Tin Foil Hat Theory - The "Hit Box"

PVP Battlegrounds
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So this is just a theory and could be construed as a “conspiracy” theory, However I have played 1000’s of BG’s amonst my toons which is why i’m posting under PVP because i rarely play any other content.
My Theory surrounding the Hit Box, and for those who are not familiar with the term, in the virtual world there is the digital rendering of a character and or object but there is also a “box” per say that surrounds that rendering which identifies the “actual” area or proximity around the object that is subject to being “hit”. I am not a coder, but have extensive experience working in the software field and with programmers. So my theory which i have been “studying” over some time is that Horde have smaller “Hit Boxes” than alliance. Initially, i just summed it up to other factors such as latency, my mechanics etc. But I would notice subtle things like “how can that mage reach me when i can’t reach him (on my mage)”, “why can that warrior charge my warrior but i’m not in range”, then there were vehicle applications, firing canons, glaives etc…where i’m getting hit for max damage but was quite a distant away from the epicenter leaving me question, are all these drivers that awesome and i am just that bad lol",
So a number of circumstance had me question what was going on and my suspicions grew as these examples continued to recur but there are also many others. Then I made a hunter recently and found myself laughing pretty hard after laying traps at flgs and watching horde while in shadowmeld stand almost right on top of the trap and cap. While on the other hand, if i am anywhere near, pretty much a 4-5 yard radius, from a trap at a flag i will be snared. Even on y rogue where traps i can see i have tested how close i can come and the result is not very close lol.
I mean since 8.2 there has been a noticeable improvement in alliance BG success, however, my “conspiracy” theory still holds true at this point. Is it plausible, absolutely, it’s simple code, but is it a fact, i really don’t know and really am wondering if anyone else has been suspicious of similar experiences. I mean it really could be just a matter of other factors, i just found it too consistent to be chance.

“takes off tinfoil hat”

Thanks for reading!

Cheers

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Gonna need something even stronger than a tinfoil hat for this bullshet.

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…

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Hitboxes were normalized at some point, IIRC.

I am almost certain of this, but I can’t find any source since everything is just talking about the “Not A Bug” thread. I can find other people saying the same thing, but never anything official.

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It would be easy for someone who runs a private server to see. They just have to view the “live” edit and measure the hit boxes.

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the OP is describing lag, not hitboxes

edit: just to clarify a bit, this is something all melee players have lived through. though i have not played melee in a while, i recall the good ol’ days on my feral, when i would be chasing a player, and have to appear (on my screen) about 5 feet in front of them to be able to use any abilities on them.

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It would be easy enough to test this with a player or alt of both factions.

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Dunno about hit boxes, but I would agree that the effectiveness of traps and flare have been lackluster in recent expansions. Seems kinda silly that you can be sapped while standing in the middle of a flare, and if you’re close enough to interact with a flag you should probably trigger a trap that’s on top of the flag.

I haven’t played a hunter at cap in several xpacs though, so…

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hunters dont need buffs in bgs. the flare thing is strange, but hunters still shlt on rogues anyway

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i think i know wat op is trying to say…

as a rogue, i’m always trying to get around hunters defensive techniques, the traps on AV bridge etc… the flares.

theres ways to exploit the netcode or lag that are just part of the game, every experienced player knows this for example:

you’re a hunter standing in the middle of a flare… if i have you targeted, i can press shadowstep while spamming sap button and i’ll get a sap off (even though I’ll get destealthed by the flare)… or I could use the same mechanic to shadowstep sap your pet and then tab cheap shot you real quick and get the sap cheap shot to go off right on top of your flare.

is that what you mean op? there’s always been little “glitches” like this in the game… some that used to work dont work anymore, for example:

in a rogue vs rogue duel, back in TBC/WOTLK… if the enemy rogue cast blind on me, and i vanish at the exact same time, the blind fails and my vanish breaks, it’s called “vanish immuning the blind”… same thing with deathcoil… warlocks throwing deathcoil at me if i vanish at the right time i could immune it, which would also break vanish usually. or if a warrior uses intercept on me, and i shadowstep at the exact same time, we’ll switch places and i’ll still be 15 yards away, hence countering the intercept…

these tricks all used to work back in TBC/WOTLK maybe even vanilla (i barely played vanilla so i dont know)…

this is the same type of glitch that allows what you’re describing with your traps i think.

it’s not “tin foil hat conspiracy shyt”, just accept it as part of the game, and expect skilled players to use these tactics…

what should you do? find a way to counter these tricks… it makes the game deeper

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Sounds like you’re talking about batching, where the server processes combat in abilities batched by time window rather than one at a time. If two abilities land in the same batch, they “happen” simultaneously from the perspective of the players.

Today the batch window is very small, making it relatively difficult to intentionally place two abilities within a batch, but the window was originally much larger (larger windows == less server strain at the cost of accuracy). IIRC the window was changed somewhere around Cata or MoP. Classic will be using the older style batching.

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this makes 100% sense and is what i was trying to describe… i’m a programmer too so i get what your talking about :slight_smile: