Leading for ping is ridiculous, Mk.2: An Example

[PhoenixDragon]

It's an argument of philosophy. Is the shot more important than tactical movements? Or vice versa? If you ask me, it is FAR easier to predict where your shot will land than to predict where the server has you pinned when the other guy pulls the trigger.

And the number of times that is actually important in a match is practically negligible. You talk as if tactical movement, as in real-world tactical movement, makes you able to dodge bullets. With the already low movement speed and inertia, you're not going to be making reactions quick enough to make a difference. Even poking out from cover, snapping off a shot, and dropping back behind cover, takes most of a second. More if you actually aim. Erratic movement will still make you hard to track (the reason it's done in the real world), it just won't have the unrealistic extra benefit of forcing the shooter guess which way you're going to move next between the time he takes the shot and the time the server gets the message (which obviously does not exist in the real world). Strafing back-and-forth when an enemy starts shooting at you from 10 meters is not tactical movement, it's taking advantage of the network model that penalizes the shooter. When you get in close, the guy who stands still and tries to make an aimed shot will almost always lose to the guy who jitters around firing hip-shots, even if the moving guy takes multiple bolt-action shots to hit. With its networking, close-quarters RO2 combat resembles Benny Hill more than it does Stalingrad.

So you'd have to rely on stuff like suppression fire, smoke, short dashes between cover, and other such tactics. You know, the kinds of tactical movement used in real life. That's what Mekh's point about LANs was. If you were to play a match on a LAN, your bullet-dodging stuff would not work.

And I do find amusement that penalizing run-and-gun gameplay is now considered a flaw of the client-side hit-detection, rather than a benefit.

 

[barakas]

In BF3, there is client-based hit detection. Mostly the opposite of this one.

But the players in BF3 speak about "lagging hitboxes" or "hitbox bug".
But it

 

[Reise]

Tactical movement, no matter how good, will fail against an aimbot. Aimbot is the most extreme example of a good shooter, so good that it's basically not a fair play... but my contention is this; tactical movement in it's purest form is never meant as absolute defense against good shots. Both real life WWII combat and FPS gaming in general works around the principle that offense > defense. There is no absolute defense, because most small arms require line of sight (which means at the very least your head will be exposed during attacking). The best you can do is buy yourself enough time so that you can come up with your own offense to neutralize your enemy. You make yourself as small of a target as possible, so that it'll take too long for your enemy to take a good shot at you.

That's what good tactical movement does. It's not a guarantee that you will live, because that's really ultimately up to your enemy the moment you enter his/her vision. The moment the tiniest part of you is revealed, your life really hangs on your opponent's aim. But your opponents are human, so the idea is that with good enough tactical movement, you will make it hard for them to make good use of that slight vulnerability you have revealed in order for you to gain further advantage. In the end, you are making a gamble that your opponent is simply not good enough to take you out while you move to more favorable spot.

Aiming with a gun, on the other hand, is much more direct. While it's not absolute due to bullet drop, wind, and barrel fitting, the point is that outcome is much more obvious. You point it, and bullet travels at certain speed. The expectation that the shooter has of his/her own shooting has to be spot on because It's no one else but you. Unlike tactical movement where you have an uncontrollable variable of your opponent's aim, in shooting, unless your target is fast enough to actually actively dodge bullet, it all boils down to your own aim.

This is why I believe that sacrificing some precision in tactical movement is better choice than sacrificing aiming.

It's not about offense/defense, it's about control.

When you sacrifice movement there is no way for a player to make up for whatever discrepancies there may be regarding his position according to the server/what the enemy client sees. You may as well be running blind.

With the current traditional system, players can at least learn to cope and overcome those discrepancies in aiming and shooting via leading and prediction (like they have for years since the dawn of multiplayer gaming). And they have the added benefit of not having to question their own position. RO2 is far from perfect as it is now, but it could be fixed. Hit registration (or lack thereof) up close, high pings in local servers, all of that.

This'll be my last post about anything related to this subject. It's a no-brainer for me, and really anyone else who understands the pros and cons. The game would be far worse off if people had to put up with a ping compensated environment.

It seems to me that those who support compensation really don't have much solid experience with multiplayer shooters, and likely came into them through a game that already had compensation from the start. I can't blame you if that's what you're used to and that's what you think it should be like, but there's a host of people around who know how things head south when you take away something as basic as precision in movement just so you don't have to lead shots.

It's a big reason many people don't consider games like CS:S (not 1.6) and TF2 to be genuinely competitive. Of course they still do have a large following, but I'd wager most of the people who are involved in it never laid hands on anything else competitively. They simply do not know better.

If that rubs people the wrong way then so be it. This is coming from someone who has been playing multiplayer FPS since Quake 2. It just blows my mind more people from that kind of background aren't speaking up here against ping compensation, but then that's probably because most RO2 isn't exactly popular at the moment. After this there isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

It's not about offense/defense, it's about control.

When you sacrifice movement there is no way for a player to make up for whatever discrepancies there may be regarding his position according to the server/what the enemy client sees. You may as well be running blind.

With the current traditional system, players can at least learn to cope and overcome those discrepancies in aiming and shooting via leading and prediction (like they have for years since the dawn of multiplayer gaming). And they have the added benefit of not having to question their own position. RO2 is far from perfect as it is now, but it could be fixed. Hit registration (or lack thereof) up close, high pings in local servers, all of that.

This'll be my last post about anything related to this subject. It's a no-brainer for me, and really anyone else who understands the pros and cons. The game would be far worse off if people had to put up with a ping compensated environment.

It seems to me that those who support compensation really don't have much solid experience with multiplayer shooters, and likely came into them through a game that already had compensation from the start. I can't blame you if that's what you're used to and that's what you think it should be like, but there's a host of people around who know how things head south when you take away something as basic as precision in movement just so you don't have to lead shots.

It's a big reason many people don't consider games like CS:S (not 1.6) and TF2 to be genuinely competitive. Of course they still do have a large following, but I'd wager most of the people who are involved in it never laid hands on anything else competitively. They simply do not know better.

If that rubs people the wrong way then so be it. This is coming from someone who has been playing multiplayer FPS since Quake 2. It just blows my mind more people from that kind of background aren't speaking up here against ping compensation, but then that's probably because most RO2 isn't exactly popular at the moment. After this there isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said.

You can not realistically master the current system because how much you have to lead depends on your ping and the other guy's ping. Having your gun's functionality change at its core (bullet speed) depending on who you shoot at is very unintuitive at best, ahistorical and frustrating at worst.

You keep saying we have to sacrifice movement... let's compare to pristine lag free environment example. What sacrifice is there? If you would've died right after taking a cover because of client side hit detection and lag, you would've simply died while getting to that said cover in pristine environment. So what control would you exactly lose here? You are describing the situation as if players can't move to where they want to, but it's not that. It's simply whether their position is going to be delayed vs your bullet. And given that you can't actively dodge bullets in this game's ideal environment, what's exactly wrong about trading off precision of your defense (which is not precise, the point of my post which you never addressed while quoting it) for precision in shooting? This exact point was raised by Mekhazzio before but you just keep ignoring it.

And this isn't lag compensation. It's just determining if lag is there, what is going to take a hit, the aiming or your character's position accuracy.

And as far as competitive shooting goes, in a pristine competition environment (LAN with good moderation to prevent cheating), both system of client side and server side works exactly the same so what is your point there? Are you just making an attempt to appeal to authority because you really have nothing to say?

 

[Proud_God]

"Joining servers that give you high ping is ridiculous, Mk.2: An Example"

Can someone from the pro-compensation camp give an example of 1 game that does compensation, and the result does not come across as an inconsistent, warping thing? I've yet to play that game.
RO2's network feels solid and consistent when you play with a low ping. It just seems that it is not the best network model for people with high ping. I'll light a candle for you poor high pingers, but let the other players have fun.

 

[Wrafe]

Why don't they just add momentum to model movement that is realistic?

We currently weigh about 0lb. Can we raise this number please?

People are complaining about the bullets being dodged because of the lag, but that can be solved by removing the player's ability to change directions at lightning speeds.

 

[Mekhazzio]

This is coming from someone who has been playing multiplayer FPS since Quake 2.

You kids and your Quake 2. Back when I was your age, we played deathmatch with shareware Doom over 14.4 modems with only one other person . We didn't have any of this fancy schmancy mouselook, it was just shotguns, uphill both ways, and we freakin loved it.

If that's when you started, you missed out on the bad old days of internet gaming in its truly raw state. You never had to deal with the tin can and string that was tunneling IPX through a SLIP connection. No wonder you don't appreciate what proper software design can do for playability. See, I can shake my cane at people too

 

[Mekhazzio]

"Joining servers that give you high ping is ridiculous, Mk.2: An Example"

If you consider 150ms too high, then feel free to advise me on which server you think I should connect to:

This is the view from one of the more heavily populated areas of the USA. There is no scrollbar, that is the entire list, and about 2/3rds of that player count is actually bots. The 82nd server has 8 actual people on it. Even at this, I imagine our Australian or South American friends would happily trade me for my "high" ping of 150ms to the one populated server in the western hemisphere.

Can someone from the pro-compensation camp give an example of 1 game that does compensation, and the result does not come across as an inconsistent, warping thing?

First-person action games I've played with a well-functioning latency compensation method of some sort...man, it's hard to even remember them all: Air Warrior, MPBT:Solaris, Warbirds, MW2netmech, Descent, Magestorm, Aliens Online, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, Rainbow Six, Rogue Spear & Ghost Recon, Heavy Gear 2, Aces High, Wulfram, Serious Sam, AvP 1 & 2, IL-2, Falcon 4, AvP3, L4D1 & 2, TF2, Monday Night Combat, Brink, Serious Sam 3 and Nuclear Dawn. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the games I didn't play as much. It's actually hard to find a game that doesn't use latency compensation that isn't a Quake or an Unreal, and even most of those third-party licenses make sure to add it in (see: CoD & Brink for idtech, MNC and Sanctum for UE)

People are complaining about the bullets being dodged because of the lag, but that can be solved by removing the player's ability to change directions at lightning speeds.

The person in the gif in the OP pressed his strafe button for only a fraction of a second. It barely did anything after the inertia system was done with it, and that was still more than enough. We're firing pinprick-sized projectiles at hit zones that, in the absolute best case scenario, aren't even a fifth of a square meter in area. Fixing the precision error by reducing movement would require you to make players virtually sessile.

 

[Snuffeldjuret]

I have had less issues playing games with lag compensation than I've had with games that does not use it.

 

[Dionysos]

Tbh I don't really see the issue people have with "dying behind cover from time to time". After all, the delay we're talking about isn't big in terms of planning where you move. And it doesn't magically allow someone to shoot you behind cover, even though you experience it that way. If you get shot "behind cover", you still got shot because you exposed yourself too much or the other guy was too good. But it's still a delay that in terms of shooting accurately can make the difference between a perfect headshot and a total miss.

For me the whole issue isn't as game breaking as it is to others. On european servers I usually get a ping around 80, sometimes 60, but that's the best I can get. Still I can never be sure how much I must lead a target, and I don't exactly lack for practice. It can be quite frustrating, and I don't really see the logic behind introducing random factors into a game mechanic that should absolutely be totally consistent, whereas movement and getting shot behind cover isn't as critical or doesn't have to be as consistent due to the sheer frailty of cover/bullet penetration. Often you can't control what part of your avatar sticks out of the meager cover you have.

Bottom point; shooting is more critical to be consistent and precise than when you experience to get shot.

 

[skate]

How often does someone round a corner JUST as a shot that would have hit with around 150ms of latency? Now how often do you try to hit someone with 150ms of latency?

I'd been playing as a bolt with 300ms+ ping. It did take some time for me to get used to the lag & compensate, but once done, kills are coming a lot easier now. So, yes - I am hitting folks (only Axis ) running across my field of fire at 100m+ on regular basis with 300ms+ of latency. Also, bayos work wonderfully at close range.

If you are asking can this be done - and do you do it on regular basis? my answer would be a resounding 'Yes & all the time!'

If you are asking should this even happen? Well, guess this boils down to personal preference.

Cheers~

 

[Hjanne]

Getting some sort of fix for this would be nice and with the server settings i set up earlier we might accually have a good game. Lagcompensation is badly needed in this game.

 

[SQBsam]

I have had less issues playing games with lag compensation than I've had with games that does not use it.

The reason is simple, one has an impact on every shot (lack of compensation = lead on every shot) and one only has an impact in rare(ish) situations (a player darts into cover just as they are shot).
The choice, at least for me, is quite apparent.

 

[defektive]

Die-in-cover happens with and without authoritative client netcode; whilst irritating it doesn't usually happen all that often. Random target lead distances and missing obvious shots happens over and over...

...and over and over...

...and over again in RO2.

If I had the network code technical understanding to suggest an alternative I would, but I have played a wide variety of FPSs and it seems that RO2 has got something wrong here. I can only pass on my own experiences.

 

[Freezy]

Another aspect is that lag compensation would probably add a huge performance hit on the servers.

Some 64 player servers already struggle to calculate all the incoming data in heavy firefights even at the standard tickrate. If the servers now had to keep track of everything that happened in the last ~300ms and roll back time for every player and every bullet fired I presume not a lot servers could handle this load.

This might work for hitscan based games like CS or TF2 with some physical objects (grenades, soldier rockets) but I think it won't for RO2 with up to a hundred of physically calculated bullets a second (worst case, multiple MGs and Assaults firing simultaneously).

 

[Meirleach]

Another aspect is that lag compensation would probably add a huge performance hit on the servers.

Some 64 player servers already struggle to calculate all the incoming data in heavy firefights even at the standard tickrate. If the servers now had to keep track of everything that happened in the last ~300ms and roll back time for every player and every bullet fired I presume not a lot servers could handle this load.

This might work for hitscan based games like CS or TF2 with some physical objects (grenades, soldier rockets) but I think it won't for RO2 with up to a hundred of physically calculated bullets a second (worst case, multiple MGs and Assaults firing simultaneously).

Personally I think this is one of the most legitimate reasons against hit compensation, ro2 has a tendancy to hammer servers and clients already, so lag compensation may not actually be feasible from a performance perspective.

I do think they should continue to work on this though, hit detection in ro2 tends to feel very...off sometimes.

 

[Yurizle]

Now a days I find myself predicting and shooting a location of a enemy running toward my predicament at blazing speeds.

 

[Mekhazzio]

Another aspect is that lag compensation would probably add a huge performance hit on the servers.

If you do server-side history rollback, yes. That's a pretty significant amount of computation to add for ballistic weapons.

With client-side hit detection, it's exactly the opposite, however. It would take a substantial load -off- of the server and distribute it across the clients.

 

[gimpy117]

I'll chime in and say: although being rubber-banded behind cover is extremely annoying, the silly leading of targets and missing of obvious shots is something I would love to see gone and would gladly take a rubber-banding over that

 

[Wrafe]

The person in the gif in the OP pressed his strafe button for only a fraction of a second. It barely did anything after the inertia system was done with it, and that was still more than enough. We're firing pinprick-sized projectiles at hit zones that, in the absolute best case scenario, aren't even a fifth of a square meter in area. Fixing the precision error by reducing movement would require you to make players virtually sessile.

I have no issues with it at all personally. I've probably logged 3x the amount of time on quake/ro1/tribes over all the games w/ the compensation for lag combined.

Trust me.. the ability to change directions at full speed at any time isn't good for realism. Your bullet might actually hit the target if there was momentum in this game.