To get back on the topic, I don’t agree with the fact that the net experience is globally deteriorating : for me it depends of the servers where we are playing, some looks better maybe cause they have better connection/are near to your geographical zone (assuming the hardware is enough for all of them). As there are less active servers than in the past, it is more difficult to play on an active server that is close to you.
I noticed that when a server if full and then 24 players start loading the next map, and if your computer load it quickly and get stuck to 100%, which let me think it looks like waiting for the server. Then after 2-3 more seconds, your’re in and can see that a few players already joined in even before you!
Same problem for time between end of warmup/begin of map.
Also, when fighting near to death you can observe your bullets don’t hit your target, because… You are dead before knowing it
Or waiting for an enemy coming from a wall corner, i’ve occasionally seen his name + hp state before his skin.
Fortunately there are workaround : don’t believe what you see and play as you would expect the game to be in this lag case, I mean, when you cook a nade, you have to add to the remaining time (that is displayed on the center screen) , the interval of time between your click and the HUD to display the progress indicator of the nade cooking
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If you quicky selected the pistol when holding medipacks and then lag occurs, it has happened to me to kill someone with still medipacks in hands, the display switching to pistol weapon 1-2 second later.
Finally, about the guys going through the walls : I think it is better than what you can see more some other games about lag : translocation !