Requesting multiplayer feedback

[Hyfrydle]

Cool I'll jump back on and see how it feels.

[Toll]

Hmm. A thought struck me that I just can't shake... If a player shoots at an enemy, and that enemy is killed, a confirmation of the kill is sent from the server to the client, right? What would happen if the packet containing that information is lost? Would the enemy still appear on the client and take no damage (after all, there is nothing there to damage), or would it correct itself somehow?

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm. A thought struck me that I just can't shake... If a player shoots at an enemy, and that enemy is killed, a confirmation of the kill is sent from the server to the client, right? What would happen if the packet containing that information is lost? Would the enemy still appear on the client and take no damage (after all, there is nothing there to damage), or would it correct itself somehow?

If actual packet loss (not merely a dropped packet, but the client never getting it and the server never resending it) happened, the results would probably be fairly catastrophic.  I'm guessing the network layer on the client would either stop delivering data to the application layer because it just wasn't getting what it was supposed to get, or it would drop the connection, or it would start throwing exceptions.

In any case, I don't think the network layer is to blame for any problem remotely common or confined-in-scope

[Oralordos]

I was thinking that it might be the opposite problem, the invisible enemies bug appears to me to be when the enemy is killed on the client but the server doesn't get notified. This would explain how they are invincible and can still shoot and health drops don't appear.

[x4000]

Hmm. A thought struck me that I just can't shake... If a player shoots at an enemy, and that enemy is killed, a confirmation of the kill is sent from the server to the client, right? What would happen if the packet containing that information is lost? Would the enemy still appear on the client and take no damage (after all, there is nothing there to damage), or would it correct itself somehow?

If actual packet loss (not merely a dropped packet, but the client never getting it and the server never resending it) happened, the results would probably be fairly catastrophic.  I'm guessing the network layer on the client would either stop delivering data to the application layer because it just wasn't getting what it was supposed to get, or it would drop the connection, or it would start throwing exceptions.

In any case, I don't think the network layer is to blame for any problem remotely common or confined-in-scope

Correct.  Basically, AI War and Tidalis would break constantly in multiplayer, as they rely on zero packet loss.  In terms of, when there is packet loss, there are resends and those resends succeed.  Given that AI War and Tidalis have been functioning great in multiplayer for years, and we're using the exact same transport layer here, I'm 100% positive that whatever the issue is has nothing to do with lost data.  That's one thing we can rule out for certain; it's a game-logic issue when there's a problem.

[Underfot]

I'm assuming that we're not too concerned about issues that appear to be obviously lag-related.  For instance, I've seen monsters persisting for a few seconds after another player kills them as well as player animations continuing for a few seconds after they warp out of a chunk. 
On a related not, small enemies (amoebas and faeries in my case) become much harder to hit in MP due to lag, I expect there's not much to be done about this.

[x4000]

Generally speaking things that are only lag-related like something persisting too long there's not much we can do about.  But why are fairies harder to hit?  Even if your lag is very high, it should be smoothing out their positions such that you can hit them just as you would if the lag was not bad; all of the shots you fire are collided locally on your machine, so lag isn't a factor with that part.

[Underfot]

Honestly, I haven't run into the faeries in SP for a while, so it's more likely a behaviour change I haven't previously noticed.... or my aim was just off that night  .

[Oralordos]

There may possibly be a lag related issue with miasma whip not disappearing until after it's gone a way. I noticed that it's range is ridiculous on Toll's server only. And as Toll's server, a localhost server, and single player is the only places I play, it's probably lag related.

[silverhound]

I have a question regarding Tier Orb usage in Multiplayer.

Are they supposed to be shared globally (if one player uses them noone else can)?
I noticed this happening both on other's servers as on a server i ran briefly to test it myself.
Doesn't matter if the Orbs were gathered before i joined the server, or if they were gathered while i was present, and doesn't matter if someone used them before i joined or if they were used while i was present either.

Is this intentional or is it a bug?


If it is intentional, how exactly is MP going to work when the world is at tier 3+ then?
Unless i am missing something, it would be pretty hard to deal with opponents if you are only allowed to wield tier 1 abilities (without dropping difficulty to lowest atleast)

Also, regarding those headslot enchants that force the next Tier Orbs gathered to be a lower Tier level.
When i had one in that should force them to Tier 2, and did a Tier 3 Orb mission in MP i didn't actually get any Tier 2 Orbs (tried to circumvent the lack of Tier 2 orbs situation with this but it didn't work).
Not sure if i got Tier 3 Orbs instead since i didn't take note of the amount of Tier 3 orbs left before i did it unfortunately.

[keith.lamothe]

I have a question regarding Tier Orb usage in Multiplayer.

Are they supposed to be shared globally (if one player uses them noone else can)?
I noticed this happening both on other's servers as on a server i ran briefly to test it myself.
Doesn't matter if the Orbs were gathered before i joined the server, or if they were gathered while i was present, and doesn't matter if someone used them before i joined or if they were used while i was present either.

Is this intentional or is it a bug?

Welcome to the forums   I don't understand exactly what you're saying: are you saying that if someone else uses a tier orb then the number of that tier orb available to you goes down?  Or that if someone else uses a tier orb then the number of that tier orb available to you stays the same?  It is supposed to be the latter (and you don't get whatever they unlocked) so that you can pick your own unlocks.

[x4000]

Welcome to the forums!

How It Should Be Working
------------------------------

In terms of all crafting ingredients, those should be shared: anybody picks up anything, and you can all use it.  That goes for the tier orbs as well as the other stuff like raw crystals, etc.  That's how you can quickly "catch up" to what the other players are doing on a continent, and how each player can customize their own spell loadouts, etc.

In terms of building materials (cedar logs and granite at the moment) and guardian power scrolls, those are things that are shared between all players: if anyone uses those, then nobody else can.  But of course that's not a problem, because these always benefit everyone anyway.

What Might Be Happening
-----------------------------

The most obvious thing is that this could be a bug.  However, in older continents on older worlds, it could also be that those tier orbs and resources were spent before we added in the logic to let each player have their own copy of them.  In that case it's not a bug, it's just an unfortunate side effect of an old continent on an old world from before that change was made to MP... I'm not sure, 3 or 4 weeks ago.


Regarding the tier orbs not being reduced, I think that might be a MP permissions thing but I can't recall for sure.  As in, it might be that server admins have to grant access to those specifically, because otherwise griefing players would be extremely possible.  Or that might be a bug, I'm not sure on that one.  Keith will know better there.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

[silverhound]

Welcome to the forums   I don't understand exactly what you're saying: are you saying that if someone else uses a tier orb then the number of that tier orb available to you goes down?

That is exactly what i'm saying, and thank you

Also this issue doesnt affect just older worlds since it also happened on a world i generated at most 9 days ago. (assuming my memory isnt off)

edit:

I just double-checked to see if the world i tested it on really was a fresh world, and its the only world i did the expert start on (start on continent 2) so i'm absolutely certain that i didn't create it till maybe 17 march at its earliest.

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome to the forums   I don't understand exactly what you're saying: are you saying that if someone else uses a tier orb then the number of that tier orb available to you goes down?

That is exactly what i'm saying, and thank you

Also this issue doesnt affect just older worlds since it also happened on a world i generated at most 9 days ago. (assuming my memory isnt off)

edit:

I just double-checked to see if the world i tested it on really was a fresh world, and its the only world i did the expert start on (start on continent 2) so i'm absolutely certain that i didn't create it till maybe 17 march at its earliest.

That's really weird... can you test this again with a spell that costs both tier orbs and something else (like welkin gel or whatever) and for each ingredient give me:

- how many were available to you before the craft
- how many were available to you after the craft
- how many were available to a different player before the craft
- how many were available to a different player after the craft

Assuming neither of you crafts anything else during that time.

That will help figure out what's going on; I suspect something odd about tier orbs that's not happening with the other crafting ingredients, but can't be sure.

[x4000]

There may possibly be a lag related issue with miasma whip not disappearing until after it's gone a way. I noticed that it's range is ridiculous on Toll's server only. And as Toll's server, a localhost server, and single player is the only places I play, it's probably lag related.

Just to confirm: we are able to duplicate this internally, and we're also able to get the invisible enemies thing, too.

We've got a new testing mode that lets us simulate absolute horrendous lag internally, and so we're working through testing under those conditions and cleaning up everything we can with it.  Thanks!