Game Mechanics: Track - Targets not showing - Page 6

**nilbog** · #51 09-22-2013, 12:29 PM

Quote:

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

Bump. Can we get confirmation from a dev that this is understood to be broken at least?

As mentioned before, I need to know exactly what is broken about it. I didn't make the change, and to look into correcting or modifying it, I need to know what is wrong with it currently. I have never played a class with tracking so I don't know how it should work.

There have been a few memories here about how it should work. I did some brief research on it and found some old pages and guides. I will post them here to help with review.

I did want to quote a few things which seem to be debated:

Quote:

PART 5: Track Filters
-A: updates

The biggest Track updates (EVER) where “filters” and “cons”; some of which are only available to rangers and not bards/druids. Tracking window scrolling (Ranger only) was also a huge update, but not needed to be discussed.

This further confirms a scroll bar added.

Quote:

PART 1: Common myths about track

First off when you hit the track window, the list WILL NOT update. What you see on the list is what is up at that moment. If a mob dies then it is removed from the list and replaced with a blank spot. If a mob spawns it will not show up on the list till you “re-click” the track button.

For the people saying their list should auto update, it doesn't seem that like is the case.

Quote:

Tracking is 100% reliable, totally not true. Sometimes tracking gets bugged, though I can’t always explain why. I think Invis/Hide effects it. A few times I have tried to track people and it will bring me to a spot that they are not at if they are invisible. What I believe happens is that track brings you to the exact spot where the person was last visible. So if someone invises them self and moves across the zone, you will track to the spot where they invised themselves (last “visible” spot). This doesn’t always happen, but it has been know to. This can also occur when a person gates to a different part of the zone.

How does this work currently? Can you track invisible npcs?

Quote:

A tracker can ALWAYS find your corpse like a locate corpse spell isn’t accurate. There are limits to this. I can only track corpses if you’re in my group, if you haven’t zoned back into the zone where you died, or I haven’t zoned out.
Example: My group is running through “The Overthere” and Warrior-X runs into a goon. He tries to out run the goon but fails and forgets to hit the loc button. He has no idea where his corpse is. Well I never zoned out of Overthere so in my party list he shows up as a person with zero hp. I select him and hit track, it brings me right to his corpse. However while doing that I get a goon on me and zone out. When I zone back in, Warrior-X shows up like a person who is in my group but in a different zone, since you can’t track a person not in your zone I can’t find the corpse. A similar thing happens if Warrior-X zones back in, track switches to the live player and not the corpse.

Splorf22 · #52 09-22-2013, 12:54 PM

I believe it boils down to sort(first(x, 20)) != first(sort(x), 20)

Example:

Suppose our window has only 2 tracking entries and our tracking list by distance is:

aviak/1 centaur/40 quillmane/5 lion/8

Prior to the nerf, the entire tracking list returned and sorted by the client, thus giving:

aviak/1 quillmane/5 [not displayed: lion/8 centaur/40]

However, if the *server* only sends the first two entries, the client will display

aviak/1 centuar/40

Which is wrong.

kaev · #53 09-22-2013, 02:44 PM

Ranger had sort options from very early on, can't recall if in at release, but certainly well before Kunark. This allowed Ranger (only!) to choose between the most recently spawned, closest, furthest, highest con, & lowest con, mobs within track range to be shown. The bug was that the window did not scroll, so only the top of these lists was available. Non-Ranger trackers got only the most recently spawned sort.

The bug here is that only the 20 most recently spawned are being sorted, thus rendering the Ranger's class-specific tracking functionality useless.

kaev · #54 09-22-2013, 02:58 PM

I never made much use of the corpse tracking trick, so I can't recall exactly how it worked nor do I have any idea where to look for a better description than has been posted earlier in the thread.

Also, as somebody else mentioned, you should not be able to track anything invis unless you have see invis.

azxten · #55 09-27-2013, 08:46 PM

Quote:

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

As mentioned before, I need to know exactly what is broken about it.

In the screen shot I posted you can see me tracking in the Hole, and the ability is greyed out showing I had clicked it right before taking the screen shot, and there is only 2 mobs on the list. Yet right in front of me is a named mob we are fighting. This is one problem in that tracking sometimes glitches out.

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As for how the filters are supposed to work I'm not sure. However, at the moment I consider tracking worthless because, as in the other screen shot I posted, even newly spawned mobs (Xicotl) don't show up on track when they are 10 feet away. It doesn't matter if you try to sort by consider or what, that mob will never show up on your list in my experience.

I have a very hard time believing that track in classic EQ didn't allow you to track mobs that were standing directly in front of you based on their spawn times or consider or whatever else. Note that in this screen shot I was camping Lasna, saw Xicotl spawn, nothing on track even sorting by consider, so I went back around the corner so I wouldn't get aggro and took that screen shot.

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Track should just work. If it only shows 20 targets thats fine, if theres no sorting thats fine, but it needs to show the closest 20 targets somehow. I played Ranger and Druid many times in live during classic and never experienced this kind of frustration. Sure, its only anecdotal.. but my original point about track just being completely broken sometimes as in my screen shot should probably be looked at.

I think that if filters don't exist then the list needs to be filtered on distance automatically, not whatever its filtering on now which seems to be nothing.

**nilbog** · #56 09-28-2013, 01:35 PM

Quote:

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

Track should just work. If it only shows 20 targets thats fine, if theres no sorting thats fine, but it needs to show the closest 20 targets somehow.

This has been my conclusion. Looking into fixes.

epicgar · #57 09-29-2013, 08:10 PM

This is how I can best describe how tracking should work with and without the "20" mob limit.

For rangers, it's all about finding the mobs within track range and then applying filters.

For non-rangers, it's all about what's in range.

Finally, I remember max tracking distance being Gar>Druid>Bard. Can someone back me up?

YendorLootmonkey · #58 09-30-2013, 09:20 AM

Tracking window never auto updated in 1998-2003 except when mobs on the currently open tracking window despawned/died. There was never a point where mobs were added to the currently open window. You had to refresh the contents of the tracking window by hitting Track. This is the way it currently works.

Having the filter buttons on the UI interface and having the ability to sort the list are two different things. Before we had the filter options on the window itself, we had text-based commands to do the sorting. Not sure when those were implemented without researching though.

I do remember making comments back during classic that having a lower tracking skill was actually more useful because the mobs on your list would be closer to you. This comment would have only made sense if we didn't start out being able to sort by distance.

I looked thru my old screenshots and unfortunately I had no examples of the original tracking window and way too many of wood elf and barb female tits.

**nilbog** · #59 09-30-2013, 04:20 PM

Ok so here's the deal.

The changes made to Tracking for the last patch worked, but the client didn't like them. Even though proper sorting is done server side, once it reaches the client, it's wrong.

Pending update, changes are reversed until we have a better fix.

YendorLootmonkey · #60 09-30-2013, 04:55 PM

Thank you so much for looking into this!!