Ping Based Lag & Inaccurate Ghosting

[Bloodbite]

Being in Australia and getting an average of, what I can recall, around 365 ping on the UK servers and something around the 200 mark on US servers, it’s generally impossible to play in this alpha with any expectations of skill reward/expectation.

As such I get to see some rather interesting or outright unbelievable ghost’ed killshots.

I thought I’d upload some of the ones I was able to catch, just in case the code monkeys have any lingering questions or variables they have been considering.

Bare in mind I have experienced far more extreme examples than the ones uploaded here, I just can’t capture them because I get counter-revive-knife-tea’bagged and then auto respawn too quickly to be able to catch them.

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Ever since the patch where ghosting had been introduced, hitting enemies often feels like blind chance. I’ve experienced the reverse of that lag as well. Seeing a kill message after they had clearly made it around the corner over a half second after I stopped shooting. I mean there was a reasonably heavy degree of lag before, but it seemed to become more pronounced since.

Of course I should caution any devs reading this to take the last paragraph with a grain of salt because I generally don’t have as frequent an opportunity to log on during populated sessions as I’d like to be absolutely certain of that patch-period-impression statement.

BUT… my question to everyone else is; does anyone else feel they’re experiencing some level lag handicap when they’ve been above the optimal level? (ie Euro players on US servers and vice versa)

… and the other 1 or 2 Australian players, are you seeing the kind of distorted ghosts I am?

[Volcano]

I love dropping 20 rounds into someone and not having it register

[Maca]

Actually what I find interesting is that I am about 60-70 ping in EU servers, and I continuously, not as an exception but as a rule, see bullets going through walls in those kill cams. Similar to your third picture. If someone is shooting me and I try to go to cover, that bullet line WILL go through a wall. In your last two pictures the hit point is a ways away from the ghost, and that rarely happens to me. But bullets going through walls, all the time. And I forget, is that supposed to happen to someone with relatively low ping like me? Or is it just because a high ping person killed me (although I’m pretty sure this happens regardless of enemy ping)?
Haven’t played much in US servers during last two patches, so can’t really say about that.

[Kordin]

Yep thats a problem for me too. I dont think it has something to do with high ping. I am playing on EU servers with a ping of 70-80 and also get these bullets going through walls. It also happens when i kill other people. When i am playing with some friends, we are also on Teamspeak and sometimes when i kill them they are telling me, my bullet went through walls. So i guess it dosent rly matter if u are NA or EU.

[INF3RN0]

We need to clear it up once and for all… bullets DO NOT go through walls. It is simply lag in the death ghost. High ping is getting punished fairly hard on the newer netcode compared to previously, where in you will hear hit beeps however the low pinger get’s damage registry priority. In the end we will all be playing on our own hemisphere servers.

[Runeforce]

We need to clear it up once and for all… bullets DO NOT go through walls. It is simply lag in the death ghost. High ping is getting punished fairly hard on the newer netcode compared to previously, where in you will hear hit beeps however the low pinger get’s damage registry priority. In the end we will all be playing on our own hemisphere servers.

Quoting for truth…where was that thread were the devs explained it in technical details?

[Bloodbite]

… In the end we will all be playing on our own hemisphere servers.

In theory yes, but you know there’s always a minority of people that will be hopping regions, mainly those of us outside the 2 primary markets (N. America & EU). I can see this being a reputation maker/break down here in oz. Australian and New Zealand servers for a variety of games often go through periods where asian gamers will join, and some of them have horrendous pings. South East Asian connections can usually get by in the 70-100 ping area, but someone from China: 500+… Japan: 400+. Every now and then we’ll see Brazillians and South Americans too (and oddly the S. Africans have better ping than Japan from what I’ve seen).

Even just amongst the locals down here… depending on the server provider, sometimes New Zealanders will suffer pretty badly on Australian servers, and vice versa.

The problem with this topic is that it creates the perception of a massive lag bug. Sadly the perception of a game breaking bug is just as problematic as a real one with the mental midgets in the world of gaming these days.

Maybe I’m giving this more importance than it will actually receive in the end, but considering the swarm of utterly misinformed and downright retarded negative criticisms that Brink received I’d hate to see DB suffer from that (like all those TF2/Brink comparisons, they gave me a passionate hatred for TF2 for a few months… even though it wasn’t TF2’s fault).

[Maca]

No one is saying that people are actually shooting through walls, at least I didn’t mean it that way. IIRC the devs said that currently when a certain pinged player shoots, he will hit if it showed on his screen that he hit, even if the other person was behind a cover “in real time”, but that information hadn’t yet gotten to the shooter. So the one getting hit thinks he’s behind a cover, and the one that shot thinks he hit, so the game decides to favor shooter and kill the other player behind the cover, so the bullet line looks like it goes through the wall. Because of the ping difference it seems to the player who shot that nothing is wrong but the one that got shot feels like he was shot through wall.
But like I said, what I find interesting is that this happens also to players who have low ping. It isn’t something that just happens when either the shooter or target or both have high ping. Of course thing like this is expected when really high pings are involved, but this happens already all the time in those “own hemisphere” conditions with low pings.

[Hundopercent]

We need to clear it up once and for all… bullets DO NOT go through walls. It is simply lag in the death ghost. High ping is getting punished fairly hard on the newer netcode compared to previously, where in you will hear hit beeps however the low pinger get’s damage registry priority. In the end we will all be playing on our own hemisphere servers.

Except for I’ve had and seen this happen countless times on the NA server were everyone has relatively 50 ping. It’s not a high vs low latency issue. I’m starting to think it’s because of the UE3 engine/netcode or maybe it’s just poor lag compensation settings. Blacklight Retribution has a lot of the same problems DB is having right now with trash registration and bullets registering .5+ seconds after they were shot and should have landed (i.e. people dying behind walls.)

In one of my montages (BLR) I have a kill on a target behind a box and my crosshair wasn’t even on his body. I’ve experienced the same thing in DB where my aim was behind someone and I killed them behind a wall.

[Moridin]

Australian Alpha servers cant come soon enough. I have had alot of the same issues you are mentioning BB and have pretty much given up until I can play with some decent latency.

[INF3RN0]

[QUOTE=strychzilla;428595]
In one of my montages (BLR) I have a kill on a target behind a box and my crosshair wasn’t even on his body. I’ve experienced the same thing in DB where my aim was behind someone and I killed them behind a wall.[/QUOTE]

The only way that can happen is from delayed damage kills. This happens to me a lot on EU. Ask the technical devs though, shooting through walls is not possible period… the damage registry system will probably change over time though to make things less confusing.

[Hundopercent]

The only way that can happen is from delayed damage kills. This happens to me a lot on EU. Ask the technical devs though, shooting through walls is not possible period… the damage registry system will probably change over time though to make things less confusing.

Why are you arguing a point we are all aware of? We know the bullets don’t go through the wall. That’s why I said it could be related to the netcode, lag compensation, or UE3 engine. A 50 ping vs 50 ping shouldn’t have delayed kills or score kills from lag compensation because there isn’t anything to compensate, the pings are even.

[INF3RN0]

Why are you arguing a point we are all aware of? We know the bullets don’t go through the wall. That’s why I said it could be related to the netcode, lag compensation, or UE3 engine. A 50 ping vs 50 ping shouldn’t have delayed kills or score kills from lag compensation because there isn’t anything to compensate, the pings are even.

New players and a lot of EU think you can actually shoot through walls. That’s why…

[Mustang]

A 50 ping vs 50 ping shouldn’t have delayed kills or score kills from lag compensation because there isn’t anything to compensate, the pings are even.

Not true.

The reason a 50 ping vs 50 ping will have minimal lag compensation (and yes, there will still be some) is because the pings are low, it has nothing to do with them being even.

[SRS-Kap]

Hey all,

We are looking into improving the death ghost system to better reflect the point of death from the killers POV (as we use client side hit detection).
We feel it is important for players to fully understand how they were killed and will be continually improving systems like the death ghosts throughout alpha.

[Ecano]

Don’t know if is the same issue, but this happen very often:

[SRS-Kap]

@Ecano - Yup, those screenshots are related to the same issue.

[Hundopercent]

[QUOTE=Mustang;429352]Not true.

The reason a 50 ping vs 50 ping will have minimal lag compensation (and yes, there will still be some) is because the pings are low, it has nothing to do with them being even.[/QUOTE]

Minimal maybe but I’ve been killed 7 ft behind a wall. That’s like 4+ steps for a .5+ (500ms) delay. That’s far from minimal.

[OwNLY]

@Ecano: You do this to other players aswell … i am playing with 30-40ms Ping on UK servers.

btw.

… (as we use client side hit detection). …

This is how client-side hitdetection felt in BF3.
Since this issue (and the suppression effect) killed BF3 for me, i am reacting pretty allergic if i hear client-side hitreg.

It gives you an advantage if you are rushing, but disadvantages you if you try to hide behind cover.
I always loved to have players follow me around a corner while i am aiming for them to pop up.
When i do that now most of the times i don´t even see them while they can empty their magazine into me.
Happened already to me in DB a few times, since movement here is pretty smooth.
I also enjoy looking out of my cover until 1-2 hits are missing to kill me, then duck / move back. Doesn´t end well…

Very annoying, and i am already playing with a Ping of 30-40ms from Germany (10ms to cologne&Frankfurt) to the UK.
Please fix the netcode, or consider getting server side hitreg!

[Ecano]

[QUOTE=OwNLY;429526]@Ecano: You do this to other players aswell … i am playing with 30-40ms Ping on UK servers.

[/QUOTE]

Touché