Why I don't use caves

[HomShaBom]

On the last "Rhymes With Play" they mentioned that most players don't go into the caves. They hoped the Bundle Wraps would help bring more players into the caves by allowing them to bring more supplies. I normally play as Wigfrid so being able to bundle my food to avoid the bunnymen agro is nice. However, this will not make me use caves more (or at all).

The problem with caves, for me, is really a problem with the whole game. The lag is just awful. I don't understand why DST has the worst lag problem of any game I've played. When I play Dota 2, everything is snappy and responsive. When i click somewhere my character moves immediately. In DST when I'm hosting a server I can hit a koalefant or a beefalo 7 times between its attacks and dodge its attacks and never get hit. When I fight a Hound, Clockwork Knight, or Tallbird I can easily dodge their attacks and hit them 2-3 times betwen their attacks.

When I'm not the host, or even if I am hosting but it's a dedicated server, or if I turn on caves, even though I'm playing on the same machine that's hosting the game the lag is ridiculous. I cannot even hit a pigman. If I dodge it's attack and run back to hit him, my attack just swings and misses.

I don't understand why this 1 game in particular has such a lag problem, but I can say that is what keeps me out of caves. I find the game bordering on unplayable unless I'm hosting a world with caves turned off.

When I play on someone else's server I literally can't even run away from Tallbirds. I run in a straight line away from them and they still hit me even though I'm half a screen away from them by the time their animation finishes and I get hit. Same thing with Hounds.

Unless this the lag issue is solved, I will not be playing on anyone else's server and I will not be turning on caves on my own server.

[Electroely]

Hm...

Are you sure your computer meet the requirements for DST? I mean, my pc is able to run a dedicated server with 3 shards just finely.

And about lag on other servers... the location the server is hosted in matters. The farther you are from host, the laggier it gets. So make sure you join servers within your region if you don't wanna experience all that much lag.

[HomShaBom]

Yes, I am. And if you've ever tried back to back hosting a game with and without a dedicated server you'd know exactly what I'm talking about.

I haven a 64-bit i7 4.0 GHz processor, 16GB ram, nvidia GTX 970 video card, I have comcast xfinity internet, to speedtest.net i'm getting 11ms ping, 44.96 Mbps down, 25.18 Mbps up

And no, the location doesn't matter. Maybe in the sense that it's even worse to a server that is far away and under powered, but even a server that is very close and greatly exceeds the required specs still has awful lag.

That's really such a dismissive non-answer to bring up minimium specs and distance to server. That's just such basic and "no duh" stuff I can't believe I even dignified it with a response.

[VarsoZergy]

You're right, it's really a shame, with how useful they are. Although you can always play LAN

 

[Mday]

9 minutes ago, HomShaBom said:

Yes, I am. And if you've ever tried back to back hosting a game with and without a dedicated server you'd know exactly what I'm talking about.

I haven a 64-bit i7 4.0 GHz processor, 16GB ram, nvidia GTX 970 video card, I have comcast xfinity internet, to speedtest.net i'm getting 11ms ping, 44.96 Mbps down, 25.18 Mbps up

 

I have a 6700k, 16GB ram, gtx970. When I play at my own dedicated server there can be some suddent lag spike for like 0.5 sec. I host 1 endless and 1 survival server, both with cave enabled, and I play at someone else's server at the same time. Dont think people have had any lag issue playing at my server so far.

[HomShaBom]

3 minutes ago, VarsoZergy said:

You're right, it's really a shame, with how useful they are. Although you can always play LAN

 

No, that's what I'm saying. Even when I'm playing on LAN (even the same computer that is hosting) with caves the lag is bad enough to make me want to just turn caves off. There's no problem if I'm hosting in the same instance that I'm playing on. It's just like I'm playing the regular single player Don't Starve. It's perfect. But as soon as caves are turned there's a noticiable delay in everything. Even just picking up carrots off the ground. There is a perceivable delay that's not there when I turn caves off.

[Sinister_Fang]

You see, it's rather unfair to compare a game like DST, Minecraft, Terraria, ect. to something like Dota 2. These types of games are hosted in various locations with systems of wildly different hardware. So lag tends to be more of an issue in these types of games. Something like Dota 2 likely have their own servers all running on the same or at least similar hardware. On top of that they likely have a lot of experienced people who deal with the networking code and server maintenance.

And then there's also the problem of Don't Starve not being built for multiplayer. A lot of work went into making Don't Starve Together but there's only so much that can be done to compensate for latency in a game that wasn't originally built to handle it.

TL;DR: You're gonna have to deal with the subtle lag. It's really not that hard to get used to, especially if your the host.

[HomShaBom]

No, I'm not just gonna have to deal with the lag. I'm just not going to turn caves on and not have a lag problem. Did you even read it? That was the whole point. Klei has noticed that not many people are using the caves so they're trying to add in content to try to get more players into the caves. I'm just giving them another reason to explain why they're not seeing many players in the caves.

[GiddyGuy]

20 hours ago, HomShaBom said:

I'm just giving them another reason to explain why they're not seeing many players in the caves.

Okay so like...you sure they weren't trying to hype up the new item, or maybe even hint what you could use the bundled supplies for? Also about the latency it's not really that hard to learn how to deal with it, a lot of players are very good (As long as you have lag compensation turned to none, the game is unplayable without it turned to none.) when it comes to DST latency

Also note for the devs, if you were truly saying you didn't see too many people having caves enabled then it's probably because most can't handle them and just play without them, at least that's my theory since I myself can not play with caves enabled.

[Rellimarual]

I'm surprised to learn that most players don't use caves, since whenever I'm on a public server, everyone seems to be obsessed with getting down there. Sometimes they just want a lantern, but I have also seen players leave a server the instant they learn  that it doesn't have caves. If you're talking about the kind of newbie who rarely makes it through the winter, sure I can see that. Caves are too challenging for them.  I've never, however, heard anyone complain about caves in respect to lag .

[CarlZalph]

4 hours ago, HomShaBom said:

Unless this the lag issue is solved, I will not be playing on anyone else's server and I will not be turning on caves on my own server.

In the client options turn the Lag compensation setting to none.

This will make it so that all of your actions are delayed by your network connection, but you will always see the game as the server sees it.

You won't be phantom hit again.

28 minutes ago, GiddyGuy said:

Also note for the devs, if you were truly saying you didn't see too many people having caves enabled then it's probably because most can't handle them and just play without them, at least that's my theory since I myself can not play with caves enabled.

Assuming that Klei was wanting more people to go into the caverns, then my biggest gripe with it is the delay during connecting from one instance to the other- precious time in the day is iterated while you wait, and it breaks the game's immersive feel to me.

It isn't a smooth transition, and to make matters worse most of the time the alchemy machine is up top so you need to go down, then back up for a lantern, and then back down again to continue.

This zip-zag motion triples the caverns' delay for the first time, and I hold off on going to the caverns if I can help it unless I rush the ruins.

[Rellimarual]

Yep, that is the thing that most vexes me, although the transition between servers does  make for a good reminder that you need to take a stretching or bathroom break.

[AnonymousKoala]

I hear you, the lag when hosting a server with caves ticks me off too. I'd still say you should play with them though. Yes there's a lot of issues with that and the lag does ruin the hope of a game that's as responsive as the original, but Caves have enough content to imo basically be required if you want to actually have fun in your game to the full extent.

[mochilo]

I can feel this little lag when caves are on too, even when I play alone. It's really weird to need a separate server just for a part of the world. I guess there is a reason I ignore, can anyone explain? Was it impossible to make a bigger world and add surface+caves+ruins all together? What is the benefit of separated servers?

Maybe any plan to put it together in the same server in the future?

[Mday]

I change the set affinity setting to force each shard to use different cpu cores. Can't say for sure it helps. Just feels like it does.

[GiddyGuy]

18 minutes ago, mochilo said:

can anyone explain? Was it impossible to make a bigger world and add surface+caves+ruins all together? What is the benefit of separated servers?

Maybe any plan to put it together in the same server in the future?

Yeah back then a lot of people pointed this out and a/some dev/s did comment on it, I just can't remember what they responded as to why they did it this way.

Also I must say I do like it better this way since it's not really hard to judge how much you can do with your ping, it just takes patience.

20 minutes ago, mochilo said:

What is the benefit of separated servers?

Skipping hound/depth worm attacks?

[mochilo]

1 minute ago, GiddyGuy said:

Skipping hound/depth worm attacks?

I was clearly asking for performance benefits, not cheesy strats. Anyway, having both surface and caves in the same server I don't think hounds would follow you into the cave, so that point makes no sense at all. You don't really think skipping hounds is the reason to build DST worlds into separated servers, do you.

[GiddyGuy]

6 minutes ago, mochilo said:

You don't really think skipping hounds is the reason to build DST worlds into separated servers, do you.

Have you seen the later waves? If you ain't got a tooth trap field hopefully you got a thulecite crown or some beefalo to help with the hounds.

6 minutes ago, mochilo said:

Anyway, having both surface and caves in the same server I don't think hounds would follow you into the cave, so that point makes no sense at all.

Well if they were in the same server I'd think they'd make it so you'd get depth worms instead of hounds if you went to a cave, to fix this "cheesy strat"

Edit: I guess you could make the argument that you could go back into the caves after the wave has spawn, I'll give ya that.

[Mday]

40 minutes ago, mochilo said:

What is the benefit of separated servers?

Do you mean hosting different shards on different PC? or Do you mean hosting different shards on the same PC?

I am not expert on this, but apparently the game has very limited muiltcore support. A shard can have 1 CPU core stresss to 100%, causing lag to everyone on the server, while the remaining CPU cores remain mostly idle. The cave is make into a whole separate shard (and hence using a different CPU core) so that it can help relief some of the load from the surface world.

[mochilo]

49 minutes ago, Mday said:

Do you mean hosting different shards on different PC? or Do you mean hosting different shards on the same PC?

I am not expert on this, but apparently the game has very limited muiltcore support. A shard can have 1 CPU core stresss to 100%, causing lag to everyone on the server, while the remaining CPU cores remain mostly idle. The cave is make into a whole separate shard (and hence using a different CPU core) so that it can help relief some of the load from the surface world.

I mean just playing a game without the need of an aditional server for a certain part of the world. Like any other game xD.

[SniderThanYou]

My family had the same trouble when we played together at Thanksgiving time. When hosting a world with only two or three people (on a VERY capable machine), we would frequently experience lag spikes > 3 seconds. We found a solution for our particular lag problems; perhaps it could help you, too?

We all disconnected from WiFi and set static IP addresses, and we all plugged our laptops into a gigabit switch. I hosted on my 4-year-old laptop, and 9 other people joined my server. No lag, no sudden spikes, over the course of several hours. It was the best DST performance I've ever seen.

[zazabar]

7 hours ago, CarlZalph said:

In the client options turn the Lag compensation setting to none.

This will make it so that all of your actions are delayed by your network connection, but you will always see the game as the server sees it.

You won't be phantom hit again.

Assuming that Klei was wanting more people to go into the caverns, then my biggest gripe with it is the delay during connecting from one instance to the other- precious time in the day is iterated while you wait, and it breaks the game's immersive feel to me.

It isn't a smooth transition, and to make matters worse most of the time the alchemy machine is up top so you need to go down, then back up for a lantern, and then back down again to continue.

This zip-zag motion triples the caverns' delay for the first time, and I hold off on going to the caverns if I can help it unless I rush the ruins.

So a mod that made the lantern craftable away from the Alchemy Engine would be good then?  Maybe one where you can just craft the blueprint for free off of it and use it instead of having to prototype.

[. . .]

There's a reason the game gives a warning when you turn caves on, because it's very performance heavy! Though, I wish it was as lag free as world with caves off but i'm okay with 50fps.

[fimmatek]

5 hours ago, GiddyGuy said:

Well if they were in the same server I'd think they'd make it so you'd get depth worms instead of hounds if you went to a cave, to fix this "cheesy strat"

I'm quite sure that would happen. Like in DS SW, if you get on boat before the hound attack arrives, you'll get sharks instead.

 

5 hours ago, GiddyGuy said:

Edit: I guess you could make the argument that you could go back into the caves after the wave has spawn, I'll give ya that

That would be a one-time solution (I also did it a few times), because you make the given area quite dangerous. And then you can choose: once you go back to the surface/cave, you'll find an army of hounds/worms, or you can avoid that area, but that making such no-go zones will limit your cave-access quite fast. But sure it can save a life in an emergency, and you can return later with full hp and armor.

[StarvedKasad]

YES THE LAG finally someone besides me mentioned it.It's not about the specs,the game has a very strange mechanic that adds to every move you do an average of 0.2 ms delay. And this is even more apparent when you use the queue mod. You have to pick 100 grass/twigs and instead of finishing it in say a minute,it takes 1,50 or maybe even 2 minutes.Oh you wanted to micro the boss and you are even the host?No can do!Better stick to non caves version buddy!

Seriously ,with all due respect to your amazing game,this is bad programming. I'm suspecting they are adding an inherited delay because it can't be explained otherwise. And to make matters worse the delay is the same on small and huge maps so it's deffinitely something with how the game handles the caves and adds a default delay,which is horrible.