Discussion TLOPO Q/A Thread

[Chris NightCore™]

Hi, I would like to ask is the team has any plans to add Heart of PDF and more discontinued weapons like the ''Desert Claw'' to TLOPO?
and when can we expect to see QAR back to the game?

 

[Mr. Dev]

Hi, I would like to ask is the team has any plans to add Heart of PDF and more discontinued weapons like the ''Desert Claw'' to TLOPO?
and when can we expect to see QAR back to the game?

For TLOPO staff, each legendary is intended to be special. Heart of Padres is no exception. When it makes its return, we want it to matter. We're not gonna just add it to the loot drop with no fanfare. Same goes for Barbossa's Fury and Norrington's Spyglass.

And... never ever ever any legendary redeem codes.

As for Desert Claw and the other Scimitars: We don't have any immediate plans. Scimitars as Disney had them were super unfinished. They released them in an event toward the end of the game because they didn't have any other content left to trickle out.

If we ever do add back these weapons, it'd ideally be with new combat animations and a whole slew of Scimitars, making it an equal to Sabres, Cutlasses, and Broadswords.

As for QAR:

Hopefully soon? It's live on the Test Server, and we're consistently tweaking it right now. ^_^

 

[Ralatch]

For TLOPO staff, each legendary is intended to be special. Heart of Padres is no exception. When it makes its return, we want it to matter. We're not gonna just add it to the loot drop with no fanfare. Same goes for Barbossa's Fury and Norrington's Spyglass.

And... never ever ever any legendary redeem codes.

As for Desert Claw and the other Scimitars: We don't have any immediate plans. Scimitars as Disney had them were super unfinished. They released them in an event toward the end of the game because they didn't have any other content left to trickle out.

If we ever do add back these weapons, it'd ideally be with new combat animations and a whole slew of Scimitars, making it an equal to Sabres, Cutlasses, and Broadswords.

As for QAR:

Hopefully soon? It's live on the Test Server, and we're consistently tweaking it right now. ^_^

QAR?

 

[Roger-Daniel]

QAR?

Queen Anne's Revenge

 

[commonsense123]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this. There's a built in delay in the game, where on my screen, animations are different on my screen, and a friend's screen may see it earlier or later (mainly interests ship PvP and such, I won't go into great detail). Just wondering what this delay implementation is for, if it's intentional, a cause/effect relation, and/or if there is anything in the future that will change it.

There is also a lot of skipping in SvS and PvP (I don't really mind it, though many people do). Will there be a solution to this sometime in the future?

Any explanations or solutions to the issues mentioned above would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Stephen Teague]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this. There's a built in delay in the game, where on my screen, animations are different on my screen, and a friend's screen may see it earlier or later (mainly interests ship PvP and such, I won't go into great detail). Just wondering what this delay implementation is for, if it's intentional, a cause/effect relation, and/or if there is anything in the future that will change it.

There is also a lot of skipping in SvS and PvP (I don't really mind it, though many people do). Will there be a solution to this sometime in the future?

Any explanations or solutions to the issues mentioned above would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Somebody can offer a more technical response than I can, but generally, latency is common in most online games, just a nature of the beast. It's not something we necessarily want to have, it's just how it is.

As for solutions, I'm not the most qualified to speak on that, but I'm sure latency likely will always be present.

 

[The Crew]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this. There's a built in delay in the game, where on my screen, animations are different on my screen, and a friend's screen may see it earlier or later (mainly interests ship PvP and such, I won't go into great detail). Just wondering what this delay implementation is for, if it's intentional, a cause/effect relation, and/or if there is anything in the future that will change it.

There is also a lot of skipping in SvS and PvP (I don't really mind it, though many people do). Will there be a solution to this sometime in the future?

Any explanations or solutions to the issues mentioned above would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hi!

This is a feature known as "smoothing" and "smooth prediction". Essentially, when you are walking around in-game, your game is sending the server a lot of messages containing location updates. This location updates tell the server where your character is physically located on the game map, and those coordinates are then broadcasted to everyone nearby your pirate who has "interest" (or 'visibility') on your pirate.

However, as to not completely spam the servers with these location messages, we only send them periodically. This allows for the system to be able to scale to millions and not be completely swamped by solely location updates. The "smoothing" and "smooth prediction" is what bridges the gap between each location update. The system will take in the coordinates that you previously walked and predict where your avatar will walk next. This is the behavior that is broadcasted to the players.

This delay is coded at a little under a second, and it only affects objects that are considered to be "smooth nodes".

I hope this helps!

Edit:
I just realized I didn't address the SvS question. The skipping issue in SvS is a bug which is needing to be fixed. This is an engine level issue and we have been coordinating with the developers of Panda3D regarding this. We have a few ideas for potential fixes that we will be testing on our Test Server very soon.

 

[squintz]

Hi!

This is a feature known as "smoothing" and "smooth prediction". Essentially, when you are walking around in-game, your game is sending the server a lot of messages containing location updates. This location updates tell the server where your character is physically located on the game map, and those coordinates are then broadcasted to everyone nearby your pirate who has "interest" (or 'visibility') on your pirate.

However, as to not completely spam the servers with these location messages, we only send them periodically. This allows for the system to be able to scale to millions and not be completely swamped by solely location updates. The "smoothing" and "smooth prediction" is what bridges the gap between each location update. The system will take in the coordinates that you previously walked and predict where your avatar will walk next. This is the behavior that is broadcasted to the players.

This delay is coded at a little under a second, and it only affects objects that are considered to be "smooth nodes".

I hope this helps!

Edit:
I just realized I didn't address the SvS question. The skipping issue in SvS is a bug which is needing to be fixed. This is an engine level issue and we have been coordinating with the developers of Panda3D regarding this. We have a few ideas for potential fixes that we will be testing on our Test Server very soon.

Thanks for the explanation. Would it be incorrect to assume npc's are considered smooth nodes? It seems logical to me that everything evolving around the toon is rendered as needed, but the backgrounds and perma objects like tables, wagons etc could be part of a bigger more complete page rerendered and not needing new coordinates all the time worked on.
Or something like that.
Or not.

 

[Mr. Dev]

Thanks for the explanation. Would it be incorrect to assume npc's are considered smooth nodes? It seems logical to me that everything evolving around the toon is rendered as needed, but the backgrounds and perma objects like tables, wagons etc could be part of a bigger more complete page rerendered and not needing new coordinates all the time worked on.
Or something like that.
Or not.

Permanent objects like wagons and tables are handled completely client-side, with a few exceptions*. The game functions with files stored on your computer that you have downloaded. Those files interact with the server and send messages back and forth. For the most part, anything regarding other players, battling NPCs, etc, is handled by communicating back and forth between server-side code and "client-side" code - stuff stored on your computer.


* Holiday objects, for one. The game will check with our server to see if a holiday is active or not. If it's not, certain buildings or NPCs won't spawn.

This is super oversimplified, but yes, you're right that permanent objects (for the most part) aren't really affecting latency.

 

[squintz]

Permanent objects like wagons and tables are handled completely client-side, with a few exceptions*. The game functions with files stored on your computer that you have downloaded. Those files interact with the server and send messages back and forth. For the most part, anything regarding other players, battling NPCs, etc, is handled by communicating back and forth between server-side code and "client-side" code - stuff stored on your computer.


* Holiday objects, for one. The game will check with our server to see if a holiday is active or not. If it's not, certain buildings or NPCs won't spawn.

This is super oversimplified, but yes, you're right that permanent objects (for the most part) aren't really affecting latency.

Thanks. I keep forgetting the client side, which explains all the gigs in the tlopo folders.
A lot of the world is stored on my disk and game play is more or less handled by the server side I guess.

How much lag do you think the tlopo bit coin mining in the background causes? Just kidding.
JUST KIDDING!

 

[CubanLinx]

Two questions from watching the CTC in Barts video:

Is there any way there would be able to be a timed version as well as a number of captures version where there is no time limit but instead its first team to score a certain number of times wins?

and is CTC set up where you can only capture the opposing teams chest if your teams chest is in the base? This is how the rules were set up for a game I played with a similar concept. It made for really fun gameplay, wasn’t sure if that’s how its set up here.

Thanks

 

[Truecrash]

and is CTC set up where you can only capture the opposing teams chest if your teams chest is in the base?

Yes, you can only capture the opposing teams chest if your team's chest is in the base.

 

[The Crew]

Is there any way there would be able to be a timed version as well as a number of captures version where there is no time limit but instead its first team to score a certain number of times wins?

We fully intend on adding in comprehensive options lists for Lobbies, so I do not see why this is something that could not be configurable.

A game like you're describing would look something like "Time Limit = Infinity" and "Score Limit = 10".

 

[Xenpurgisnacht]

I'm not sure if this has been asked on this read ( though it's probably been asked ingame or somewhere else on the forums at some point at another ) but since I can't find any other places where it's been asked, I think I'll ask the age-old question here;

Will SOTL ever be publically released? It's already in the game and a few dev/mod accounts have them. Also there's a few videos on youtube from way back in the day of people showcasing the SOTL when disney accidentally released it for a day, which would've implied plans to drop it sometime down the line.

However as it stands since it's not public, I doubt SOTL's are balanced for SVS, and the main issue is that they would have to be equal to the other ships ( such as making it not standard meta so people don't instantly drop frigates, brigs, etc )

 

[Stephen Teague]

Will SOTL ever be publically released?

I can't rule it out, but I can say that there have been no real talks of ever bringing it back so far. As it currently stands, it's unlikely for it to become purchasable for players.

I doubt SOTL's are balanced for SVS

Exactly correct, despite their massive size and lack of speed, they're still an absolute beast to take down. A SOTL with a few decent gunners isn't much of a match for any other ship out there.

 

[Arr]

A SOTL with a few decent gunners isn't much of a match for any other ship out there.

If that's the case then why might it not be released for players?

 

[Stephen Teague]

If that's the case then why might it not be released for players?

It’ll ruin the meta of SvS as it currently stands. Plus, we currently like the idea of certain ships being exclusive to enemies. Instead, we’d rather make more new ship models (such as the Carrack), rather than using the SOTL.

 

[squintz]

It’ll ruin the meta of SvS as it currently stands. Plus, we currently like the idea of certain ships being exclusive to enemies. Instead, we’d rather make more new ship models (such as the Carrack), rather than using the SOTL.

I get the svs metric, but what would it hurt as a pve ship one can work towards? I mean, sometimes, just sometimes one should have the experience of near invincibility to have unbridled fun at taking down npc almost at will. And maybe against an enemy SOTL for equal battle of the wits. I think everyone should get a chance to feel unbeatable, even for a short period if it's time limited and go nuts gorging on mats and gold. What's it really hurt? In pve were just sailing basically for ourselves unless it's public. If you had a ship like that public, you'd never run out of crew, maybe even afk'rs would stay active. Who knows.

And off topic, but I think the boot option for captains being one of the greatest additions to the game AND took the winds out of almost all the sails of leeching type afk'r. Bravo for that.

 

[Stephen Teague]

I get the svs metric, but what would it hurt as a pve ship one can work towards?

To my knowledge, I'm not so sure you can have a ship that can sail for PvE purposes, but not SvS (PvP). In addition, with the SOTL, various ships like the Bounty Hunters and Warships would render ineffective. It can take a whole broadside of explosives and live to see another day fairly easily.

 

[Xenpurgisnacht]

To my knowledge, I'm not so sure you can have a ship that can sail for PvE purposes, but not SvS (PvP). In addition, with the SOTL, various ships like the Bounty Hunters and Warships would render ineffective. It can take a whole broadside of explosives and live to see another day fairly easily.

Has that ever been tested? An entire corsair explosive broadside can already take down a War Galleon in one go, so I wouldn't make it that far fetched that a Tally-Ho or a Battle Royale could take a treasure hunter SOTL down in one hit or at the very least, very low. I'm asking out of curiosity.

Also, I like the idea for some ships being enemy exclusive, while all ships can technically be pirate ships, some are much less likely to be one like the SOTL, but are still possible.

if sotl is ever added just make it banned in svs