The reason this concerns me is because I brought up something on another forum Suggesting re-thinking issues with a certain zone's dysfunctional code; and what i started noting was that what occurs when zoning into this zone is almost completely similar to what is experienced when reaching extreme levels of increasing packetloss like those experienced during this pl bug/synch error w/e.
Sometimes different chat channels, /say /g and /gu will be able to receive text for the person experiencing the packet loss, and they can communicate their location and attacking status. I know that when 2boxing my cleric with my warrior if my warrior PL, as long as all the mobs hitting him are visible to him, and i am able to watch with the cleric to see which ones are dead, i can change targets, and attack, and successfully surf out a pl. Bear in mind none of my local client stuff with refresh (spell gems, etc etc) but serverside it receives my auto attack command and makes me start hitting a new target, and i am able to move around and change directions I am facing.
In an attempt to investigate i forced one character to pl, while refreshing another and tested the effects of the pl bug on my characters client, and what it reports.
-My hps show no change, even if the server knows i died my client will still have me standing there, smiling, and able to walk around.
-people in zone do not update. My control box will be able to see people as they come and go, whereas the pl'ing box continues to report the playerlist last received before the PL occurred. Also in very extreme cases where the pl is surfed out for a long drawn out period of time a character can begin to report multiples of himself in the same zone. As if two people by the same name were present.
My proposition is to investigate if there are enviromental actions reported by the client to the server in specific zones which send these auth signals more often, more frequently, or even 100% of the time they be looked at and potentially turned off in certain zones. It very well maybe by the packet rendering for ground spawns, lava flow effects, skies, door status, something. Because certain areas show drasticly faster disconnect rates it might be easier to isolate what's causing this issue and see if it can be reduced in frequency. Mostly because we're beginning to balance our game around a glitch that occurs in our client we've not been able to fix, something that I feel is a very poor direction and if it continues fixing the bug itself would defunct the game in it's balance. It may even be something so stupid as water / lava because the zones that are most notorious appear to have lava in them (coincidence? really?)
I would also parallel this investigation with Hmal as mentioned before the bugs that start to occur with Hmal match Packet loss effects at every level of progression through the error. The ultimately being the playerlist showing duplicates of one person (classical Hmal problem, but the moment you zone in) with others including group members not seeing the others present in zone's playerlist, but seeing their characters model visible present. OR the vice versa not seeing something visibly that may be present in the zone and be standing directly in front of you according to the server.
I'm posting in the general forums to avoid aggressive actions from the forum base in hopes to route out this problem before we balance our entire game around it. Please avoid flames.
