Antilag: a network hit detection mutator (now white-listed)

[yimmy]

OK, well I still dont get it.

I can only go off my own experience. ANTILAG did not help with issues like dying behind cover. Actually, I felt it made general shooting more "natural" but other things...(dying behind cover) worse.

Basically, it would just be nice to have a game that functioned(net-experience-wise) like DH or RO1. NEVER EVER experienced issues like this with those games. But I am losing hope slowly...

 

[FBX]

Does changing your garbage collection frequency change the crash rate?

ROEngine.ini

TimeBetweenPurgingPendingKillObject=XXX

Garbage collection is done periodically

 

[Mekhazzio]

PC gamers in 2012 asking for clientside hit detection. Goodbye PC gaming, was nice knowing you. There will be a campaign for listen servers next.

Ah, kids these days. Client-side hit detection was a staple of online PC gaming for two decades, is still the only acceptable choice in some genres, and still will be for another decade at least. Internet connections are not good enough to render it obsolete and won't be for the forseeable future. For a game like RO, which is focused entirely on high-speed high-precision projectiles, nothing else but client-side hit detection is even close to delivering the gameplay as it was designed to be.

I still don't understand how can someone prefer to play with a ping that can easily range from 50-150ms, leading to unpredictible behaviour of bullet speed and hit detection and depending a lot on luck to hit a moving target. Test the mutator and see for yourself.

...and for those of you just joining in on the debate, bear in mind that the above quote is coming from someone who was arguing against the idea just a few months ago.

This is turning into one of the few things the community can actually reach a consensus on. All of us have different ideas on exactly where we want the gameplay design to be, and some heated threads have been spawned over the nitpickiest of things..but the response to this mutator by people who have tried it has been almost unanimous.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

OK, well I still dont get it.

I can only go off my own experience. ANTILAG did not help with issues like dying behind cover. Actually, I felt it made general shooting more "natural" but other things...(dying behind cover) worse.

Unless it's a game where you actively dodge the projectiles, dying behind cover is an illusion that causes mere annoyance and doesn't really interfere with the core gameplay at all.

 

[Ducky]

Being a programmer myself...I know what you mean. I'd expect all the standard data structures to work properly.
Having problems on that level is extremely frustrating.

Depends what you put in the array. If they are references to objects, then the array will be stable, but the data behind might not. Then it can look as if the array is unstable, but in fact it is stable. It's just that the object to which it points is giving the headache.

 

[yimmy]

Unless it's a game where you actively dodge the projectiles, dying behind cover is an illusion that causes mere annoyance and doesn't really interfere with the core gameplay at all.

Ok, heres where we have to disagree. For me this is FAR WORSE than an annoyance. It is basically unacceptable. Its why I dont play consoles online...
Guess we will have to wait and see what happens.

But seriously, why does this now happen when it did not in RO1, DH?
I would be very grateful if someone could answer that!
Could be UE3 no?

Thanks

 

[captain pain]

Pearls before swine.

 

[Proud_God]

Pearls before swine.

haha, do you speak Dutch by any chance?

 

[PhoenixDragon]

Ok, heres where we have to disagree. For me this is FAR WORSE than an annoyance. It is basically unacceptable. Its why I dont play consoles online...

Or most PC games, I suppose. The list of PC games that don't use some form of latency compensation is pretty short, generally consisting of Quake, Unreal, and some (But far from all) of the games built on those engines. Most other designers recognize that playing online means playing with >0ms latency, and design their games accordingly.

But seriously, why does this now happen when it did not in RO1, DH?
I would be very grateful if someone could answer that!

RO1 and RO2 have the same networking model. People just move so sluggishly in RO1 that you don't notice the bad network model as much, but it's still there.

...unless you mean the "dying behind cover" illusion, which existed in all of them. That exists because you can't perfectly synchronize events on all three computers involved (Shooter, server, target), so events will never correspond perfectly between the three. It's a basic reality of computer gaming on the internet (Hell, it's a basic rule of physics). Unless you have the target resolve all shots (Which would be horrible for so many reasons), you will always have the possible illusion of dying behind cover. It's unavoidable. The Antilag mutator recognizes that not only is in unavoidable, it is just an illusion (You didn't die behind cover, you died before you got to cover, the networking delay just meant you didn't find out about it for a while), and so it accepts this and works to make the gameplay work as smoothly as possible. The vanilla system, on the other hand, gleefully wrecks the primary focal-point of the game - shooting - in an attempt to minimize that illusion.

Basically, when you play a game online, you get one of two choices:

Without latency-compensation: You have to lead by your current (And likely varying) ping, you have an extra error value added due to the server tick-rate skewing when your shot is actually processed (In RO2's case, by up to 50ms), and if you get shot just before getting to cover you'll get the illusion of "dying behind cover."
With latency-compensation: You aim where you want the bullet to go, and if you get shot just before getting to cover you'll get the illusion of "dying behind cover."

Seems like an easy choice to me.

 

[FBX]

If you share your code I can see if I can spot any memory leaks.

All objects should have a reference count which the garbage collector uses to determine if it can delete an object or not. I believe unreal script has the ability to delete an object yourself as well which will make all existing references point to a null object

 

[-=THOR=-]

Without latency-compensation: You have to lead by your current (And likely varying) ping, you have an extra error value added due to the server tick-rate skewing when your shot is actually processed (In RO2's case, by up to 50ms), and if you get shot just before getting to cover you'll get the illusion of "dying behind cover."
With latency-compensation: You aim where you want the bullet to go, and if you get shot just before getting to cover you'll get the illusion of "dying behind cover."

I'd add that we shoot much more often than we risk to have the "dying behind cover" illusion.

Without latency-compensation:: Frustration level: 60%
With latency-compensation:: Frustration level 5%

 

[yimmy]

Or most PC games, I suppose. The list of PC games that don't use some form of latency compensation is pretty short, generally consisting of Quake, Unreal, and some (But far from all) of the games built on those engines. Most other designers recognize that playing online means playing with >0ms latency, and design their games accordingly.



RO1 and RO2 have the same networking model. People just move so sluggishly in RO1 that you don't notice the bad network model as much, but it's still there.

...unless you mean the "dying behind cover" illusion, which existed in all of them. That exists because you can't perfectly synchronize events on all three computers involved (Shooter, server, target), so events will never correspond perfectly between the three. It's a basic reality of computer gaming on the internet (Hell, it's a basic rule of physics). Unless you have the target resolve all shots (Which would be horrible for so many reasons), you will always have the possible illusion of dying behind cover. It's unavoidable. The Antilag mutator recognizes that not only is in unavoidable, it is just an illusion (You didn't die behind cover, you died before you got to cover, the networking delay just meant you didn't find out about it for a while), and so it accepts this and works to make the gameplay work as smoothly as possible. The vanilla system, on the other hand, gleefully wrecks the primary focal-point of the game - shooting - in an attempt to minimize that illusion.

Basically, when you play a game online, you get one of two choices:

Without latency-compensation: You have to lead by your current (And likely varying) ping, you have an extra error value added due to the server tick-rate skewing when your shot is actually processed (In RO2's case, by up to 50ms), and if you get shot just before getting to cover you'll get the illusion of "dying behind cover."
With latency-compensation: You aim where you want the bullet to go, and if you get shot just before getting to cover you'll get the illusion of "dying behind cover."

Seems like an easy choice to me.

Thanks for the reply.
Actually, of course this is all already obvious and does not really answer the question to why RO2 has these effects when RO1 did not. Minus, the speed of play.
I just still can say that it never really happened to me before BF:BC2 and now RO2. And these effects are why I own not a single modern online FPS.
I guess then I can just be happy that I wont be playing now any serious online "tiwtch-finger" gaming much anymore and can find time for other things!

Anyways I cant find a RO2 realism server not running bots atm anyway... bah

thanks again

 

[PhoenixDragon]

Actually, of course this is all already obvious and does not really answer the question to why RO2 has these effects when RO1 did not. Minus, the speed of play.

...yeah, minus the thing that causes the perceived disparity in effects. Oookay then.

I just still can say that it never really happened to me before BF:BC2 and now RO2. And these effects are why I own not a single modern online FPS.

Have you not played an online PC game before BC2? Latency-compensation has been the standard mode for most PC games since they decided they needed to play well on the internet rather than just on a LAN. It's only a very few big-name titles that do otherwise, and that's because they have the player-base to support the idea that you can only ever play on a server very near to you, and don't have to care about the people who can't get a low ping.

Anyways I cant find a RO2 realism server not running bots atm anyway... bah

There are several. 2fj in the states seems almost always populated, and there's at least one in Europe during their times. I'm not sure where you're looking if you can't find one, because they're there.

 

[tixhal]

yes, indeed. simply auto retry a full one in the steam server browser, it usually takes 1-2 minutes until someone (rage-)quits and you can join. i used to play on smaller servers (~40 players), but most of those are mindless botgrinders now.
i used to avoid large servers because of the wildly varying pings, the mutator really helps with that.

 

[omniconsumer]

I am seeing some client side issues with crashing. I believe it is due to the antilag mutator. Not everyone crashes, but some crash a lot.

Are you looking into this? Will there be an update? Thank you for your time, work and patience....

 

[Ducky]

I am seeing some client side issues with crashing. I believe it is due to the antilag mutator. Not everyone crashes, but some crash a lot.

Are you looking into this? Will there be an update? Thank you for your time, work and patience ducky....

I think you mixed me up with Mekhazzio. All credits go to Mekhazzio, because it's his mutator and not mine.

 

[Frostedfire]

...yeah, minus the thing that causes the perceived disparity in effects. Oookay then.



Have you not played an online PC game before BC2? Latency-compensation has been the standard mode for most PC games since they decided they needed to play well on the internet rather than just on a LAN. It's only a very few big-name titles that do otherwise, and that's because they have the player-base to support the idea that you can only ever play on a server very near to you, and don't have to care about the people who can't get a low ping.

case-in-point: Source engine uses it, and I forget how long ago they've been using it in the cods, probably all the way back to cod1

 

[Le0]

RO1 and RO2 have the same networking model. People just move so sluggishly in RO1 that you don't notice the bad network model as much, but it's still there.

Ro1 and Ro2 speed is nearly exactly the same, can we drop that wrong argument already The perception at which you seem to run might be changed by FOV

 

[Snuffeldjuret]

I've been a bolt action rifle player for a long time. When I started playing RO1 I found myself missing A LOT on sprinting targets up-close, something I haven't experienced in other games. Most recently RnL which have imho very similar game-play to RO, where I am extremely comfortable facing mp40s etc in CQC. Leading for ping as bolt action rifle in CQC is a personal nightmare for me, and turned me into a semi-auto rifle in RO2 =(. Spray and pray is where I am at now =(.

 

[omniconsumer]

I think you mixed me up with Mekhazzio. All credits go to Mekhazzio, because it's his mutator and not mine.

Oh snap, apologies!