Out of view mobs-shrooms. Some thoughts

Vermillon

One of Freddy's beloved
Joined
Feb 12, 2004
Messages
374
I make this thread to bring forward this issue ones again, and thats because of some expiriences i had during the leveling of 2 artifacts. I will try to be brief. I dont want anyone to get hurt of my english.

All started when i was killing basilisks near Surs keep. I was solo and unbuffed so the best i could to get some xp for my artifacts was to chain yellow or orange con mobs. After few minutes killing basilisks i had cleared the half camp and it started respawning new basilisks around me, one by one timed to my killing tempo. These basilisks are neutral so even though they where in my nearest enemy range, they didnt move at all for about 10-15 seconds after their initial spawn point unless i attacked them by very short range (melee range) or taunt them. After those 10-15 seconds their movement AI triggers and they start to walk a short distance towards a random direction. Just like most of the mobs in the game.

The interesting part is when i was about to attack a newly spawned basilisk that hadn't moved yet from its initial spawn point, with my sword out and from a short distance (nearest enemy + stick). With a percentage of ~30% of these occations i was geting "Your target out of view" messages rather than "Your target is too far away to attack". And the messages sould be "Too far away to attack" because the basiliks where obviously infront of me but out of melee range. Every time i made the first swing on the basilisk and force him to move towards me even for a tiny range or just turn towards me in order to attack me the "Out of view" message was gone.

I'm sure something similar have happen to everyone.

All the above and my expirience on the game in general lead me to some conclusions about how the engine generates new entities(mobs, objects). And how the out of view message occur.

1. Every newly spawned entity doesnt necessarily spawn on a valid surface point, but the engine choses a point that it suppuses will be on the surface of the terrain, given by the area map informations. In some occations that point isnt realy a point on the surface but it might be a point 1-2 units bellow the real suface. Although it might be a fault position the object is generated and placed at that point for the server and players. When an entity is generated with its initial point under the correct surface, the players can normaly see and interact with that entity but with a penalty on the LOS check, that results the entity to be out of view.

2. When an entity moves on a surface be it the floor of a keep or any open field the engine reposition the entity on valid surface point when needed or just prevent it from walking into non allowed points belonging to impassable objects (sub terrain, walls, rocks etc).

What happens on the most of those occations is that the movement AI triggers after few seconds according to the mobs movement patterns. The movement procedures will reposition the mobs on a valid suface point and the problem will disappear. Thats why if you try to attack any basilisk(mob) at an intact camp, that every mob has moved at least ones from its original spawn point you will never face "The target is out of view" message.

In general when a mob/entity is forced to make moves on any terrain the engine position it on a valid point. Thats why some times when you melee attack a newly spawned mob it seams that it jump out of a small hole on the ground while it turns towards you to attack. That "movment" most of the times is just few pixels.

After that i took my thoughs a litle further to a broblem that its basis resides at the repeating creation of imobile entities by players. I'm sure most of you reading this got my message at this point. Shrooms.
I belive that the real problem is not a "buged terain", but that at some points the ground target can be placed just few pixels under the valid surface. Producing the same out of view effect to the players just like some mobs that been spawned by the server.

If my thoughts are true i would like to suggest the game devs, instead to try "fix" the bugged spots(they might be countless) that the ground target can be placed on a fault point. It might be wish to force the shrooms somehow to make a tiny litle movement from their original spawing point so the engine reposition them to a valid surface point, making the "Target is out of view" message/problem disapear. For example that "move" could be timed to execute just when the shroom is about to attack its target. At least that way we will be able to attack the shroom back after it is about to attack someone.

Although i dont have any resources or confirmation from the game makers, meaning that all the above might be invalid, i belive that i'm right on the majority of my assumptions. My results are based on expirience and i'm sure most of you have expirienced the same or similar incidents. Also everything that i have said can be reproduced to verify my results.

Anyway i dont think sharing my thoughts will harm anyone. At least not as much as my english. :)
 

Vermillon

One of Freddy's beloved
Joined
Feb 12, 2004
Messages
374
Zede said:
could it be that simple ?

There can be side effects that prevent such solutions. As i said is just an idea.
 

Aloca

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Dec 23, 2003
Messages
1,585
There was (maybe still is) a bug with the controlled shrooms that was abused alot when animists first came. The controlled shroom always had same Z-axis (Hight) as you. When casting downhill that shroom Hitbox ended up high up in the air. Ranged attacks could hit it but not melee from mobs/players. The shroom tho always LOOKED like it was standing on ground.

So i can confirm that generating gfx for a item is not based on their real Z-axis but based on the only logical place it can be.
 

Docs

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Apr 9, 2004
Messages
515
Im sure alot of you know this already but there are lots of times when you get nuked by schrooms and you cannot attack em back.
Especially in bridgetowers where you often cannot attack the scrooms on the middle floor if looking down from the top floor for example.

The same scenario has happened to me countless times on other spots as well since the last patch. I often find that I cannot attack the schroom even though it is attacking me. (always says that it is out of LOS)
 

Belomar

Part of the furniture
Joined
Dec 30, 2003
Messages
5,107
Very nice theory. Submit it, indeed. And ignore people like Bugz. ;)
 

Muylaetrix

Can't get enough of FH
Joined
Jan 11, 2004
Messages
2,021
dunno what it is with those shrooms lately (could be some shroomers just found a new bug to exploit), but it seems like half of the shrooms being placed outside a tower / keep can`t be attacked anymore due to loss issues while they happely nuke away at you and are in plain view.

half of the time i can`t even pbaoe em while i am on top of em.

the fact that those shrooms that can`t be targetted are always at the same spots (x/y positions to tower/keep) makes me suspect it is just a bug abuse that should get the players using it banned.
 

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