Ping Limits, Yea or Nay?

[Lighteye1967]

I performed a brief search here and didn't see anything on this, so here goes...

Lately I have noticed a few players with what I call excruciatingly high pings, in the 300-500ms range. I find them near impossible to snipe when they are running, especially on Flash or Avalanche.

It is also exceedingly frustrating even when in a melee duel with them, I can't hit crap. I'm swinging my shovel and getting nothing but air, even though the sound happens as if I am hitting someone.

I've raged a few times lately, as I seem to not be able to do anything except attract random 'nades and stray bullets.

Make no mistake, EGO servers are my home, and I don't want to be anywhere else, but I do appreciate a server where there is a reasonable and enforced ping limit for the 1% of the time where I play elsewhere. Granted, churlish mouthy heathens usually make me depart these servers, but seeing high pings banned makes the playing field level.

Is it just my eyes getting old, or is there some validity to this line of thought?

 

[tomi87]

ping limit no...i got allways 160-220 that why no!

 

[Sumac]

Yea Tomi, but you arn't teleporting with that ping. If someone has a 400+ ping and isn't teleporting I don't say anything. If they are I politely ask them to fix their rates. I won't kick them unless they do not AND pubs in the server start complaining about it. In that case I have kicked once or twice for that. They came back, quit their download and stopped skipping around.

 

[anomaly]

Anywhere above 350 ping is near unplayable, speaking from experience. With 300 ping it is still possible to play well, although I don't know how it is like for others on the recieving end.

 

[ronpaul]

It's true that players with such a high ping are harder to hit, but server-side lag compensation breaks down around the 250-300 ms mark at which point the lagging player is going to have a TERRIBLE time hitting you as well. A high ping is the result of: low rate command (e.g. rate 5000) or distance to the server. You can artificially create a ping of 800 by setting your rate to 2000-3000, bump it up and you'll lower the ping a bit. Or create a listen server and set fake lag. You'll see what it's like to play like that, they're not at any kind of advantage.

What rate adjustment can they make if they're far away? At higher pings it doesn't matter what their cl_cmdrate is. If it's too high and they're far from the server, they'll just be sending a lot of commands that will arrive much later than the the rest of the game world's updates, the server doesn't wait to process the game world, so many of the late ones are lost and teleporting is the result. Too low of a cmdrate and the game server isn't getting enough command packets from the client and so it doesn't know what the client is doing, causing the teleporting effect. 100-150 is the ping sweetspot. If you're going to lag that's where you want to be because the enemy registration will be terrible on you and your shots will register on players who appear to be standing still despite them having moved well away.

 

[Simon]

I say no. that doesnt allow players to join from other countries, and we need overseas people to populate during the day

 

[Skipper Finny]

I think that Simon raises a good point. Also, by just using a ping limit, it won't completely solve the problem. I've seen many people take advantage of the console command that allows your ping to remain standing at 5. If you see someone "rubber banding" just tell them to fix their rates and close their other windows.

 

[Simon]

I think that Simon raises a good point. Also, by just using a ping limit, it won't completely solve the problem. I've seen many people take advantage of the console command that allows your ping to remain standing at 5. If you see someone "rubber banding" just tell them to fix their rates and close their other windows.

Are you referring to cl_cmdrate +100?

 

[Blue Stealth]

our servers will not have ping limits. high ping does not alter your ability to hit the target. Packet loss and poor connections, however, are a different story.

 

[Simon]

our servers will not have ping limits. high ping does not alter your ability to hit the target. Packet loss and poor connections, however, are a different story.

and that would be the fault of the player, not eGO. I would chance to say our servers have a VERY good connection that should leave the majority of people with 0 packet loss

 

[ronpaul]

our servers will not have ping limits. high ping does not alter your ability to hit the target. Packet loss and poor connections, however, are a different story.

of course it does :blushing: just makes it harder for them as well.

the timing difference between low ping players and high ping players and the way the server handles that difference leads to all kinds of logical problems that gets worse with higher pings. That's coming from the Source networking wiki. Crappy connections and packet loss make it worse, but a high ping alone is easily enough to cause registration and tracking issues.

 

[Lighteye1967]

Here's my observed issue: I mean if the running target has a high ping, and the stationary sniper has a low ping, the sniper is going to get PWNED every time. Someone teleporting down the main drag in flash is a real tough one to hit.

Just a thought I've had the last 2 days, not trying to grief anyone unnecessarily.

 

[Blue Stealth]

of course it does :blushing: just makes it harder for them as well.

the timing difference between low ping players and high ping players and the way the server handles that difference leads to all kinds of logical problems that gets worse with higher pings. That's coming from the Source networking wiki. Crappy connections and packet loss make it worse, but a high ping alone is easily enough to cause registration and tracking issues.

thats why the interpolation command exists

 

[BIOHZRD03]

normally i would be on the fence about this...but after playing KF last night with a ping of almost 400...im gonna have to say no...mostly cause its likely to occur more frequently with everyone and their mom using the internet since the college started back yesterday...

 

[Bad Brain]

not enough sypathy here for the laggers, its just as hard for the lagger to hit you with melee as it is for you. and as for shooting.. take a look at these screenies :crying:

the one from donner happened today, the others a while ago but their the only ones i felt were worth taking.

youll never see me complain about it however as its just something i have to live with playing on the best dods servers there is

 

[ronpaul]

thats why the interpolation command exists

interp doesn't do anything if the ping is high enough to cause teleportation effects, there's no way to smooth out that effect if you're watching a player teleport or if you are the player teleporting. Ping and interp are the two important factors in the lag compensation formula but as ping increases interp is marginalized by lost snapshots and updates from the lagging client. Most players don't adjust their interp from default anyway and I highly doubt the bulk of our admins are technical enough to advise the proper rates for someone with a given ping.

 

[JLindQ]

As an admin the most I do for ping is point them towards the thread on our forum that has the preferred rates. I know that London remembers them by heart and just flat out tells people what to set their rates at. It almost always works for people once they change their rates and that also will generate even more views on the forums and show people what we're about. I think that's the best way to handle these situations.

 

[Miiikey]

No dont limit it. We are a world gaming community and if we are limit the ping some players around here in the world can not be there let it be like it is and let us have some fun

 

[I SURVIVED LONDON BLITZ]

Research a bit more and you will find a thread on this, explaining why high pinger dont affect the game and if they do what to do about it.
Your's sincerely, a regular hiigh pinger.

 

[ronpaul]

Research a bit more and you will find a thread on this, explaining why high pinger dont affect the game and if they do what to do about it.
Your's sincerely, a regular hiigh pinger.

Lighteye's talking about pings of 300-500 which are considered extreme. Pings this high do not affect the server, they don't lag it or slow it down at all. The client can still appear to teleport, however, and that's his beef. There is very little you can do as a player with low ping to mitigate the effect of high ping players teleporting around.