A simple server-side queue

Latency can be a pretty big disparity between two people, and it has a pretty profound effect on a lot of aspects of the game.  I'm always looking for ways to alleviate that, and there's a pretty big one that a lot of people use: spamming. 

Let's take combat for example.  If you want to make sure your next attack happens immediately when you regain balance, you lean on the enter key and spam the everloving life out of that attack.  The issue, naturally, with spamming attacks is that you get spammed.  In a text game, having all those error messages fly by isn't really conducive to understanding the fight and the situation.  So, some people spam less, or others just trigger it on balance.  Most systems have an on-balance queue: I believe SVO's is dofree.  The issue with triggering it is the latency, like I mentioned, which means that one person's on-balance queue is going to happen faster than another person's on-balance queue.  A serpent dstabbing with an on-balance queue in Chicago is going to hit about half a second faster than one in Australia, or thereabouts.  That leaves people with high latency a choice between spamming (and getting spammed by error messages), or accepting slower attacks (crippling in Achaea's combat system).

The balancing solution to this, I think, is to implement a very simple server-side on-balance queue.  It would let you specify a set of commands to happen as soon as you regain balance/equilibrium with about the same interface as most systems use.  Let's say something like:

ONBAL <command> -- Add a command to the queue.
ONBAL SHOW -- Show the current queue.
ONBAL CLEAR -- Clear the current queue.

I think this would go a really, really long way to alleviating the effects of latency and be a pretty big convenience to people who currently spam and suffer the error messages.  Thoughts?
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Comments

  • This would be something amazing. I'm in Japan right now, and going to Bahrain next. Neither of these places have the best internet connection to achaea, and the internet on deployments is not too hot either. It's kept me away from combat for about 4 years, despite really wanting to invest myself in it.

    A server side balance would make the game so much more enjoyable in the aspects of combat for those that have a horrible latency.

    On weekdays I run around 600-700ms, and on weekends around 300-500, with the rare exceptions of midnight and lunchtime being around 200ms. I am sure there are plenty of people this is no big deal to, but to some of us something like this would massively change our game play experience.

    Please please pleaseeeee
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  • Didn't we already have a thread about this?
  • Antonius said:
    Didn't we already have a thread about this?
    Twice at least, but with no admin response either time.

    http://www.achaea.com/forum/an-idea-for-dealing-with-latency
    http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/968/server-side-queue
  • Third time's a charm!
  • Worth noting that he queue commands shouldn't be affected by aeon & amnesia.
  • Lusternia implemented such a system - it works very well, is fairly fleshed out, thought-out and has been in practice for a while. I'd highly recommend Achaean admins to study that (or even use it!) when making this.

    (Svo has both dofree and do queues)
  • StrataStrata United States of Derp
    Yes! Please implement this in Achaea.
  • @Sarapis: You are a gentlehuman and a scholar.

  • Synbios said:
    @Sarapis: You are a gentlehumangod and a scholar.
    FTFY
  • I like this, but I'm a bit cautious at the implementation given. I'd prefer to have the fine-grained control available that Lusternia's stratagems offer. I do find myself sometimes having spammed one command, then change my mind in the 2s of balance I've lost and cancel it entirely - the current implementation would allow me to switch it to something else, but not cancel so I do nothing.
  • edited October 2013
    -not constructive-

  • TectonTecton The Garden of the Gods
    Vadimuses said:
    I like this, but I'm a bit cautious at the implementation given. I'd prefer to have the fine-grained control available that Lusternia's stratagems offer. I do find myself sometimes having spammed one command, then change my mind in the 2s of balance I've lost and cancel it entirely - the current implementation would allow me to switch it to something else, but not cancel so I do nothing.
    The system will always attempt the last command entered, but I can see the merit in a way to clear the queue completely, I'll get it added ASAP.
  • Woot! Feels like having an aldar talisman now!! Big thumbsup!!

    Now, I don't want to sound ungrateful, but the thing is eq/bal are just half game for some classes. I hope entities, voice, healing, hydra (are there more supplementary balances?) will follow soon!
  • edited October 2013
    not to knock it, but it's pretty useless without compound commands.

    You've already done a little work, might as well finish it out!
    image
  • MishgulMishgul Trondheim, Norway
    it's fine imo.This change probably benefits me the most too! yay beatin ghte ping

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  • It feels like my sword just leveled up, and without me having to even write complicated timing commands! I hope composite commands are added too. Maybe then it could just be a matter of queueing up to X commands, with a queue reset command?

  • Jhui said:
    not to knock it, but it's pretty useless without compound commands.

    You've already done a little work, might as well finish it out!

    An excellent start though. Should pave the way for a STRATAGEMS-esque update.

    For monks though - does the KILL <command> deliver the full bashing combo?

  • monk has the COMBO command now, wouldn't matter either way
    image
  • I just have to say that I was utterly impressed/amazed at just how quick this got put in since the creation of this thread. There needs to be a wow response cuz @Sarapis  wins it.
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  • Jhui said:
    monk has the COMBO command now, wouldn't matter either way

    Point taken.

    Now that that's been mentioned...@Tecton: Perhaps the COMBO functionality can be extended to blademasters, with their [INFUSE]/<SLASH>/<STRIKE>/[discern] sequence?

  • Jonners said:
    I just have to say that I was utterly impressed/amazed at just how quick this got put in since the creation of this thread. There needs to be a wow response cuz @Sarapis  wins it.

    My reaction to Sarapis's post was wanting a Love reaction, because I wanted to put little hearts under that post!

    Since I can't do that, have them here!

  • Synbios said:
    Jhui said:
    monk has the COMBO command now, wouldn't matter either way

    Point taken.

    Now that that's been mentioned...@Tecton: Perhaps the COMBO functionality can be extended to blademasters, with their [INFUSE]/<SLASH>/<STRIKE>/[discern] sequence?

    Oh no, I missed this and now I can't edit my post!

    I just wanted to point out that discern isn't the only thing you could do after a slash. Engage is also a possibility!

    Maybe combos could just be a general thing rather than monk-specific, though now that I say this, wasn't this a planned extension to the server-side alias system?

  • Monk combo is pretty specific to monks. Due to the very large amount of variety in each combo potentially (kick/punch/punch, kick limb/punch/punch, kick limb/punch limb/punch... etc) its not something that can just be c/p'd into other classes, they'd need their own versions.
  • Jonners said:
    I just have to say that I was utterly impressed/amazed at just how quick this got put in since the creation of this thread. There needs to be a wow response cuz @Sarapis  wins it.
    Chuckle, thanks, but all I did was say it'd go in at some point. Tecton took it on himself to whip that up on a Sunday afternoon/evening.
  • This is helpful, but could you add a command to queue a specific action? For example, QUEUE DSL RAT. That way I don't end up lighting my pipes half the time.
  • I've already bugged this, but I got several instances just today of it running 'queued commands' different what what I queued - some not even balance-restricted commands. One a tell to someone I hadn't talked to in a while (and never actually said what it sent). 
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  • Trevize said:
    I've already bugged this, but I got several instances just today of it running 'queued commands' different what what I queued - some not even balance-restricted commands. One a tell to someone I hadn't talked to in a while (and never actually said what it sent). 
    @Sarapis was probably just effing with you.
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    I take my hat off to you.
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