LPB - any difference?

[Ono]

Serious answers from people who have experience of the transition from HPB to LPB please:

I have had ADSL now for a few months and to be honest it hasn't made a blind bit of difference to my CS scores.

In fact I think I was a lot better when on my old 56k modem!

What are your thoughts?

Has anyone actually improved with broadband on CS or is it just me?

 

[old.Kurt_Angle]

Makes a difference, but not so much on the crappy HL net code, quake2/3, tribes, ut, all play great on a isdn or sub connection, sadly not TFC/CS though. As for your scores though, i kinda seen this coming, all the modem players that were boasting a few months ago, about getting dsl, simply put there ain't no beating a skilled player no matter whay your connection. Well not in a halflife game anyway, but in quake 3, the modem player has little chance no matter what the level of play Not so much Q2, but Q3.

 

[Perplex]

Not trying to blow my own trumpet but I was a class player on 56k. Moved over to broadband about 2 weeks ago, and yes...I do notice a difference. My scores haven't improved much tho...simply because to be honest, they can't get too much better than they already are

Also, stop worrying about score. Scores mean fuck all in CS.

 

[old.Kurt_Angle]

Time to ditch personal scores? In dm games they have some meaning, but in team games, all it does is take the team element out of most games. I have no idea on this, but is there a way to disable personal scores, from both tfc games, and cs games.

 

[old.erricc]

I was playing CS with 56K for couple of months and constantly getting scores of 5 frags and 20 deaths. As soon as I switched to broadband (50 ping) I occasionally come top of the class. So yes MAJOR difference. Ppl should change from 56k for better gaming experience. But you must also have a good graphics card or you will find LAN games a challenge.
BTW low pings make for fun sniping just to annoy ppl

 

[Atomic Rammer]

Yeah I'd like to be able to have my 10 frags for a cap in tfc replaced by a 1 point in a caps column. I'm not interested in a high frag count.

I remember CS used to come by default that you couldnt see the other players scores - beta 6 or something but i forget the variable. Dont think u can do it in tfc. But its just a client side setting so im not sure u could disable it for everyone server side.

I'm a hpb and I've never actually played online on a broadband connect. Halflife and its mods are the only online games I've played for quite some time now, and when I played Q3 recently I struggled to cope with having to adjust for lag. Halflife zero ping style netcode is a dream for high pingers, so im also interested why kurt will say halflife netcode is crap for lpb play? What exactly feels better in Q3A netcode?


[Edited by SYDEEREAL on 21-01-01 at 22:15]

 

[Embattle]

Many people end up thinking that being an LPB makes you a better player, this isn't automatic.

I've seen many players who are LPBs yet still rubbish, part of its down to mental thinking, sometimes becoming an LPB gives you a mental boost and thus you do better. Its the same if you buy a brand new Tennis racket, you most probably gonna play better since you think the racket will do this that and the other.

I only became an LPB last Aug and had been using a modem for many years, some people considered me to be one of the better AQ2 players and I could even beat LPBs. It was because I played a fair amount but was also determined in my mental state to do well for myself and my team.

In the end you still have to be able to play even with a low ping.

 

[stu]

Originally posted by Kurt_Angle
Makes a difference, but not so much on the crappy HL net code, quake2/3, tribes, ut, all play great on a isdn or sub connection, sadly not TFC/CS though. As for your scores though, i kinda seen this coming, all the modem players that were boasting a few months ago, about getting dsl, simply put there ain't no beating a skilled player no matter whay your connection. Well not in a halflife game anyway, but in quake 3, the modem player has little chance no matter what the level of play Not so much Q2, but Q3.

All totally true. The HL netcode balances it out a lot more than Q2. You do still have an advantage, but it's smaller. Q2 you have a definite advantage as an LPB, most noticeably with the hitscan weapons, but a good modemer can still do plenty of damage. Q3 goes completely the other way - unless you've got a decent connection and PC, you're basically screwed (nice "improved" gameplay there id). However, if you have the skillz to pay the billz, generally it won't make a massive difference in CS.

Perp's scores haven't changed because he's a camping lamet and you don't need ping to do that

The only player I've seen massively change in ability with ping has been Meatballs (who was pretty shit on modem, but very good on ISDN). Most other people (myself included) haven't changed massively on going to a decent connection. Personally I find my own "level" in a game. Improving my system will temporarily improve my score, but then I'll "adjust" (ie become more shit to compensate ). I have no idea why this happens, but it seems to happen to other people as well - eg you see a lot of modemers go to their friends houses and play from ISDN or whatever, and trash the server, yet when they upgrade themselves their score soon settles back down to something more like what they used to get.

Re: dumping individual scores. Yeah in theory it's a great idea, but in the majority of cases on public servers the team doesn't play as a team unfortunately (which is highlighted by the way that 2 or 3 clan mates playing together can tear a server up). Also (and this is beginning to anger me), people treat CS like DM mostly, and will plant the bomb/rescue the hostages only if they can't find any enemy to shoot, as an afterthought. Again, this really shows itself up when a small group of well sorted players complete the objective consistently, while half the other team is running around like headless chickens.

 

[Perplex]

LOL....arsehole

Aye, agree totally about meats, he's a one man army these days. Very scarey

 

[old.[MMX]Camel]

Worst thing about becoming an lpb was trying not to shoot two feet in front of your target... compensating for lag that is no longer there

 

[Atomic Rammer]

So do people actually like the HL netcode removing the need to compensate for lag?

I know it can produce sucky things like getting shot when you know u ducked behind a wall, but I'm quite happy that the server decided I got shot but told me late, as long as I dont have to lag predict. After all ping is a flaw of internet play, and you shouldnt really have to cope with it.

 

[stu]

umm... actually ping is a 'flaw' of physics.

pesky concepts of space and time, shouldn't have to deal with them at all...

 

[Atomic Rammer]

umm... I was keeping it simple yeah?
High ping is a drawback of internet play for modemers, they are intended ideally for lan type conditions.

 

[old.Tinman]

I have a standard 56k line at home that when dialing to barrysworld and on BW servers I used to get a ping of around 150 - thats my idea of playable.
I would usually end the round with a 2:1 ratio of frags to deaths ( I am no king at CS ).

Recently I had the opportunity to try a faster connection, a 4mb link. When playing CS on BW I was getting a ping of 11 or 12 ( fantastic ping ) that I usually only see on LAN games.

I thought I would be a hell of a lot better. The first games I was in I was good, killing 20-30 people and dying 3-4 times. I thought I would own forever on this connection. I had 3 clans offer me places and trials ( unusual for me ).

It turns out I must have just been lucky, when "good" players on 100-140 pings start getting in to the game the score wasn't nearly as pretty.

Anyone that is good will still play very well on anything up to a 300 ping ( bad day on a 56k line ).

What you mustn't do is expect the ping to win you kills.

 

[Ono]

I agree Tinman

When I got my ADSL I thought I would 0wn (a bit anyway). But what I found myself doing was getting over confident and rushing a lot which is not my normal game.

Now I play normally and am starting to improve again.