UPDATE:
It turned out to be a huge bug, causing all sorts of hell to the game. (networking etc)
It isn't fixed for this patch, but this and the memory crashing issues are the two top issues for next patch.
You seem to have misinterpreted that quote of me and as a result you are incidentally, whether you mean to or not, spreading misinformation. :-/
The network aspect I referred to has ZERO relation to hit registry? IDK where you even get that from? It has to do with the known rubber banding.
Also, until a video is presented, we have no evidence of hit reg issues - just users perceiving it due to tight hit boxes.
Because of how interp works, the snapshot every other player sees of what you're doing is, as set by the engine, 250ms behind, combine that with an average ping of 50 per player and you get about a 1/3rd a second difference between what the lerk client is doing and where the marine client sees them. Because hitscan weapons are run through the interpolation system the marine doesn't have to hit where the lerk client is on their own screen, they just have to hit the lerk where it is on the marine client's screen. This is how people die around corners, or get killed by people not even looking the right direction to shoot them. Basically the marine has a full 1/3rd a second more time to react and shoot someone trying to dodge.
what are you trying to dodge? hitscan?
i was all but certain it was 100ms behind... either way, granted you can't sit still and move on reaction, but you can pre-move just as a marine can pre-fire.
The NS2 has its strong part, namely the innovative life forms, the asymmetry, the FPS/RTS combination, but that does not change the fact that the jumpy close combat is pretty terrible.
This is not fact. Many people like the mechanics. Please stop.
Wait, what? Are you saying that we have to treat the fact that the mechanics are good as fact because some people like them?
The NS2 has its strong part, namely the innovative life forms, the asymmetry, the FPS/RTS combination, but that does not change the fact that the jumpy close combat is pretty terrible.
This is not fact. Many people like the mechanics. Please stop.
Wait, what? Are you saying that we have to treat the fact that the mechanics are good as fact because some people like them?
The close combat mechanics in NS2 are bad. - Opinion not fact
I like the close combat mechanics in NS2 - Also Opinion, not fact
Therious' response was to assert that a statement that the mechanics were bad was a fact was in reality an opinion. He in no way implied that the mechanics are good, only that he likes them.
The fact would be that the mechanics and the "basics" of NS2 will ultimately take the direction UWE wish them to go. If they choose to listen to our opinions here great, if not too bad their game and maybe some people will regret investing in UWE and take their money elsewhere in future. I do not see much point in clouding discussion of game play mechanics with some of the pettiness being exhibited by many people who choose to take part in these discussion. As an avid fan of NS and NS2 I get tired of such things getting in the way of good, healthy debate. I can only imagine how UWE staffers who have to sift through these forums feel.
TL;DR - It just like... his opinion man.
Personally just looking forward to the performance tweaks here. Hope the focus stays there for a bit so everyone has a chance to play the current build for more than a few weeks before we start a new bonfire to burn the devs with.
Don't try to fight prolonged melee engagements as Lerk. There's a reason why it has spikes and poisonous bite. Fly by, land a bite, then retreat to longer range and harass with spikes while poison wears them down or circle around and attack from another angle. Rooms you can maneuver in but also have enough cover for you to exit marine line of sight and keep them guessing where you're going to attack from next are the best, like Falls in Biodome, Lava Falls in Refinery, Central Drilling or The Gap in Mineshaft, etc. The Shift key for Lerks allows them to stick to walls and ceilings, which you can also use to quickly change direction if needed since it eliminates all your current momentum. Always be mixing up your combat style to keep them disoriented unless they have shotguns, then don't even bother with bite unless they're engaged by other teammates, and even then, I wouldn't do it without umbra.
Wall climbing and zig zagging as skulk are only part of the puzzle against players that aren't terrible. You need to get good at being able to gain speed through walljumping at the same time. Using the environment while in combat to break line of sight like you would as a Lerk also becomes even more important as it prevents marines from reliably tracking you.
And that entire quote is presuming the people that dislike the engine/mechanics don't already know all of that really well, which is a bad and often inaccurate presumption and is essentially just them saying "Oh, don't like this/have a different opinion? L2P".
Like i said, climbing and zig zagging doesn't work against anyone but total noobs. Especially with horrible auto sticking to walls where game always decides to make skulk climb when you don't fuckin need or want to. And then you end up missing bites because you climb the wall when you actually wanted to attack the marine straight on, going across the ground. If you ever wanted to attack marine who was moving along the wall or around extractors you'll know what i mean when you want to do the zig zagging climbing disorientation thing...
Basically the marine has a full 1/3rd a second more time to react and shoot someone trying to dodge.
This is wrong. The marine has exactly the same time window that you have. His is only shifted 1/3rd a second. He doesn't get more time to aim at you. Because he also sees you coming in around this corner 1/3rd second later, than you do on your screen.
People forget this most of the time. They also forget, that there are physical limitations to how fast data can transported and processed.
It is not this difficult to address this issue for yourself. Just leave the room 1/3rd of a second sooner. Just start 1/3rd of a second sooner to dodge.
It's easy to call the game out for one own mistakes. The marine does not get more time to aim at you. You were not leaving soon enough. That was the problem.
My only problem with strafejumping is that the Alien vision is kind of frustrating and it's hard to aim up close. People here seem to complain about not getting kills, but they seem to miss the point.
Because of how interp works, the snapshot every other player sees of what you're doing is, as set by the engine, 250ms behind, combine that with an average ping of 50 per player and you get about a 1/3rd a second difference between what the lerk client is doing and where the marine client sees them. Because hitscan weapons are run through the interpolation system the marine doesn't have to hit where the lerk client is on their own screen, they just have to hit the lerk where it is on the marine client's screen. This is how people die around corners, or get killed by people not even looking the right direction to shoot them. Basically the marine has a full 1/3rd a second more time to react and shoot someone trying to dodge.
This is the same for both players. You single out the lerk, which is a bit silly as that has its hitscan ranged weapon (which is what you should be using against shotgunners anyway).
Yes, there is interp. This can be annoying when the server settings are as lax at they are by default (and I think these could use a tweak tbh), but interp is good. Interp allows us to play this game.
If you escape too late, you will likely get killed 'around the corner'. The way around that is to play more cautiously... If they DIDN'T hit you when you took a fly by (which you'll find out in ~0.2s), you can go back in for another if you feel brave.
This is wrong. The marine has exactly the same time window that you have. His is only shifted 1/3rd a second. He doesn't get more time to aim at you. Because he also sees you coming in around this corner 1/3rd second later, than you do on your screen.
true
Just start 1/3rd of a second sooner to dodge.
also true
However most wan't to dodge based on the position the marine is and fires at, but thats impossible. You can't dodge bullets. Because a hit will already be registered on the oponents side before you decide to move one direction or another.
As said, dying around the corner happens a lot before you adapt to the "delay".
I died 'around the corner' for the first time in a looong time the other day, and I blamed myself for not giving myself enough HP to escape with.
Man up.
UPDATE:
You seem to have misinterpreted that quote of me and as a result you are incidentally, whether you mean to or not, spreading misinformation. :-/
The network aspect I referred to has ZERO relation to hit registry? IDK where you even get that from? It has to do with the known rubber banding.
Also, until a video is presented, we have no evidence of hit reg issues - just users perceiving it due to tight hit boxes.
My mistake, sorry.
We know when tick rate falls low enough, servers will neglect giving proper damage. I'm talking about an AFK skulk shot gunned about 5 times and walks away kind of problems. Is there network optimizations in the tube?
I died 'around the corner' for the first time in a looong time the other day, and I blamed myself for not giving myself enough HP to escape with.
Man up.
Dying in 1 shot to a shotgun that isn't even aimed the right direction isn't about me "manning up", and if you're someone who is asserting you need to leave with enough hp/armor to take a shot on the way out then you don't have enough HP to attack to begin with against shotguns or anything at w3 unless you're a cara fade or onos.
Most lifeforms survive completely on dodging, but the faster you're going and the more narrowly you twitch to dodge something the wider gap the marine has to nail you on their screen before you're actually out of the way. This was a problem in L4D as well and part of the reason survivors were really OP, I'm not saying the rines in this game are OP but the combat has the same disconnect. You shouldn't ever have to worry about/take engine limitations/take the other person's ping into account in the heat of the moment to not lose 20-60 pres on a lifeform.
I died 'around the corner' for the first time in a looong time the other day, and I blamed myself for not giving myself enough HP to escape with.
Man up.
Dying in 1 shot to a shotgun that isn't even aimed the right direction isn't about me "manning up", and if you're someone who is asserting you need to leave with enough hp/armor to take a shot on the way out then you don't have enough HP to attack to begin with against shotguns or anything at w3 unless you're a cara fade or onos.
Technically, the shot was aimed properly, it's just that the client is delayed in reporting the hit so the server doesn't actually register the hit until after it seems (to you) that you are out of the room. But he still aimed the shot correctly.
That's not how that works. Hitscan is rolled through the interpolation system so that marines only have to hit the image of the alien on their screen, and not where the alien actually is on their client. There is no "aiming correctly" here, depending on ping and how much built in interp there is in the engine the alien and marine clients can be as far as 1/2 a second off, but the engine is biased towards hitscan, so the marine client gets to shoot at the image of the alien client that gets sent to them, while the alien that's already dodged around that marines view is just out of luck.
Neither client is "right" in its image, it's just that the engine creates simulated latency combined with the actual latency of the client to reconcile their differences using a bias.
UPDATE:
You seem to have misinterpreted that quote of me and as a result you are incidentally, whether you mean to or not, spreading misinformation. :-/
The network aspect I referred to has ZERO relation to hit registry? IDK where you even get that from? It has to do with the known rubber banding.
Also, until a video is presented, we have no evidence of hit reg issues - just users perceiving it due to tight hit boxes.
My mistake, sorry.
We know when tick rate falls low enough, servers will neglect giving proper damage. I'm talking about an AFK skulk shot gunned about 5 times and walks away kind of problems. Is there network optimizations in the tube?
The other annoying thing i've noticed as a demolition man is Gorge Bile Bomb. If you have a door clogged up, you CAN'T shoot through with bile bombs even though you could fit a space ship through the hole above it. The bile bombs will just ALWAYS explode. Idiotic. And same goes for vents and stuff. There is clearly PLENTY of space and the bile bombs have a clear fly path, yet they just explode for no F reason like they are hitting non existing walls... Broken basics one on one...
You shouldn't ever have to worry about/take engine limitations/take the other person's ping into account in the heat of the moment to not lose 20-60 pres on a lifeform.
So you are talking about realtime? Over the internet? How will you do this? Do you have some secret wisdom of network programming that you should tell us? Get it straight man: Realtime is not possible! Not in an online game. Therefor you will have to take this delay into account. End of story. No matter how much you argue. You can't argue against physical laws.
That's not how that works. Hitscan is rolled through the interpolation system so that marines only have to hit the image of the alien on their screen, and not where the alien actually is on their client. There is no "aiming correctly" here,
What? There is no difference between what you see and what your client thinks of the position of other players. Also known as "what you aim at, you hit".
depending on ping and how much built in interp there is in the engine the alien and marine clients can be as far as 1/2 a second off, but the engine is biased towards hitscan, so the marine client gets to shoot at the image of the alien client that gets sent to them, while the alien that's already dodged around that marines view is just out of luck.
The funny thing is, you would be the first one that comes to this forums and cry, when this system would be changed. Because alien bites wouldn't register anymore. You would need to aim ahead as marine AND as alien. And it is way more difficult to aim ahead in melee. If you would start reading more about network architecture and code, you would understand this.
Neither client is "right" in its image, it's just that the engine creates simulated latency combined with the actual latency of the client to reconcile their differences using a bias.
This is not right. What you aim is what you hit! The attacking client is right. This is an advantage for both! Marine AND aliens. You simply have to adapt to the delay. There is no better solution. You can name none. So stop suggesting how it should be, when physical laws wouldn't exist.
Alien-favored vs Marine-favored clash.
Wait have I ever been spiked, biled, parasited, gorge-spit around the cornor as Marine, I can't remember.
So you are talking about realtime? Over the internet? How will you do this? Do you have some secret wisdom of network programming that you should tell us? Get it straight man: Realtime is not possible! Not in an online game. Therefor you will have to take this delay into account. End of story. No matter how much you argue. You can't argue against physical laws.
Disagree here though, many other games simulate realtime way better than NS2 is currently. If they manage it, there's no "secret wisdom" in net programming.
They don't. Shot around the corner happens in every game. You see it more the faster the players can move. And aliens can move damn fast. Please read this first, so we can have an educated discussion about this topic: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_Multiplayer_Networking
You need knowledge first, when you claim that it is possible to make it better.
It hurts the marine the same. When a skulk is running at you, you need to dodge long before he reaches you. Because when he is attacking, it's his client that counts. And he is 1/3 of a second in the future from your view.
It is the same outcome. When you dodge to late, the hit has already registered. You just don't know it yet.
So it affects both teams. People just like to use it as excuse for their own failures.
Alien-favored vs Marine-favored clash.
Wait have I ever been spiked, biled, parasited, gorge-spit around the cornor as Marine, I can't remember.
So you are talking about realtime? Over the internet? How will you do this? Do you have some secret wisdom of network programming that you should tell us? Get it straight man: Realtime is not possible! Not in an online game. Therefor you will have to take this delay into account. End of story. No matter how much you argue. You can't argue against physical laws.
Disagree here though, many other games simulate realtime way better than NS2 is currently. If they manage it, there's no "secret wisdom" in net programming.
The reason, why it don't happen to Marines (as often) is the same why it don't happen in other games. You are simply to slow! The only reason you register it as an alien is because they move so fast around this corners. if you would die 10 cm behind the corner and not 2 meters you wouldn't have registered that there where something wrong.
Every online game has a latency between the clients, the signal needs it time to travel from the clients to the server and to the other clients. there is no way around it. If UWE would find a way around it, they would get a physic noble price ...
edit: that don't mean that the netcode couldn't be optimized more, it certainly can. But only to a degree. There will always be a latency. (based on the cable distance between the server/clients and the process time of the signals)
You shouldn't ever have to worry about/take engine limitations/take the other person's ping into account in the heat of the moment to not lose 20-60 pres on a lifeform.
This is not right. What you aim is what you hit! The attacking client is right. This is an advantage for both! Marine AND aliens. You simply have to adapt to the delay. There is no better solution. You can name none. So stop suggesting how it should be, when physical laws wouldn't exist.
This isn't accurate at all, please go look at how interpolation work and understand that hitscan is favored and run through interpolation as to keep marines from having to lead, and melee attacks are not. The solution to such a heavy bias is to reduce the hard-coded interp and run *both* sides through it.
The reason, why it don't happen to Marines (as often) is the same why it don't happen in other games. You are simply to slow! The only reason you register it as an alien is because they move so fast around this corners. if you would die 10 cm behind the corner and not 2 meters you wouldn't have registered that there where something wrong.
This isn't right either, collision based/melee attacks/and actual projectiles are *not* run through interpolation, that's why this never happens to marines. It's a small amount but aliens do have to make their attacks hit where the marine client is, it's just that aside from strafejump and JP they never move fast enough to disjoint their client from what the server sends the alien attacker in a visible way.
@ meatmachine, no, you really don't. There are choices in how you handle hit registry, whether or not to use interp, what bias you choose if any, what mechanics are run through the interp system, how high the hard-coded interp is, minimizing its negative effects by changing in-game mechanics. I've been playing FPS's competitively at a high level for over a decade, bad hit registry or clients being disjointed is *not* inevitable and I've played plenty of games where if people could manage a ping 70 or under both clients were spot on.
And still aliens win more than marines, according to ns2stats(over 2k rounds recently). If i were you, i would have made discussion about lerk bite, not the marines vs skulk, which is tactically, skillful kind of balanced.
Did you even think about it, how fast you can get lerk and fade?
Yet, according to NS2stats, marines have won more in competetive play. Have people not yet acknowledged that drawing conclusions from statistics of win/loss ratios that don't take into account the idea that some of these games were unwinnable because of skill disparity is pants-on-head retarded? The fact that half of the recorded games on the site ended in under 15 minutes is proof enough of this.
There needs to be more time spent playtesting in controlled conditions (equal number of resource nodes, equal level of skill, full tech research available) to see if basic gameplay is inherintly unbalanced because while I think there are some legitimate issues, I think a lot of what I see is a learning curve issue.
What category each issue belongs in needs to be established is the point I'm making because it feels like some of the games I've played it didn't matter what tactics what side tried, they were doomed to fail because there was too large of a skill gap between the teams that no amount of tactical genius could compensate for.
understand that hitscan is favored and run through interpolation as to keep marines from having to lead, and melee attacks are not.
This is a hard claim. Do you have any proof for this? The last time that I can remember a dev wrote about this, was stating that aliens and marines have exactly the same hitreg regarding interpolation.
They draw 9 pyramids in front of the alien and if any of them registers a hit with the marine hitbox (as it is on the client of the alien) it counts as hit. Otherwise you would have no chance on hitting a marine that is running away from you.
Comments
Please don't insult NS1 ever again like this.
You seem to have misinterpreted that quote of me and as a result you are incidentally, whether you mean to or not, spreading misinformation. :-/
The network aspect I referred to has ZERO relation to hit registry? IDK where you even get that from? It has to do with the known rubber banding.
Also, until a video is presented, we have no evidence of hit reg issues - just users perceiving it due to tight hit boxes.
what are you trying to dodge? hitscan?
i was all but certain it was 100ms behind... either way, granted you can't sit still and move on reaction, but you can pre-move just as a marine can pre-fire.
Wait, what? Are you saying that we have to treat the fact that the mechanics are good as fact because some people like them?
The close combat mechanics in NS2 are bad. - Opinion not fact
I like the close combat mechanics in NS2 - Also Opinion, not fact
Therious' response was to assert that a statement that the mechanics were bad was a fact was in reality an opinion. He in no way implied that the mechanics are good, only that he likes them.
The fact would be that the mechanics and the "basics" of NS2 will ultimately take the direction UWE wish them to go. If they choose to listen to our opinions here great, if not too bad their game and maybe some people will regret investing in UWE and take their money elsewhere in future. I do not see much point in clouding discussion of game play mechanics with some of the pettiness being exhibited by many people who choose to take part in these discussion. As an avid fan of NS and NS2 I get tired of such things getting in the way of good, healthy debate. I can only imagine how UWE staffers who have to sift through these forums feel.
TL;DR - It just like... his opinion man.
Personally just looking forward to the performance tweaks here. Hope the focus stays there for a bit so everyone has a chance to play the current build for more than a few weeks before we start a new bonfire to burn the devs with.
Aliens 101 right here.
And that entire quote is presuming the people that dislike the engine/mechanics don't already know all of that really well, which is a bad and often inaccurate presumption and is essentially just them saying "Oh, don't like this/have a different opinion? L2P".
:-h
If you are a good alien, you'd never lose to a marine. And if you're a good marine, you'll never lose to an alien.
Hang on a sec...
This is wrong. The marine has exactly the same time window that you have. His is only shifted 1/3rd a second. He doesn't get more time to aim at you. Because he also sees you coming in around this corner 1/3rd second later, than you do on your screen.
People forget this most of the time. They also forget, that there are physical limitations to how fast data can transported and processed.
It is not this difficult to address this issue for yourself. Just leave the room 1/3rd of a second sooner. Just start 1/3rd of a second sooner to dodge.
It's easy to call the game out for one own mistakes. The marine does not get more time to aim at you. You were not leaving soon enough. That was the problem.
This is the same for both players. You single out the lerk, which is a bit silly as that has its hitscan ranged weapon (which is what you should be using against shotgunners anyway).
Yes, there is interp. This can be annoying when the server settings are as lax at they are by default (and I think these could use a tweak tbh), but interp is good. Interp allows us to play this game.
If you escape too late, you will likely get killed 'around the corner'. The way around that is to play more cautiously... If they DIDN'T hit you when you took a fly by (which you'll find out in ~0.2s), you can go back in for another if you feel brave.
also true
However most wan't to dodge based on the position the marine is and fires at, but thats impossible. You can't dodge bullets. Because a hit will already be registered on the oponents side before you decide to move one direction or another.
As said, dying around the corner happens a lot before you adapt to the "delay".
Man up.
My mistake, sorry.
We know when tick rate falls low enough, servers will neglect giving proper damage. I'm talking about an AFK skulk shot gunned about 5 times and walks away kind of problems. Is there network optimizations in the tube?
Dying in 1 shot to a shotgun that isn't even aimed the right direction isn't about me "manning up", and if you're someone who is asserting you need to leave with enough hp/armor to take a shot on the way out then you don't have enough HP to attack to begin with against shotguns or anything at w3 unless you're a cara fade or onos.
Most lifeforms survive completely on dodging, but the faster you're going and the more narrowly you twitch to dodge something the wider gap the marine has to nail you on their screen before you're actually out of the way. This was a problem in L4D as well and part of the reason survivors were really OP, I'm not saying the rines in this game are OP but the combat has the same disconnect. You shouldn't ever have to worry about/take engine limitations/take the other person's ping into account in the heat of the moment to not lose 20-60 pres on a lifeform.
Technically, the shot was aimed properly, it's just that the client is delayed in reporting the hit so the server doesn't actually register the hit until after it seems (to you) that you are out of the room. But he still aimed the shot correctly.
Neither client is "right" in its image, it's just that the engine creates simulated latency combined with the actual latency of the client to reconcile their differences using a bias.
So you are talking about realtime? Over the internet? How will you do this? Do you have some secret wisdom of network programming that you should tell us? Get it straight man: Realtime is not possible! Not in an online game. Therefor you will have to take this delay into account. End of story. No matter how much you argue. You can't argue against physical laws.
What? There is no difference between what you see and what your client thinks of the position of other players. Also known as "what you aim at, you hit".
The funny thing is, you would be the first one that comes to this forums and cry, when this system would be changed. Because alien bites wouldn't register anymore. You would need to aim ahead as marine AND as alien. And it is way more difficult to aim ahead in melee. If you would start reading more about network architecture and code, you would understand this.
This is not right. What you aim is what you hit! The attacking client is right. This is an advantage for both! Marine AND aliens. You simply have to adapt to the delay. There is no better solution. You can name none. So stop suggesting how it should be, when physical laws wouldn't exist.
Wait have I ever been spiked, biled, parasited, gorge-spit around the cornor as Marine, I can't remember.
Disagree here though, many other games simulate realtime way better than NS2 is currently. If they manage it, there's no "secret wisdom" in net programming.
You need knowledge first, when you claim that it is possible to make it better.
It hurts the marine the same. When a skulk is running at you, you need to dodge long before he reaches you. Because when he is attacking, it's his client that counts. And he is 1/3 of a second in the future from your view.
It is the same outcome. When you dodge to late, the hit has already registered. You just don't know it yet.
So it affects both teams. People just like to use it as excuse for their own failures.
The reason, why it don't happen to Marines (as often) is the same why it don't happen in other games. You are simply to slow! The only reason you register it as an alien is because they move so fast around this corners. if you would die 10 cm behind the corner and not 2 meters you wouldn't have registered that there where something wrong.
Every online game has a latency between the clients, the signal needs it time to travel from the clients to the server and to the other clients. there is no way around it. If UWE would find a way around it, they would get a physic noble price ...
edit: that don't mean that the netcode couldn't be optimized more, it certainly can. But only to a degree. There will always be a latency. (based on the cable distance between the server/clients and the process time of the signals)
This isn't accurate at all, please go look at how interpolation work and understand that hitscan is favored and run through interpolation as to keep marines from having to lead, and melee attacks are not. The solution to such a heavy bias is to reduce the hard-coded interp and run *both* sides through it.
This isn't right either, collision based/melee attacks/and actual projectiles are *not* run through interpolation, that's why this never happens to marines. It's a small amount but aliens do have to make their attacks hit where the marine client is, it's just that aside from strafejump and JP they never move fast enough to disjoint their client from what the server sends the alien attacker in a visible way.
@ meatmachine, no, you really don't. There are choices in how you handle hit registry, whether or not to use interp, what bias you choose if any, what mechanics are run through the interp system, how high the hard-coded interp is, minimizing its negative effects by changing in-game mechanics. I've been playing FPS's competitively at a high level for over a decade, bad hit registry or clients being disjointed is *not* inevitable and I've played plenty of games where if people could manage a ping 70 or under both clients were spot on.
Yet, according to NS2stats, marines have won more in competetive play. Have people not yet acknowledged that drawing conclusions from statistics of win/loss ratios that don't take into account the idea that some of these games were unwinnable because of skill disparity is pants-on-head retarded? The fact that half of the recorded games on the site ended in under 15 minutes is proof enough of this.
There needs to be more time spent playtesting in controlled conditions (equal number of resource nodes, equal level of skill, full tech research available) to see if basic gameplay is inherintly unbalanced because while I think there are some legitimate issues, I think a lot of what I see is a learning curve issue.
What category each issue belongs in needs to be established is the point I'm making because it feels like some of the games I've played it didn't matter what tactics what side tried, they were doomed to fail because there was too large of a skill gap between the teams that no amount of tactical genius could compensate for.
This is a hard claim. Do you have any proof for this? The last time that I can remember a dev wrote about this, was stating that aliens and marines have exactly the same hitreg regarding interpolation.
They draw 9 pyramids in front of the alien and if any of them registers a hit with the marine hitbox (as it is on the client of the alien) it counts as hit. Otherwise you would have no chance on hitting a marine that is running away from you.