The QA Lodge

[Turial]

Ah, but when they appeared in the harbor, was the part of the shroud they DC'd in still inhabited by team members? From the above posts, it looks like it doesn't matter if they've "totally dc'd" or not, only that the section of the shroud you're in (portals, maze, puzzles, big reds) still has at least one teammate in there.

Also, when you get back to your selection screen after rebooting the game, you will (or should be) always be grayed out in the party.

I have had guild members wait for me in part 1 recently and I still appear in the harbor. Gadget's description is pretty accurate on how to make sure you can come back into the instance vs the harbor.

[Silthe]

I have had guild members wait for me in part 1 recently and I still appear in the harbor. Gadget's description is pretty accurate on how to make sure you can come back into the instance vs the harbor.

Well that's pretty interesting. I stand by my explanation of how it's supposed to work. The fact that it seems as if how you're disconnecting matters bears further investigation.


~Silthe

[Turial]

Well that's pretty interesting. I stand by my explanation of how it's supposed to work. The fact that it seems as if how you're disconnecting matters bears further investigation.


~Silthe

Go into the shroud with someone else and disconnect completely (turning off your computer works for this, but I dont recommend it). If the person is in the same section as you or not....you should pop back in. If you disconnect through lag and the game hasn't finished disconnecting you (i.e. the running man thing) then you will end up in the harbor.

[The_Phenx]

In the Monastary explorer area (and possibly other places as well) The Ghosts all the sudden have the ability to save VS Greater Disruption, which is unsaveable. In the combat logs it comes up as a string table ID error.

[Gadget2775]

Ah, but when they appeared in the harbor, was the part of the shroud they DC'd in still inhabited by team members? From the above posts, it looks like it doesn't matter if they've "totally dc'd" or not, only that the section of the shroud you're in (portals, maze, puzzles, big reds) still has at least one teammate in there.

The post by Slithe indicate how it should work.

What I've seen work is making sure they're completely disconnected before reconnecting...Often times when (haven't had it happen to me so I don't know what pops up on the DC'ers screen...Got to love living in Hawaii ) guildies DC they're outside the game but still "present" as it were. IE: Not moving, not talking, avatar (possibly) not present, but the party meters still shows them there (colored, not grayed out). If they reconnect while in this state it boots them out of the quest. Doesn't matter if we're still in the same game region or not.

I'd hazard that some bit of code gets hung so the game still thinks their connected...Then when they re-log it treats them as logging in on a new character. Possibly it's lag related in some way...They've lagged out and it's disconnected on their end. However, DDO still shows them as connected because the disconnect signal never made it to the server...

Also, when you get back to your selection screen after rebooting the game, you will (or should be) always be grayed out in the party.

Just because that's how it should work doesn't mean the game hasn't gotten confused.

[Dylos_Moon]

This should only be happening if the instance is deserted. Normally, once everyone leaves an instance, it takes a few minutes for it to reset. In order to fix an early Dragon exploit, all raids are set to have their instances reset as soon as they are empty. You're noticing this mostly in the multi-part raids such as the Shroud, because people often move on instead of waiting for the disconnected player.

Then explain this:

[Missing_Minds]

This should only be happening if the instance is deserted. Normally, once everyone leaves an instance, it takes a few minutes for it to reset. In order to fix an early Dragon exploit, all raids are set to have their instances reset as soon as they are empty. You're noticing this mostly in the multi-part raids such as the Shroud, because people often move on instead of waiting for the disconnected player.

So if you disconnect in the Shroud part 2, and the rest of the party moves to Part 3 before you get back, the instance of Shroud 2 resets and you'll log back in outside the Shroud. The only way to avoid this is if someone else waits for you and holds the instance open.

That's how it's intended. If you're coming back outside the raid dungeon, and you haven't been kicked from the party and the instance you were in when you disconnected was never deserted, then that's a bug and should be reported as such.

EDIT: Digging a little deeper, it turns out this needs more explanation. It's true that the Shroud is one big instance, so the use of instance in the above explanation is misleading. The code involved resets by "landblock" which is just a large section of geography our engine uses for various calculations and such. Most dungeons are contained within one landblock, so resetting it resets the instance. The Shroud covers several landblocks, and when a landblock in a raid becomes empty, it will reset. My example above isn't terribly accurate since the landblocks don't coincide directly with the phases, although the workaround is. If someone disconnects, have someone else hang out in the general area until they come back.

I hope that made more sense.


~Silthe

How many of you remember Stormcleave? Ye old lvl 8-10 quest with the fire giant boss?

SC is one big quest right? Not quiet. Remember the 2 caves you enter into before the final boss one? While the quest is one big instance, those caves are treated as their own unique instance as well. They are hooked into the main SC, but they are subject to their own rules. Each part of the shroud is very much like these caves.

Another analogy, Youv'e got the Parent. (SC, The Shroud), and then you have children. (shroud part 1, 2, 3, etc. Caves inside SC). You know how children like to keep things from their parents? Well, that is exactly what is happening. The children aren't telling their parents someone is still here, so boom.. back to Wavecrest you go.

[Jefro]

Well know the refuge problem where textures vanish and just become one dank pit where you see just bare walls. Well now it has moved into subterrean, when I was on my way to hound and entered the under house J area, spires and stones where all missing till I changed instances. I did go through portal twice and this glich appeared the second time I entered till I left the instance.

[Strakeln]

Well know the refuge problem where textures vanish and just become one dank pit where you see just bare walls. Well now it has moved into subterrean, when I was on my way to hound and entered the under house J area, spires and stones where all missing till I changed instances. I did go through portal twice and this glich appeared the second time I entered till I left the instance.

The problem can occur anywhere, from what I've seen.

I've observed it in the following places, at minimum:
- Portable hole
- Reaver Refuge
- Phoenix Tavern
- The Tangleroot tavern (Bogwater?)
- In quests

Here's an interesting little tidbit: a party member of mine d/c'd and came back in the middle of Waterworks, and was suffering this problem. The cool thing was, he could see things we couldn't... like enemies around corners, or (here's a real surprising one) chests that hadn't yet spawned!

The problem relates to logging in, I do not think it relates to location at all.

[stockwizard5]

Well that's pretty interesting. I stand by my explanation of how it's supposed to work. The fact that it seems as if how you're disconnecting matters bears further investigation. ~Silthe

This happens quite often in Shroud Part 5: Player DCs in Part5, Finish Off Harry, Wait for Player to Open Chest, Player RCs in Harbor. Not sure how that fits the "instance"/"landblock" explanation?

[Hakushi]

From my game experience, it happened to me 2 times where I found myself in the Wavecrest after a dc in the Shroud.

The first time, my video card crashed, with no possibility but to close my computer the hard way and reboot. When I came back, I found myself loading in the Harbor, very frustrating I have to say. I was in part2.

The second time, I went dc like 5 minutes because of isp maintenance, this time I don't remember in which part I was.

The same thing also happened while I was doing The Crucible with a lowbie, after a dc, I loaded in Gianthold, now because of that I have to suffer a 20% penality to my xp.

This really need some serious look into, and at the same time, please set the reacall from The Shroud to Meridia, recalling to the Wavecrest dosn't make any sence at all.

[jkm]

ddo is missing a check that other games have. once you log onto a server it should check to see if any current characters are logged on. if they are, it skips the character selection screen and picks up the live thread on the server.

[tihocan]

I went back and elaborated a little in my post. Hope that explains it better.

Yes thanks
Although it makes me wonder... what does it mean for an "area" to reset, if creatures / dynamic objects (= chests) do not?

[Junts]

Slithe, I apologise in advance if you have addressed this before (I am relatively new to the forum and have not read every page of this thread). I would like to ask you about air elementals. Specifically, I have two questions.

#1: Is it intended that the knockback effect of the air elemental (which I presume is called whirlwind, as one affected gains two rolls, vs knockdown and whirlwind) cannot fail? That is to say, one who succeeds at all their saves against an air elemental is just about always thrown back regardless (I have very rarely stayed in place, usually when the mob spawned on top of me, making me think the game did not know which way to throw me, or threw me 'down'). There is no defense against being thrown backwards by an air elemental except not coming near it.

#2: In mod8, it was announced that changes had been made to the earthgrab effect of earth elementals, which had had a static DC - the same DC for the weak elementals with the Guardian of STK as for Damazse in the Shroud, meaning Earthgrab was terrifying at low levels and useless at high levels. The change scaled this DC for mob strength, meaning Damazse has a real DC and toons may save against the STK elementals at-level now. It appears from my play experience that air elemental knockdown DC is similar; it does not scale, and in fact, is almost always basically unmakable. This is primarily because it is a strength-check, and even a relatively low DC (say 18-19) will be failed even by primarily str-based toons (my paladin, for example, has a 30 strength, 32 with rage, could be 34 or 36 for a fighter but no higher without barb rage or double madstone). He saves, at best, 25-35% of the time against any air elemental, because his bonus to the roll is +10. I have not sat down and tested this repeatedly to find the exact DC of this effect, but it is clearly 18-19 or higher (I have failed on a 7 yesterday to my observation), which means that even strength based toons are looking at at best 50% chances against it. Is this dc functioning properly? It does not seem likely that it is intended that any enemy have an incapacitating ability that for most players is essentially 75-90% failsafe. My observation suggests that this knockdown has a similarly static dc, possibly the same dc, with the difference being that earthgrab was rolling vs reflex (typically a number in the teens or twenties or higher) and air elemental attacks are rolling against strength (where a modifier over +12 is restricted to 1-2 classes and very uncommon).

If both were designed with similar dcs of, say, 21, it could make total sense why both problems arose. I know that players have complained about air elementals for a very long time, but it simply seems logical to address it in this way: is it possible that air elementals function as they do for the same reason (and opposite play effect) that earth elementals were ineffective?

[Junts]

Yes thanks
Although it makes me wonder... what does it mean for an "area" to reset, if creatures / dynamic objects (= chests) do not?

I want to hazard a guess here: it means the game stops keeping track of things like individual mob locations or ais: mob is alive or mob is dead is easy to track, tracking lots of mobs trying to path to their aggro target, make spot/listen checks to notice pcs, where they're at as they do so, etc, is a lot more resource consuming. An area reset is likely along hte lines of those mobs returning to their intiial starting positions and all need to track their existance (besides 'is it alive or is it dead', 'was it opened or is it closed', etc) can be removed from the processor.

[Turial]

I want to hazard a guess here: it means the game stops keeping track of things like individual mob locations or ais: mob is alive or mob is dead is easy to track, tracking lots of mobs trying to path to their aggro target, make spot/listen checks to notice pcs, where they're at as they do so, etc, is a lot more resource consuming. An area reset is likely along hte lines of those mobs returning to their intiial starting positions and all need to track their existance (besides 'is it alive or is it dead', 'was it opened or is it closed', etc) can be removed from the processor.

Except that if you leave a mob alive in part 1 of the shroud and complete the quest and come back to part 1 via the portals, that mob will still be active and looking for the player who is top on its aggro list. Sometimes its you and you get a very nasty surprise when a kitty comes up behind you while you are crafting and tries to play "catch the halfling" with you.

[Junts]

except most mobs can see/hear to the area up the middle, so its equally likely the mob is reactivated, hears you running by, takes quite a while to run around down the ramp, and hits you because you were the new target of its aggro by having run by (no ones sneaking, after all)

the mobs up on the upper platforms left and right should be aggroed by someone who runs up the middle to the altars, well within hearing if not visual detection radius

[MrCow]

Yes thanks
Although it makes me wonder... what does it mean for an "area" to reset, if creatures / dynamic objects (= chests) do not?

By "reset", what probably happens is the area gets saved to a file or database and shutdown until it is needed later, where it is "reset" from the saved data.

[soupertc]

Just filed a report....Lighting Strike Guard is not working against Red or Purple Named if you are wearing a guard they are immune to(my case Slay Living Guard). I noticed in my combat log last night in The Shroud I was getting the message:
Hary hit Harry but did no damage.

So I just went into Volcano explorer area.....let red named Warforged beat up on me for awhile....checked combat log....same message.

Both gaurds work fine on normal mobs....but the immunity to the one gaurd is makin him immune to the other. Hope you can fix this.....cause if not it's gonna be a pain in my backside.

Ok tested with my Slay Living Guard unequipped.....Strike went off....never got the no damage message. When I put it back on....strike never went off...and got no damage message 3 to 5 times in a row. My Bramblecasters work either way.

[SlipperyPete]

How about the problem with the tool bars not locking? Is this a bug, if not why? If yes, will it be addressed?