Combat Timer Trial and other proposed changes now on Test

[Hemperor]

and novus opiate was no way accurate. it was hella fun but a completely different system

yeah that is what i am saying. novus was totally different and screenshots of equip casting confused me during era, since i didn't realise at first they could just code the game however they wanted.

and hemp, the implementation on test you would lose your swing if you were not next to your opponent when your swing cycle finished. the equip delay is not what people are talking about. tabbing out allowed you to pause your swing timer at whatever point so you wouldn't waste your swing.

I think I understand what you are saying now. I believe there was a 0.25 second delay between animation and Hit/Miss on test, compared to the 1.25 in Pre-T2A displayed by the demo. What this is based on, I'm not sure, however I don't see how tabbing in any way would ever prevent a swing lost through this... simply because actions are limited to ticks (0.25), among other reasons.

[marmalade]

if you tab out of combat before the swing, your swing should be held and ready for when you re enter combat. thats how it was on test centre before they pulled the patch.

[nightshark]

and novus opiate was no way accurate. it was hella fun but a completely different system

yeah that is what i am saying. novus was totally different and screenshots of equip casting confused me during era, since i didn't realise at first they could just code the game however they wanted.

and hemp, the implementation on test you would lose your swing if you were not next to your opponent when your swing cycle finished. the equip delay is not what people are talking about. tabbing out allowed you to pause your swing timer at whatever point so you wouldn't waste your swing.

I think I understand what you are saying now. I believe there was a 0.25 second delay between animation and Hit/Miss on test, compared to the 1.25 in Pre-T2A displayed by the demo. What this is based on, I'm not sure, however I don't see how tabbing in any way would ever prevent a swing lost through this... simply because actions are limited to ticks (0.25), among other reasons.

no, sorry, when i say swing cycle i mean just the time it takes for your weapon to refresh.

so hally takes 4.25s to refresh while equipped, if you tab out at 4s then it will be 0.25s to your swing. then you move in next to your opponent, attacklast, and your hally will insta hit on the next tick (4.25s). if your opponent moves off the tile next to you on that exact tick, you lose your swing and have to wait another 4.25s before you can swing again.

it's also impossible to abuse the wrestle timer - to my knowledge - since your swing timer loops. say wrestle timer is 2.25s and hally 4.25s. previously you could wait 2.25s and equip, meaning you had a swing ready. if you tried to do that on test, your timer would loop as soon as your wrestle swing was ready, and you would go back to 2.25s until your next hit. abusing the wrestle timer was impossible.

this means that there was no option but to accept the equip delay on your hally. the whole premise of the old exp/eb/hally combo was that this equip delay did not exist!

[Joueur Moyen]

I think I understand what you are saying now. I believe there was a 0.25 second delay between animation and Hit/Miss on test, compared to the 1.25 in Pre-T2A displayed by the demo. What this is based on, I'm not sure, however I don't see how tabbing in any way would ever prevent a swing lost through this... simply because actions are limited to ticks (0.25), among other reasons.

Whatever delay there was between equipping and swinging must have been very tiny because it was called insta-swing for a reason. Equip, whack!

[hectorc2w]

i dont think the timer would loop if in attack mode and it would explain why noone tabbed in/out

now watch everyone showing me the demo code saying otherwise, but it woudnt of been possible to time yourself all the time and get your hits right if it keeps looping

[Hemperor]

I think I understand what you are saying now. I believe there was a 0.25 second delay between animation and Hit/Miss on test, compared to the 1.25 in Pre-T2A displayed by the demo. What this is based on, I'm not sure, however I don't see how tabbing in any way would ever prevent a swing lost through this... simply because actions are limited to ticks (0.25), among other reasons.

Whatever delay there was between equipping and swinging must have been very tiny because it was called insta-swing for a reason. Equip, whack!

Instahit is in reference to hit/miss "delay" after animation, nothing to do with equipping.

[Joueur Moyen]

I think I understand what you are saying now. I believe there was a 0.25 second delay between animation and Hit/Miss on test, compared to the 1.25 in Pre-T2A displayed by the demo. What this is based on, I'm not sure, however I don't see how tabbing in any way would ever prevent a swing lost through this... simply because actions are limited to ticks (0.25), among other reasons.

Whatever delay there was between equipping and swinging must have been very tiny because it was called insta-swing for a reason. Equip, whack!

Instahit is in reference to hit/miss "delay" after animation, nothing to do with equipping.

Insta-hit is damage being applied at the start of the animation for a successful swing. (Instead of at the end of the animation, which made it possible to outmaneuver the swing.)

But that's not what I was talking about. Insta-swing referred to equipping the weapon and swinging immediately afterwards.

[Psilo]

I noticed even if I "held" a perfect hally hit on test center, it wouldn't hit immedietly. I would have to wait like half a second or alittle less, too long to be anywhere near t2a pvp.

Derrick told me 30 minutes ago that they are working on a few flaws in the mechanics before they put it back on test center.

Thanks to everyone's input and testing.

[Hemperor]

I think I understand what you are saying now. I believe there was a 0.25 second delay between animation and Hit/Miss on test, compared to the 1.25 in Pre-T2A displayed by the demo. What this is based on, I'm not sure, however I don't see how tabbing in any way would ever prevent a swing lost through this... simply because actions are limited to ticks (0.25), among other reasons.

Whatever delay there was between equipping and swinging must have been very tiny because it was called insta-swing for a reason. Equip, whack!

Instahit is in reference to hit/miss "delay" after animation, nothing to do with equipping.

Insta-hit is damage being applied at the start of the animation for a successful swing. (Instead of at the end of the animation, which made it possible to outmaneuver the swing.)

But that's not what I was talking about. Insta-swing referred to equipping the weapon and swinging immediately afterwards.

Sorry, misread... That's like my 3rd misunderstanding this topic, I'm cluttering

[nightshark]

I noticed even if I "held" a perfect hally hit on test center, it wouldn't hit immedietly. I would have to wait like half a second or alittle less, too long to be anywhere near t2a pvp.

Derrick told me 30 minutes ago that they are working on a few flaws in the mechanics before they put it back on test center.

Thanks to everyone's input and testing.

yeah, this is because you can only "pause the timer" with 0.25s until your swing. obviously you cant pause at 0.0 or it would've already gone off and reset to 4.25s. this is also the reason you can't abuse wrestle timer.

so you pause with 0.25s, run up to your opponent and attacklast. if he has moved in that 0.25s, you lose your hit. that's why i was saying earlier in the thread that its even more difficult to hit people on the run. the chance you're going to be in range at the correct tick is very low if you and your opponent are on the run. even worse, when your opponent does stop to cast heal, chances are it wont be in the correct part of your swing cycle.

it works for dexers though because if i stop to cast a GH, it doesn't matter what part of my swing cycle he's in, the dexer will still most probably get 1 successful swing off during that time. i played around on a dexer and mages stood absolutely 0 chance of beating me due to this. with reflect items i had 4 mages trying to gank me and basically doing no damage at all.

[Joueur Moyen]

I am not sure if you could equip the hally that early, but I for sure remember equip-casting being in to an extent. Maybe it was more towards the end of a spell that you could have your hally in hand BEFORE the cursor!

Maybe it was possible to equip before the target cursor came up, but I don't remember it that way. I think sometimes the client would get messed up when trying to equip while casting, which prevented being able to recast the spell. That might be why I waited for the cursor to come up, so I wouldn't try to equip too soon.

We should have taken notes.

I don't remember equipping a weapon disrupting the spell.

[nightshark]

I searched for over an hour trying to find something on it. People on usenet generally don't specify that you can't equip during casting. Here is one of the only things I found (August 1999)

>Hmm. I'm not on siege, what was the manner in which they removed it? How
>does it work now?



Cast, get cursor, equip weapon, unequip, target, no spell shoots.
Simple.

This is after the death of precasting on siege, what they are referring to is the fact that the spell will no longer target after you have equipped/de-equipped the hally.

Generally people were just writing "cast spell, arm hally, hit, release spell", which is to be expected ;/

What I mean by the subject header is a mage casting an ebolt (or
whatever) spell and getting the target cursor, equipping his katana or
quarterstaff to pound on his opponent for a bit, and when he gets him
low enough on hit points disarming and targeting the ebolt before the
30 second timer expires.


I think this is a cheap tactic, the last serious imbalance between
mages and non - mages in combat. It should also be easily fixed by
making it impossible to equip anything with a spell "held" (with the
targeting cursor active after a successful spell casting).

The OP. It seems to me like spells were being disturbed by equip or there would be no need for mention of a "get cursor, equip"

[Joueur Moyen]

nightshark, both those tidbits suggest that the weapon was armed after or when the targeting cursor came up.

Edit: Neither mention what happened if trying to equip before the targeting cursor.

[nightshark]

nightshark, both those tidbits suggest that the weapon was armed after or when the targeting cursor came up.

Yeah, exactly. It's really hard to find anything about it. I would've expected it would have been discussed when the change was made, but I couldn't find anything relating. There is no patch note ever documenting the change either ;/

It's funny, while researching this I also found a mention of "turtle mages" - mentioned here as "roach mage", which I've talked about before (I played one on OSI for many months) http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... f08a0ed858
You could equip a shield DURING cast during UO:R (Oct '00), but I remember at the time thinking how strange this was and not possible during '99 in my recollection. Though, this may have been possible during '99 but it wasn't a popular template.

[Faust]

No need to really discuss equip casting since it's already been heavily discussed before. We know it worked in July '98 for sure. The only known patch note to remove any possible method of equip casting would have been the precast removal patch. However, we know parry mages existed during the UOR era through various sources. Also, the reimplementation of precasting specifically states a new addition where equipping a weapon during the casting sequence will interrupt spell casting. There are known sources discussing the reimplementation of precasting from EA developers. Specifically, when precasting was reinstated by alleviating the forceful requirement of spellbooks, it was possible to equip cast briefly for a few days before the updated version of it that disrupted spells was added. The only thing that prevented a mage from equipping a weapon during combat was that forceful requirement of a spellbook. This feature was removed during the same patch that reinstated precasting. However, if parry mages could equip a shield during these spellbook casting days than a weapon would have functioned the same way if the spellbook didn't prevent the weapon from being equipped in the first place.

There is no need to discuss equip casting since it's fairly obvious when you go from Point A to Point B that it was most certainly possible.