Combat Timer Trial and other proposed changes now on Test

[Faust]

Archery was the main weapon type discussed because it had all the slowest weapons in game making it the most noticable equip delay out of them all. For example, the slowest melee weapon was in fact a hally sitting at 4.75s at 25 stam compared to a bow at 6.0s, crossbow at 6.5s, and a heavy sitting at a whopping 12.0s. The equip delay would have had to of been disabled for melee with the insta hit patch and re-enabled during the UOR publish without any notation. That doesn't really make any sense to me at all to be honest. Not to mention the equip delay is triggered by other items such as clothes and armor, not just weapons... There doesn't appear to be any logic behind only ranged weapons triggering the equip/arm delay during the t2a era in my opinion.

The patch note about swings now holding in a held state was listed in one of my posts above...

Players using melee weapons in combat will now hold their swing until their target is in range.

The fact remains that it would still be impossible even if the equip delay was removed for your swing timer to advance to a hally delay if swings didn't hold in a held state. There is no possible way to get an exp, eb, hally combo to happen during combat if this was the case. The only way it would be possible is if some bug existed that allowed the hally to take place during the wrestling swing. However, there doesn't appear to be any loop hole with in the original timer itself for this from what it appears.

[Mr.Boombastic]

The way I understood and remember pvp during this era was.

your timer started after you hit, they put the delay after the hit, so after a swing I knew that there was similar to a cooldown of 4-5 secs. So if you hit tab and was out for 4-5 secs, youve just restarted combat and your swing. Which meant most people who didnt tab moved away after each hit or to cast and never left combat just continued with that timer after the initial first hit. since you could cast and equip most people did equip early, but the good players kinda knew how many spells you could get before your next hit was up without ever tabbing, which means that no way you were wasting hits to the air, your hit was available as long as the cool down for any previous hits was up. most people dueled IN combat whole time since there was no attack last key. Later on people started the tabbing but they tabbed only when casting a spell which meant that upon hitting last target macro and casting the spell they go back into combat and allowing them to swing again without having to double click the targets bar to get your next swing (since its impossible to double click with a cursor up and 90% of the duel you had a precasted spell up or being casted)

I think the thing about resetting the timer upon equip only took place when switching weapons
So say you equiped a katana during your 4 secs of cool down, 4 secs guaranteed a hally hit but if you say let the cool down only run for say 2-3 secs you could get a katana hit, this also meant that if you equipped a katana "BUT DIDN'T SWING"(out of combat) before your hally swing was up, you couldn't quickly unequip the katana and reequip a hally and swing even though technically by then "4" secs would be up, since there was no swing.The timer really got reset after equipping the katana and left the same 2-3 sec cool down kinda like a swing.


"Players using melee weapons in combat will now hold their swing until their target is in range. Additionally, the timer that determines melee weapon swing times (combat timer) will now advance as the player is moving. Thus, melee weapon users will no longer be required to stop moving before swinging."

I think what this meant that you wouldn't see miss or fail attempts to swing, similar to insta hit cept
it wouldn't start the animation UNLESS guaranteed the player was gonna be in swing range.
I remember when the animation/swing changed later on and that was one of the things people with low dex would begin the swing and never get to finish it cuz people moved cuz the hit/range check seemed to be at the end of the animation. Imagine chasing someone and having to stand still for like a full 1-2 secs before dmg hit, this meant you couldn't hit people running...but with this change, if 2 people ran side by side at the same speed next to each other IN combat theyd be swinging while running since the animation timer would continue even if moving, and you wouldnt see these half failed swings due to people being able to move out of range.


This is all from what me and my friends understood about the mechanics
Was a long time ago, we spent countless days dueling.
This is how i understood it and how Ive always remembered it.

Simply my 2cents and the way I remember it.

[malice-tg]

Does anyone have any comment on my post about weapon swings holding in a held state?

I still don't believe there is any possible way to pull off an exp, eb, hally combo during actual combat(IE: having a combatant, not tabbed out) when wrestling loops every 2.25s. There is no explanation for how wrestling can go from 2.25s to 4.75s instantly under this mechnical process of looping swings for a combo to be pulled off like this That is why I am starting to believe the theory about swings holding in a held state being implemented, reverted in place of previous code, and modified back out the following next mini update patch to be a meaningful argument.

There should be two possible ways to melee hit operating simultaneously.
1) using the swing timer based on weapon / stam.
2) abusing precast bug to hold insta hit after you complete any cast ( without wrestling) and then arm weapon for the free insta hit.

precasting was a bug.

don't miss the forest among the trees with the patch note details. precasting was not supported by osi it was a fortunate accident.

[Joueur Moyen]

No need to really discuss equip casting since it's already been heavily discussed before.

At one point there was a bug that would prevent casting if trying to equip too soon. It was pretty nasty because no further casting could be performed without logging out and back in. It was like the client thought I had a weapon equipped, but I didn't.

But I can't remember when it was fixed, and equip casting doesn't make much of a difference. What's important is that precast, insta-hit and insta-swing work correctly. (Mimic behavior during the era, that is, because we don't have the production server code.)

I think Mr. Boombastic has it right. (Edit: with the timers, that is.)

[Derrick]

At one point there was a bug that would prevent casting if trying to equip too soon. It was pretty nasty because no further casting could be performed without logging out and back in. It was like the client thought I had a weapon equipped, but I didn't.

This indicates that a change was made to allowing equipping a weapon during casting post-Demo (or before?). It's allowed in demo without issue. This bug has been mentioned before. Do you recall any general time for this, and/or what the behavior was after the fix?


Added:
Subject: Changes I would like to see for authenticity's sake.

-Yes you actually could equip your weapon while casting but every time it caused a bug that prevent you from casting until you logged off and logged back on.
Equiping the weapon during casting did not interrupt the casting and effectively made the spell that was being cast, un-castable. Sometimes the weapon would actually get stuck in your hands an you would not be able to unequip it, and when you logged off and logged back on the weapon would automatically be un-equipped in your backpack. Even if you managed to unequip your weapon after equipping it during casting you would keep getting the message your hands are full you cannot cast, ect. until you logged off and logged back on. The only way to effectively interrupt your own casting and not screw yourself was to use a trapped pouch.) Which I came up with that idea while macroing 8th level summons and having a Pk recall in next to me.
Hence the price of bad timing=you got owned

[Faust]

Sounds like Joueur is talking about the infamous 'you are already casting a spell' bug that was fixed in late '98.

The only way to fix that bug quickly was by logging out and back in unless you wanted to wait for an eternity.

[Batlin]

Sounds like Joueur is talking about the infamous 'you are already casting a spell' bug that was fixed in late '98.

Kaivan has located that bug in the OSI scripts and if I remember it correctly it is not related with equiping.

[Faust]

Yes, but there is some evidence to suggest that there was a new form but slightly different version of the 'you are already casting a spell' bug in the '99 era.

The original bug you are talking about was fixed somewhere near September/November '98 that involves overlapping a current spell target with another target.

[nightshark]

I know that bug existed well through UO:R when crossing server lines with a spell precasted.. dunno what else triggered it

If you waited out the 30 seconds it took for a spell to cancel itself, it would go away

[Joueur Moyen]

Sounds like Joueur is talking about the infamous 'you are already casting a spell' bug that was fixed in late '98.

The only way to fix that bug quickly was by logging out and back in unless you wanted to wait for an eternity.

Maybe, but I don't remember that being the message. I remember the char and running back to Sweet Dreams to log, but I really don't remember the time frame. Late '98 would fit for that char.

So what's the verdict on equip casting as it stands right now?

Cast spell->equip->whack->disarm->target spell?

I read through an old thread on the subject but it kinda fizzled out in flames, lol.

I need to download the demo and start playing around with it.

[Faust]

Here are a couple instances after a very brief search...

The "already casting a spell" is a bug that was supposed to be fixed two
patches back. Just like a mis-target when using a tool, you cannot use the
"tool" again, in this case your spellbook, until something changes.
Environment, reagent count, another spell is cast or the spell the client
"thinks" it is casting times out.

Anyone remember the "you are already casting" spell bug? Ahh. UOA
fixed that many many months before OSI did.


Maybe the real unbalancing factor of UOA isn't last target, or
arm/disarm, but the fact that a UOA user doesn't have to put up will
all the bugs that a non-UOA user has to. (but there are still enough
bugs even for a UOA user)

That bug isn't fixed...

[monaxe]

Im a bit confused on why the timer delay is so long now? on live shard and test
everything from equipping hally to chugging a pot, even dragging consecutive items is suppose to be this slow?

on test center is there anyway that we can get some kind of memo when we log in that says what patch we are gonna be playing with on there.
it would help us give feedback, and there is alot of people who like dueling there.

thanks and keep cracking at this pvp stuff, lot of people excited when we will have it all tweaked out.

[nightshark]

Im a bit confused on why the timer delay is so long now? on live shard and test
everything from equipping hally to chugging a pot, even dragging consecutive items is suppose to be this slow?

on test center is there anyway that we can get some kind of memo when we log in that says what patch we are gonna be playing with on there.
it would help us give feedback, and there is alot of people who like dueling there.

thanks and keep cracking at this pvp stuff, lot of people excited when we will have it all tweaked out.

there was a 1 second action delay applied to any type of action in the game - dbl clicking, dragging, looting, equipping.. you can't perform 2 object actions in a row in less than 1s. this was in the patch notes and MOTD.

[monaxe]

bro nightshark ur telling me something i already know.
im asking if this is really how slow it is suppose to be or not.

[nightshark]

bro nightshark ur telling me something i already know.
im asking if this is really how slow it is suppose to be or not.

oh, the 1s action delay has been completely confirmed.