Splatoon 3 Demo Server Tick Rate Is Apparently 30% Slower Than Original's

That might explain why some of my matches were hideously delayed, I was seemingly getting hit with enough ink to splat me but the kill wouldn't actually happen until a few moments later when the firing had stopped. Something was definitely amiss there!

That's an absolute joke if so, but it explains a lot of deaths that shouldn't have happened.

For reference, Overwatch has about 4 times that tick rate at 63, and that's often considered low compared to games like Valorant with 128.

As someone unfamiliar with 'tick rate' concerns, presumably there are some advantages to a higher tick rate too?

Edit: Going by the comments above, it seemingly directly impacts gameplay and a lower tick rate potentially makes things appear laggy. So it's a balancing act between 'live' gameplay and bandwidth.

@gcunit

Higher tick rate means more updates are shared between the players and the server. Things like your position, your health, where you're aiming, etc.

A loose way to put it might be, consider it the '"frame rate" of the server.

@BLD Cheers.

Won't be getting Splatoon 3 anytime soon anyway, but it's interesting to note that issues have been encountered.

There goes my interest, I couldn't stand playing at 20 back on Splatoon 2. It simply felt unresponsive because of just the slow reaction it had with other players.. and to find out this one is even slower...

Not even going to bother.

I thought improved online experience was meant to be the main perk of paying for online, Nintendo? Isn't that why Nintendo Switch Online is a thing?!

Jeez, that’s about as close to unplayable as you get with an online shooter. I’ve played my fair share of games with server woes (streaming PS3 games is still a bit dodgy) but this might be the dodgiest yet. That tick rate makes DOOM in the 90s look like Fortnite.

Similar tick rate to Splatoon 2 because it is the same game.

I wonder if the tickrate thing is also why item collisions seem so janky in the Switch Mario Kart, In all prior online Mario Karts when an item hit an opponent the collision happened then and there, MK8Deluxe is the only exception.

I knew something felt off! I played the Splatoon 3 Splatfest, then spun up Splatoon 1 and found the latter feels far better.

@Otoemetry theoretically shouldn't be more than 1/8th of a second delay.
1/16th for the splat to reach the host and 1/16th for it to be sent to everyone else.
for the host it should never be more than 1/16th.

@thedicemaster even if the low tick rate wasn't the cause, those matches were laggy af for some reason. At one point I basically felt invincible because none of the enemy's ink was hurting me at all, but perhaps it was more general internet woes what done it 🤷🏼‍♂️

@Rika_Yoshitake This isn't slower than Splatoon 2, but it is slower than the original on Wii U.

Now, I'm sure there is a reason for the tick rate being lower on Switch than on the Wii U. Perhaps due to the weak Wifi signal or just because the game is more complex and requires every bit of CPU performance.

I don't recall people or competitors complaining & blaming the tick rate on Splatoon 2. I'm not worried.

I was having way too much fun to even notice. I played the demo for around 11 hours and didn’t feel any kind of lag. I can’t wait for Splatoon 3!

@Sunnyleafs right there were Sunnyleafs i enjoyed the game and didnt notice this of any kind. Will still be picking the game up for sure

The original one had free online. Now we're paying it's worse. What are we paying for exactly, shareholder dividends?

Me and my partner suffered so many crashes... frustrating

For Smash Bros, if I'm playing in handheld mode or docked off of wifi, its far too laggy to be enjoyable. Once I got an ethernet adapter, it became smooth as butter.

For the Splat3 demo I only played one round on handheld over wifi, and honestly didn't notice anything TOO terrible, though there were a couple instances where there was about a full second delay after hitting someone that they actually got splatted. Docked over ethernet it was unnoticeable.

Back to the old system!

How the hell were Nintendo trying to push the 2nd game so hard for a "competitive scene" then at the same time putting such abysmal tickrate that even PUBG has a better rate lol

The tweet is in the article twice, at least for me…

guess this might explain why the weapons felt underpowered. aerospray & jr took way too many shots with hardly a result.

the ghosts of friends in training room were kinda slow and laggy so hopefully those will get improved in full game

Got into a total of 2 matches. It was all completely broken and the game felt exactly like Splatoon 2. I think my ride with the series ends here.

Wait are you saying Splatoon isn't using dedicated servers? It's all P2P? What the heck exactly are we paying for with Nintendo Switch Online?

Correction, a slower tick rate does not make the game run slower. Everything still happens at 60fps, you can move, ennemies can, move, you can splat and paint. And you will also see enemies do more than one action every 16hz because of the prediction algorithm.

Nintendo doesn't need to listen to hardcore players that clamor for higher tick rates. What's in their best interest is to make sure the game works reliably for people who can't afford better internet than McDonald's tier Wi-Fi.

For instance, Apex Legends, literally the biggest and most successful shooters ever, has a server tick rate of 20hz. Pro's still run the game at 120+ fps though because that's what really matters, not tick rate. And the massive amount of casual this game reaches have an easier time playing this game, whereas other games might act weird for them because their internet can't keep up.

Lower tick rates is the way to go if you know your game will have a massive audience and not discriminate casuals, and this applies to both Splatoon and Apex.

The two other games mentioned in the article, namely CS:GO and Valorant, both are marketed towards competitive and hardcore players, so to them making the game accessible is not a priority, the priority is to appease the hardcore players.

@Olkris

"Nintendo doesn't need to listen to hardcore players that clamor for higher tick rates. What's in their best interest is to make sure the game works reliably for people who can't afford better internet than McDonald's tier Wi-Fi."

You can do both. Referring back to Overwatch again, that game actually has adaptive tick rate per player that lowers if need be to suit someone's internet. Iirc in case of conflict the game favors the higher tick rate though,so you won't get shot by something you should have dodged because the shooter's tick rate was bad.

Idk what the actual effective tick rate for OW on Switch is. I can't find anything that says it isn't 60, but I imagine the adaptive system they use allows it to dip lower for people on McDonald's WiFi.

Anyway, while it's a joke to pay $60 for a game and a yearly sub for online for 16hz, in Splatoon's defense, the slow projectile spray nature of most weapons usually makes the crappy tick less noticeable.

But then, there are also times where to get hit by an inkstrike or something, and it's plain to see you should have been safe because your death marker is clearly outside the enemy ink circle.

@Rika_Yoshitake it happens 16 times a second. You can tell the difference between a fraction of a 16th of a second and a fraction of say a 30th of a second?

Not likely.

@BLD that last bit would be a latency issue, not likely a server tick rate issue.

No idea what this means but i thought the demo was easily the most streamlined online experience I’ve had w a Nintendo game

was it just me or did it not let you play the demo?
every time I tried to play a match, it said that the splatfest hadn't started yet... but when I got on the next day, the splatfest was over! Idk what happened guys

The lower tick rate might be the better idea in the long run, but when I have to approximate my shots to somewhere slightly in front of the person, it does not exactly work too well, even with rollback. I ended up dying too many times even though it visually looked like the opponent was missing their shots behind me.

I wouldn’t be able to tell because my aim is so bad. I can never tell if I’m supposed to hit or missing badly because I can barely keep track of everything happening to begin with, haha.

@invictus4000 I imagine you play on Wi-Fi with an unstable connection. Get an ethernet adapter.

@Ashunera84 I was immediately able to tell the difference when they updated Smash's tick rate from 30hz to 60hz.

@Otoemetry Are you on Wi-Fi or are you wired in?

I've not once seen complaints about Splatoon 2's "tick rate" in the 5 years it has been out. Not sure why this is suddenly a thing with 3.

@Desrever Smash bros online is good using Lan adapter?? I live far from europe or north america...and P2P connection is horrible here.

I play steam games smooth and free online. But, Nintendo online is terrible (exceptions: Mario Kart 8, Just Dance and Switch Sports)...not much people play nintendo here. So..i did not buy Smash bros because it!

@vio it's only a thing to people who think they know more than they actually know, and want a reason to crap on Nintendo. Then there's news sites who like the revenue that comes from inciting people.

And those who think they notice a difference should look into the placebo effect.

@Rykdrew It made a huge difference for me, and I just went for the cheapest/fastest option online for a ethernet to USB adapter, so it really wasn't anything fancy. If you have the OLED model, the dock has an ethernet port built in.

Literally same as Splatoon 2 so if you can enjoy that [as many people already have] then you can enjoy this. Classic Placebo effect because people see numbers now and assume worst case scenario when they otherwise wouldn’t.

The issues Splatoon 3 demo is currently dealing with has nothing to do with the tick rate either lol

Is this peer-to-peer just a Splatoon thing or Switch in general?

Never before I heard about something such as Tick Rates, even though I know quite some about online games. Does this make any sense though? I mean, it was previously datamined this game uses a better online infrastructure or something.

@Rect_Pola I think it is the standard for Nintendo's own online games like Splatoon and Mario Kart. I am pretty sure there are 3rd party games on the Switch that do not use peer to peer.

I assume the full game will have a higher tick rate.

@Merry_Blind wi-fi, but it only happened for some matches and not all of them so I didn't think that would be the issue?

Zero complaints with the demo performance, it's a competently designed game where you get hit if it looks like you got hit and hit the opponent if it looks like you hit them. 16 updates a second is more than enough for the game to interpolate movement and shot time.

If you're going to be angry at something, be angry that most of the Western world is lagging behind Korea and Japan in internet infrastructure to a pathetic degree. It took 5 apartments in my adult life until I lived in one where a wired connection was even possible. And even then our regional telecom monopolies in NA are a joke.

Makes sense and sounds like a good trade off. I don't have a brilliant internet connection at my flat and I choose the American Region instead of Europe to play w/ certain people and still had pretty smooth gameplay.

Whereas when I was still at the family home when Splatoon was out with a better connection and playing just in Europe it was laggier.

@Ashunera84 lol yup placebo effect. People can have real concerns/criticisms. This is one.

@Ashunera84 I think you should look into the placebo effect because your use of it here makes no sense. I keep seeing people online, usually Americans, get this wrong for some reason. The point of the placebo effect is the results are real, not imaginary - that's the opposite of what you're trying to imply here. Headaches will actually go away, anxiety will disappear, etc.

Also, it's okay that you can't tell the difference between something where other people find it obvious. It's not your fault. But it's very immature to lash out and say they're just imagining it rather than having the self awareness to realise it's just that you can't see it yourself. It's like a colourblind person saying people who think there's a difference between red and green are just delusional.

@Pikki are you sure it wasn’t a grenade or something they had thrown before getting splatted? We’re talking about fractions of seconds here

@Matroska the placebo effect is thinking you're getting a cure and your health improving as a result, even if it's just sugar. Smash going from 30 to 60, for the extreme vast majority, is just a sugar pill. Maybe pros can actually tell the difference.

Most people here don't have degrees or experience in server engineering, and are basing opinions on something they have almost zero understanding of, which isn't a great idea.

Tick rate can also be low when the information calculated/transferred is high. Ink cover status is probably a much larger amount of info than what happens in most shooters.

@Otoemetry Well of course it can always be the other players who are lagging, but playing wired (if your situation allows it) ensures that your own connection is never at fault. Personally I've played the Splatoon 3 Splatfest for about 4 hours, and only noticed some minor desync ONCE, and got 2 matches ended prematurely due to someone disconnecting. My experience overall was very smooth apart from that, but I am wired.

If you experienced desync somewhat regularly, then your connection might be unstable at times due to being on Wi-Fi.

@Merry_Blind I don´t understand some tec-things..

1. I play wireless on Steam...and excelent quality
2. I play wireless Super Mario Party Superstars (handheld mode) and EXCELENT quality.
3. I play wireless Mario Kart 8...and I played the Switch Sports demo.......and excelent quality....

4. I played Smash Bros wireless....and TERRIBLE experience with input lag.....and Splatoon 3 "demo"? Terrible experience with input lag.

I really don´t understand...

I don´t know if i buy a ethernet adapter or not for Nintendo Switch......

Last night i just had a blast playing Mario Party Superstars on my bed....i was so proud of NSO (I use to #$%$! this service....but last night i came back to Nintendo!)

It does not make sense to me:

• Killer Instinct (a brutal fast and precision-needed game)...Multiversus 4-players (wireless internet)= excelent on PC
  Smash bros...2 - players online? not
• But 4 players(wireless) online minigames on Mario Party Superstars? E-X-C-E-L-E-N-T...
• But...Clubhouse 51 games 2-players (wireless) online......terrible....

Is it more about the netcode programmed by game creators than wireless/wired?

The only game on Steam I need wired connection to play flawless is Samurai Shodown. I think it´s more the netcode...i don´t know.

@Crockin Splatoon has rock solid online

@Rika_Yoshitake it's worth it

@nukatha splatoon 3 feels better online wise then Splatoon 1

Nintendo needs to start using dedicated servers! Uggg. The rate does not bother me, but I wish they would do dedicated servers.

@Merry_Blind why might my situation not allow a wired connection? Is it not a simple case of getting an Ethernet adapter for my switch and hooking it up to my router?

@Ayasplat
Why even post if you aren't elaborating?

@Danrenfroe2016 their doing fine with per 2 per

@nukatha Splatoon 1 probably feels better because with a WiiU you don't need to pay Nintendo for your accessing your own internet.

@Moistnado
That just might be a part of it lol.

@Rykdrew You are correct! The "netcode" implemented by the developers for their respective game is the main culprit for a poor multiplayer experience. At a very basic level, there are essentially two approaches to handle connections; "Lockstep" and "Predictive".

Lockstep means the game stops processing more information as soon as there is a delay between the players or with the servers and waits for the connection(s) to catch up and sync back up. The advantage is what's happening on screen is always 100% accurate, but it can cause the game to visually freeze or hang or stutter. The only compensation devs can use for this to make it smoother is to add input delay to give more time for the connections to keep up. This is what Smash, Samurai Shodown, Mario Party, and Mario Maker use. Fighting games just require a lot more precision from players, so any kind of instability is extremely noticeable and annoying, at least compared to something like Mario Party.

Predictive means the game tries to predict what the players were going to do when the connection is unstable or slow, and then corrects its predictions as it goes if it detects the players actually did something else. This has the advantage of always letting the game running seemingly smoothly, but can cause "desync". Desync can cause opponents to teleport around, hits to not register properly, deaths to be delayed, etc. This is what Mario Kart, Splatoon and many other games use. That's why sometimes in Mario Kart you throw an item at an opponent and it seemingly does nothing despite visually hitting them.

The problem with "predictive" is that the behaviours I just described would make fighting games like Smash unplayable if opponents were teleporting around and hits falsely registering. You may have seen the term "rollback" be thrown around for fighting games; this is an advanced form of predictive system that mitigates those drawbacks, but is seemingly difficult to implement properly. Most recent fighting games now finally use this. Samurai Showdow is actually getting a rollback update next year, so you can look forward to that!

Playing wired simply avoids having the netcode try to compensate when the connection gets too slow. Makes a big difference for a game like Smash which compensations are more freezes and more input delay.

Also, the Switch wi-fi chip is bad, and inherently has inconsistent latency, so that doesn't help either. Your PC with Steam likely has a better wi-fi chip, and the games you play on it likely have better netcode than Nintendo.

@Otoemetry Well just physically, some setups might be complicated to get wired up because the Switch might be very far away from the router on a different floor. It was just a disclaimer since some people just can't or don't want a super long cable going all around their house.

If your router is close to your Switch, then I would HIGHLY recommend getting an Ethernet adapter if you play ANY online games on it. No reason not to.

@Ayasplat not last time I played online. Mario kart and Splatoon 2 had to many cheaters. 😧