EZ Server

Greetings EZ Players,

Last night I pushed an update that had been on the test server for about 2 weeks now. The changes in this roll-out are massive, but I will keep details high level for now. We haven't updated since January for various reasons, we don't normally wait more than 2-3 months.

Changelog

• Netcode Massive Overhaul: KLS has spent 9 months re-writing the netcode for EQEmulator, it has been tested on PEQ for 2 months stable now. These changes are MUCH better than the previous netcode, but there are some edge cases where we might see some issues where we didn't in the old code - and we will have to simply work through those
• Extended Targets and Aggro-Meters: The extended target window will also show the amount of aggro appropriated from each client
• Combat Changes: There should be no noticeable combat changes because we are using an emulated version of our combat mitigation formulas from pre-January

If you notice anything peculiar about this update, as usual - post your findings in this thread and we will work through them

Akka

The issues reported with books being garbled should be resolved as of now

Thanks man. Are you wanting any focused testing / reports at this time?

I'm seeing a few issues in T10.

First, my standard pull on Sarnaks (literally have done this same pull 100s of times) disconnected all of my toons. 

2nd, I'm seeing some odd procs off of my warrior.    I havent looked at all my gear but I'm seeing Snakes Kiss III,  Baited Breath III and Kiss of Corath III proc.     This is occurring while I pull.


http://imgur.com/a/lfRul


T10 is hardly playable atm for me anyway.

Made some adjustments to netcode earlier that cleared most people up

2nd issue we spoke about in-game as spell reflection

Ok thanks.  Spell reflect will now count as a character cast spell?   At least from a spell message perspective?

Looks like I just DCed on my standard pull on Sarnaks again.

https://github.com/EQEmu/Server/commit/75950b0f2bc91ddfa834b5bc4f44ece873511e5b

DC's are being caused by massive traffic brought on by intense combat messages with many toons present within the proximity. The new netcode trips up on this traffic and causes a cascading resend storm.

The workaround for now until we work on a solution is to limit/scale back your pulls IF you run into this issue.

Not many people have ran into it yet.

You could also filter your damage by setting the damage numbers to number only and then filtering everything that starts with 1-9. This also kills any messages that start with a number but I don't have a problem with it.

I had been having problems that i thought were exclusive to T10 and posted the detail in that thread prior to this being started. Basically i am experience black screen "You have been disconnected." I thought i fixed the issue but turns out i really just discovered another symptom.

If  i have T10 all to myself, i will not experience disconnects. As soon as another crew logged in my first death = disconnect. I suppose this is somewhat good as i can control being by myself by purchasing instances. It sucks because my guild has recently been playing together in T10, but at least i can keep playing.

If this gives anyone any ideas as to the issue and possible solutions - im happy to listen and try anything.

Feedback helps.

Unfortunately I'm going to keep things this way until we are able to make adjustments necessary to fix the issue.

We know what's causing it, it's just not a simple fix and we're working on it. We should have some new code fairly soon

When things are working smooth again at least people will have something to be thankful for instead of taking a smooth running server for granted ;)

Question I've been getting too: "Well I was working just fine before, why is it a problem now"

A: The netcode has literally been gutted from the ground up, this is a massive undertaking. 95% of it is 1000% better, but it doesn't appear so because we have this lingering issue with how packet loss is handled with resends. If you are the only one in a zone with a great connection - everything is lightning fast, snappier than you've ever seen it. You can't just test this in a test bed because everything works just fine. We're mostly working fine right now, you just have to restrict massive trains and maybe isolate yourself in your own instance for now as a workaround.

For what it's worth, here are my problems and symptoms.
I have limited bandwidth (8 Mbps) and typically run about 15 toons.  After the server mod, I can hardly log any of them in and when I am successful on the logon, they usually desync within a few minutes.  After a particular toon desync's, it is very very hard to get that toon relogged in, wheras other toons can be successful. Typically after the character selection screen ... long waits are incurred, resulting in a timeout.

On successful logins, I desync without any main activity ... no pulling, fighting, etc.  On one occasion after successfully logging in 2 toons, I issued a simple "/raidinvite [othertoonname]" and it took 7-10 seconds for the target toon to get the request. So it seems handshaking is a factor.  Before mods, none of these issues persisted.

I'm very limited on what I can test ... but am certainly willing if additional data would help.  As it remains now, the system is unplayable.

I totally get it - and there is plenty of fun i can have playing around the current issues, so you wont hear too much complaining from me :)


I didn't know that you were already keyed in on the issues. I am happy to hear you guys are working on it and that gives me great hope....i am all for a little suffering to get to an improved state! As you mentioned i have already noticed vast improvement when i am alone in a zone....its awesome and makes me excited for when things running to their full potential.

Zoning, pulling, movement, killing and looting in T8 are all significantly faster.

T9 is running smooth as lil baby Hank's behind.     Standard pulls are not causing any issues.    Will test T8 soon.    Maybe the DC issue is limited to T10?

Would this effect qvic? There is a large lag issue there I've noticed u pull a lot (watching people farm) it will cause a ton of issues

I got DC'd doing a /repop instance in T9 at the zone in.
12 toons logged in at the time, entire raid DC'd.
I don't think I had seen anyone post about a problem just doing a repop yet, so wanted to mention it.

I too experienced DC's with large pulls in QVIC, but not with small pulls, which was expected.  The only unexpected thing based on what I had read was that I was solo pulling QVIC while my alts were sitting at the zonein, not even close to me....yet we all DC'd.

Just sharing my experience with it, in case it helps. 
 

Confirming big lag spikes with large pulls in Qvic.

Just ran MPG and noticed pets getting nuked instantly

I think this code should be removed from source, or at least EZ source.    There is no need for spell reflect messages to be spammed to the area.      Yes, it may be "live like" but to what real benefit?     It certainly is not required on EZ.    I guess maybe P99 or PEQ get some leet benefits  /shrug

One thing i have noticed with new code is AoE seems to aggro through walls/floors now

Been farming ToFs, aggros mobs on other side of walls and thru floors now when killing a pull
Not been a problem, but anyone new breaking into it will probably be wiped a lot more with aoe's

Didn't do it pre code change - 2H UW XI with Hatestomp IV, removing HS aug stops it

observations on the current extended target

1 - When in a raid with multiple pullers you really don't know what target is yours as opposed to the other person pulling and vice versa, hopefully you went after one mob and had it targeted the whole time when u pulled or your crew will run off to the other pullers mob leaving u and them to die.

2 - After that first pull other mobs will show up that u may or may not have aggroed but didn't actually come to attack you - those will stay on your extended target forever - zoning, death or logging off/on will not release them - they just keep coming back.

3- second pull - mobs from #2 remain on top so new mobs are now somewhere in the scroll down - how far u may ask ? well it depends on what u have killed, what the other person has pulled, and the corpses that now appear.

4 - 3rd pull - mobs from #1 #2 and #3 are now added to the list and spaces are added between your new pulls, other pullers pulls, and corpses in no logical order.

5- F8 is now the only solution to targeting mobs that are directly attacking you, making the extended target window useless/obsolete.

forest gump  -  life is like a box of chocolates u never know what your going to get. (when u attack something in the ext target window}