First off I want to thanks the devs for all they're doing to improve the game. As a developer myself I know that can be a thankless job.
It's great that the devs added the ping limit of 350, that helped with people using very high pings to their advantage.
However, 350 is still far too high and still gives such players at higher triple digit pings advantages (say those how have a sustained ping over 200-250). I say advantages because if you think about it high ping reduces the server's (and other player's) resolution into what people are doing to less than "3 frames per second of data" Just trying to aim at such players as they bounce around at distance or in close quarters is nearly impossible. It also wreaks havoc on the server dsync and overall network performance of all players (good and bad ping). Not good UX.
That said, I have some ideas on how to improve this UX:
- Add a warning if ping hits the defined threshold before kicking so a player can take action/cover if they're exposed. Give them 15 seconds for example before kicking (which might even afford their connection time to improve if it's due to momentary tech issues).
- Consider switching the kick to an average over X number of seconds (server configurable) before they get a warning? Say 45 seconds by default. This affords them 1 full minute including the warning to hopefully have an connection glitch resolve itself. I suggest this because while I get a ping of 30-80 on my preferred official server, I will sometimes get spikes and get insta-kicked if there is a problem between my ISP and the server I play on (which is in NY). An insta-kick for what ends up being a 1-10 second spike along the 1000 miles between me and the server can be fatal in some cases.
- Finally, with these 2 features in place, I'd also opt to reduce max ping. A modded server I used to play on (Apex) is in the UK. I'd get a ping of 130 to that server which given physics (c) makes sense and is very playable still. While I'm not suggesting lowering it that low a ping limit of 175-200 might help. Again server configurable for modded that don't mind running higher but I find most modded already run low to improve UX. 175 equates to just under 6 frames of data per second and while that's not perfect it's certainly better than less than 3.
Lowering max ping (3) coupled with averages (2) and a warning (1) will improve the UX. No doubt the net code needs tweaking, and as a huge ARMA (since 2002 OPF days), if this engine is going to be used in ARMA 4 the netcode will need improving given that games emphasis on vehicles.
Case in point, since 1.08 improved base building and Shroud and Summit1G started playing server pop has been very high across the board on official and a servers. I had zero issues playing before this spike in players and now it's full of dsync and "rubberbanding" because of other high ping players (my ping is still 30-70ish). It's made the UX horrible and yesterday a survivor I'd kept alive for 2.5 weeks died to a glitched car care of players on the server with bad connections wreaking havoc on the server (dsync etc). I'd never had issues with cars on this server before but the car lightly tapped a tree and was airborne. RIP... :/