Hi there.
I've been baffled by one thing since I start playing this game in September last year.
There is hardly any difference in how the game feels between a low ping of 15-35 and up to 70-100 ping.
Why is this? Well to begin with there is something in place that is commonly called ping compensation. There are systems in place that try to even out the differences between clients so that you'll get a consistent experience between someone who has for example 30 ping and someone who has 70 ping. It takes time for the client to reach the server from both sides and for the server to get information back to the clients. You want both players to experience the same thing. For example to see a skulk and be able to hit him when he quickly peeks out from a corner for a parasite and not have your bullets pass through not registering even though on your screen you hit the skulk.
Here's the issue though. In NS2 the interp, the mechanism that tries to put everyone on an even playing field, is set at 100ms. That means that in practice everyone below 100(ms) ping should have the same visuals. This is all well and good apart from one thing. Most players don't play at 100 ping.
This ping compensation is what causes your lerks and fades to die from shots even though you were way past a corner on your screen. Those are the fastest moving lifeforms so they will be the ones that get messed up the most by it.
NS2 obviously wants to give the players a cool experience by letting players both play as a slow moving marine and as a fast moving alien creating interesting combat dynamics. This all gets trampled on when the fast moving lifeforms often can't pull off clutch escapes since they'll often die even though they judged the situation well and just about made it out there. In ns2 if you just about make it out, you die anyway since the guy shooting you has at least 100ms of extra time to shoot you.
Now you might be thinking "Well, just pull out of there earlier next time and it won't be an issue".
This might be the case for just messing around but when it comes to competetive play you always try to maximize your effort. Competetive games are fought between players that all push the limits as to how effective you can be.
Competetive games are also fought between players that are very aware of on what servers they play. Pretty much everyone who wants a nice FPS experience will gravitate towards a server where their ping is the lowest. Competetive or not. This means that in most cases, there will be pretty similar pings on a server. German servers having a bunch of germans, french, dutch and belgian players for example. These will all most likely ping below 60. Most cases below 50. An interp of 100ms will in practice make their low ping meaningless, it will still feel like they're playing at a 100 ping when fast movement is involved.
Most importantly though, it doesn't give you a good game experience when you see that you made it out of a room and die anyway. It makes you feel like you died because of the game and not because of the other player outmaneuvering you. That's not fun for either side of that fight.
I really appreciate the work on the ping compensation in this game. It is a necessary and nice feature of modern FPS games. What I don't understand though is why such a progressive and mod friendly company such as UWE forces the same interp on all servers.
Tl;dr
I'd really like to see interp become a server side setting so that all players who seek servers that give them a nice ping can really feel the effects of this. I'm dead tired of losing higher lifeforms even though I'm well out of sight. I know most other people are tired of it as well. Even casual pub players seem to notice this really well most of the time. It's one of the most common complaints about the game I see around. This would also greatly help to improve how competetive friendly the game is which is important for it's survivability.
Just having the setting there won't create problems since what server you play on is voluntary. The standard will most likely remain at 100ms anyway.
Thoughts?
I've been baffled by one thing since I start playing this game in September last year.
There is hardly any difference in how the game feels between a low ping of 15-35 and up to 70-100 ping.
Why is this? Well to begin with there is something in place that is commonly called ping compensation. There are systems in place that try to even out the differences between clients so that you'll get a consistent experience between someone who has for example 30 ping and someone who has 70 ping. It takes time for the client to reach the server from both sides and for the server to get information back to the clients. You want both players to experience the same thing. For example to see a skulk and be able to hit him when he quickly peeks out from a corner for a parasite and not have your bullets pass through not registering even though on your screen you hit the skulk.
Here's the issue though. In NS2 the interp, the mechanism that tries to put everyone on an even playing field, is set at 100ms. That means that in practice everyone below 100(ms) ping should have the same visuals. This is all well and good apart from one thing. Most players don't play at 100 ping.
This ping compensation is what causes your lerks and fades to die from shots even though you were way past a corner on your screen. Those are the fastest moving lifeforms so they will be the ones that get messed up the most by it.
NS2 obviously wants to give the players a cool experience by letting players both play as a slow moving marine and as a fast moving alien creating interesting combat dynamics. This all gets trampled on when the fast moving lifeforms often can't pull off clutch escapes since they'll often die even though they judged the situation well and just about made it out there. In ns2 if you just about make it out, you die anyway since the guy shooting you has at least 100ms of extra time to shoot you.
Now you might be thinking "Well, just pull out of there earlier next time and it won't be an issue".
This might be the case for just messing around but when it comes to competetive play you always try to maximize your effort. Competetive games are fought between players that all push the limits as to how effective you can be.
Competetive games are also fought between players that are very aware of on what servers they play. Pretty much everyone who wants a nice FPS experience will gravitate towards a server where their ping is the lowest. Competetive or not. This means that in most cases, there will be pretty similar pings on a server. German servers having a bunch of germans, french, dutch and belgian players for example. These will all most likely ping below 60. Most cases below 50. An interp of 100ms will in practice make their low ping meaningless, it will still feel like they're playing at a 100 ping when fast movement is involved.
Most importantly though, it doesn't give you a good game experience when you see that you made it out of a room and die anyway. It makes you feel like you died because of the game and not because of the other player outmaneuvering you. That's not fun for either side of that fight.
I really appreciate the work on the ping compensation in this game. It is a necessary and nice feature of modern FPS games. What I don't understand though is why such a progressive and mod friendly company such as UWE forces the same interp on all servers.
Tl;dr
I'd really like to see interp become a server side setting so that all players who seek servers that give them a nice ping can really feel the effects of this. I'm dead tired of losing higher lifeforms even though I'm well out of sight. I know most other people are tired of it as well. Even casual pub players seem to notice this really well most of the time. It's one of the most common complaints about the game I see around. This would also greatly help to improve how competetive friendly the game is which is important for it's survivability.
Just having the setting there won't create problems since what server you play on is voluntary. The standard will most likely remain at 100ms anyway.
Thoughts?