Enemy markers on the Enemy realm

[Akalukz]

Would be nice if markers vanished with LoS. I use them a lot, so it would impact me. But I think it would improve the game. I would go as far as saying you shouldn't even be able to see names of toons unless within 150-200 ft of them. Maybe just Guild Tags.

[Omegus]

Here's some additional info regarding how the client and server handle showing and hiding "world objects" (typically players, but also NPCs, mailboxes, etc. Note that NPCs are handled a bit different and will be hidden at different ranges depending on how many other NPCs are visible).

1) The client will display a world object once it is within 250ft of your character. At this point you can mouseover/click on the world object and "mark" it.

2) Once the world object is visible, it will remain visible until it is 300ft away from your character. This prevents world-objects from flickering in and out at the 250ft border. It also makes it a bit easier to chase people you have already seen. At 300ft the client hides the world object. The "mark" will continue to exist.

3) Even if the world object is more than 300ft away, providing the server is still telling the client about it, the "mark" will continue to update as even though the world object is not being drawn, its position is still known and being sent to the client by the server.

4) At some point when the distance is too far - determined by the server - the server will tell the client that the world object no longer exists. At that point, the "mark" no longer works and vanishes.

Part of why marks can be seen from so far away is because the server keeps sending the client details on world objects that are much further than 300ft away. I just did a quick test and I could track a friendly player up to about 470ft away.

To my knowledge - and this might be out-dated now - the server keeps track of all world objects in a grid, and if a client is within range of part of a grid then the details of all world objects in that grid are sent to the client. If, for example (100% made-up numbers), the grid nodes/cells are all 300ft x 300ft and the data is sent to the player if a grid is within a 300ft radius of the player, then the player would be able to track someone up to about 725ft away:



In the image above (apologies if it completely breaks for colour-blind people): the client is the green dot, the 300ft view range is the green circle, the view range overlaps with the point in the middle so all 4 grids are visible, so the server will send the client data up to about 725ft away (the furthest corner).

Even if the real numbers are smaller (or larger?), if the server tightened up on what data it send to clients, tracking players further than 300ft away would become almost impossible as the client wouldn't know those objects still existed.

[Omegus]

Would be nice if markers vanished with LoS. I use them a lot, so it would impact me. But I think it would improve the game. I would go as far as saying you shouldn't even be able to see names of toons unless within 150-200 ft of them. Maybe just Guild Tags.

Marks "vanishing" with LOS is impossible. The UI system has no concept of line of sight.

Names/titles over people's head already vanish at a certain distance. Not sure there's anyway of preventing mouse-over/target from not having that info as the data is sent by the server for each world object and the client chooses when to show/hide it. The server might be able to send empty names and then update them but that would be a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge performance hit for the server.

[Rotgut]

Very cool replies from the dudes that know how to the code works, thank you very much.

[Akalukz]

Would be nice if markers vanished with LoS. I use them a lot, so it would impact me. But I think it would improve the game. I would go as far as saying you shouldn't even be able to see names of toons unless within 150-200 ft of them. Maybe just Guild Tags.

Marks "vanishing" with LOS is impossible. The UI system has no concept of line of sight.

Names/titles over people's head already vanish at a certain distance. Not sure there's anyway of preventing mouse-over/target from not having that info as the data is sent by the server for each world object and the client chooses when to show/hide it. The server might be able to send empty names and then update them but that would be a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge performance hit for the server.

How does LOS for skills work then? Honest question.

[xyeppp]

Would be nice if markers vanished with LoS. I use them a lot, so it would impact me. But I think it would improve the game. I would go as far as saying you shouldn't even be able to see names of toons unless within 150-200 ft of them. Maybe just Guild Tags.

Marks "vanishing" with LOS is impossible. The UI system has no concept of line of sight.

Names/titles over people's head already vanish at a certain distance. Not sure there's anyway of preventing mouse-over/target from not having that info as the data is sent by the server for each world object and the client chooses when to show/hide it. The server might be able to send empty names and then update them but that would be a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge performance hit for the server.

How does LOS for skills work then? Honest question.

Very simply put by utilising raycasting, that is casting a ray from one object (player) to the other - if the ray hits a geometry object, then the client knows you haven't got the line of sight.
The UI has no concept of that as said earlier.

[Omegus]

Would be nice if markers vanished with LoS. I use them a lot, so it would impact me. But I think it would improve the game. I would go as far as saying you shouldn't even be able to see names of toons unless within 150-200 ft of them. Maybe just Guild Tags.

Marks "vanishing" with LOS is impossible. The UI system has no concept of line of sight.

Names/titles over people's head already vanish at a certain distance. Not sure there's anyway of preventing mouse-over/target from not having that info as the data is sent by the server for each world object and the client chooses when to show/hide it. The server might be able to send empty names and then update them but that would be a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge performance hit for the server.

How does LOS for skills work then? Honest question.

There are a couple of different functions war.exe provides to to the UI (including add-ons) that let you check if the current target is valid for a specific ability. For example, I can ask the client "Does my Flash of Chaos ability have a valid target?". The client internally then looks up the data for the Flash of Chaos ability, checks if it needs a friendly or hostile target, and then does a LOS check (and other checks) to determine if it's a valid target.

That's the only way you can do LOS checks within the add-on system. You cannot ask it to check X ability with Y target/world-object. You can just ask about X ability and the game will check the rules for that ability to see if whatever target it needs is currently valid, which includes LOS.

This limitation is also why it's impossible to update LOS to group members or warband members without clicking on them first. When you click on them, that person is now your friendly target and the UI code then then ask the client to check if a specific ability that targets friendlies is now valid. The Enemy add-on actually maintains a list of which ability to check for each class, so it knows that if you are a Zealot then you have the Flash of Chaos ability and can check that, if you are an Archmage then it checks using Healing Energy, etc, and for some careers it cannot check friendly LOS at all, but those usually don't need it to begin with (e.g. DPS).

[Akalukz]

thank you guys!

[bw10]

literally a non issue with all other **** thats been wrong for years

[Grranimal]

Yes please disable xrealm Enemy Marking!

Thanks!