Melee Range almost impossible to hit people running

[georgie]

^

[Rogean]

Need more feedback before we consider increasing the range.

[M.Bison]

This was always an issue on RZ for melee characters. The solution was to put your character a few steps in front of the fleeing opponent. I played a rogue pk on RZ and i would always have to get like 2 steps in front of the person i was chasing in order for backstab (or any melee swing) to land. following the person from behind resulted in "You are too far away from your target, get closer." message.

[Darksinga]

Hit Boxes are wayyyy too small.

I got attacked today by three guys and I could just run circles around them without getting hit because the hit boxes are so damn small. I tried jousting on a few dudes and I was able to hit them but the jousting just seemed kind of dumb b/c hit box is so tiny lol.

Don't remember jousting like this on live, not sure if it's working as intended

[Crenshinabon]

These pvp hitboxes are insanely low. Melee pvp is just frustrating as is.

[Harrison]

Need more feedback before we consider increasing the range.

While melee range on moving targets was always a bitch on live, it's distinctly more ridiculous on strafe-running pcs on emulator. The way strafe "ghosts" the PC model on top of hit-box issues, it's just...wow.

A slight tweak is necessary for balance IMO.

[mitic]

i can confirm that the current hitbox is way to small, was dancing around with another mele for MINUTES at lvl 5... after a while we just stoped and restarted killing mobs for exp haha

[ChubbyBubbles]

Agree hitbox seems abnormally small. Jousting with the few other dorfs I found in BB and chasing some down, i have found it very difficult to land blows on people. Hitbox VRS mobs also seems a bit smaller than what I *remember*.

[purest]

i have no point of reference since i did not play pvp on live, but imo the hitboxes are smaller than they should be

[Softcore PK]

They increased melee hitbox size sometime on live. Even if it was later than velious, this should be patched in to make melee classes viable.

[Rogean]

What would you guys say a good percentage increase would be.

[Crenshinabon]

Its gotta be high considering how small it seems now. Close to 100% increase I will hope for.

[Secrets]

Fifty percent increase in range should do just fine. You can still turn off autoattack and make accurate judgements that way. Most EQ PvPers would melee attack off, then turn it on when they thought they were in range.

[Pudge]

actually.. 100 doesnt sound unreasonable.

would have to really play with it to judge. on vztz the range was very large.. i know there is fraps of someone showing a very large distance between 2 standing ppl. i can picture it in my head.. a DE caster in neriak, in the tunnel by the bank i believe. caster was poking backwards with a dagger on the alt from pretty far away. anyway i couldn't find it on youtube but it's there. only describe it because maybe someone knows where the video is.

[Bockscar]

Melee hitboxes feel correct. It was part of what made melee harder to play in PvP. I hope this server doesn't try to "fix" game mechanics just to buff certain classes or we might as well start giving rangers backstab and shit.

[Softcore PK]

Ok, the increase happened in 2004, but you should seriously consider doing it here. People can strafe run from melee classes and be in zero danger; I've managed to do this a ways, get behind a tree and camp.. a few times :s

PvP Changes
- Melee attacks have a 50% increased range. This does not affect thrown
weapons or archery.

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/history/patches-2004-2.html

[mimixownzall]

Melee hitboxes feel correct. It was part of what made melee harder to play in PvP. I hope this server doesn't try to "fix" game mechanics just to buff certain classes or we might as well start giving rangers backstab and shit.

*Insert statement questioning poster's IQ here*

Most people were on dialup back then and it was STILL easier to melee someone and mobs while running.

[Prahadigm24]

Although I'm playing a caster, I have to agree here. It's almost impossible to land a hit on a player who is moving, especially when he's strafing around you.

This might be influenced by my bad Euro latency (150 - 200 ms). I guess this makes it even more difficult to hit the small target boxes.

[Bockscar]

Lol, the hitbox is fine. If you can't hit people at the currently possible range, there's something else wrong, not the code. It was always like this.

Tested just now:
http://i.imgur.com/0sc7n.jpg

You want to be able to attack people from twice that range? It's already like 2 meters!

[Harrison]

This does not address the issue of melee hitboxes while moving, which is significantly less accurate than it was on Live.

The distance stationary is almost irrelevant to 99% of most pvp situations.

[Crenshinabon]

That picture is deceiving. Dwarves are small and make the range look bigger than it is!

[mitic]

even an 100% increase wouldnt be enough since the current hitbox is almost non existant... i do even have a hard time to hit crawling mobs once they start to run. whats up with this? thought we get the blue p99 code on this server on basic mechanics? the hitbox on red is not the same as on blue right now imo

besides that lets not forget that casters have the upper hand in classic so this makes it even more "unbalanced" vs meles

[Yinikren]

I spent 35 minutes running around the entirety of butcherblock trying to kill a naked wood elf on my 8 rogue. I could not hit her reliably until she decided to go for three seperate swims (100% -67%, 100% to 55%, and 82% to dead - she regened to full twice). I could not touch her on land because the melee range is tiny and the ghosting while strafing.

[Rogean]

The reason that it seems much different is due to the way the eqlive servers processed a player moving vs the way we do. As your client moves in a direction, it sends packets every x milliseconds to the server letting it know your position as well as your heading and animation (to determine if you are running). Our server stores that every time it receives it and does all calculations based on those locations.

EQLive on the other hand has code in place to determine exactly where you "should" be based on your last update and the amount of time passed since then. Although the packets are still sent multiple times a second, that can make a difference when the server decides if you are close enough to be attacked.

This is also the reason it seems like mobs are able to outrun you or catch up to you while you are fleeing.

No emulator server has even attempted to tackle the implementation of this system, as it would require a major overhaul.

The best we can do is compensate for it. I can either statically increase the melee range, or I can make it that any client that is moving increases the range they can be attacked by by a certain percentage.

For reference, this is the combat range calculation formula from the client's point of view. I'm still figuring out the formula but I haven't spent much time on it yet.

double __cdecl get_melee_range(int a1, int a2)
{
double result; // st7@3
float v3; // ST04_4@7
float v4; // ST00_4@7
float v5; // [sp+Ch] [bp-10h]@7
float v6; // [sp+10h] [bp-Ch]@4
float v7; // [sp+14h] [bp-8h]@9
float v8; // [sp+18h] [bp-4h]@4
float v9; // [sp+18h] [bp-4h]@7
signed int v10; // [sp+20h] [bp+4h]@5

if ( a1 && a2 )
{
v8 = sub_517AF0(a1);
v6 = sub_517AF0(a2);
if ( dword_9B98EC == 1737909971 )
{
dword_9B95F0 = v10;
if ( v10 > (signed int)((char *)sub_70435F + 4) )
LOBYTE(dword_7738ED) = 0;
}
v3 = PlayerBase::GetSpriteOffsetHeight(a1);
v4 = v3 - PlayerBase::GetSpriteOffsetHeight(a2);
v5 = fabsf(v4);
v9 = (v8 + v6) * 0.75;
if ( v9 < 14.0 )
v9 = 14.0;
v7 = v9 + 2.0 + v5;
if ( v7 > 75.0 )
v7 = 75.0;
result = v7;
}
else
{
result = 14.0;
}
return result;
}

[tmoneynegro]

Yea, hit boxes need to be 50-100% larger. Also, you should be able to swing at people if you're chasing them from behind and your collision box is maximum pressed up against theirs. You're not supposed to have to run in front of them.