Mana client and tmwAthena mob death sequences

Content and general development discussion, including quest scripts and server code. TMW Classic is a project comprising the Legacy tmwAthena server & the designated improved engine server based on evolHercules.


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nmaligec
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Joined: 08 Apr 2010, 01:55

Mana client and tmwAthena mob death sequences

Post by nmaligec »

I was having a discussion with Bertram about a change to the way the client handles mob death sequences (d-seq). As requested I am posting my thoughts so that others can join in on the discussion. Bertram, sorry for the long delay.

I noticed that the 0.5.2 client as well as the old 0.0.29.1 client had essentially an approximately 1500ms cap on d-seq and would continue playing the sequence until the time was up. Note that it 'hangs' on the first frame defined with delay=0 or with no delay attribute; or, if all frames have a delay>0 it loops to the first frame. In a later version of the client I noticed that mobs seemed to stick around a whole lot longer. I was told that the d-seq cap was now explicitly set to 3000ms. IMHO it should be kept to 1500ms or set to 2000ms at most; otherwise the corpses stick around too long

I also pointed out that the hard cap limits content devs to keeping d-seq under 1500ms (3000ms for newer clients).

My suggestion to improve the d-seq while still maintaining old behaviour was:
  • Add a new attribute to action nodes like length="".
  • If the tag is not defined or ="0" then set it to the old defaults like 1500ms for death sequences. I don't know if attack, stand and walk have any hard caps but might as well give the content dev a chance to set a limit and let them figure out the consequences.
  • Leave all the old frame/sequence behaviour.
This should give content devs more freedom to accomplish what they want.
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