Anti-lag system, hit detection and close combat.

[cirex]

Hey people! Hey Den! You are my bro, bro.

I'm not sure if this thread belongs here or it should be in the other forum, but here I go.

I've been playing COD:WAW for around 3 weeks. I played beta and played some COD4 (Hit 55, started prestige, and not much more) and I'm very annoyed at something that seems to be caused by latency, but I never experienced it at COD4.

I read Den's explanation of the anti-lag system and how it benefits the agressor, but I would really like to know more about it and how latency affects hit detection (if it even does).

To keep this in order, I split my problems in different sections :

Anti-lag system, host and players.

One player is hosting, so if I understand correctly, all information goes to him. If I find an enemy and he lives closer to host (to simplify it), that player will have an advantage over me, correct?
More on this later.
If it helps on this, I'm Spanish, living on an island, so I expect to have good latency with Spanish mainland people, the French, Portuguese and Italian, although I usually got 4 bars with German and English people. Higher quality lines, for sure.

Close combat / Surprise factor
In short, I lose around 80% of my close combat encounters. Or mid-range combat, but starring a surprise factor. It's not a problem of aim, it's just that I get killed before I can kill the opponent. It doesn't matter which weapons, I shoot, I see the "X" of hitting the enemy, but I get killed first. I use SP at all times, so with a rifle (G43) I should kill in two shoots. I shoot 4-5, I hit, but I am the one who bites the dust. I'm not sure how accurate the killcam is, but from their POV, they spot me a whole second before I did, they shoot and shoot and I barely get 1 shot out.
It doesn't matter if I got 2, 3 or 4 bars, so I guess I just got a latency problem against most players. It's ok, I'm used to it. It's a 8mb optical fiber line and I'm used to it. However, in COD4 I didn't lose so many combats in close quarters and I never shot from the hip (I do now), so I wonder if the anti-lag system in WAW is the same as it was in COD4.

It just annoys me that I spot someone, shoot, get "X", the enemy starts shooting and I'm the one who dies. With MP40 and SP it's a bit ridiculous because sometimes I die from a headshot without even hearing the "Zick" sound it does.

Hit detection with BAs and shotguns

So since I lose most of my CQC, a good idea is to snipe with BAs, scoped or raw. And here comes another source of annoyance. Having someone exactly at the middle of the iron sight (with any rifle), shooting and the bullet doesn't hit. Try again...nothing. Moving targets, standing targets, doesn't matter. Sometimes, especially against some players, my hits just miss.

However...when this also happens with a scoped rifle. Not so often, but still happens. Find target, scope, hold breath, aim, shoot, miss. Why? I try again. I miss again, target spots me, aims and...

It's very frustrating to lose sniper "duels" due this. I aim perfectly at the chest or head and the opposite sniper does the same. I shoot and my bullet just misses.

So, is the hit detection system bad or it's again a matter of latency?

Anti-lag, hit detection and moving targets

I talked about hosts before to get to this. Sniping moving targets has the problem of latency affecting the shots, so you have to lead the target and shoot where he's going to be. Against some players I can do fine, against some others, hitting them while they move it's impossible. So that host thing, if the enemy player has a latency of 50ms (example) and I got 200ms, how much latency do I have against the enemy?

Knife

Two animations, "stab" and "slash". Why can't I kill with stab? It just misses and misses. Again latency or hit detection? The slash animation seems to work fine.

To sum up

Very long post, but it's a lot of explaining by examples, so, to sum up :
-The hit detection system : Bad or latency affects it somehow?
-CQC : Low latency = Massive advantadge, even with anti-lag system?
-COD4 vs WAW on hit detection and latency : Was COD4 like this at the beginning? As I said, I didn't play much COD4, but didn't suffer from this.

I really like WAW, but it's very frustrating to be one kill ahead from artillery or dogs and missing 3 times in a row with the knife, shooting someone in the chest with a scoped or unscoped rifle and missing and getting killed in the process.

Ah well, thanks for reading if you got till here.

[Den]

Anti-lag system, host and players.

World Model displacement is dependant on the slowest connection. A fast guy will see other fast guys just as fast, but the slow guy will be further ahead of his world model (only the slow guys are displaced as far).

Alternatively, anybody faster than the slow guy will show an equal amount of displacement from the world model (the slow guy will see everything displaced at his slow rate).

For attacking at the "same time", the better connection will win, simply because it was able to send data to the Host before the slow guy, even if both players attacked at the same exact moment in real time.

If the host is the one shooting, he will almost always win, since he is shooting at 0 to 5 milliseconds; his action comes first if he didn't receive your input yet.

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Close combat / Surprise factor
Sounds like latency, as you suggest.

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Hit detection with BAs and shotguns
This is a matter of experience, and I don't have a 360. I've heard others comment about missing "surefire" shots on consoles, but that problem has not shown itself for PC.

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Anti-lag, hit detection and moving targets
If Anti-Lag were hypothetically disabled or disfunctional, combine the two parts of the first section: movement and attacking.

While both the slow guy and the fast guy will see one another seperated from their world models at the rate of 200ms, only the player with the 200 connection would have to shoot 200ms ahead of where he sees the enemy, while the 50 guy will only need to lead by a bit.

Knife
The melee attack in both COD4 and WaW have identical Lock-on angles and rates, the only difference...

In Call of Duty 4, the MeleeTime and Delay were longer by a small amount, but enough of an amount that allowed the attack to zero in and land.

The Lock-on Stab in WaW whiffs a lot because it attempts to land too early; the small change in time is all it takes.

Something like that.

[adw1983]

I feel pretty certain that the OP is hosting, IF he has optic cables... since the host selection MUST be based on upload or download speed, seeing that I get to host even though I'm using a heavyly encrypted wireless connection to my router on a cable connection with terribly high ping.

With that said, the host advantage is not present in CoD4 except knifing against people who try to knife -- on the contrary, it feels like I'm responding to everyone elses responses.
It's especially noticeable when I play against heavy lagging players -- because they fire at me before they're even around the corner.
At some point, I wondered if everything goes through an xbox live server in USA, since people living in the US could shoot me a second before I saw them onscreen.
With that out of the question, hosts suffer lag disadvantage for sure:
I often get shot while going through doorways, by guys that entered the doorway in what would be before my eyes, WHILE I'M ABOUT TO GO THROUGH THE DOOR, SHOOTING ME IN THE SIDE WHILE HE IS INSIDE ALL THE WHILE I SHOOT AT HIM WHILE HE'S ON THE OUTSIDE WITH ME BLOCKING THE DOOR!

[cirex]

Thanks for the answers.

I never host (Sadly). The few times I have hosted, the game has ended in a few seconds due poor quality to host. The stats screen shows everybody with 1 bar and me with my happy 4 bars. Ah well.

So yes, I will discard running and gunning. About hit detection, I found this :

I have the same problem, but without the fast scoping and moving targets. Earlier at Roundhouse, a target was crouched by a wall, I shot twice and he wasn't hit. I talked about sniping and shotguns, but with the revolver I miss a lot. All shots against a target at one meter of distance go into the void.

[leki]

@den

just wondering, when watching the kill cam is that from the server side (what the server saw) or client side?

how accurate is kill cam?

Its just that sometimes it seems like i'm putting a lot of bullets into an enemy and getting a few hit indicators but then they kill me and when i watch the kill cam it shows i only hit them once!

cheers.

[Den]

Killcam is client-side and does not waste resources in synching things like idling.

You might see the enemy shooting behind you if the connection is bad (as you see yourself where you were ).

You might see a sniper scope look way off when it took you out.

You will often see an enemy starting to reload but then immediately shoot out of it (the reload animation starts at the beginning regardless of how far the player actually was into his reload).

When it comes to what the enemy does (number of shots, where he was looking), it is accurate.
When it comes to what is done, it is give and take, especially if shots hit in immediate succession. Even though having been several times, the game might not show them all hitting (but they certaintly did).
Surely you yourself have had an enemy hit you two-three times to quickly kill you but to you it looked like you were only hit once (then in Killcam, you can see how the enemy struck you three necessary times.

[dog]

Then is the recoil accurate?

Lets say if a person has a no-recoil hack. Will the killcam show that his weapon doesn't kick at all?

[shadz]

cirex, that's me, my friend and his friend.
We've done a video on COD4 as well with a different guy.

I'll be getting a capture card soon so I get nice quality bad hit detection for YouTube.

The detection seems far worse when quick scoping than when holding scope for a longer period of time.


Oh and if you're getting "Poor Quality to Host" it's down to your connection.
I get this when I host sometimes, generally when my sister downloads things.

Check your connection to this 8mb optic cable connection.
Try it with an ethernet and your connection will go right up.

Generally 3 or 4 bars plays excellently, 2 bars is a bit hit and miss and 1 is terrible.

[Den]

It's been a while since I've seen a cheater, but, yeah.
Not only would a weapon with altered recoil show itself on killcam, but with regular spectating.

[sabrewolfy]

I've noticed all of this on the PC as well (when I have a bad connection). I've noticed hit detection issues regardless of my connection. Hit detection issues exist on both COD4 and COD5, but it's probably 10x worse on COD5. Sniping moving targets on COD4 is pretty easy with practice. Sniping moving targets on COD5 is governed by luck. Sometimes you have to lead them, sometimes you don't. The amount you have to lead varies too. I guess it depends on the difference between you're lag and their lag which is different for each target.

But on both games I've had shots "miss" for unexplainable reasons. I've also had kill shots not kill (head, upper chest, etc). Sometimes all I can see is their head, I shoot their head, it shows the x, but they don't die.

[bpmachete]

Maybe the bullet grazed the wall

[Den]

Or an invisible wall.

[dog]

Is it possible to pinpoint the location of those invisible walls in the map?

[noxcaelum]

Feb 1, 2009 17:03:26 GMT -5 shadz said:

cirex, that's me, my friend and his friend.
We've done a video on COD4 as well with a different guy.

I'll be getting a capture card soon so I get nice quality bad hit detection for YouTube.

The detection seems far worse when quick scoping than when holding scope for a longer period of time.


Oh and if you're getting "Poor Quality to Host" it's down to your connection.
I get this when I host sometimes, generally when my sister downloads things.

Check your connection to this 8mb optic cable connection.
Try it with an ethernet and your connection will go right up.

Generally 3 or 4 bars plays excellently, 2 bars is a bit hit and miss and 1 is terrible.

I watched your video and I'm wondering if QuickScoping is your problem. I've been thinking that it might be that your gun hasn't fully adjusted to your scope location- as if you were firing NoScope. But since you were in the process of QuickScoping you're more accurate than if you were shooting from the hip. Not sure if any of that is accurate, but It would explain your increased accuracy from holding your scope longer- proper gun-sight alignment.

The kill cam inaccuracy has been bothering me for some time- Because of latency it's hard to know just how the gun fight went down. Seems to me that the kill cam is little more than an anti-tactical loitering mechanism.