Paly and Sk NPC inherited abilities reset

[ChaosSlayerZ]

I am not posting this in bug section since its not realy a bug, from other hand its not realy a feature request neither. Its kind of both...

Back on LIVE Paly and SK npcs were able to reset their timer on using Lay Hands and Harm Touch as soon as they have lost agro (killed player, player zoned or FD)

I have tested this many times on LIVE. Basicly Sk npc would always open with a Harm Touch, and once he lost agro, his HT timer would be instantly reset and he could use it again once agroed, as soon as 1 tick appart, given he keeps loosing agro (FD and stand up -you gona get HT again and again)
Same goes for Lay Hands - if npc paladin would have used his LH he could use it again if his agro was cleared.

From what I can tell npc on Emu do not follow this pattern. They in fact using ACTUAL refresh timers on LH and HT

Now whenever this is a "bug" or a "discovered feature" is to you to decide =)
Personaly I see benefits in having it both ways from the content desing stand point. Specialy since these rules also apply to pets should your pet be Sk or Paly by class (mine are and plenty of)

Essentialy it would be nice to have this "fixed" in such way that BOTH way could stil be availalble, and server admin via RULE could switch between LIVE-like (reset on agro clear) and actual time reset for these abilities.

PS. And don't nerf my pets! =P

[ChaosSlayerZ]

I have been playing around with spells, and I have found a related issue which greatly upsets me.

I have set (for test purposes) reuse time of Lay Hands and Harm Touch to 20 sec - in the spell file.
I have updated my client and server with it.
Now in game after I use LH or HT, the button promtly refreshes itself 20 sec later, but when I try to use it again, the server reports back to me that recast timer haven't expired. Which leads me to conclusion that both LH and HT are hard coded! WHich is umm... sucks...

I mean all special abilities and AAs - all represented by a spell entry in a spell file with "LIVE" values allready, and all the server needs is to simply read it, and those of us who wants some custom values can alter them the way we like, but if they hardcoded, then spell file become essentialy useless.

Why would anyone hard code LH and Ht into the server code?
Now I am also concern if you guys hardcoding AAs?

I was realy looking forward to alter spell entries which corespand to AAs, but if AAs are hardcoded that realy sucks... I realy see no reason why AA effects have to hard coded, when they allready discribed in the spell file, in terms of what effect they produce, and its the "effect" which needs to be coded into server code, not any individual AA (unless its a UNIQUE effect which doesn't have a corespanding spell entry)

Now of course all of above are my speculations based on results I got from my testing, but would be nice if someone of our devs could give me the answers amd reasons on this.

thanks!

[gaeorn]

Lay hands and harm touch were abilities. I'd bet the hardcoded refresh for them was done before they were considered spells in the emu code. If you look at this excerpt from zone/features.h:

//Reuse times for various skills, here for convenience, in sec
//set to 0 to disable server side checking of timers.
enum { //reuse times
FeignDeathReuseTime = 9,
SneakReuseTime = 7,
HideReuseTime = 8,
TauntReuseTime = 5,
InstillDoubtReuseTime = 9,
FishingReuseTime = 11,
ForagingReuseTime = 50,
MendReuseTime = 290,
TrackingReuseTime = 9,
BashReuseTime = 5,
BackstabReuseTime = 9,
KickReuseTime = 5,
TailRakeReuseTime = 6,
EagleStrikeReuseTime = 5,
RoundKickReuseTime = 9,
TigerClawReuseTime = 6,
FlyingKickReuseTime = 7,
SenseTrapsReuseTime = 9,
DisarmTrapsReuseTime = 9,
HarmTouchReuseTime = 4300,
LayOnHandsReuseTime = 4300,
FrenzyReuseTime = 10
};


you see that all abilities have their times hardcoded. Perhaps this can be changed. You'd have to check with someone more familiar with the applicable sections of code.

AA's have their refresh timers in the DB table aa_actions in the column reuse_time.

[zergling]

I had been testing changing Harm Touch to a shorter timer and smaller damage amount for players* and encountered this problem. Don't have a solution but just wanted to throw in my two cents that there are other folks out there who would like seeing a fix to this and not just ChaosSlayerZ.



* to reduce PvP effectiveness and increase PvE effectiveness of the ability.

[Tharkun]

dont mean to rez a dead issue, but

On live, SK's HT had been made an AA that was obtained at lvl one and as you leveled up you would periodically get additional AA levels until level 50(ish, dont recall exactly off top of my head)

point being, if this change is made, you get the "live-like" effect and the customizable effect in one shot. Not sure if they did the same with LoH, as I didnt play a pally.

not sure how HT for NPC would play into this... as I'm no code monkey...yet