Game Mechanics: Mend for Monks

[Aadill]

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/po...opic_id=163427

There are synchronization issues with timed items. If I remember right, what happens is, you click an ability and your system logs it's use and starts the countdown from when you can click it again. A message is then sent to the server that said that ability was clicked, the server starts the count-down from when you can again use that message and sends a message back to your machine to use that ability. Usually this process is seamless.

What happens is when there is a large delay between your machine and the server. After whatever the cool-down is for that ability is reached, your machine says that ability is ready, so you click it right away. The problem occurs when that message that you clicked it is sent to the server and the server says, nope the cool-down hasn't been reached. Instead of giving you a wait message it used to say something like "You cannot use that ability just yet."

Unfortunately your machine registered the clicking of that ability and wouldn't let you use it again until your machine went through the entire cool-down again. Meanwhile a few seconds later the server caught up and says your ability is again ready for use, but you have no way of triggering it because your machine said you already used it (despite it failing). This is easily seen if you use the forage key immediately after it becomes available, causing you to miss a forage cycle.

With mend the cool-down without AA is 6 minutes and the community complained heavily that they were being penalized because of server synchronization issues and SOE implemented code that when the ability is ready on the PC, but not the server you get a "you have to wait X seconds, before you can use this ability" message if you click it, but more importantly it would also send a reset to the PC = to that time, so that ability becomes available after the X seconds, instead of having to then wait the full 6 minutes before using it again.


To my knowledge Mend was the only skill this special code was applied to, but not many abilities have a cool-down and use the above method of server/client synchronization to manage it, so it wasn't really a major problem in any area outside of Mend.

This is the exact explanation I was heading towards in the patch notes thread:

The client DOES reset the button but expects the server to send the okay for the button to remain grey or for it to be usable. What occurs on zoning in live is that the button does reset and will appear usable but as you zone your system makes the check against the server.. the UI catches up to it and therefore greys it out moments later, unless the Mend ability is actually available to use.


In short: the client DOES get descynced. The SERVER corrects it by telling the client to grey out the button if Mend isn't available. Right now, the client is simply showing the Mend Ability as usable any time you zone because the server isn't correcting the UI for the actual 6 minute timer. As it stands, I feel the implementation is incomplete, because zoning over and over would allow you to mend and never have to waste any downtime to bind wound up to a measly 50%... it'd be quicker to camp in and out in a remote corner of a camp to reset mend.

Right now, I'm skilling up Mend on a low level monk by zoning back and forth.