I apologize if this has been asked many times in the past, but how exactly is lag compensation calculated. I play hyperbullet as my main control and I cannot tell you how many times I have lost in time scrambles due to the opponent gaining extra time due to their lag. Obviously you can attribute it to "skill issue", "just play faster", "maybe don't play hyperbullet because it's not real chess", or "just play normal rapid/blitz and you won't have this issue", and yes, I'd agree to most if not all of those rebuttals, but out of pure frustration, I want to understand what the thought process was when this was actually put into place. As far as I understand, depending on a player's ping, they will receive a small amount of time based on how high it is. As a person who has played on both <100ms and >300ms ping, I can tell you that having 3/4 bars of wifi is the most beneficial. I can flag most if not all people, but I have very high difficulty flagging people with 3/4 bars of wifi or with a super low ping like 50ms because the people with 3/4 bars of wifi can play just fast enough in which their premoves + lag compensation gives them just enough time to mitigate for actual transmission time between themselves and the server and they therefore become "unflaggable" or they outright gain time even. I understand that Lichess is a one or two man operation and that the codebase is probably very large (I haven't actually looked at the repo), and I haven't really looked much into real time low latency networking, so I'm not sure how much work it will actually take to implement a system that's either hosted locally or via some other service (Google's?) to have true "fairness" in terms of lag compensation. However, I'm not even sure if such a system is possible given the example of FPS shooters, as they don't implement any lag compensation. If you have higher ping you automatically are at a disadvantage, and they mitigate that by having servers across the globe. However, Lichess runs on a few servers in France so the people living in Northeastern/Central Europe are at the highest advantage and will always be at an advantage compared to people living in Australia. On the other hand, Chess.com mitigates this by having zero lag compensation and deducting 0.1s for every premove, but then that limits people's ability to flag in hyperbullet and ultrabullet. I've also heard of lag switchers, which I think are software that simulates a high ping on the actual computer itself, which tricks lichess into thinking that the ping is high and thus giving the player extra time. Perhaps all of this just takes away from the real "spirit" of chess and that I should just play normal chess...
@tthaumea343 "I can tell you that having 3/4 bars of wifi is the most beneficial" wifi bars or cullars ones show your connection to a router or tower not the speed, stability or latency of it. For a better connection user a wired one for a more stable lower ping.
"so I'm not sure how much work it will actually take to implement a system that's either hosted locally or via some other service (Google's?) to have true "fairness" in terms of lag compensation"
if locally means client side then become can hack it and if you mean have servers around the world that would cost alot of money and funny enough introduce more lag as it still as to go either to a main server or the server the game is on.
By servers around the world I mean that players get paired to opponents who are equidistant from the server in question, like how most video games do. If you're in Europe, you play on EU servers unless you specifically choose to play on another server and so on. As for the bars of wifi, I don't mean the one that's displayed on your actual operating system, I mean the one that's displayed on Lichess when you click on your profile, i.e., the icon beside your ping. And no, it's not my connection strength to my router, as I have played on VPN, and it obviously causes my ping to increase and the bars of wifi to decrease, regardless of whether I'm on wifi or ethernet.
@tthaumea343 said in #1:
> I apologize if this has been asked many times in the past, but how exactly is lag compensation calculated. I play hyperbullet as my main control and I cannot tell you how many times I have lost in time scrambles due to the opponent gaining extra time due to their lag. Obviously you can attribute it to "skill issue", "just play faster", "maybe don't play hyperbullet because it's not real chess", or "just play normal rapid/blitz and you won't have this issue", and yes, I'd agree to most if not all of those rebuttals, but out of pure frustration, I want to understand what the thought process was when this was actually put into place. As far as I understand, depending on a player's ping, they will receive a small amount of time based on how high it is. As a person who has played on both <100ms and >300ms ping, I can tell you that having 3/4 bars of wifi is the most beneficial. I can flag most if not all people, but I have very high difficulty flagging people with 3/4 bars of wifi or with a super low ping like 50ms because the people with 3/4 bars of wifi can play just fast enough in which their premoves + lag compensation gives them just enough time to mitigate for actual transmission time between themselves and the server and they therefore become "unflaggable" or they outright gain time even. I understand that Lichess is a one or two man operation and that the codebase is probably very large (I haven't actually looked at the repo), and I haven't really looked much into real time low latency networking, so I'm not sure how much work it will actually take to implement a system that's either hosted locally or via some other service (Google's?) to have true "fairness" in terms of lag compensation. However, I'm not even sure if such a system is possible given the example of FPS shooters, as they don't implement any lag compensation. If you have higher ping you automatically are at a disadvantage, and they mitigate that by having servers across the globe. However, Lichess runs on a few servers in France so the people living in Northeastern/Central Europe are at the highest advantage and will always be at an advantage compared to people living in Australia. On the other hand, Chess.com mitigates this by having zero lag compensation and deducting 0.1s for every premove, but then that limits people's ability to flag in hyperbullet and ultrabullet. I've also heard of lag switchers, which I think are software that simulates a high ping on the actual computer itself, which tricks lichess into thinking that the ping is high and thus giving the player extra time. Perhaps all of this just takes away from the real "spirit" of chess and that I should just play normal chess...
I pose the same question few weeks ago.
Lag compensation make very randomic the games mechanics and potentially may mess with how premoves are implemented here (for how I understand premoves working).
Dulcis infundo I have strong belief that a cheater may trick the system to register an artificial lag; as far as I understand it's unavoidable (even if I didn't invest much time to investigate it, but theoretically the issue is unavoidable AFAIK).
Ps:
I don't know many chess platforms that implement premoves and lag compensation that way.
Probably is just my ignorance, or maybe Lichess use very smart algorithms, or maybe.. just strange nobody have already copied such smart algorithms
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