Forums » Bugs

Hits not registering during intense PvP

«1234»
Feb 05, 2014 incarnate link
Yeah, the things we recently changed have to do with lots of simultaneous shots hitting at once. But, that's not the only situation, we've seen weirdness in some other cases as well.

Network tools would be helpful, but really the best would be ones that didn't require you to report anything at all (automated client+server monitoring that happens in the background). But, in some cases it's time consuming to develop, and for the moment I would rather focus on just getting a proper "testbed" going again for some heavy automated stress-testing, that we can use for empirical reproducibility and optimization. I actually just spent my whole day on exactly that project, so, we are actively working on this.
Feb 05, 2014 abortretryfail link
Even just a little indicator like other games (GuildWars, Unreal Tournament, etc) have on the HUD to let the player know when there's network trouble would be worlds better than what we currently have. ("Hey, that looks like lag!")

Thanks for working on it. It's really frustrating when we get a huge battle going and this starts happening.
Feb 05, 2014 lazypc link
Thank you incarnate for taking the time to respond. As I said, I am content knowing the fact that this is a important issue for you and that you are actively working on it.

I also back ARF's suggestion that if there were more indicators of network health for us to see as well as yourself that could help identify this as well as future issues.
Feb 06, 2014 TheRedSpy link
"It's really frustrating when we get a huge battle going and this starts happening."

Understatement of the century. It's 100% game breaking, all competitions are meaningless at the moment because of this bug and they have been for the last year. It's choking the competitive PvP scene.
Feb 06, 2014 Pizzasgood link
It isn't 100% game breaking. It has only broken 20% of my game, tops.
Feb 06, 2014 abortretryfail link
TRS likes to exaggerate. It's not as bad as the bug where the whole sector crashed when you captured a station (fixed), but it's still really bad. :(
Feb 19, 2014 smittens link
Can we get a dev comment on the current state of this issue?

While it clearly doesn't 100% entirely break the game (Even if it ruined all PvP, which it doesn't seem to, we can all still mine! But who wants to mine), more troubling than the missed hits themselves is the psychological effect of this.

Many players (in my experience all Serco, but that's simply because I've only flown with blue Tridents) will no longer even try to fight in a battle with a Trident involved.

I'm absolutely positive it wasn't the devs intention that Tridents should be battle-enders (at least not in this manner!), so it really is a shame that the introduction of a 'dent to a furball is the cue for half the fighters to return to stations and log off.

As long as this is their perception of Tridents and the bug it really handicaps the kind of skirmishing that can develop in the 'verse.
Feb 19, 2014 abortretryfail link
Yeah it's really not the Trident's faults at all. It happened even in sectors without them like conq stations.
Feb 20, 2014 smittens link
You're probably right-- I've (luckily) not yet experienced it! Pretty much everything I know about this glitch is what TRS told me.

But as I tried to get at in my first post, the simple presence of this bug seems to be negatively impacting PvP as badly, if not worse, than the bug itself!

Given how integral the Serco-Itani conflict is to the health of Vendetta, I thought I should post this addendum to the thread to make sure the devs know of this other (less technical, more psychological) side effect of the bug. It becomes a much more critical issue if it really is grounding as many pilots as it sounds like!
Feb 22, 2014 abortretryfail link
So, this happened again in Ukari A-10about 30min ago. We had 3 Tridents like 8 players, an NPC connie and a bunch of lightning mines. The weird part is, as soon as Harkin jumped out through the wormhole, we all started taking hits again.

Does this happen because something on the server side gets hung up on a specific player or NPC?
Feb 22, 2014 greenwall link
Honestly I've also noticed this problem appear when Harkin is around and then dissappear when he leaves. This is not Harkin's fault -- rather it highlights a single player's ability to mess an entire sector up by either a connection related issue or a plugin. Harkin, you are summoned to give your thoughts!
Feb 22, 2014 abortretryfail link
I don't even think it's anything to do with plugins or a bad connection. More like lots and lots of shots hitting something all at once. He had 4 of us firing at his SCP at once when it happened.
Feb 22, 2014 raybondo link
When everyone is shooting at one person, what are they all using as weapons?
Feb 22, 2014 abortretryfail link
Law Enforcement Neutron Blaster and Sunflare Rocket here. Not sure what everybody else was using. I know there was a Gatling Turret in there, some Positron Blaster, and at least another type of Neutron Blaster.
Feb 22, 2014 smittens link
Not to all bag on Harkin (he's not so bad as far as reds go :P) but I also finally encountered this glitch last night when shooting at him.

It was in the Pelatus Conq Station, but it was relatively quiet at the time-- 3-4 Serco players, 2 serco tridents, plus the station guards/turrets and me. I believe me and Harkin's 1 on 1 at the outskirts of the sector was the only fighting in that sector at the time (no other Itani's were in sector), so it wasn't the usual case of lots of targets shooting one ship, or lots of fire happening in the sector. He was in a rag, and I was in a 1-neut 2-flare valk. I laid a lot of long strings of neut fire on him (8-10 shots connecting on my screen), and the results were pretty fishy-- The first few strings of hits would either all be ignored, or maybe 1 would count. After about fifteen seconds of combat though (and a lot more ignored hits), everything seemed to get in order-- all of a sudden most hits started counting, and then they all started working, and I didn't notice any other issues the rest of the fight.

Luckily the bug didn't rob me of the kill, but I can definitely see now how frustrating this is to fight through. And another psychological factor-- it looks a LOT like hacking. Given that I've never seen a hack/cheat in VO, and my experiences with Harkin seeming to be a pretty a stand-up guy, I'm certain it isn't ACTUALLY him hacking (well as certain as I can be :P), but during that fight I very much got the same vibe as when I've encountered hacks in other games-- at the start of the fight, the hack is on and working as it should... but as the fight progresses, and it gets more and more noticeable the hacker turns it off to try and remain undetected.

(AGAIN, to clarify: I AM NOT ACCUSING HARKIN OF HACKING, because he doesn't seem like the kind of chap to try it, and I'm pretty sure such a hack isn't even possible. Merely pointing out another psychological effect of this bug-- it can manifest and look a lot like someone's cheating at the game. This, + the previously mentioned side effect of it's mere presence being enough to stop TRS and others from getting involved with combat... make it all rather alarming!)

[edit] I wonder if there's something with Harkin's connection that causes the bug to manifest around him more? He's never seemed especially laggy to me, but it could be something funky there
Feb 22, 2014 greenwall link
Yep -- exactly Smittens. He doesn't exhibit lag at all... the sector appears normal in every sense EXCEPT damage stops happening. But when Harkin leaves the sector -- SNAP -- game on!

I formally name this the "Harkin Effect", and hope the devs sort it out.
Feb 23, 2014 Kierky link
This happened again at the Nation War.
Feb 23, 2014 davejohn link
Aye, it happened in b8 shortly afterwards with only Rin, sieger and myself in sector. I saw both Rin and sieger jump 500 m or so, neither has shown any real lag in the past.
Feb 23, 2014 lazypc link
Video of this happening at this weeks NW, along with some cool music, well the first song I was especially proud of... the other two were just to take up the rest of the space.

NW #382
Feb 24, 2014 abortretryfail link
I'd like to take a moment to point out that this happens even when there are no Tridents and no "spamming missiles." As there's a lot of people perpetuating the rumor that capships and their missile turrets are to blame for this.

The only turret at Nation War on Sunday was a Shield Turret on Richard_Simmons' Atlas. Nobody was firing missiles at all when the sector stopped checking hits.