People playing PERFECTLY in lag?

[Wolfalisk]

So I've played around 600-700 online matches, and just in the last month or so I've noticed people playing impeccably in laggy games. I've witnessed some pretty mechanically intensive things flawlessly executed while there is both stop-and-start lag and heavy input lag.

For example, a character knocks you off the edge. He then jumps off as you recover, adjusts himself accordingly to your defensive spacing in the air, and manages to get a perfect hitbox spike on you and you launch straight down to your death as he makes a clean return to the stage. In extreme lag. Other examples are near-perfect shielding and dodging and move timing.

At first I wrote this off as those people being those patient-zero laggers who are the source of the lag in every game they are in, thus only ever play in lag, and therefore have adjusted their mechanics and timings accordingly to said lag, making it appear as though they are unimpaired.

There's so much more of this now though. You'll have 1-2 people in the match that are clearly being effected by the lag and then the two others who are performing feats of mechanical prowess left and right.

Starting to get frustrated by this.

 

[ElectricBlade]

Well do you mean like input lag or the -im going to stop the game every 2 seconds to load something- kind of lag? If its that latter they could have just been thinking of a perfect set-up during the lag

If you were playing with button lag maybe you were playing m2k or something idek

 

[ReturningFall]

A big part of it seems to be just adapting to lag...which means playing online a lot.

As a tip, if you don't think of lag as your enemy it's probably easier to get better at playing through it.

 

[SphericalCrusher]

I've actually been noticing this lately on For Glory. I've been running into a lot more laggy matches than normal for one.. but out of those, I've seen people play outstanding when I'm lagging hardcore myself. At that point, it's quite obvious those players are the ones causing the lag, and somehow were able to get the host for the game room. Some of the matches you can tell when both players are lagging... but it is quite frustrating when you can tell they're playing just fine but you are lagging. I usually just SD or leave right after, because there's no point. I do wish this game would have dedicated servers though.

 

[COLINBG]

You need to have a different mindset if the lag is intense. Since it's harder to do pretty much everything, it's also harder to punish anything. This means you can be more reckless and be more agressive in your gimping or in making reads in general. I'm not saying you should carelessly throw random smashes, but you can afford to do some dangerous stuff. Spamming is also a lot more frustrating to deal with, and fast characters like Sonic or Falcon are plain stupid. It's like a different meta.

Also, if you only experience heavy lag once in a while, it means it's the other player's connexion which is bad. So they are probably used to that kind of lag, and are less affected by it because that's how they normally play.

 

[Arle Nadja]

I've always felt that I play very well in lag. Some people are just good at it, it doesn't mean they're going out of their way to cause it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPCKogphuas Here's me playing in severe lag (Greater than one second constantly.) If you pay attention you'll notice that I just kinda predict where they're going to be or exploit their lack of reaction time a lot, allowing me to get a pretty big edge.

 

[ReturningFall]

I'd actually say certain things are easier to pull off in laggy matches. Near frame perfect inputs like wavebounces are harder, but combos can be more like training mode. Stuff like spiking is easier as it is harder to guess your opponent is going to do it and a lot of people tend to take the same return paths so a lot of guys just fish for it knowing you don't really have time to see it coming and respond.

As for perfect shielding, I'm guessing 90% of people shield as a panic or just when they see an attack they want to shield. Perfect shielding then just...happens.

Technical stuff is completely doable in lag, but it takes really precise inputs. Lag is funny, it teaches you to pull off stuff more consistently as you can get punished while learning.