17 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

Question 1: If I have a ping of 250, where exactly should I aim a laser in order to hit an enemy Mech? Should I:

1) Aim directly at the enemy Mech and keep my curson on it for the duration of the beam, because Host State Rewind will take care of the differences between our pings and ensure my shot lands where I am aiming it?

2) Lead the target by 250 milliseconds? That is, aim where I believe the enemy Mech will be 250 milliseconds into the future? (If so, what is Host State Rewind actually doing?)

3) Lead the target by some other amount? (If so, how much, and why?)


Question 2: How do I know for certain that my shot has landed and damage has been recorded? Is it:

1) When I see my reticle flash?

2) When I see my laser hitting the enemy for its full duration?

3) Something else?



I ask these questions because I have closely observed some match replays over the past month, and I can't see a repeatable pattern of when my shots reliably land and record damage. I have seen myself shoot stationary targets with ballistics, seen the shot appear to land dead on the target, but not seen a reticle flash. Leading even slow-moving and easy-to-hit targets by 250 ms doesn't seem to be the secret, either.

I also saw my damage scores go up consistently by 30% for a week when I had access to a server with only 90ms ping.

So, any advice you can give me on how to aim under HSR with a ping of 250 would be appreciated.

Edited by Appogee, 29 May 2016 - 01:39 AM.

[Navid A1]

its inconsistent.

you just have to shoot directly at the target and pray to mech cheesus!

[El Bandito]

Judging from the way my AC5 and lasers behave, shooting directly at the mech with slight bias towards the direction it is traveling works the best. Hits only get recorded if your cursor flashes. Even then it is not 100% reliable.

Edited by El Bandito, 29 May 2016 - 05:36 AM.

[Tarogato]

According to a test I performed, if your target is a Jenner going full speed with max engine, you have to lead it by a distance roughly equivalent to the width of a Locust's tiny little arm pod. This is with a 300ms ping disparity between the two players. It's basically negligible, it doesn't even matter. Just shoot at what's on your screen, it will almost always register exactly where you put it*.


*sometimes disconnected mechs, and mechs that are powering up or shutting down, or jumpjetting... will have slightly misaligned hitboxes. There's nothing you can do about this.

[Bud Crue]

As someone who doesn't understand pings and Host State Rewinds, and such...and this may not be related to the issues mentioned above...but why is it when I am observing other players (after I die) I often notice that they are getting reticle flash when their weapons are no where near the target. Using Tarogato's phrasing above: They are clearly getting hit registration even though their laser fire is a good locust's arm, or even locust's body away from the target. I see this a lot. It always makes me wonder if I should try shooting in front or behind my targets as well, or is this just some odd effect of observing?

[Fox With A Shotgun]

Under HSR:

1. Hitscan weapons (Machineguns, lasers, flamers) - aim directly at target opponent, as it appears on your screen. Provided that your internet connection is stable and has little to no jitter, you will get the hit. Do not mistake a partial burn for a full burn; this is partially the reason why people think HSR hitreg is poor, when it really works and you just happen to hit holes in the hitbox.

Tarogato probably has that video from ages ago which shows an apparent hit actually sliding in the armpits of an ACH. It looks like a full burn, but is actually a miss.

2. Projectile weapons (everything else) - aim at where the mech would be according to the server when the projectile should hit. This means that you have to add your latency when compensating for travel time. Most noticeable with ERPPCs under 100m.

TL;DR: Hitscan weapons according to you, projectiles according to server.

As for people looking at other people's play during the game through spectator mode; you are viewing them AS THE SERVER SEES THEM. This does NOT include the HSR adjustment; compensate all targets' locations by the player's ping, and you have what the player is seeing.

HSR, as far as I can tell, works from the average ping detected by the server from some indeterminate sliding window of time, and compensates the player's aim for hitscan weapons by that much. Projectiles' collisions appear to be detected serverside.

The lesser the variance in your pings during the game, the better. I have 240-260ms ping most days, with 310-320ms on weekends; but it varies by as little as +-2ms in-game once it stabilises. I've never observed HSR borking out. At a friend's house, whose internet varies randomly between 230-350ms, lasers were a bit...odd.

Edited by Fox With A Shotgun, 29 May 2016 - 04:41 AM.

[Hit the Deck]

Bud Crue, on 29 May 2016 - 04:26 AM, said:

As someone who doesn't understand pings and Host State Rewinds, and such...and this may not be related to the issues mentioned above...but why is it when I am observing other players (after I die) I often notice that they are getting reticle flash when their weapons are no where near the target. Using Tarogato's phrasing above: They are clearly getting hit registration even though their laser fire is a good locust's arm, or even locust's body away from the target. I see this a lot. It always makes me wonder if I should try shooting in front or behind my targets as well, or is this just some odd effect of observing?

I often noticed this too. It could be because of HSR, you and the others see the target in different locations depending on your (you, the one you observed, and perhaps the target's) ping.

[Kekkone]

Bud Crue, on 29 May 2016 - 04:26 AM, said:

As someone who doesn't understand pings and Host State Rewinds, and such...and this may not be related to the issues mentioned above...but why is it when I am observing other players (after I die) I often notice that they are getting reticle flash when their weapons are no where near the target. Using Tarogato's phrasing above: They are clearly getting hit registration even though their laser fire is a good locust's arm, or even locust's body away from the target. I see this a lot. It always makes me wonder if I should try shooting in front or behind my targets as well, or is this just some odd effect of observing?

You are seeing what the server is seeing. You are seeing where the shot would have gone without HSR (host state rewind) in effect.

Fox With A Shotgun, on 29 May 2016 - 04:36 AM, said:

2. Projectile weapons (everything else) - aim at where the mech would be according to the server when the projectile should hit. This means that you have to add your latency when compensating for travel time. Most noticeable with ERPPCs under 100m.

Are you absolutely sure of this? Aren't projectiles under HSR nowadays too?

I just fire at the target as if i had 0 ping. Works well enough most of the time (with ping max 150 NA servers).

Edited by Kekkone, 29 May 2016 - 04:43 AM.

[Appogee]

Fox With A Shotgun, on 29 May 2016 - 04:36 AM, said:

As for people looking at other people's play during the game through spectator mode; you are viewing them AS THE SERVER SEES THEM. This does NOT include the HSR adjustment; compensate all targets' locations by the player's ping, and you have what the player is seeing.

This. I call it 'spectator lag'.

I remember a fiercesome tirade I copped from one of the guys in EVIL who was spectating me about six months ago, shouting over VOIP that we would lose because I couldn't aim.

In fact I was hitting just fine and got four kills. It just looked to him like I was missing and no amount of explanation could convince him otherwise. (To their credit, EVIL punted him from their unit for being a serial ******.)

[Fox With A Shotgun]

Kekkone, on 29 May 2016 - 04:41 AM, said:

Are you absolutely sure of this? Aren't projectiles under HSR nowadays too?

I just fire at the target as if i had 0 ping. Works well enough most of the time (with ping max 150 NA servers).

With 150ms ping, you probably wouldn't see too much of a difference with most weapons aside from really point blank ERPPCs. I do, however, notice a definite delay between when my ERPPCs spew out a bolt - and where it appears afterwards. This is why I believe it isn't actually covered in HSR.

[Bud Crue]

Above posters addressing my question:

Thanks! Learn something new everyday. I am not good enough at the game to try and shoot "250 ms" ahead of my target or anything like that so I guess all of this is academic, none the less it is good to know how this sort of thing works. Thanks again.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

Bud Crue, on 29 May 2016 - 04:48 AM, said:

Above posters addressing my question:

Thanks! Learn something new everyday. I am not good enough at the game to try and shoot "250 ms" ahead of my target or anything like that so I guess all of this is academic, none the less it is good to know how this sort of thing works. Thanks again.

It makes a huge difference when trying to snipe Spiders at 900m with ER peeps or gauss xD. But with practice, you eventually just learn how much to compensate your shots by. Which is why I got pretty mad when the routing table got changed by my ISP and my ping went wild for a couple of days.

But yeah. Learn the amount of compensation required, and it'll pay dividends in making those "impossible" shots with projectiles. Nothing is more glorious than tearing apart a flanking ACH on Polar LRMlands with dual ERPPCs or dual gauss. Or tearing a spider a new one using dual ppcs and gauss on a DWF.

[Chrithu]

My question is: On what Server are you playing and where do you live to still get pings above 200ms???

EU, NA and Oceanic servers should pretty much cover all but south america and Afrika with playable pings below 200ms.

Playing from Germany I always had a ping of 120ish ms on the NA Servers and on the EU Servers I nowadays get 25ms.

And as far as I can tell as someone who's in shift work we have enough players active at all times to get matches in the quickplay queue. So there shouldn't be a reason to not select exclusively your optimal server.

Edited by Jason Parker, 29 May 2016 - 05:19 AM.

[M T]

First of all your ping is shown by the game in intervals, so the possibility of it fluctuating exists.

Packet loss is detrimental for accurate hitreg, whether its your internet connection or just to the servers, a few percent packet loss can screw you up greatly.

As for the amount of leading your target depends both on the mech's speed you are firing at, and your ping combined. This is ofcourse assuming HSR doesnt work (which i believe)

Perhaps HSR is enabled/disabled on demand based on ping? My EU ping and US ping are 25 / 100ms~ respectively and I hit stuff much better when I lead my target slightly.

Perhaps an indication of you hittjng the mech is sparks? No clue how it works with such a high ping. Or HSR. Do you see sparks when shooting void space trying to lead target? :x

Edited by M T, 29 May 2016 - 05:33 AM.

[Appogee]

Jason Parker, on 29 May 2016 - 05:18 AM, said:

My question is: On what Server are you playing and where do you live to still get pings above 200ms???

EU, NA and Oceanic servers should pretty much cover all but south america and Afrika with playable pings below 200ms.

Playing from Germany I always had a ping of 120ish ms on the NA Servers and on the EU Servers I nowadays get 25ms.

And as far as I can tell as someone who's in shift work we have enough players active at all times to get matches in the quickplay queue. So there shouldn't be a reason to not select exclusively your optimal server.

Middle East. 250 to 270 ping to NA (ie all Faction Play), 270-300 ping to Oceanic and 180-200 ping to EU.

So my optimal server for Quick Play is EU, and as I prefer FP, there is no optimal server option available.

Incidentally, my ping to all servers has been progressively degrading since the server split a year ago. They're all now roughly 50% worse than they were.

I've advised PGI repeatedly (it's not a local ISP issue as my ping to other online games hasn't changed) but of course no response, let alone action.

Edited by Appogee, 29 May 2016 - 05:33 AM.

[Chrithu]

I see. Was just curious.

Anyhow I think Fox has it right as far as I remember any explanation of how HSR works that was delivered by the devs and the time before EU Servers.

You aim directly on target with anything hitscan (HSR compensates) and you lead with projectiles.

And as somebody else said: Don't blame all misses on hitreg, especially when it is on far away and small targets. You could be actually hitting a gap that you aren't seeing simply because of the distance.

Edited by Jason Parker, 29 May 2016 - 05:40 AM.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

Jason Parker, on 29 May 2016 - 05:18 AM, said:

My question is: On what Server are you playing and where do you live to still get pings above 200ms???

EU, NA and Oceanic servers should pretty much cover all but south america and Afrika with playable pings below 200ms.

Playing from Germany I always had a ping of 120ish ms on the NA Servers and on the EU Servers I nowadays get 25ms.

And as far as I can tell as someone who's in shift work we have enough players active at all times to get matches in the quickplay queue. So there shouldn't be a reason to not select exclusively your optimal server.

Australia has stone-age internet links to the rest of the world. Routing tables from different ISPs compound this problem. On a great day, I can get 220ms to the main NA servers. Tell me to connect to OCE and I'll laugh; it routes me through NA, and then back through Japan before coming down to Singapore, for a cool 370-400 ping. EU also routes through NA, so this gives me about the same.

[Chrithu]

Fox With A Shotgun, on 29 May 2016 - 06:09 AM, said:

Australia has stone-age internet links to the rest of the world. Routing tables from different ISPs compound this problem. On a great day, I can get 220ms to the main NA servers. Tell me to connect to OCE and I'll laugh; it routes me through NA, and then back through Japan before coming down to Singapore, for a cool 370-400 ping. EU also routes through NA, so this gives me about the same.

Good Lord. Ok I'll shut up, sitting here in my ivory tower.

Edited by Jason Parker, 29 May 2016 - 06:14 AM.