I play sniper 90% of the time and this shield thing is starting to annoy me, especially when i dont get the kill or they kill me when i shouldve killed them. Let me epxplain this shield thing. As a sniper i probably notice it more. When you shoot someone that hits, they do not take any damage but a sort of shield (or kind of like a force field) pops up where you hit them. People who play tanks may notice it even more when your trying to burn the enemy to death but your kinda to far away from them but your attack still hits but does no damage. Its hard to explain but im hoping someone knows what im talking about. Can anyone explain to me what the heck makes this happen?
short answer, lag. long answer, on your screen the bullet makes the impact, but on the server the bullets arent actually landing, therefore no damage is done. your the only one seeing the bullet hit. tanks have the same problem, they will seem closer to an enemy they are chasing with the burn gun, but the enemy will actually be farther away so on the server the beam isnt making contact but on the tank's his beam is just within range. a more servere example is when someone completely loses connection. on their game, it seems like they can unload a complete clip at point blank range into an enemy, but it will never damage them once even tho you see the penetration. it also seems that the enemy is there, and just walking at the same speed in the same direction infinitely, when he isnt on his screen or according to the server, only you see it because you stopped recieving the signal controlling it. its because since you disconnected, none of it is being confirmed by the server.
As someone who plays sniper a lot, I think what he's talking about is the current desynch between the rifle's "tracer" (i.e.: the visual representation of the shot), and the actual hitscan/shot. See, the instinctual reaction is to make the bullet you can see (the tracer) hit the target. If that tracer is delayed (and it is), you try to make the tracer that you can see hit enemy model, resulting in the hitscan actually hitting ahead of the target. In-game, this results in shots that visually seem to hit, that do the "explosion" of a hit, but do no damage. In short, OP, it's a desynch issues. Headshots still kill everything but a Tank on full health and gold armor.
