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High ping is good for pvp training if you have highish ping


TrixxieTriss

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Ok, that sounds weird. But hear me out. I will need to explain and this might get long so you can fully understand.

 

When I was on the APAC servers I had a nice ping of 19-30ms. Then we we got merged with the west coast and Ping initially went to 190-200ms for me.

 

This took 3 months to get used too and was hard. I had to really learn all the classes abilities and learn to predict/anticipate what was going to happen before it did. You cant play reactive pvp at high ping.

 

Ranked is extremely hard at 200ms, but it is playable. It took me 6 months after the move to feel comfortable about doing it again.

 

Then my ping slowly increased for some reason, it got up to 230ms and things were harder and I just gave up on ranked.

 

When Bioware moved the servers to the east coast I thought I’d need to stop playing because 300ms is a killer.

Keith did actually do what he said he would, he worked with their ISPs and backhaul to improve west to east coast ping. Eventually it dropped to about 260-270ms. This was more reasonable, but still frustrating as the ping was killing me more than players.

 

I played like this for a few months and got used to it again, even though it wasn’t great, I was still doing ok. Ranked was definitely out.

Then I started using WTFast VPN and my ping dropped another 10-15ms. This small amount can make a huge difference at high ping lvls.

 

Recently I changed ISPs and got a new fibre connection and this has actually dropped my ping to 210-220ms, but with big lag spikes, so I still use WTFast because it smooths these out (mostly). Sadly I have an increase in ping and have to play with 230ms ping if I use it.

 

SO, what does this have to do with pvp training with higher ping?

 

From my own experiences of going from low to really high ping and then back a bit, I’ve seen how that extra lag training has improved my game at lower ping lvls. Think of it like high altitude training that athletes do to make it easier for them at sea lvl.

 

I went from really close encounters with people I considered equal in skill, to ripping them appart.

 

I’ve now started playing on DM because pops are dead now on SS and SF for some of the times I want to play. With the better connection and WTFast, I can often get my ping on DM to around 310-330ms. Once again, pvp at this high ping is hard and takes a lot of getting used to and is frustrating when lag kills you over skill.

But what I’ve found since doing this, is pvp on SS and SFat 230ms becomes easier when I come back.

 

I think the higher ping makes you play harder and smarter and hones those reflexes because there is no room for slow reactions. Each significant ping drop I’ve had has made pvp a little easier and I do substantially better than I used to at that ping.

 

This is why high ping is good for pvp training “if” you are able to go back to the normal ping you are used to when you finish the training session. If you can’t drop back to lower ping, then higher ping just sucks.

 

I think if you swap regions to give yourself higher ping for a bit and then go back to your normal ping, it is a great way to train to get better,

 

With one caveat. This will only work if you already have high enough ping that you can feel the difference of 60+ms on your performance. (West coast players might be candidates for this since the server moves), If you can’t feel a difference, then this isn’t for you and you will think this theory is crazy :D

 

If you play with 120ms+, I think you would benefit if you rolled some toons on another region and played pvp there for a bit. Jumping the Atlantic adds about 80ms, so you would be playing with 170-200ms and this should be enough for this to work.

 

You also can’t just swap back and forth constantly or you won’t get the full benefit of the lag training. You need to spend a bit of time getting used to it before going back.

So now I’ve given a trade secret away. Go have fun,

 

Lastly, I can only dream of the total pvp domination I would feel going back to 19-30ms from 300ms. One word “wrecking ball”. Sadly this will never happen :(

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I understand what you say but I am not sure that is entirely accurate. I can't be certain because I didn't research how the game works, but I suspect that it is possible your computer is the one responsible for stuff like attack response to DCDs, stuns and even death. I mean, if you have a delay percieving an incoming attack and trigger a DCD during that delay (espeically those which do not respect GCD), it is possible this attack will acknowledge the DCD, even if it would be triggered too late if there was no delay. It would happen if you need to receive the enemy attack from the internet but yourself using a DCD begins on your PC, so it happens faster.

 

In other words, lag might not be complete a delay in perception, but somewhat a slowed perception as well. Your "time" moves slightly slower than it moves for players with low ping, which gives you a little "faster perception" than others (a bit like adrenaline rush on ME2, but with a far lower magnitude). I know it happens in GSF sometimes. I had a game in which I had 250ms, and for some reason, everyone was missing me, but I wasn't missing (when I aimed correctly, and I have good aim) too much more than usual (especially when he went on a head-to-head firefight. I always ended up with maybe 1 hit on the shield when the enemy was dead). It was actually so beneficial for me, that I started to wonder if some of the people who lag around in GSF do it somehow intentionally... I even once got 3 shots after my death when I had a really bad lag spike, and they counted! They killed a man, even though scrolling backward chat would prove I died more than 1 second before that, and shots don't have nearly any travel time...

 

So long story short, if lag means a combination of delay and slowed perception, then your prediction skills might not be as efficient as you think when you play without lag. Of course to some extent they would be, and it certainly won't make you worse than people who play without lag regularly (not to mention that if everyone get their lag up to your lag, you would 1v5 them :p) but it is hard to tell which practices are effective in real-time, and which don't.

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Is it like gravity training in Dragonball series?

 

Jokes aside, higher pings are kinda mood killer. I had 150ms when I started the game. Then 188, 220, 275 and now 325 ms. May be something bottlenecking my connection, may be I need a new pc or cable but playing in high ping means, pings going to kill you before skill does. :D

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I played with a ping this high at The Harbinger.

Never felt like that. However in some situations like dueling a carnage marauder (in the berserker-ferocity window), dcds activation happens a little too late depending on your health.

Edited by RafaelPeretz
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Maybe this is what the latest batch of cheaters are doing, and we just think they are hacking/cheating. In actuality they are just wrecking us all with their superior ping and lag that grants them gaming skill above the rest of us? :D
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Maybe this is what the latest batch of cheaters are doing, and we just think they are hacking/cheating. In actuality they are just wrecking us all with their superior ping and lag that grants them gaming skill above the rest of us? :D

 

I remember playing the old, original Battlefield 1942 game on a LAN. One poor guy had a super slow computer compared to the rest of us. We could kill him sometimes before he even saw us. :( Not exactly "ping caused lag", but basically the same effect. :p

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How do you train for random lag spikes?

 

You bring a bottle and a glass and have a drink every time you are "forced to take a 10-20 seconds break".

 

And now seriously, if these happen to you regularly, time to switch hardware or server, or stop playing for few hours. No distance on Earth justifies more than 700ms. Spikes are always caused by something else.

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How do you train for random lag spikes?

 

Similar to how Luke trained early on as a Jedi, when he was blindfolded and sparred with the small droid when he was first learning to use a light saber. You use the force, padawan!

 

Hey Trixxie, are you ever on SF now or just DM? Have we ever been on the same team before yet, and/or have you slaughtered me on my poor commando healer? I never see any toons named Trixxie or any other variations of that, so I assume you must use other names. :(

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I tried to be comprehensive in my OP explanation. But maybe I gave too much detail and the message got lost.

 

Here is an example of what I was trying to say.

 

1. You might normally play with 230ms (standard) on US servers and sucks. :confused:

2. You go play on EU servers with 330ms (standard) sucks worse :rolleyes:

3. Equals increase of 100ms. :(

4. Play a fair bit at 330ms and get used to it. :eek:

5. Predicting people or guessing becomes better and so do reflexes :o

6. You start thinking/playing a few moves ahead (like chess) instead of only reacting :cool:

7. Go back to US servers with 230ms and it feels awesome after playing with 330ms :D

8. The honed reflexes and skills makes pvping easier, but you can really feel it when you drop 100ms. :)

9. Hence, my theory of high ping training is like “altitude” training for athletes. ;)

10. You become a better player :cool:

 

So that there is no confusion this time. “IM NOT TALKING ABOUT RANDOM PING SPIKES”. This only works with your standard ping and then you increase it by moving locations.

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Hey Trixxie, are you ever on SF now or just DM? Have we ever been on the same team before yet, and/or have you slaughtered me on my poor commando healer? I never see any toons named Trixxie or any other variations of that, so I assume you must use other names. :(

 

I play on SS, SF and DM. It depends on the time of the day and what bracket pvp I want to play

 

SS pops fine at lvl 70 during primetime. So if I want to play on SS, I have to do it then.

SS hardly pops lowbies or Mids. So I rarely try to play those brackets on SS

 

SF pops fine at lvl 70 primetime, but also pops for a longer period as primetime finishes (has a longer primetime). So if I’m playing SS and it dies, I can swap to SF for some extra lvl 70 matches.

SF lowbies and Mids pops sometimes in primetime (not outside). So sometimes I do lowbies and Mids on SF

 

DM pops for lowbies and Mids is pretty good and so is the caliber of players (when they aren’t running full stealth teams :rolleyes:)

I’m still lvling 8 toons on DM to get them to lvl 70.

 

This is an example of times I can play and where I usually am if I’m on. The times are in AEST (you guys can convert it for once ;))

 

12pm - 2/3pm SS lvl 70 pvp (till it tappers off)

2/3pm - 6.30pm SF lvl 70 (dies right on 6.30pm. I can nearly set my clock by it)

6.30pm - 7.30pm dinner (I plan it then because it’s the quietist)

7.30pm - 8pm DM FP/class quests

8pm - 12am DM lowbie/mid pvp + class quests in between.

12am - 3am SF lvl 70 pvp

3am -12pm SS or SF lvl 70 pvp (depends on what I feel like)

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I don’t want to be all doom and gloom (yes I’ve sometimes been in the past, but this is different).

 

I have to time things because outside of primetime, it’s dead. I dont care what anyone else says about servers popping lvl 70 pvp, 24/7, it’s just not true. It’s false hope and propaganda by people who want to believe it it’s not true. I know some really do believe it because they play one day out of 7 and see no problem for 30mins. While some are white knights and will say the game is fine with 2 people on the servers (like we saw them saying mergers weren’t needed last year). Others just don’t know and some are just repeating what other people say.

 

I’m semi or basically retired now. So my sleep routine and daily activities can be changed around at a whim.

So I see what’s really happening because I have been tracking it for 6 months and used a diary to work out this schedule so I knew what I’d be playing when I logged in. I wanted to be proactive for myself and so people couldn’t use the excuse that I was in Australia and I wasn’t playing primetime.

 

Its only in the last 2 months that I had to start looking at DM for pvp because SS and SF basically completely died outside of primetime, which just happened to be in old Aussie primetime 6.30pm - 11pm. As you can see from my schedule, I’m now limited to only playing on DM at those hour because both US servers have now become ghost town during those times. Even lvl 70 rarely pops. I do try so I can gauge if it’s just the fleet numbers or the queue.

 

I started taking screen shots 2 weeks ago at different times during that bracket and the numbers are still dropping. SS 26 people on the rep fleet the other night and 40s for imp fleet. SF wasn’t much better, 30s Rep fleet and 60s imp fleet.

If you went back 6 months ago, there were 2-4 instances at those times.

 

Anyone who says it’s only because of summer is fooling themselves. These are the sorts of numbers I used to see on Bastion before it died. The decline I’ve seen in 6 months has been so rapid, it’s the fastest decline I’ve ever seen in this game and it scares the hell out of me.

 

The conquest debacle and the slow reaction to it and unwillingness to give the players what they wanted and not what Bioware wanted to force on us, saw a instant decline in players, which was extremely noticeable outside of primetime.

 

The population at those times didn’t bounce back. It stabilised for about a month and started to decline again.

Every person who says things are fine, mainly plays during primetime or very close to it. Primetime looks fine and feels fine. But how many people are actually in the queue? How many matches do you play against the same people each time?

 

Remember when the only way you could get close to playing the same people in 8 man was to queue sync with them on voice chat. Now you can just queue and pop 90% of the time against them.

I predicted this decline would happen and I said it would appear outside of primetime first and then prime time would shrink. This is starting to happen now.

 

Cross faction will alleviate this some, but it’s just going to be a bandaid because it’s taken too long to do it. I believe it will mask the problems for another 6-9 months, the same as the server mergers did. I also believe they will either need to merger again in 6-9 months bexause people are still leaving.

 

If this roadmap doesn’t bring players back and keep a lot of them till the next expansion, we may not get another expansion because they won’t be able to afford it.

 

The sky isn’t falling, yet! There is still some hope! But if Bioware muck up this road map, I don’t know if the game can recover enough from another mistake like conquest (which was a minor mistake in the scheme of Bioware F-ups)

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I play on SS, SF and DM. It depends on the time of the day and what bracket pvp I want to play

 

SS pops fine at lvl 70 during primetime. So if I want to play on SS, I have to do it then.

SS hardly pops lowbies or Mids. So I rarely try to play those brackets on SS

 

SF pops fine at lvl 70 primetime, but also pops for a longer period as primetime finishes (has a longer primetime). So if I’m playing SS and it dies, I can swap to SF for some extra lvl 70 matches.

SF lowbies and Mids pops sometimes in primetime (not outside). So sometimes I do lowbies and Mids on SF

 

DM pops for lowbies and Mids is pretty good and so is the caliber of players (when they aren’t running full stealth teams :rolleyes:)

I’m still lvling 8 toons on DM to get them to lvl 70.

 

This is an example of times I can play and where I usually am if I’m on. The times are in AEST (you guys can convert it for once ;))

 

12pm - 2/3pm SS lvl 70 pvp (till it tappers off)

2/3pm - 6.30pm SF lvl 70 (dies right on 6.30pm. I can nearly set my clock by it)

6.30pm - 7.30pm dinner (I plan it then because it’s the quietist)

7.30pm - 8pm DM FP/class quests

8pm - 12am DM lowbie/mid pvp + class quests in between.

12am - 3am SF lvl 70 pvp

3am -12pm SS or SF lvl 70 pvp (depends on what I feel like)

 

I won't say the games pop has not declined it clearly has. All you got to do is see how many servers are up now compared to the past.

 

I just aint afraid of it dying any time soon because I believe the devs are going to make the game a PVP-centric game with the focus on class balance, new WZs, and even a couple new classes.

 

Once they get that going, they are going to create new voice acted quests just as good as the original chapters with deep and enriching stories that also include same-sex romances for all new companions that will be created with the new stories.

 

It's going to be great. Once they do that, they are going to have to open up new servers to accommodate the influx of new players wanting to play swtor, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Just be patient Trixxie, it's all happening. You'll see.

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I didn’t say train with random lag spikes. Please go back and read it again.

I was making an additional point. But really adjusting to high ping times is a bit rubbish, you're still playing with a disadvantage to other players and attempting to compensate for that can only get you so far. In wzs though it doesn't really matter, merely being competent at your class will put you near the top of the deeps with fewer deaths.

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I was making an additional point. But really adjusting to high ping times is a bit rubbish, you're still playing with a disadvantage to other players and attempting to compensate for that can only get you so far. In wzs though it doesn't really matter, merely being competent at your class will put you near the top of the deeps with fewer deaths.

 

You missed the point entirely. Of course there is a disadvantage, that’s the whole point and what makes it harder.

Do you even understand why athletes do altitude training?

 

If you can get used to playing with the high lag and produce similar results from when you play with lower lag, when you go back to the lower lag, it will be easier and you should perform better.

 

Of course, if you can’t get use to the higher lag and improve to similar performance, you won’t get any benefit. The same as you wouldn’t get any benefit doing altitude training as an athlete.

 

As for the current state of the game, I agree, it’s ridiculously easy in regs. But maybe it could get better if people actually learned their classes.

 

A good way to do that would be to roll new Alts on a new regional server and lvl in pvp. I know from experience that the DM lowbie/mid brackets have some good quality players and is active compared to US servers.

I dare say the DM lower bracket has better players than some lvl 70s on SS and SF. I’ve played way more matches lately with competent to good players in DM lowbies than I’ve played matches at lvl 70 on SS and SF. Which now has the highest proportion of bad players I’ve ever seen in this game because they don’t learn to pvp in lowbies and Mids,

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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I tried to be comprehensive in my OP explanation. But maybe I gave too much detail and the message got lost.

 

Here is an example of what I was trying to say.

 

1. You might normally play with 230ms (standard) on US servers and sucks. :confused:

2. You go play on EU servers with 330ms (standard) sucks worse :rolleyes:

3. Equals increase of 100ms. :(

4. Play a fair bit at 330ms and get used to it. :eek:

5. Predicting people or guessing becomes better and so do reflexes :o

6. You start thinking/playing a few moves ahead (like chess) instead of only reacting :cool:

7. Go back to US servers with 230ms and it feels awesome after playing with 330ms :D

8. The honed reflexes and skills makes pvping easier, but you can really feel it when you drop 100ms. :)

9. Hence, my theory of high ping training is like “altitude” training for athletes. ;)

10. You become a better player :cool:

 

So that there is no confusion this time. “IM NOT TALKING ABOUT RANDOM PING SPIKES”. This only works with your standard ping and then you increase it by moving locations.

 

My connection is 50 ms..... when I spike up to 100ms or 150 and am in PVP duel, I am dead no matter what. The other bloke wins with better connection. Even small spikes for 1, 2 seconds can make a difference in my case anyway. ;) How ? Well, when I spike up to 100 or 120 I get ability lags which means that If I press an ability it doesn't fire up as it should be which means means my kite is delayed by let's say 1, or 0.5 secs which means I am dead...

 

It's very very very annoying when it happens.

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My connection is 50 ms..... when I spike up to 100ms or 150 and am in PVP duel, I am dead no matter what. The other bloke wins with better connection. Even small spikes for 1, 2 seconds can make a difference in my case anyway. ;) How ? Well, when I spike up to 100 or 120 I get ability lags which means that If I press an ability it doesn't fire up as it should be which means means my kite is delayed by let's say 1, or 0.5 secs which means I am dead...

 

It's very very very annoying when it happens.

 

Yeah, spikes suck and if you’re playing with 50ms, you’re not used to sustained high ping.

I know how hard it was going from 19-30ms (APAC) to 200+ms when we got moved to the west coast. It took many months to get back the same performance lvls I had at 20ms. But after a while I was perfoming the same.

If you’re in the US or EU, try switching regions for a bit and see what the higher ping is like. If you can get use to it going back to 50ms will feel amazing, and when you are having a lot of lag spikes, they may not feel as harsh.

But you are right, lag kills. I’ve been killed more often by the lag than the other player.

Edited by TrixxieTriss
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Less oxygen is good for training if you have lessish oxygen.

 

That's why Rambo went to the mountain cabin to train, where he pushed John Lithgow off that cliff and beat up that Russian in the boxing ring before starting his new career at Mega-City One.

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Seriously though, when the west coast server moved east my ping when up to 150ish, and I'd get tons of lag spikes. (500-600 every couple of minutes) Quit for a few months, came back after net neutrality was repealed. Spikes were gone, and ping was down to 60 ish, so finally playable again. So either Bioware fixed some stuff while I was gone, or net neutrality removal actually had some positive impact.
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Seriously though, when the west coast server moved east my ping when up to 150ish, and I'd get tons of lag spikes. (500-600 every couple of minutes) Quit for a few months, came back after net neutrality was repealed. Spikes were gone, and ping was down to 60 ish, so finally playable again. So either Bioware fixed some stuff while I was gone, or net neutrality removal actually had some positive impact.

 

How long did you give it after the mergers before you left?

 

It took about a month, but Bioware did work with their ISPs and the network guys to fix as much lag as possible. I had a few conversations with Keith and sent him data from Australia to check.

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How long did you give it after the mergers before you left?

 

It took about a month, but Bioware did work with their ISPs and the network guys to fix as much lag as possible. I had a few conversations with Keith and sent him data from Australia to check.

 

Think it was about a month, month and a half. I'd check in periodically every couple of weeks after that and the massive lag spikes were still there. Went back to ESO for awhile, 40ms steady on their mega server. Checked like 3 weeks after Net Neutrality was repealed and was back down to 60ms, no spikes.

 

It's probably a combination of improvements, but who knows.

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