How can you win against people that lag?

[thezeronumber]

Genuine, if not rhetorical question. I am aware the servers are going to be a bit laggy with the large maps and multitude of people (which are doing well with all things considered) but some players are incredibly laggy, to the point of being frustrating to play against and almost impossible to hit. I don't know if it is down to their slow connection speed, packet loss or where they live but it's like trying to fight with a gust of wind armed with a sword. Every-time you go remotely near you are blown backwards and dealt damage without ever being able to get close enough to return the attack because they freeze for a second and appear somewhere else entirely.

I've experienced this a great deal in the last 2 days and it has really put me off from playing. This morning i was in a match and it happened there once more. I had recently crafted an Iron sword and was equipped with Iron boots, Chainmail helm and Leather Chestplate plus leggings. Full health, full hunger bar, plenty of food, doing pretty well. I run towards someone who had just spotted me through the trees and he runs towards me. I see he has nothing but a Leather cap and a Stone sword, should be a fairly easy fight. It was not. As he charged at me i could see his character warp from one place to another, like he was standing still and teleporting everywhere. As he ran (what i thought was) past me i swung a few times but nothing landed. I started to give chase and a second later he vanished, only to appear behind me in the place i was standing before. As soon as i turned around i got hit 3 times within a second and so i began to swing back, only i couldn't reach as he was 5 or so blocks away. I went to move forward and got knocked back once again. By this point my health was fairly low so i decided to run away. He gave chase but turned out to not be as good of a runner so i lost him for a few seconds. I recharged some HP and drew my bow as he came out of the forest. Shooting at him was completely pointless though. If anyone has seen the film "Jumper" it was pretty much a recreation of that: I shoot right where his character is, he lags out, looks like i have hit but i have not, instead he teleports to the left and edges even closer. Rinse and repeat.

I ended up dying to this guy and only once did i land a hit on him, which was at the very end when he was pummelling my face in with his Stone sword.

How can anyone win against that? It really kills the experience and is nigh-on impossible to fight against.

 

[HalfSquirrel]

Read this post.......................................................... It will hopefully improve your lag problems
http://minecraftsurvivalgames.com/threads/guide-speed-optimization.4381/#post-31992

 

[The_Soy_Man]

Ummmm I'm pretty sure that if you see them teleport like that, it means that you're lagging. I lag alot so I normally expect people to teleport all around me. If you had the best internet connection and a great computer, wouldn't you see a lagger where they actually are?

 

[thezeronumber]

HalfSquirrel, not relevant at all as this is not an FPS issue. But thanks anyway.

The_Soy_Man, if it were me i'd imagine i would see this same thing happening for everyone. Instead it is happening for the odd player that i come across, however that player is usually the one i die to for the reasons mentioned above, even if i have the better equipment. This makes gaming on these servers incredibly frustrating. When it comes to everyone else their running, jumping and movement is as normal as it can be for an online server and nothing strikes me as weird, it is just a select few.

I'd also like to mention i have 0% packet loss and 2-4ms jitter on a stable connection and always connect to EU servers (for i live in England). I can assure you it is not from my side.

 

[HalfSquirrel]

Maybe you just need a better router?

 

[plonize]

Does it take a while for your messages to show up in the chat? If not then I doubt its on your side. When I'm versing people who are slightly teleporting, I normally try to hit where they will be in 2-3 seconds. Sometimes this works. However I don't know if it will have any effect on people teleporting as much as you are describing.

 

[thezeronumber]

I have explained the issue and it is not due to my router, connection or anything along those lines. If it were i would be seeing this same thing happening for every player.

Plonize, my messages are appearing as normal, showing right after the enter key is pressed.

 

[ShaunDepro]

I agreed, althrough I have a very bad connection anyway it's been worser then normal having 5+ second delays before an action is registered to the server and back, I usually only have 1 second max delayed.

 

[thezeronumber]

If you are from Australia like your name suggests then it could be that you would do the teleporting thing i have previously described when viewed through my client.

 

[plonize]

If you are from Australia like your name suggests then it could be that you would do the teleporting thing i have previously described when viewed through my client.

I'm also from Australia. If you want we could test it out? I'm pretty sure most of us play on US servers though.

 

[ShaunDepro]

The same.
Connection lag is the delay between, for example:
1. Hitting someone to the time the hit takes to register to the other player.
2. Typing in chat, entering to when the message appears in chat.
3. Toggling between players in spectator mode, from the time from swinging your hand to the time you actually teleport.

It's either the host/servers itself, or my connection. As I live in Australia I always expect a 1-2 second delay which I can bare (althrough it gets me killed a lot), but any higher is just insane and that's what I'm getting, I'd say it's something on the host side.

 

[thezeronumber]

Fair enough. In those 3 examples my hits always register soon after a swing, typing in chat shows soon after sending and toggling between players is fairly smooth also.