How do some games like Monster Hunter, or even mobile games like Underlords, allow for players all over the globe to play together seamlessly but other games like Dota has horrible lag and ping when you play outside your region?
In: Technology
There’s different ways to handle latency in a game, and in essentially every case, that solution comes at the expense of one of the parties involved.
It used to be common that one player was the “host” and had zero latency, meaning the other player was the disadvantaged one, this is less common nowadays, but still happens occasionally, but is the least “fair” one.
Nowadays most games have a server hosting games, where it can handle latency in two ways, but in each way both players share the disadvantage.
it can either let you input commands in real time, showing your actions immediately and then double checking if your inputs “succeed”, this is more common in shooters, as it is more responsive, but more sensitive to latency and the game might reverse your actions during intense lag.
The other way to do it is that your inputs are delayed according to your latency and you see the game as the server interprets it, this is how DotA and most strategy games do it, as these games generally value correct information over responsiveness.
The common thread between these two methods is that since the different parties are both players, the computer is strict on its interpretations, it won’t bend the rules so it can keep a fair playing environment, if your data differs from what the server sees, it will correct your data.
HOWEVER, what makes Monster Hunter work so well is that the two competing parties have a different dynamic, there is the players versus the game itself. Because the computer doesn’t care about being treated fairly, it can bend the rules of what is true and what isn’t. This means that even though you and I have wildly different latencies, our game clients send in data to the server as we see it and the game completely skips fact checking either of our data, and just accepts it and processes it and returns a result. This means the disadvantage is almost fully on the server, not the players.
As for Underlords, I haven’t played it, but assuming it’s similar to Auto Chess and TFT, there’s no actual real-time interaction with other players, so the game can process your results ahead of time and simply replay the results to you, so latency is largely irrelevant.
TL;DR: Most multiplayer games have to be fair because they’re in real-time and also against other players. If a game isn’t in real time, or not agaisnt other players, you can “cheat” latency by either processing results ahead of time, or letting the players tell the server what happens.
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