Autoattack timer

[gm9]

Well if we can choose I'd take three DDs for Primary, Secondary and Ranged auto-attack reuse timers (or whatever they are called, basically the same thing we have for spells now).

[EQAditu]

Sounds like essentially what is in the /weaponstats command. Could probably make an entire DD node out of it. Can't be any worse than the Arena and Data nodes.

[nluerdarea]

Now why didn't we think of asking for a dynamic data before I started racking my brain =P

[dragowulf]

I suggest someone PM Rothgar or Aeralik or Zoltaroth (devs who have dealt with the UI/DD before) on the main forum. Unfortunately I'm at work right now and for some odd reason the official forums are blocked .

[gm9]

Looks like someone posted it on the beta forums: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/p...opic_id=435380 (if you've got access).

Beta is in feature lock already however, therefore it is slightly pointless to ask for new features there. I'd say wait until beta is over and then start some publicity for the idea somewhere.

From my experience it is next to impossible to get SOE to implement new stuff like this unless someone is already working on something related, in which case it is fairly easy. So if you hear a dev talking about auto attack hit them up.

[dragowulf]

I just asked Rothgar for this new DD we talked about as a reply to an earlier convo. I talked to him a few days ago about a bug within the new gamedata for beta (regarding an extra poison mitigations and the lack of poison damage reduction/percent) and I requested DD for Beneficial/Detrimental effects that include Name/Target/Duration/AmountRemaining (pretty much the same as maintained). His reply the other day was "I can't make any guarantees about when I'd be able to add more dynamic data. Some of that data you requested may not even be sent down to the client until you mouse-over it to get the tooltip. So doing this might be more complex than it seems."

So I'm thinking that he is going to say the same thing about this new request for auto-attack timers.

I'll just wait for a friendly reply.

EDIT: Or maybe if we get enough people to ask him he will give in to our demands!!!!! Landiin as hostage!!!!

[Drumstix42]

lol. Well I can see why about the buffs window.

But a textual dynamic data for time until next melee attack... dunno. I guess it depends what data is being sent.

[nluerdarea]

An alternative would be to remove the % symbols from those 2 dynamic data we already have =P That would make this original idea a possibility =P

[gm9]

Originally Posted by nluerdarea

An alternative would be to remove the % symbols from those 2 dynamic data we already have =P That would make this original idea a possibility =P

as I mentioned somewhere we can handle that via the UI already, I just did not implement it yet.

drago is still in discussion with Rothgar about the timer, but it's too early to say what we'll be getting, there are some complications on the server.

[speedycerv]

Posted this on my beta thread but I'll post it here too:
My question is this, why can't this be done:

Just as spell casting looks at the spell's casting time/recovery time, in order to generate the bar, why can auto attack not be done the same way?

The bar doesn't change mid way when your casting speed changes, so why can't there be a bar made that reads the delay from the weapon, [which is dynamic data isn't it (I mean it is in my top bar of profit reborn)] and use the delay the same way you use the cast time of a spell read from the spell? I'm guessing this is how it would be done.

[gm9]

Originally Posted by speedycerv

The bar doesn't change mid way when your casting speed changes

That's the understanding I gained from all this discussion as well, I used to think the time base could change between auto-attacks but as I keep saying, I don't know much about auto-attack mechanics. And you are right, that makes it quite easy. It will just be much more efficient and exact if we get a dynamic data feed from Rothgar to move the bar and to provide nearly exact synchronization to when you actually swing (the spell casting timers are also implemented via dynamic data).

[speedycerv]

Is this the data you need sir? /GameData.Stats.Ranged_Delay

[Drumstix42]

That's just static dynamic data that represents a value that reflects your character's stat

We need a value that will countdown to zero and repeat, over, and over, and over again.

[speedycerv]

Originally Posted by Drumstix42

That's just static dynamic data that represents a value that reflects your character's stat

We need a value that will countdown to zero and repeat, over, and over, and over again.

Well.. from looking at the video there is already a way to do it. And gm9 even said it is made easy since the number for the delay doesn't change mid swing. Thus in essence you can make a feature that could count off from a ranged attack or ranged auto being toggled, same for melee.

Or even, I know for rangers the delay is almost ALWAYS the same for high end ones at least. the delay is 4 seconds. So a timer for 4 seconds that will only reset when it hits 0 + is not mid ranged ca.

I tried doing this through ACT by using the custom triggers for logs but I would set it for 4 seconds and it would still count down to negative 15 after I do it, and thus the timer be incorrect. Maybe there is another way to do it? I put the trigger in the triggers act tab and the timers tab too cuz just the act tab didn't work.

[Drumstix42]

But how do you account for being out of range, lag, swings not going off because you're casting, etc?

[gm9]

For the last one we have dynamic data and could delay restarting of the timer, but for the first two I don't think you can do anything (there is no onscreen message or anything, is there?), that's one of the reasons why Rothgar's new dynamic data would be helpful.

[Landiin]

I was meaning to test last night but totally forgot with raids and all but seem I recall AA fires if you OOR or not. So not sure being OOR is a issue, There isn't really any thing u can do about lag dynamic data or not unless there would be DD that says AAFired or something.

[EQAditu]

That's true... I clearly remember being able to test double attack chance by attacking something out of range and going afk for a while. You'd get two OOR messages for a double attack. So of course this suggests that being OOR does not store up your next auto attack, but consumes it.

[gm9]

Even better, that means lag is the only unknown and I suppose you can live with that.

[Jida]

Originally Posted by gm9

Even better, that means lag is the only unknown and I suppose you can live with that.

As fast as fights are, it would be easy to find out when you went back into combat and lag would only be an issue on fights that lasted a long time.

This means we have a workaround, yes?

Oh, I'm so giddy that this is going to happen.

Thanks for all of the developers putting time into making the idea even better than it was

Devastatin of Unrest
Aka Johnathon on flames :P

[dragowulf]

I'm still talking to Rothgar. According to him it is extremely difficult trying to make the client hit zero at the exact same time that the server performs the next attack (because auto attack is calculated server-side).

Nonetheless, we'll take whatever he's able to give us.

My question is though, how would razieh be able to do it perfectly, yet Rothgar can't That boggles my mind

[reins]

Being out of range does not consume an auto attack. As soon as you move in range the auto attack will fire.

As far as on screen notifications, the most glaring is combat bubbles. They have to have something to do with the mod.

[gm9]

If being out of range does not consume the auto-attack after all (hey, I don't know the mechanics) then actually your only choice for an attempt at synchronization is to go after the combat bubbles. For that you'd need to be able to visually distinguish your own auto-attack bubbles from all other damage types, including your auto-attack misses, and that for each weapon separately (assuming they don't always miss at the same time and assuming that a miss will still consume the auto-attack for that weapon). Again, no clue about that either. Your timing will be off though by the time it takes for auto-attack to be performed on the server, the damage being calculated on the server and sent back to the client and finally it being displayed in the UI.

Talking about combat bubbles, I tried ages ago to make an ingame real time dps monitor from them but as soon as there were too many bubbles on screen it would choke (data was just dropped, I'm not sure if it never appeared on screen or whether the code entered a race condition). And of course it wasn't terribly useful because I took the raw data without any normalization over time. Someone should try it today. /end derail.

[Landiin]

reins are you sure it does? I tested this with a long delay 2h; after I got the OOR msg I was able to walk up to a mob and stand there, then back out before the next AA round with out hitting it .

[reins]

Coming from a pvp server where targets move out of range all the time, ya i'm positive that being out of range does not consume the auto attack.

Try it with a bow, move to absolute max range then back out a bit. (You can tell by the shading on the ranged auto attack button). Toggle on ranged auto attack then step into range, it should fire immediately.