Mob attack speed, & more

[vkamicht]

This was mentioned only once that I found, but it was in reference to Liches only. Someone else please give your input as my memory is hazy and I do not have the demo nor have I ever tried it (though I understand its not an absolute reference either)

Since the very first day I played RunUO in 2002/3 I've felt that while it was solid in many aspects, something about it seemed off/wrong when it came to PvM. I still have this feeling even after this many years. I've tried to figure out what it was, but never was entirely certain. I am thinking right now that it is just too fast. Actually, overall, many things are fast compared to how I remember them. Animations for one (like bow and solute, etc.) were playing way faster than I remember. As far as mobs are concerned, just fighting random animals and whatever I run into just doesn't seem right to me because I don't remember birds and sheep being this aggressive in their attacks... am I wrong? UO is an old game and I really don't doubt that it played much slower than it does today, or that we expect it to today. Of course when it comes to PvM it seems like, for melee characters, it's quite a bit tougher than I remember, what with getting bashed on very fast by everything. Opinions?

[poogoblin]

I'm curious if you've taken the fact in that we are now in the broadband age, whereas before 56k was king. This would be my guess.

[Mikel123]

Most creatures wrestle. Wrestling in players has a 2 second swing refresh (I think?) with players at 25 stamina, so it should have the same for creatures. However, even 100-stamina creatures seem to hit MUCH faster than this sometimes.

I assume you're talking about my post about liches. I am positive that the lich hit me 4 times in a row, in rapid succession. Nevermind the fact that they should be spawning with 15 or 20 wrestling, at most, and the odds of them hitting 4 times in a row is near zero. But they came so fast, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't lag. Anyways this was mostly a one-time thing, I haven't noticed it again... but again... odds are overwhelmingly against a lich connecting 3 or 4 times in a row against a GM weapon player. So he could still be swinging at .75 sec intervals and I just don't notice because he misses 90% of the time.

My point is... if you're saying some monsters seem to be swinging too fast, I would agree.

[Faust]

RunUO is well known to have the MOST worse AI for creatures of any emulator software out there for a Pre:UOR shard when you toggle SmartAI off. The ability to function correctly like the creatures back then can't really even be compard in all honesty. It simply sucks and is no where near what it was in regard to speed, pathfinding, etc..

[Derrick]

I haven't gotten to the Lich speed thread yet, but I agree that the creature AI is still lacking. We have put a lot of work into making it closer, but there is some more work to do. Specifics are very valuable in getting this corrected. We recently reworked the AI code for EV's and BS's which was very wrong, and should now be much much closer to the era mechanics.

[vkamicht]

I'm curious if you've taken the fact in that we are now in the broadband age, whereas before 56k was king. This would be my guess.

This should actually have the opposite effect that you're implying it would. Assume mobs attacked at their current speed but we were all on dialup... we'd be lagging and getting a lot more crazy "rapid succession" hits like Mikel123 described. It would be perceived to be insane even though they weren't really attacking any faster. The server runs at the same speed regardless of our connection...

It's a shame there are hardly any VIDEOS from the old era and mostly only screenshots. Though sometimes I see screens of people meleeing certain mobs 1v1 that, despite my skill or what armor I was wearing, seems impossible to me here because of how fast they dish out damage.

[Mikel123]

sometimes I see screens of people meleeing certain mobs 1v1 that, despite my skill or what armor I was wearing, seems impossible to me here because of how fast they dish out damage.

I tell ya, kids these days. Back in my T2A days, we used to solo Ancient Wyrms in our underwear.

[vkamicht]

I tell ya, kids these days. Back in my T2A days, we used to solo Ancient Wyrms in our underwear.

For real!

By the way, with regards to animation: I've noticed that the attack animation speed is dependent on your stamina. At 100% stamina your attack animates very fast, where anything below 100% it plays at the 'correct' speed (which for UO is 4 frames per second if i recall correctly.) Also bow and salute should be animating 4fps as well. And injury frames, death, etc. Pretty much anything. Aren't a lot of these controlled by the packets sent out by the server?

[Derrick]

Aye, bow and salute animations were way too fast, this will be corrected on next publish. Thanks.

I'll look at the other animations as well.