Basically: Players: We want good netcode Japanese devs: we have netcode at home Netcode at home:

As an asian who works in an IT related business, I can confirm this shit is real. Upper management just won't let us use systems or infrastructures that are developed by outsiders, even though it'll save development time and costs. Instead, everything are done from the ground up by the R&D team...

It pretty amazing that power rangers battle for the grid has amazing netcode and that game had a budget of a stick of gum and two paper clips.

Max is absolutely right at 19:50 FPS netcode is largely based on the model John Carmack implemented in QuakeWorld (online only version of Quake1 released in 1997). vanilla Quake1 had delayed based netcode as well and it was terrible, especially on the modem connections of the time. firing a weapon was delayed based on latency to the server and moving felt like underwater. by using clientside prediction with server side game state reconciliation, QuakeWorld allowed inputs to be processed independently on each client (with no delay) resulting in a local gamestate, which would be validated/rollbacked based on the server's own internal game state. sounds familiar, huh? in many ways GGPO is the p2p implementation of this client-server concept. most first person shooters post-1997, from some of the most bootleg/hobbyist/indie games to triple A titles, are using this model and nobody cries about cost/geography of X particular country/cultural barriers/not working on Unreal Engine or some other excuse you'll find in the FGC.. edit: forgot to mention that John Carmack insisted on making their older engines open source as they worked on new ones. Doom2/3, Quake1/2/3 engines are all open source. the man is a legend and a visionary. that was a key advantage for every dev in the FPS genre and leaving no room for excuse.

I'm glad you made a response to Sajam's video. It's a conversation the FGC needs to make noise about! I don't think anyone would disagree that netcode is one of the most important things for a fighting game.

"They invented the wheel? Well, they can go to hell, because we can invent a better wheel."

I can confirm what Max said, here in Japan you don't feel bad netcode as much because it is a very small country, so there isn't a lot of latency. Which means most complains come from outside of Japan which is probably another reason they don't pay too much attention to it.

"I've been fighting for that shit longer then some of you have been alive!" DAYUM

Not FGC related but who remembers Final Fantasy 14 original and how awful that was? That was hella internalized developmental stubbornness, and only when it failed miserably did they get help outside of the original dev team and surprise, made it amazing. Stubbornness kills advances in quality.

The great irony of all this is that like, 90% of everything that Japan's made has originally come from other countries. Written language (Katakana, Hiragana, Kanji) and traditional clothing (kimono variants)? Han Dynasty China. Tempura? Portuguese. Religions like Zen Buddhism? China/India. Government structure? England/America. Cars (Toyota, Honda, Nissan)? Germany. Video games? America (Atari 2600). And let's not forget that Japan imports about 60% of it's food. This nihonjin-ron concept of "Not Invented Here" is so blindassingly backwards comparatively that it blows my mind.

*Nintendo of America:* Dude, more of our games need online *Nintendo of Japan:* But everyone loves to play locally here :)

The way I look at it, if you have a global business, your product needs to work and be equal *globally*. If you can't do that, you're failing. (This includes getting feedback and acknowledging it from users globally too. These big AAA companies are always complaining about failing to meet sales targets or not understanding why "X" is liked outside of Japan, so it might behoove them to actually listen to why players that would normally buy/play their games aren't and take those points into consideration.)

Man, Sajam surely is becoming L'enfant Terrible of the FGC , making all the real questions.

So it's literally just being stubborn.

Awful netcode actually made me stop playing video games. I love FG’s but SFIV,UMVC3 online modes broke me.I’m an adult,my friends grew up and stopped playing these games. It’s heartbreaking and frustrating for me.

I have worked with Japanese companies in a tech industry for about 10 years. I can tell you that they do, indeed have trouble adapting American ideas, but only publicly. They won't license an American tech. However, they have no problem at all STEALING tech and passing it off as their own. So what needs to happen is someone just needs to accidentally leave some source code in the wrong (right) place, and we'll start seeing Japanese games with good netcode.

Part of the reason why Bioware has had a such an awful time at EA for their last couple games is because EA insisted that Bioware use their FPS engine they personally developed instead for RPGs. Both Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem suffered for it, along with other issues of course. So, Japan is DEFINITELY not the only ones guilty of attempting the go-it-alone-do-our-own-thing trend in gaming.

The lack of good netcode has actually made me stop playing online. I just can't deal with it anymore. I'm honestly now just playing Monster Hunter World more and various RPG games.

“I’ll make my own netcode! Blackjack and hookers!” This kinda killed me.

It's sad that they're perfectly willing to use western DRM like Denuvo, but barely even acknowledge GGPO. With all the arcades closing in Japan and Korea we might start seeing some real change in a few years.

From the perspective of a software developer: Networking performance is a core issue for all software but of particular importance for games, You really need to design an engine from the outset to work around potential rollbacks - it's the only way to ensure that the out come is smooth (hard to notice). Until the companies we rely on for content actually take the stance of building these games for the online experience as the primary focus we'll keep seeing bad net code design and implementation.

Netcode needs some next gen love!

Guess this is why Japanese FGC still mostly play locally, instead of online. They know their Japanese fighting games has sucky netcode lol

Touhou Hisoutensoku, Eternal Fighter Zero and Melty Blood, even though the games are somewhat obscure, they probably have the best netcodes made by fans of the games to my knowledge (not the own games' netcode, those are bad), sokuroll, efz revival and cccaster are either a combination of delay and rollback, or just pure rollback that allows smooth connections between SA and NA, and somewhat good SA / EU or NA / JP connections as well, not to mention when the games are between the same region, those are godlike, it's what has kept those games alive in their own communities, as cross-continental online tourneys are totally possible and happen pretty much every few weeks. Those games came out like 10 years ago and someone figured how to do an amazing netcode for them like 8 ~ 6 years ago, yet big game companies still refuse to even try to do something like that because they are too reluctant to use technology made by outsiders, I mean, come on, how is it possible for fans of obscure indie games to make better netcode for their games than companies that have been working on fighting games for decades? That's just unacceptable.

THANK YOU for addressing this. I want Japanese developers to put an end to their terrible delay based netcode. Please Max I'm begging you, please help these developers at SNK and Arcsys to understand it's almost 2020 and they NEED to be using GGPO now. When these small indie companies can use it, JP really has no excuse

The biggest problem with Smash Ultimate is the fact that the Switch is a wireless system that needs an extra attachment to get Ethernet plugged in. Nobody owns that thing. That leads to a huge amount of dropped packets.

If you lived in Japan (as I do), reluctance to associate with anything foreign would be all too understandable. It absolutely exists here, affecting I'd say about 80% of the population.

The reason Japanese companies weren’t using Unreal Engine before was there wasn’t Japanese language and support until around 6 to 7 years ago. Also Epic lowered their royalty fees. This is why all of Japanese devs switched to it around that time. Other 3D development programs still don’t have Japanese or other language support they have to pretty much work in English. Capcom also does a ton of outsourcing a major part of their games aren’t even made in Japan. Netcode is definitely because it works in Japan and don’t really test outside of it. The loading in Tekken is another thing that kills the game for me.

Nintendo is in some sort of "Japanese bubble" too

Thought about you covering this after watching Sajams video. Cool of you dood!

As much as I love some Japan culture and ethics because I grew in that Environment since I was Elementary, I still really hate their Business culture. Always frustated with my clients that is from Japan lol.

There's also the NRS GDC talk from 2018 about implementing rollback into an existing game/engine. Apparently CPU overhead is a pretty real issue for putting rollback into existing modern games.

*SPEED OF LIGHT IS TOO SLOW FOR US*

I still remember the first few days when Max played KI with some dudes in Puerto Rico and that is bloody amazing considering how shit out net is.

All jokes aside, YOU NEED TO START DOIN INTERVIEW PERIOD. Or have guest conference calls more often or something, you are truly are our fight game messiah with boots on ground information, I'm not saying you have to go all FOX News be on the scene, but I have sat an watch AND listen to more real talks more often than I have came to watch gameplay and I've been subscribe and watching you since these was a CoD channel, please keep up the good work, god bless you Max.

Sfv netcode...Sucks, Tekken netcode...Sucks and DBFZ netcode...Sucks. Deal with it... Wait I don't wanna

This is a super important conversation that I hope some high up people see. Normally I'd be too cynical to think that'd be possible, but after hearing how many companies actually watch Max...

I like these discussion Max we need more of this 😃

I was bored then i found why the netcode is so bad some times everyday i learn somenthing more

I wonder how their netcode would work if they were fighting with someone from, say, the Marshall Islands....which is 2806 miles away from Yokohama. I only ask because 2806 miles is also, roughly, the SAME DISTANCE between Los Angeles, California and New York, New York!

I remember when they were working on the Wii and Wii U online interface with the eShop and friends, there was an overseas developer working with the Japanese team who kept saying, “Just like Xbox Live and PSN” and he was told to stop bringing that up because none of them used those systems. 🙄

FYI The Skullgirls community has run multiple online exhibitions between USA and Japan with top players just playing from home (look up Skullgirls Pacific Showdown to see some). Of course the connections weren't perfect, with some lobby crashes, but most of the sets wrapped without any matches getting as bad as that SFV clip Max shared here. This is including East Coast to Japan too! Just imagine thinking of a match from across the freaking Pacific Ocean in your favorite fighting game as something that's at least playable. This could have been the reality for all fighting games online by now!

I really enjoy videos like this and would love if you did more of this. But I think it would be helpful to give a short explanation to things for those who doesn’t know certain terms (like roll back net code). Keep up the great content!

Late reply but I also want to mention the concept of "ringiseido," which is a key part of how business decisions are made at the corporate level. Essentially, when an idea is proposed, it has to not only have unanimous approval by the people at the top, but each of them must read the proposal and sign it one by one. (The unanimous approval occurs because if one person rejects the proposal, it's stopped.) The advantage is that a business does not proceed with something unless it's clearly a good idea, but the downside is that many good ideas are rejected, and the process is extremely slow. I suspect ringiseido is the reason, for instance, behind Game Freak suddenly going so quiet starting around 2018, as any pre-release announcements would've had to go through this process, which can take months. P.S. Japan also has a long history of isolationism. It's been about 150 years since Commodore Matthew Perry forcibly opened up Japan, but there are still remnants of this isolationism. It caused a kind of pride in Japanese culture where everything is done domestically, and some Japanese developers would rather withdraw and not sell to foreigners than to go through the trouble of selling to them.

Such a stubborn, ancient way of thinking. It's crazy that this ideology still exists.

It'll be a cold day in hell when Smash Bros has even half way decent netcode. Yet we have indie games with perfect netcode. Gotta love this minor form of stubborn racism.

I'm all aboard about having a better netcode but... Has Rollback netcode like GGPO ever been tested in a true 3D Fighting Game like Virtua Fighter, Doa or Tekken? It has been solid in 2d Fighters over the years but I've never played a 3D fighrter using it. Are there any?

This video was a fascinating listen. Very informative to someone like me who had no idea how any of these inner working played out.

Smash Ultimate online makes me cry every time I play it.

The NIH problem is across industries all over the world...it's really unfortunate. It actually led to me being laid off from my last job: our teams didn't have any document management systems, and I was tasked with finding one. I found an existing solution that covered all of their bases, but management changed while I was working on it and suddenly they didn't want to pay for it anymore and wanted to develop something internally. Which they didn't have the people to do.

I am aware this is very off-topic, but what mic arm is Max using in the video?

Re 7 RE remake and dmc 5 what games currently are using the unreal engine exactly?

Man, Real Talk has always been a favorite, always appreciated!

Nintendo with near infinite budget for Smash : Let's put a netcode that consists of a carrier pidgeon sending flash drives to each other Seems aye

Also, add in there the poor developers who have to learn a new engine or system, completely from scratch, all with no help from outside the company, while also having to create the game itself on the fly, while getting shit work conditions because Japan isn't very bright on that matter. Because the bosses expended millions on an engine that looks good but isn't worth shit to work with. Instead of, just picking Unreal 4 or Unity or any other engine that we know it is good from experience

Japanese Devs : we don't use this GAIJIN TECH !!

Damn Sajam reached Max. His base is growing even more

Xenophobia in Japan is real. In all aspects of life and business. Speaking as a brown guy who lived in Tokyo

Are the resources for GGPO available in japanese?

What game was that background music from? It’s right there, but I can’t remember??

It’s been three years and Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 still doesn’t know what net code means

I think pride is an issue with Asian companies, in general. I am working on a project with a Chinese university and a few UK companies, and we needed an extension on the project. Everyone was all for it except for the Chinese university because it hurt their pride.

there are 2 engines i badly wanna get my hands on the REengine and the fox engine but mainly the fox engine cuz it seems like its really well optimised

very interesting video!! so which fighting game has a good netcode? what ahout mk11?

I really hope the new Guilty Gear gets a good netcode :(

"Speed of light is too slow for us" XD preach it max

Very informative and all, but I need the name of the theme playing in the background please.

Where do I sign the partition for the blackjack and hookers netcode?

''This thing the gaijin invented... they call it a wheel?'' ''Yes sir! Shall we use it sir?'' ''Nonsense! We'll make our own wheel!''

I kinda want to see how Samurai Showdown plays on Stadia now. ::grabs popcorn::

With Tom and Tony working for Riot now are they even available to consult with Arc System Works or other companies?

Does this also apply to other genres of games like MMORPGs from other countries like South Korea?

i love street fighter, have since i was a kid but i stopped playing sfv altogether in february specifically because of the bad netcode. its one thing to play fighters and it can get frustrating but sfv is just unplayable and its a shame because growing up i used to have fun 😭

So... Basically Japan's netcode needs a new "Meiji Era"? AKA Swallow their pride and go learn from other countries what they are doing?

The Church of Fight, with your pasters, Max & Sajam.

Man that intro is fucking awesome

Capcom used the RE Engine for DMC5 and RE2 Remake. As far as I know they haven't abandoned it.

God damn Max this is so enlighting to me because this is sooo baffling . How do they not see the huge avenue for them to expand their buisness and their reach by having some humility and ask for help ?

Probably one of the best Real Talk about netcode. Well done Max. Hopefully people understand more of this and get the attention of the developers.

Man remember Deep Down? The showcase for Panta Rhei engine?

"Speed of light is too slow for us." You heard the man. We need warp speed.

RE engine is being used by the DMC team as well.

Been watching/listening to your videos on my third shift...These are entertaining and easy to understand and doesn’t sound condescending, thanks a ton...

Is the fantaray engine why that one weird knight dragon game they were making disappeared. I forget what it was called

I like spectrum but it doesn't like me tho. Too many devices and that's a wrap. 😖

"MVC: Infinite was the best attempt at netcode and no one cared" "Smash has bad netcode and sold like crazy" Well... there's the issue right there then, if consumers don't care why should devs?

love the Bender from Futurama reference

Saw and listened to all 3 vids. All make so much sense now. Oh and Fightcade, awesome stuff

As much as I love playing Smash Ultimate, playing online is a thoroughly unenjoyable experience

The RE engine is also used in DMC5. I hope Capcom still uses that engine because it provides one of the best graphics of today's generation.

So I'm curious, could someone tell me which fighting game has the best netcode?

For a moment I thought the MvC3 screen was on Max´s shirt and now I am sure that is what future Max will be like. He will have a screen built in that people can play fighting games on.

Another factor maybe that they don't have as much problem locally.

a great example of how japan doesnt look to other parts of the world for potential is in Monster Hunter Frontier. a paid subscription based Online version of MH that has been constantly updated for like 20 years, and spans multiple systems that included the fucking PsVita and still continues to this day. people have been fighting for this thing forever and the original argument was "there isnt support for monster hunter in the west." just unfortunate that over ten years later you can still see this sense of ignorance or lack of understanding or not even caring to understand still persist

Is there anyway of learning this in a simpler way ( i actually want to learn)

So have the matchmaking server only pair up players that are in the same area matchmaking times would take longer but you would have better performance that and include an ethernet adapter with the console.

Japanese developers need to look outside of Japan and take the best of all ideas into development of their games. These Japanese developers mostly don't care as long as they can do the minimum work and still get lots of sales. They also need to realize that online games often have a distance that is way further than the distance they test from the far north and far south of Japan. Of course it won't work as well if online was only tested across that distance; especially if you want gamers to play against others around the world or even moderately long distance like west coast versus east coast US. I think to make it easier, all fighting games should be using GGPO for online play.

Its like all the people try to avoid saying that Japan is a xenophobic country, always justifying it with the excuse of "they are protecting their culture". Its not only about business, they dont like foreign things or people and treat them like they are a threat. Obviously not all people is like that, but its a part of their culture to act that way. Some weeb will defend this, then he will travel to Japan and be treated like a filthy gaijin. So yeah in conclusion Japanese netcodes freaking suck but they have awesome internet speed i guess so they dont care.

The Panta Rhei Engine had some pretty impressive power behind it. They were putting a LOT into dynamics and particle effect technology, way more prior to Unreal engines acquisition with/part investment with Tencent that totally bosted there productivity and market monopoly. Unfortunately, the Chinese Business/CCP found a better way to own companies without directly asking at the front door.

Abandon sf5 embrace power rangers battle for the grid