Doesn Unlagged screw up the weapon balance?
It changes the weapon balance, certainly. Since, under normal networking conditions, your hitscan weapons never become less effective, they tend to get used more. What’s difficult to determine is exactly when the game gets too overbalanced in favor of hitscan weapons. At what ping a player switches from running through tight corridors holding a rocket launcher to holding a shotgun really depends on the player. Even though I don’t have any concrete data (I don’t think anyone has), I can offer some observations, based on quite a few months of watching players adapt to hitscan lag compensation. It seems like it takes about a month for things to get back to normal. Players will favor hitscan weapons for a while, being simply enchanted by the fact that they can use them so well. The lightning gun, in particular, gets a lot of time. After a month or so, the players swing back toward their normal weapon selection, realizing that it’s more effective – that it’s still better to bounce a player
