(Update) Street Fighter V ‘netcode adjustment’ patch breaks fan-made lag fix

Controversial PC mod no longer active

[Update: Capcom has released patch notes to accompany the February 18 update. They can be found over at the CFN website right here. Community reception to the new patch continues to be mixed.]

Street Fighter V fans were on tenterhooks this week with the sudden news that a “netcode adjustment” was headed to their favourite fighting game, assuming that some of the lag problems plaguing Capcom’s fighter were finally about to be put down for the count.

But now the patch is live, it is being reported that said adjustment has blocked a fan-made fix to the problem. The PC mod, created by Reddit user Altimor, worked by attempting to closer sync packet speeds between opponents, thus preventing the “teleporting” problem that SFV has been facing online. While many celebrated the success of the mod, including notable FGC names, others were concerned that it caused slowdown, and that it might give PC players an unfair advantage during cross-play with PS4 players.

So when Street Fighter Producer Yoshinori Ono announced last week that the “netcode adjustment” was incoming, fans naturally – or perhaps optimistically – assumed that Altimor’s mod had forced Capcom’s hand, pushing the developer to take action and fix the online woes itself.

While reports are greatly varied on whether the official patch has actually improved online play, one confirmed result of its implementation is locking out players who have Altimor’s mod installed, (though it should be noted no-one is being banned, SFV just simply won’t launch until the mod is removed). A vague message by Ono fails to state with any specificity whether Capcom has made any changes to the game’s netcode, or simply broken the mod and left it at that.

This has led to criticism from many Street Fighter community members. Popular streamer Maximilian Dood noted his disappointment on Twitter, while pro-player Chris Tartarian simply called Capcom’s move “the biggest fail in the history of gaming.” On a new episode of Ultrachen TV, commentators James Chen and David Graham simply looked utterly exhausted as they realised the news.

It’s understandable that Capcom, (or any major publisher for that matter), would not want players fiddling with the code and applying their own patches. But when a bedroom coder is attempting to fix the issue for the whole community, breaking said mod without clearly implementing and communicating an official fix, (if any), is a move that will inevitably discourage your audience at best and infuriate them at worst.

Capcom launches Street Fighter V netcode fix – breaks mods [Hotspawn]