The Impact of Latency on Navigation in a First-Person Perspective Game

Title of the Paper

The Impact of Latency on Navigation in a First-Person Perspective Game

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Research on the impact of latency in game design and human factors engineering
• Keywords: Latency, first-person shooter games, navigation, user experience, performance evaluation, game actions, network latency, local latency, user experiments, obstacles

Research Background and Problem

• Identified Issues or Challenges: In first-person shooter games, latency (especially local latency and network latency) can severely impact players' navigation actions and overall performance. However, compared to "aiming and shooting," there is relatively little research on navigation, particularly on how to quantify the specific effects of latency on navigation actions.
• Importance of the Problem: First-person shooter games are among the most popular game genres, widely used in e-sports and multiplayer gaming. Understanding the impact of latency on navigation actions can not only optimize game performance but also enhance user experience.
• Research Motivation and Related Work:
  • Many studies focus on the effects of latency on "aiming and shooting" in games, neglecting navigation issues.
  • Some existing research on navigation (e.g., obstacle avoidance in virtual reality) does not directly study the impact of latency on navigation in first-person games, particularly in competitive scenarios.
  • The authors aim to address this research gap by designing a specialized "navigation test" experimental model.

Solution

• Proposed Solution:
  1. Designed a custom "Hide and Seek" game to isolate navigation actions in first-person shooter games.
  2. Controlled experimental conditions to simulate different levels of local and network latency, measuring player performance and experience in detail.
• Innovations:
  • By isolating navigation actions in games, the study created a simple yet competitive game scenario, providing a quantifiable data foundation.
  • For the first time, systematically compared local latency and network latency without any latency compensation measures.
  • Established a model relationship between navigation behaviors (e.g., viewpoint switching, obstacle avoidance) and latency.
• Implementation Steps and Techniques:
  1. Game Design: Developed a client-server architecture "Hide and Seek" game using Unity. Player roles were divided into hiders and seekers, with behavior controlled via WASD keyboard inputs and mouse operations.
  2. Latency Simulation:
     • Used the EvLag tool to simulate local input latency (25, 100, 175 ms).
     • Used Linux's tc/netem tool to simulate network latency (0, 100, 200 ms).
  3. User Experiment:
     • Recruited 30 participants and conducted experiments with 9 latency combinations (local and network latency).
     • Collected user scores, action records, and user experience ratings during 40-second rounds.
  4. Data Analysis:
     • Compared user scores, actions per minute (APM), character viewpoint changes (visible time for seekers and hiders), and subjective experience metrics (QoE).

Research Results

• Main Findings:
  • Latency significantly impacts game performance: when total latency increased from 25 ms to 375 ms, player scores dropped by an average of 25%, and QoE decreased by nearly 60%.
  • The performance of seekers was more affected by latency (reduced viewpoint time), while hiders were less impacted.
  • Players' action frequency (APM) significantly decreased with increasing latency, indicating reduced operational responsiveness.
• Comparison with Existing Solutions:
  • The authors found that, without any latency compensation mechanisms, local latency and network latency had nearly identical effects on navigation actions.
  • Performance degradation related to navigation (e.g., reduced viewpoint time) was not as pronounced as the changes in target selection tasks (e.g., reduced hit rates) reported in previous studies.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  1. Limitations:
     • The study was based on specific maps and scenarios, and results may depend on map complexity and the number of obstacles.
     • Opponents in the experiment were limited to a single human player, which constrained fairness and reproducibility.
     • Gender distribution in the sample was skewed (26 males, 4 females), limiting the generalizability of the results.
     • Did not include the impact of built-in latency compensation mechanisms in existing games (e.g., CS:GO, DOTA2).
  2. Future Directions:
     • Test the model in more complex and dynamic map environments.
     • Extend the research to other game genres (e.g., RTS, MOBA) to analyze the impact of latency on strategic navigation.
     • Use AI simulations or other latency compensation technologies to validate applicability in commercial gaming scenarios.

Conclusion

• Research Value: This study provides an in-depth exploration of the specific effects of latency on navigation in first-person games, offering new directions for understanding the impact of latency on specific game actions.
• Practical Significance:
  • Provides data support for game designers to optimize navigation mechanisms and latency compensation technologies.
  • Offers theoretical and practical foundations for academic research on modeling the effects of latency.