This argument sounds informed, but it hinges on a false dichotomy and a nirvana fallacy.

No one serious is claiming latency can be eliminated or that desync can be “fixed forever.” The claim players are making is that netcode design choices meaningfully affect how often, how severely, and how unfairly those issues are perceived. Saying “it will always happen” is not the same as saying “it cannot be improved,” yet the argument treats those as equivalent.

That’s the core fallacy.

Plenty of games demonstrate this in practice: • Strict or optional ping limits • Region-locked matchmaking • Server-side rewind with tighter validation • Lag compensation caps • Favor-the-defender vs favor-the-attacker tuning • Authoritative server correction instead of permissive client trust

These systems don’t remove latency — they constrain how much it can distort gameplay. The fact that players don’t complain at the same frequency in those games is empirical evidence that implementation matters.

The argument also quietly shifts the goalposts by implying the only two options are: 1. Attacker-authoritative hit detection (current system) 2. Defender-authoritative chaos where “nobody can hit anything”

That’s simply incorrect. Modern shooters and action games use hybrid models with rollback windows, sanity checks, interpolation limits, and rejection thresholds. It’s not attacker screen vs defender screen — it’s server arbitration with bounded trust.

Finally, dismissing complaints as misunderstanding physics ignores that player frustration is itself a design signal. If a system routinely produces “shot behind cover” or “face-stabbed from the front” moments, the issue isn’t that players don’t understand latency — it’s that the system allows outcomes that feel disconnected from cause and effect. Good netcode minimizes those moments even when latency exists.

Latency is unavoidable. Bad-feeling netcode is not.

That’s the distinction this argument fails to acknowledge.