February 2019
February 2019 - last edited February 2019
That's the good side of Server-sided hit registration. If you have low ping and you duck behind cover it's nearly impossible for a high ping player (or someone who uses to much interplolation) to get hit registration on you. Though the flipside of this coin is that means that player just saw several shots hit you for no damage. The main problem with server-side hit registration and the definition of "high ping" or "to much interpolation" changes based on the tickrate, lower tick rates means everyone is simulating MORE interpolation. This means players with reasonable ping time (25ms to 75ms) and a stable connection maybe subject to a lot more of the bad side of server hit registration where they see shots hitting people and not doing damage or seeing shots come at them they take cover and they're hit with 3-4 more shots than they were expecting.
Example
20tick server , 25ms ping
50ms of interpolation + 25ms of packet travel time = 75ms of delay from what the server sees
40tick server, 25ms ping
25ms of interpolation + 25ms of packet travel time = 50ms of delay from what the server sees
Now who did you think would have better hit registration? Obviously the 40 tick server player because they're seeing more relevant information and they're shooting at a target with about 25ms less delay.
This also means that a 20tick server player with a typical 25ms is treated roughly the same as a 40 tick server player with 50ms ping in terms of hit registration. Technically speaking though hit registration would still be better on a 40 tick server due to more accurate interpolation on a client to begin with.
To some it may seem a bit nitpicky when you're talking moving from 20 tick to 40 tick (25ms difference between server updates) but when you're trying to hit a target the size of a head hitbox, or just trying to hit a fast moving target, or hitting 2-3 more shots in general in a 15 round spray it actually makes a substantial difference.
*I'm using 40tick as my example as that's what I'd like to see the game go to for general play, ideally it would be higher (~64tick is something used by a lot of other source games in both Casual or ranked MM but not necessarily competitive leagues) but may not be something Respawn is capable of doing in terms of cost and number of servers they can deploy due to the significantly higher resource requirements (and generally speaking having a huge map and more players at the start).
February 2019
Due to a combination of low the server tick rate is and client prediction can lead to incredibly aggravating results like this.
https://clips.twitch.tv/KathishIntelligentMoosePhilosoraptor the last 4s at 0.25x speed
https://i.imgur.com/GLddTGj.png
^this image is the very last frame before I died. It shows me not only firing the peacekeeper but ALSO a bloodspray on the lifeline. They're dead center of my crosshair with a lot of the pellets having to hit the head, this should've been a kill shot. Lifeline at this point was ~54hp or less. Somehow I did 0 damage.
This can only mean that projectiles are in fact delayed by Interpolation (directly tied to server tickrate) + client ping as well as the client rendering projectiles you fired before they actually exist in the game world.
July 2019
July 2019
seems nothing change in season 2
October 2019
I know this is an old post but if you guys still care about this and want to know a bit more just check out battlenonsense's video on the matter.
https://youtu.be/xRj3KZJCDiM
PCgamer also covered this.
https://www.pcgamer.com/apex-legends-tick-rate/
For a competitive FPS game the server tickrate was and IS really bad and the netcode still needs a lot of work. As far as I'm concerned they just don't care about the experience and the players, all they care about is $$$.
January 2020
Strongly agree, 20 tickrate on server side is a disgrace for an FPS, even for a BR.
For those that don't know what that is : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PfFPW9a90w
Its tie to hire an Netcode Engineer , instead of Free to play marketing lootboxe engineer.
I
January 2020 - last edited January 2020
I recall some time ago Battlenonsense did a deep dive into Apex's net code, and found the game's packets were exceeding MTU for almost the entire duration of the game.
So while increasing the tick rate is undoubtedly a trivial change, the associated factor of 3 increase in bandwidth usage will have dramatic negative consequences, unless of course there's also significant net code optimization to reduce redundant information being broadcast.
I highly doubt Respawn will be able to achieve the 66% bandwidth usage reduction needed to support a 60hz tick rate.
January 2020
if they focus more on marketing lootboxes, than have a proper netcode engineer, they will not.
Now packet are split increasing the chance of a lost paquets wich makes worst than 20 tickrate sometimes.
Servers are bad and that need to change to see a real competitive scene grow.
January 2020
No changes in sight :/