Unlagged - Yes or No

[Lava Croft]

Survivor, just give up. You are trying to convince a religious person that his god does not exist. It's futile.

[Survivor]

Against lava's perfect judgment in this case;

The soldiers don't have lightspeed reflexes.  For that matter, the hand can move faster than the eye, does your hand move at light speed?

Neither do gamers, yet there is an added delay of perception in unlagged, and unlagged only checks weapon hits, not movement.

Don't use hypothetical soldier scenarios, that's wasn't the point of my example.  I'm alluding to the use of cover and movement and not reflexes.

You started with the soldier, and cover and movement surely apply, but soldiers also want to get to places quick to strike at enemies, and guess what, that's just like players in trem.

Dretches have to use cover and stealth.  Any dretch running straight up to a human risks being shot.  Are you opposing that?  Maybe this is rocket science, lol!

Any dretch closing the distance to an opponent as fast as possible from the human's blind spot is practicing good sense since the maps aren't large nor abundantly covered with hiding places.

But apparently you are mixing experiences up and are so pro-unlagged that you can't see the problems it has. I can live with unlagged if it has an adjusted damagemodel which softens the shock of these situations since it surely is a noble cause. But to fight for it as a perfect solution is folly.

Good luck to you in entering a real discussion. Now I will follow Lava's advise.

[temple]

Survivor, just give up. You are trying to convince a religious person that his god does not exist. It's futile.

Nice strawman.  This isn't even personal. 

You just wrong on this and still haven't explained where the latency is moved as you claim.  Does Unlagged make the attacker 'lag'?  Care to comment anything on my breakdown of what happens?

Neither do gamers, yet there is an added delay of perception in unlagged, and unlagged only checks weapon hits, not movement.

If there was a 'delay in perception' (there isn't), it would exist in Unlagged AND without Unlagged.  But there is no delay, you just made that up.  It just a matter of trying to see what you can't see, trying to dodge what you can't dodge. 

[Lava Croft]

This has nothing to do with a personal matter, but everything with you being presented facts as written by the Unlagged creator, situations as explained by Survivor, yet all you do is re-post the same stuff without even taking into account the facts and examples as they are presented to you.

The latency is moved away from you, towards your opponent. I think I must have typed this like 10 times by now, but I guess I'll just have to go against my own better judgement and type it again:

In a normal, non-Unlagged game, the latency is where it's supposed to be, on your side. You have to compensate for your own latency by leading your shots.

In a Unlagged game, the latency is moved towards your opponent, as the example Survivor gave you more than clearly explains. You have to compensate for the latency of your opponent in Unlagged, instead of compensate for your own latency. I can't think of any simpler way to explain this than the example given by Survivor.

As has been stated before, not one of the two options is 'better' or 'worse', it's a pure case of preference. However, constantly ignoring the facts and examples you are being given does not magically make your preference the more sane one.

[temple]

This has nothing to do with a personal matter, but everything with you being presented facts as written by the Unlagged creator, situations as explained by Survivor, yet all you do is re-post the same stuff without even taking into account the facts and examples as they are presented to you.

The latency is moved away from you, towards your opponent. I think I must have typed this like 10 times by now, but I guess I'll just have to go against my own better judgement and type it again:

In a normal, non-Unlagged game, the latency is where it's supposed to be, on your side. You have to compensate for your own latency by leading your shots.

In a Unlagged game, the latency is moved towards your opponent, as the example Survivor gave you more than clearly explains. You have to compensate for the latency of your opponent in Unlagged, instead of compensate for your own latency. I can't think of any simpler way to explain this than the example given by Survivor.

As has been stated before, not one of the two options is 'better' or 'worse', it's a pure case of preference. However, constantly ignoring the facts and examples you are being given does not magically make your preference the more sane one.

Simply, your idea or model of Unlagged is wrong.  Use a scenario to explain it.  I've used one to explain why I am right about Unlagged and why you are not.  But from what you have said, you are wrong about how the feature works.  No attacker has to lead a hitscan weapon.  There is not additional burden, no change in how you attack.  If you think so, you are completely mistaken.  Wrong wrong wrong.  You are arguing from an entirely faulty premise. 

Edit: If the attacker is a dretch, you have to move the same as before.  Your enemy will move and aim at the exact same speed as before.  If you are behind them, you are still behind them.  If you are moving away from their line of sight, you are still evading them.  But you don't have those fractions of seconds anymore to complete your dodging.  If those bullets start flying, you better pray the human has missed.  Because you can't move out the way of bullets, you can only move out the player's aim.  The player's motion and aiming is the same in either model.

Survivor is arguing that Unlagged is unfair from the prospective a dretch trying to anticpate a human's action.  But in either hit detection scheme, the dretch is equally vulnerable to getting shot before they can react. 

The only reason this (the dretch not being able to move in time) feels unfair is because vanilla Tremulous did not have the ability register hitscan attacks as accurately as Unlagged.  Unlagged IS fair, vanilla Tremulous was unfair if fairness is even worthy of arguing here (it's not). 

Players are feeling the consequences for being open to attack more often.  In some cases, they are killed when they *think* they were safe.  But in concept, they were not safe.  Unlagged just brings the actual gameplay closer the conceptual premises of the game.

[Lava Croft]

I think Survivor gave you a perfect example, only you blatantly ignored it. The fact that you just do not want to accept it, is a problem that is beyond my reach.

[temple]

I think Survivor gave you a perfect example, only you blatantly ignored it. The fact that you just do not want to accept it, is a problem that is beyond my reach.

In Survivor's example, Unlagged is no different than without. 

[Lava Croft]

I think Survivor gave you a perfect example, only you blatantly ignored it. The fact that you just do not want to accept it, is a problem that is beyond my reach.

In Survivor's example, Unlagged is no different than without. 

Then my statement stands, and you do not know what we are discussing.

[AppleJuice]

*I* think you guys are either exaggerating the problems of unlagged, or play with very high pings.  Survivor's example has never happened to me in my year of playing with unlagged. The others have, but only very rarely.  I usually play with people with less than 120 ping (most of them have less than 100), though, so I can't speak for those who only play with high pings. I can say, though, that unlagged has made <100 ping games more enjoyable, and more challenging.

If, in fact, these observations ARE all based on high-ping games, then that is a different debate (one that I won't involve myself in, since it doesn't affect me).  And before you say "IF YOU DON'T PLAY WITH AT LEAST 150 PING YOU ARE A NOOB," why do we have to? If the opportunity to play with good ping exists, most people would take it.

[Lava Croft]

These 'problems' of Unlagged (which actually aren't really problems, just a different approach at solving a problem) are at the core of how Unlagged works. While you might not notice these problems that much when playing Unlagged, someone who is used to playing normal games barely notices how he is leading his shots. It's a case of perception. Survivor's example was merely a futile attempt and trying to make someone see what happens with the latency in Unlagged.

[Survivor]

My example is an extreme, but clear example of what exactly is happening.
Unlagged can and only does check shots. It does not adjust movement.

Now in a range vs range game like most shooters this isn't as important. But guess what, in tremulous a single team relies on getting into touchy-touchy range  to get kills and hits. Which puts them at a disadvantage. My example simply exagerates the effect unlagged has on such a situation to make it clear for temple. The principle however applies to more general situations as well, sometimes with just as drastic results from the perception pov.
Namely 'I got hit while I was behind the corner', if you overexagerate the situation we get the following, i kept the numbers simple.
Alien player, ping 50
Human player, ping 550, lasgun
According to this the human player has half a second delay.
Now to the situation. The alien player sees he is low on health, just a few lasgun shots away.
He rounds the corner, thinks himself safe, and stops to regenerate from the 15 hp he has left. Why? The human was quite far away and probably won't follow.
However the human has 500 millisecond longer with an instahit weapon with a shotdelay of 200 ms and 9 dmg per hit. In other words he is able to do 18 more damage, and the alien dies around the corner. Yes, unlagged was correct, the alien was in view for that time and got hit. But you can't tell me that's the honest perception of both players.
Now this one isn't decision based, and the actual hp-rule under retreating for aliens has been adjusted upwards by most experienced players if they are playing unlagged to correct for it.

But this also means that the human was able to deal 18 more damage than he used to in lagged when the alien first came into view, compared to the alien, who is still relying on getting close and then having the unlagged system check their hits.

Now let's mirror the situation. The alien rounds the corner. He used to have 500 ms before the human player saw him and could start firing. Now he is still rounding the corner at his same perception, but due to unlagged the lagged player gets 500 ms extra to fire, which suddenly get lumped at the low-ping player. This shows the perception pov better. While most players think it is weird that they die around a corner and notice that, most wouldn't have noticed that in this extreme example they at this point had to bear a triple damage hit. You're not watching th hp going in. So their longetivity in the battlefield decreases. And this is why the alien team is at a disadvantage, he has to take more damage than was planned under the lagged gaming conditions of beta-testing trem.
This is more related to the imperfect combination of 1.1 damagemodel and unlagged.

And with this I have given examples for the two major reasons people are wary of unlagged.
Once again note that my examples are certain exagerations. But they are not unimportant in that they do happen to some extent, people just don't notice it as much as it is not as odd as a round the corner death.

[KamikOzzy]

I have played more than a year with lagged, it sucked. Back then you could go into any server and there would always be players scoring much higher than everyone else, and they would always have < 40 ping. I had to adjust to aim.

With unlagged, I don't care what people are saying, you don't have to adjust to shit. I play against St Anger the same way I play against a 258 pinger, and I also dodge the same way.

This "gives humans an advantage" stuff is wrong. It improves the tyrant/goon to the point where only the elite can manage to dodge a decent goon. As for dretching, stay the heck out of the sights of hitscan weapons.

I don't experience most of these "problems" other than around-the-corner shooting, but I like that feature. I would much rather the shooter hit what he aimed at on his screen, than have the dodger escape due to ping difference.

It is a different game to play, I agree, but I prefer unlagged, as I feel the playing field is much more level than without it. The game also is more intense, as you really have to try hard to dodge, whereas in lagged you can casually press random keys and get the job done most of the time. Point blank shotgun shots hit, as they *should* in my opinion.

As for high pingers fucking you up, there's a console command to keep them the fuck out, and I do love it.

However, I sincerely hope that 1.2 does *not* make unlagged a standard feature, and that we may continue to have it as a mod. Obviously some are opposed to it, and it's better to let everyone play the way he/she enjoys the game the best.


Edit, A note from St. OzzyJuice.: We don't get hit around corners because we don't run away, we get our kill or die (we don't die, btw). l2p
Couldn't resist.

[Bomb]

I find it rather amusing that Lava, Survivor, and Temple think arguing about a single feature is worth their time. You each have one of three opinions: Like, Dislike, or Ambivalent. Simply state your opinion and your reason for having that opinion. There is no need to start a flamewar simply because someone's opinion differs from your own. A polite debate, by all means, but not what is currently transpiring here.

In the eyes of some, particularly those with high pings, Unlagged is a godsend. In the eyes of others, particularly those with low pings, it is an encumbrance — mainly because it takes away their unfair advantage over the former category.

[Survivor]

I have played more than a year with lagged, it sucked. Back then you could go into any server and there would always be players scoring much higher than everyone else, and they would always have < 40 ping. I had to adjust to aim.

That's the world with ping, but there were also people having up to 120 ping who could best them, and in q3, a game just as intense with both players having long range weapons I know a player who played for years with 150 ping and got to own with it. It is this adjustments which is necessary with lagged, but it doesn't mean it's the way it should be. If everything was in a perfect world everybody had the same 0 ping. Unlagged goes some way to fix this, but the problem with unlagged is that it fixes the problem, but not the tuning that was done to the damagemodel of 1.1.0 trem to make the game 'work' in lagged. 1.2.0 fixes this tuning as well and as such provides a much better unlagged experience. Try it out for yourself on the testservers.

With unlagged, I don't care what people are saying, you don't have to adjust to shit. I play against St Anger the same way I play against a 258 pinger, and I also dodge the same way.

Playing against St Anger means shit to me as for me he IS a 250 pinger. If you would have kept to the debate and discussed in ping and stated 40 pinger that would be much more logical. But I get your point.

This "gives humans an advantage" stuff is wrong. It improves the tyrant/goon to the point where only the elite can manage to dodge a decent goon. As for dretching, stay the heck out of the sights of hitscan weapons.

Oh, so suddenly it's the other way around? Sure once they get in range they have a higher probability to hit since they don't need to compensate for ping anymore, but to get in range they have to suffer some more damage on occasion. And if you didn't see them coming unlagged advantage for humans is up anyway. This is also why the 400 health and 200/250 health dragoon are at a great advantage compared to the dretch, basilisks and maybe the marauders. They have more health to waste.
And btw, the common rifle is hitscan so your advice means playing like the way i most like to play, hide and seek. But unfortunately some maps just aren't made for it, this is also why a lot of long-time players hate the boredom of atcs. You can't do many tricks there. Although 1.2 fixes the fun with the squash.

I don't experience most of these "problems" other than around-the-corner shooting, but I like that feature. I would much rather the shooter hit what he aimed at on his screen, than have the dodger escape due to ping difference.

Yes, you do experience them, you just don't notice them because your mind is somewhere else, in the attack pattern. Most prominent example would probably be the atcs campers again. Because it's such a common occurence i can say you must have been in an atcs camping game as a large alien, headed into the lower corridor and just see your health go away chunks at a time. That effect didn't used to be as profound when the game was lagged.

It is a different game to play, I agree, but I prefer unlagged, as I feel the playing field is much more level than without it. The game also is more intense, as you really have to try hard to dodge, whereas in lagged you can casually press random keys and get the job done most of the time. Point blank shotgun shots hit, as they *should* in my opinion.

What is called more level? Anyone with the skill to aim precisely in unlagged is able to compensate in lagged up to 100 ping easily. That it is more intense I can agree on, but that this is less in skill than in mindgames, the unpredictable player owns the dodge while the excellent predictor can beat it. Tbh i have noticed some strange shit with shotgun blasts which should have hit dretches but didn't, i leave that to the coders as i have no explanation for it but it could just happen.

As for high pingers fucking you up, there's a console command to keep them the fuck out, and I do love it.

Guess what, authority lies with server admins. And removing high-pingers in any way is against your idea of a level playing field in unlagged isn't it?

However, I sincerely hope that 1.2 does *not* make unlagged a standard feature, and that we may continue to have it as a mod. Obviously some are opposed to it, and it's better to let everyone play the way he/she enjoys the game the best.

As far as I know 1.2 has unlagged as a standard feature, but at least it has retuned the damage model to make it feel better. Thus it isn't bad perse since it removes the advantage the sudden introduction gave to ranged weapons. I can live with unlagged in that form.

__________________________________

I find it rather amusing that Lava, Survivor, and Temple think arguing about a single feature is worth their time. You each have one of three opinions: Like, Dislike, or Ambivalent. Simply state your opinion and your reason for having that opinion. There is no need to start a flamewar simply because someone's opinion differs from your own. A polite debate, by all means, but not what is currently transpiring here.

In the eyes of some, particularly those with high pings, Unlagged is a godsend. In the eyes of others, particularly those with low pings, it is an encumbrance — mainly because it takes away their unfair advantage over the former category.

We have each stated our opinion and are having a discussion, as happens when opinions differ. Where you see the flamewar is beyond my view.
I don't care about high and low ping btw because both problems also have an influence on even-pinged players, it just happens to be more profound in high ping differences. I care about an upset damage model in 1.1 and a mindgame which was removed from my repetoire of moves. To the repetoire i can adapt, to the other i refuse to since that in itself is a problem. Coming 1.2 however that one is fixed.

[Bissig]

--- snip ---

Dretches have to use cover and stealth.  Any dretch running straight up to a human risks being shot.  Are you opposing that?  Maybe this is rocket science, lol!

--- snip ---

You really only pick out what you want to read, don't you?

A COMMON principle for aliens is to SNEAK UP to someones back. I fail to see how you are unable to distinguish what Survivor said to the opposite of running UP FRONT to a human. You are ridiculous.

[temple]

I find it rather amusing that Lava, Survivor, and Temple think arguing about a single feature is worth their time. You each have one of three opinions: Like, Dislike, or Ambivalent. Simply state your opinion and your reason for having that opinion. There is no need to start a flamewar simply because someone's opinion differs from your own. A polite debate, by all means, but not what is currently transpiring here.

In the eyes of some, particularly those with high pings, Unlagged is a godsend. In the eyes of others, particularly those with low pings, it is an encumbrance — mainly because it takes away their unfair advantage over the former category.

Unlagged is an improvement. Period.  The only opinion or preference is 'I like hitscan weapons to hit instantly' or 'I don't'. 

This is like the Evolution vs Intelligent Design debate in the US.  There is no theory of Intelligent Design.  The whole 'opinions' argument about Unlagged is teaching the controversy.  Unlagged is better, that's it.  Whether or not you want to play a game with broken weapons, that's up to you.  But there is no doubt that Unlagged makes weapons do what they are supposed to. 

You really only pick out what you want to read, don't you?

A COMMON principle for aliens is to SNEAK UP to someones back. I fail to see how you are unable to distinguish what Survivor said to the opposite of running UP FRONT to a human. You are ridiculous.

I've said over and over, the dretch is equally able to dodge or anticipate movement in regular Tremulous or Unlagged.  Unlagged does not make anyone move or aim faster.   The bullets move faster in that they hit where the guy aimed.  But if the guy turns around and shoots you, that has nothing to do with Unlagged.

The fact of the matter is that if you do get killed, you are more likely to blame it on Unlagged and not on the fact that you got seen.

[KamikOzzy]

I know a player who played for years with 150 ping and got to own with it.

I don't believe it should take years to master pointing a mouse cursor at an alien, when low pingers can do it in a couple weeks is all.

Oh, so suddenly it's the other way around? Sure once they get in range they have a higher probability to hit since they don't need to compensate for ping anymore, but to get in range they have to suffer some more damage on occasion.

True, but they should suffer damage to get in range, because isn't the whole advantage of the human team the ability to hit from a range? Also, pounce and charge can usually close the gap pretty quickly.

see your health go away chunks at a time. That effect didn't used to be as profound when the game was lagged.

I'm not sure what this means, but it sounds like "people missed more" which I didn't like.

What is called more level? Anyone with the skill to aim precisely in unlagged is able to compensate in lagged up to 100 ping easily

Yes, you can compensate, but with unlagged no compensation is necessary.

Guess what, authority lies with server admins. And removing high-pingers in any way is against your idea of a level playing field in unlagged isn't it?

No, I'm talking about balance in gameplay, not about fairness to those less fortunate in having decent internet, though that would be nice to consider.

[kevlarman]

Now let's mirror the situation. The alien rounds the corner. He used to have 500 ms before the human player saw him and could start firing. Now he is still rounding the corner at his same perception, but due to unlagged the lagged player gets 500 ms extra to fire, which suddenly get lumped at the low-ping player. This shows the perception pov better. While most players think it is weird that they die around a corner and notice that, most wouldn't have noticed that in this extreme example they at this point had to bear a triple damage hit. You're not watching th hp going in. So their longetivity in the battlefield decreases. And this is why the alien team is at a disadvantage, he has to take more damage than was planned under the lagged gaming conditions of beta-testing trem.
This is more related to the imperfect combination of 1.1 damagemodel and unlagged.

And with this I have given examples for the two major reasons people are wary of unlagged.
Once again note that my examples are certain exagerations. But they are not unimportant in that they do happen to some extent, people just don't notice it as much as it is not as odd as a round the corner death.

your second example is not only false, but it demonstrates a situation where the higher ping player has a disadvantage you can't compensate for by leading your target (even if you do it perfectly), and unlagged somewhat evens it out (though "evening it out" results in the much hated first example)

[Survivor]

You have a better understanding of the unlagged code than me kevlar. But as I understand the principle of unlagged it means that in the incoming case the lagged player still gets some leeway in getting an extra hit in where it wasn't experienced in the beta testing of a lagged tremulous? This is the damagemodel tuning at fault, not unlagged in coding itself.

However, my discussion with temple is over. Seriously man, read what I type, don't skim over it and just react to everything that offends you. Sentences, like ideas, only work because everything should complement each other. When I state the problem with unlagged this does not mean it is bad in itself. It just still has unresolved (dmg tuning) or unresolvable (observational) flaws. Is it that hard to get?

I don't believe it should take years to master pointing a mouse cursor at an alien, when low pingers can do it in a couple weeks is all.

But isn't the problem with lag that you're not aiming it at where you see the alien but where he actually is heading in the alien's case? It takes some skill to master lagged of course. And extremes are harder to master.

True, but they should suffer damage to get in range, because isn't the whole advantage of the human team the ability to hit from a range? Also, pounce and charge can usually close the gap pretty quickly.

Yes, but in this extreme case they get hits extra. Hits which were not experienced in the lagged inception of tremulous origins. In other words, hits were tacked on while the dmg model wasn't designed with that in mind. And like i said, 1.2 fixes this.

I'm not sure what this means, but it sounds like "people missed more" which I didn't like.

More like people's reaction is more instantanteous now, while there still isn't always the health to compensate, like i demonstrate with the hp difference.

Yes, you can compensate, but with unlagged no compensation is necessary.

True, true. No compensation except prediction.

No, I'm talking about balance in gameplay, not about fairness to those less fortunate in having decent internet, though that would be nice to consider.

If this is your view than correlate this sentence with unlagged making high-pingers even to low-pingers, because if that is the case you don't need to keep them the fuck out, like you stated.

As for high pingers fucking you up, there's a console command to keep them the fuck out, and I do love it.

[temple]

You have a better understanding of the unlagged code than me kevlar. But as I understand the principle of unlagged it means that in the incoming case the lagged player still gets some leeway in getting an extra hit in where it wasn't experienced in the beta testing of a lagged tremulous? This is the damagemodel tuning at fault, not unlagged in coding itself.

However, my discussion with temple is over. Seriously man, read what I type, don't skim over it and just react to everything that offends you. Sentences, like ideas, only work because everything should complement each other. When I state the problem with unlagged this does not mean it is bad in itself. It just still has unresolved (dmg tuning) or unresolvable (observational) flaws. Is it that hard to get?

It can be over.  You are wrong.  I don't mean that in a disdainful way.  But you don't get it. 

I teach networking and programming.  But I'm trying avoid bringing techno-lingo into the discussion because that would limit who can participate.

The way a game engine works is it sends snapshots of the game to each player.  We call these snapshots Frames.  Your ping is basically the speed at which you can receive those frames.  While playing, you are constantly receiving frames.  So, a player with around 0-30 ping is going to be seeing frames pretty much a the rate that the game engine can produce them.   All game engines have around 30 ms of latency simply due to processing data and sending it.  So its impossible for anyone to have a perfect 0 ping (unless they are running some space age super computer). 

But since the game is constantly changing, your frames can be out of sync.  This means that the events in the games have changed since the last frame.  So you can be looking something that has already moved.  This is why you have to lead with hitscan weapons. 

All Unlagged does is rewind back to the frame in which someone fires a hitscan attack and checks to see if an enemy was there.  It corrects (yes Lava) what is happening. 

So in your scenario:
Dretch with 50 ms ping
Rifleman with 550 ping.

Frame 1, the Rifleman see the dretch and fires
Frame 2, the Dretch has already moved and the Rifleman as moved
Frame 3, the game engine (with Unlagged) realizes that the Rifleman did in fact get a hit
Frame 4, the Dretch dies

The reason for the delay is that Rifleman send his data later.  But Unlagged remembers what happens and corrects.  Without Unlagged, the Rifleman would be firing at Frame 1 but by the time the game engine gets the 'attack' message and checks for a hit, the Dretch is already at Frame 2 or 3. 

But in reality, if Rifleman is lagged that much, he wouldn't be registering hits anyway because of internal cut-offs to the Unlagged rewinding.  Unlagged doesn't remember and check shots fired from too long in the past.  So if the Rifleman is just seeing Frame 1 and lets say that the Dretch is already at Frame 4, that difference in time could be too large to be considered by the hit detection.  Unlagged doesn't award every hit because it would overpowered for a player that is moving too slow.  That cut-off point can be set by global variables and can be tailored by individual servers. 

[Survivor]

ping is delay, not speed, in receiving/sending, or more generally, the transmitting of data from the server compared to the processing timestamp on the server.

And your example is stating what unlagged does and how it affects hits. That is okay, I know that since I understand that is exactly what unlagged does. 
But it doesn't take into account decisions by human players. What you are forgetting that besides the processing that occurs by the server and the player computers, processing of the situation also occurs in the player's brain, this processing is done by the information they have available to them. As the high pinger's transmitting of view direction to the server is delayed, and thus received later at the incoming player who would have started dodging if he knew the high pinger was doing that at that time. But he has to wait. Unlagged does and cannot compensate for this. There is no way to predict forward, only check backward.

And now it's really over. This wasn't about the code of unlagged. It does exactly what it was intended to do. It was about the interaction of this unlagged code with a damage model which was tuned for lagged and its interaction with human decision-making based on flawed situational awareness.

[KamikOzzy]

I only mean that there is slim to no gap between 10 and 200 pingers, it is with 300+ pingers that unlagged cannot help and *those* are the ones a server should exclude for gameplay purposes.

self-edited to fix crappy and confusing grammar

[Bissig]

--- snip ---

So in your scenario:
Dretch with 50 ms ping
Rifleman with 550 ping.

Frame 1, the Rifleman see the dretch and fires
Frame 2, the Dretch has already moved and the Rifleman as moved
Frame 3, the game engine (with Unlagged) realizes that the Rifleman did in fact get a hit
Frame 4, the Dretch dies

The reason for the delay is that Rifleman send his data later.  But Unlagged remembers what happens and corrects.  Without Unlagged, the Rifleman would be firing at Frame 1 but by the time the game engine gets the 'attack' message and checks for a hit, the Dretch is already at Frame 2 or 3. 

But in reality, if Rifleman is lagged that much, he wouldn't be registering hits anyway because of internal cut-offs to the Unlagged rewinding.  Unlagged doesn't remember and check shots fired from too long in the past.  So if the Rifleman is just seeing Frame 1 and lets say that the Dretch is already at Frame 4, that difference in time could be too large to be considered by the hit detection.  Unlagged doesn't award every hit because it would overpowered for a player that is moving too slow.  That cut-off point can be set by global variables and can be tailored by individual servers. 

Thanks! For the first time you back your posts with actually useful information. As Survivor points out though, this somewhat "technocratic" explanation and viewpoint of the server still stands in opposition to how the player perceives it:

The rifler seems to have missed the dretch. The dretch thinks it got away. After, lets say 300ms suddenly the rifler gets a kill and the credit reward. The player playing the dretch wonders how the hell he go hit and why he is dead now. So, theory vs. practice. As usual - the gap is not fixable.

And as someone stated: Unlagged doesn't change much when all players have low ping. It only makes a real difference in high ping environments.. and that is were it actually FAILS (from the players point - not the server engines point of course).

@Moderators:

The poll seems somewhat broken.

It looks like this:

Question:      Unlagged  (Voting closes: 10-08-2008, 14:20:48)
is a solution
is a problem
is irrelevant

No radio buttons, no vote button. Nada.

[St. Anger]

I don't play any Quake games that use Unlagged, so there is no need to adapt to Unlagged. It would only screw up my aiming in the other games I play, and I rather not have that happen. Also, I like how you ignore my replies, since you obviously must have seen the stupidity in your posts here, cutey.

I guess you just lack the proper skills to be able to adjust between the two, how unfortunate. And no I haven't ignored any of your replies.

Playing with unlagged builds character. If you cannot handle lousy unlagged, you just lack the proper skills, and hair.

Making silly remarks about my appearance accomplishes nothing but showcase your own lack of guts, since I still have yet to receive your portrait.

I find it interesting that you only replied to my comment about your hair. Butthurt much? Next time try responding to the actual content and not the closing insult.

[AppleJuice]

And as someone stated: Unlagged doesn't change much when all players have low ping. It only makes a real difference in high ping environments.. and that is were it actually FAILS (from the players point - not the server engines point of course).

Well, as Ozzy previously stated, unlagged does eliminate the need for aiming compensation whatsoever in relatively low-ping games, which is a good benefit.
/agree with it failing at high pings (read: 250+), though I usually avoid playing with high pingers.

[SlackerLinux]

in a gun vs gun battle i agree unlagged is probably more fair but tremulous isnt a gun vs gun battle aliens cant shoot from a distance hell they cant even dodge the bullets because what they see happening what the server knows whats happening and sending to them is all thrown out the window and replaced with what happened 2-3 frames back or more. sure if this was a gun vs gun fight both ppl will have the same disadvantages and advantages more or less but aliens have to be able to dodge to get close enough to swipe their opponent (who sadly on servers i play at never leave base ). even the server sees your out of the way. your client sees your outa the way of the bullets. the only guy who doesnt see your outa the way of the bullets is the guy who is either too stingy to pay 4 cable or lives 1/2 a world away.

not to mention the hitboxes are oversized for most things and its ok in a lagged enviroment but with unlagged its just another issue. human hitboxes are not bad but some of the alien ones are really bad (dretches especially).

im lucky all my servers are now lagged and i get to play in a more fair environment where players get sent the info the server has and every shot is judged on the same information w/out any modification.

[KamikOzzy]

I still believe that unlagged benefits the aliens far more than it does the humans, though in my first few months after switching I thought otherwise.

As common as the "you shot me around a wall" is the "that goon bit me with its ass" and I suggest everyone watch a few matches with some of the good goons to prove this to themselves: they can take down three shotguns in a row if you aren't careful.

[kevlarman]

You have a better understanding of the unlagged code than me kevlar. But as I understand the principle of unlagged it means that in the incoming case the lagged player still gets some leeway in getting an extra hit in where it wasn't experienced in the beta testing of a lagged tremulous? This is the damagemodel tuning at fault, not unlagged in coding itself.

the time at which the shot would land is unchanged, only if it would land. all the previous requirements for taking that shot are still there, including being alive from the server's point of view (not the shooter's point of view). so there is no way for 3 shots to land instantly just because a player has 500 ping (in fact your numbers are off because 500 is the round trip time, it only takes 250ms for the command to fire to get to the server). when a low ping player comes around a corner, the high ping player would normally have 250ms where they can't hit him, they can't compensate for their lag by leading because they have no way of knowing he is there. unlagged gives them that 250ms back if and only if they are still alive, when the low ping player goes behind the corner again and they have 250ms to fire at them that they wouldn't have had otherwise.

[Eeeew Spiders]

in fact your numbers are off because 500 is the round trip time, it only takes 250ms for the command to fire to get to the server.

Ping is the time for a roundtrip, but wouldnt Unlagged still have to roll back 500ms?
Since it is 250 ms that it took the server to receive the client packet, plus 250 ms delay in the client's view of what happend on the server.
So the clients packet containing the shot data is 500ms late compared to the information the server had send out to that client about it's target.
This is not a statement, but a question.

Your ping is basically the speed at which you can receive those frames.  While playing, you are constantly receiving frames.  So, a player with around 0-30 ping is going to be seeing frames pretty much a the rate that the game engine can produce them.

A high ping client receives the packages in the same rate than a low ping client. They are just received with a delay. Ping is the delay, not the rate (frequency).
(Though when further away, due to rerouting or net disturbances, the packages may be received out of order. Out of order packages will be dropped, since the protocol is UDP based. This can cause jitter => warping).

edit: me and my constant editing, i should stop that, sorry!

[kevlarman]

in fact your numbers are off because 500 is the round trip time, it only takes 250ms for the command to fire to get to the server.

Ping is the time for a roundtrip, but wouldnt Unlagged still have to roll back 500ms?
Since it is 250 ms that it took the server to receive the client packet, plus 250 ms delay in the client's view of what happend on the server.
So the clients packet containing the shot data is 500ms late compared to the information the server had send out to that client about it's target.
This is not a statement, but a question.

you're right, that's what i get for posting while i'm tired.