Slade
[14] Master
As many of you probably know, Soulcalibur switched from an in-house-developed engine to Unreal Engine 4 for the development of Soulcalibur 6. UE4 has a problem with input lag. Input lag is the gap between your controller’s hardware sending the signal for an input and the game updating to act on that input. At launch, Street Fighter V had about 8 frames of input lag, and MvC:I had about 6. Tekken 7 has about 6–8 frames of input lag on consoles (slightly more on PS4 than on Xbox).
On PS4, Soulcalibur 6’s input lag feels to be in the same ballpark as the games above. (If anyone has the tools to get exact data, it would be very helpful to the community to bring awareness to this issue. Setting a video camera to capture at 60FPS and recording the delay between an input and the response on a decent gaming monitor should be sufficient to do this.) Players switching from PC to console or vice versa report noticeable differences in the responsiveness of the game, and this affects gameplay. “Borderline reactable” lows such as Grøh’s SCh 1AK or Azwel’s Ax 6B+K become unreactable when you have 6–8 fewer frames in which to block them. Tight whiff punishes cease to be punishes. Moves that should be GIable on reaction become unreactable.
Players will learn to unconsciously shift their playstyles to adapt to this, but the result will be worse: playstyles that rely less on tactics that demand quick reactions and more on flowchart-style algorithms, designed to minimize the amount of quick responses the player has to make, will start to rule the roost. (Expect Azwel, Ivy, Voldo, and other characters with “vortex mixups” to be high in popularity whereas characters who primarily focus on spacing, punishment, and other Soulcalibur fundamentals will wane in use.) The game is simply worse the more input lag it has.
This poses a dilemma for tournament organizers. They are forced to choose between taking the added burden of providing PC setups to avoid this issue, or to provide an inferior version of the game for players to compete in. It will also increase demand from players to increase non-finals matches from best of three to best of five in order to help reduce the effectiveness of flowchart tactics and brain-dead gameplay. This will create a tension between TOs and competitors and shorten the competitive lifespan of the game.
It affects online play as well. Online has an additional fixed amount of lag (more the worse the connection is) added on top of everything to act as a buffer for variations in network latency over time. But the effect of this lag plus the native input lag is that it feels like the characters are trying to fight underwater, even in four- or five-bar connections. Plus, it messes with your muscle memory, so just frames that you practice offline won’t work online. (Practice Geralt 4A:A in training mode for a while, then go try it online. Doesn’t work, does it?)
I’ve heard it proposed that in at least some of these games the input lag is deliberately added (or not properly optimized away for release) so as to create greater parity between how the game feels offline and online. If this is true, it’s a terrible mistake. Not a single serious fighting-game competitor will tell you that intentionally adding input lag to the game is a good thing. And what competitive players think matters. With the growth of e-sports, Twitch.tv, and in some cases the televising of fighting-game tournaments, having tournament organizers continue to run a game and players continue to play it provides long-lasting marketing value and word-of-mouth for the game in question.
In summary: Soulcalibur 6 has some serious problems with the amount of input latency built into the game, especially compared to previous installments. This makes the game less fun to play and less serious competitively. It creates a greater divide between players on PC and consoles, between players and TOs, and will shorten the life of the game. It needs to be patched, the sooner the better.
On PS4, Soulcalibur 6’s input lag feels to be in the same ballpark as the games above. (If anyone has the tools to get exact data, it would be very helpful to the community to bring awareness to this issue. Setting a video camera to capture at 60FPS and recording the delay between an input and the response on a decent gaming monitor should be sufficient to do this.) Players switching from PC to console or vice versa report noticeable differences in the responsiveness of the game, and this affects gameplay. “Borderline reactable” lows such as Grøh’s SCh 1AK or Azwel’s Ax 6B+K become unreactable when you have 6–8 fewer frames in which to block them. Tight whiff punishes cease to be punishes. Moves that should be GIable on reaction become unreactable.
Players will learn to unconsciously shift their playstyles to adapt to this, but the result will be worse: playstyles that rely less on tactics that demand quick reactions and more on flowchart-style algorithms, designed to minimize the amount of quick responses the player has to make, will start to rule the roost. (Expect Azwel, Ivy, Voldo, and other characters with “vortex mixups” to be high in popularity whereas characters who primarily focus on spacing, punishment, and other Soulcalibur fundamentals will wane in use.) The game is simply worse the more input lag it has.
This poses a dilemma for tournament organizers. They are forced to choose between taking the added burden of providing PC setups to avoid this issue, or to provide an inferior version of the game for players to compete in. It will also increase demand from players to increase non-finals matches from best of three to best of five in order to help reduce the effectiveness of flowchart tactics and brain-dead gameplay. This will create a tension between TOs and competitors and shorten the competitive lifespan of the game.
It affects online play as well. Online has an additional fixed amount of lag (more the worse the connection is) added on top of everything to act as a buffer for variations in network latency over time. But the effect of this lag plus the native input lag is that it feels like the characters are trying to fight underwater, even in four- or five-bar connections. Plus, it messes with your muscle memory, so just frames that you practice offline won’t work online. (Practice Geralt 4A:A in training mode for a while, then go try it online. Doesn’t work, does it?)
I’ve heard it proposed that in at least some of these games the input lag is deliberately added (or not properly optimized away for release) so as to create greater parity between how the game feels offline and online. If this is true, it’s a terrible mistake. Not a single serious fighting-game competitor will tell you that intentionally adding input lag to the game is a good thing. And what competitive players think matters. With the growth of e-sports, Twitch.tv, and in some cases the televising of fighting-game tournaments, having tournament organizers continue to run a game and players continue to play it provides long-lasting marketing value and word-of-mouth for the game in question.
In summary: Soulcalibur 6 has some serious problems with the amount of input latency built into the game, especially compared to previous installments. This makes the game less fun to play and less serious competitively. It creates a greater divide between players on PC and consoles, between players and TOs, and will shorten the life of the game. It needs to be patched, the sooner the better.
