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Thread: Player warning: Crowd Limiting System coming up

  1. #21
    I have a nice idea, you know all those bars and seats that no one ever uses, eg in Newlands? Why dont you make them 1-20 bars and so on, it would help reduce lag by spreading people out all over the citys, and we'd have somewhere to sit while waiting to join a team

    /me waves at Myaeka

    Regards,
    Cazza
    :: Disco "Strayduck" Duck - Equipment - History ::
    _____________________

  2. #22
    Some good points here. Did you all see the part about if the numbers are uneven and the defenders bring more in that the attackers will be REMOVED!!
    You can't be serious? Exactly how would u determine which one of the attackers gets removed? The only Doc? or maybe the highest level?
    Imagine a secenario where a team of 25 (100-130, with one 180) go in to attack a tower, the defenders arrive with 20 (150+) and the "controls" remove your 180 player and a couple others in order to "balance" the battle? huh? Good job defenders you got some nice assistance from game mechanics.
    What's wrong with this picture?

    If the playfield limition is to "remove" players then it should be a voluntary drop to keep the team functional. A pop up saying that there are too many and asking for u to drop out is not unreasonable IMHO. The team could have preset plans on who to drop if it comes up. Pls do not leave this a random as it will almost surely spell the end of PvP all together.

    The other issue that I see is with large org meetings. Purely peaceful get togethers that do not allow all the people to attend. If the org leader tells all members to be at a meeting and the playshift wont allow them in - what does that do to the org? It will most certainly cause problems, reduce org size and may spell the end of org's all together.

    I sure hope that there is a lot more thought about the long term effects of this on PvP and orgs.
    Caprici

    The Honored Maidens

    "I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
    -Thomas Alva Edison

  3. #23
    I'm not running a top line system.
    My brother does.
    Lets take Tir as an example as we both hang out there from time to time to get a bit of money by buffing people.
    My brothers computer is working just as hard as mine to get through. Only difference is that I have my details down to I'm blind and he hasn't. What we monitored is that my computer is loading in the same stuff his does. Thing is that I don't see it and he does.
    It is such a joy to crash due to this swapping in Omni Trade while the people who cause it are 10 to 15 units away from the grid entry point there.

    There are also a few other problems with doing this in outdoor areas. Expects crats to turn major league tower killers due to the charms.
    You can't have tower area's in zones with special mobs. Especially if it takes (following the example set earlier of 50 people) 50 to take down the mob, just lure him/her/it to the enemy zone and watch them die to mob they can't kill since you have 50% of the people that are needed and doing like your nose is bleeding.
    What about a Root/AoE group that pulls the entire zone onto a tower complex, isn't that clogging up the polygon count?

    A limiting system like this also prevents rushjobs, mass assaults to get the system before the others can react, since you can't get enough people into the area to effectively neutralize a complex in the short time it takes before the defenders appear.
    It is also make the average tower complex of any group that has 25+ people online 24/7 unassailable since they have the same amount of people in the zone that the attackers have AND the towers AND (if they are smart) a few pockets of aggro mobs around they can get their hands on.

    [edit]corrected error of saying that guate used numbers[edit]
    Last edited by Aristaeus; Nov 7th, 2002 at 18:54:38.
    Proud member of Circle G.
    We solve your problems on Rubi-Ka 1.(if the price is right)

  4. #24
    Sounds like it has to be done. One of my biggest reservations about the booster is lag issues during warfare. If this helps, then slap that puppy on it!
    Travesty
    martial arts has-been
    freedom fighter
    teen idol

    "Dont hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because Im sleeping with your girlfriend."

  5. #25
    I have to agree with Dominata, this sounds like it is going to keep a lot of non-PvP players, or players who aren't interested in the battle that is going on from playing. After the second time I am headed to a mission and I get a message that says "We're sorry, but you cannot enter that playfield because of a massive battle, would you like to go to Newland for a coffee break instead?" I'll probably just cancel my account.

    I don't PvP (in RP games) but I can see tons of exploits for this system, as have already been pointed out by many people already. Imagine the frustration of being in a heated battle and suddenly you get a message saying "We're sorry, but the other side has brought in more reinforcments, so you must now go stand in line in West Athens. We're sure your team will be fine without you. Have a nice day!"

    Doing this for the city areas to reduce crowding is stupid beyond belief. Why not just send us all a message saying you've decided you just have too many paying customers, and we should all just go play something else?

  6. #26
    Originally posted by Mharc


    Wow. Very creative. Hadn't thought of that yet.
    You must be very good at exploiting and griefing!
    Option a) You're serious. I don't exploit, and I don't grief (well, with one exception, which I'll explain). I take accusations of such, even in jest, very seriously (ask anyone who watched somebody accuse me of using an aimbot in UT what griefing is; griefing is spawn-camping somebody so hard with a sniper rifle they drop the server). So, uh, don't.

    Option b) You were being sarcastic, in which case I suggest that you remember that if no one brings it up FC can always say "Well, we didn't think of it, so we didn't worry about it. We'll fix it someday." Now, they have to admit fault; it was brought up. If they ignore it, it's on them.

    Now go think of other ways to exploit and grief this system, so that FC will leave as few loopholes as possible in the system.
    Gunned down the young. Now old, crotchety, and back.

  7. #27
    Here is a much better idea, and much more serious:

    If the problem is the number of textures that may be drawn for all the different armor and stuff folks are wearing, do this:

    Make everyone who is going to PvP wear trench coats. They cover up everything. The Omni's all wear Red, Blue for Clans and Black for Neutrals. So it also makes it easy to figure out who is on your team.

    Simple solution, reduces lag, makes teammates obvious and avoids the CL stuff.

  8. #28
    Originally posted by Travesty
    Sounds like it has to be done. One of my biggest reservations about the booster is lag issues during warfare. If this helps, then slap that puppy on it!
    I agree, it saddens me to see all those negative comments about bad programmers, and get new programmers.

    That is not what funcom was asking. They are asking for your input on what they are fixing to do. They will do it anways. It's now a matter of putting out your *constructive* ideas on how they can do it best based on what Gaute has stated they intend to do.

    Please if your just going to compare AO to EQ or other games, why even respond. EVERYONE KNOWS THIS ALREADY. It's not helping. We all wish the engine was better, but it's not. I have a P4 2.2GHZ and 2GB of RAM. I find AO's biggest problems is the harddrive read/writes. When I put AO on a ram drive, it runs overall much smoother... I can actually run through Broken Shores with no jerky motions and good framerate... But I still have issues with 100 people in camelot box room.

    Programmers do their best, you say get new programmers. Even if they did, it would take them time just to learn all AO code... What are they supposed to do go steal programmers from one of the others? uh no, they sign contracts for non-disclosure of techniques. What good would that do... It just takes time...

    Calm down a little... You ask them questions like "How are you going to decide who stays and who gets removed."... Why not present your own method or idea on how that should be done, to give them something to think about...? Starting off your post with negative comments usually just makes them not want to read the rest i'm sure...

    If having a no-low-framerate, more enjoyable experience requires this method then so be it. Would I rather them do this or do nothing? This.

    I'm just amazed they finally are discussing the issue! I say good for funcom! it's about time

  9. #29
    lol, there's even lag in omni ent bb on test with 0 ppl around. They prolly implented it into the code

  10. #30
    Ok questions

    1) How many people count as too many

    2) Will levels be taken into consideration

    3) Can teams 'set' people they want to keep in fight

    4) How will you avoid the Kiryat-Dharin point (good one mate)

    5) How will the THREE sides balance
    Jeremiah 'Ramat' Carmichael. Luckiest NT alive because hes married to 'Meraise'
    Master Nano Programmer on call. Writter of 'Jeremiahs Comprehensive Nano-Technician Guide'
    Damon 'Screwz' Gabriel. Master QFT and CL specialist on call. 1250+ in QFT/CL , other tradeskills also.
    Member of Illuminati
    Originally posted by Cz
    WT*?! I take Friday off to play AO from Thursday to Monday morning, and Atlantean is down! Gaaaaah! FRUSTRATION CAPS! *bangs head on keyboard* {Edited by moderator: Watch it Cz!!} *bangs keyboard on monitor*

  11. #31
    Removing people from the area - you should just not let them in there in the first place.

    If your limit is (example)

    20 omni 20 clan 20 neut

    Then once 20 omnis are their, don't allow more if there are only 5 clan, how would 35omni versus 5clan be good anyways? Just leave them hard capped to a certain amount.

    I don't think the defenders should have any advantage over the attackers, i like a even split between all 3 sides...

    And if you must start warping people away, I think the first ones to get there should stay. The late arrivals should be moved out.

    As far as where the limit should be drawn, I say start off with the minimum limits displayed on the AO Retail Box, then increase it gradually and have a process in place to tell you how often people are maxing out areas... and adjusted it up until you need to stop. I don't think you will get that right the first time no matter what.

  12. #32
    Originally posted by Valoren
    If having a no-low-framerate, more enjoyable experience requires this method then so be it. Would I rather them do this or do nothing? This.
    So you think it would be a POSITIVE thing if they reduce the number of players in the game to make it more enjoyable to a few? That's where this ends up going after awhile. If they lose customers, which they are likely to if this is implemented, then they won't be able to afford their staff and AO disappears.

    I don't think that is as positive a thing as you make it out to be.

    I'm not being negative, I'm being a consumer. If they implement this and it means I can't go to some playfields, or enter some city or dungeon, then I have to look for another game to play. I won't keep paying for my account if that happens too often. Simple economics.

    I just don't think they have thought of other options very well. They didn't ask us all to comment with our praise of their brilliance. If that is all they wanted, they shouldn't have started this discussion. They wanted our opinions, and they are getting them.

  13. #33
    This is possibly the worst idea that has ever been suggested for Anarchy Online. I can imagine it now :-

    1. Players from my guild start to prepare for a huge attack on another guild's tower.

    2. Planning takes days and even weeks to prepare and get everyone to log on at the same time and get their tactics ready

    3. The attack begins! People from my guild get on the zone border ready to zone in. This is the result of lots of planning and should be great fun for the whole guild.

    4. Players zone.

    5. I get a message saying "Sorry, too many attackers in this zone you can't take part in this battle".

    6. The other guild members have a great time attacking the towers while I'm shut out cold in the next playfield feeling a mixture of frustration and anger.

    7. Battle is over, the people who have taken part celebrate a victory and great fun. I on the other hand didn't take part in any of it and so log off wishing Anarchy Online was a game where my time isn't wasted and I know that I'd be able to take part in a fun event after weeks of planning.

    This is what it will be like if the proposed changes go ahead. I don't think that I need to say any further that this is a horrible idea that I hope never sees the light of day.
    Solarith- Level 220 Solitus Keeper - Defender Rank: Backer (20)
    Solarax - Level 189 Solitus Agent - Defender Rank: None (0)
    Solarize - Level 30 Solitus Doctor - Defender Rank: None (0)
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Advisor Of Forsaken
    Former Editor-In-Chief
    AO Basher - all you needed...
    E-Mail : SolaraxGVRK@hotmail.com

  14. #34
    Originally posted by wrecklass
    Here is a much better idea, and much more serious:

    If the problem is the number of textures that may be drawn for all the different armor and stuff folks are wearing, do this:

    Make everyone who is going to PvP wear trench coats. They cover up everything. The Omni's all wear Red, Blue for Clans and Black for Neutrals. So it also makes it easy to figure out who is on your team.

    Simple solution, reduces lag, makes teammates obvious and avoids the CL stuff.
    Doesn't work that way. Program loads in all stuff under the trenchcoat down to the stuff you start out with as lvl1 and that for just about everyone in a 40 unit radius.
    From what I gather from the guy who wrote his own monitor it does that for every item worn even if it has already been loaded (instead of creating a reference)

    Valoran
    The requesting of new programmers is a fairly valid request for an improvement if what I just said is true. To me it seems like a lot of easy way out solutions (A.K.A. sloppy programming) are now coming back to haunt them.
    Just like requesting a new build of the engine to get rid of all those excess loadings, memory hogging & other tricks that reduce the amount of work your cpu, ram & videocard need to do.
    That would be a good start reduce the amount of lag. Only after that other limits should be invoked
    Proud member of Circle G.
    We solve your problems on Rubi-Ka 1.(if the price is right)

  15. #35
    Ok to start with this system is either gonna be really good or really really bad ... to start with from his article i derived that in say a pvp skirmish during a tower raid the area would be restricted to a certain amount of people ... by this I don't think they meant the zone but the immediate area where your sprite would have to be seen and buffered b another system ... so in other words multiple skirmishs can be held over the same zone just spread out simply ... which will probably add more to the defense and building tactic of setting up your notum base neway ... either your guild has plenty of people and wants more battles to defend itself or it's a small guild and only wants one small battle ... if u think about it it's only fair what kind of sense would it be for one side to raid a guild with 50 (odds of which maybe 30 will be on at the same time max) with 200 people for one tower ... but i'm not sure how they will implement this system or to what extent it will b e taken so i can't put my exact two cents in just yet. As for him blaming lag on our computers Funcom charges you for this game $13 a month times 12 months = $157 a year they are not going to openly say "The biggest flaw with the game is our fault." They will instead say "Well there are multiple factors that result in what players term 'lag'(as if lag is some figment of our imagination). The leading most factor in player lag is your computer not being a higher end model. We regret this inconvience and suggest you lower your resolution ... but it's not our fault"
    Last edited by GauBan; Nov 7th, 2002 at 19:32:53.
    Yep it's me Super Man... i mean Super G...
    Power to the people ... down with OMNI ... WOOt ... i pity you Omni Foos
    don't make me come get you Omni Succas
    that's right it's Mr. G

  16. #36
    Originally posted by Aristaeus


    Doesn't work that way. Program loads in all stuff under the trenchcoat down to the stuff you start out with as lvl1 and that for just about everyone in a 40 unit radius.
    From what I gather from the guy who wrote his own monitor it does that for every item worn even if it has already been loaded (instead of creating a reference)
    Yep, I've noticed that as well. Every time you start the game, or enter a new playfield you can see everything being drawn. I didn't notice it drawing items under trench coats, however. It's called a "Hidden Surface Algorithm" and it is usually done by a graphics engine before sending everything to the video card. AO doesn't do this, they send everything to the video card and let it take care of what gets hidden. Very poor design, and you are right, it is coming back to haunt them now.

    A better use of their resources (if we assume that AO is going to be in business for years, not just weeks) is to put devleopment effort into fixing the engine, and abandon the half hearted attempts to improve PvP. The game doesn't support large battles, so why add features to create more large battles? They are thinking completely backwards.

    They want to put "Notum Wars" boxes on store shelves to help attract more players. That IS a good thing. But they need to get some resources to fix the engine. Having more players is simply going to reveal more of the weaknesses of the system.

    I WANT to see AO survive, because I enjoy playing the game. However, they need to make some hard decisions about how to improve the game, and this is clearly NOT a step in the right direction.

  17. #37

    pvp solution

    ***
    Hopefully some people posting have the wrong idea. I think the code kicking people out of an area will only start acting when the area becomes full.

    I.E. 5 people defending, and 20 people around the same level attack? 5 defenders just got slaughtered as it should be.

    If the area has a 60 person limit? 40 people attack, and 20 defend. As defenders send more troops in, attackers will not be allowed to return to the zone until its 30/30 or until some defenders leave.
    ****
    However, for this to work what I think needs to happen is this, nobody should be "warped out". Thats a terrible solution because it destroys tactics the very thing thats supposed to matter the most. What I think we all ideally want for PvP is tactics and teamwork to be the main deciding factor in PvP and not only who has the highest crit. It's unfortunate that it can be a tactic, but if 100 attackers storm an undefended area, f* the defenders, they lost by default. People already in an area should not be warped out.

    However, if the zone is 95% full, (a 5% researved "person" amount to allow defenders time to get to the zone) as some of the larger force dies, they wont be allowed back in if the population limit is being filled by the smaller force. A solution to that problem would be to set a minimum number of defenders always allowed in an area. Lets say its 10. 60 attackers come in and 10 defenders start picking them off, so more defenders can come in. If they don't lose straight out, the defenders can keep bringing people in as the attackers die until the ratio between them is 50/50.

    The buffer amount would be so that attackers, when they die, don't instantly rush back in to keep the teams unbalanced.

    Another problem with this. If i know a huge battle is going on, and i'm trying to get into the area, do i have to sit at the zone, repeatedly running into a wall getting spammed with "area is full, go away" until space frees up so that I'm sure to get in as soon as i can??

    A command like "/list number of players in <zone name>" would be nice so I don't have to constantly run into an invisable wall to know if its cleared up yet or not.

    In answer to someones above post, EQ has less texture variety than AO i believe, however the point is still valid. The number of areas I go to has an easily noticable direct relationship to how long it takes AO to close. Meaning, none of those textures are being reclaimed. For those of you who upgrade your systems and put on WinXP and notice little improvement, just so you know XP is a resource hog, you're better off with win98.

    Anyway to reiterate if you skipped all of the above.

    - warping people out sucks in a major way. Kills tactics.

    - auto running into an invisable wall sucks. there needs to be a way to know if an area has room to enter.

    - AO client works great most of the time, but can't take much stress aparently. Optimizing the client more seems to be an option.

    - Fix my broken neck. People wearing cloaks look like they've been hit in the neck with a lead pipe. Oops, did that slip in?

    Ulyses7

  18. #38
    Some of the lag in AO just doesn't make sense and there are some tell-tale signs that the game client is leaking out of its ass somewhere. For instance.....sit in Trade or Tir for an hour. Then go get a mission in BS from NLC. Go into the mission. Log off. Log back on. Notice a framerate jump? Notice how that first room is now butter? Now do the mission and when finished, go back to the first room. See how the room is not butter anymore?

    And then you have to look at the world layout and certain aspects of the game that actually encourage crowding. Like the fact that BS missions are popular because they are quick to get to (spare lag) and quick to complete most of the time, thus every player who cannot get decent XP outdoors because they outgrew the bothackers now gets all XP from BS. If all missions were umm...reasonably sized, you might not have a laggy BS 100% of the time. I'd suggest keeping missions small anyway: bigger mission = more leaks along the way.

    And then Camelot. I tell you...if camping were nerfed and Tarasque were set free to roam Rubi-Ka, Camelot wouldn't cause 26000 ping: there'd be no reason to camp the box and wait for T/members of opposing faction. And besides, hunting T down in the wild would be more fun anyway.....

    This crowd limiting system will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, should it ever go live. The problem is not with our PCs, it is not always with the internet....the problem is within the game. To lock down the number of players in a given area in ANY way at all is a BOTCH FIX to a glaring resource problem, one that you will in fact need better programmers to fix....
    .: Naraya :.

  19. #39
    I think the fix will end up finding a happy medium.

    There will still be lag for most people at all times. It's not about eliminating the lag. It's about managing the lag and preventing exploits.

    For attacking a tower compound, I'm sure that if the attackers stay spread out - say, attacking from two or more different directions - the limit won't come into play. I don't think they're talking about a limit on the number of people in an entire playfield.

    What I want to know is where people will be moved if they're taken out of the area, and how the people who are taken out will be chosen. As someone mentioned, it will be very important for people to keep their healers and their leaders. Keeping people from exploiting the system with alts will also be important.
    Taren "Jynne" Suitt, Level 216/16 Eternalist
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    Iron Law of Exploits: If it can be exploited, it will be exploited. However a rule is exploitable, the exploits become the rule.

  20. #40
    You guys have a nice concept with this tactics and no kicking thing but there is one small problem if attacker show up with 60 people and the limit is 60 people then what are the defenders going to do ??? ... Plus randomly throwing out a massive amount of people is not tactic especially since the defending team has teh option to warp to thier tower ... and on another note the battles for the towers are supposed to be massive neway ... either funcom is going to miraciously pull off a good job with this one ... or they will bomb ... either way let them do what they are gonna do before you either hammer or praise their efforts ... just chill out ... and wait
    Yep it's me Super Man... i mean Super G...
    Power to the people ... down with OMNI ... WOOt ... i pity you Omni Foos
    don't make me come get you Omni Succas
    that's right it's Mr. G

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