Lag Doesn't Affect Teams Evenly
Evil_Timmy
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2350Members
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2350Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Hitscan gets corrected, melee doesn't</div> Everyone knows NS puts a big strain on servers, especially the processor. This means that quite a few servers suffer from lag, especially when the player count gets above 16 or so. However, this doesn't affect both teams evenly; it gives marines a big advantage, and it's because of Half-Life's lag correction. What it does is looks at a player's ping when they shoot, then jumps that far back in time to see if their weapon hit or missed. This only applies to hitscan weapons, like the LMG, HMG, and pistol, and not to melee or projectile weapons. This means that while marines will actually be hitting something if they see it and attack it, aliens won't. AFAIK, there are <b>no</b> alien weapons that are hitscan (you can actually see parasites/spikes/paralyze darts flying; watch an alien shoot against a dark background). Melee also doesn't get corrected; if you bite, the marine may have a quarter-second difference in position, so unless you're gifted with either ESP or luck, you're not going to bite the marine.
This came into play very strongly in a game earlier; marines were sieging our hive, while the alien team was rushing to go fade so they could fend off the attackers (the second hive had just come up). Despite the fact that the alien team was all quite experienced, and could aim quite well, three or four carapaced fades got slaughtered by two marines with LMGs. And it was purely because of the lag prediction; our acid rockets seemed to us to be on target, but the lag meant they missed the marines by a quarter of a second. The marines, meanwhile, could hit us perfectly and with almost complete immunity, because all our acid rockets were missing them by a fair margin.
I don't know if lag prediction should be disabled (would even the playing field a bit, but might kill the gameplay on slower servers), or if the same sort of prediction could be enabled for non-hitscan weapons (path prediction would be nice, but would put more load on already overstressed servers; maybe it could be client-side?), but something needs to be done, as this gives marines an unfair advantage that isn't based on gameplay but on netcode. They already have an advantage with numbers, so why should they have an advantage with attacking layered on top of that?
This came into play very strongly in a game earlier; marines were sieging our hive, while the alien team was rushing to go fade so they could fend off the attackers (the second hive had just come up). Despite the fact that the alien team was all quite experienced, and could aim quite well, three or four carapaced fades got slaughtered by two marines with LMGs. And it was purely because of the lag prediction; our acid rockets seemed to us to be on target, but the lag meant they missed the marines by a quarter of a second. The marines, meanwhile, could hit us perfectly and with almost complete immunity, because all our acid rockets were missing them by a fair margin.
I don't know if lag prediction should be disabled (would even the playing field a bit, but might kill the gameplay on slower servers), or if the same sort of prediction could be enabled for non-hitscan weapons (path prediction would be nice, but would put more load on already overstressed servers; maybe it could be client-side?), but something needs to be done, as this gives marines an unfair advantage that isn't based on gameplay but on netcode. They already have an advantage with numbers, so why should they have an advantage with attacking layered on top of that?
Comments
we were in that game. u left didnt you? -to come in here to rant :] anyway, to update u on how the game went after that...
-we attacked the siege + turrets + phase at CC. Tfact gets taken down. Phase gets taken down. siege and turrets were taken down. we set up defences around it. got CC back up and kicking. we got fades. surely carapsace + adrenaline couldnt be stopped? wrong!
suddenly, we forgot CC and then there was a phase + siege + turrets at CC AGAIN! marines got sneaky, acting more on stealth than anything. Then, HA marines with HMGS welding each other came in groups. It went pretty much downhill from that point as CC got sieged AGAIN cauaing 100's of rps lost.
Basically, the gorge that built CC didnt place OCs around efficiently. no DCs at all the heal. and absiolutely no webs at all.
we basically F4 outselves back to RR :] (they never got closed to main...just breaching the nozzle at south loop)