Teras Kasi Archive
Thread: Some testing with hitting moving targets
Ok, i tried to simulate some pvp with a friend yesterday (i am a master tka, she is a carbineer / CH), firstly tried simulating combat where she stood still, lunge worked fine from 10 metres, knocked her down, dizzied, game over. Then tried a test with her moving and firing weapon at me. I chased and even when i intercepted her path and got within 2 metres i could not lay a lunge on her at all (even tho it supposedly has 10m range)
I now understand what all the fuss is about with regards to tk's being totally useless in pvp at the moment, and i agree that no amount of changing to stats , defences or offensive abilities is going to change anything until soe *fix* the problem with melee attacks not being able to be used against moving targets. I see a lot of people talking about slowing ppl down.. implementing a /stick command. None of this is going to work, because it appears the swg client will not allow a melee attack to be delivered against someone still moving, i guess its similar to the pve situation where you try to medidate (you must have all seen this) and you get the message *you cannot meditate whilst running* even tho you have been stood still quite a while. It seems the client takes a LONG time to recognise that you have come to a stop... and then because it only allows attacks to be delivered from a stationary position there is no chance of ever being able to connect a melee hit with a target that moves..
So.. how to fix this ?
1) Fix it so that melee attacks can be delivered whilst both parties are moving, provided you are within melee range (10metres for lunge). This would obviously require some kind of major overhaul to the way the game is programmed at present.. but a very neccessary one if melee are ever going to have a role in the game in pvp
2) Make it so that ranged combatants MUST have to stop moving in order to deliver a successful ranged attack, make it virtually impossible for them to fire whilst moving (if not impossible). In this way the TKA gets the opportunity to only be hit if they have a chance to hit the person attacking.
Either way is fine, but one of these optins MUST be implemented and i very much see this as the absolute number one priority for any of the melee classes atm, and hopefully this will be reported to the developers as such. Its a fundamental problem with the gameplay of SWG.
Lag is the problem. You can hit a moving target. Example: target A is at x,y coordinates, message gets sent to server, the server then tells you. By now about half a second to a second has passed depending on latency. Now, you tell the server, okay, I want to attack target from v,w coordinates. Server recieves message (another .25 - .5 seconds). While you were sending that message to the server your target has since moved to a new set of coordinates (t,u) and has told the server as much. So the server sees you trying to attack from v,w a target that is at t,u. However, that's not within range. From your perspective you are trying to attack a target at x,y (not the same as t,u). This is not a easy problem to fix as lag will always be present to some extent.
So in order to hit a moving target you may need to actually be _in front_ of the target because by the time all the message transmition is done. Problem with this of course is that a ranged weapon person will just turn and run a different direction so you can't get in front of them.
And lunge is 15m not 10m (unless it's been changed since I tested it).
-Micah
I don't have any problem with MOST NPC's running away. Lunge seems to bring them to kneeling pretty well at 10m or less, except for probots who seem to "hover" faster than I run, but I have not tested Lunge in PvP yet. Why would it work in PvE and not PvP? Seems to me that the programming should be the same. If I can Lunge while running versus an NPC there is NO reason why I shouldn't be able to in PvP.
If one of my friends ever logs back on (they aren't as thrilled with the game since recent patches) maybe I can test PvP myself.
Seen as i play from the UK (although my connection is good) i guess additional lag could be a factor. That being the case i guess the fix i would most like to see is that ranged users more or less cant fire whilst moving (sure they can but they are unlikely to hit the broadside of a barn door, let alone a moving TKA master with high ranged defence score) which will at least mean that practically most ranged players will be kneeling and laying prone in order to hit with ranged weapinry in pvp, giving meleers much greater scope of targets. Sure one on one its till gonna pretty much suck, but in larger battles (which most will be as the game matures) there should be a choice of targets for the meleer, targets that kneel, stand still, even lay prone in order to make best use of their firepower.
Noone likes nerfs... so instead of removing the carbineer / pistol bonuses they curently get to hitting moving targets make the base chance to hit a moving target much much higher, so that even master pistoleers/carbineers with full bonuses to hit moving targets very rarely do so. This would also make combat more realistic, with most ranged users having to kneel, or stand still to have a chance of hitting with their weaponry.
Lunge
10m with knucklers equipped.
15m with no knucklers.
This is the problem I've stated time and again and everyone attributes it to a different reason, lag, server sync etc. The fact that when you run after a moving player, no matter what the distance within range, you will more often than not get "target is out of range".
This is our downfall. The fact that we cannot stop people from running with a move that has been designed (albeit poorly) to let us do so.
No matter what the cause, it needs to be looked at. Period.
I see they've increased our damage. Thank you I say. But it was not an issue as far as I was concerned, our damage output was fine.
They have ignored a problem, given us something that wasn't desperately needed, and then made it worse by introducing the 30 second timer.
Lunge2 = /Tackle
Itsa lot morethen lag that causes this problem, seems to be something in the melee combat code. I have done my own testing on hermit spiders (and recorded it). If you /follow and go into combat mode while one is just walking away from you, you never hit it, at Master. I did this like 2000m from Theed, not much around but me, and no lag.
The other problem is that when you attack, you stop running. Much like when you sprint, any attack causes you to stop sprinting, when you attack, there is a pause where you stop following and stop running. That is why /follow on an NPC when they are moving, even walking away results in not landing hits. You always follow at the range boundary (4-7m). When a hit initiates, you stop, and they are out of range again.
For an npc, I have always had to run ahead of it.
The problem is that there are several bugs with the combat system and client/server architecture.
(1) the location you lunge someone isn't the location they will eventually be kneeling at if they were running. The client shows this by having the kneeling person "slide" on the ground to their actual position.
(2) they are able to get up from kneeling faster than one can get to the new location and initiate another attack.
(3) for some reason the client always has out of date position information which forces you to attack where the enemy will be in 1 or 2 seconds in the future, instead of where he is now.
(4) you stop moving to initiate attacks.
I think that a /stick command, ideally, should be processed server side in such a way as to be impervious to lag. it needs to be more than an art upgrade.
Well honestly it's a mix between lag and server updates. It's fairly obvious to me that the server doesn't verify players positions very often. Example last night I'm playing the game and suddenly I hear music playing and I know I'm being attacked. So I turn around looking for the meatlump fool who decided to run towards his death, I see him he looks to be about 20m out. Next thing I know my auto-defend kicks in and I've killed the meatlump fool. Now I'm thinking "Wow he was 20m away I wonder how I did that" then the body of said meatlump fool decided it was time to slide towards me. He ended up at my feet. And this was all when I had a ping of around 100.This has happened to me on a number of occasions, I really like it when NPC's appear to walk through walls that I can't get through.
Basically it comes down to the fact that the servers don't verify your players positions enough, and if your even remotely lagged your going to recieve "Out of range" messagesor issues with sliding bodies. I realize this is a way to conserve on the bandwidth usage in the game, however I really think that once combat is initiated in the game that the servers should spend more bandwidth/time verifying your position then when your in the cantina or out wandering the country side peacefully. This does not appear to be the case however.
Hallelujah, yes! It doesn't matter what changes, nerfs, fixes, patches or improvements they make to the Teras Kasi profession. PvP will always be borked so long as we CAN'T HIT A MOVING TARGET! Even targets that slowly wander away can end up being impervious to our attacks. Ranged weapon users are able to use their weapons very effectively while moving, yet melee classes cannot, even at melee ranges.
I'm not sure whether this is due to Lag or NetCode or Combat Coding or Melee Ranges or what, but it needs to be fixed. That would stop a huge amount of the complaining by TKA's.
josfe, this is from the new teleport ability they added to creatures to prevent folks abusing landscape to kill MOBs with ease (ie., folks sticking large creatures in the gates at Moenia).
Granted, lag does play its part to, but the instance your talking about is most likely from the teleport. I used objects all the time to fight. Open with a few bleeds from my pistol then step behind a tree or buildingfor cover while I wait for them to run up, now they warp to me.