A few quick questions;

Does this affect your ability to dodge opponent LG? As in, if you move a certain way and "feel" that if you turn now, your opponent is gonna lose track of you, if you understand what I mean.

What is now the point of cl_fakeshaft 0? Like someone stated, no crosshair + fakeshaft 0 is now unplayable? Not that I know many that plays like that... but most people use fakeshaft 0, does this become a problem for them?

What happens if a lowping shafter starts shafting at the same time as his highping opponent, and his highping opponent should (on his client) win the fight but due to ping he dies before his damage has been applied to the enemy, yet he - due to the antilag feature - should have done more damage than his opponent? Sorry if it's a weird question but it all becomes one big mess in my head =)

Myself am a 70% fakeshafter, and I don't mind this feature. Most quakes has it as far as I know, and it allows players that don't live very close to the servers to have a shot to actually win an LG fight as well which is a very good thing.

The only bad part is probably that QW has a lot of old inhabitants who fear change =) Doesn't matter if it's something noticable or not. Pretty much how my granddad before he died wouldn't accept that computers exist, nor a good TV or anything that didn't exist when he was 20. Although when he died, my grandmom immediately bought a computer xD

Oh and not to forget that some people were told about it/figured it out while many others had no clue whatsoever. People actually do adapt their gamestyle to their pings, and e.g ownage games Swedes vs Poles, both players are usually at 50~ms and try to adapt their play to the ping. If one of the players knew that this feature was implemented secretly, the result of the game doesn't seem too valid to me, since one of the players had a clear advantage over the other player.

Another bad thing is also that the servers (at least pangela) tells us that antilag is OFF, which of course makes us newbs like myself think that it actually is off, and some pro players who fell for it probably adapted their playstyle to one suitable for non-antilag gaming.

Something that probably could bother people though, is the fact that the shaft is extremely strong in quakeworld compared to other quakes. It is already superior to the rocketlauncher in a plain out fight, and the antilag feature will make it even "stronger" as it's more easily used (of course very very similiar to a 12ms player). Myself though, my only weapon that makes me win games is the LG so I don't mind =)

So all in all, the feature is great, but how it was handled is awful =)

I am still divided by this feature. 13ms for all \o/
If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

The argument from developers and administrators as to why this new feature is their greatest gift to mankind is that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
The benefits being lan ping simulation for players with higher pings, leading to a more even playing field.
Drawbacks? Seems there are plenty and not far between, but each drawback individually dosen't seem overwhelming. from ping 70 shaft to ping 13 shaft in exchange for your OPPONENT to experience random knockbacks, increasingl incidents of 'round-corner-kills' and 'magic nails' as murdoc calls it.

It seems like a win-win situation for the higher ping player.. and all the opponent needs to give up is a little goodwill.. because god has graced him with a fiber connection, he should then sacrifice himself for the benefit of the whole community and in a christian manner turn the other cheek.

This debate is so hard for me to grasp.... alone the technical aspect of it is very complicated. There are soo many issues in it it's hard to know where to attack it from.

Morality, responsibility, stubborn mindsets, tradition vs evolution. I mean QW has come pretty far since 1996 but when all comes to all, IMO QW has stayed true to the core of the game. All the gimmicks and stuff added has been to improve the individuality of each players preferences, but still stayed true to the gameplay. Didn't matter if you had pink marshmellow textures, a cock for LG using drawviewmodel 200. Movement and aim was still the same. Sure a lot of bugs has been fixed since then, but that's not the same as this.

This is BIG... bigger than anything we've seen before. Bigger than KFJUMP or fakeshaft.

IMO Renzo's point with this stunt was to get REAL WORLD DATA.. and lots of it. So he put it on the servers he knew pretty much 95% of all games was being played .. games that mattered anyway. He wanted genuine data, so if people experienced problems, they would be actual problems. And not placebo issues by people who wanted to dismiss antilag based on unfounded claims alone.

Well there has been issues... but not big ones like people started flying around, or u get 500 health from a mega, or give 10x damage from quad.
No, subtle stuff.. like can't move away from HPW nailgun... weird knockback effects from shaft.. suddenly everyone that sucked before, are master aimers? Not ONLY because they now have 13ms, also because YOUR movement is affected negatively.. you have harder time dodging his new LAN shaft. Getting killed around a corner when you KNOW you should have escaped.
The developers say that this can also happen without antilag, but I bet it happens like a million times LESS. It's perhaps theoretically possible.. but in real world maybe 1:1.000.000, but using antilag maybe 1:1.000 ?

There is no doubt that the effects of antilag has been noticed around the servers ... people just didn't know what to blame. It surely could not be antilag, cause it says clear on server that it's DISABLED. What could it be then? Must be some freak of nature shit with my internet connection? is opponent cheating? Did everyone start subscribing to Bigfoot's cheat tips hotline on how to use an aimbot that looks human? Has the infamous warping effect of high ping players just taken a leap forward into teleporting with added telekineses.. pushing enemies randomly?

Now that we know it is caused by antilag everything seems to be so clear. So why I am still so confused?
Damn this issue is a hard nutt to crack

I may have to sleep on it some more..

Here are some of the more (to me) interesting replies of the previous debate concerning antilag from october last year

http://www.quakeworld.nu/?page=news&id=535#6723
http://www.quakeworld.nu/?page=news&id=535#6766

http://www.quakeworld.nu/?page=news&id=535#6776
http://www.quakeworld.nu/?page=news&id=535#6815

http://www.quakeworld.nu/?page=news&id=535#6824
http://www.quakeworld.nu/?page=news&id=535#6905* - last paragraph only

Another thing I wondered. Is it possible that lets say by factor 10:1 benefits:drawback

So for a small drawback you get ALOT of benefit... Now we are at a point where we can feel the drawbacks. Is it worth trying if we can lower the benefits to the point where drawbacks are no longer noticable? Will the benefits still be noticable and acceptable then?
Like if you have 51 ping, it simulates 25... or 80 ping it simulates 40.. half'n'half.

Or is this debate only concerning the fundemental workings of this feature and wether or not we should accept the drawbacks as a new part of quake-core.

How do you know that? When the server sends the location of your target to you, it will take time before your client receives the message. When you then press +lg, it's totally possible that in server reality the opponent already moved to cover.

This kind of resembles how I think about it too. It would be an acceptable solution if there wouldn't be any noticeable drawbacks.

I can't see the scenario though where there won't be any drawbacks, and I don't think it's possible. Except that is probably possible to maintain drawbacks to a very small level (as para is mentioning), but then I guess we have to limit the antilag-feature so hard that it kind of doesn't matter anyway. I don't think making hpw's get a little better gaming experience is worth the sacrifice of low pinging players experience. That's why I dislike this whole idea.

(Some month or two ago I played povdmm4 vs time!, he had 60ms, me 25ms. Both had ~40%lg and it felt totally crap, antilag being enabled explains the laggy and jerky feeling on the server.)

No matter the outcome of this, I hope the feature is implemented on most servers as an OPTION the players can turn on if wanted (Like that wouldn't happen anyway :-)). As long as a player doesn't benefit from it compared to a 12ms, I can only see positive things about this feature if all issues with it are fixed. I also probably see much more positives than negatives with this even if all issues aren't fixed.

When the feature is up and running, with or without issues / bugs, it should then be the tourney admins decision if they want this feature to be allowed or not. Just a really damn shame none of the tourney admins of the big tournaments going on now (eql 11 & ownage 3) knew anything about this before the season started so they could actually have included it in the rules for these seasons.

I like the idea behind antilag. But as many people say, its not as good in reality as it is in theory. Atleast not at the moment. Maybe when all the issues have been hammered out.

I have been inactive for a long time and just started playing again at the start of this years EQL. First thing i noticed was that everyone has crazy LG aim, never since 1998 have i seen such big LG aim improvements over such a short period. Second thing i noticed was that i got killed behind a wall. I dismissed it as lag or something else. After reading this thread, i now have explanations.

Keep working on antilag. But please give us the ability to disable it on the servers. I for one, dont want to beta-test this feature and i think forcing us all to beta-test it is the wrong way to go about it.

We did some testing on new patched server with maga. Still we both get better lg when using higher ping.... so there must be some ping related bug.

All those comments are about the client side antilag, it has nothing to do with the current feature. Keep in mind that Spike made the server side antilag, as a proof of concept of some of the things discussed in the comments of that news item.

I made a blog post that tries to explain the antilag feature. I will update it with more information when I have time.

Diki: maybe if you are both testing high & low ping, then the difference is actually because enemy doesn't dodge as well if they are on a high ping? To properly test, one player should keep same ping whilst the other alternates.

I can imagine antilag-LG will be better on high ping because enemy won't dodge as well (their reflex is to change direction when they see the shaft in a straightish line towards them, but as this doesn't happen (right?) then the reflex doesn't kick in and so they continue to be shafted for a few more ms).

Think it was bad sportsmanship in the last few months to play & not mention antilag if you knew it was on and you knew opponent wasn't aware of it... but bad sportsmanship isn't the end of the world. Shaft has been feeling kinda crisper in the last few weeks so I don't mind whether antilag gets enabled or disabled by default on all servers - so long as it's the same on ALL servers. Whilst whoever is at it, teamoverlay should be disabled by default too, such a pain to turn it off every time.

Loving the drama.

i have a cold and really didnt have the energy to read everything properly but did i understand correctly that if a player gets shot at with lg from a high ping player he will physically get moved around ? so it gets jerky for the low pinger. Is this noticeable in-game ?

one problem i see though is that in high ping matches the LG will be extremly over-powered. Im thinking mostly of duels.. where LG is already the better weapon in many cases. With anti-lag it will get even more upperhand over the RL. If ppl have 13 ms LG on 50-60 ms you won't have much chance with RL.

I'm not sure I totally understand what you mean, but the actual players are not moved in any way at all. The only thing that changes is where the high pinging player needs to aim to register a hit.

Yes, this is possible.

What I would like to point out though, is that for example a 52 ms vs. 52 ms duel with antilag will surely be much much closer to a 13 ms vs. 13 ms duel gameplay wise than it would be without antilag.

Worth some testing of course.

If opponent already moved to cover in server reality (at the very movent you press +lg) than you will not damage him neither with nor without antilag, so this case is not interesting.
(BTW it think pov with ping ~50 and no antilag is more fun than with 13 ms)

I totally agree.

Worth noting that most of the points made in that post have been either fixed or lessened by the new patch.

Projectiles are no longer antilagged so no more magic nails or other bullshit.
Shafting is no longer easier than it was before antilag. No matter what ping it's never to shaft with antilag than it is with 13 ms without antilag. I would presume that shafting with high pings is now about as easy it is without antilag on 26 ms ping.
The effectiveness of antilag has been reduced a lot. With any ping 26 ms or higher it's now 20 ms "less strong". This means that the amount of side effects that previously happened at 26 ms pings now happen only at 46 ms pings and so on.

But are the servers updated?

These are: wargamez.dk, qw.intarweb.dk, troopers.fi, quakeworld.fi

I don't know about pangela.se and qw.playground.ru, I would assume that they haven't been updated.

I would really urge people to test again now. The old version had a lot of issues that have been fixed.

Sounds good Medar. Looks like I can keep owning at wg with jumpy 35ms.

Medar, what i cannot understand is if you knew antilag had all these issues and so did Renzo, why wasnt this patch applied 5 months ago ?

Instead, they let a buggy feature be placed "secretly" in servers.

Because like most people I wasn't aware of antilag 5 months. When I did found about it I started to investigate and fix the issues I found, now you can see the results.

Also I'm not in charge of what code gets committed to the MVDSV project or used in any of the servers.

So who is/are the person/persons responsible of that? Renzo + Qqshaka ?

responsible for what? Also, its wrong thread for such question, put all your whine/blame/love in other thread.

I tell you, what antilag is: antilag devides reality on server to schizophrenia-reality, so each player hits own reality, and see enemy model move with schizophrenia-physics.

Easy to feel it, when players fighting shaft vs shaft, because shaft drops back, and you know how it feels...
but with antilag i just cant handle - did i hit or did i miss at all.
Or its almost impossible to hit, when you all time dropping back by enemy shaft,
but with antilag its become possible, and thats is cheat is, compared to real qw.

Please, dont destroy quakeworld-physics, stop that madness.

#53 Renzo | 30 Apr 2010 @ 16:36 | 88.112.145.26
time!, physics are not affected in any way. All the hits are treated equally when it comes to physics. What you will probably feel, is some sort of "time lag" when you have been hit.

--

Isn't this exactly the kind of negative side affects we do NOT want? And that CANNOT be removed in antilag? As we talked about before, you can NEVER remove lag... all youa re doing is moving the lag from the shooter to to the other player.
Maybe simulating 13ms for ALL ping players is just too drastic and still have too high impact on physics. What about trying what I suggested earlier with ~50% off.

If you have 39 ping it simulate 25, if you have 52 it also simulate 25.. if you have 65-78 it simulates 38.

And then make some fakeshaft 2 variable that actually shows a REAL shaft, lagging with the appropiate ping. so it actually LOOKS like a 25ms shaft or 38ms shaft, so we aren't forced to use fakeshaft 1 and point in middle of player model.

We are not trying to make everyone into aimbots, there should still be skill involved in using shaft and adapting.

Also let me ask you about this.

If 60ms vs 13ms player get into shaft fight, they both use 13ms shaft right? that sounds fair!... Except, what happens now when the lag is moved from high ping players shaft, to low ping players movement? For 60ms player he can just aim directly at opponent and he knows he will hit, and when he sees enemys shaft etc it's the real deal.

But for the low ping player he sees the enemy's beam just flying around and not hitting him, but he still loses alot of health FAST. He doesn't know where to move, which directions and how to dodge proper. It's oldest trick in the boxing book "waving with left hand, hitting with the invicible right hand".

Using the word movement here is very wrong. It's transfered from how the shooter sees the shot to how the other players see the shot.


With 60 ms player vs. 13 ms that's really not an accurate description of what's happening. The shaft been is in a different position, but not with such a huge margin.


You are conveniently forgetting couple of key facts here. The 60ms player has... well 60ms ping. So when he finally sees your "real deal" shaft it's not the real deal for him any more than his shaft is real deal to you. Secondly, when he starts to react to that shaft beam that he sees, he still has that 60 ms ping and his reactions will be delayed.

To put it simply: In 13ms vs. 60ms shaft on shaft fight the 13ms player holds the advantage when it comes to dodging the enemy shaft.