Guild Wars 2

Will it be unaffected by lag? Like the smooth running, jumping and swimming?

Or will it be like the sun, wind, lightning movement system? Lag affects your movement and rubber bands erratically if you desync from the server?

It is likely to be like running or swimming.
The problem with the sun, wind, lighting systems is that those are not controled by the player, you just start it and wait for the server calculate and return the info to your client, the gliders looks more like swimming with a few physics change.

Of course it will be affected by lag. If it wasn’t, the client would be in full control and that’s when bad things happen – client side hacks.

When you move, your client tells the server and periodically keeps it updated with your location. Meanwhile, the server estimates your location based on your last known direction and speed. If what your client reports isn’t within reason of what the server expects, the result is rubber banding, where the server tells you where you are. If you were slightly out of sync but within acceptable parameters however, the server updates to your new position, which causes everyone else to see you teleport a bit.

With gliding, you’re going to be constantly moving. If you experience lag spikes, you’re going to have hard time. For example, if you’re flying towards something then turn, but lag at the moment, the server might think you’ve hit something or landed, resulting in you falling to your death. If you just have a high latency however, it should be like normal running, but a bit more unstable due to the constant movement. If you simply fly in a straight line however, you should be fine. With a higher latency, you just have to remember that your actions are delayed, so your character is actually slightly ahead of where you think you are.

If you have frequent lag spikes or a 1s+ latency, your problem is going to be deploying the glider. Since you’re given the option to deploy your glider roughly a second after falling, imagine having to wait a second, then another second for the server to know, then another second for the server to let you know that you’re gliding and not falling. Now imagine a lag spike at that moment.

I think what he meant is that with high latency movement skills like the zephyrites element stuff become REALLY bad, while regular movement you don’t notice much issues, but obviously both are affected.

EDIT: Yeah the deployment of the glider may be the biggest issue, but the movement itself won’t feel that bad.