" If I'm using Malachai's Simula to cast blood magic auras, I don't want to have to equip it at the end of every zone in order to prevent my auras from switching to mana. Please fix this. Correct. If you're using Malachai's Simula to cast blood magic auras, they should cease to work on life when you remove the helm, not just when you change areas. This will be fixed in future. Correct. If you're using Malachai's Simula to cast blood magic auras, they should cease to work on life when you remove the helm, not just when you change areas. This will be fixed in future. Posted by

Mark_GGG

on Grinding Gear Games on Quote this Post

" That's the opposite of what I want. I want for them to keep working anyway, just without me having to keep using the fancy hat. If you want to benefit from the stats of an item, you need to have that item equipped. If you swap to another item, you lose the benefits of the old item and gain the benefits of the new one in exchange.



This is one of very few bugs where that doesn't hold, and it will be fixed. If you have your heart set on being able to permanently get the benefit of an item you stopped using, then that's simply not going to happen. Sorry. If you want to benefit from the stats of an item, you need to have that item equipped. If you swap to another item, you lose the benefits of the old item and gain the benefits of the new one in exchange.This is one of very few bugs where that doesn't hold, and it will be fixed. If you have your heart set on being able to permanently get the benefit of an item you stopped using, then that's simply not going to happen. Sorry. Posted by

Mark_GGG

on Grinding Gear Games on Quote this Post

Yeah, it's still a bug, and we try to make sure people are aware of that whenever we have the chance, in a (probably useless) attempt to prevent masses of butthurt "but I didn't realise it was a bug and now my build doesn't work" posts. Didn't work when we fixed the worst of the aura snapshot cases by re-adjusting them on transition, but I can hope.



It's unfortunately a very technically challenging bug to solve. Buffs of all kinds are static things, and changing them on the fly is nontrivial. The aura is created from the skill, but the skill action's long finished and gone away by the time we need something to be actively updating (read: removing and replacing) the aura.



We could fix pretty much all instances of aura snapshotting at the cost of a day or so's work, a little extra processing, and making auras never be able to transition between areas. That last part isn't worth the cost.



Thankfully, more recently we've implemented have the ability to perform triggered casts of a skill, which can in theory be used to get around that restriction - that's how I managed to get Tempest Shield to be able to transition between areas - it doesn't, but if it detects you had the tempest shield buff on you, it performs a triggered cast of the tempest shield skill, so by the time you're finished loading, it's been reapplied.

But this doesn't always work - because mana reservation skills can't be allowed to ignore their mana requirements when triggered (because otherwise the triggered Tempest Shield wouldn't reserve anything in the case where you didn't have enough mana - this happened for a little while).



So before I can (ab)use the same tech to allow auras to have their skill always actively on you, as well as the buff, we need to address the mana problem there, or we won't have actually solved the problem about them not transitioning, since they'll almost always fail to have enough mana when entering the area.



That's a tricky problem in and of itself, albeit one which I've got a rough outline of a plan for. But that plan will take some refining, and then I'll need a period of development time where I can afford to spend the time implementing and testing that, and then follow up with refactoring auras to detach the action so that it can actively monitor skill changes (which will likely introduce a whole slew of instance and client crashes in rare cases depending on which order things happen in when leaving the area and/or game in certain ways, since everything needs to clean up correctly). So a bunch more QA time on that.



That's the current state of snapshotted auras - I have most of a plan for how to solve that, once the mana problem is solved, and a less finalised plan for that one too. While it might not look externally like much has happened, we're a lot closer to a full solution than we were in August when we fixed the most ridiculous abuse cases (which thankfully were the easiest to fix, since they relied on doing things in town and thus could be caught at area transitions). We're just not deploying anything until it works, has been tested, and it doesn't compromise player quality-of-life in general cases.



I'd personally like to have aura snapshotting fixed in 1.2.0, but I can't promise that at this stage. Too many unknowns, too much that could to wrong between now and then, and it needs substantial of QA time, which will be at a premium as we approach the big patch.

If it's ready then, it'll go in. If it's not, it won't. In that case I'm not sure when it'll be fit in, because as noted above, regardless of how much we tell people it's a bug that will be fixed, people will still be very unhappy if it changes and their build doesn't work. We try to keep changes like that to the big 4-month patches when we can. I'm not the one who'd make the call on whether a snapshotting fix is important enough to go somewhere in the 1.2.0 series, or disruptive enough to be left for 1.3.0.



Minion snapshotting is an entirely different kettle of fish, and a lot trickier again to solve, both because minions are much more complicated, and because to some degree non-snapshotting is also abusable on minions (although to a lesser degree) and also quite unintuitive in some cases. That'll probably take longer and be a tougher nut to crack. I have some ideas (some of which might link into better ability to fake minion stats for display), but at this stage no more than that, and I'm not going into detail here because this is already a wall of text, and it's my Birthday in 7 minutes, and I'll need to go check on the second layer of my double-decker creme-egg chocolate death orgasmacake soon, it should be almost ready.



UPDATE: Spent some of the morning talking to Jonathan about this - we're now confidant in getting the aura snapshotting fix in for 1.2.0, and we've fleshed out plans for the minion snapshotting fix some more as well. Last edited by Mark_GGG on May 2, 2014, 2:05:59 AM Posted by

Mark_GGG

on Grinding Gear Games on Quote this Post



" Michaelangel007 " Mark_GGG

We could fix pretty much all instances of aura snapshotting at the cost of a day or so's work, a little extra processing, and making auras never be able to transition between areas. That last part isn't worth the cost.

It's unfortunately a very technically challenging bug to solve. ...We could fix pretty much all instances of aura snapshotting at the cost of a day or so's work, a little extra processing, and making auras never be able to transition between areas. That last part isn't worth the cost.



Huh?? You already have something like this ... excuse the lack of proper forum support for code/preformatting ....



enum Auras {

. AURA_ANGER = (1 << 0),

. AURA_CLARITY = (1 << 1),

. AURA_DETERMINATION = (1 << 2),

. AURA_DISCIPLINE = (1 << 3),

. AURA_GRACE = (1 << 4),

. AURA_HASTE = (1 << 5),

. AURA_HATRED = (1 << 6),

. AURA_PURITY_ELEMENTS = (1 << 7),

. AURA_PURITY_FIRE = (1 << 8),

. AURA_PURITY_ICE = (1 << 9),

. AURA_PURITY_LIGHTNING = (1 << 10),

. AURA_VITALITY = (1 << 12),

. AURA_WRATH = (1 << 13)

};



class Player

{

. ...

. int32 bAurasPreviouslyOn;

. int32 bAurasActive; // bit-flags of auras currently active

};



Player::OnZoneLeave()

{

. bAurasPreviouslyOn = bAurasActive;

}



Player::OnZoneEnter()

{

. if( bAurasActive != bAurasPreviouslyOn )

. ....

}

Huh?? You already have something like this ... excuse the lack of proper forum support for code/preformatting ....enum Auras {. AURA_ANGER = (1 << 0),. AURA_CLARITY = (1 << 1),. AURA_DETERMINATION = (1 << 2),. AURA_DISCIPLINE = (1 << 3),. AURA_GRACE = (1 << 4),. AURA_HASTE = (1 << 5),. AURA_HATRED = (1 << 6),. AURA_PURITY_ELEMENTS = (1 << 7),. AURA_PURITY_FIRE = (1 << 8),. AURA_PURITY_ICE = (1 << 9),. AURA_PURITY_LIGHTNING = (1 << 10),. AURA_VITALITY = (1 << 12),. AURA_WRATH = (1 << 13)};class Player. .... int32 bAurasPreviouslyOn;. int32 bAurasActive; // bit-flags of auras currently active};Player::OnZoneLeave(). bAurasPreviouslyOn = bAurasActive;Player::OnZoneEnter(). if( bAurasActive != bAurasPreviouslyOn ). .... I'm not sure why you'd think auras are some form of bitset, particularly given that a character could have any number of different versions of the same aura with different levels, quality and supports. I'm afraid the only part of that code which remotely resembles anything in the game is that "class Player" exists as a class. I'm not saying this to be harsh or put you down, so I apologise if it comes off like that, but no, we don't have anything like that in the code, and your assumptions about how the code works are significantly off-base. " Legatus1982 I don't understand Mark, what is so difficult about running a check on buffs every time gear is swapped? The part where you abstract all the actual problem away as "running a check" without defining any details of what that means. That part.



" Legatus1982



So you're going to have to forgive me for being unable to come up with a reason why the programmers can't take 20 seconds to right click the buff icons for anything that isn't RF or BR whenever gear is swapped. I can right click and remove the buff myself. I could, in fact, probably fix your problem using autohotkey to right click the buff icon whenever I remove a piece of gear. (Would require manually activating the hotkey script but it would work).So you're going to have to forgive me for being unable to come up with a reason why the programmers can't take 20 seconds to right click the buff icons for anything that isn't RF or BR whenever gear is swapped. I already said in my post we could solve all aura snapshotting by preventing auras from ever transitioning between areas, but that the massive quality-of-life cost of that to all players was too much for the benefit. You're correct that we could solve it also by having all auras turn off any time you change your gear in any way (which happens a lot more than I suspect you reaslise). But that would be even worse for player QoL.



The correct solution is not to remove everyone's auras all the time. It's to be able to replace them, on the fly, with up-to-date versions, in response to stat changes. That is, as I mentioned, technically challenging, for the reasons I explained. UPDATE: Spent some of the morning talking to Jonathan about this - we're now confidant in getting the aura snapshotting fix in for 1.2.0, and we've fleshed out plans for the minion snapshotting fix some more as well.I'm not sure why you'd think auras are some form of bitset, particularly given that a character could have any number of different versions of the same aura with different levels, quality and supports. I'm afraid the only part of that code which remotely resembles anything in the game is that "class Player" exists as a class. I'm not saying this to be harsh or put you down, so I apologise if it comes off like that, but no, we don't have anything like that in the code, and your assumptions about how the code works are significantly off-base.The part where you abstract all the actual problem away as "running a check" without defining any details of what that means. That part.I already said in my post we could solve all aura snapshotting by preventing auras from ever transitioning between areas, but that the massive quality-of-life cost of that to all players was too much for the benefit. You're correct that we could solve it also by having all auras turn off any time you change your gear in any way (which happens a lot more than I suspect you reaslise). But that would be even worse for player QoL.The correct solution is not to remove everyone's auras all the time. It's to be able to replace them, on the fly, with up-to-date versions, in response to stat changes. That is, as I mentioned, technically challenging, for the reasons I explained. Posted by

Mark_GGG

on Grinding Gear Games on Quote this Post

" SilentOppressor Will this upcoming change prevent RedMana 'snapshotting'? Basically if you cast two auras with RedMana and then remove the gem, will it uncast them both? The auras will no longer have blood magic, so they'll no longer reserve mana.

Ideally, they'd switch to reserving mana, and fall off if they don't fit there because too much mana is already reserved. Actual behaviour may depend on the details of the solution, so they may just always fall off, to switch to mana and an arbitrary set of auras are removed (not necessarily those ones) until your mana reserves are back under 100% of mana (this is the default behaviour for overreserving). The auras will no longer have blood magic, so they'll no longer reserve mana.Ideally, they'd switch to reserving mana, and fall off if they don't fit there because too much mana is already reserved. Actual behaviour may depend on the details of the solution, so they may just always fall off, to switch to mana and an arbitrary set of auras are removed (not necessarily those ones) until your mana reserves are back under 100% of mana (this is the default behaviour for overreserving). Last edited by Mark_GGG on May 2, 2014, 3:22:44 AM Posted by

Mark_GGG

on Grinding Gear Games on Quote this Post

" Artadi " Mark_GGG

UPDATE: Spent some of the morning talking to Jonathan about this - we're now confidant in getting the aura snapshotting fix in for 1.2.0, and we've fleshed out plans for the minion snapshotting fix some more as well. UPDATE: Spent some of the morning talking to Jonathan about this - we're now confidant in getting the aura snapshotting fix in for 1.2.0, and we've fleshed out plans for the minion snapshotting fix some more as well.



@Mark_GGG, Based on this quote above, Is passive tree snapshotting going to be nerfed as well as the malachai/covenant snapshotting in 1.2.0? @Mark_GGG, Based on this quote above, Is passive tree snapshotting going to be nerfed as well as the malachai/covenant snapshotting in 1.2.0? Yes. There isn't mechanically a difference. Both are about gaining stats, doing something with an ongoing effect, and then losing the stats again without the ongoing effect changing to reflect this. Passive skills and gear are functionally equivalent in this. Yes. There isn't mechanically a difference. Both are about gaining stats, doing something with an ongoing effect, and then losing the stats again without the ongoing effect changing to reflect this. Passive skills and gear are functionally equivalent in this. Last edited by Mark_GGG on May 8, 2014, 2:05:11 AM Posted by

Mark_GGG

on Grinding Gear Games on Quote this Post

RF and Blood Rage share a particular problem in that their effects are explicitly supposed to persist even if you lose the skill that causes them, because the point of them is that they can be dangerous if not managed correctly and being able to turn them off at will runs counter to that.



So in general yes (swapping out of increased fire damage nodes should prevent Posted by

Mark_GGG

on Grinding Gear Games on Quote this Post

" Terrornoid So why aren't the auras just instantly recasting upon "gear change?" Because mana reservation skills specifically can't be automatically cast, which is the first problem I explained in my big post in this thread. And gear changes aren't the only cases on snapshotting, and this would have no effect if you went to town to change gear, since your auras aren't on in town.



" Terrornoid so it should also be able to know when to set the cast time to 0. I have no idea at all what you mean by this. Cast time has nothing to do with this issue. Because mana reservation skills specifically can't be automatically cast, which is the first problem I explained in my big post in this thread. And gear changes aren't the only cases on snapshotting, and this would have no effect if you went to town to change gear, since your auras aren't on in town.I have no idea at all what you mean by this. Cast time has nothing to do with this issue. Posted by

Mark_GGG

on Grinding Gear Games on Quote this Post