Latency, Hitboxes, And Bizzare Server Favoritism
Kinesis9
US Join Date: 2014-04-16 Member: 195429Members
US Join Date: 2014-04-16 Member: 195429Members
I would hope most people can see the reason why NS2 has trouble keeping a population is because "good" players keep roflstomping "new" players with relative ease. Even when they are no longer green there are some players who just always stomp a server with a constant 40/1 K/D somehow. Now everyones first response is "OMG hack". (now this may or may not be true, ive seen my fair share of people who mysteriously gain latency issues when fleeing and survive what should have been a death sentence... but lets for sake of argument say no one cheats.) On closer observation you may notice some people just shoot at air, yet are racking up hit numbers. While most reasonable players would never get them. It would seem there are some very odd hit detection issues in NS2, both aliens and marines suffer from them and they almost seem to take favorites, (like some people can tell where the hitboxes actually are while others shoot straight but somehow miss). So (presuming no hackers) it can be said hitboxes and latency issues should deserve a good look. As I myself have been on a server where my misses are counted as hits and I dominate that one server when I really should not be. (and on many others suffer just the opposite). We are of course talking about >150 ping servers with 100 performance (however that number is measured....). It is a pretty serious issue for both pros and especially noobs, who will aim straight at targets but for some reason miss constantly. While Im not going to say this is the entire reason for the bizarrely frequent 40/1 K/D's seen in pubs it does deserve some attention IMO.
Comments
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word
Really? Which pros are complaining about hitbox issues? They never seem to have much of an issue hitting me, a lowly pub player.
As much as I have to give that as benefit of the doubt, you still need to be willing to admit something is terribly wrong when (from your own view) your hp goes down 50 points in under 1 second at long range when you have >100 ping (and rines have weapons 0). Or the classic jumping beyond a wall then dieing on the other side of it? Regardless of the consistency of spectator mode there is a good handful of bizarre moments of hit-detection.
In 1 second you can shoot at least half the clip of lmg and it only takes 9 bullets to kill non carapace skulk with w0. If as a marine you hit those 9 bullets accurately(stationary skulk, ground skulk or just amazing aim) skulks die pretty much instantly.
your second example of dying around corners is not fixable due to internet max speed of light and hop latencies. It's just more noticeable in NS2 on the alien team, due to the vastly superior speed the aliens have compared to other games (think quake/HLDM bunnyhopping and rocketjumping speeds, which are even faster :P)
spectator mode or demo viewing are both not showing you what they actual player is seeing, they are both a tad bit behind. Alas the only way to prove this engine has hit detection issues it by producing locally recorded video of suspected hitbox issues. We've yet to see them...
its kind of impossible to achieve such as from the looks of it the forums are just going to continue to plead ignorance and say it is due to latency issues of the player being shot at. Rather nasty culture around here, but thats a thread for another day.
Regardless of the 1 person who is possibly going to take me seriously on this, im posting it here in the suggestions page as it is an issue that I am suggesting needs a look.
Also, I didn't mind losing frequently as a new player, I actually enjoyed it back then. Now that I have experience, the game usually presents less challenge in pubs, depending on the skill of everyone else of course.
The thing is, right now you're just making claims without actual proof backing them up. As I said, spectator and demo viewing are not representative of what the player is seeing, it's not lag compensated so it is a bit behind. Which translates into shooting behind the target on your screen. They are currently only useful for wallhack and aimbot detection, by giving admins the ability of reviewing their movement and behavior (aiming and tracing). It cannot be used for hit detection issues
With that said, the burden of proof is on the one making the claim there are hit detection issues. And we've seen videos with net_stats on screen (server rate ~30 -> 100% performance) and seen no hit detection issues. Right now the hit detection is very tight, the hitboxes are on the model and if you shoot between a Skulk's legs for example, it might look like a hit (blood showing, which is client side predicted), but it won't be a hit if you aren't actually hitting the skulk model/hitbox. Add to this that the godlike players don't seem to see any issues either... You do the math...
Also being shot around corners is not hit detection, it's lag compensation. The only way games can work properly when you want on model/hitbox hit detection over the internet. Compared to non-lag compensation, where you need to lead your targets (think Battlefield).
Proof in video's, making it possible to go in and analyse frame by frame is the only way for the public to prove hit detection issues. Or you can go in and play around with trace (console command) on a server with some friends to see if you can make the trace behave oddly, by having them go through hitboxes and not count as a hit.
Produce the proof so we can take your point serious, that's all we're asking. Mostly talking about server peformance @ 30ticks of course. Otherwise this would be a thread about server performance... And that is a whole other issue (bigger?) entirely...
This guy is right. It's like what I said, but with great explanation.
:S You almost make it sound as though there are known hit detection issues, Kouji
Do you? I have a 4670k and a GTX560ti, definitely not a top-top-end computer, and I record at around 150-200fps (Map dependent). Maybe your choice of recording software is the issue, rather than the game?
Try https://obsproject.com/ I use it for streaming and recording videos and it has no impact on my machine at all while running. It is extremely lightweight. I recommend giving it a go.
heheh keyword "if" :P And yeah obs is pretty good on the performance part
As a player who can frequently go 40-1 type scores in pub games in my experience the main reason for this happening is when my skill level is way above that of every member of the opposing team (provided I receive sufficient support from my teamates, i.e other people get kills, commander drops me meds etc.)
While I am not really at a competetive level (I could probably hold my own in a gather or maybe a div4 game or something but thats it) A solid understanding of strategy and how to engage other players is a very powerful thing, especially when your opponents lack it entirely.
As for these players ability to shoot/land bites there are a couple things which make doing so easier which not everybody will have. Two things that come to mind for me are a maxed out FoV slider (anyone claiming you can track bites/fast moving skulks exactly the same on minimal FoV as max FoV is delusional) and playing with a decent monitor (144Hz w/ lightboost or equivalent high end monitor). Tracking a skulk with a rifle with a perfect 144fps on decent monitor over the same where you maybe average 60fps but it drops to 30-40 in a firefight is significantly easier.
Add into all of this the experience of tracking skulk/lerk/fade movement once you have all of these things if you are playing against people below your skill level there is really no competition.
Exactly this... Most pub players still didn't understand that this game is not about superior aim as marine or perfect movement as alien but about positioning and gamesense.
As a player who can go +10kd on pub frequently myself I can say that I also go down a lot if I get rushed by 3 or 4 skulks when I am in a bad position or lose my lifeforms when playing greedy or getting trapped because I din't pay attention. The key is just not to get into that kind of situations but bring the opponents in that situations. Most pub players fall for every single trap you set up and die to every ambush. That's how we go 50-1, not superior aim, or hacking or beeing benefited by hit registration issues...
Incomplete overview of some issues:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/133256/on-netcode-hitreg-lag-compensation-etc-compliation-of-issues/p1
But really, don't expect it to be fixed, this game has been suffering from some issues since release and development seems to have stopped (in terms of fixes made by uwe, not by the community).