3 ms·
If lag exists this creates a fair - but really unfair feeling game. Clients will constantly be reporting shots at enemies that were quite accurate when the sho
by munk-a 5y ago
If lag exists this creates a fair - but really unfair feeling game. Clients will constantly be reporting shots at enemies that were quite accurate when the shot was taken but are now extremely off the mark.
As the article mentions - fully server authoritativeness works great in lan situations and for single player content but can really fall on its face in multiplayer.
If I, as a user, am constantly moving in random directions and have a lower ping than you (and thus my movements are reported to the server before you can actually observe them on your machine) then you should never hit me except through pure blind luck - in fact accurate shots could be the only shots that are guaranteed not to hit.
Games want to feel bad at a range of reasonable pings - and reasonable pings usually stretch into the range of 100 or 150 ms - that leads to up to a half a second of lag between when I dodge left and you, as a shooter, would have the earliest chance to actually register a shot with the server at my new position.
Additionally, the server can reconstruct what it thinks we saw at a given moment in time - but the server doesn't know what data has been lost[1] and whether the client might think it was right - or even whether the client might be misreporting dropped packets to engineer an advantageous game state. Also, this whole time we've been discussing latency as if it's a fixed number - but it is constantly changing and the reporting of the latency is something you need to trust to a client since clients can always artificially inflate latency figures.
Due to lag correction either you're able to shoot me after I duck behind cover, or you're never able to shoot me - and both options suck for one half of the players involved.
1. See the two generals problem - proof of delivery is actually a hard problem.
- thezilch 5y agoYou're not speaking to server authority but lag compensation. Your "behind cover" example describes best your concern with lag comp. It works both ways. You having lower latency can suffer when attempting to take cover. However, you have the advantage when exiting cover; you will see others first. It's as fair as it can be. As for feel, it definitely feels fairer than no lag comp.
- munk-a 5y agoPeople with a higher ping can only benefit from it if there is lag compensation in place - that said... lag compensation isn't an on-off switch - it makes things unfair to users with that unfairness switching sides depending on how much compensation you offer since higher levels of lag compensation will result in unresponsive "muddy" controls where you may often be teleported back in time to die after locally taking an action you thought compensated for it. All these factors are pretty heavily interwoven in how the game ends up feeling to players.
- daniel-grigg 5y agoIs 100-150ms latency really ‘reasonable’? It’s been many years since I was gaming but I’d be surprised back then if I encountered anyone with >20ms pings. That’s assuming people are connecting to servers in the same region of course but if they’re not that’s a problem of the matchmaking service. Otherwise I’d agree though.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago> Is 100-150ms latency really ‘reasonable’? It’s been many years since I was gaming but I’d be surprised back then if I encountered anyone with >20ms pings. It might be, especially with regular (i.e. not pros, and not wannabe-pros) players. Two main sources of latency: shitty ISPs, and using Wi-Fi instead of wired connections. A shitty router (i.e. like the ones given out by most ISPs), a bad placement of the computer, or interference from neighbors - all can induce periods of 150ms+ latency. > That’s assuming people are connecting to servers in the same region of course but if they’re not that’s a problem of the matchmaking service. That's assuming the game is already so successful globally that it can afford having servers close to everyone, and that it has enough players at all time that matchmaking services work well.
- ahonhn 5y agoBack in '99 on dialup I used to consider 100 good and 150 reasonable for playing Tribes, and would still even play at 300ms. Nowadays, playing PUBGm at 150 means a distinct disadvantage and 300 a joke, of course there are a lot more players on 20ms now.