MCOC because that's basically what's happening in iOS now.

    While I'm on the subject of reminding people the game is built on Unity, it is worth pointing out that since Kabam doesn't write Unity, the information that their current Unity build changed timing for iOS comes from Unity. They are the only ones who would know what they changed in any particular Unity build.

    Another thing to point out: while anything is possible, if Android has as widespread timing problems as many assert then Tapsalot will find them. Tapsalot does not need to test a thousand different Android devices to find a pervasive Android problem that appears to be affecting a substantial percentage of the Android players of the game. It is just like crystal conspiracies: anything is possible when it comes to one crystal. But a massive crystal rigging conspiracy that is affecting all crystals for all players in noticeable ways is detectable with trivial testing. You can't disprove that one crystal is rigged. But you can disprove that all of them are. Tapsalot changes the Android situation because we no longer need to rely on anecdotes. If there's a pervasive Android problem, Tapsalot will find it. Conversely, if Tapsalot doesn't find it, there is no pervasive Android problem. There might still be rare marginal problems because of Android heterogeneity. But widespread problems affecting a large percentage of Android players can be proven to either exist, or not exist, with certainty. To be honest, such clarity either way will be welcome, at least by those of us interested in the bottom line facts.

    Belief doesn't matter. 60% of Android testers thought that one of two *identical* game clients worked noticeably better (and not to pick on Android players, because iOS players appear to be equally vulnerable to that self deception). Belief is for churches, not for troubleshooters.
    Your reply is very condescending and patronizing. Thank you for the thoughts and good bye.
    Here's my question, if you're told the answer as detailed as humanly possible in an official statement, followed up with specific questions that are answered by a representative from Kabam and given a little more insight by a third party who has prior knowledge in game software development, why are you still reacting as if you're not being told what you want to hear?

    Why are you taking this opportunity to just be angry when everyone's giving you as much information as humanly possible? I mean ultimately what would alleviate your concerns or give you the peace of mind that we're all looking for in this moment with everything is going on?
    The statement didn't give any test or proof for Android devices like it did for iOS. It means that they have not tested Android yet. Check kabammiike's reply to my post, he clearly states they need to verify more information with unity about Android.

    Don't be like that.
  • Options
    ShadowstrikeShadowstrike Posts: 3,088 ★★★★★
    rockykoston said:

    Shadowstrike said:

    rockykoston said:

    DNA3000 said:

    rockykoston said:

    BitterSteel said:

    @rockykoston to continue our conversation here, I’m not saying the unity engine only updated for IOS. I’m saying that update only caused the parry dex issue for IOS and not Android. I’d encourage you to read the entire post again, because I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood that aspect. I don’t mean that in a patronising way, just that if you think Kabam are saying Android players don’t have an issue with parry or dex, then you haven’t read the whole thing.

    Please read it again, but I’ll direct you to this part which explains the IOS issues.

    “ When we refer to the “Parry and Dex issue”, we’re not actually talking about an issue with Parry or Dex, but a framerate and control input issue exclusive to iOS devices that is most noticeable when trying to Parry or Dex, since these are two mechanics players rely on quite often.

    Marvel Contest of Champions is built on a 3rd Party Game Engine built by our partners at Unity, which has an input system built-in. We’ve relied on Unity's input system since the game was built, and have regularly updated the Engine as they have released updates. With the most recent update to the Engine, a bug was fixed where iOS devices had been operating at the device’s own frame rate, instead of being capped to 30fps as it was set to. This meant that iOS devices had a slightly different input window than Android devices, but this was never identified.

    Since this is how iOS devices had always worked with our game since launch, we had built game interactions around that input window. Now, because this bug in the engine has been fixed, it changed the input window of inputs for all iOS devices and pushed back the input window by mere milliseconds, but that is enough that it is noticeable when playing the game.

    This is the issue that we are working to address, and our fix for it is to integrate an entirely new control input system from our partners at Unity. But this is not a quick or easy task.”

    Only the IOS input window was pushed back, therefore it cannot be the cause of the Android issues.

    @BitterSteel
    I just don't believe it.

    Either they've not tested enough or they're afraid to acknowledge that Unity update is affecting android devices.

    Now you'd ask why would they not accept it, because of the sheer variety of android devices, models, OS etc. They've never really been able to fix the android issue so if this is the same thing then it's nothing new.

    iOS is clearly much easier to identify and fix because of the small environment.

    But the fact that they are dismissing android as a generic lag and stutter is what they've been doing forever.

    The fact that android now has configurable screen refresh rate with phones going UpTo 144hz and no update to make that compatible, tells us everything.
    They are not dismissing Android as a generic lag and stutter problem. And the fact that Android has configurable screen refresh rates means diddly, because the game is built upon Unity. As I'm not a Unity expert (certainly not 2020 era Unity) if there are any out there feel free to correct me, but Unity uses a composite clock. There's one clock that runs the internals of Unity - the physics, the geometry calculations, etc - and another that runs the rendering. In theory you can run the render pass at any refresh rate you want, subject to vsync limitations (to prevent screen tearing) but the update clock cannot run at arbitrary rates. I mean, you can, but if you attempt to run it faster than the platform can calculate you'll get strange behavior, and if you run it at an arbitrary rate calculated dynamically based on how fast the device is you will end up with weird update/render beat-mismatches.

    A custom game engine might use a single clock and cram everything into intra-frame calculations, or they might use staggered clocking and perform physics and motion in a divide down clock, but if you attempt that in Unity you'll almost certainly create problems in MCOC because that's basically what's happening in iOS now.

    While I'm on the subject of reminding people the game is built on Unity, it is worth pointing out that since Kabam doesn't write Unity, the information that their current Unity build changed timing for iOS comes from Unity. They are the only ones who would know what they changed in any particular Unity build.

    Another thing to point out: while anything is possible, if Android has as widespread timing problems as many assert then Tapsalot will find them. Tapsalot does not need to test a thousand different Android devices to find a pervasive Android problem that appears to be affecting a substantial percentage of the Android players of the game. It is just like crystal conspiracies: anything is possible when it comes to one crystal. But a massive crystal rigging conspiracy that is affecting all crystals for all players in noticeable ways is detectable with trivial testing. You can't disprove that one crystal is rigged. But you can disprove that all of them are. Tapsalot changes the Android situation because we no longer need to rely on anecdotes. If there's a pervasive Android problem, Tapsalot will find it. Conversely, if Tapsalot doesn't find it, there is no pervasive Android problem. There might still be rare marginal problems because of Android heterogeneity. But widespread problems affecting a large percentage of Android players can be proven to either exist, or not exist, with certainty. To be honest, such clarity either way will be welcome, at least by those of us interested in the bottom line facts.

    Belief doesn't matter. 60% of Android testers thought that one of two *identical* game clients worked noticeably better (and not to pick on Android players, because iOS players appear to be equally vulnerable to that self deception). Belief is for churches, not for troubleshooters.
    Your reply is very condescending and patronizing. Thank you for the thoughts and good bye.
    Here's my question, if you're told the answer as detailed as humanly possible in an official statement, followed up with specific questions that are answered by a representative from Kabam and given a little more insight by a third party who has prior knowledge in game software development, why are you still reacting as if you're not being told what you want to hear?

    Why are you taking this opportunity to just be angry when everyone's giving you as much information as humanly possible? I mean ultimately what would alleviate your concerns or give you the peace of mind that we're all looking for in this moment with everything is going on?
    The statement didn't give any test or proof for Android devices like it did for iOS. It means that they have not tested Android yet. Check kabammiike's reply to my post, he clearly states they need to verify more information with unity about Android.

    Don't be like that.
    And if Unity says hey we're not seeing any problems with Android and it's a separate thing altogether, will you finally accept that as an actual answer or are you going to still demand answers where none exists?
  • Options
    BitterSteelBitterSteel Posts: 9,254 ★★★★★
    rockykoston said:

    Shadowstrike said:

    rockykoston said:

    DNA3000 said:

    rockykoston said:

    BitterSteel said:

    @rockykoston to continue our conversation here, I’m not saying the unity engine only updated for IOS. I’m saying that update only caused the parry dex issue for IOS and not Android. I’d encourage you to read the entire post again, because I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood that aspect. I don’t mean that in a patronising way, just that if you think Kabam are saying Android players don’t have an issue with parry or dex, then you haven’t read the whole thing.

    Please read it again, but I’ll direct you to this part which explains the IOS issues.

    “ When we refer to the “Parry and Dex issue”, we’re not actually talking about an issue with Parry or Dex, but a framerate and control input issue exclusive to iOS devices that is most noticeable when trying to Parry or Dex, since these are two mechanics players rely on quite often.

    Marvel Contest of Champions is built on a 3rd Party Game Engine built by our partners at Unity, which has an input system built-in. We’ve relied on Unity's input system since the game was built, and have regularly updated the Engine as they have released updates. With the most recent update to the Engine, a bug was fixed where iOS devices had been operating at the device’s own frame rate, instead of being capped to 30fps as it was set to. This meant that iOS devices had a slightly different input window than Android devices, but this was never identified.

    Since this is how iOS devices had always worked with our game since launch, we had built game interactions around that input window. Now, because this bug in the engine has been fixed, it changed the input window of inputs for all iOS devices and pushed back the input window by mere milliseconds, but that is enough that it is noticeable when playing the game.

    This is the issue that we are working to address, and our fix for it is to integrate an entirely new control input system from our partners at Unity. But this is not a quick or easy task.”

    Only the IOS input window was pushed back, therefore it cannot be the cause of the Android issues.

    @BitterSteel
    I just don't believe it.

    Either they've not tested enough or they're afraid to acknowledge that Unity update is affecting android devices.

    Now you'd ask why would they not accept it, because of the sheer variety of android devices, models, OS etc. They've never really been able to fix the android issue so if this is the same thing then it's nothing new.

    iOS is clearly much easier to identify and fix because of the small environment.

    But the fact that they are dismissing android as a generic lag and stutter is what they've been doing forever.

    The fact that android now has configurable screen refresh rate with phones going UpTo 144hz and no update to make that compatible, tells us everything.
    They are not dismissing Android as a generic lag and stutter problem. And the fact that Android has configurable screen refresh rates means diddly, because the game is built upon Unity. As I'm not a Unity expert (certainly not 2020 era Unity) if there are any out there feel free to correct me, but Unity uses a composite clock. There's one clock that runs the internals of Unity - the physics, the geometry calculations, etc - and another that runs the rendering. In theory you can run the render pass at any refresh rate you want, subject to vsync limitations (to prevent screen tearing) but the update clock cannot run at arbitrary rates. I mean, you can, but if you attempt to run it faster than the platform can calculate you'll get strange behavior, and if you run it at an arbitrary rate calculated dynamically based on how fast the device is you will end up with weird update/render beat-mismatches.

    A custom game engine might use a single clock and cram everything into intra-frame calculations, or they might use staggered clocking and perform physics and motion in a divide down clock, but if you attempt that in Unity you'll almost certainly create problems in MCOC because that's basically what's happening in iOS now.

    While I'm on the subject of reminding people the game is built on Unity, it is worth pointing out that since Kabam doesn't write Unity, the information that their current Unity build changed timing for iOS comes from Unity. They are the only ones who would know what they changed in any particular Unity build.

    Another thing to point out: while anything is possible, if Android has as widespread timing problems as many assert then Tapsalot will find them. Tapsalot does not need to test a thousand different Android devices to find a pervasive Android problem that appears to be affecting a substantial percentage of the Android players of the game. It is just like crystal conspiracies: anything is possible when it comes to one crystal. But a massive crystal rigging conspiracy that is affecting all crystals for all players in noticeable ways is detectable with trivial testing. You can't disprove that one crystal is rigged. But you can disprove that all of them are. Tapsalot changes the Android situation because we no longer need to rely on anecdotes. If there's a pervasive Android problem, Tapsalot will find it. Conversely, if Tapsalot doesn't find it, there is no pervasive Android problem. There might still be rare marginal problems because of Android heterogeneity. But widespread problems affecting a large percentage of Android players can be proven to either exist, or not exist, with certainty. To be honest, such clarity either way will be welcome, at least by those of us interested in the bottom line facts.

    Belief doesn't matter. 60% of Android testers thought that one of two *identical* game clients worked noticeably better (and not to pick on Android players, because iOS players appear to be equally vulnerable to that self deception). Belief is for churches, not for troubleshooters.
    Your reply is very condescending and patronizing. Thank you for the thoughts and good bye.
    Here's my question, if you're told the answer as detailed as humanly possible in an official statement, followed up with specific questions that are answered by a representative from Kabam and given a little more insight by a third party who has prior knowledge in game software development, why are you still reacting as if you're not being told what you want to hear?

    Why are you taking this opportunity to just be angry when everyone's giving you as much information as humanly possible? I mean ultimately what would alleviate your concerns or give you the peace of mind that we're all looking for in this moment with everything is going on?
    The statement didn't give any test or proof for Android devices like it did for iOS. It means that they have not tested Android yet. Check kabammiike's reply to my post, he clearly states they need to verify more information with unity about Android.

    Don't be like that.
    When talking about the beta test they did with iOS and Android users:

    “Data also showed that many Android users felt that Parry or Dex felt better or worse, but as far as we know, this issue does not affect Android users.”
  • Options
    GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,247 ★★★★★
    rockykoston said:

    DNA3000 said:

    rockykoston said:

    DNA3000 said:

    rockykoston said:

    BitterSteel said:

    @rockykoston to continue our conversation here, I’m not saying the unity engine only updated for IOS. I’m saying that update only caused the parry dex issue for IOS and not Android. I’d encourage you to read the entire post again, because I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood that aspect. I don’t mean that in a patronising way, just that if you think Kabam are saying Android players don’t have an issue with parry or dex, then you haven’t read the whole thing.

    Please read it again, but I’ll direct you to this part which explains the IOS issues.

    “ When we refer to the “Parry and Dex issue”, we’re not actually talking about an issue with Parry or Dex, but a framerate and control input issue exclusive to iOS devices that is most noticeable when trying to Parry or Dex, since these are two mechanics players rely on quite often.

    Marvel Contest of Champions is built on a 3rd Party Game Engine built by our partners at Unity, which has an input system built-in. We’ve relied on Unity's input system since the game was built, and have regularly updated the Engine as they have released updates. With the most recent update to the Engine, a bug was fixed where iOS devices had been operating at the device’s own frame rate, instead of being capped to 30fps as it was set to. This meant that iOS devices had a slightly different input window than Android devices, but this was never identified.

    Since this is how iOS devices had always worked with our game since launch, we had built game interactions around that input window. Now, because this bug in the engine has been fixed, it changed the input window of inputs for all iOS devices and pushed back the input window by mere milliseconds, but that is enough that it is noticeable when playing the game.

    This is the issue that we are working to address, and our fix for it is to integrate an entirely new control input system from our partners at Unity. But this is not a quick or easy task.”

    Only the IOS input window was pushed back, therefore it cannot be the cause of the Android issues.

    @BitterSteel
    I just don't believe it.

    Either they've not tested enough or they're afraid to acknowledge that Unity update is affecting android devices.

    Now you'd ask why would they not accept it, because of the sheer variety of android devices, models, OS etc. They've never really been able to fix the android issue so if this is the same thing then it's nothing new.

    iOS is clearly much easier to identify and fix because of the small environment.

    But the fact that they are dismissing android as a generic lag and stutter is what they've been doing forever.

    The fact that android now has configurable screen refresh rate with phones going UpTo 144hz and no update to make that compatible, tells us everything.
    They are not dismissing Android as a generic lag and stutter problem. And the fact that Android has configurable screen refresh rates means diddly, because the game is built upon Unity. As I'm not a Unity expert (certainly not 2020 era Unity) if there are any out there feel free to correct me, but Unity uses a composite clock. There's one clock that runs the internals of Unity - the physics, the geometry calculations, etc - and another that runs the rendering. In theory you can run the render pass at any refresh rate you want, subject to vsync limitations (to prevent screen tearing) but the update clock cannot run at arbitrary rates. I mean, you can, but if you attempt to run it faster than the platform can calculate you'll get strange behavior, and if you run it at an arbitrary rate calculated dynamically based on how fast the device is you will end up with weird update/render beat-mismatches.

    A custom game engine might use a single clock and cram everything into intra-frame calculations, or they might use staggered clocking and perform physics and motion in a divide down clock, but if you attempt that in Unity you'll almost certainly create problems in MCOC because that's basically what's happening in iOS now.

    While I'm on the subject of reminding people the game is built on Unity, it is worth pointing out that since Kabam doesn't write Unity, the information that their current Unity build changed timing for iOS comes from Unity. They are the only ones who would know what they changed in any particular Unity build.

    Another thing to point out: while anything is possible, if Android has as widespread timing problems as many assert then Tapsalot will find them. Tapsalot does not need to test a thousand different Android devices to find a pervasive Android problem that appears to be affecting a substantial percentage of the Android players of the game. It is just like crystal conspiracies: anything is possible when it comes to one crystal. But a massive crystal rigging conspiracy that is affecting all crystals for all players in noticeable ways is detectable with trivial testing. You can't disprove that one crystal is rigged. But you can disprove that all of them are. Tapsalot changes the Android situation because we no longer need to rely on anecdotes. If there's a pervasive Android problem, Tapsalot will find it. Conversely, if Tapsalot doesn't find it, there is no pervasive Android problem. There might still be rare marginal problems because of Android heterogeneity. But widespread problems affecting a large percentage of Android players can be proven to either exist, or not exist, with certainty. To be honest, such clarity either way will be welcome, at least by those of us interested in the bottom line facts.

    Belief doesn't matter. 60% of Android testers thought that one of two *identical* game clients worked noticeably better (and not to pick on Android players, because iOS players appear to be equally vulnerable to that self deception). Belief is for churches, not for troubleshooters.
    Your reply is very condescending and patronizing. Thank you for the thoughts and good bye.
    The post I was replying to was factually inaccurate and drawing inexplicable conclusions with unjustified confidence. Condescension is very difficult to avoid in that situation. Be less certain or less wrong or preferably both, or condescension will be a constant companion in your life.
    There's no need to reply anymore because clearly you're not equipped enough, all your statement are based on assumptions and conjecture.

    Ignorance is bliss, stay that way.
    Is this art imitating life?
    His responses are based on an extensive knowledge of these things. You can say what you will about DNA, but he's like an Ent. He doesn't say anything that isn't worth taking the time to say.
  • Options
    CoMinowCoMinow Posts: 297 ★
    And can Someone please tell me how to share videos on here?… because I’d like the real problem to get fixed not the lie of feel
  • Options
    rockykostonrockykoston Posts: 1,505 ★★★★
    Shadowstrike said:

    rockykoston said:

    Shadowstrike said:

    rockykoston said:

    DNA3000 said:

    rockykoston said:

    BitterSteel said:

    @rockykoston to continue our conversation here, I’m not saying the unity engine only updated for IOS. I’m saying that update only caused the parry dex issue for IOS and not Android. I’d encourage you to read the entire post again, because I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood that aspect. I don’t mean that in a patronising way, just that if you think Kabam are saying Android players don’t have an issue with parry or dex, then you haven’t read the whole thing.

    Please read it again, but I’ll direct you to this part which explains the IOS issues.

    “ When we refer to the “Parry and Dex issue”, we’re not actually talking about an issue with Parry or Dex, but a framerate and control input issue exclusive to iOS devices that is most noticeable when trying to Parry or Dex, since these are two mechanics players rely on quite often.

    Marvel Contest of Champions is built on a 3rd Party Game Engine built by our partners at Unity, which has an input system built-in. We’ve relied on Unity's input system since the game was built, and have regularly updated the Engine as they have released updates. With the most recent update to the Engine, a bug was fixed where iOS devices had been operating at the device’s own frame rate, instead of being capped to 30fps as it was set to. This meant that iOS devices had a slightly different input window than Android devices, but this was never identified.

    Since this is how iOS devices had always worked with our game since launch, we had built game interactions around that input window. Now, because this bug in the engine has been fixed, it changed the input window of inputs for all iOS devices and pushed back the input window by mere milliseconds, but that is enough that it is noticeable when playing the game.

    This is the issue that we are working to address, and our fix for it is to integrate an entirely new control input system from our partners at Unity. But this is not a quick or easy task.”

    Only the IOS input window was pushed back, therefore it cannot be the cause of the Android issues.

    @BitterSteel
    I just don't believe it.

    Either they've not tested enough or they're afraid to acknowledge that Unity update is affecting android devices.

    Now you'd ask why would they not accept it, because of the sheer variety of android devices, models, OS etc. They've never really been able to fix the android issue so if this is the same thing then it's nothing new.

    iOS is clearly much easier to identify and fix because of the small environment.

    But the fact that they are dismissing android as a generic lag and stutter is what they've been doing forever.

    The fact that android now has configurable screen refresh rate with phones going UpTo 144hz and no update to make that compatible, tells us everything.
    They are not dismissing Android as a generic lag and stutter problem. And the fact that Android has configurable screen refresh rates means diddly, because the game is built upon Unity. As I'm not a Unity expert (certainly not 2020 era Unity) if there are any out there feel free to correct me, but Unity uses a composite clock. There's one clock that runs the internals of Unity - the physics, the geometry calculations, etc - and another that runs the rendering. In theory you can run the render pass at any refresh rate you want, subject to vsync limitations (to prevent screen tearing) but the update clock cannot run at arbitrary rates. I mean, you can, but if you attempt to run it faster than the platform can calculate you'll get strange behavior, and if you run it at an arbitrary rate calculated dynamically based on how fast the device is you will end up with weird update/render beat-mismatches.

    A custom game engine might use a single clock and cram everything into intra-frame calculations, or they might use staggered clocking and perform physics and motion in a divide down clock, but if you attempt that in Unity you'll almost certainly create problems in MCOC because that's basically what's happening in iOS now.

    While I'm on the subject of reminding people the game is built on Unity, it is worth pointing out that since Kabam doesn't write Unity, the information that their current Unity build changed timing for iOS comes from Unity. They are the only ones who would know what they changed in any particular Unity build.

    Another thing to point out: while anything is possible, if Android has as widespread timing problems as many assert then Tapsalot will find them. Tapsalot does not need to test a thousand different Android devices to find a pervasive Android problem that appears to be affecting a substantial percentage of the Android players of the game. It is just like crystal conspiracies: anything is possible when it comes to one crystal. But a massive crystal rigging conspiracy that is affecting all crystals for all players in noticeable ways is detectable with trivial testing. You can't disprove that one crystal is rigged. But you can disprove that all of them are. Tapsalot changes the Android situation because we no longer need to rely on anecdotes. If there's a pervasive Android problem, Tapsalot will find it. Conversely, if Tapsalot doesn't find it, there is no pervasive Android problem. There might still be rare marginal problems because of Android heterogeneity. But widespread problems affecting a large percentage of Android players can be proven to either exist, or not exist, with certainty. To be honest, such clarity either way will be welcome, at least by those of us interested in the bottom line facts.

    Belief doesn't matter. 60% of Android testers thought that one of two *identical* game clients worked noticeably better (and not to pick on Android players, because iOS players appear to be equally vulnerable to that self deception). Belief is for churches, not for troubleshooters.
    Your reply is very condescending and patronizing. Thank you for the thoughts and good bye.
    Here's my question, if you're told the answer as detailed as humanly possible in an official statement, followed up with specific questions that are answered by a representative from Kabam and given a little more insight by a third party who has prior knowledge in game software development, why are you still reacting as if you're not being told what you want to hear?

    Why are you taking this opportunity to just be angry when everyone's giving you as much information as humanly possible? I mean ultimately what would alleviate your concerns or give you the peace of mind that we're all looking for in this moment with everything is going on?
    The statement didn't give any test or proof for Android devices like it did for iOS. It means that they have not tested Android yet. Check kabammiike's reply to my post, he clearly states they need to verify more information with unity about Android.

    Don't be like that.
    And if Unity says hey we're not seeing any problems with Android and it's a separate thing altogether, will you finally accept that as an actual answer or are you going to still demand answers where none exists?
    First off, if kabam is starting a trend of showing us response time graphs, windows etc. i.e. test scenarios, I want to see that they share with us the same test scenarios for Android as well whether they pass or fail or whatever is the observation in the tests.

    Once that tests are shared with the users and we actually have all the information for both platforms, it'll be clear whether the issue only exists in IOS or not.

    Until then the issue is on iOS and Android had the generic stutter/lag issue.

    Yes, unity can provide their input but that'll depend on the data that kabam shares with them, so if we're going for transparency and barring IP rights, we need to see that data for Android as well. Thank you for reading.
  • Options
    horrendous_toohorrendous_too Posts: 227 ★★
    DNA3000 said:

    horrendous_too said:

    DNA3000 said:

    horrendous_too said:

    Kabam Miike said:

    horrendous_too said:

    While the robot is a brilliant way to get at actual measurement and to be able to test fixes with a controlled "fixed" input and response. It definitely will be impractical to test on even the few models of iOS, let alone the multiple manufacturers and models of android phones and tablets. If I could suggest, you might be able to use something like the parry training ground to crowd source some data for a beta test. Have something where you have to parry like 10 medium hits from 5-6 different characters and you should be able to gather a bunch of data from hundreds or thousands doing the exact same test on the same characters.
    I'm not saying this would prevent a robot uprising...but maybe delay it a bit

    Unfortunately, it won't help. As we mentioned in the post, there is no way for us to measure this in software because the issue resides between the Game Engine and the Hardware.
    Absolutely, I get that you can't actually measure the input timing that way. What I was thinking was more of a way to quantify if the fixes worked for players. So like if you repeated the "Does parry/dex feel better" experiment but instead of asking about feel could measure that it took say 16 mediums to get 10 parries on average for those with the released version, vs say 12 mediums to get 10 parries on the hotfix beta. Then no matter what they say parry felt like you would have data to show that parry was working better with the hotfix.

    It just seemed like that type of data (parry success rate) could be gathered, since the training mode already recognizes when you landed a successful parry. But I have no real idea if that data is available under the hood or not.
    Tapsalot eliminates the need for that kind of testing. Prior to Tapsalot, the devs had to guess at what changes might have caused a change in player feeling. But now that this can be quantified, either the new build replicates the old timing sufficiently well or it doesn't.

    Keep in mind the task for Kabam is not to change the game until everyone's Parry skills improve. The task for Kabam is to replicate the old behavior. If they do and players are still missing Parries, that would be a psychological problem in their heads that the game client can't fix and can only be solved by the players readjusting to the old-new-old normal.
    Tapsalot will eliminate that need for testing for any device that can be tested using Tapsalot. Automatically extending results found with an iPhone 12 max to other devices that have not been tested with Tapsalot would decidedly be poor scientific method. It would be like me saying my research using mice is automatically applicable to humans just because both are mammals. And it would seem that expanding the robot army to test the numerous different apple and android phones and tablets would rapidly become cost/time prohibitive.

    So really what I was suggesting was like a phase I/ Phase II trials. In phase I, Tapsalot gives rapid data collection in a closed system with a relatively small number of devices. My theoretical phase II trial would then be releasing said potential fix to hundreds to thousands with multiple different devices and you could see if the fix works in the "wild" of a beta.
    You'd have to find testers whose feedback meant something. In their limited beta test, humans were statistically incapable of being able to correctly identify when the problem changed or didn't change.
    Which is exactly why you would never use any sort of feeling or self reported response for the data. It would only be measuring, in this theoretical trial, parry success rate or the number of medium attacks to get 10 parries. As long as the groups each include a similar cross section of the player base the average across each group should represent the actual difference between the current and potential fixed versions. Granted any study using humans as subjects will be biased as you can only include people who actually want to be included. But if you look at an actual test of a measurable skill vs asking how does it feel, you should get a reasonable approximation of how that change is working in a live version with people on different devices with different levels of wifi or cellular data, which should be a wider pool than could be done with Tapsalot.
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