[FEEDBACK] May 31 DM Fixes

[Cyliena]

<p>Checking things out to see what works and what doesn't after today's patch.</p><p>1. Moved my entrance from default location elsewhere and purposefully died. I respawned at where I re-located my entrance to--yay! So that fix works. (tested in Poet's Palace and Lair of Scale 4 layout)</p><p>2. Poet's Palace layout: Effect objects <strong>placed on the first stairwell landing </strong>at -41, 306, -83 <strong>did affect</strong> mobs on that landing--but only on that landing and the stairs north of that landing. They <strong>did not affect</strong> any NPCs to the east placed between -44, 306, -84 through -72, 298, -86 (see #4, however). They <strong>did not affect</strong> any NPCs placed in the alcoves along the stairs north of the landing (yeah, I'm sneaky like that).</p><p>3. Poet's Palace layout: There's a <strong>small dead zone to effect objects</strong> in the first room between -38, 314, -118 and -38, 314, -120.</p><p>4. Poet's Palace layout: An effect object <strong>placed on the lower first stairwell landing</strong> at -67, 298, -84 <strong>did affect</strong> mobs on that landing and back up the stairs west until -46, 306, -86.  That covers most of one of the problem areas from #2, but still leaves mobs in the alcoves along that stairwell and in the doorway there <strong>not affected</strong>. <strong>SUGGESTION</strong>: Have effect objects placed anywhere between -38, 314, -119 and -71, 298, -85 affect any NPCs placed in that area. It is highly inefficient to place effect objects over multiple landings for a minor amount of creatures.</p><p>5. Poet's Palace layout: Effect objects placed in the second room <strong>mostly affect</strong> the entire room now. They <strong>stop working</strong> heading into the westernmost room at -50, 298, -53. An effect object placed at that exact location <strong>does not affect anything</strong>. An effect object placed just west of it at -49, 298, -52 <strong>did affect</strong> NPCs placed between -48, 298, -51 and -34, 306, -52. It <strong>did not affect</strong> NPCs between -33, 306, -52 and -26, 306, -54 and <strong>also did not affect</strong> NPCs between -49, 298, -51 and -50, 298, -52 and <strong>also did not affect</strong> any NPCs inside the alcoves along that stairwell. <strong>SUGGESTION</strong>: Have effect objects from the second room completely affect NPCs all the way west through -27, 306, -53. Before the patch this area WAS functioning that way (the stairwell area), but adding in the ground level area apparently reversed that somehow.</p><p>6. Poet's Palace layout: There's <strong>still an invisible object on the stairs</strong> just west of -34, 305, -54.</p><p>7. Poet's Palace layout: All of the far west rooms are still <strong>functioning correctly</strong> for me.</p><p>8. Poet's Palace layout: Effect objects <strong>placed on the landing</strong> at -36, 306, -20 <strong>only affect</strong> NPCs between -43, 306, -23 and -37, 315, 4. They <strong>do not affect</strong> NPCs placed in the alcoves (see a trend here? <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> ). For some reason those objects were affecting two NPCs I had placed at -39, 315, 6 and -36, 315, 7, but did not affect a new NPC I placed down around, in front of, behind of or between them. I don't have the slightest guess as to why that would happen.</p><p>9. Poet's Palace layout: An effect object placed at -38, 315, 8 <strong>did not affect</strong> any NPCs. An effect object placed at -48, 306, -24 <strong>did not affect</strong> anything. An effect object placed at -68, 298, -23 <strong>did affect</strong> NPCs between -71, 298, -22 and -48, 306, -23, excluding NPCs placed in the alcoves. <strong>SUGGESTION</strong>: Have effect objects placed anywhere between -71, 298, -24 and -37, 315, 11 affect any NPCs in that area. Having to put effect objects on 2-3 landings is highly inefficient, especially since the amount of creatures spread out between that area would not be many.</p><p>10. Poet's Palace layout: I'm not quite sure how to explain this... some of my NPCs out of the area of effect on these landings are getting the effect object buff if they were there when the dungeon initially loaded (see # 8. Placing down a new NPC it will not get the effect until it's in the correct range. However, once that new NPC has the effect, it seems to retain it while moving it around for a further distance than it did when it was placed without the effect. It's just very wonky.</p><p>11. Poet's Palace layout: There's a <strong>visible seam on the ground</strong> at -70.81, 298.11, -84.84. Look straight down on yourself from above in third person and you'll see it.</p><p>12. Poet's Palace layout: Effect objects <strong>in the grassy area of the southern-most room function correctly</strong> now.</p><p>13. Poet's Palace layout: There's some <strong>crazy overlapping flicker on the ground</strong> at -66.66, 314.23, 58.36. Move around your camera in third person and you'll see it.</p><p>14. Poet's Palace layout: Wow, the building in the grassy room and the bridge function great, now! The <strong>only dead zone for effect objects</strong> in the upper hallway is between -62, 327, 55 and -59, 327, 54. After this point I see it transitions to the effect objects placed in the grassy area, but that's definitely workable.</p><p>15. Poet's Palace layout: I haven't personally tested this much yet but I'm still seeing other players report that their <strong>NPC flavor text is still not working in this layout</strong>. With the contest deadline quickly approaching this is making it very hard for those of us relying on telling a story through some flavor text. EDIT: It's been tested more thoroughly by me and others and yes, this is still completely broken. Absolutely no flavor text ever works in this dungeon.</p><p>That's it for Poet's Palace. In a bit here I'm going to try dying in Lair of Scale layout #4 and see if it still respawns into blackness.</p>

[Cyliena]

<p>(moved info about PP to the OP, will save this one for my LoS Layout 4 test)</p><p>Just died in a Lair of Scale Layout 4 dungeon and respawned normally at the Dungeon Entrance portal (I had moved the portal to the second room, not sure if that affected the outcome). Can anyone reproduce the respawning into blackness issue on existing LoS#4 dungeons?</p><p>Just curious, why can you delete a *published* dungeon? It should at least make you unpublish it first!</p>

[Cyliena]

<p>Erollisi Day avatars: These avatars still have VERY wrong power costs for their abilities. The abilities are costing as much power as they would on an avatar that builds power, but these avatars <strong>do not build power</strong>. Please fix this--it makes the avatars virtually useless.</p><p>Sister Aalarya: Ardor is fine; Earnestness of Heart and Vital Force cost 1110 and Crashing Warmth costs 821.</p><p>Sister Leela Prendyn: Hastened Conviction is fine; Fever of Ferver costs 1110 and Ardency and Strike of Devotion both cost 821.</p><p>Sister Thog MacGilly: Touch of Soul is fine; Temperment of Battle and Benevolence of Erollisi cost 1110 and Rage of Compassion costs 821.</p><p>Sister Katey Dalwynn: Wrath of Endearment and Salvation of Heart are fine; Healing Light costs 1110 and Will of Erollisi costs 821.</p><p>These avatars must've been modified in the original attempt to change all avatars to the building power style, but they were supposed to revert back to their normal state when it was decided to just release new avatars for that. Please put them back to normal, I miss using them!</p><p>Also, can the Chimaera Spell-lord please have its primary ability, Lion's Maw, at a 1 or 2 second recast instead of a 5 second recast? Triadic Bolt would also be better as a 10 second recast. I spent SC for that one and the recast times makes me avoid using it. =</p>

[Raferty]

<p>Also: players zoning in do not zone on top of player built flooring, even when the entry is raised. Mobs also only respect flooring half the time, and there does not seem to be any rhyme or reason when. I also seem to have objects go missing in this layout, and for people who are using the editor, there seem to be hiccups when it doesn't recognize that an object has moved. I don't know if this is on sony's end or the editor's, but it seems to only happen in this dungeon.</p>

[Taevin]

<p>Nice work, thanks for testing all of this.</p>

[Raferty]

<p>Also, the sunlight and shadows streaming in on the grass room still render even with objects blocking them. And the entire hallway with emphasis on the brick tear drop shaped area in that room have rendering problems with anything near the wall. Also, it doesn't render across the room (that's really rediculous.) So I see florescent blue walls in my area 51 -.- not a happy camper.</p>

[Cyliena]

<p><cite>Raferty wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Also, the sunlight and shadows streaming in on the grass room still render even with objects blocking them.</p></blockquote><p>The Maj'Dul houses do the same thing so I have to admit I'm not too surprised. Would be nice for people to turn it on or off if they wanted, though.</p>

[Raferty]

<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccLGCYrIZS8" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccLGCYrIZS8</a></p><p>Video of how rediculous the deloading is from room to room. Houses don't do this. Why do dungeons?</p>

[feldon30]

<p><cite>Raferty wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccLGCYrIZS8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccLGCYrIZS8</a></p><p>Video of how rediculous the deloading is from room to room. Houses don't do this. Why do dungeons?</p></blockquote><p>Placed objects appearing and disappearing less than 5 meters away seems like a game killer to me and just further cements the idea that you can place mobs and you can place furniture, but any kind of 'design' is not possible.</p>

[msgnomer]

<p><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Raferty wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccLGCYrIZS8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccLGCYrIZS8</a></p><p>Video of how rediculous the deloading is from room to room. Houses don't do this. Why do dungeons?</p></blockquote><p>Placed objects appearing and disappearing less than 5 meters away seems like a game killer to me and just further cements the idea that you can place mobs and you can place furniture, but any kind of 'design' is not possible.</p></blockquote><p>This is a real problem if you want to make the dungeon interesting with patrolling mobs.  It's not really fair to the player to have a mob pop into site at the last moment.  One of the few tweeks we can make is to give the the player a timing problem, but it's only fair if they can see the patrolling mobs in the room.</p>

[Ulrichvon]

<p>The only solution is to limit the number of items that can be placed.</p><p>Each item you place in your dungeon 'spawns' to the player's client the same way mobs do, as they are all just actors.  when you have 100's of items in a tight space that is an awefully big array of data that has to be spawned to the client.  And as the client walks away from those items they also have to be despawned. </p><p>The laggier the server, the slower the clients connection speed the worse this gets.</p><p>I was kinda surprised, as I figured for DM to work, that when a zone was submitted all those placed items would need to be converted into zone art files to be downloaded to the client.  At least I thought it would have to work that way in order to be playable.</p><p>Instead, it works pretty much exactly like housing.</p>

[msgnomer]

<p><cite>Ulrichvon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The only solution is to limit the number of items that can be placed.</p><p>Each item you place in your dungeon 'spawns' to the player's client the same way mobs do, as they are all just actors.  when you have 100's of items in a tight space that is an awefully big array of data that has to be spawned to the client.  And as the client walks away from those items they also have to be despawned. </p><p>The laggier the server, the slower the clients connection speed the worse this gets.</p><p>I was kinda surprised, as I figured for DM to work, that when a zone was submitted all those placed items would need to be converted into zone art files to be downloaded to the client.  At least I thought it would have to work that way in order to be playable.</p><p>Instead, it works pretty much exactly like housing.</p></blockquote><p>I agree this is an issue.  My comment was referring to rooms that don't have very many items in them but the distance theses items are visible is shorter than the length of the rooms in the Poet's palace.  I have the distance set to max and I still have a mob that traverses less than half the biggest room pop in and out of existance. I've seen this mentioned elsewhere too.</p><p>So it sounds like these are two different issues going on related to rendering.</p>