VPNs need to be moderated at minimum

I can confirm that VPNs don't reduce ping. If someone from Australia connects to a Battlefield server in California while also connecting through a VPN in California. The Australian player is still going to have a 100+ms ping time despite the VPN server being in California.

My understanding of how lag compensation works is the game server tries to synchronize the game clock on each client so that when all the clients reply to the server, all their replies arrive at the server at the exact same time down to the millisecond.

Obviously this is hard to do since each client connected to the game server has a different ping time which causes the replies from clients to arrive at the server at different times.

The server is constantly monitoring when it receives tick replies from each client and the server is constantly telling each client to send tick replies sooner or later based on if the client's tick reply is reaching the server too soon or too late.

For example, the server processing tick 50 so it needs all the tick 50 replies from all the clients to arrive at the server at the same time so the server can process all the bullets that have been fired, player movement, etc, from all the players (clients).

The only way for tick 50 from a 100ms player to arrive at the server at the exact same time as a 20ms player. Is for the game server to instruct the 100ms client to send it's tick 50 reply to the game server 80ms sooner than the 20ms player. That way the tick 50 reply from both players arrives at the game server at the exact same time.

This essentially puts the high ping player 80ms into the future. Meaning in certain circumstances the high ping player can come around a corner and see the low ping player 80ms before the low ping player even sees them.

I've heard forum members say they sometimes shoot at an enemy and it takes a while for their hits to register even if they have a low ping. I've noticed this as well when shooting at high ping players. It's like my shots take longer than usual to register.

I wonder if the game server doesn't register shots if it hasn't received a tick reply from the person you're shooting at. Maybe the server is waiting for the tick reply to see if the player you shot at happened to fire back so it can decide who won the gun fight.

That's kind of what it feels like to me. It also feels like lag compensation sometimes puts other players farther into the future which gives them more reaction time over other players. When playing with a really low ping time of 20ms feels like I have less time to react compared to 80ms or 100ms ping time. Probably due to peekers advantage explained above. Other times it feels like lag compensation randomly puts me a tick behind everyone else and the only way to fix it is to reboot the computer.

To summarize, lag compensation is the server instructing clients when to send their packets to the game server so all the packets from each client arrives at the server at the exact same time down to the millisecond. This synchronization is possible by 'compensating' for each client's ping time.

A way to visually see lag compensation in action that anyone with a PC can test is to minimize the game window with alt + tab. Wait a few seconds then open the game window.

You'll notice all the players running around really fast like watching a video in fast forward.

This is lag compensation adjusting the game clock on your client to get it synchronized where the game server wants the client's clock to be.

The game server uses lag compensation to adjust the game clocks on all the clients. When you see everything moving in fast forward after minimizing the game window, that's the game server instructing your client to catch it's game clock back up with the server's clock.

I'm not too too tech savvy, but how does this work? so, am I only playing people in my region. What would be the radius?

I think it's cool to play with people on different continents. I notice different attitudes and playing styles.

Hi

Dice need ping limits on servers - as has been so forever since online gaming history. There is a reason for this. Next is region control - you are US guy you can only play on US. Europe guy you can only play on Europe servers. You have friends in US and being a Europe guy - too bad - no way you can team up on same server - but in dice world you can - reason why experience go to hell for other players.

Network basics - a tcp package needs to travel around and a server has 0 chance to compensate for it.

Gaming exp. you are not in doubt when only low pingers on a server vs high pingers on a server - night and day difference.

And yes having game servers in all regions do cost money - but guess dice / ea has made a lot of money on this. Or else we need to go back as it was in old days - you rent / own your own gaming server with admins / kick vote and all that. In that way you could get way way better game servers running on physical hardware and not this cloud based crap that bf 2042 runs on today.

Back to BF3 and BF4 days and way of doing !

Firstly, you need to understand that using a VPN doesn't net the player any kind of advantage, in fact it hinders them and puts them at a disadvantage. Battlefield 2042 handles lag compensation similarly to how it is handled in Hunt Showdown, where hit registration feels more client side than it is server side, but in truth it is more of a hybrid, this is especially noticeable by the sluggish movement and increased frequency of rubber banding when playing with a higher latency +200ms. There is no way a 200ms player can beat a 30ms player of equal skill, it's simply impossible because of sheer reaction speed and latency.

Secondly, there is no way to play other game modes at FULL XP or even at all (Limited time modes) when a region has low or non existent player counts without a VPN.

Thirdly, placing restrictions on VPNs would tell me there's no point in buying future Battlefield titles because it means when my region's player count inevitably switch to the next Battlefield, there's no way I can continue playing the title. Since there's no proper server browser, I'm basically locked out of fully playing the game.

If the game had a working server browser that allowed players to play vanilla game modes in different regions, using a VPN wouldn't even be necessary, like how it was before.

Region locks and so fourth don't belong in Battlefield. What if I want to join a platoon that is located elsewhere but I can't play with them because I've been region locked, it's just not that kind of shooter and I think the line needs to be drawn as such. Battlefield should be about bringing people together, not segregating them.

Lastly, VPN usage is the least concerning element in this franchise if at all.

VPN doesn't give you any advantage, in fact will give you a disadvantage: PING will go to the VPN egress point, which will (poxy) respond on behalf of the Computer. As such the end computer will look closer (faster) than it really is. As we know from past experience, BF servers slow things down to favour the slowest client, as such the VPN guy will get no advantage.