Ranger Archive
Thread: A concering post by TH in Weekly round table
So I was going through the current weekly round table post by TH. A few people asked about the problem of creature and lair spawning on planets. The random ones not the mission ones. The orange is his responce, and the green is mine to his. What do you guys think? What gives?
It means that there are a lot of people on the planet. The more people there are, the less random spawns there are. These are adjustments the server makes automatically. If you are running shy of random spawns, you should go get a mission. The terminals will spawn additional lairs when this type of loading occurs...
WOOOWWWW, you did not just say that TH. For one thing, if there are more people on a planet, there should be MORE random spawns. You know, so those more people can actually encounter them? Since when did SOE take this stance on this issue? It's different then it was on this same issue before. So what about us scouts and rangers? What about when we take missions from the Explorer terminials, THAT DON'T SPAWN LAIRS? What about us that just like to wander about a planet, killing what we find?
Please come up with a different answer.
Response seems a bit harsh (TH usually doesn't respond to flames mainly because it might encourage more flames). Although I'd almost say he deserves it. To be honest, this response can't be true. Just try going to the Death Watch Bunker. There is no lack of spawns along the way. I actually had to go over 1k out of my way to avoid a wall of red NPCs (I didn't expect it to be that wide and so I decided to go around instead of using camo). Walking that path really made me wonder why more places can't be like it (the bunker itself is way overcrowded but I was sort of expecting that). The actual path had a very good number of spawns (enough that the actual spawns were fighting other spawns but not so many that you couldn't get past).
As a potential solution, I think this might work: Instead of just looking at the current position of the player, include "ghost" players at around 250m away from every players current position (maybe 8 ghosts evenly spaced on a circle, potentially another 8 at 500m as well). Only make this happen if the (local) server is not very loaded. If the local server is running low on resources, reduce the number of ghosts. At high load, the number of ghosts would be 0. In addition, you could make riding a speeder or mount drop the number of ghosts as well (I'd recommend more than one just to keep things interesting but no need for all of them). I don't see such a solution being too hard to code (I'd say the hardest part is modifying the number of ghosts--all or nothing might suffice, though). It's definately not easy but it would really help solve this problem and not just for Rangers. While I would love for /areatrack to force spawns, it doesn't help the normal player see what the game's spawn system really has to offer. This sort ofa change could at the expense of a bit of extra loading (I'd settle for a much more focused fix over more lag, though). But I'm probably dreaming here.
Its hard to understand exactly what TH means there. I know that when I am having trouble finding random lairs for the creatures that I have an explorer mission for, if I do a couple of destroy missions for that specific creature then random spawns of that creature start to appear. It could be just coincidence/superstition on my part, but thats what I do when I can't find creatures for my explorer missions.
Of course if there aren't destroy missions available for that creature then this won't help you.
Ziga Freysen
Master Ranger
Valcyn
Well, I think your response was a bit naive though. The ultimate solution of course is to increase the server capacities, particularly on planets where it is a problem. We're on the same server, so you can relate. The coronet bazaar is so slow that it often takes 5 min to retrieve an item (no joke). Sometimes you get so lagged out you can't even move and the computer just crashes. On Dantooine you get the same thing (only worse). If you've ever tried to use a vendor on Dantooine... forget it. If they were to increase the spawns on Corellia and Dantooine for example, I assume that would only increase the server load and make the game even more unplayable then it already is.
However I'm not sure that I even buy TH's statement. If you go to Dantooine for example, although there are a ton of player cities there, there really aren't that many people on the planet on a give time. And there is a ton of lag, and virtually no non-missions spawns. Talus is an even bigger puzzlement. Talus is virtually unpopulated relative to other planets, has very little lag if any, but also virtually no non-mission spawns. Travel 2km in any direction away from Talus and you'll stop seeing creatures almost entirely.
Naboo and Tatooine have many more people than Talus or Dantooine it would seem, yet the spawns seem much much better on those two planets. /shrug, so what TH says doesn't really seem to fit my own observations.
Zigabob wrote:
Its hard to understand exactly what TH means there. I know that when I am having trouble finding random lairs for the creatures that I have an explorer mission for, if I do a couple of destroy missions for that specific creature then random spawns of that creature start to appear. It could be just coincidence/superstition on my part, but thats what I do when I can't find creatures for my explorer missions.
Of course if there aren't destroy missions available for that creature then this won't help you.
Ziga Freysen
Master Ranger
Valcyn
And we should not have to pull destroy missions to complete the explore missions. That defeats the purpose of the explore missions. I don't think my responce was all that harsh. I've said worse to SOE in posts. Either way I don't expect a responce from him, because I don't think he thought before opening his mouth on that one. And thus doesn't want to dig his hole deeper. I never actually expect to get a reply from devs in my posts, even when they are well thought out, polite, to the point, no flaming, very pc, and direct questions. The never answer me.
What I want is for the scout and ranger coorespondants, Delta and Calc, to follow up on this on their end.
They have geared up the servers to reclaim resources as the server fills up. This means the random spawns get left out. if they made it the other way the servers would crash. It's a trick to get more out of the servers and pack more people in them.
The real answer is not to change this code (so that the servers can still handle a case where all accounts log in at once) but to expand the hardware. I get the feeling that they are at a technological limit atm.
Fred_Skinner wrote:
They have geared up the servers to reclaim resources as the server fills up. This means the random spawns get left out. if they made it the other way the servers would crash. It's a trick to get more out of the servers and pack more people in them.
The real answer is not to change this code (so that the servers can still handle a case where all accounts log in at once) but to expand the hardware. I get the feeling that they are at a technological limit atm.
- The number of people on theplanet (cluster of servers) affects the amount of random spawns on that planet or section of planet.
- Playercities, Houses, harvesters,bases, turrets, minesand faction scanners affect the spawn rates.
- GCW - means more bases, turrets & faction aligned spawns increasing the serverload and decreasing the number of random spawns.
- GCW - means there are times when lots of players are on one planet decreasing the random spawns (which is a problem seeing as we can't control on which planets the stuff spawns).
- Highly populated planets have a small random spawn rate.
We're basically being told that to use /areatrack effectively we have to:
- Be on a server that doesn't have much to do with the GCW
- Be on a server with a lowish population density
- Log on at times that are not peak
Anyone else find that a little bit wrong? Which other professions have a skill that is dependent on these sorts of factors?
:They could keep the existing server resource reclaim strategy but in additon make the higher (and consequently more interesting) lairs spawn mostly after a ranger areatrack. In psuedocode something like:
if command==areatrack for animals
then list existing animals within areatrack radius
if rnd>small probability
then spawn a lair with CL > 50 according to regional fauna
Of course the CL limit can be adjusted to whatever makes sense.
Additionally, the regular destroy missions would not include these higher creatures. This way areatrack can become more useful to rangers and to groups.
Message Edited by Calculus_Entropy on 05-26-2004 09:06 AM
GoldMemberBria wrote:
However I'm not sure that I even buy TH's statement. If you go to Dantooine for example, although there are a ton of player cities there, there really aren't that many people on the planet on a give time. And there is a ton of lag, and virtually no non-missions spawns. Talus is an even bigger puzzlement. Talus is virtually unpopulated relative to other planets, has very little lag if any, but also virtually no non-mission spawns. Travel 2km in any direction away from Talus and you'll stop seeing creatures almost entirely.
Naboo and Tatooine have many more people than Talus or Dantooine it would seem, yet the spawns seem much much better on those two planets. /shrug, so what TH says doesn't really seem to fit my own observations.
This is my take on the subject as well. I've noticed that spawn rates seem to fluctuate with publishes and hotfixes. Mos Taike used to have a good amount of Bantha in the general vicinity, but ever since publish 7 their numbers have been fewer. Lok (low population) has seen times where if someone was paying me to find ANY creature I couldn't get paid. After a hotfix, BAM: more creatures than you can shake a stick at.
I've neverassociated spawn rateswith planet population. If anything it would seem to me that low planet population equals low spawn rate. I have noticed lately that the longer I stay in any given area, the more spawns I'll see. Even on Talus.