Question
Having played TankBall 2 for a while over the past two days, I've noticed that some of my attacks aren't actually connecting with my opponent's tank. Mind you, they seem to connect, in that my balls clearly hit the tank and explode, and my hit counter increments, but I can tell that my opponent isn't taking damage since I can shoot them 20 times and they won't die, even though it takes 10 hits to kill a tank and health doesn't regenerate.
I'm pretty sure I understand why this is happening: determining whether or not you "hit" your opponent is done by checking it on your client, while checking whether or not they take damage is done on your opponent's client. As a result, if there's lag due to servers being full, you could be hitting your opponent as many times as you want to increase your score but to them and the game the balls are simply hitting thin air.
Still, understanding this doesn't help me improve at the game itself and destroy more tanks. So, is there any way I can tell if my opponent's actually taking damage or not, or, alternatively, tell if my opponent's apparent position is a fake generated by lag? Do you have any tips on compensating for the lag?
Answer
Connected shots will cause knockback on your opponent. So, if you notice the guy you're shooting getting pushed around, chances are you're actually hitting him.
Even if you don't actually hit them though, client-side hits still generate points for you, so you can whale on a guy and collect a large number of points without ever actually damaging him due to lag. It's a bit of a silly system, but that's how it works.
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