Game Mechanics: Track - Targets not showing

[Alanus]

From what I remember on live, it was area-based. You would see all mobs within range (based on your skill level).

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by nilbog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Which way did it function classically? I'm willing to look further into this, and have changes amended or redacted if necessary.

Opinions are good.. but evidence is much better.

It just seems very strange that changes get made to the server when it's not 100% that it was classic. Hmm, i would make sure it's classic before making any changes.

[Malrubius]

Originally Posted by kaev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Then the intention is to break Ranger tracking in a way that is utterly :notclassic: Ranger tracking was far more valuable than Druid/Bard tracking for more than simply the range, it was because you could look at more than just the last 20 mobs that spawned in range.

The implementation of the :classictrackingwindowbug: is faulty. When you guys limited number of mobs to be displayed you did it very badly, taking the first 20 from normal sort only, rather than the first 20 from the selected sort category. Also, the track list does not appear to be updated as mobs spawn.

- With Track sort "normal" (incl. Druid & Bard) should show the 20 most recent spawns within track range (i.e. the first 20 mobs from the normal list)
- With Track sort "distance" should show the 20 mobs within track range closest to the Ranger (i.e. the first 20 mobs from the distance list)
- With Track sort "rdistance" shoudl show the 20 mobs within track range furthest from the Ranger (i.e. the first 20 mobs from the rdistance list)
- & etc.

* One new bug here is that the "normal" list is not the list that should be sorted, rather the full list of mobs in track range should be sorted as selected, with the limit on the number displayed, not the number available for display.

[edit]
* nm, not sure why it appeared that track list not being refreshed, but it definitely is getting updated for new spawns now.
[/edit]

* An old bug with tracking on this server is that when a mob is tracked from outside of range it should give random direction clues. As it is, once a tracker has a mob in the track window or selected as tracking target they can always track it regardless of range, this is wrong and slightly overpowers Druid/Bard (and low level Ranger) tracking.

* Another old bug with tracking on this server is tracking players simply fails to work worth a damn It appears (from very limited testing) as if tracking a player always tracks the location where the player entered the zone, or where the player was when the tracker entered the zone if the target was already in-zone when the tracker entered.

Bumping this - kaev is correct. Limiting to 20 is a classic limitation (due to the lack of a scroll bar) - which arguably should not be a limitation now.

But the important thing is that *WHICH* 20 you saw depended on your sort setting. As a Ranger, you could always see the 20 closest mobs, or the 20 farthest mobs, or the 20 highest level mobs, or the 20 lowest level mobs, or the 20 most recent spawns.

[Ele]

This relates to more of the how far should track reach, rather than what the window displays. It is post-Luclin though 9-19-2002.

http://web.archive.org/web/200310152...?threadid=9999

Aiya my friends!

I have been on these boards for a long time, but very rarely post. I was really curious one night (several months ago) about how far a Ranger could really track. A lot of people thought we could track the whole zone (which may be true in a small zone), but I decided to do some math and figure it all out.

Tracking Units (TUs): I'll simply call them this because we have no other way of knowing what the exact measurement of the distance is. This is based off of your location (/loc) vs. the tracked person/NPC's location.

When you look at any map, you will always see the /loc information provided there. Pretty much a grid.

Now the formula is simple. At 0 (zero) skill points in Tracking you have a base distance of 500 TUs. Each skill point up to 100 is worth 10 TUs. From 101 to 200 is worth 20 TUs. This distance is a radius from the center point (you at your current /loc)

So, pretty much when you look at the numbers you can easily add them up.

Ranger (200 Tracking) - 3500 TUs
Druid (125 Tracking) - 2000 TUs
Bard (100 Tracking) - 1500 TUs

If you ever want to know just grab a map from EQ Atlas, check your skill, add the numbers and draw a circle from your /loc to the amount of TUs you have. There you go thats the distance you can track. So technically yes, we can track the whole zone; depending on the zone, but most (especially with Velious zones) we are far short from it.

As some of the other posts have asked, you can always track your group members. However, you cannot ever track anyone invisible unless you have see invisible up.

Hope this helps anyone out there that may have needed it.

Namarie,

Aelfric An'Aldar
Povar

*I edited this to correct the small mistakes I had*

[Handull]

It is possible that the UI let Rangers sort tracking before Feb 21, 2001, should be easy for someone to dig up a SS showing this. The patch explicitly says the chat commands to sort track were added in 2001, but it is ambiguous if they existed before hand as buttons or not. Patch notes below...

------------------------------
February 21, 2001 3:00 am
------------------------------

*Patch Day*

*Tracking*

Tracking now works in full view for all classes that can use it, and
sports a nifty scroll bar that allows players to see everything on the
list. In addition, the /trackplayer setting is now saved to the
eqclient.ini file.

The following options have been put in for Rangers only:

--- /tracksort
--- /trackfilter

*/tracksort options beginning with R are reverse order

[Malrubius]

So it looks like the limit of 20 (due to no scroll bar) was removed about a month after Velious released. Hopefully we'll get rid of the (now, artificial) limit when Velious goes live here.

Yeah, I think there were always buttons for the sorting/filtering. Haven't found a screen shot of it yet though.

[kaev]

Originally Posted by Malrubius [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So it looks like the limit of 20 (due to no scroll bar) was removed about a month after Velious released. Hopefully we'll get rid of the (now, artificial) limit when Velious goes live here.

Yeah, I think there were always buttons for the sorting/filtering. Haven't found a screen shot of it yet though.

Correct. The commands allowed track sorting to be switched with hotkeys, rather than requiring you to mouse over and use the dropdown menu. The commands were added only for rangers because only rangers had the sort options to begin with.

[Handull]

Was just on my ranger today and realized how it is working for rangers, to reiterate what Kaev said...

The way ranger track works now on p99: Track window shows 20 most recent spawns within the tracking range + unlimited player characters. Filtering by con, distance, reverse distance, etc will *only* filter the 20 most recent spawns. Even if you sort by distance and then re-track, you still only see the 20 most recent mobs sorted by distance.

Should rangers be able to sort by '20 most recent mobs in range', '20 closest mobs', '20 furthest mobs in range', etc?

[Malrubius]

Originally Posted by Handull [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Was just on my ranger today and realized how it is working for rangers, to reiterate what Kaev said...

The way ranger track works now on p99: Track window shows 20 most recent spawns within the tracking range + unlimited player characters. Filtering by con, distance, reverse distance, etc will *only* filter the 20 most recent spawns. Even if you sort by distance and then re-track, you still only see the 20 most recent mobs sorted by distance.

Should rangers be able to sort by '20 most recent mobs in range', '20 closest mobs', '20 furthest mobs in range', etc?

Well it shouldn't be limited to 20 at all - that is a scroll bar limitation, and we have scroll bars.

But even if the limit is artificially held to 20 until Velious (when the scroll bar came into being and there was no limit), YES, the 20 you see should depend on your sort. It should NOT always be the 20 most recent spawns. I expect this last will be patched soon.

The 20 limit should go away with Velious at the latest, which will make it a moot point.

[kaev]

This shit has gotten real old. Given the incredibly slow patch cycle here it's just horrible to have so thoroughly boned Ranger tracking by implementing this grotesque misreading of that patchnote Ele dug up. Ranger tracking on p99 is nigh useless in zones like LoIO, which was simply not the case on live. Frustrating as hell.


[edit]Sorry for tone of the post, deleted the ugliest line, just a tad frustrated, lol.[/edit]