Hit Registration problem - Video proof

It's Super Effective!

<div class="IPBDescription">Video recording of the hit registration problem</div>Hello NS2 community, I've noticed the forums have a couple of topics regarding hit detection in this game, it doesn't happen all the time, but I've experienced it twice so far, fortunately I was recording some footage and I would like to present it here.

Here's the YouTube link:

<a href="http://youtu.be/M4XFtt0yyxc" target="_blank">http://youtu.be/M4XFtt0yyxc</a>

Here are some other links related to this topic:

<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=124526&hl=" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...=124526&hl=</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=124752&hl=" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...=124752&hl=</a>

It would be beniticial to the integrity of the game if the community could support behind this,
Cheers

Daworm

oh god yes! I'm sick of dying around a corner due to rego. I thought it was just laggy servers but glad to know it's systemic and not just me. No-one seems to realise it, or accept it as a given ingame...

NSDigi

<!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro-->Your video shows a couple different issues, one being what you're explaining, hit reg. The other is the representation of the enemy models and how they have a teleporting trajectory to them.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

Daworm

Watching the videos I see what you mean. There are times I take more shots then normal, those times I tend to end up dying around a corner. When I'm definately not in line of sight.

Ellen Ripley

I've noticed times when I can't seem to hit a skulk even though I'm certain I was on target, and many times as a skulk that I've appeared to take no damage or hits but seemingly "stored" up damage until a breaking point when it's all applied at once and I die for no apparent reason, or to a single bullet. It's annoying.

Xarius

Hit reg is definitely still a problem in some instances. Though some issues like 'dying behind corners' has nothing to do with hit reg.

RaZDaZ

I've noticed this as skulk, sometimes I never seem to get hit but others I get hit over the course of half a second and I'm dead immediately with marines on 0 upgrades, despite moving around and jumping a lot. Lerks it happens, I'm finding more and more that I take almost no damage but out of nowhere I get insta-gibbed in half a second even with carapace.

wulf

Dying around corner like stated above isn't a reg issue. All games you play on the internet will have this to a certain extent and it seems exacerbated in ns2 because of fast moving alien characters.

Unless you're playing lan, what you see on your screen the moment you die is something the other client sent the server, then the server sent to you, with a delay depending on your connection/distance from server etc

One thing I cannot stand in NS2 is the input delay.. Seems like my mouse responds in game a fraction of a second later. Also shotgun fires like a minute after you click.


Oh yeah and regardless of this I have noticed the reg issue also.

ScardyBob

Mostly just looks like a server performance issue. It does show your hits registering, but late, such that you expend much more ammo than necessary. Typing r_stats and net_stats into console would have been helpful to see what was going on.

Davil

Right well, as far as hit reg goes, no it's fine. I counted 9 hits on the skulk in the first instance and 14 (probably had carapace) the second time, which is about right. So the hits count. The other problem is that your frame rate is pretty low it looks like. I'd recommend turning down some settings maybe turning on texture streaming so that things are less jumpy. But yea we all have known for quite some time that the server rate is pretty messed up. It's set too high so updates are delayed, and it's my understanding that it was set that way to compensate for the large amount of lag people used to have. Now that optimization is much better it could probably stand to be lowered.

xDragon

If your saying that video isnt good evidence... He had damage numbers on which are server side... you saw about 10 damage show up for all those shots... The other guy was shooting and must have been the one connecting the shots.

If you cant see the problem there then your blind, hit detection has been really off since 224/225

NeoRussia

It takes 10 shots I think? to kill a vanilla skulk with w0 rifle.

@3:23 - 2 shots into cyst, 10 I think into the skulk but it's hard to say because client-side skulks take like 2-3 seconds to die so you always waste a lot of ammo on dead skulks

@3:38 - 7 shots into skulk, melee, 1 shot into skulk

That was some pretty lucky registry, I usually get 0 damage from 5-10 shots in a magazine, although some servers are crappier like the first part of your video and it takes half a magazine to kill a skulk running at you in a straight line. I think it's because of my framerate, yours seems to be remarkable compared to my 30fps late game.

Metro

This is somewhat bothersome and I am glad someone caught it on video for a change.

What bothers me even more than not being able to kill Skuls as marine is when you play as a Skulk or Lerk and you instantly die to 1 or 2 LMG shots even with Carapace. Just instant death for no apparant reason - It's like the hits do not register on the client-end until you're dead sometimes. And other times it will cause you to be almost invulnerable to marine fire while you jump around in a group of marines.

They both seem like hitreg issues to me, but far be it for me to suggest any way to fix it. I know nothing of netcode programming.

zzzfingernailzzz

Yeah on that voogru server the hit reg is total ass. I put an entire clip of w3 rifle into an afk skulk! Didn't miss one bullet and it didn't die. What ever the problem is in general the game engine seems lackluster. UWE ever consider porting the game code over to a more stable engine?

Swiftspear

I think this is pretty clear evidence of hitreg issues. On the first server, by my count you sunk 11 bullets into tek, and another player was firing on him as well (I couldn't count the other player's shots as easily). Additionally, it seemed like the damage counter was MUCH more finicky in displaying figures on the first server than on the second. After the whole sequence shooting at Tek the highest you saw the damage counter climb was 10. It's almost like the game just decided your bullets don't get to do damage today.

I could only guess what the bug in question was, but this is clearly a real thing. I've had the same feeling off and on myself for sure. There's games I feel really accurate, but I can't seem to kill anything, and other games I feel a mess and just lay skulks out.

HeatSurge

Thanks for posting that video. I've played on Voogru in particular, and had similar if not the same problems as in Part 1 of the video. I just thought I was missing shots and just having a bad day in general... but maybe not. The interesting thing is Voogru has a great tickrate, and a great ping to me, so I don't think that was the issue at all - I'm not trying to discredit their servers in the least.

This video has got me thinking though; I'll be switching servers when this comes up I suppose?

Might be something worth looking into, Max... but yeah, if someone records please have r_stats and net_stats on - it'd help a lot.

Swiftspear

<!--quoteo(post=2028431:date=Nov 19 2012, 12:26 AM:name=zzzfingernailzzz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (zzzfingernailzzz @ Nov 19 2012, 12:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2028431"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah on that voogru server the hit reg is total ass. I put an entire clip of w3 rifle into an afk skulk! Didn't miss one bullet and it didn't die. What ever the problem is in general the game engine seems lackluster. UWE ever consider porting the game code over to a more stable engine?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is kind of like deciding to carry everything in your house across town on foot because you don't like the rain where you live. A: it's an unbelievably unrealistic amount of effort, and B: every town has rain.

zzzfingernailzzz

<!--quoteo(post=2028435:date=Nov 18 2012, 10:29 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Swiftspear @ Nov 18 2012, 10:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2028435"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is kind of like deciding to carry everything in your house across town on foot because you don't like the rain where you live. A: it's an unbelievably unrealistic amount of effort, and B: every town has rain.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

thats a terrible analogy.. and ###### man cod has better reg then ns2 and that game is on listen servers lol.

Fappuchino

<!--quoteo(post=2028437:date=Nov 18 2012, 09:31 PM:name=zzzfingernailzzz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (zzzfingernailzzz @ Nov 18 2012, 09:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2028437"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->thats a terrible analogy.. and ###### man cod has better reg then ns2 and that game is on listen servers lol.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, Call of Duty is the game you want to compare this to. That over-funded and underwhelming game engine, has to be compared to this one.

Imbalanxd

I couldn't see any problems, or at least for the first 60% of the video. One thing that did seem weird was how long it took the damage markers to show up (or sometimes not showing up at all). The first two skulks simply had early carapace, but still died in the correct number of bullets. The rest all seemed perfectly normal.

NeoRussia

That's because the CoD engine is derivative of the quake engine which is the <b>best engine to ever have been made</b>. You can even circle-jump in CoD 4. That's amazing.

Swiftspear

<!--quoteo(post=2028449:date=Nov 19 2012, 12:44 AM:name=NeoRussia)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NeoRussia @ Nov 19 2012, 12:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2028449"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's because the CoD engine is derivative of the quake engine which is the <b>best engine to ever have been made</b>. You can even circle-jump in CoD 4. That's amazing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I believe NS2 is as well. I remember Corey stating that he took a huge amount of net code inspiration from the way things were done in quake 3. It's just unrealistic to completely and fully accurately recreate what a small crew of some of the best engineers to ever be assembled at a gaming company were able to produce over 3 generations of technology, as one guy working for a few years after graduation.

HeatSurge

<!--quoteo(post=2028448:date=Nov 18 2012, 09:42 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Nov 18 2012, 09:42 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2028448"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I couldn't see any problems, or at least for the first 60% of the video. One thing that did seem weird was how long it took the damage markers to show up (or sometimes not showing up at all). The first two skulks simply had early carapace, but still died in the correct number of bullets. The rest all seemed perfectly normal.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

You're joking right? I mean, yes they do die in the correct number of bullets, but that's not the issue here. The issue is he was shooting at them running in a straight line and following them almost spot-on and out of 50 shots fired, like 3-4 registered.

The difference between the 2 servers on the video, as far as hitreg, is like night and day. And my hunch is it's not necessarily due to ping or tickrate. Voogru show excellent ping and tickrate, usually... It might've been good to have net_stats on regardless...

And speaking of COD, that engine is a fork of the Quake engine which had been refined for nearly 10 years at the time, and COD itself has been refined for nearly another 10 on top of that. And no, I don't think COD is perfect either. All games' lag compensation means you will die when you think you've made it safe around a corner on your screen.

However, comparing COD to an engine which was basically completely changed and large parts rewritten 3 weeks ago (which is NS2's) is pretty funny to say the least. They're trying, and it'll come around, eventually.

Speaking of Quake, the HL1 (goldsrc) engine which NS1 is built on is a fork of quake as well :-P .

Davil

<!--quoteo(post=2028463:date=Nov 18 2012, 09:56 PM:name=HeatSurge)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (HeatSurge @ Nov 18 2012, 09:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2028463"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You're joking right? I mean, yes they do die in the correct number of bullets, but that's not the issue here. The issue is he was shooting at them running in a straight line and following them almost spot-on and out of 50 shots fired, like 3-4 registered.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Umm watching it again, no he missed A LOT. And I never put too much stock into damage numbers as they're often wrong, that's not really anything new. Watching where he was aiming and actually counting the hits, no he missed a lot and the 9 shots that did connect killed the skulk, albeit his death was slightly delayed. Even with 2 people shooting in the second one, they both missed A TON.

HeatSurge

IDK man, that 0:38 skulk. He misses a few shots but lands at least 7-8 shots, especially when the skulk is on the left side and turning. Out of ALL those shots, a measly "10" pops out. There's something wrong there...

Fappuchino

To OP, there was something wrong in this video, but it's in no way a good video for objectively observing how wrong it was. I had a hard time telling whether the majority of the shots were on target 100% of the time. You might as well slow down any footage of NS2 out there.

This needs to be done on a filled server with a friend in repeat scenarios.

xDragon

Damage numbers are server side, if they are wrong then that in itself is proof of hitreg issues.

Imbalanxd

<!--quoteo(post=2028463:date=Nov 19 2012, 06:56 AM:name=HeatSurge)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (HeatSurge @ Nov 19 2012, 06:56 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2028463"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You're joking right? I mean, yes they do die in the correct number of bullets, but that's not the issue here. The issue is he was shooting at them running in a straight line and following them almost spot-on and out of 50 shots fired, like 3-4 registered.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

It was a hit marker issue, not hit registration issue. The damage was going through on the server side, but for some reason the numbers weren't appearing client side. If you watch the first two skulks, the guys nearby friend hit maybe 2 or 3 bullets? Yet the hit markers state a maximum of like 30 damage done by the recorder. That's quite a bit short of killing a skulk I'm afraid.

Skulk dying in the correct number of shots > not a hit reg issue.

NSDigi

<!--quoteo(post=2028449:date=Nov 18 2012, 10:44 PM:name=NeoRussia)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NeoRussia @ Nov 18 2012, 10:44 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2028449"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's because the CoD engine is derivative of the quake engine which is the <b>best engine to ever have been made</b>. You can even circle-jump in CoD 4. That's amazing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro-->Circle strafing in a game is hardly amazing ...

Although the Quake engine has introduced and redefined the FPS and gaming industry, there will always be the two that are referred to as the top engines of them all.

Quake
Unreal

...

The main point to all this hit reg talk comes down to lag compensation and it's failure to display the model in the correct position.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->

zzzfingernailzzz

I just recorded some gameplay on a voogru server and omg I ran into a lot of weird stuff! One of the best bugs is near the end of the demo. Also i was able to shoot a lerk that was behind a prop near the end also. It seems the real problem is that everything seems off a bit. If i aim below the skulk model i reg. or some weird ######.

<a href="http://www.gamefront.com/files/22645177/asdf.rar" target="_blank">http://www.gamefront.com/files/22645177/asdf.rar</a>

anyways i hope a dev will watch the entire demo because i will

Omega_K2

Hitreg is pretty bad if you compare it to other games. This would be more balanced if hitreg was addressed.

Despite being bad, it's also inconsistent. Not sure whether it depends on the FPS, but playing on servers with stable tickrate mostly, it could be one of the culprits. Other then that I don't know, it is just is random at the very least.

It's pretty simple how it should be: You shoot at what you see, and you hit, if you are on target. This is how it ideally works, not some unituitive "the guy is really somewhere else because the server thinks so, so I have to aim at the air infront or behind the player beacuse the game fails to put the model in the proper place", but hell, even then in games without lag compensation it's not too hard to get used to it, but in NS2 it feels more dependant on luck then anything else to get your bullets (or bites for that matter) where they are supposed to hit.