Rant: Classics Hit System

[ViCtOrEhEhEh]

I know many people asked this too, but why is Classics hit system have to be so 'unique' and have a totally different hit system than every other single sword server. I dont get why it cant just be regular classic again with the good ol hit system. This isnt really a put down it is just a rant. :P

[Malinko]

Perhaps Master Storm or Massaroke can explain this, which I'm sure has been explained quite a number of times in other threads concerning Classic.

[Mark Sir Link]

they've yet to explain anything legit or believable.

[Polo]

We're using serverside hit detection, that's all, but beyond that its all the same. The only difference is how lag affects it, and is just somthing you get used to.

I think when Massokre changed it recently, the way he implemented it relies on a certain function which isn't behaving as it should, and that's why it's a little dodgy at the moment. Rest assured, were doing what we can to work around this and improve the hit detection as much as possible.

[MysticalDragon]

Originally Posted by Polo

We're using serverside hit detection, that's all, but beyond that its all the same. The only difference is how lag affects it, and is just somthing you get used to.

I think when Massokre changed it recently, the way he implemented it relies on a certain function which isn't behaving as it should, and that's why it's a little dodgy at the moment. Rest assured, were doing what we can to work around this and improve the hit detection as much as possible.

We understand that your useing a "serverside hit detection" but the question that was asked still lingears.Why? Seems like graals default hit system is far more superior then the one created on Graal Classic.

[Codein]

Aye, even though I work on Classic, I've always questioned the need in such a system. It's just a waste of space :P

[DarkCloud_PK]

I've heard it is because Stefan wanted classic's movement/hd serverside.

[Polo]

Originally Posted by DarkCloud_PK

I've heard it is because Stefan wanted classic's movement/hd serverside.

What he said.

[Corp1]

Classic's hit system straight up f****** sucks, its impossible to have a decent fight on that server.

[-Ching]

It was good, but then they "improved" it. And now it sucks

[jake13jake]

Yea, the game server simply lacks a playertouchsme-like event handler that would be necessary for the proper implementation of the current hit system on Classic.

The current damage started using the playertouchsme event handler. The problem we encountered was that playertouchsme can be called serverside when the player can be up to one tile away from the damage field.

Since then... it started making me think that something was messed up with playertouchsme. Stefan wouldn't modify the event handler call in any way that would make it work. Since then, I've been lobbying for two additional event handlers, both serverside and clientside. One for when the player enters the base area of an NPC, and one for when the player exits the base area of an NPC, both with an accompanying script function that would render the coordinates and shape of the NPC immutable (and also enable these event handlers, as there is an underlying problem that an NPC's coordinates and shape can be very dynamic).

The only reason the new damage system sucks compared to the old serverside damage system is that it's based on a time value which had to be disabled because of the playertouchsme problem. With the requested event handlers, we could implement the time factor. Right now the script has been (hopefully temporarily) modified to send damage only at the moment the player slashes. Otherwise we'd be able to detect it for all times without destroying the server.

Storm's damage system called the server twice to overcome lag. Once at the start of the swing and once at the end of the swing. From a scripting standpoint, however, the new one is much improved, and if Stefan will give us the event handlers we need, it would be much improved from an implementation standpoint as well.

[Polo]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

Storm's damage system called the server twice to overcome lag. Once at the start of the swing and once at the end of the swing. From a scripting standpoint, however, the new one is much improved, and if Stefan will give us the event handlers we need, it would be much improved from an implementation standpoint as well.

No it didn't. It called it twice at the start of the swing, at slightly differing locations (one in the midst of the sword, one at the tip), which was somthing I added in to make the range of the swords more accurate, and at the time i was only supporting single ordinate points for hits rather than areas. The way I looked at it was that when you send the attack at the start of the swing, by the time the hit reaches the server/other player, it will 'visually' be at least halfway through the swing on you screen, which gives a nice behaviour.

[Moondeath_2]

I don't belive it's just the hit system that has problems I don't like how everything is scripted from picking up bushes to walking, hitting, etc. it takes the entire point of the server being 'classic' I remember the old classic everything was old skool and the whole start movie and all the other things it had I enjoyed the server when it was like that but now.. I don't know what to say to all the customized and scripted systems.

[jake13jake]

Yea, my damage system uses area, while most scripted damage systems (including storm's, still used in bombs/arrows) use coordinates. If Stefan will make the event handlers we need, it would be the closest to the default hit detection as we can get it being serverside.

As for the movement system also being customized, the movement is a lot closer to the default movement. The biggest difference is that it's pixel-exact. It's a good movement system though. We were able to release opposite boots and gravity boots without bugs because of it, and I've also converted a few of the Nations systems to use it. It is, in essence, a very scripter-friendly system. If anyone would like to tell me the differences between Classic's system and the defaul system, and the difference isn't due to pixel-exact movement, then I could very easily modify movement so that it mimics default movement correctly.

[Mark Sir Link]

from a technical standpoint, your movement may be thousands of times better than Storm's. However, from a playable standpoint, your's blows worse than Storm's.

[maximus_asinus]

The only difference with the serverside hit detection is the fact that laggy clients cannot do anything. Classic is now a server for DSL or higher. People on slower computers or 56K modems will 'lag out' and to everyone else, they're standing still, and you're able to slash them repeatedly and kill them.

[Nightmareangel]

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

People on slower computers or 56K modems will 'lag out' and to everyone else, they're standing still, and you're able to slash them repeatedly and kill them.

HAR HAR...the story of my graal life. xd Though it's not as bad with the current hit detection for me.

[jake13jake]

Originally Posted by Mark Sir Link

from a technical standpoint, your movement may be thousands of times better than Storm's. However, from a playable standpoint, your's blows worse than Storm's.

And how do you mean by a playable standpoint? Storm's was bugged x 100 and the script was practically uneditable. Remember walking into corner tiles? the bush lift not showing? having no jump shadow? Take what I said: if you have any problems or suggestions concerning the movement system, tell me and I'll get around to it, as it's still maturing.

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

The only difference with the serverside hit detection is the fact that laggy clients cannot do anything. Classic is now a server for DSL or higher. People on slower computers or 56K modems will 'lag out' and to everyone else, they're standing still, and you're able to slash them repeatedly and kill them.

Yea, and I argued having the player enters the shape of an NPC event. Stefan kept telling me to use timeouts, triggeractions, or playertouchsme w/ findareaplayers (as it's repeatedly called, apparently). Timeout would lag the server to death. Triggeraction lags to death (stefan said, you're not likely to have 50 players touching 50 NPCs at once. I said, for that to happen all we need is 50 players PKing, which I believe is possible if you remember the MoD Fort NPC Server crash). Playertouchsme would work, except for the fact that we have opposite boots, and the offset of the playertouchsme area is different from the area of the player's base and therefore people with opposite boots would be much less likely to be hit than people without. However, he did say that he may be willing to make server options to modify the behavior of playertouchsme, which basically goes back to my initial argument. If he does that, we could use playertouchsme for the damage system, but it could require a huuuuuuge amount of changes within certain scripts. Given how important making the damage system more functional is to all of the players, I would be willing to take up all of that work.

[Polo]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

And how do you mean by a playable standpoint? Storm's was bugged x 100 and the script was practically uneditable. Remember walking into corner tiles? the bush lift not showing? having no jump shadow? Take what I said: if you have any problems or suggestions concerning the movement system, tell me and I'll get around to it, as it's still maturing.

To reinforce that point, you have to remember that my movement was written very quickly so that we didn't lose Classic, and as such, it had a very basic hit detection which was easy to tweak and improve (somthing I spent a lot of time doing), but ultimately it was very limited.

Massokre's stuff is bassically what we should have had if time wasn't an issue originally. Its a lot more flexible, but hasn't had as much time to be evolved and tweaked like mine had. Add to that the regions problem as Massokre described above, and you can appreciate that theres still a lot more we can do to improve things, and eventually surpass (in terms of playability) what I had before.

We will get there, and I'd rather players tried to give useful feedback ('range is too far', 'you can hit to much to side', that kind of thing), rather than persistently slating things, because at the end of the day, if you don't tell us how to improve it, then you can't expect us to get very far.

[konidias]

What do you mean by playertouchs me being used for attacking? I don't get that...

What we're trying out on 2k1 at the moment is a 3 point hit system... It basically triggers at those 3 points... it's rough at the end of the sword from the middle and 45 degree angles. It's fairly accurate, just not sure how it would hold up with a lot of players or laggy people...

[Polo]

Originally Posted by konidias

What do you mean by playertouchs me being used for attacking? I don't get that...

What we're trying out on 2k1 at the moment is a 3 point hit system... It basically triggers at those 3 points... it's rough at the end of the sword from the middle and 45 degree angles. It's fairly accurate, just not sure how it would hold up with a lot of players or laggy people...

Instead of using single point hit regions, Massokres system uses areas. Also, these areas can last over an ammount of time. Rather than having to check the area every 0..05 seconds to seee if its hitting anyone, playertouchsme is used instead.

My system btw, was very similar to yours, but used only 2 points (at the tip of the sword, and at the middle.) It work's quite well.

[James205]

The new system really is buggy and should be removed/ACTUALLY IMPROVED. I don't know how to explain what I experience because it seems to be different for me everytime. Randomly I will die and get hit just by walking and to make it stop I have to reconnect so I don't die. Then I have this weird thing where I can't hit people and when I do it's in totally random spots. The person will die when he is running away. I don't care whatever reason you give but the default system/storms system was more stable than this piece of crap. Just quit messing with it guys

[Mafukie]

I think the increase of checks is possibly causing issues, expecially if you have x amount of players swinging at the same time. Be it bushs or players, it probably causes unessesary server load.

[p2p_Sir_Link]

+ it just sucks.

[jake13jake]

Originally Posted by James205

The new system really is buggy and should be removed/ACTUALLY IMPROVED. I don't know how to explain what I experience because it seems to be different for me everytime. Randomly I will die and get hit just by walking and to make it stop I have to reconnect so I don't die. Then I have this weird thing where I can't hit people and when I do it's in totally random spots. The person will die when he is running away. I don't care whatever reason you give but the default system/storms system was more stable than this piece of crap. Just quit messing with it guys

I've experienced and witnessed many more problems with C2S lag than S2C lag (I'd expect you to be experiencing the C2S lag). In essence, my hit detection sucks when using the campus wireless, but it's great when plugged into the wall.

The only time I've seen problems on the server with damage was when I made the MoD fort have an infinite cap of hits for recapturing it, and that was with storm's damage system (there were a lot of players swinging at that flag at the time).

I believe mine would probably lag less because it only has to use triggeraction once, when a weapon is used, and then place a DB NPC, or even multiple DB NPCs. The npc.scheduleEvent and npc.trigger really make it a lot easier for the damage NPCs to be played with (like if you knew when a baddy NPC would move over a certain area, you could place a damage NPC there beforehand and then trigger it at the expected time for the baddy NPC to arrive there).

Also, the use of the playertouchsme event handler was removed for any non-permanent damage NPC, so right now we can't use the time variable, but it's structured for immediate implementation once we finally can. That should make the hit detection feel a lot less laggy, unless it's the client itself that's having trouble sending packets to the server.

[maximus_asinus]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

That should make the hit detection feel a lot less laggy, unless it's the client itself that's having trouble sending packets to the server.

And this is why your movement system will never be as good as the default movement and hit detection. Unless you can completely eliminate the flaw for laggy clients, you will be constantly criticized. You cannot recreate the old movement, you can try as hard as you want to emulate it but in the end, default movement is superior. The lag between client and server effects how a player spars/PKs/moves around, and you cannot remove that, so you have failed, not matter how much you try to smooth things out.

[edit]We should add a warning to the Classic login screen: for DSL/Cable or higher, all other forms of connection are pointless, putting you at a disadvantage in every way.[/edit]

[Polo]

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

And this is why your movement system will never be as good as the default movement and hit detection. Unless you can completely eliminate the flaw for laggy clients, you will be constantly criticized.

If the packets are not being sent or are getting lost/dropped, then it would affect all hit detection systems. In clientside hit detection, this became an advantage, whereas now, its a disadvantage.

[Nightmareangel]

I'll say one thing for Massokre's systems. Before I couldn't walk on the gmap without everything freezing up (my 56k sucks : () but now it's a lot better for me. Same thing would happen when there were more than 10 people in a room as well but that's cleared up as well since Massokre added his stuff. Go figure eh...har har.

[jake13jake]

Originally Posted by maximus_asinus

The lag between client and server effects how a player spars/PKs/moves around, and you cannot remove that, so you have failed, not matter how much you try to smooth things out.

Lag between the client and the server doesn't affect how a player moves around... I consider the movement system on Classic superior to the default movement.
Reasons:
1. pixel-exact wall detection
2. greater flexibility for script access
3. reusability on different objects
4. ability for motions to integrate onto others
5. recently, much better push detection

Things to change (like right now today):
1. make side-movement set the moveSuccess flag to true (will stop pushing when you go up against the corner of a wall and side-move)
2. make lava add the splash leap.

[edit] done AND done [/edit]

New list of things to change (maybe later):
1. disable pushing from opposite boots
2. mess around with player.attr vars to see how I'm going to handle blocking/notblocking states.

[Mark Sir Link]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

Lag between the client and the server doesn't affect how a player moves around... I consider the movement system on Classic superior to the default movement.

Please reconsider

Reasons:
1. pixel-exact wall detection

does not make it more playable

2. greater flexibility for script access

does not make it more playable

3. reusability on different objects

please elaborate on this pointless blanket statement.

4. ability for motions to integrate onto others

what in the hell?

5. recently, much better push detection

...

Things to change (like right now today):
1. make side-movement set the moveSuccess flag to true (will stop pushing when you go up against the corner of a wall and side-move)
2. make lava add the splash leap.

changing the movement system entirely would be much more to your advantage, really.

[edit] done AND done [/edit]

Good job. Want a cookie?

New list of things to change (maybe later):
1. disable pushing from opposite boots
2. mess around with player.attr vars to see how I'm going to handle blocking/notblocking states.

hm...

[jake13jake]

Kevin, you're not telling me anything. How would you say that this movement system differs from the default? The only difference I see is the slightly slower sidemoving through tight-squeeze areas. Other than that, it's exactly the same but with more features (ex. you can jump off of ledges backwards with your opposite boots on.)

As for how it can be used on different objects? We can apply the movement system to any NPC.

As for how you can add motions to others? Because the wall checking is done so well, you can move the player when default movement is on, ex. some kind of wind effect, and they won't go through any walls.

Not to mention, the wall checking is more dynamic than any other system in use on any of the Graal servers. I could define all wall tiles to be walkable and all walkable tiles to be blocking. Just stop being a jackass with corrupt intentions, and tell me what differences you see.

[Mark Sir Link]

Originally Posted by jake13jake

Kevin, you're not telling me anything. How would you say that this movement system differs from the default? The only difference I see is the slightly slower sidemoving through tight-squeeze areas. Other than that, it's exactly the same but with more features (ex. you can jump off of ledges backwards with your opposite boots on.)

Hits are such total bull****, remove your head from your ass. We're not concerned with how great the coding is, we're worried about how good it's functioning is.

As for how it can be used on different objects? We can apply the movement system to any NPC.

How exciting, will we see a real NPC added sometime soon?

As for how you can add motions to others? Because the wall checking is done so well, you can move the player when default movement is on, ex. some kind of wind effect, and they won't go through any walls.

but it's yet to have been done, don't praise potentials, praise the current.

Not to mention, the wall checking is more dynamic than any other system in use on any of the Graal servers. I could define all wall tiles to be walkable and all walkable tiles to be blocking. Just stop being a jackass with corrupt intentions, and tell me what differences you see.

You're an idiot. Continue praising yourself for this, I suppose.

[jake13jake]

uhhh... when are you going to tell me how it's different.
Also, I modified the hit system slightly last night so it should work a bit better now.

[add]
LMAO, I just made narrow pathways and dead people not-blocking, I love this kind of fun.
[/add]