Server load is not an actual issue in all likelihood... calculating the trajectory for the weapon and all, and determining the hit etc... is TRIVIAL calculations as far as the computer is concerned, be it our gaming rig or the server machine, plus the server does not actually need to run the client itself... ie: the server does not need to actually waste processing power for rendering and all.
The issue is in SYNCHRONIZING what the client sees and decides, with what the SERVER think is happening...
and this is where we run into problem with letting client decides things...
If for example the shot on a projectile is based purely on what the shooter client determine... then if he has say 100ms latency with the server, then the time it takes before another player with similar 100ms latency sees and acknowledge the damage is 200ms, with twice the latency disrepancy between the time when the deciding shot is taken (the shooter client) and the victim client. This is not too bad if both players latency are low, but CATASTROPHIC if not since the victim can end up seeing things grossly outdated to actual situation.
So the shooter sees no latency in his client when he fire his weapon, but the victim ends up seeing twice as much latency between the time when the shot was decided (shooter client) and when it's ACTUALLY registered on the victim's client.
And this goes both way, if someone with 500ms latency fired on you, even if you had 50ms latency the end result is that you will still sees 550ms disrepancy between the shot and when you see it happening to you.
If however the shot is decided based on SERVER decission then the shooter sees a 100ms latency between what he sees on his client and the ACTUAL damage occuring (since it's server based). While the victim ALSO SEES 100ms latency between the time in which the damage is decided (the server) and the victim's client rendering it. (assuming both players have 100ms latency to the server).
ie: in a server based decission, both the victim and the shooter sees only the respective amount of latency to the server between what they see and what is actually happening.
Plus with it server based, you are immune to other players latency effect for the most part, all that matters is how much YOUR latency is to the server.
So using server based decission for them is understandable, what's NOT ACCEPTABLE is how grossly out of sync their interpolation is which is supposed to reduce the latency effect on the desync between what is actually happening and what the players see on his client.
Edited by Melcyna, 01 November 2012 - 11:04 PM.