Lag Compensation, how should it be handled?

(NotaCobra) #1

EDIT: Oh for heaven’s sake, it didn’t let me make any more pole options, then posted because I accidentally hit Enter in a “Poll option” window.
Anyone know how to edit the poll options themselves? Editing the post simply lets me change text.
Obviously, there was going to be a third option, namely “Lag compensation is fine as it is (Lagging players need love too!)”

Okay, so I’ve mentioned this a few times, asked some friends, spoken to people in game.

Figured it was about time to make a poll on the forums.

Because everyone knows how effective and useful that is!

-cough-
Anyway!

Lag compensation (I believe this is the term, nobody has corrected me so far) is the way the game treats “What the client sees” with “What actually happens” in regards to ping/latency delays.

So, for example, if you’re lagging very hard in TF2, other players will appear to jump around as the server constantly updates your client as to everyone’s position. When you shoot, the client works out where your shot lands once it receives the signal, forcing you to lead people by a third of a second, if you have 300 ping, to compensate.

In dirty bomb, however, the client is king.

This means if a lagging player shoots you, and hits you on his screen, it doesn’t matter where you were when that shot was fired on your screen, it will hit you.

This is what causes the phenomenon wherein you die metres away from the shot that supposedly killed you, or die behind a wall from a shot that hit you while you were peaking out most of a second ago.

But what’s unusual about it, given that it would appear the client side is what’s important for a lagging player, when you (A player with normal ping) shoot a lagging player, sometimes they may take several hits without suffering damage.

I am not sure why this is, but having tested it with friends and artificial ping increases, I can confirm a few things:
Hit scan weapons seem to favour “What the lagging player sees”.
Snipers, for some reason, are an exception to this, favouring the server’s version of reality.
Projectiles (Grenades namely) Also seem to fit more accurately with what non-lagging players see.
Melee I found hard to test objectively as it was difficult to tell whether hits were landing more easily due to compensation of the jitters of high lag movement.

Long winded explanations aside, how do you think this problem should be resolved?
Do you even think it’s a problem?

Reducing the compensation will mean even playing with moderate ping is more difficult, but it will reduce the number of times you are shot behind cover.
It may also reduce the number of people accidentally playing on the wrong server due to high ping.

However, it will make the game harder, arguably unfairly so, for players at 150-200 ping who simply don’t have a better server option available.

EDIT:
Since I broke the poll, you can ignore the vote, post your thoughts instead.

(Ghosthree3) #2

It’s handled ok, there’s just not much you can do to handle the problem which is why I maintain that if you can’t play an fps - especially a fast paced one - on under 100 ping you just shouldn’t bother. Maybe you could push it to 150, I detest anything above 200 though and would sooner uninstall the game if it was my only option.

There’s really just no way to fix a real world problem like this, the only other option is no compensation, old style, where everything was server side and you had to lead your targets. Miss those days actually…

I would go for less compensation I suppose, I really don’t care for people on 300 ping being able to play, they can go suck it tbh.

(Amerika) #3

A pole that doesn’t offer and option for the lag compensation to remain how it is isn’t worth voting in. I know you screwed up and can’t edit it but, yeah, not voting here.

Also, this is only an issue for people with incredibly high pings. The reason why US/Euro players can play against each other without both teams whining a ton is because the lag compensation is setup the way it is.

And a lot of people claim they were around a door when they got shot when in reality they weren’t. Just because your view of the games shows you passed the doorway still means the other half of you is visible. I’ve killed plenty of people and been killed by plenty of people in this situation. Yes, you can still get killed after being around a door but it’s literally a matter of milliseconds and it’s not as big of a window as many think.

When you die your camera falls towards where your momentum was headed as well which makes people think they made it around a corner when the kill ghost shows they didn’t. If the game froze you exactly where you died when you died without moving then a lot of this issue would go away. But it would be awkward and weird so I can see why it’s not done.

Yes, high pings can screw you. But it’s not as often as you think. There are other factors in play as I described above. I’d prefer the game to stay like this as it allows players to play across the world without a huge issue even if there is some minor drawbacks.

(Szakalot) #4

what about ‘lag compensation is working fine’

(NotaCobra) #5

Read literally the first sentence of the post.

(coruscate) #6

Read literally the first sentence of the post.

[/quote]

Szakalot has more posts to make. He sees a pole. He looks at the options. He posts angrily since he cant vote for what he wants. END OF STORY! :smiley: I think its fine tho… client side has its flaws but way better than server side games…

(avidCow) #7

Prediction seems ok (apart from false positives on players <100ms, wtf?). Letting players with 300+ latency stick around, even as they creep up to 400+, not so much.

(KangaJoo) #8

It’s not just getting shot around corners that’s annoying. When one person has high ping, the game is annoying to play and inconsistent for everyone including the guy with high ping. The notion that people with 150+ ping should be able to play against low ping players without any disadvantage is ridiculous. I know not everyone can afford good internet, but accommodating people that simply aren’t equipped to play online games at the expense of people who do have the equipment to play them makes about as much sense as an ice hockey league making their players use regular shoes because some people can’t afford decent skates.

@Amerika Having scrimmed EU teams both with high ping against their low ping and the other way around, I can assure you that the game is much less consistent because of the lag compensation. It’s not that bad, BF4 for example is way worse, but it’s definitely noticeable and makes gunfights feel more like a coin toss than anything else. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard several dinks on my screen but then the guy with 200 ping kills me and apparently has full HP.

(ThatRandomGuy) #9

People with 200ms+ should be kicked…Others should be allowed to stay… I havent felt any issue with players having 180ms

(KangaJoo) #10

When I play either with or against people with less than ~110 ping is when I stop noticing the lag compensation. Honestly, they should just optimize the max acceptable ping for each region separately. I’m not sure if it’s possible but for example, in the US someone playing from Cali gets about 90-100 ping to a server in New York so I’d say the max acceptable ping for NA servers should be about 100 ms since that’s about the highest ping someone can get while still playing in their own region. Any higher than that and you should start to be at a severe disadvantage. For other regions like Oceania where there aren’t a ton of servers, the max acceptable ping should be higher, and for regions like EU where it’s very easy to find servers it should probably be lower. Again, I don’t know much about networking so I’m not sure if this would be possible.

(Ghosthree3) #11

I think it’s important to remember that while annoying, lag compensation doesn’t let them get kills they normally wouldn’t get. It just feels that way to us, to them they got a kill like you or I would.

(Gi.Am) #12

The Clientside damage is awesome. Not only makes it playing in higher then average ping situation possible. Allowing for matches across continents not only the often requested NA vs EU ones, but theoreticaly even EU / AU ones if they play on a server right between them (say somewhere in Asia) it also means people with a less than stellar iSP’s get a shot at it.

Also the killtrading you get because of that. Gives the illusion that the bullets have traveltime (which they don’t hitscan and all that).

I don’t see a point in changing anything. Less/different compensation would only mean that people would complain even more about Lag then they do already. Since it would lower the bar at which lag is noticable.

(NotaCobra) #13

I actually beg to differ.

Try playing Aura with around 200-300 ping. That’s about the best window, before movement jitters start messing things up.

Shotguns in particular behave very strangely in laggy situations.

Enemies shoot at you, you shoot at them, but since you see their repositioning a quarter of a second after they do it, it’s very easy to land point blank shotgun shells that you simply couldn’t do against an actively moving opponent.

Particuarly in ambushes where you can run up to a player and shoot them before they have heard your footsteps.

(Ghosthree3) #14

Latency doesn’t cause jitter.

(NotaCobra) #15

Actually, it can, increased latency leads to increased noise on the line which can lead to differences between the server and client side predictions, the server holds throne though so occasionally movement will snap back, or projectiles can subtly slow or speed up.
Additionally, though not a direct cause, high latency gives more opportunities for packet loss, which most definitely cause jitters.

This is actually quite noticeable at very high pings.

(Ghosthree3) #16

Losing packets causes jitter, delayed packets do not themselves cause jitter if they are consistent.

(Dirmagnos) #17

For extremely fastpaced game like DB anything above most basic lag compensation is a really bad idea.

(KangaJoo) #18

That’s not how it works. Try playing a game like BF4 that has a lot of lag compensation against high ping players and you’ll see they all play super aggressively. Why? Because with client side hitreg and high ping, whoever peeks has a huge advantage (the guy that peeks will see and be able to shoot the other player on their screen way before he sees them on their screen) and playing aggressively, jumping around corners constantly, etc. puts you in a situation where you’re always the one peeking.

@Gi.Am Having played in many NA VS EU matches, I’d much rather have it so that you can’t get away with playing with high ping. Sure it’s nice to be able to play against people from other continents but the quality of the game just diminishes to the point where it’s not even worth it anymore. Like I said before, when everyone is playing with really high ping, whether or not you win the gunfight feels like it’s decided by a cointoss not by skill.

(Ghosthree3) #19

But when the low ping player actually sees them come around the corner they have the chance to kill them before they would die to the bullets the high ping player fired, even though the shots were technically fired first.

There is a dodge advantage though I suppose, the high ping player gets to fire before the low ping player sees them so the low ping player doesn’t dodge. The damage can still be avoided if the low ping player kills them like they would kill anyone else though.

I can’t say for sure if it’s the same in all games but lag compensated damage should not ever be delivered if the server has killed the player before receiving damage packets from them.

(NotaCobra) #20

[quote=“Ghosthree3;28894”]But when the low ping player actually sees them come around the corner they have the chance to kill them before they would die to the bullets the high ping player fired, even though the shots were technically fired first.

There is a dodge advantage though I suppose, the high ping player gets to fire before the low ping player sees them so the low ping player doesn’t dodge. The damage can still be avoided if the low ping player kills them like they would kill anyone else though.

I can’t say for sure if it’s the same in all games but lag compensated damage should not ever be delivered if the server has killed the player before receiving damage packets from them.[/quote]

The situation happens like this:

High ping player moves around a corner, Sees low ping player (standing still waiting to shoot the footsteps he/she sees coming), fires 2 shotgunshells while sprinting past

Low ping player sees high ping player, begins trying to track the lagging player while trying to dodge and duck.

Low ping player dies to shots that apparently hit them back when they were standing still, leaving them unable to avoid those shots, a portion of their own shots missed as the lagging player was able to sprint past.