Does Dice even have it in them?
I've been playing 2042 daily waiting for BF6, and the more I play it, the angrier I'm becoming. I really don't understand how anyone can derive any sort of satisfaction from playing something that ...
Forum Discussion
Posting a gameplay video with the network graphs on-screen is the best way to see what's going on.
@mention me and I'll take a look at the video and try to understand what's happening.
Keep in mind that lag compensation actually time travels high ping players into the future. I know it sounds crazy but it's true.
There's a game clock running on the game server and there's also a game clock running on each individual gaming PC connected to the game server.
On a 64 player server this means there's a total of 65 game clocks. A game clock running on each individual gaming PC, plus the game clock running on the game server.
The game server controls the game clocks on each gaming PC and adjusts the time depending on their ping.
Picture game clocks as stopwatches. Game clocks start at zero milliseconds at the beginning of the round, and count up as the round progresses. Just like stopwatches that time athletes running laps around a track.
The game server compares the stopwatch times (game clock) of all 64 gaming PCs through network packets. The game server then sends network packets back to each gaming PC telling them to adjust their stopwatch time forward or backward depending on their ping time.
If a gaming PC has a high ping time then the game server tells it to adjust it's stopwatch time further forward into the future. The game server does this to compensate for the network delay it takes packets to reach the game server.
If the game server didn't adjust the stopwatch of high ping players into the future. Their network packets would reach the game server with a stopwatch time in the past due to ping time network delay.
A 100ms ping player will have their stopwatch adjusted 50ms into the future to compensate for network lag. 100ms ping is round trip time. 50ms is one way trip time from the gaming PC to the game server.
The end result is the game clock of high ping players are running further into the future which gives them more time to react than low ping players. It allows high ping players to pop out of doorways, come around corners, and start shooting low ping players before they can even see it happening on their screen.
That's lag compensation in a nutshell. It's the adjustment of game clocks to compensate for network delay (ping time).
That sounds like exactly what's happening. I always feel like soon as I see someone, I'm already taking damage. I seriously have to be a wizard at positioning to win fights, and pre-fire. If I rely solely on what I see, not going to win a single 1v1.
Dice is aware of this. I'm sure to some extent this is intended, like you're saying, to comp high ping players. My issue with this is not the existence of lag comp or prediction, it's how they're generously tuned towards higher ping players. After a certain point, let's say 60-70ms, those players should start receiving less and less compensation. I know they can tune it that way, and I'm pretty sure other games do already. It's a design choice. I just think this modern, lets make it "fair" for everyone mentality blows. Apex does it, and it's garbage in that game as well.
RaginSam I agree. I think the old server-side movement and hit detection of Battlefield 1942-Bad Company 2 was more skill based.
It rewarded low ping players and punished high ping players.
Yeah we had to lead the target to land shots and movement inputs were delayed. More so for high ping players, but it felt more fair and skill based to me. Everything felt more in sync.
During Battlefield 3. I suggested server-side movement with client-side hit detection. I felt this would keep player movement in sync while eliminating the need for leading targets.
It never caught on because it would make movement feel laggy for high ping players.
So now we have high ping players who can move instantly which allows them to pop out of doors and shoot before even being seen.
Very insightful as always.
I really wish that I could have experienced the older BF games. I wasn't on PC then, and didn't start playing until Bad Company 2. I've heard that with the older Arena shooters you'd have to lead in certain games as well. From some forums I've read, people tend to like how games feel now days, but only when it's working properly. Unfortunately, I've never had the opportunity, so not sure what I'd prefer.
