this is really good news (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Friday, May 26, 2017, 11:07 (2737 days ago) @ Kahzgul

In fact, my guess would be that the thing most obviously noticeable here will be faster load times, since none of the systems will be busy serving up host or physics data.

The client still needs to run physics locally, even if another system is authoritative. Only a tiny minority of gamestate can be updated by the host with each new frame (if the packets are arriving at all at a given moment). So to keep the game world appearing to run smoothly, the client still needs to be running everything, operating on its own except when the host tells it to change something.

Bungie flat out said that their servers are the new "physics host" instead of any of the players, whereas one player was the physics host in D1. So there is some offloading of server duties from a client machine to the dedicated servers. How much is up for interpretation, but there is definitely some.

I believe uberfoop is correct here.

The reason Destiny felt so good and didn't grind to a halt like Halo 3 / Reach when there was lag is because every system is running its own version of the simulation. It is extremely unlikely that will change.The only difference now is that the deciding console will actually be a Bungie server. If the entire simulation for every console was entirely offloaded we'd be right back to the Halo 3 / Reach days where the slightest bit of lag drops your frame rate and a bit of lag of any significant length straight up pauses the game.

You missed the most telling quote:

Destiny 2 uses a hybrid of client-server and peer-to-peer technology, just like Destiny 1. The server is authoritative over how the game progresses, and each player is authoritative over their own movement and abilities. This allows us to give players the feeling of immediacy in all their moving and shooting – no matter where they live and no matter whom they choose to play with.

Will around 1 in 6 consoles be doing slightly less in Destiny 2 because they will never be the host? Yes. Will moving the physics host into the cloud do anything to decrease load times? Almost certainly not. Just think about it, anytime you loaded into a pvp or pve game that already had another player, you were already not the physics host. And in 6v6 Crucible you had a 1 in 12 chance of being the physics host.

Could you tell a difference in load times when you weren't host? I certainly never could.