[Bug v235] Skulk 1-bite-kills marine
ebag-alpha
Join Date: 2013-01-09 Member: 178430Members
Join Date: 2013-01-09 Member: 178430Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Happens very rarely though</div>Hi,
Short version:
Event though rarely, it seams to happen that skulks (and maybe Fades too) can kill marines with only one bite.
Detailed version:
I have 180h in NS2 and consider myself an above average player (I know how all the upgrades/skills work, how much health/armor lifeforms/marines have as well as weapon damages.)
Yesterday it happened that I killed a marine with only one bite with my skulk. It happened in Hub on Tram. I know the marine was full health/armor because he was sitting with me in TS3 during the game. He instantly asked me what I had done to him as he died, because he was sure he had full h/a.
Also I'm sure there where no other aliens in the room, because I was checking the map as he entered the Hub, I ran up a wall, jumped down and on him and bit him once (and only once for sure) for 75 dmg, jumped into a corner and checked the map (because I still was not sure where I would like to go now).
The server was running smoothly all the time (hit-reg felt good, no delays, no lags).
(I also killed another marine about 30 sec before I 1-bite-killed my friend, also with one bite and in Hub, but I don't know if he did get damaged earlier.)
We tried to reproduce it, but only got the chance once (because pub players don't care if you tell them to not kill a marine on sight), I tried to bite him in the head, but it only did the normal 75 dmg. As long as there is no secret crit / backstab / head-bite dmg no-one knows about there must be a bug that makes this possible.
I asked around in the server, my friends and on a competitive stream about this problem, what I got was that 2 players where sure they got 1-swipe-killed by fades with full h/a. Also I sometimes hear friends in TS3 complaining about having just been 1-bite-killed by a skulk. And I'm pretty sure that I have at least been 3 times victim to this bug (there have been more occasions where it seamed odd to die with only noticing one bite, but where I can not be sure, because of there being multiple aliens in the room.).
Until now I just blamed dmg-hit-detection-lag for this, but after this happened to me and my friend, we think there is a bug skulking around.
I'm sure this must have happened to other players too, but may be hard to notice, because you just don't know how much h/a a marine has before you bite him.
Going to test-bite on some marines if I get the time to (for science!) and reply if I find more.
UPDATE 1 - 10.01.13:
We tried to reproduce it in Hub, but with no luck.
I went skulk and 2 of my friends built themselves an armory in Hub and I bit them about 80 times from different angles, while running/jumping/crouching, by jumping down on them from the ceiling (with and without leap). I did get myself the same upgrades I had while it happened (celerity and regeneration), but I doubt it is directly connected to something like that, else we would see this much more often.
My guess would be a bug on the server-side which tells the marine player he is dead (I doubt dying is a client-side decision) or a RAM failure (server-side).
AFAIK the amount of damage you see you did is decided by the server and he just tells you for how much you did really hit, and since he told me 75dmg (once), the hit-detection seams to have worked fine.
About the RAM failure possibility: I read an article about debugging in GW(1), where they got some really weired bug reports that really shouldn't happen. So one of their team had the idea to build a RAM test into the client, and if it fails it tells the user about it and bug-reports from machines with a failed RAM-test are ignored. This showed them that about 1% of the client-machines had RAM failures (and with a large enough player-base this adds up to a lot of problems if you try to solve their crashes the normal way).
I will try to find the post about it again if someone is interested.
UPDATE 2 - 10.01.13:
Another Bug I encountered yesterday on Docking was that we couldn't build a Crag hive for the entire game. It just wasn't in the list (no button), it may have been at the first hive, but our com wasn't that sure anymore. We stated in Departures (Shift) and 2nd Hive was in Generator, we even got Locker, but we couldn't build a Crag hive anywhere. I jumped into the com seat myself to double-check and make sure it wasn't a bug with the commander client. The game raged on for 75min (30min to take the last enemy position in Departures), we missed the Crag upgrades a lot >_< .
The only thing our com did before he wanted to make it crag hive was to research leap in the Generator hive.
Since this was the first time I have seen this and it seamed quite random, I think it could also be caused by a memory failure. It wasn't the same server though.
Short version:
Event though rarely, it seams to happen that skulks (and maybe Fades too) can kill marines with only one bite.
Detailed version:
I have 180h in NS2 and consider myself an above average player (I know how all the upgrades/skills work, how much health/armor lifeforms/marines have as well as weapon damages.)
Yesterday it happened that I killed a marine with only one bite with my skulk. It happened in Hub on Tram. I know the marine was full health/armor because he was sitting with me in TS3 during the game. He instantly asked me what I had done to him as he died, because he was sure he had full h/a.
Also I'm sure there where no other aliens in the room, because I was checking the map as he entered the Hub, I ran up a wall, jumped down and on him and bit him once (and only once for sure) for 75 dmg, jumped into a corner and checked the map (because I still was not sure where I would like to go now).
The server was running smoothly all the time (hit-reg felt good, no delays, no lags).
(I also killed another marine about 30 sec before I 1-bite-killed my friend, also with one bite and in Hub, but I don't know if he did get damaged earlier.)
We tried to reproduce it, but only got the chance once (because pub players don't care if you tell them to not kill a marine on sight), I tried to bite him in the head, but it only did the normal 75 dmg. As long as there is no secret crit / backstab / head-bite dmg no-one knows about there must be a bug that makes this possible.
I asked around in the server, my friends and on a competitive stream about this problem, what I got was that 2 players where sure they got 1-swipe-killed by fades with full h/a. Also I sometimes hear friends in TS3 complaining about having just been 1-bite-killed by a skulk. And I'm pretty sure that I have at least been 3 times victim to this bug (there have been more occasions where it seamed odd to die with only noticing one bite, but where I can not be sure, because of there being multiple aliens in the room.).
Until now I just blamed dmg-hit-detection-lag for this, but after this happened to me and my friend, we think there is a bug skulking around.
I'm sure this must have happened to other players too, but may be hard to notice, because you just don't know how much h/a a marine has before you bite him.
Going to test-bite on some marines if I get the time to (for science!) and reply if I find more.
UPDATE 1 - 10.01.13:
We tried to reproduce it in Hub, but with no luck.
I went skulk and 2 of my friends built themselves an armory in Hub and I bit them about 80 times from different angles, while running/jumping/crouching, by jumping down on them from the ceiling (with and without leap). I did get myself the same upgrades I had while it happened (celerity and regeneration), but I doubt it is directly connected to something like that, else we would see this much more often.
My guess would be a bug on the server-side which tells the marine player he is dead (I doubt dying is a client-side decision) or a RAM failure (server-side).
AFAIK the amount of damage you see you did is decided by the server and he just tells you for how much you did really hit, and since he told me 75dmg (once), the hit-detection seams to have worked fine.
About the RAM failure possibility: I read an article about debugging in GW(1), where they got some really weired bug reports that really shouldn't happen. So one of their team had the idea to build a RAM test into the client, and if it fails it tells the user about it and bug-reports from machines with a failed RAM-test are ignored. This showed them that about 1% of the client-machines had RAM failures (and with a large enough player-base this adds up to a lot of problems if you try to solve their crashes the normal way).
I will try to find the post about it again if someone is interested.
UPDATE 2 - 10.01.13:
Another Bug I encountered yesterday on Docking was that we couldn't build a Crag hive for the entire game. It just wasn't in the list (no button), it may have been at the first hive, but our com wasn't that sure anymore. We stated in Departures (Shift) and 2nd Hive was in Generator, we even got Locker, but we couldn't build a Crag hive anywhere. I jumped into the com seat myself to double-check and make sure it wasn't a bug with the commander client. The game raged on for 75min (30min to take the last enemy position in Departures), we missed the Crag upgrades a lot >_< .
The only thing our com did before he wanted to make it crag hive was to research leap in the Generator hive.
Since this was the first time I have seen this and it seamed quite random, I think it could also be caused by a memory failure. It wasn't the same server though.
Comments
I've also only experienced it rarely on the damage-receiving side.
If it seems like you're dying in one shot, usually it's the effect of someone lagging to hell (300+ ping) and the game's overly-forgiving lag compensation.
Lag compensation also gives you the wonderful effect of dying around corners.
Think of what you're seeing on your screen as "in the future" from what actually happens on the server (to simplify the idea). In effect, you're "pulling your character on a string" and your character is actually behind you for the purposes of hit registration in-game - but only when you're receiving damage. If you're dealing damage, lag compensation is designed to give the illusion that there is no lag (so you don't have to lead your shots).
I've never seen this as any alien life form (or marine for that matter) but I've heard it reported plenty from marines.
I've also only experienced it rarely on the damage-receiving side.
If it seems like you're dying in one shot, usually it's the effect of someone lagging to hell (300+ ping) and the game's overly-forgiving lag compensation.
Lag compensation also gives you the wonderful effect of dying around corners.
Think of what you're seeing on your screen as "in the future" from what actually happens on the server (to simplify the idea). In effect, you're "pulling your character on a string" and your character is actually behind you for the purposes of hit registration in-game - but only when you're receiving damage. If you're dealing damage, lag compensation is designed to give the illusion that there is no lag (so you don't have to lead your shots).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know about the network lag and that my PC has to render a prediction of what is actually going on.
This doesn't change the fact that I only bit <u>once</u> (I am sure about that, and I for sure didn't bite him 3 times, there was no chance I would have gotten 3 bites out in the time I was close to him.) and he died.
The only other possibility would be that my friend was mistaken about his h/a status.
But I trust him, also I doubt he did get attacked before because he just re-spawned (I saw his death-massage) and went right for Hub, and my closest alien allies where in Server Room and Ore Processing (both belonged to the marines, so they were busy fighting with the marines there).