Wilderness areas, lag and frogs

[kmoustakas]

I was reading the other day that new wilderness areas like saltmarsh and isle of dread have 'inactive' mobs to reduce lag yet they have tons of 'active' frogs, bats, squirels etc. Would they be less laggy if they didn't have such pointless creatures? Pointless in the matter of 'active' and taking up 'memory', not pointless in the sense of 'adding' to the world.

Why can I target a frog from even beyond my sight but monsters I have to go right up to?

[Drunkendex]

Good question

[LeoLionxxx]

Well, we do know that fauna use a non-zero amount of processing power. Hopefully not a noticeable amount though.

Good chance to resurface the legend of the "All Seeing Squirrel".

(starts at 44:25)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEJ_dQfzxBU&t=2665s

[J1NG]

My guess would be, that anything that has an "attack" script when triggered, as well as directly belonging to the "enemy" faction, directly will try and target and attack the player(s) (friendly/ally faction) through any means at their disposal, besides (constantly) alerting those around them if possible to your presence. These targets usually have a lot more complex actions to them than simply pathing away that "neutral" faction targets (like frogs and birds) would have, that would be more costly on the server per one triggered.

J1NG

[LightBear]

My guess would be, that anything that has an "attack" script when triggered, as well as directly belonging to the "enemy" faction, directly will try and target and attack the player(s) (friendly/ally faction) through any means at their disposal, besides (constantly) alerting those around them if possible to your presence. These targets usually have a lot more complex actions to them than simply pathing away that "neutral" faction targets (like frogs and birds) would have, that would be more costly on the server per one triggered.

J1NG

They still run away when you approach them. Pretty much all wildlife does that.
There also seems to be some "startling others" and/or "do not bump into others" type of script, esp noticeable when encountering a pack of deer.

[J1NG]

They still run away when you approach them. Pretty much all wildlife does that.

Not if you're invis'd or sneaking. So their script would be limited to movement (pathing away from the target) and if you only startle one that way, only that one flees. Unlike with "enemy" faction targets who will try and trigger/alert more of the same "enemy" faction to your presence.

There also seems to be some "startling others" and/or "do not bump into others" type of script, esp noticeable when encountering a pack of deer.

Yes, but no need of any attack checks, any effects checks, etc. That a more complex enemy target would have. Most would have at least path towards you and melee. Some would have melee and ranged, or melee and casting. Which constantly checks your proxomitiy to them and then decides if it's best to make distance before attacking at range again, or move into melee. Again, more checks than what just basic wildlife from the "neutral" faction would be required to do.

If they did any more than that, then yeah. Having them active all the time would be questionable.

J1NG

[Melkazar]

Saltmarsh is the most annoying area to be a ranger with a bow. I have discovered that using mouselook and targeting a mob, even if it does not highlight as targeted, will often activate it from a distance, but it is still annoying.

[Wahnsinnig]

Pointless in the matter of 'active' and taking up 'memory', not pointless in the sense of 'adding' to the world.
?

as I understand it those frogs and squirrels are not on the server, but only exist on the client / player side. If two players are in the same explore area they will not see the same frogs and squirrels in the same location. It is the same with weather effects, they are different for each player in an area.

Monsters that can attack you are on the server though.

[J1NG]

as I understand it those frogs and squirrels are not on the server, but only exist on the client / player side. If two players are in the same explore area they will not see the same frogs and squirrels in the same location. It is the same with weather effects, they are different for each player in an area.

You're probably thinking of different (but related) things there.

1. Wildlife are most likely on the server as they are seen and interactable by the different players and occupy the same space. This is most notable through the use of Hold Monster onto these wildlife and then watching actual enemies move around the held wildlife to reach you instead of going through them.





2. Cosmetic Pets are not on the server though, not directly anyway. What (roughly) happens is, they are there for everyone else to see, but their positions are not always the same if viewed by different players (most obvious when multi-boxing). This suggests that they run on the players localised system and each players client draws them in relation to the physical world around them by the shared data from one client to another in relation to where the player was last in accordance to that players last movements (localisation and direction). This would therefore have virtually zero impact on the server as each client knows to just draw the pet a moment after the player that owns it. This is most evident by the Pets not interacting with enemies at all. Unlike Companions that could occasionally interract with enemies in some fashion.



3. The weather effects being different I believe was due to some other reasons, I have seen this before as well, but how it works is expected. Overall, most share the same environs assuming the area that all party members occupy happen to have the same environ only that doesn't fluctuate randomly but follows a set pattern. Something like the Sharn area where all NPCs look different and the airship elemental rings are different are due to each players game client and not set by the server. But something pure like the Day and Night cycle are server centric and thus in normal circumstances all players should have the same period of day.



J1NG