"Super" Players Edge (advance timing?)

(AtomAnt) #81

I’ve always wondered about this rambo medics. I’m a fairly good player who knows most (if not all) the tricks and tactics on ET. Still get the same problem as Voyager when I bump into one of these people. Even playing myself as medic I still get killed (sometimes from just by a single MP40 shot from them). IT is fishy and I’m convinced they have some sort of hack that gives them the advantage. I’m not a IT person, so I don’t know much about frames, balh, blah, but these guys do the impossible and with that they spoil the fun for the rest of us. Perhaps a Rambo medic server only is needed where they can go at shoot at each other and leave us decent, honest players alone.

(senator) #82

Or put in other words: everybody who plays better than me is a ch33ting hax0r and it’s impossible that they just good, they have to use hax :confused:

Oh, and as you said in Kendles thread, they also definitively also all use wallhacks, because it cant be, for example, that they always throw an airstrike just at the moment you spawn or when you come stomping up a corridor, it’s impossible that they were leaning around a corner or were simply listening to the enviroment (footsteps)… noooo, all haxors :confused:

Provide some proof in form of demos or stop the whining, yes there are hacks but >95% of all accused of cheating are simply better player and use no hack whatsoever.

(AtomAnt) #83

(95% of all accused of cheating are simply better player and use no hack whatsoever.)

Prove they don’t :wink:

(AtomAnt) #84

No need to get angry… the fact remains that people do cheat. I have no need to cheat and I’m a superb team player. Most times (95%) my team will win. I can tell the difference between an excellent player and a cheat… shame you can’t.

(senator) #85

That would be easy, I am a medicore player and even I am accused of cheating from time to time. Should I upload all my demos to prove that I wasn’t cheating ? Would that help anybody or prove anything?

Truth is that there are cheats, I’ve seen a few demos with clear evidence that the spectated player used hacks, but during the entire time I play this game (right from the start and almost daily) I’ve never encountered a cheat myself! I play on various public servers (but ETPro/Punkbuster only) and if there wasn’t a single cheater among the thousand players I played with (at least none I suspected/caught) I think it’s entirely justified to call cheats very rare. So if you come here and make a case of commonly usage of cheats, it’s up to you to prove your statement with demos. Otherwise be prepared to be put in the cheater-whiner folder together with IRONMAN and others.

(AtomAnt) #86

(So if you come here and make a case of commonly usage of cheats)i

I didn’t say commonly usage of cheats. I’ve said that there are cheats out there and players who will use them (don’t know why) thus ruinning other fair players game. I hope you understand that.

You do agree that there are cheaters out there and has been posted by voyager some of the cheats that these freaks use. I also play punkbuster enabled and only etpro but the fact remains… some people are very nerdy and find joy in spoiling the fun for others…

Ax

(meLonF) #87

personaly i have found some people with max_packets 30 very hard to hit as they ‘warp’ around the screen a lot - i suspect the reason for this has nothing to do with the maxpackets setting, buts its simply because they have a bad connection and are dropping packets (hence why they are using 30 maxpackets in the first place). Based on what SCDS_reyalP said I suspect if a broadband user (with a steady connection) used maxpackets 30 they would be no harder to hit than if they used 76 max packets.

I’ve always wondered about this rambo medics. I’m a fairly good player who knows most (if not all) the tricks and tactics on ET. Still get the same problem as Voyager when I bump into one of these people. Even playing myself as medic I still get killed (sometimes from just by a single MP40 shot from them).

Damage is calculated server side so there is no way a client side hack could allow someone to kill you (from full health) with 1 shot of an smg or pistol

IT is fishy and I’m convinced they have some sort of hack that gives them the advantage. I’m not a IT person, so I don’t know much about frames, balh, blah, but these guys do the impossible and with that they spoil the fun for the rest of us. Perhaps a Rambo medic server only is needed where they can go at shoot at each other and leave us decent, honest players alone.

imo you can not detect a cheater based on how ‘good’ they are. I have played against some of the top players in europe and some of them really just are that good. If you are truly suspicious of a player then spectate them and record a demo - post the demo, or play it back at half speed with r_shownormals set to 1 .

(AtomAnt) #88

personaly i have found some people with max_packets 30 very hard to hit as they ‘warp’ around the screen a lot - i suspect the reason for this has nothing to do with the maxpackets setting, buts its simply because they have a bad connection and are dropping packets (hence why they are using 30 maxpackets in the first place). Based on what SCDS_reyalP said I suspect if a broadband user (with a steady connection) used maxpackets 30 they would be no harder to hit than if they used 76 max packets.

This may be the reason… as I’ve said I ain’t a techie so i don’t understand what all the stuff abovemeans… so in my eyes it looks like a cheat. So if you are saying that these guys are better at aiming because they’re using max_packet30 (whatever that means!lol) the only solution would be for me to match that up (i’d imagine it involves buying some sort of upgrade for PC). So in conclusion, perhaps those players should be limited to servers that have players with the same max_packet30 so that they can compete/play fairly.

(Depth_Charge) #89

Most of these tweaks will only give you a very small bit of advantage.
Some people are better because they are just better.

(Kendle) #90

AtomAnt, if you’re not technically minded read the opening post in the Truth about Cheating thread for an explanation of what, and what isn’t, technically possible to do. Just because something is “fishy” don’t make it a cheat.

Also, change your maxpackets to 30 and see how much better a player you become (clue: you won’t).

(voyager) #91

First, sorry SCDS_reyalP. Your earlier post made me a little angry, and I over-reacted. ET is supposed to be a fun, fair game, but most dedicated players I’ve talked with agree that “super” players can ruin the fun for everyone.

http://www.migamer.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1145 (Summary)

However, many dedicated players don’t seem to agree on the factors that contribute to giving “super” players a vastly superior edge over almost everyone else. I’ve rarely seen two “super” players go at it. Usually, one consistently loses to the other … kinda weird to see someone regularly getting more than 15 kills to 1 death get wiped out consistently by another player, even when all other factors are equal. I still maintain that statistics provide proof that something fishy is happening. Compare the statistics between players in leagues with outstanding anti-cheat systems (both physical, software, and honor based). We don’t see one Olympic athlete beating other similarly classed athletes by factors of 300-1000%, right?

In response to AtomAnt’s claim of getting killed with one shot, meLonF said, “Damage is calculated server side so there is no way a client side hack could allow someone to kill you (from full health) with 1 shot of an smg or pistol”

I think AtomAnt meant to say that he hears only one shot. Anyone playing on Earthlink’s Earthquake public ET servers over the last year will have run into these “super” medics that wipe the field clean. On several servers, I have died after hearing only one or two shots.

Even when you are a medic, with adrenaline, hiding, know the physics of head shot hit boxes, have the jump on them, fire the first shot, etc. the “super” players I keep talking about can still wipe you out. Now, who says that those players are just “better” than everyone else? Bullshit. We all know the evidence provided on other forums regarding cheats and hax. I’m also claiming that there are at least a couple different ways to tune all of your settings that result in a “timing” advantage. Different versions of the client/server software are susceptible to different settings. I believe ET Pro is less vulnerable than the others, because of what I’ve read on numerous posts elsewhere on these forums.

The timing advantages include the ability to get your shot in first. If you an excellent network connection with a very low ping, some of your packets will get to the server just before the next snap is sent by the server, while most other players responses will not make it until the next snap. Consider the different between 35ms (common to most “super” players in my experience) and 90ms. Nearly all public servers run at 20 snaps per second. How does the client know where to draw the “super” player on your screen? Why are they so incredibly hard to hit, even when you’ve got the jump on them? Excercise left for the reader … or you can see more details here: http://www.migamer.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1145

The “warping” effect is yet another “cheat” using weird settings in cfg files. I’ve read about a couple ways to achieve this, but I also heard that the latest combination of client, server, and PB settings should stop the “cfg” settings methods from achieving this effect.

(voyager) #92

Another clue … find a friend who has really good ping times (less than 50ms) to a public server. Find another friend who has bad ping times (more than 100ms) to the same server. Play. See how much better you do with better ping times. If maxpackets is set to 30ms expect it to minimize the difference.

(Sauron|EFG) #93

You care to “guess” why my ping increases when I raise cl_maxpackets? Just got these values from a UK server:
cl_maxpackets 30 => 60 ms
cl_maxpackets 38 => 69 ms
cl_maxpackets 76 => 85 ms

And on a Swedish server:
cl_maxpackets 30 => 33 ms
cl_maxpackets 38 => 48 ms
cl_maxpackets 76 => 48 ms

I know that bandwidth is not the problem, and I really can’t say which I think is better (right now I’m using 38, FPS capped at 76).

(mendicant) #94

Demos ? Evidence of any sort ?

If you are going to make unlikely claims, you should back them up with facts

no, im just relaying what i’ve observed through personal experience,

as for providing evidence, i cba, although after reading ur comments i may bother to flick through some demo’s of times when i’ve bin 1 v 1 in a close/mid range shoot out with someone using 30 and 60+(with a similiar ping), and compare their movements, btw do demo’s capture everything that i see at the same time|in sync?|(did that make sense? :smiley: )

personaly i have found some people with max_packets 30 very hard to hit as they ‘warp’ around the screen a lot - i suspect the reason for this has nothing to do with the maxpackets setting, buts its simply because they have a bad connection and are dropping packets (hence why they are using 30 maxpackets in the first place). Based on what SCDS_reyalP said I suspect if a broadband user (with a steady connection) used maxpackets 30 they would be no harder to hit than if they used 76 max packets.

ur prolly right but summin that used to happen to me a while ago,year+, has always made me wonder about maxpackets:-

when i woz starting out in et(or pc games in general), like most ppl i didnt have a clue about configs etc(well net settings)and i would often play on the the BIO server,using 30 maxpackets and the default rate setting(i think i woz using the default rate setting anyway)

as i woz using maxpackets 30 i often got alot of stick because several ppl claimed i woz v hard to hit up close whereas when i changed to a higher maxpacket setting i found it harder to stay alive up close by quick movements and have found i need to aim better, plus i get no complaints about being difficult to hit(warpy)

oh and on my old settings i used to always ping 25-35, and now i ping 48 to uk servers

(ouroboro) #95

because of where i live (Maine) i often ping Europe better than some parts of the US, and on my clan’s server, i’m the highest pinger, averaging ~100 while the rest of my mates are ~20 (server is in Chicago). yet i tend to do relatively ok in matches as well as when having fun games against clanmates.

i assumed this was because etpro eliminated ping as an issue. am i wrong, does ping still matter?

(voyager) #96

Please note that I’ve never said that super low pings make a super player. It is just an attribute that seems always present when I spot a “super” player. Also, I purposely simplified things by using “ping”. In fact, I mean total transmit times, latency, and all the other wonderful statistics one can derive from TCP/IP communication. For those not familiar with TCP/IP protocols, by “low ping” I mean “very smooth results and low latency throughout a firefight, as indicated by the ET lagometer”. Obviously too wordy for me to repeat everywhere, so I just simplified that to “low ping”. When you use ET client to measure ping, I don’t think it is nearly as accurate as the lagometer or using a real ping tool. Also, I’ve seen the ping times (I really do mean “ping” here) reported by ET clients fluctuate significantly for no obvious reasons. I’m certain the network connection wasn’t the issue.

I’m just about done here guys. I’ve said and studied way too much, trying to level the playing field to make this game fun again. For me to make more progress, I would need to start studying the source code and get to the real causes, but I’ve got better things to do with my life.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!
:drink:

(SCDS_reyalP) #97

Note, cl_maxpackets 30 is the default if you set your connection type to broadband in the menu :banana:

From what I’ve seen, most good players (in NA anyway) set theirs higher. There is a real, logical argument that it will give you slightly more responsive, smoother play at higher values, especially if it is exactly equal to your FPS. This should be a very minor effect, but if you have a good connection, there shouldn’t be any downside. I’ve played with various values, and although I’ve thought I felt a difference at times, it hasn’t been that big, and is hard to sort out from placebo effect. No particular value will turn a sucky player into a good one.

Ping will always matter. Etpro just makes it matter less. Antilag just allows you to shoot at what you see on your screen. It doesn’t change the fact that what you see is farther behind what low ping players see, or the fact that their commands arrive sooner. This isn’t a huge issue up to 100ms, but if you get up around 200 it is very significant.

Sadly demos don’t seem to really show exactly what you saw at the time, or what the server saw, so it is pretty hard to figure this kind of stuff out from them. OTOH, I don’t know of any mechanism to explain the purported effect, so I can’t say if it would show up in a demo :moo:

One way to test would be 1v1 with someone, while they changed their maxpackets every few deaths, without telling you. I’d wager that your success rate in saying which they were using (without using /players or looking at their ping :p) wouldn’t be any better than completely random guessing, but I could be wrong. The point is that ‘feel’ is an extremely poor way to test things like this. Especially if you can look at /players after someone pwns you and say to yourself, “OMG HE USED MAXPACKETS 30, that’s why I didn’t get any hits!”

There was the same kind of claims about timenudge, and from actually putting diagnostics in the code, my conclusion was that it was complete BS. I’ve even seen people make the same claim about snaps 20, which is obviously false.

edit:
wow, so much editing. I’ll join the fun.

voyager:
You are still avoiding the simplest, most obvious explaination. They are just that much better than you. The players from the top tier clans wipe the floor with 99.9% of the ET population. This is a normal, simple fact. The top F1 drivers wipe the floor with the rest of the pack. If your neighborhood kids played basketball against a top NBA team, they would get pwnt. In fact, the same would happen if they played the worst team in the NBA.

Don’t get me wrong, there are actual cheats out there, but having played against some of the best players in NA (as measured by being CAL/TWL league winners), I can say that plenty of them are just that good. cfg and ping help, but they are just the icing on the cake. I don’t know who you are playing against that you catagorize as ‘super’ players, so I can’t say what makes them super.

Many of the top players have posted their cfgs in public places. You can try them out, but for the most part you will find that they are nothing special. If your assumption that there was some magic combination that turned you into a superman was true, then just loading their config would get your there. To assume that there is some ‘magic’ they all edit out is also unreasonable.

Sauron|EFG:
I don’t have a good explaination for the ping vs maxpackets thing. If your maxpackets isn’t an even divisor of your FPS, you can get rounding issues (i.e. a packet sent on each of two consecutive frames, then one skipped, then two more…) but that doesn’t seem to fit what happens either. Its something I’d like to look at in more detail at some point.

(SwordOfDamocles) #98

I agree with SCDS_reyalP, Yourself Voyager (and certainly the main contributor -‘LoneRanger’- to the forum thread you linked to earlier) really are either avoiding the point that the players at the top level really are that much better than you, or you have - possibly less fortunately - simply missed that altogether. Please don’t take this as a personal attack, it’s just this is my individual opinion having had the privelage of playing with some of the best out there, as have some of the others contributing to this thread and they feel the same way. As ReyalP says, the hardware/ping/cfg technicalities of the playing field remain simply as that -Technicalities. If you sat a so called ‘super player’ in front of a average PC then he would still own most ppl with 80-100 ping, a default cfg and 30fps.

I guess what I am saying is that you cannot make yourself feel a better or more to the point disadvantaged player in comparison to these people simply by creating a new pseudo-linguistic category for them. Ironically, to me at least, it simply illustrates the fact that you are unknowingly confirming their role as the ‘creme de la creme’ within the global ET community. But Hey I guess it’s one of those Black or White things.

P.S. http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/witch+hunt

Peace /

(Fusen) #99

I have to agree with sword here, you keep saying that you are “god players” or “better than the average player” and then thinking because you are this good that you should be able to kill anyone that comes into your sight. yet looking at the servers you play on, I really doubt that any top players actually play on the. try joining bio, efterlyst or telenet servers then see how well you do compared to the normal servers you play on, you’ll find that there will be a huge skill different and you will get beaten in most firefights. simple fact is there are always better players than you.

(Sauron|EFG) #100

Fusen is a “super” player compared to me, but that doesn’t mean he’s any good. :wink: