Hey there This is pretty much a rant, but also something that's been bothering me for a while. I have a TR account, mostly medic, sometimes HA. I play with the AMR, Jackal and Armistice. And I don't get it. No matter what weapon the enemy is using, no matter the class and no matter the range, it seems people always deal more damage and are more accurate than me. Even when I manage to land 2 or 3 headshots, I barely take down their shields, while they only need two heads and a half to take me down, and they can do that without missing a single shot. What am I doing wrong ? I get that some people are extremely good at this game, but at some point, I'd expect to win a 1v1 if I'm behind the enemy and start firing before they turn around. But sometimes a whole clip won't be enough, even with a few headshots in the mix.
There are players with 6 years of experience (without taking PS1 into account) so they have such a big advantage in terms of knowledge, skills and experience that they will win most of the times against low BR characters, just remember that. However, chances are that you may simply not hitting them despite pumping rounds. Record a session (you can either use FRAPS, or the NVIDIA tool) next time you play and look at how many hits (see http://iridar.net/planetside2/weapons/weapon-mechanics/ for details) you score vs how many rounds you shoot at your enemies.
Checking the link above will help a lot. Adjusting your settings and having good fps plays a major role in PS2...more than any other game I know.
I seems you ran into the latency system. Most games keep it at 64 players tops for a reason, while PS2 can handle a 100v100v100 battle and have several "small" ~32v32 battles around it. This comes at a cost. Every player's action you see happens with a tiny delay. Some actions are shortened due to when information arrives at your pc. This means that if you jump behind cover, it takes a moment before your enemy sees you jump behind cover, allowing him to kill you on his screen while on your screen you seem safe. In reverse you can jump out and shoot someone before they see you, but this will not necessarily mean you have more time to kill your enemy. One thing that often happens is that an enemy shooting you is shorter on your pc, making it seem like they turned and only needed 3 shots to kill you while on their screen they turned sooner and needed 7+ shots. Just remember, every guy you kill may think you kill them with just 3 shots as well!
There is one more thing to know, that I realized eventually. Just because you are shooting someone and they are shooting you back, does not mean they are the person that kills you. If they have someone assisting, good chance that the killer just finished you off and you are looking at the health of the wrong person.
Is latency that much of a problem ? I usually have around 35ms server and local latency, I thought it was decent enough. So these guys happen to have a better connection than I, or they just learned how to bypass this issue ? I'm not gonna blame lag though, these guys usually have much better map and situation awareness, as well as positioning. It's not about settings either, the game runs smoothly even in big fights. I miss a few rounds most of the time, but even when I don't, the problem is still here, so it's not just about my aim (though it mostly is, I'm still learning). Now, I might not be using my weapons at optimal range, but sometimes the same guy will 1v1 me without taking much damage at various ranges. As for kill assists, I'm aware of that I'm really talking about 1v1s here, no "assisted by" thing in the death screen. I'll take all that into account next time, thanks for all the answers !
It is not only your latency but the latency of your opponent as well that has a role. In PS2, weapon damage is computed locally and then this information is sent to the main server and in turn to your opponent's PC. The consequence is that latency plays for you when you initiate an attack, but plays against you if your opponent initiates an attack. Say that you and your opponent have 50 and 100 ms latency respectively. Scenario 1: you see your opponent, aim and open fire. Then you damage the opponent and then this information reaches the PC of your opponent. He will be notified and after his reaction time (say 250 ms) will react. That has taken at least 50+100+250 = 400ms and meanwhile you are still firing. The theoretical TTK of many weapons is around 400-500ms so should have almost killed him by the time there will be some reaction. Scenario 2: he sees you first. Everything is reversed so when you react it may be almost too late.
Another thing to remember is the death screen displays almost the exact moment they killed you. I've been in plenty of situations where we both killed each other but the death screen still shows them having health or I knew for a fact that I took out their shields (I seen the effect of it breaking) but the death screen still showed it.
These guys have sometimes better, sometimes a worse connection. The latency system is what enables PS2 to handle extreme playercounts, but the price of this system is that what you see is always a teensy bit behind on what your enemy really did. You could play in a room next to the server and still have this latency. Keep in mind that your enemy does not have a real advantage. He still has to shoot you just as much as normally. He still is visible just as long to you as you are to him. The only difference is when, and how long you see and hear the animations. Inbetween information packets your PC is constantly guessing what your enemies are doing based on the last imput. If the last imput was "walk away from you" while the player was already turning and shooting, then you "miss out" on a tiny piece and see your enemy walk away from you a bit longer than expected. At the next packet your PC corrects this and tries to simulate the enemy turning and firing at you, causing it to seem he insta-turns and kills you in only 3 shots. But if you had killed your enemy, he might have experienced a sudden 2 to 3-shot kill (that probably took you more shots!). Or he might see every single shot hit him while he tries to retaliate. The beauty is that in the end you get about the same amount of time to kill him as he does you. Even if his connection is bad and you receive his actions 1 second later, you will also receive your death notice 1 second later and have time to kill him. This in fact means that if your "kill" is received by the server first, that your enemy will die even though he "killed" you, which he receives a whole second after the fact!
Your Playing TR. It's our trait to have lowest damage per bullet and achiving accuracy true volume of fire.
I see ! I had no idea it worked that way. So that might explain why I often kill an opponent and die to them at the same time. I just played a bit, and I think part of my problem is that I believe I start shooting at the same time as the enemy, but I actually let him fire one or two rounds before me. Also, I tend to start aiming when I should already be aiming and shooting instead. I managed to get a few kills by being more aware of that, and I saw some change. I'm still bad at pre-aiming, but I'm getting there.
Those guns you mention are all pretty specialised though. The AMR is really for medium to long range encounters where you can outrange the enemy. The Jackal and Armistice are for very close quarters and are pretty ineffective outside about 15m. If you're playing medic why are you not using the assault rifles? The default Cycler is one of the best all round guns in the game and is more suited to a range of combat.
