September 16 Patch Notes
Over the past 10 days, we've been focused on optimizing how player locations update on your screen, especially during jumps. We've developed 3 approaches to "fix" the problem, and will be releasing 1 of them today.
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused eCoins not to be delivered if the same user made multiple purchases in quick succession (within about a minute).
- Fixed a rare bug where in-game items were not mailed after purchasing them on the website.
- Stone Feet should no longer cause players to "glide" unexpectedly. If this issue persists, please let us know.
- The Lords of Ladianes can now use castle buffs during the Civil War.
Player Location Synchronization
Over the past 10 days, we've been focused on optimizing how player locations update on your screen, especially during jumps. Unfortunately, completely fixing this issue would require a major overhaul of the game engine. The core problem lies in how Unreal Engine 2.5 (and earlier versions) handled certain physics functions, particularly those related to falling, jumping, and transitioning between these states. These mechanics were updated in later versions of the engine, like UE4 and UE5.
That said, we tested and developed various approaches to address this issue, but only three yielded better results than the current system. Please note the following applies to all three approaches:
- These solutions are experimental and may introduce unexpected issues. If you encounter any, please report them.
- If any major, irreparable issues arise, we may need to make changes or even revert the "fix".
- The tests were conducted on a local server, meaning server-client communication was nearly instantaneous. As a result, the game had less time to sync movements between the server and client after receiving a jump command. Players should experience smoother results on live servers. It's also possible that some players may not notice much "teleporting" or "throwing" after these changes.
- Approach 1
- This method completely eliminated the "teleporting" issue when players jumped. However, players would occasionally (especially when changing direction mid-jump) not appear where they were supposed to be, causing their location to bug out and stop updating entirely. Due to the significant desynchronization this introduced, this approach isn't viable for release.
- Approach 2
- In this approach, we also removed the "teleporting" issue when jumping. However, this caused players to be "thrown" at high speeds in the direction they were moving, leading to poor synchronization during the jump process. For instance, when chasing a player after they've jumped, they would appear to move much faster than normal until their position corrected itself (like they were being thrown). This method might be better than Approach 3, and we may test it further based on player feedback. We can adjust the timing of the "throwing" effect to occur either before or after the jump. We'll continue refining this approach and hope to perfect it, as it has the potential to offer the best results.
- Approach 3
- This approach was demonstrated to players last week on Discord. We implemented several changes that, when combined, significantly reduced teleportation and improved location accuracy during jumps compared to the current system. While it doesn't entirely eliminate "teleporting," it ensures player positions are displayed correctly on your screen. This approach will be released in todays update.
September 17 Patch Notes
Player Location Synchronization
Based on initial feedback from last nights update, we've developed another patch to address the player location synchronization issue. This patch completely eliminates 'teleporting' during jumps and significantly smooths out the interpolation of other players' locations, making it almost seamless. Additionally, it now more accurately displays players falling from greater heights. During our testing, we noticed some minor 'throwing' movements, which we plan to look into and hopefully fully resolve in a future update. For now, we are releasing this patch as is for players to test and provide feedback.