I'm someone who used to play a lot of Valorant, but the fact that the gunfights feel very different from one match to the next has made me enjoy the game less and play a lot less more. I peaked at Immortal 3 and I could tell something was wrong in this game. Sadly, these posts are heavily regulated on Reddit so I thought might as well post here.
For me, the gameplay feels vastly different every time I play. Some matches enemies peek really fast and counter-strafe at godspeed, other times it feels like player models move at proper speed but then hit reg feels really off and sluggish. Note that I have had this problem ever since it came out of beta and many other people feel the same.
I've been trying to find a fix forever and I think I have pinpointed to problem down to the game's network buffering(it might also be somewhat related to ping). I think this post from the developers themselves was really insightful https://playvalorant.com/en-gb/news/gam ... -update-2/
Some important sentences from the post:
1) Providing the correct amount of buffering is an important balancing act.
2) If we get the balance just right, VALORANT feels both smooth and responsive.
3) Too little buffering and you get lots of Server-predicted moves and client corrections, too much buffering and you get high latency and are more susceptible to things like peeker’s advantage.
I have done some testing with clumsy. I have tried increasing my jitter by throttling packets at different levels. I have also done testing by changing receive and transmit buffers in my network adapter. Turning them to the lowest or even to 0(you can do this in Regedit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0001) the game feels wildly different. Inputs are registered much faster, hit reg feels really fast BUT enemies move really fast and it's really hard to track that shit.
The reason I stumbled upon this is because Valorant has a network buffering setting that you can change to minimum, moderate or maximum. It basically changes the buffer length. In some matches, I have to turn the buffer to maximum to feel like I have a fighting chance, but in others minimum or moderate receives the best results. I have also used clumsy to increase my ping in some matches and for whatever reason, at 60/80ms ping my shots started to register faster than they were at 35ms. It's wild. Note that my default internet connection is perfectly stable, no packet loss and very minimal jitter.
I think that the game's optimal buffers that are calculated by the netcode are in fact not optimal. I was able to directly change the feel of the game's responsiveness/smoothness in some deathmatches by adding slight jitter to my latency, which slightly increased network round trip + buffer latency. Everything suddenly turned snappy, bullets were snapping to enemy heads whereas before I would get ferrari peeked and enemy would eat bullets like sponge. But I can not use the same settings every single match and I think that's because the calculation behind the netcode can't get the optimal buffer levels right.
Here's some thoughts about the third sentence from the dev post I mentioned earlier. There are times when enemy positions are corrected way too often, making them counter strafe and peek corners way too fast, hit reg is actually fast and correct then but its so hard to shoot them(low buffers). Then there are times where enemies move smooth and are easy to track, but it feels like they're eating bullets like sponges(high buffers). Then the rarest for me is a combination where the player models move very smooth and hit reg is beautiful(correct buffers).
At this point I am out of ideas what I can do on my end. I am pretty confident I have nailed the problem down, but I don't know how to manipulate the buffers in my favor so I can actually properly shoot these kids again. Are developers the only ones that can properly solve this problem?
I'm also afraid that since buffering is also needed in VALORANT'S eSports LAN scenario(they don't play on lan, you can see pro players having around 1-7ms of ping), it can heavily fuck with teams' consistency. If that's the case then it's very very bad and needs a fix ASAP. If this problem affects pro players, then the game truly is a RNG simulator(who gets the optimal buffers for best gameplay).
I am looking forward to your ideas and thoughts on this topic. Anyone that knows more than me about buffers, ping, ping disparity and netcode are welcome to join in this conversation.
Update 17.10.2022
I'm pasting here a comment I added recently for convenience.
Update 12.08.2023It's a problem with the netcode. I found out there's an optimal ping for each lobby(i'm honestly not sure if it's related to network buffering at this point but I know for a fact there's an optimal ping after thoroughly testing). Anything below or above that "random" ping causes slight issues with hit registry and timings when someone peeks or counter strafes. It's best to already have a low ping to a server and then use a third party tool(like clumsy) or a vpn(i don't recommend) to slightly keep increasing ping in increments of 5ms to find out the sweet spot. This is a tedious process, requires you to feel out the round and is time consuming. So it's honestly not worth it.
The reason I don't recommend vpn is because this seems to be mostly related to outbound latency. When you use clumsy, you can use it to only increase your outbound latency. The latency from server to game client has no effect, all it does it handicap you with late information. What matters is latency from game client to server.
I think the netcode somewhere is acting up like when it was with League of Legends when they introduced artificial latency for remote competitors. This post explains it really well and is worth reading.
It's up to the developers to fix, they're the only ones who can figure out what's really happening behind their netcode. As for us, we can only guess and hope they find the problem.
The main reason for these issues is either too little or too much lag compensation on the server side(atleast on Valorant).
When lag compensation is set too high, the server tries to predict player movements based on outdated information, leading to exaggerated and fast movements on the client's side. This can make players seem to teleport or move erratically, especially when they perform quick actions like peeking around corners or strafing. Players with higher latencies may benefit from this excessive compensation, as their actions might be interpreted as even faster on the server side than they actually are, giving them an unintended advantage. On the other hand, players with lower latencies might have difficulty predicting and aiming at these fast-moving targets. This will make you feel like you have desync.
When lag compensation is too low, it means that the game server is not compensating enough for the latency between players' actions and the server's response. Players will experience noticeable delays between their actions (such as firing a weapon, moving, or using abilities) and the game's response. This will make you feel like you have input lag.
More often than not, for me the lag compensation is too high. More people need to report this to Riot, maybe they will do something about it(but probably not, it's been 3 years since the game has been out :/). It's not related to buffering as I initially thought, it's all about the good ol' lag comp.
This is why at times I have been able to fix the smoothness of my game by manipulating with latency or changing the network buffering setting.
The lag compensation algo is out of player control, besides manipulating with ping. Good luck brothers and sisters.