"The synchronized simulation is the anti-cheat system. It's not a lazy dev's answer... such a system is quite complex."
It is the lazy devs answer if the synchronized simulation is creating a huge problem in itself... lag.
"You still don't understand. It doesn't matter how low your latency is. The game would still stutter if no netlag is used in the system. The default value of 350 ms is arbitrarily set, so that many people around the world can play with each other fluently. If it was set to 50 ms for example, you could only play with people in your neighborhood for example."
Nope, you are the one missing the point. I'm not saying whether the game would or wouldn't stutter - I'm saying there is no advantage to using p2p over client/server from a latency point of view. This is what we were told when the game was released.
"The netlag simply amplifies the range of people who can play with each other and so does the p2p system. If the system wasn't peer to peer and the netlag value would stay the same, less people would be able to play with each other without stutter."
The logic behind this is flawed but there is no point in even explaining why, when I can just point to games like Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends (both client/server) which run 5 vs 5 games with no lag and Demigod which (95% of the time) can't (what are the chances of getting 10 people in a pub game all with great connections?)
95% of the games played in HoN and LoL are 5vs5. Why is it not the same in Demigod? Because the players have no confidence they will be able to get a smooth, robust game.