14 replies to this topic

[PASHA]

Greetings PGI and Mechwarriors.

As a player that's experienced MWO gameplay in both Canada and (currently) Australia, I have noticed one particular feature that is an unnecessary (and I believe easily fixable) issue.

I speak of the zoom feature. Everything else seems very smooth such as weapons fire, movement, and jump jetting. However, the zooming is very frustrating and operates inconsistently. In engagements, waiting for the server to recognize that I've pushed the zoom means delays in targeting and becomes a disadvantage. Rarely does it activate upon hitting the designated key. It always takes at least two or more button mashes and is very frustrating for players with a +200 ping.

Is there a good reason why something mundane like zoom is specifically server-side? And is it possible to switch it to client-side to mitigate some of the disadvantages for +150 pingers?

Thanks for any clarity on this topic.

-Zellkai Furey

[Zack Esseth]

As a jump sniper I feel your pain. The need to have a wide view to locate targets then zoom in on one the moment you spot one wile in a limited time window makes a lag delay crippling. I don't understand why its not client side to begin with, save perhaps preventing people from hacking the zoom levels. Though my ping as of the last patch has come back down to where it was when beta was still going on, I do have peaks of 121 from my normal 81 when the wife is browsing the web and the boy is watching netflix. The best suggestion I can make is almost unreasonable, get a T3. Then try and charge your neighbors for internet to drive the price down on your end and just run a cable between your homes.

[PASHA]

Zack Esseth, on 02 May 2014 - 01:04 PM, said:

As a jump sniper I feel your pain. The need to have a wide view to locate targets then zoom in on one the moment you spot one wile in a limited time window makes a lag delay crippling. I don't understand why its not client side to begin with, save perhaps preventing people from hacking the zoom levels. Though my ping as of the last patch has come back down to where it was when beta was still going on, I do have peaks of 121 from my normal 81 when the wife is browsing the web and the boy is watching netflix. The best suggestion I can make is almost unreasonable, get a T3. Then try and charge your neighbors for internet to drive the price down on your end and just run a cable between your homes.

Yeah, it's not just jump sniping but general gameplay that's impacted. I assume it's an easy fix which is why I'm hoping PGI might be able to shed some light on the matter for us blessed with +150/200 ping.

[Durant Carlyle]

Everything that matters is server-authoritative in this game, for the exact reason Zack mentioned -- to prevent hacking and cheats. No, it's not likely to change.

[PASHA]

Durant Carlyle, on 02 May 2014 - 11:33 PM, said:

Everything that matters is server-authoritative in this game, for the exact reason Zack mentioned -- to prevent hacking and cheats. No, it's not likely to change.

Seriously? Who's going to hack zooms? And what can be done in that regard anyway? It's just ashame because players after a certain ping level are negatively compounded by things like this.

Nothing is more frustrating than being in a firefight and mashing the zoom keys to see what's shooting at you. It's a disadvantage made even worse in high Elo brackets because in those situations every second counts and can mean the difference between firing off a weapon and twisting away from damage or waiting for the server to recognize a command and getting a nice alpha in the face or open torso.

I really think the benefit and quality-of-play boost would far outweigh the chance for the zoom feature to be hacked (whatever that even means in this context).

[N E R E V A R]

PGI FIX.

[Redshift2k5]

Zellkai Furey, on 03 May 2014 - 02:17 AM, said:

Seriously? Who's going to hack zooms? And what can be done in that regard anyway? It's just ashame because players after a certain ping level are negatively compounded by things like this.

Nothing is more frustrating than being in a firefight and mashing the zoom keys to see what's shooting at you. It's a disadvantage made even worse in high Elo brackets because in those situations every second counts and can mean the difference between firing off a weapon and twisting away from damage or waiting for the server to recognize a command and getting a nice alpha in the face or open torso.

I really think the benefit and quality-of-play boost would far outweigh the chance for the zoom feature to be hacked (whatever that even means in this context).

A hacked client-side zoom would let people have any zoom level they desire, including zooming far beyond what is capable of within normal gameplay. How about 10x zoom, or even just allowing people to have 4x zoom without investing gxp/cp/slots to installing the advanced zoom module.

[PASHA]

Redshift2k5, on 03 May 2014 - 04:34 AM, said:

A hacked client-side zoom would let people have any zoom level they desire, including zooming far beyond what is capable of within normal gameplay. How about 10x zoom, or even just allowing people to have 4x zoom without investing gxp/cp/slots to installing the advanced zoom module.

Interesting. Is this for sure though or speculation? For instance engaging jump jets are client-side so couldn't someone technically hack the jump height abilities by that line of thought?

[Impyrium]

Frankly anything around 150-200 ping for me would be heaven. I don't understand why people complain about having >100, if I can do well at average 300 ping than you guys don't have any excuses.

Zoom's always been a pain for me, I can understand why having it client side is dangerous, but still, having it instant would increase my combat efficiency ten fold.

[PASHA]

AUSwarrior24, on 03 May 2014 - 05:49 AM, said:

Frankly anything around 150-200 ping for me would be heaven. I don't understand why people complain about having >100, if I can do well at average 300 ping than you guys don't have any excuses.

Zoom's always been a pain for me, I can understand why having it client side is dangerous, but still, having it instant would increase my combat efficiency ten fold.

That's the thing m8. I don't see how it's dangerous to shift it to client-side. I've heard people say that "oh you'd be a able to zoom in 10x or bypass the module etc." but to me this is just speculation. It's like saying weapon fire rates or jump jets can be hacked because they're client-side.

Unless PGI comes out and explicitly states "this is why it's the case," or there's a documented case where the zoom would be hacked, it just. Doesn't. Make. Sense.

Like I said before the zoom delay is so bad for +200 pingers especially when contrasted with European or North American . Please PGI, can something be done? anything?

If PGI can't establish Oceanic servers to equalize the quality of play to be on par with NA or EU , can some justice be done by tweaking this feature just a tad?

[xCico]

Good luck with that, PGI rarely listen community, especially wont listen 20-30 people in your case...

[Redshift2k5]

Zellkai Furey, on 03 May 2014 - 05:17 AM, said:

Interesting. Is this for sure though or speculation? For instance engaging jump jets are client-side so couldn't someone technically hack the jump height abilities by that line of thought?

You're presuming the jump jet height and burn time is not also server-authoritative. Even though you're jumping, your exact position is still being periodically monitored and adjusted server-side.

Cchanging the FOV is client side, and until they put in a limit in the CFG file you could put in very large or very small values in the FOV, effectively letting you have a very large zoom. Other client-side changes have, in the past, included no cockpit (allowing for increased view to the sides and top/bottom with no cockpit in the way), and even changes to client-side rendering for buildings allowing you to see through terrain, buildings, etc. Targetting is still server-side so you couldn't lock on through a building, but you could see through them. These are the kind of unforseen functions that happen with client side settings.

With a strict server-side zoom they don't need to worry about circumventing the zoom function or the limits they've set on it (such as module requirements)

[Livewyr]

Btw: Having 200+ pings come with a blessing as well. Myself, at 25ms ping normally *take* every single thing thrown at me, save SRMs as those are a straight-up game issue, so when I get hit with anything, I take the full damage of it.

(Getting hit with the standard PPC/AC meta takes off the full 30 points of my torso armor leaving me with dark-orange torso armor, where as I can hit a cataphract with PPC/Gauss in the side torso and it will have yellow or slightly orange armor...it grates on me to see people complain about high-ping.)

HSR has been a game changer, but it's still beneficial to have 200+ ping in the damage exchange.

[PASHA]

Livewyr, on 05 May 2014 - 11:42 AM, said:

Btw: Having 200+ pings come with a blessing as well. Myself, at 25ms ping normally *take* every single thing thrown at me, save SRMs as those are a straight-up game issue, so when I get hit with anything, I take the full damage of it.

(Getting hit with the standard PPC/AC meta takes off the full 30 points of my torso armor leaving me with dark-orange torso armor, where as I can hit a cataphract with PPC/Gauss in the side torso and it will have yellow or slightly orange armor...it grates on me to see people complain about high-ping.)

HSR has been a game changer, but it's still beneficial to have 200+ ping in the damage exchange.

I've played at both ends (24 ping in Ottawa, Canada) and now a 225 ping in Sydney, Australia. At 24 I remember serious hit registry issues while at 225 obviously has its downsides most notably sluggish game play (which admittedly is mitigated through HSR) but things like the zoom are just terrible and slow your response to in-match battles to a crawl relative to say a North American or Western European pilot.

[PASHA]

I stumbled upon this code:

gp_mech_view_zoom_transitiontime = 0.02

I'm not sure if it does anything or if it's downright incorrect. I've tried different variations and none seem to produce a noticeable difference.