The problem with ignoring "unintentional" laggers.
 

People abuse lag to win activities such as events and sparring are no better than those who use trainers. It is an unfair advantage, and both the players and staff are sick of it. For most people I personally believe it is controlled, and the only measure that is in place is, "If they can't be hit, they can't take part!" which doesn't do much. Most people can get at least 1 hit on someone who is lagging, but that doesn't mean they should be allowed to play. Laggers are taking liberties, and with no incentives to stop lagging to win, why would anyone even bother to not lag?

I usually download overnight, but the over the last three days I decided that when I wanted to download something, I'd continue to play Graal and see how I fair up. With my torrented lag I could easily target certain individuals in events and had no problem winning a lot of the time. I've played Castle Wars with torrents on before too, and when you're constantly warping around the place you can easily take it over.

Yes there are people who have problems with lag out of their control, but to put it bluntly, that is their problem. PrayDoh has a bad connection and he hasn't just sat and made it awkward for everyone else; he has made every effort to fix the issue, but I don't see the same for anyone else that lags. The other players shouldn't be placed in the position they are because of it and even if you can't control your lag, it doesn't remove that it is unfair to everyone else. If they're over a certain ping, they should not be allowed to participate in the competitive aspects of the server, simple as that.

Agreed!

I agree. This was a bit of a problem on Era, too. An unfair advantage is an unfair advantage. I'd be willing to bet that if UN required a certain ping to join events, most of the people with "unintentional lag" would suddenly have amazing connections.

I agree. Normally I don't mind people lagging just a tiny bit (even though it sucks), but lately there has been one player who has been taking advantage of their ridiculous ping rate.

I'd like it if laggers could be detected serverside somehow or if they can be altogether excluded from events/sparring if their average ping is above a high mark.

Agreed.

I was told UN used to have ping detection but it was removed because it was so strict, it was kicking people from spars just because of a lag spike. However that is easily remedied by gaining an average of some sort instead of sudden.

However, what would you guys consider the 'cut-off' for a ping? Again, take into consideration that it'd be based off of an average. I can't say I've really seen normal players with over 400ms ping participating in anything. I pretty much have between 50-350ms, even with my horrible internet. 300 was also my average when I played on dial-up, so I don't think it'd be cutting people off unfairly... but then again I don't spar much so I'm not sure how bad 300ms would be in sparring/events.

+1 on that.

To a point, this all makes sense, but in all fairness you have to stop and think of the types of lag. What's to say what's not an unfair advantage, honestly? Obviously the REALLY high amounts of lag are automatically included, but let's take into account the people who have like 200MS ping, but also have UDP checked. It doesn't seem like it, but that is MASSIVE lag to the point where it's so hard to hit the person unless you actively attempt to hit where the person is going to be, and that can cause you to mess up in things.

CTF is one situation where it's just unbearable. You have 150-200MS people who are also skippy and have UDP checked, you could sit at the flag slashing directly at it and they'll still walk by and grab it, maybe getting hit, but their lag is so bad that they grab it anyway.

Unless you can really decide on an absolutely fair way of detecting how much lag, and how to pick-up on all types of lag, then this seems absolutely unfair unless you're specifically targeting people who are at a ridiculous level.

Rufus, I understand where you're coming from completely. I used to hate players who lagged, and even having lag. Ever since about two months ago when I moved, I've discovered that satellite internet is not good at all, also with that said, satellite is the only type of internet I can get where I live.

I've been playing Graal for a long time, without lag. Ever since I've gotten this internet it has changed my gameplay totally. I'm a longtime Graal player and paying customer.

It really would not be that fair to everyone who has spent money just to be blacklisted and kick from events, spars, etc;
That would almost be like buying a game, and then not being able to save.

I disagree.
How would it feel if you had a 56k connection and not be able to participate in ANYTHING?
I mean, wtf would be the point of even playing if you don't get the chance to spar, play events, etc.?

I agree, it gets ridiculous when it disrupts events. It's very unfair to other players.

The fairness goes both ways...laggy people ruin the fun for other paying customers. How would you feel if a player with a 56k connection won an event you were in solely because of their 56k connection?

Besides, if you're still using dial up, maybe you should invest your money in other places besides Graal.

For some people, that may be the only internet that they can get.

I have just taken the average MS of the 50 players online, and even with Chakrah's 455ms the average ping was just 80ms. 300ms (3x the average) is too much, I've never seen anyone with an average ping of 300, and that's where I believe it should stop people from competing.

Serverside and client lag wouldn't be effected by something like this, but all other "types" of lag (aka your connection) should be. People may lag in different ways from skipping a little to completely spiking around, but if their ping is high the effect is the same.

This. There are people forced to use dialup or satellite internet because of their location (satellite is preferable because of speeds, but both have very high latency).

Not sure how accurate that is. The average ping right now on Era is 120 MS. It's usually slightly lower, but anything under 200 or so should be fine. A fifth of a second is hardly crippling.

With that being said, as everyone understands that satellite does in fact have bad latency.

Also,

There is no way to fix this, or stop it, it's just going to lag.
It would not be far to ban, or kick people from stuff just because they can't control it.

If people are sparring with lag, and doing events with lag, it's not abuse.
It's them trying to play like everyone else.

It's not fair to have someone of your lag-magnitude take part in competitive events. The normal sparring I can (barely) tolerate, but tournies and other important events need to filter out incredibly laggy people because a lot of folks are abusing it. I have nothing personal against people who are genuinely very laggy, however there comes a point where it is ruining people's events and sparring.

It's not about "LOL UR SO MEAN" it's about being fair to the majority of "competitive" players. Lag is in essence ruining the gaming experience of the majority when it comes to spar tournies and whatnot. Catering to the majority > catering to the very select few who actually have connections issues and others who lag themselves on purpose.

And? I'm not against 300ms, it's hard to summarize someone's lag based soley on their latency. It's more of a subjective thing. If there's a player skipping around an entire spar ring and becomming very difficult to hit, it's not fair for the other players to have to put up with this. Simply put, it's the problem of the laggy user.

56K is extremely uncommon so why should something that is rarely seen have priority? Majority of players are on cable, I'd rather see a majority of players pleased over one or two.

P.S. I don't think I've seen anybody with 56K since like 2004? (Minus Nightmareangel who upgraded to cable in 07-08)

lol

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/b...02_484x315.png

I have already made my views quite clear to Backdraft regarding this topic (who shot me down after attempting to give me a pretty masterful political run-around). Winning events with the aid of lag--whether intentional lag or not--is cheating. Yes, cheating. That's all there is to it. How can it be considered any different from using a trainer? If I logged into a friend's computer and played Graal not knowing that a trainer was being applied, should I be allowed to continue doing this? It's not my fault!! I can't help if I'm winning every event due to an unfair advantage! I shouldn't be held responsible for the fact that every single person I spar is left in the dust even though they are much more skilled at sparring than I am!

I don't see a difference between that and 'unintentional' lag.
For some people, the 'only Internet that they can get' provides an unfair advantage and bragging rights. Chakrah, you love playing the martyr act, but it's very clear that you take advantage of your connection and know that it's a huge asset. Nice gloat-video, pal.

Well, if someone lags, there lag also effects them; everyone lags to him to.

I mean, look at this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdDO07SYBQ0

Damn i look good in my movie

Not the point. Also Blobz clearly has the advantage there because viewing it from the other guy's screen would show Blobz massively skipping everywhere.

You think they would've fixed this problem a long time ago if it's such a big deal.

Oh wait, they still haven't so.
It must not be, so stop whining. QQ

lol gg.

Agreeeeeeeeeeed!

This is probably the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time.

One day, if your internet is not doing good, go in a spar or event and try to win. It's really hard. Working with lag is an actual skill, you need a high amount of talent to be able to get it to work for you. Having wireless, my internet likes to spike up sometimes and start screwing around, to the point where I'll have Chakrah-like lag. I've tried sparring under these conditions and I was being wooped EVERY time. It's not cheating, because it doesn't give you an edge, it just gives you a different set of conditions to play under.

Why don't players like Ares, Brett, or any of the high ranked sparrers complain?
Is it because they actually know how to face a player with lag?

Exactly.

This goes back to where I said "STOP WHINING"

getting butthurt over losing to me in a spar isn't anything.

In most cases a player does not have control over their connection type (whether they cannot afford a new connection, there is no upgraded connection in their area, or they are not of age and play off their parent's connection). Trying to compare these two groups of people (trainer users, and laggers) is like trying to compare apples to oranges. Granted there are probably people out there who lag intentionally, but I don't see why the truly unintentional laggers have to be punished for the acts of a few people.

You should know more than anyone that I am not posting this because I am "butthurt" about anything. There are a few of us that don't let you win events or Castle Wars, I just don't think players should have such things disrupted by laggers like you.

From experience with the playerbase, I believe this to be untrue. I don't think I know a single person on the server that has over 300ms consistently and doesn't abuse and boast about it. They are in the same league as trainer users.

Rufus, shut up.
You're just being bullheaded and want to win an arguement now.

If they complain about losing to you, than why would they even attempt to spar you?

Even better, if they know I lag, then don't fight me?

It's actually not that hard. One day my brother was torrenting on our wireless connection so my latency was really bad. I started to have relative ease when sparring people. Lag is the same way for both opponents, but in my honest opinion, the lagger has it easier. It would have to depend on download/upload speed however.

You guys say its unfair to Chakrah to restrict some event/spars he can play in, but how many people's fun has he ruined? Quite a lot. And he seems to admire it too.

Chakrah seems like a total ass. I said it wasn't fair to people who genuinely lag and can't help it, not to people who just act stupid.

This.

I agree, but I don't think there really has been a non-idiot with lag as incredibly bad as Chakrahs. BlobZ lagged as bad as Chakrah and he was a total douchebag.

It's inevitable to fight you in events/major spar tournies?

i'm not going to be sympathetic and say that i'm sorry about my lag, because i can't help it.

but you really know how annoying it is to hear "fix ur lag, u should be banned qq, ban u from server!!!11" every day?
so yeah i might come off as a prick, but i have my reasons.

now stop being big babies

Why did no1 complain about BlobZ? :O