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2017

10/08/2017

Mackal

Rework Regens

Regen will now match whats reported by modern clients, besides where they lie due to known bugs

HP and END regens are now based on the BaseData.txt values allowing easy customization

Cases

  • The client always applies hunger penalties, it appears they don't exist anymore on live you can turn them on with a rule
  • The way the client gets buff mana/end regen benefits incorrectly applies the bard mod making these values lie sometimes

9/17/2017

Akkadius

Fix Food / Drink Consumption

Fix 95% of food/water consumption issues, if there are additional modifiers for race/class combos * those will need to be applied

FixZ Offset Client Calc Added

Add model/race offset to FixZ calc (KLS)

Stages should be put in place if not already: https://wiki.project1999.com/Food_and_drink#Stages_of_Hunger_and_Thirst

Values stored in the database are 0-6000, previously we capped it at 6000 but previous math would have normal values in the 60k+ range in order for food to be consumed at a reasonable rate. We are now using more native logic where 1 = 1 minute

7/14/2017

Akkadius

HP Update Tuning, Position Updates

  • HP Updates are now forced when a client is targeted
  • Client position updates should be smoother (granted the client has a good connection)
  • Clients should also no longer randomly disappear

7/11/2017

Akkadius

HP / Mana / Endurance Optimization Updates

  • Raid/Group/XTarget HP/Mana/Endurance updates now only send when percentage changes
  • Raid/Group Mana/Endurance updates should now update real-time once again
  • Fixed an issue with clients looking like they are 'skipping' when they are moving in view of another client
  • Fixed an issue with NPC's who are ghosted in plain view of a client when they are not really there

7/9/2017

Akkadius

More HP Update Optimizations

Fix HP update issues, rework logic for more accurate HP updates

Massive Performance Increases via Pruning Unnecessary Packet Sends

  • Massive reductions in unnecessary network traffic especially during high spam combat fights
  • HP Updates now only send to others when HP percentage changes (0-100%)
    • HP Updates were sending excessively even during idle zones when HP wasn't changing at all
  • Attack animations now only send once per second versus up to a hundred times a second per Mob/Client
  • 17,000 OP_ClientUpdate packets per second have been observed in combat scenarios, some of the major culprits have been throttled without affecting what the client should see
  • Before and After packet differences under similar load/tests (Packets per second)
Packets Per Second Packet Type After Optimizations
7,000 - 8,000pps OP_Animation 600-800pps
13,0000 - 17,000 OP_MobHealth 1-10 pps
15,0000 - 20,000 OP_ClientUpdate 500-1,000

7/1/2017

Akkadius

Resolve Issues with NPC's Hopping to the Ceiling in Small Corridors

  • Improved grounding issues with NPC's during combat
  • Improved scenarios where NPC's need to be dragged out of the ground - they should correct themselves far more consistently
  • Scenarios where an NPC is coming up from the bottom floor, or from the top floor, they will correct much better

6/28/2017

Akkadius

More Z Correction Fixes

  • Fixed issues with Z correctness when NPCs are pathing on normal grids
  • Fixed issues with Z correctness when NPCs are engaged with players following
  • NPC corpses should fall into the ground far less

6/25/2017

Akkadius

New rules made by developers are now automatically created when world boots up, this keeps from having to issue schema SQL updates every time rules are added.

Whenever a rule isn't present in the database, it will be automatically created

Sped up saylink retrieval x1000 helpful for dialogues, plugins with many saylinks by adding table index

4/16/2017

KLS

Network Code Overhaul

Client

  • UDP client stack completely rewritten should both have better throughput and recover better (peq has had far fewer reports of desyncs)

Server Backend

  • TCP Server to Server connection stack completely rewritten.
  • Server connections reconnect much more reliably and quickly now.
  • Now supports optional packet encryption via libsodium (https://download.libsodium.org/doc/).
  • Protocol behind the tcp connections has changed (see breaking changes section).
  • API significantly changed and should be easier to write new servers or handlers for.
  • Telnet console connection has been separated out from the current port (see breaking changes section)
    • Because of changes to the TCP stack, lsreconnect and echo have been disabled.
  • The server tic rate has been changed to be approx 30 fps from 500+ fps.
  • Changed how missiles and movement were calculated slightly to account for this (Missiles in particular are not perfect but close enough).

Breaking changes

  • Users who use the cmake install feature should be aware that the install directory is now %cmake_install_dir%/bin instead of just %cmake_install_dir%/
  • To support new features such as encryption the underlying protocol had to change... however some servers such as the public login server will be slow to change so we've included a compatibility layer for legacy login connections:
  • You should add 1 to the login section of your configuration file when connecting to a server that is using the old protocol.
  • The central eqemu login server uses the old protocol and probably will for the forseeable future so if your server is connecting to it be sure to add that tag to your configuration file in that section.
  • Telnet no longer uses the same port as the Server to Server connection and because of this the tcp tag no longer has any effect on telnet connections.
    • To enable telnet you need to add a telnet tag in the world section of configuration such as
<telnet ip="0.0.0.0" port="9001" enabled="true"/>

4/1/2017

Akkadius

Log System Performance Enhancements

Cleaned up some of the NPC to NPC aggro code, only do aggro checks to other NPC's when the NPC is flagged for it

Reworked how all log calls are made in the source

// Before
Log.Out(Logs::General, Logs::Status, "Importing Spells...");

// After
Log(Logs::General, Logs::Status, "Importing Spells...");

We're now using a cpp macro to check if the logging category is enabled before even trying to process strings and do string building

The Performance Difference

  • It's 200-300x faster especially when log statements are inside very hot code paths. We already had most hot paths checked before we logged them, but this blankets all existing logging calls now and not just the select few we had picked out in the source
  • Strings don't get copied to the stack, popped and pushed constantly even when we hit a log statement that actually isn't going to log anything

03/30/2017

Akkadius

More Server Backend Optimizations

Fixed an overhead issue where many hot paths would trigger quest subroutines and beneath that the code would try to see if a quest existed perpetually (checking if file exists) even though it should have determined the quest didn't exist the first time.

This caused a lot of overhead in an instance where an entire zone of NPC's is pathing, triggering EVENT_WAYPOINT_ARRIVE and EVENT_WAYPOINT_DEPART when there is no global_npc.pl/lua, or all NPC's pathing don't have a quest assigned, similar behavior would occur. This goes for any other type of quests: spells, items, encounters etc.

03/28/2017

Akkadius

Server Optimizations Again?

  • Fixed a large overhead issue where every single NPC in a zone was checking to depop themselves as a swarm pet every 3ms regardless of being a swarm pet or not. Swarm pets now check to depop only when their timer is up
  • Removed a timer where clients would constantly calculate light amount on equipment every 600ms, instead clients will update light when changing equipment or entering a zone
  • Disabled enraged timer checks for NPC's that do not actually have enrage as a special attack
  • Don't process ProjectileAttack checks for NPC's that are not engaged in any combat

03/27/2017

Akkadius

Server Optimizations Chapter XVII, Client to NPC Aggro Scanning Rework

Before

Before when reverse aggro checks were done (client to NPC), checks would happen every 750 milliseconds where a client would check an entire entity list with distance calcs and other checks for aggro, with many clients in a zone and many NPC's this would add a lot of unnecessary overhead. A temporary adjustment on 3/25 was made and upped the check to 6 seconds

Now

Now, there is a new methodology to scanning. The client will build a cache list of NPC's within close range as defined in new rule: RULE_INT(Range, ClientNPCScan, 300) and will also get any NPC that has an aggro range beyond that defined range to use in the frequent checks for aggro, the result is far less overhead

Client scanning changes when moving versus not moving, the client will scan aggro every 500 milliseconds while moving, and 3000 milliseconds aggro check when not moving, with a 6000ms re-fetch for close NPC's

Changes Demo

03/25/2017

Akkadius

More Performance Profiling Improvements

  • Reduced CPU footprint in non-combat zones doing constant checks for combat related activities
  • Reduced CPU footprint in cases where a client is checking for aggro excessively every 750 milliseconds. This has been adjusted to 6 seconds per new rule RULE_INT(Aggro, ClientAggroCheckInterval)

Info

When zones have many players, with many NPC's, this adds up quickly

03/12/2017

Akkadius

Implemented Packet Range Rules for Performance and Unnecessary Packet Sends

RULE_INT ( Range, Say, 135 )
RULE_INT ( Range, Emote, 135 )
RULE_INT ( Range, BeginCast, 200)
RULE_INT ( Range, Anims, 135)
RULE_INT ( Range, SpellParticles, 135)
RULE_INT ( Range, DamageMessages, 50)
RULE_INT ( Range, SpellMessages, 75)
RULE_INT ( Range, SongMessages, 75)
RULE_INT ( Range, MobPositionUpdates, 600)
RULE_INT ( Range, CriticalDamage, 80)

(Readability) Also cleaned up some formatting in messaging and packets so it is easier to understand what is going on with the code

03/09/2017

Uleat

Fixed a Few Bot Trading Glitches

  • Add a temporary fail clause for partial stack transfers to prevent client item overwrites
  • Return messages no longer repeat the top cursor item when multiple items are pushed there
  • Test slot for client returns is now handled appropriately for parent and bag searches
  • FindFreeSlotForTradeItem() now begins at the correct bag index on subsequent parent iterations
  • First step of implementing inventory v2.0

03/08/2017

Uleat

Complete Rework of the Bot Trading System

  • Equipment slot priority can now be tailored... though, a recompile will be required
  • All item validations and slot assignments for trades and returns are now performed before any actual item movements occur
  • Failed trade/returned items will now go straight into the client's inventory, just like a normal trade transaction
  • A 'green' message appears at the end of each successful trade informing the trader of 'accepted' and 'returned' item counts
  • Bots respond to the trader directly now instead of using BotGroupSay()
  • Bots will still only allow trades from their owner (currently, too high a risk of exploit and/or malicious activity)
  • Partial stack movements (i.e., ammo refills) have been scoped..but, not implemented
  • I have not been able to reproduce any 'illegal' weapon combinations with this code
  • NOTE: The report of item duplication with bot return items appears to be an inventory desync condition
  • I experienced this condition both before and after the rework with RoF+ clients (UF* appears ok)
  • The bug lies within the actual client inventory system and not with bot trades
  • Please post any issues with this change as they arise

02/27/2017

Uleat

Bot Movement Changes

  • Clients (players) appear to be on a different speed scale than other entities (NPCs, etc...)
  • The server does not calculate deltas/velocities for moving players..those come the client itself
  • GetBotWalkspeed() and GetBotRunspeed() are specific to bot movement calculations
  • The class Mob equivilents are not scalared so that a 'client-oriented' value can still be attained
  • The value of ~1.786f is derived from the ratio of 1.25f/0.7f (npc speed/client speed)
  • Modifying the two speeds like this is a rough guess-timate..but, appears to at least bring the incongruous behavior to acceptable levels

02/26/2017

Uleat

Bot Spell Changes

Moved bot npc_spells entries from '701-712' to 3000 + .. also, added melee types for future expansion

Moved bot spell casting chance values into database * this will allow admins to tailor their bots without having to rebuild server code

  • Each entry uses a 3-dimensional identifier: [spell type index][class id][stance index]
  • [spell type index] is not the SpellType_## bit value..use SpellType_##Index instead
  • [class id] values of 1-16 are valid and hold a direct correlation to server-coded player class values
  • [stance index] is a direct correlation (0-6)
  • the 'conditional fields' are currently predicated on 4 compounded boolean states:
    • pH_value represents bit '0'
    • pS_value represents bit '1'
    • pN_value represents bit '2'
    • pD_value represents bit '3'
    • all other conditional fields are masked based on these 4 predicates
  • the full conditional field enumeration is as follows:
    • nHSND_value * negative Healer/Slower/Nuker/Doter
    • pH_value * positive Healer
    • pS_value * positive Slower
    • pHS_value * positive Healer/Slower
    • pN_value * positive Nuker
    • pHN_value * positive Healer/Nuker
    • pSN_value * positive Slower/Nuker
    • pHSN_value * positive Healer/Slower/Nuker
    • pD_value * positive Doter
    • pHD_value * positive Healer/Doter
    • pSD_value * positive Slower/Doter
    • pHSD_value * positive Healer/Slower/Doter
    • pND_value * positive Nuker/Doter
    • pHND_value * positive Healer/Nuker/Doter
    • pSND_value * positive Slower/Nuker/Doter
    • pHSND_value * positive Healer/Slower/Nuker/Doter
  • Single* and mixed-bits fields should be filled-in based on the boolean 'AND' concept
  • (i.e., if 'healer' then pH_value=x; if 'slower' then pS_value=y; if 'healer' AND 'slower' then pHS_value=z; )
  • most cases can allow the same value across all fields..but, there are some that shouldn't and this format allows for their discrimination
  • Valid ##_value entries are 0-100..though, the field accepts up to 255... Anything above 100 is clamped to 100 upon loading, however...
  • Not all conditions are currently coded and changing a field may not produce any results
  • The 'default' database values will be changed and tweaked as bot spell code modifications occur

02/25/2017

Uleat

Implemented Rule-Based Node Pathing for Bots

  • This currently applies to out-of-combat following movement and blocked los in-combat movement
  • The default is set to 'true' (use node pathing)..so, consider disabling it if cpu use is too high
  • If you want to disable node pathing, apply the optional sql 2017_02_25_bots_use_pathing_rule.sql file located in the utils/sql/git/bots/optional sub-directory. This will apply a 'false' rule..but, it can be changed as desired
  • This helps with bot movement..but, there are still issues...

Implemented Rule-Based Position Update Packet with Movement Timer Check for Bots

  • This currently only applies to out-of-combat movement
  • The default is set to 'false' (original behavior) to help save bandwidth (each bot will send an update packet every 1/10th of a second when enabled)
  • If you want to enable the position update packet, apply the optional sql 2017_02_25_bots_update_position_with_timer_rule.sql file located in the utils/sql/git/bots/optional sub-directory. This will apply a 'true' rule..but, it can be changed as desired
  • This appears to help with/eliminate rubber banding

02/23/2017

Uleat

Moved Bot Spell Casting Chance Values into Database

...this will allow admins to tailor their bots without having to rebuild server code

  • Each entry uses a 4-dimensional identifier: [spell type index][class index][stance index][conditional index]
  • [spell type index] is not the SpellType_## bit value..use SpellType_##Index instead
  • [class index] values of 0-15 are valid and determined by subtracting 1 from the actual class value
  • [stance index] is a direct correlation (0-6)
  • the [conditional index] is currently predicated on 2 compounded boolean states:
    • not primary healer/not primary slower: 0
    • primary healer/not primary slower: 1
    • not primary healer/ primary slower: 2
    • primary healer/primary slower: 3
  • Valid value entries are 0-100..though, the field accepts up to 255... Anything above 100 is clamped to 100 upon loading, however
  • Not all conditions are currently coded and changing a field may not produce any results
  • The 'default' database values will be changed and tweaked as bot spell code modifications occur

02/20/2017

Uleat

Reworked Bard Bot Spell Twisting and Updated their Spell (song) List

Added ability to shift to pre-combat song buffing by selecting a non-pet npc target, eliminating the need to mix all bard buff songs together

2/19/2017

Akkadius Added a fix for limiting the amount of items sold in a stack when the resulting return coin is higher than the supporting struct for returning coin

01/31/2017

Uleat Modifed bot movement behavior in an attempt to 'normalize' it. This is a hack fix and will be revisited at some point. (Probably just need a follow function rather than use movement, when the leader of the follow chain is moving.)

01/26/2017

Uleat Change rogue bot behavior to eliminate twirling combat. They will only get behind the mob if they are not the mob's target or if the mob is feared or fleeing. This may lower rogue bot dps a small fraction..but, is more in-line with realistic game mechanics.

01/17/2017

Mackal

Combat Revamp

  • This change brings melee combat into line with how combat is done on live.
  • This correctly applies the PC damage tables and corrects stacking order of many spells
  • Given the scope of what had to be rewritten, it was not feasible to preserve the old combat system.

This means you will likely have to rebalance your server, which sucks, but this is very

accurate so shouldn't require any more changes, at least none that would cause you to have

to rebalance your server again.

  • For rebalancing, I would recommend running the optional SQL and tweaking from there.
  • To help with rebalancing there is a simulator included at utils/combat-sim.
  • You can enter the mitigation or offense values you would like to balance around (#showstats will show you them)

a 1 on the sim is min damage 20 is max.

  • Quick recommendations for best ways to improve PC DPS, give them some worn (or AA) SE_DamageModifier and/or SE_MinDamageModifier