Seriously, this is becoming far past unfunny now... So. Before everybody screams at me : I don't *know* that they're actually Russian, but when their outfit name has RUS in it, and they fly the Russian flag as their outfit logo, and half their names are like MkbPlkbya and/or also include RUS, it sure looks like they're Russian. And here's the thing. There are some decent Ruskies out there. I've played with some of them, got some on my friendslist and regularly join their squads (even if all I can do is follow the waypoints 'cause I don't talk the talk). But there sure as **** is a large number of dodgy-*** dudes there too. I'm tired of dying behind a wall, where I was *definitely* in cover, because the Russian dude is either laggy as **** or lag-switching. Or just straight up collision-hacking. I honestly can't tell. I know it's how the game works, I know it's because of the client-side HD, But it doesn't change the fact that it's extremely frustrating and unfun. I don't mind losing a fight. God knows I get enough practice. But I *do* mind losing a fight to a dude I haven't even *seen* because he only comes around the corner after I'm already dead. I'm tired of the perma-triple-dink. Yeah, I know that there are some super-skilled dudes that can absolutely pull it off. But it seems super-dodgy that seemingly 10% of the population are in the top 0.5% aim-bracket. And that 70%+ of them are oh-so-conveniently Russians. And how many of them seem to be able to regularly pull it off no matter how I'm jinking, duckin', diving, jumping and weaving. I know that the solution isn't to ban Russians. That's just stupid and totally unfair to the (probably large percentage) of totally legit dudes. But then, finding the solution isn't my problem - that's what I pay RPG for. This sort of BS is why I eventually took a massive break from PS2 in 2008.... and it's going to be why I (and my subscription) will end up take another break unless RPG does *some*thing. Because, at the end of the day, PS2 is a game meant to be played for enjoyment... not something designed to induce keyboard-snapping levels of frustration when the guy that just BS-killed you 15s ago on one side of the base, suddenly "appears" behind you on the completely opposite side and BS-kills you again. And again. And again.
I believe the netcode struggling to account for the endless and unstable pings of large numbers of people even causes your player position to be ahead of where you are moving towards. This could explain how when I cross into a doorway I drop dead faster than I can fire 2 shots - effectively inverting the clientside advantage against you. I suspect this is so because sometimes I fall off cliffs even though I didn't move beyond the edge, but the game thinks I did and throws me off of them with some magic acceleration bumping me off. Devs need to look at and tune the netcode to try to make for a more fair game, but this won't happen as it's part of what makes PS2 both great and terrible, since it can at least pull off massive scale battles somewhat unlike any other game out there - it's some proprietary code or mix of codes of which the original dev(s) are probably long gone by now so I highly doubt anyone can do anything about it. Then there's the exploits and cheats both subtle and blatant that need to be looked into using Dev-level tools since it's nearly impossible to determine what's high end skill and what's illegitimate buffs. Also, yes I've run into some of what you describe, and it felt like going up against a wallhack hitbox modder, lost 100% of the engagements and they also magically never ran out of bullets.
Russians used to have their own server (Werner). But either there weren't enough of them, or they didn't spend enough money, or something, because DBG had to shut it down (while simultaneously choosing to retain 2 servers *per region* in other regions).
Yeah, I know there used to be a RU server. I'm particularly salty about it (albeit not vocal at all, as it is pointless), because the TR has been "blessed" by the highest number of RU migrants and it shows...
Throughout my history playing this game, one question has surfaced more than most others, which is "why can tanks not kill aircraft?" By this, I obviously don't mean "why is it impossible", but rather, "if the tank driver and pilot are equally skilled in their own regards, why does the aircraft always win"? For the lightning, the obvious answer is just a skyguard. For your MBT, the answer is ...? Ranger, to piss them off, or walker, to 'deter' them? I was always thinking it would be cool on MBT's for the option to choose "nothing" as the top gun, removing it and making enough room for your main cannon to elevate 90 degrees upward. Obviously this would look ridiculous on the Magrider, but VS already looks ridiculous as is.