Antilag and you!

This comment was made by Reya1p in a reply to Madscientist whining about ETpro antilag. I will try to make this articles less of a technical rant and just give you what happens in reality rather then in theory. As you can see in Reya1p's comment, ET's antilag has one 'flaw': prediction errors.



Antiwho?
First of all, how does antilag work?

Quote

Antilag fixes aiming so you can aim at where people were in the past rather than aiming ahead of the player relative to your ping,

Instead of leading your aim, you just play the game and the server will calculate whether you would have hit if you ping had been 0. So when your packets arrive at the server 100ms later, it will just check if you would have hit if the packets had arrived 100ms earlier :P

Antilag and you
So what does this mean in reality. First we got some small minor 'bugs'. Sometimes you get shot behind walls. This is normal as the guy actually hit you before you were going around the corner, but if you add the 200ms lag the hits will only get trough 0.2 secs later, when you are already around the corner. He did however aim properly at you, if it werent for the 200ms lag. This is also the reason why running toward cover before you die is sometimes a good thing. You will usually keep on moving even after you were supposed to be dead and will die while under cover so you can get a rez.

Second, all weapons that aren't hitscan (=not nades, riflenade, panzer, mortar, read weapons that actually move) are NOT antilagged. SMG and luger might show you tracers but these are just an effect not the actual bullets, they hit instantaneous. This means that your ping will somehow affect how they shoot. I never noticed this, and tbh when playing high ping its still easy to hit rockets in quake. All hitscan weapons just become useless, as Quake doesn't use antilag.

Last and most important: Antilag causes prediction errors. As explained by reya1p prediction errors cause your aim to be off, no matter how accurate you are aiming. Even if you are aiming dead on target, you aint ;) Some might call this a bug, other a feature. It is however part of the game, a gameplay feature that gives a decisive advantage to the guy hitting first.

Prediction erros get worse if:
-your ping gets higher
-there's a height difference between you and your opponent
-if g_knockback gets bigger (default at 1000, ESL uses 800)
-if you are being hit more



Conclusion
So lets say i'm fighting a polish lagger who is standing higher or lower then me. If I am the guy hitting first, the polish guy will have a hard time hitting me, even if he is aiming right on target. So what could I do if i know this shit?

At close range, preshooting is a good answer. Although you tell your opponent exactly where you are, when executed properly preshooting can save your ass in a lot of 1v1.

At long range / fallofdamage range it is wise to get the first hit. If you are getting hit, it might be smarter to get out of your opponents track rather then firing back and hitting shit. Ofcourse this might not always be possible, but its nice to keep in mind.

The RTCW rule 'shoot at the defenseless guy first, then finish the guys shooting you' isn't really worths much in ET. Shooting at the defenceless guy wont work as while you are getting hit your aim is off. When you are getting fired upon, shooting down the helpless targets is not a good choice. Shooting back to give your opponent knockback is the only solution. If you continue to shoot the helpless guy your aim will be off all the time as you are getting hit hard.

Bibuy
This thread wasn't ment to bash Antilag. Do not suggest lowering g_knockback even more as its a very big part of the game and reducing it more would overpower medics. Plz feel free to correct me where I am wrong.

Reya1p vs Madscientist

Synching

Comming up next: Basics of teamplay or some experimental shit on prerender limit :P