Alpha Tests Thread

[Thothie]

On a listenserver, monster spawns will always lag horribly... On a DS, less so, but still not purty. Some of that is debug spam (under the old system, even with Developer set to 0, all those messages still get parsed), but most of it is just our monsters having a hell of a lot of overhead.

Every monster is parsing around 4830 lines of script on spawn, in addition to its own top script (usually another 100 or so lines). I suppose I should go through and strip out all the events we're no longer using - might help some, but not much.

If monsters were entirely code side, it'd help some, but they wouldn't be nearly as dynamic as we need them to be now, and they'd be a *lot* harder to make on the fly (in addition to each having individual, potentially fatal, bugs). Would save on all the array parsing, but that's about it, in the end, and that bit's not real hard on a modern CPU. I *think* we stripped out a lot of the old Half-Life overhead in this patch, but it seems to have messed with monster navigation a bit. Probably not helping much on load time so much as time spent thinking once in the world though.

Still, it's not quite as bad as the old days, when you'd often be locked so long, on a large monster spawn, that you'd timeout. The spawn staggering we added back in the day helps quite a bit, even if it leads to potential complications for the mappers (as they can no longer be certain that all their monsters will appear in the same frame).

 

[FER]

I thought the hitboxes you can see on the model viewer only affect the monster's attack range and such, while the hitboxes you hit them are just one plain block not shown on the model viewer.

Remember with Undamael you used a separate model with a hitbox as an attachment.

 

[Thothie]

Hit boxes *should* affect some kinds of traceline scans and collisions - such as those used by projectiles - that's why I had to make that seperate hitbox model for Undamael (monsters/undamael_hitbox.mdl) which attaches to his head - cuz his normal body has to be set to noclip to move about in there without paralyzing players, and would thereby be immune to projectiles (but not melee attacks, as they use a different sort of traceline).

Hitboxes have no affect on attack range - at least not on our monsters. Attack range is worked as the distance from the monster's centerpoint (at its feet) to X units. (Although, IIRC, MiB tweaked it awhile ago to take the monster's width into account, but units width is defined by the script, not the model.)

There be some other factor... Again, I'd say it's just the game having trouble with huge hitboxes, but Undmael's custom box is 256 units cubed, and seems to work fine, so IDK.

edit:
Hrmm...
GIProjectile.cpp

	if( pOther->IsMSMonster( ) && ProjectileData->CollideHitBox && !pDamageEnt )
	{
		//Just keep going if I hit a npc bounding box but not an actual hitbox
		return;
	}

Width/Height script commands determine the size of the collision box - maybe the big monsters collision boxes are just so large they are blocking the hitboxes... Or... Something...

 

[FER]

Collision boxes are what determines when a player bumps into a monster? if so I would say that they are extremely small in some cases (see beargods/Maldora's pet and I guess every big monster)

 

[Thothie]

Yeah... Annoying thing is our collision boxes don't adjust for animations, so, with the Bear Gods, for instance, they're alright when they're standing, but the rest of the time, yer kinda in their nose... In the case of Maldora's pet, needed to tone it down so he could navigate his way out of the pen - plus he leans forward a lot in his attack anims. Larger monsters also have more trouble navigating - especially if they are wider than they are tall.

Unrelated side note: The Bear Gods are not lore - really don't want to see that repeated in MSS. Only reason we have them is because, back when the map was made, we didn't have access to the scripts, and the giant bears were the meanest unused critters around. Just held onto it for sake of nostalgia.

 

[FER]

In the case of Maldora's pet, needed to tone it down so he could navigate his way out of the pen - plus he leans forward a lot in his attack anims.

Too bad that fix goes wasted since players always rush to the pet before it goes to the arena (not to mention inside the tunnel you are safe from crystaline skeletons)

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

(not to mention inside the tunnel you are safe from crystaline skeletons)

That is 100% bull**** and I will have proof shortly.

 

[Keldorn]

It also seems difficult to harpoon demon fish, which is a darn shame.

They're not really common enough in any current maps for it to be an issue though.

(lol whaling/spearfishing map)

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

 

[FER]

ok

 

[Keldorn]

Fshard does not display holy mode correctly in first person, it just stays opaque(normal mode).

Just out of curiosity, is the cap being raised to 45 this patch?

EDIT: Also, it doesn't show a message if you try to put away a weapon with your packs full.

 

[Keldorn]

I'm getting player exchange logs for everything I buy/pick up/take out of my backpack in the following form:

Mon Dec 06 21:21:34 2010>PLAYER_EXCHANGE Keldorn [ STEAM_0:0:19648837 ] received_from Keldorn [ STEAM_0:0:19648837 ] Lord Vecilus' Mail
Mon Dec 06 21:22:18 2010>PLAYER_EXCHANGE Keldorn [ STEAM_0:0:19648837 ] received_from Keldorn [ STEAM_0:0:19648837 ] Rejuvination
Mon Dec 06 21:22:25 2010>PLAYER_EXCHANGE Keldorn [ STEAM_0:0:19648837 ] received_from Keldorn [ STEAM_0:0:19648837 ] Rejuvination
Mon Dec 06 21:22:27 2010>PLAYER_EXCHANGE Keldorn [ STEAM_0:0:19648837 ] received_from Keldorn [ STEAM_0:0:19648837 ] Ice Shield
Mon Dec 06 21:24:04 2010>PLAYER_EXCHANGE Keldorn [ STEAM_0:0:19648837 ] received_from Keldorn [ STEAM_0:0:19648837 ] Glow

It might be helpful if it made distinctions, otherwise it's going to look like everyone's duping in logs whenever they take something out of their backpack, drop it, and pick it back up.

Or if they store/withdraw stuff.

Logging spells just adds unnecessary spam.

Monsters seem to make death sounds/slain notifications once for every player on the server

I.E. 3 players = 3 slain notifications, extremely weird sounding death sound

Still not fixed

 

[Keldorn]

Using litch tongue's 2nd charge in rapid succession can cause crashes.

This also happens with the new dagger.

Model bugs:
(This is a list of attacks that do not look correct in third person)
All throwable: Looks like you're throwing with your left instead of your right
Bardiche strafing left swing (Looks like backside bunt)
Halberd strafing left swing (Looks like backside bunt)
Naginata normal swings (Looks like backside bunt)
Quarterstaff strafing left swing (Looks like backside bunt)

 

[Thothie]

Fshard does not display holy mode correctly in first person, it just stays opaque(normal mode).

I assume you mean 3rd person? Cuz I get the instant light saber effect with the bloom in first person.

Just out of curiosity, is the cap being raised to 45 this patch?

I'm kinda on the fence about that... We've only one more high end map. And the new Polearms do give something for the high end players to train up on. So... Hrmm... (flips coin)

EDIT: Also, it doesn't show a message if you try to put away a weapon with your packs full.

Think maybe MiB's changes to the pack-finding system run out of messages. Code side though, and hard for me to follow. Dunno how much help we're going to get out of MIB now that he has an organic to program.

In regards to item logging - it does seem to be logging stuff it should not. :\ Not sure why, but I shall see what I can do...

Monsters seem to make death sounds/slain notifications once for every player on the server

I.E. 3 players = 3 slain notifications, extremely weird sounding death sound

I need to rig up some stuff here to properly debug this one.

Using litch tongue's 2nd charge in rapid succession can cause crashes.

'Rapid succession' shouldn't be possible, but even if it were... Hrmm...

(This is a list of attacks that do not look correct in third person)
All throwable: Looks like you're throwing with your left instead of your right
Bardiche strafing left swing (Looks like backside bunt)
Halberd strafing left swing (Looks like backside bunt)
Naginata normal swings (Looks like backside bunt)
Quarterstaff strafing left swing (Looks like backside bunt)

Think FER is muxing with the models as we speak. Hopefully none of that is caused by the script calling the wrong animation entirely - but isn't likely, as I think third-person player anims are called by name rather than number.

 

[FER]

BTW the 3rd person throw anims is done with the opposite hand because stupid me rigged the pole to the left hand, and making it throw with the right hand would make me kinda redo all the 3rd person pole anims (I rigged it like that before I even knew about the throw function)

 

[Keldorn]

I assume you mean 3rd person? Cuz I get the instant light saber effect with the bloom in first person.

First person.

I usually turn bloom off though, as it is very blinding with glow and a light colored background.

(Or with any screen coloring effects, really. Ugh, lightning spheres.)

I'm kinda on the fence about that... We've only one more high end map. And the new Polearms do give something for the high end players to train up on. So... Hrmm... (flips coin)

It's fine either way, though I'll probably just end up chucking spears all day if polearms is the only skill I can level

The only reasons I'd want a cap increase are:

1. More incentive to play with the new forge toys
2. So that I can finally match Joe in Swordsmanship

Though I doubt that I could find a spot to get over 41 or 42 in a skill before the next patch, provided that it isn't delayed.

'Rapid succession' shouldn't be possible, but even if it were... Hrmm...

I don't think it has a cooldown, so +uber can let you use it pretty quickly.

It's not that fast, but I think a second one can be triggered before the sound of the first one ends, though this has a habit of crashing my dedicated server.

 

[Thothie]

I've fixed this 1 death report/per player thing, but I've fixed the symptom, not the cause, I fear. I wonder why it's running game_death once for every player. :\

Ye may still get it with a few monsters that do not use the base AI. Not tested yet.

First person.

I usually turn bloom off though, as it is very blinding with glow and a light colored background.

(Or with any screen coloring effects, really. Ugh, lightning spheres.)

I canna duplicate this... ( Er, the sword, not the bloom issues - those I all too well aware of. )




Hrmm... (Works without the bloom too, though not nearly so spectacularly.)

[Plz excluse snowflake in bottom left frame, was snowing in walltest at the time.]

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

A coughing man in a rain coat told me that there will be a handful of new weapons available at a merchant in a certain establishment in the next patch, if you have certain gear to spare.

Some of you may know that if you try to buy a weapon you can't use from a merchant, you get the following reply:
"I do not think you yet have the skill to use [weapon name] properly."
"You might consider buying one of my other [weapon skill] items instead."
You don't get the weapon you tried to buy (but you do lose gold; bug).

I suggest this system is also applied to the merchant in the aforementioned mysterious location.
Why?

I can already see hundreds if not thousands of stupid noobs asking every high-level around to help them acquire the required items. I'm fine with helping noobs but if there is one thing that pisses me off to no end it's those stupid noobs who constantly ask for shit they can't use and probably won't be able to use for the next three months.

So, Thothie:

I should just say, as this comes up often in these threads, there is no such thing as an item that's too hard to get, nor hard enough to get that it can truly be considered "incredibly rare". No matter how rare we make an item, everyone has it within a week.

What do you say? This is a great opportunity for you to make sure that not "everyone" has the new fancy items within a week and the method of achieving this is already fully coded.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

I support this, but I didn't know the bug with gold until I read your post just now. I think that gold bug should be fixed before implementing this restriction. Noobs don't deserve these items, but they don't deserve to lose 100k gold either.

Although, if this were implemented prematurely and people DID lose 100k trying to buy these items, I'd lol hardxcore so I guess I support this no matter what?

 

[Jordy]

I can already see hundreds if not thousands of stupid noobs asking every high-level around to help them acquire the required items. I'm fine with helping noobs but if there is one thing that pisses me off to no end it's those stupid noobs who constantly ask for **** they can't use and probably won't be able to use for the next three months.

Oops

 

[Thothie]

It's not done through the merchant trade system, so it wouldn't get filtered that way - it's the standard quest-trade system.

I could rig it so he'd require some min skill to hand out the weapon.

However, most newbies do not get their twinked weapons from NPCs.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Not from me, either >_>

 

[Freerad]

Neither from me as well...cause I hate a lot of the begging newbs and shit.

 

[Keldorn]

Alchemist's door makes a locked door sound even when you can open it.

 

[SilentDeath]

The forge requirements for the Skull scythe do not match the dialogue the blacksmith gives. I'll pm full details.