missile unit walk bug

[Melekor]

I recently noticed that missile units sometimes move forward a bit before attacking, even when they are already in range of the target. I personally find this pretty annoying. Here are some videos of it happening:

demonstrated with archers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6mIqmhBK3w
demonstrated with a dwarf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waWKaqqeKkM

I looked into the code and figured out why this happens, and found that it can be fixed quite easily. How do people feel about this? Is this something that competitive players would like to see fixed?

[Dantski]

Definitely, I've had the feeling this behaviour existed but sometimes thought it was just an excuse for guesstimating range incorrectly.

Any plans to fix dwarf heroes throwing ridiculously far if you click on a unit thats on the edge of your range and running away? This doesn't seem to happen with regular dwarves or mortars, but I suppose you could say thats part of what makes them "heroic".

[Giant Killer General]

yes please fix this. I just experienced this today.

I have also noticed sometimes my dorf will just not throw, seems to happen with dorf heroes. Target is in range, and just won't throw, won't move to throw either. Forcing the dorf to move around a bit seems to fix it. Not sure if it is related with the other issue.

[Dantski]

Yes GKG's issue is most common after dropping satchels I've found. Sometimes the dwarf won't throw for a few seconds after told to attack.

[wwo]

yes please fix this. I just experienced this today.

I have also noticed sometimes my dorf will just not throw, seems to happen with dorf heroes. Target is in range, and just won't throw, won't move to throw either. Forcing the dorf to move around a bit seems to fix it. Not sure if it is related with the other issue.

This always happens on Chest trying to blow sats.

[Renwood]

Yea Melekor please fix this bug!

I had always thought that they were JUST out of range maybe, and thats why they walked closer sometimes. Though often I would say to myself "WTF THats BULLSHIT!!! He was in range!" Though it was not obvious because they were so super close.

If its messed up in the code like you said, it should have been fixed ages ago.

Dorf not firing after sat drops....

And I thought you guys knew EVERYTHING about myth gameplay! O No wait, thats right you guys just ACT like that ~8^)

Every time a dorf drops a satchle he gets a 1 second delay to be able to fire, this is how its set up in fear and is not a bug.

So drop 4 sathcles really fast = cant fire for 4 seconds and so on. Keep this in mind when suiciding!

[c⁄J⁄Iılk c⁄J⁄Iån ◊§t◊]

I actually have a related question...

I remember back in the day, you'd use your dorf hero to drop sats right before trow kicked you, there was a folk theory that if the trow kicked you with most of your sats dropped the dmg would be higher.

Is this true, or does the explosion of a trow kicking a duff depend on how many sats he's carrying?

[Chohan]

Yea Melekor please fix this bug!

I had always thought that they were JUST out of range maybe, and thats why they walked closer sometimes. Though often I would say to myself "WTF THats BULLSHIT!!! He was in range!" Though it was not obvious because they were so super close.

If its messed up in the code like you said, it should have been fixed ages ago.

Dorf not firing after sat drops....

And I thought you guys knew EVERYTHING about myth gameplay! O No wait, thats right you guys just ACT like that ~8^)

Every time a dorf drops a satchle he gets a 1 second delay to be able to fire, this is how its set up in fear and is not a bug.

So drop 4 sathcles really fast = cant fire for 4 seconds and so on. Keep this in mind when suiciding!

[Dantski]

Milk maybe the satchels on the dwarf when kicked are considered above the ground so they do less damage in the same way that a bottle exploding an a units feet will do more damage than one hitting a units head?

[wwo]

It'd be easy to (re)test this. IIRC (and I most certainly might not), any # of satchels carried only counts as 1, so putting them on the ground allows for more sats to blow.

(This was tested for TFL. No idea if m2 changed it.)

[Renwood]

no wwo, you get credit for damage with every satchle you are carrying when you explode. i.e. 8 satchles carried 8X more damage then 1 satchle carried.

Yes dants you are on the right track.

What is happening is the CLOSER damage happens to a unit's ORIGIN POINT, the more damage it will do. Since the Orign Point is at units feet, that is the way to do thet most damage. This only helps with things that do area effect damage. Like explosives or lighting. i.e. shooting a guy in the foot with an arrow wont do more damage, because its not an area effect.

Wether or NOT a dorf's satchles on the ground, are really "closer" to the ground then that unit's Origin Point, then if the dorf exploded while still carrying sathcles, is unknown to me. The stachles the dorf is carryinig would at least be as close to the ground as dropped satchles. But maybe not, they might exsist at the dorfs origin point, and satchles might have a higher origin point then the dorf itself. ooga would know the answer to these arcane questions.
Best thing to do, is what I currently do, drop a few satchles before a trow kicks your dorf, to show you did NOT in fact DROP all your satchles and are NOT empty, while also walking a few steps away from the sathcles, so if the trow kicks you, the dropped sathcles will be closer to the feet of the trow. make sure NOT to drop all of them! Or you wont pop when kicked! (Most likely)

I always thought it SUCKS to have the most damage be at a units feet, and not as it SHOULD be, the units HEAD. Its silly to imagine hitting somebody in the head with an exploding grenade does far less damnage then if that same grenade had exploded at a unit's feet. heh. I think the origion point at the feet is important so the unit stays above the terrain mesh correctly.

[wwo]

That is very interesting.

[Melekor]

Great, thanks for the replies everyone. No one seems to be against fixing the walk bug so far, so I will try to make sure it happens at some point. If not for 1.8, then 1.8.1.

Any plans to fix dwarf heroes throwing ridiculously far if you click on a unit thats on the edge of your range and running away? This doesn't seem to happen with regular dwarves or mortars, but I suppose you could say thats part of what makes them "heroic".

It's possible, but I'm not sure everyone would be able to agree on fixing that. I mean, it's kinda cool to be able to throw further if you know the trick, right? It's a quirk no doubt, but it is a predictable and consistent one, which you can incorporate into your strategy. (unlike the walk issue, which is unpredictable, and almost always has negative consequences)

I have also noticed sometimes my dorf will just not throw, seems to happen with dorf heroes. Target is in range, and just won't throw, won't move to throw either. Forcing the dorf to move around a bit seems to fix it. Not sure if it is related with the other issue.

Is this after dropping sats like others have suggested? If so, ren had a good explanation of that. If it's not related to sats, I would be interested in seeing a film of it (email to melekor@projectmagma.net)

[battleaxe]

this thread delivers, very informative!

[wwo]

It's possible, but I'm not sure everyone would be able to agree on fixing that. I mean, it's kinda cool to be able to throw further if you know the trick, right? It's a quirk no doubt, but it is a predictable and consistent one, which you can incorporate into your strategy. (unlike the walk issue, which is unpredictable, and almost always has negative consequences)

C'mon. Q&A is obligated to consider dev intent, and clearly this behavior was not their intent. Predictability/consistency is irrelevant. If there were an animation glitch that let you taunt-scatter-taunt a unit to make it invulnerable, it doesn't matter what % of the players know about it, how replicable it was, or how benevolent its effects. It's a flaw and should be removed or at least mitigated.

[dac]

It's possible, but I'm not sure everyone would be able to agree on fixing that. I mean, it's kinda cool to be able to throw further if you know the trick, right? It's a quirk no doubt, but it is a predictable and consistent one, which you can incorporate into your strategy. (unlike the walk issue, which is unpredictable, and almost always has negative consequences)

C'mon. Q&A is obligated to consider dev intent, and clearly this behavior was not their intent. Predictability/consistency is irrelevant. If there were an animation glitch that let you taunt-scatter-taunt a unit to make it invulnerable, it doesn't matter what % of the players know about it, how replicable it was, or how benevolent its effects. It's a flaw and should be removed or at least mitigated.

wwo, you arent dealing with the brightest crayon in the box here. attempts to explain will go in one ear and out the drool and down the chin. it's rare to find a programmer who doesnt deal in logic, but i guess we understand why he has the time to work on myth patches and isnt busy with paid work 24/7.

[NewMutator]

That's messed up dac. He didn't have to post here, and you would be none the wiser. Magma has been lambasted for making decisions like this before. The least you can do is dialogue with them and show there's a consensus.

[dac]

no problems with myrd or punkuser or 90% of magma types. however melekor is a special kind of retard.

[Melekor]

C'mon. Q&A is obligated to consider dev intent, and clearly this behavior was not their intent. Predictability/consistency is irrelevant. If there were an animation glitch that let you taunt-scatter-taunt a unit to make it invulnerable, it doesn't matter what % of the players know about it, how replicable it was, or how benevolent its effects. It's a flaw and should be removed or at least mitigated.

You mean QA? Well, sure, but Magma isn't QA for Bungie. We are primarily concerned with keeping the playerbase happy, and we've learned from experience that it's best to steer clear of any changes which could be controversial or divisive. This seems like it could fall into that category. If you disagree, by all means, start a thread like this one asking people if they want the range thing fixed. I'm not closedminded about it.

wwo, you arent dealing with the brightest crayon in the box here. attempts to explain will go in one ear and out the drool and down the chin. it's rare to find a programmer who doesnt deal in logic, but i guess we understand why he has the time to work on myth patches and isnt busy with paid work 24/7.

Unless you're being paid to make personal attacks on forums, it's pretty clear that you aren't busy with paid work 24/7 either. Not to mention the impossibility of actually working 24/7... and you're calling me illogical? Oh, BTW dac, have you figured out how to do OOP in C yet?

[punkUser]

C'mon. Q&A is obligated to consider dev intent, and clearly this behavior was not their intent.

Well, it's actually not as cut-and-dry as you might think. I gave this a bit of thought when it was re-brought-up for the N-th time last year and there are a variety of potential "fixes" for the behavior, so I'm curious which one you have in mind. Let me lay out a few of the things that make it a bit more complex than otherwise thought...

The fact that prediction doesn't affect a units ability to fire removes a variety of weird special cases, either intentionally or unintentionally. If range is considered relative to the predicted target location when the attack animation begins, what should happen if the predicted location goes outside the unit's range before the projectile is spawned (this is the core of the current issue)? Does the duff (or similar) just stop? Try to get closer? This could definitely result in stuff like duffs starting an attack, cancelling it, walking forward, starting another attack, etc. and never actually firing.

It's also worth noting that the prediction is not actually very great, as I'm sure any Myth player has noticed. It doesn't really handle height (i.e. units moving up or down a hill), nor acceleration. I don't think this logic should actually be pinpoint accurate even if it could be, but it's worth noting that the variability has the effect of causing further issues if you start tying it into other logic (like the ability to shoot or not).

So I'm curious what people would rather have happen in these cases, and if they've thought through the details.

And let's leave the pointless bickering out of an otherwise useful thread and treat one another like adults maybe...

[Chohan]

[dac]

Oh, BTW dac, have you figured out how to do OOP in C yet?

retard.

and you can actually fire back without locking threads?! whoda thunkit. this is where you're supposed to take your ball and go home crying.

And let's leave the pointless bickering out of an otherwise useful thread and treat one another like adults maybe...

lets not and say you did. it's way too much fun to call retards retards.

[wwo]

...

Are you really asking if dropping satchels should stack a delay to attack time?

[punkUser]

Are you really asking if dropping satchels should stack a delay to attack time?

Uhh no... did you even read my post? It's about target prediction allowing units like duffs to shoot extra-long-range shots on units that are running away from them.

[dac]

target the spot on the trajectory at max range, do not give them a range bonus just because they might be going there.

[punkUser]

target the spot on the trajectory at max range, do not give them a range bonus just because they might be going there.

That would ruin the whole "walk into range, then shoot" logic though. Trying to special-case which logic to use in terms of whether the unit was in range when the animation sequence started seems finicky and unpredictable.

[wwo]

Are you really asking if dropping satchels should stack a delay to attack time?

Uhh no... did you even read my post? It's about target prediction allowing units like duffs to shoot extra-long-range shots on units that are running away from them.

That's someone else's issue, which I was ignoring due to lack of research and care. Now that I'm paying attention, the same argument applies. It's a glitch, a quirk of the mechanics, too.

[Myrk]

Why is the dorf throwing too far thing even being debated. Cap the range a dorf can throw. That shit's clearly broken.

[punkUser]

Why is the dorf throwing too far thing even being debated. Cap the range a dorf can throw. That shit's clearly broken.

Agreed, but whether it's broken is not the discussion, the way to fix it is (and to be clear, what needs to be capped is the initial velocity, not the absolute range). Like I said, you can't just cap ranged units to shoot as far as they can in a given direction or else when you click your archers on something out of range they'd just uselessly shoot towards it instead of walking towards it first. Read my previous post for some of the subtleties, particularly the issue with units walking, starting attack animation, then repeating while never actually getting an attack off.

And wwo, the accumulated cooldown from laying satchels thing is not a "bug/glitch", it is very clearly the way that Bungie designed it (to add, rather than just reset the CD). Personally I don't think it's a good design and the fact that people don't even know about it supports that, but changing intentional myth design/gameplay has always been a hot-button issue, so magma tends to avoid it unless clear consensus is reached with the community.

[wwo]

I'd just combine gut instinct with the opinions of the most vocal complainers. Even if there's a silent majority that don't want this changed, they've rescinded their vote by not participating in the discussion.

People who (almost-) exclusively play competitive multi-player myth are going to have completely different perspectives on these issues than those who don't, which is why the opinions are so cut & dried. It's not even a skill issue, but expectations for gameplay. As has been said elsewhere, units need to be describe-able in consice and unambiguous terms. For a dwarf hero to have two massive footnotes to its behavior is a bad thing. If it were solo or coop only, it'd likely be the opposite (in dev-spek, this is like renaming a bug a "feature").

As far as dev intent re:satchel delay, does this happen with regular dwarves? If not, then (I agree) that it's bad design whether it's intentional or not, but we only need to consider intent if there's debate about whether it's bad design (which there isn't).

[Myrk]

The satchel thing doesn't really matter, so long as you can drop 1 satchel and then throw (for the purpose of blowing up melee units attacking your dorf). At the start you can blow them easily enough by making a little satchel line instead of just dumping them all at once.

Also really don't see the problem with capping dorf range...put a {if dorf throw tracking a target would get greater distance than the maximum distance you can get with a control click, then make dorf throw = max distance with a control click} in the code.

[Renwood]

Units firing a little further as their target leaves their maximum range is NOT A BUG! It is part of the firing solution
That is PART of a missle unit. This is how it works. The missle unit is Predicting or LEADING the target just as they would any other time when they shoot at somebody. The target is going to be JUST beyond the maximum range of the missle unit when that target is runnning AWAY from the shooter. SO the firing solution is leading the target, it still have the same maximum distance that it can fire, as the missle unit is aiming at a certain point IN SPACE as the maximum range, and the extra distance is covered by Physics itself.

i.e. If I shoot a rocket into the air in real life, and it only has a certain amount of fuel, it will stop at some point in physical space, that is it max range, and the additional distance will be covered by gravity and physics. This was designed by Bungie to work EXACTLY as it currently does and is NOT a bug.

Changing this for dorf heros would change this for all missle units, and would FUCK UP MYTH's GAMEPLAY! You would make archers and other units STOP leading targets. You guys who do not even touch the code or make units in Fear and only PLAY myth, and think you know better then Bungie, 15 years of players, devs and modders crack me up. You guys are the same types that share the same "logic" that duds should be removed. Myth's gameplay is 99.9% perfect. If it AINT BROKE don't fix it! And certainly NOT....for a few whiners!

Deal with it and plan properly with it in mind, as I and countless others have done for 15 years.

[Renwood]

The type of BULLSHIT "FIX" you guys are talking about is exactly what makes other games SUCK and myth superior to other games.

What you suggest would be that a projectile, would, at its MAX distance, MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR MID AIR! That is the only way to "Fix" it as you few are suggesting.

This bullshit is what happens in games like Mechwarrior and other games, where a projectile when it reaches its max range, just goes poof mid air. If you shoot an arrow, bullet or a bottle, the max range is only limited by the power behind the projectile, the angle of it and physics itself. Leading targets is part of the firing solution and can not be changed.

[punkUser]

As far as dev intent re:satchel delay, does this happen with regular dwarves?

It does, it's just more obvious with heroes since they have more satchels (and thus accumulate a longer CD).

Really the issue is like this... just like throwing a bottle, laying a satchel has a cooldown. However for whatever reason laying satchels is allowed even during cooldown periods (i.e. after throwing or laying another satchel), but the cooldowns accumulate. The obvious ways to make this a bit more intuitive are:

1) Don't allow satchels to be laid while CD is active. This isn't really workable these days as people are used to being able to lay satchels as fast as the animation plays.
2) Reset cooldown instead of accumulating it. Thus you only ever have the 1 second or whatever delay rather than it depending on how many satchels you lay.
3) Remove the cooldown. I have a feeling this is intuitively what some people want, but you would immediately notice the difference, with dwarves being able to throw almost instantaneously after laying a satchel vs. their current delay.

2 is probably the best option if people agree it's an issue, but I'm not totally sure if there are other cases of accumulated cooldowns (particularly in plugins) that would be affected by such a change.

[Professional Killer]

I personally don't think we should remove duds at all when it comes to dorfs.
I think that is an important "fun"factor in myth even though it sucks hard when it is so cruital that it makes me loose a game by it.

Some of these factors mentioned are part of the game and ment to be.

[punkUser]

I personally don't think we should remove duds at all when it comes to dorfs.

Agreed, but that was the GKG tagset thread, not this one

[Aki]

The fact that prediction doesn't affect a units ability to fire removes a variety of weird special cases, either intentionally or unintentionally. If range is considered relative to the predicted target location when the attack animation begins, what should happen if the predicted location goes outside the unit's range before the projectile is spawned (this is the core of the current issue)? Does the duff (or similar) just stop? Try to get closer? This could definitely result in stuff like duffs starting an attack, cancelling it, walking forward, starting another attack, etc. and never actually firing.

I would like to know more about how dwarves shoot.

First question: Forget this current issue of dwarves throwing too far. You command a dwarf to attack a moving unit inside his range (and will still be in range when the dwarf throws). After the attack animation begins but before the bottle is thrown, the targeted unit changes direction. Does the bottle fire toward where the targeted unit was originally moving to, or toward where the targeted unit was moving to when the bottle was thrown?

Before the dwarf's attack animation begins I assume it assesses whether the target is in range or out of range (otherwise we would see dwarves making the motion to throw bottles at targeted units way out of range). This is the crucial question: When does the dwarf first calculate where the targeted unit will be when the bottle is thrown?

Your scenario implies the dwarf doesn't calculate where to throw until the projectile is spawned.

Also, it would be interesting to see how far a dwarf hero throws when targeting a really fast unit who's moving out of range. (Really fast as in like three times the speed of a berserk.)

[wwo]

2 is probably the best option if people agree it's an issue, but I'm not totally sure if there are other cases of accumulated cooldowns (particularly in plugins) that would be affected by such a change.

"Other cases" is unclear. Are cooldowns a univerally applied setting so altering them for d.h would alter them for {another unit type that uses cooldowns} ? Or that d.h used in plugins would also be affected? I doubt the former since I'm guessing this a per-unit setting. For the latter, what plugins are you talking about that couldn't change the d.h anyway?

[punkUser]

I would like to know more about how dwarves shoot.

Yeah I'll need to go dig into the details again... I did it a bit last year when this question came up then but I forget some of them now.

Are cooldowns a univerally applied setting so altering them for d.h would alter them for {another unit type that uses cooldowns} ?

Right, it would be all sorts of cooldowns I imagine. And note, it's already not just DH, it affects regular dwarves as well as I've noted. It's the regular action cooldown, with the only quirk being that you're allowed to lay satchels even when there's still a cooldown outstanding (unlike throwing a bottle, shooting an arrow, etc. for instance).

[Renwood]

So for over 15 years, nobody has had issues or problems with this stuff. Even when many THOUSANDS of people played myth online.
Now that NOBODY plays myth, and like a super TINY percent want changes that are not even to fix bugs, they are being considered.

Punkuser, please stop wasting your time on this drivel from this tiny percent of the people even left playing myth. Working on 1.8 and getting that released is of far greater importance.

Any of the described changes you just mentioned would fuck up myth in ways bungie intended it to be played.
Why the hell are people trying to lay multiple satchels and then instantly fire? You only need to drop 1 satchel, then if you throw a bottle in the face of an enemy, when the first explosion kills your dorf it will make your dorf drop his satchels, and the first explosion will ALSO set of your satchel already laid on the ground, and thus set off all the other satchels being dropped.

about 10% of the people that even play myth left in the world check out these gjol forums, and even LESS bother to sign up to be able to post, and just read stuff now and then. A large percent of people on these forums did not and do not like duds. And look at the GKG tagset, it is D.E.A.D. Nobody plays it or cares after a few weeks. But if you went by the people posting on the forums, it looked like a majority wanted NO DUDS of any kind. People on these forums DO NO represent the myth community, they represent the tournament playing community and thats about it. Which BTW is a far smaller percentage then people that play myth for fun.

[wwo]

Why the hell are people trying to lay multiple satchels and then instantly fire? You only need to drop 1 satchel, then if you throw a bottle in the face of an enemy, when the first explosion kills your dorf it will make your dorf drop his satchels, and the first explosion will ALSO set of your satchel already laid on the ground, and thus set off all the other satchels being dropped.

You are so out of touch. Stick to your vaporware.

[Renwood]

When we release soon, wwo, will you eat a peach pit and all?

[wwo]

Can I put the whole thing in a blender with some rum?

[dac]

please, define soon for me. highly interested in this vaporware wwo speaks of.

[battleaxe]

When we release soon, wwo, will you eat a peach pit and all?

[Renwood]

wwo wrote: Can I put the whole thing in a blender with some rum?

Yes, yes you may.

[Renwood]

dac, April

[sasper]

dac, April

i'll wager you 450k on releasing in april

[dac]

he didnt say 2013.