Unlagged: Good or Absolute Scum

[Nux]

Posts so far:

I would play on unlagged servers if I were you. Most people who dislike unlagged dislike it because they do not want to adjust. Leading involves luck - it's not pure skill like some would claim. Aiming directly is skill. Some argue that unlagged takes away the ability to dodge - to them I say, you just suck in unlagged.

Unlagged is trying to make the game more fair by making everyone just as laggy as each other. That's all it can physically do. The people who get lag have lag because they live on the other side of the earth. There's no getting round the fact that information can't travel that fast.

So everyone now lags. What I mean by this is everyone has unexpected things happen to them. Say for example a goon chomping me from the other side of the room. I'm paying for that goons lag. Why should I? Why can't he play on servers he has good ping with?

Also, leading your fire (e.g. shooting away from the mara to kill it >.<) trains the mind to aim frantically. This doesn't help people develop aiming skills so much as it trains them to wildly fire in their direction until unlagged tells them they hit. Before you say "but there is a very specific gap you need to fire into to make the shots reach the mara" there's very little accounting for what that mara does and where unlagged says it went in that duration.

Unlagged is trying to make the game more fair by making everyone just as laggy as each other.

Wrong. There are a few systems for other games that do that, but that's not what happens here. Unlagged works the other way around, by removing the lag: it silently rolls back everything to the point at which a hitscan attack goes off, then puts it all back. In effect, it makes everyone shoot/slash like they are on a LAN with the server, even if they don't move like that.
You just have to shoot where they appear and ignore where you think they really are.

What I mean by this is everyone has unexpected things happen to them. Say for example a goon chomping me from the other side of the room. I'm paying for that goons lag. Why should I? Why can't he play on servers he has good ping with?

To clarify, when there is a discrepancy between what I see and what is actually the case I think there's cause for concern. When that discrepancy is due to another persons high ping but I pay for it, that's cause for frustration. You can't remove lag. You can try and actively put things right as unlagged does, but all that does is gives more false information.

It's not what good it does for high pingers that I'm worried about. It's what bad it does to low pingers. Experienced players can tell the difference as they are used to picking up on minute changes. So when a sure-fire hit somehow misses and a sure-fire miss somehow hits, players get angry.

It's not perfect, but there is something that limits that to some degree.
Also, while that goon is lagging, you're shooting at a stationary object. You probably have a better chance of killing the goon than it does of killing you.

Also, while that goon is lagging, you're shooting at a stationary object. You probably have a better chance of killing the goon than it does of killing you.

That would be right if a split-second later it didn't appear right in front of me and chomp my head off. That's how it happened on his computer so unlagged says it happened on mine too.

Also, while that goon is lagging, you're shooting at a stationary object. You probably have a better chance of killing the goon than it does of killing you.

That would be right if a split-second later it didn't appear right in front of me and chomp my head off. That's how it happened on his computer so unlagged says it happened on mine too.

Just don't play with warpers, then.  The same thing happens in lagged, if someone has high, unstable ping - he warps.

I'm glad you said that.

I was just playing a game on metalheads server (g_unlagged 1). The leading players was called 'player'. He had a good ping. I had a good ping. He warped like hell. He warped more than the high pingers.

So it's not just a case of not playing with high pingers (though if you don't play with high pingers there's no point in unlagged anyway). I made a demo of it but demos don't record any of the warping =( they record what the server saw so everything looks smooth.

Well, in my experience, most warpers have high pings.  Someone with a low ping could still warp, as I do when my fps crashes.  Every night at 11 PM my fps starts spiking from 90 to 30 every other second, causing me to warp, even though I have sub 50 ping (right now I'm only able to fix this by restarting).  An unstable ping/fps is the main cause of warping.  High ping is just the usual complement.

There is a point to unlagged when playing with low pingers (no leading at all?).

If your FPS is getting worse over time, that sounds like a memory leak. Not sure why it would do that though.

This isn't an FPS problem. Though he has a low ping, the server is 'correcting' his position in my view to account for other peoples views. My FPS is unaffected.

Not sure what you mean when you say:

There is a point to unlagged when playing with low pingers (no leading at all?).

If you mean unlagged means you don't have to lead: You don't have to lead with low ping games without unlagged.

If you mean you get to lead with unlagged: Why should I lead with a hitscan weapon?

[kevlarman]

the original unlagged had an antiwarp patch. if packets went missing from a player, the server would extrapolate for a short period of time to smooth out minor warping, then refuse to allow the client to move until the connection got better again. tjw has been working on his antiwarp patch (taken from etpub, but it's slightly buggy because he's missing a syscall that et has but trem doesn't), but he's been missing for a while. i still have the antiwarp patch on my hard drive, and i will be separating it sometime soon. unlagged actually makes warping players much better for others, since it completely removes the guesswork on where to aim.
edit: you could have asked me to split that thread so we don't have to fight to quote the right thing.

[Survivor]

the original unlagged had an antiwarp patch. if packets went missing from a player, the server would extrapolate for a short period of time to smooth out minor warping, then refuse to allow the client to move until the connection got better again. tjw has been working on his antiwarp patch (taken from etpub, but it's slightly buggy because he's missing a syscall that et has but trem doesn't), but he's been missing for a while. i still have the antiwarp patch on my hard drive, and i will be separating it sometime soon. unlagged actually makes warping players much better for others, since it completely removes the guesswork on where to aim.

Wouldn't this extrapolation mean that when you have a less than optimal but still stockplayable ping, like around 100-130, he hits you when you changed direction but the server wrongly predicts your movement and counts it as a hit while you are pretty certain you dodged? I think this is where most players have a problem with unlagged.

[.f0rqu3]

lagged ->  
unlagged ->  :cry:

[kaziorvb]

nah, unlagged - the overpowering goes on

i dont mean that whole idea is fucked, but its doesnt give good results

wait, wait, 1.2.0 comez with g_aimbot built in! then unlagged isnt that bad..


CON

[Ceaser342]

To me it started as a good idea but ended as a very annoying way to play.  I'll admit I play on it sense most servers use it but to me it makes far to easy to use a Massdriver and Lasgun.  Not to mention your screwed as a Mara most of the time :*(

[Nux]

you could have asked me to split that thread so we don't have to fight to quote the right thing.

Sorry. I wasn't sure whether admins had that power. I should have known they're all-powerful. Please don't smite me. =(

My experience with unlagged hasn't been as good as with some of you. I opt for low-ping servers- you can't go wrong there. =) If everyone opted for low-ping servers then there wouldn't be a need for unlagged. Surely sticking to local servers isn't that hard... is it?

If you want I can make up funny metaphors for this. =D

All I'm saying is when I have the 8-ball against the corner pocket and I'm lining up the shot, I notice the guy I'm playing with is drunk and is spilling beer all over the place. He falls on the table and it shatters with balls flying everywhere. The referee decides I should have seen it coming and calls it a draw.

[Harry Joe]

It would be fine except it basically makes everything below goon little more then a distraction or cannon fodder.

Dretches are nothing but free creds to any human player with a bit of skill, largely killing the alien s1 advantage.

 Mara's are pretty much a waste of evo's since their dodging skill was highly dependent on people not being able to guess which direction they would have to lead.

Even the larger aliens suffer because a heavily camped/spammed human base becomes a horribly unfun killzone, forcing more and more games into SD where aliens slowly whittle down the human defenses (meanwhile the apes stand around on turrets just waiting to die).

And then on the opposite end, humans will get killed by goons and tyrants that should have been a few body lengths too far, shots that are obvious misses end up getting kills when the target is behind walls (which isn't a bad thing for the human player) and a few other annoying little glitches.


To cut it short, unlagged would be fine if there were a few balance tweaks done, as it is though it gives a huge advantage to a competent human team. Unfortunately though it seems 1.2 is so far balancing things in the opposite direction so in all honesty I don't have much faith in future versions.

[stalefries]

I always thought that people had to lead their shots because bullets/energy shots/whatever had a certain amount of "travel time". I always thought that unlagged was aimed to fix that sort of thing.

[Steely Ann]

It would be fine except it basically makes everything below goon little more then a distraction or cannon fodder.

I still prefer playing with a mara over a goon since I can get my head-shots in quick and ske-daddle.  As for dretch, those things are still insanely dangerous at any stage of the game, especially with support.  I'd go so far as to say that if the dretches on your team are turning into free creds, your teamwork must suck and blow simultaneously.  Basilisks, of course, remain an acquired taste.  Really, unlagged forces the aliens to - oh, horrors - work as a cohesive team, though I guess that's bound to give humans an advantage in wholly unorganized public games.

I'll agree that the various glitch-esque kills are annoying as hell, but overall, I'm not sure I'd wanna go back to un-unlagged, since I feel the weapons and slashes now feel more "natural".flame in 3... 2...

[Nux]

I'd like to know what 'natural' means to you. To me, low-ping games without unlagged are 'natural'. Anything else is false and misleading. This isn't just when unlagged steals kills from me. I've brought down many aliens as human on unlagged with magical bullets that shouldn't have hit but did anyway. =/

[temple]

Personally, a dretch or mara shouldn't have any more difficulty with Unlagged.  

However, as a team, the begineers/noobs/lames will feed even more so Unlagged.  Its much more unforgiving against floor rushing dretches because their speed won't save them.  

Unlagged makes the rifle and dretch balanced with one another.  Dretches aren't meant to be effective the whole game like the rifle is obviously not effective against larger aliens.  Now, s1 aliens get popped more often.

Good maras don't have anything to complain about.  You just can't lag around like a idiot and expect to live.

As a human, too many times I know I have hit a dretch or mara but I'm 1 millisecond too slow and get killed.  Its frustrating as hell to have to lead hitscan weapons.  With Unlagged, I'm a lot more deadly because I know how to aim, I just can't compensate for every dip and change in ping.  If I see it, its dead.  That's that.  

Too many people are used to slight ping differences and technical faults.  Unlagged and players with similar ping is intended gameplay.  You are either productive or not.  You have less reason to blame shit on ping because if you or someone else is truly lagging, they won't be able to respond fast enough to take advantage of hitscan weapons regardless.  It doesn't magically slow down every other play but you.  It just makes weapon hit instantly within a a few miliseconds.

Low ping servers is only for college kids riding the T1 backbone.  A lot of other players can't get stupid low pings like that over commercial lines.  

Just explain to me why someone should have to lead a hitscan weapon.

[Nux]

Unlagged makes the rifle and dretch balanced with one another.  Dretches aren't meant to be effective the whole game like the rifle is obviously not effective against larger aliens.  Now, s1 aliens get popped more often.

I strongly disagree with that whole sentence. I don't believe unlagged balances the lower classes. The rifle is an extremely handy weapon as you can always get one (it's free) and popping as many bullets as you can into large aliens assists in taking them down and gives you creds to get better weapons. S1 aliens get popped enough.

[TinMan]

I use dretches and rifles for most of the game, they're the most cost efficient.

[David]

@nux: why?

[Nux]

I've edited it, giving reasons.

[temple]

I strongly disagree with that whole sentence. I don't believe unlagged balances the lower classes. The rifle is an extremely handy weapon as you can always get one (it's free) and popping as many bullets as you can into large aliens assists in taking them down and gives you creds to get better weapons. S1 aliens get popped enough.

The only good thing about the rifle is its free.  With Unlagged, its good for killing dretches.  Outside of that, give a reason why the rifle is good?  Are you comparing it to the blaster?  

Dretches on the other hand will get some kills at s3 just by being persistent and seeking any unarmed humans.  They will give up a lot of kills, hopeful more so to unarmored humans with Unlagged.

[kevlarman]

I strongly disagree with that whole sentence. I don't believe unlagged balances the lower classes. The rifle is an extremely handy weapon as you can always get one (it's free) and popping as many bullets as you can into large aliens assists in taking them down and gives you creds to get better weapons. S1 aliens get popped enough.

The only good thing about the rifle is its free.  With Unlagged, its good for killing dretches.  Outside of that, give a reason why the rifle is good?  Are you comparing it to the blaster?  

Dretches on the other hand will get some kills at s3 just by being persistent and seeking any unarmed humans.  They will give up a lot of kills, hopeful more so to unarmored humans with Unlagged.

a rifle packs 150 damage per clip, 2 rifles are easily dangerous to a goon if he's not careful, and 3 can take down any single alien if they can avoid getting headshot long enough. i would say that is pretty consistent with what dretches can do.

[benmachine]

You need to evolve to at least a dragoon - a 3 evo class - to get a damage value higher than the dretch. They are the fastest and hardest to hit, and as a consequence remain useful throughout the game. Just use a bit of sense and a bit of stealth, and you can make the kill before your opponent even sees you, let alone unlags you to death. If they have a helmet, then you should expect to lose tbh. Go find an easier target.
The fact is, unlagged means that when you shoot at an alien, you hit them. When you chomp a human, the human gets chomped. This is just how it should work. How can you claim anything else?
And if we're talking about glitchkills, how about when I charge along behind a human who lags so much that I run into their body every couple of seconds but of course I don't actually connect because they're not really there. I can't catch up with where they really are because their lagself is in the way. How is that fair?

[temple]

a rifle packs 150 damage per clip, 2 rifles are easily dangerous to a goon if he's not careful, and 3 can take down any single alien if they can avoid getting headshot long enough. i would say that is pretty consistent with what dretches can do.

No headshots for a goon...really big if.

A goon should fear 3 rifles because that's the balance point.  3 rifles=3 evos=1 goon.  But the raw damage of a goon makes rifles 'meh' against a goon.  Kill 1-2 before they kill you, maybe escape the last.

[Dracone]

You can solve this by making everyone have like 50 ping. O WAIT!

See, if your ping is like 200, leading does NOT solve everything. If you lead, they can still just dodge it. If there were people that knew exactly when the person shooting actually fired, they could simply keep dodging shots and never once get hit. Example: You're standing still. A person with 200 ping shoots at you, dead on, killshot. You move JUST then. They miss. You sit still again. They shoot again. You move to the left again. They miss. So they figure you're going to move the left again. They shoot off to that side. Oh you decided to move to the right. They miss again. They HAVE to get lucky.

No one is going to come up with something that people WON'T have to adjust to that will equal out the lag issues. I prefer to play with unlagged on myself, but if my ping is 100 or less, I find nothing to complain about if there is no unlagged. Who would?

UNLAGGED DOES ITS JOB WELL.

Its job is NOT to make everything perfect. Unlagged's job is to make it so the people with high pings can ATTACK straight and have as close to equal potential in hitting things to the low pingers as they can, and in doing so, they can have fun too without the frustration about not being able to kill things because of their pings.

Nothing is going to make these ping differences and complaints go away, but give credit where credit is due. These people making all these things like unlagged are trying to make the gameplay as solid and smooth as they can, and unlagged is a step in the right direction, even if there are some issues still. Have patience.

[Nux]

I commend the people who made unlagged for spending time to solve the issue of people getting frustrated when they don't get the kill just because they live in Antarctica. They've done well in making it easier for them to kill things.

I personally don't go on unlagged servers because the tiny corrections it makes mid-game defy my expectations for what should have happened. It 'corrects' even when there is no lag problem. Maybe this is just something that needs to be tweaked but for now I steer clear of it. The game is alot more fun when everyone has low pings in my honest opionion. What with all the frustrations people seem to have when things don't go right for them in game, I can't see why they would prefer it (other than it making it easier for them to hit things that their lack of aiming skillz would have deprived them of otherwise). If you don't mind the glitchy corrections then I'm sure it's a laugh and a half.

[Warrior]

Unlagged is the best thing they implemented in Trem. And I think it should even be the native gameplay style instead of being able to be disabled with a cvar.
Players that never play with high pings should not being saying their opinions (I don't read them all yet), but I can say that since unlagged was implemented I refuse to play on servers where I get 200+ ping and that have unlagged off. About more than 90% of the servers usually give me such weird ping and still the majority of them don't have unlagged enabled. Only less than 12 servers¹ can give me a ping between 150-200 and only one in Brazil can give me something between 45-75 and only on my home-server I can get no lag.

¹ And most of those have brainless admins (from famous clans) that love to kick/ban innocent people.

[AKAnotu]

if you have a bad ping, dont play on that server. why do you care about servers that you would make almost unplayable by joining? just play on ones near you. i see no reason to play on a server half the world away from you.

[Plague Bringer]

Only less than 12 servers can give me a ping between 150-200 and only one in Brazil can give me something between 45-75 and only on my home-server I can get no lag.

Some people don't get many servers where they ping low. That being said, I only frequent five or so servers, and most people have five or so servers that give them low ping. Unlagged also opens up clan opportunities, say you're a few hours off, timezone wise, but you're way up north or south, you can still join the clan if they have unlagged servers and play matches on unlagged without ping being an issue.

[Nux]

Unlagged is the best thing they implemented in Trem. And I think it should even be the native gameplay style instead of being able to be disabled with a cvar.
Players that never play with high pings should not being saying their opinions..

It becoming the native gameplay is something I'm afraid of.

Players that never play with high pings should not share their opinion? Why ever not? They're the innocent gamers who pay for other peoples lag.

if you have a bad ping, dont play on that server. why do you care about servers that you would make almost unplayable by joining? just play on ones near you. i see no reason to play on a server half the world away from you.

There's someone who understands me. *hugs AKAnotu*

[AKAnotu]

i'm not talking about him or people like henners, who play in relativley isolated (in trem server standards) places. i'm talking about people in, say, the netherlands or central europe who play on west  cost (of america) servers. there should be a system that prevents you from joining servers that you get a 125+ ping on, unless it's one of the closest to you

[Plague Bringer]

Players that never play with high pings should not share their opinion? Why ever not? They're the innocent gamers who pay for other peoples lag.

How the fuck is adapting to shooting AT the alien rather then infront of it paying for anything? What? Afraid of a little change? Can't adapt to a different situation? Can't aim straight?

[Nux]

I don't remember saying you should lead your fire. I never have to aim ahead of my target with hitscan. I play against low-pingers on fairly local servers. Lag is annoying because it makes unpredictable things happen. Unlagged is annoying because it tries to correct it and encourages high pingers to join the server. You can pretend the lag is removed, but it's just masked. There's no escaping a slow connection that's caused by the 13 thousand kilometers of rock that are between you and the server.

[Warrior]

there should be a system that prevents you from joining servers that you get a 125+ ping on, unless it's one of the closest to you

Sorry, but the lag of one don't hurt the lag of the others; I explain: if someone stuck at 999 it will not increase the other's lag, because the amount of bandwidth they can use is limited by the variable sv_maxrate defined by the server.
[Am I wrong (and why, if yes)?]
Oh, and 125 is a very good ping if you don't have a 1 gibabyte (lol) or more of connection speed, or if you don't have "First World" ISP, or if you don't live in the same region (state/country/continent) of the server.

They're the innocent gamers who pay for other peoples lag.

The only reason why low ping players hate unlagged is that they can be easily killed by good players with high ping.

One more idea I had:
I don't understand about the programming of games and the implementation of unlagged, but why "unlagged" can't or will not be the default/native/natural behavior of the game engine? If it was worked since Q3 and if it was the only way used by the methods (in the game's source-code) to control the relation between bullets, players, gravity etc., wouldn't it turn the engine's natural gameplay into something better?
(Sorry if I'm completely wrong...)