Well would you look at that...
Rmp14
Member Posts: 37 ★
Greetings Summoners!
We wanted to talk about the recent issues with Medium Intercepts, as many of you are still experiencing these issues despite our announcement of a fix in the patch notes. With that, we did fix something important - but we identified a related, additional issue. We were hoping to include a fix for it in the March build, but complications delayed that fix out to April (50.0), so look forward to seeing those adjustments there. As an additional clarification, this fix is specifically for when both players are using Medium Attacks to Dash at each other and the Defender wins despite proper timing on the Attacker side (which is not intended). The Defender ruining your day with a Light Intercept is a different (harder to fix) issue we’ll have to discuss another day.
To dive into some specifics of this case, understanding Medium Intercepts first requires understanding how exactly a “dash attack” works. As you know, swiping to the right will either cause your character to perform a Medium Attack (if they’re close enough) or to dash forward and then perform a Medium Attack (if they need to dash to close the distance first). Under the hood, this second process is actually one of three different animations working together.
First, a character enters the Dash animation, moving forward.
Then, if that more dynamic animation is complete but there is still more distance to travel, they stabilize into a Dash Loop animation that carries them the rest of the way.
Finally, when they come close enough to their opponent (this distance is standardized across all characters), they upgrade either their Dash or Dash Loop into a Medium 1 Attack, which is what finally attacks the opponent.
If two characters are dashing at each other, they will enter that given distance at exactly the same moment, and thus try to throw their mediums at the same time. Because MCoC was intended to only ever be played on the left side of the screen, the game is hard-coded to let the Attacker win these ties, resulting in an Intercept in the player’s favor.
The problem is that there were some peculiarities in that “upgrade” process that were hidden by 30 frames per second. We had to change the way things worked on a fundamental level to prevent transitions between animations from delaying the player by a single 60 fps frame, which was enough to cause those lost Intercepts that were supposed to be wins. This system has been in place essentially unchanged since the game’s launch, so not only did there turn out to be two different things we had to fix (one of which was hiding the other), but they had to be tested rigorously and carefully to avoid other breaks, which is why we couldn’t rush them out.
Something to note here is that nowhere in this process did we have to change what the Defender was actually deciding to do. Everything was the mechanics of how animations worked together at different frame rates, and the fixes ended up all being on the player side rather than on the Defender. Our goal in discussing this nuance is to increase transparency and pull back the curtain a little bit on how multiple systems work (or sometimes don’t work) together. Particularly, specific animations, the architecture they operate within, the frame rate for the game, the AI, all of them with their own quirks ‒ all of these are interacting to add up to the gameplay we all experience. Hopefully this helps provide some insight on why some of these issues and interactions are easier or faster fixes than others. We’re continually working on all of it (more on the AI side of things in a future post), but this web is complex, and fixes are rarely simple.
Till next time!
The amount of people on this forum that sat there with me and argued that it was a ME problem while defending the bug are the real issue with this game.
We wanted to talk about the recent issues with Medium Intercepts, as many of you are still experiencing these issues despite our announcement of a fix in the patch notes. With that, we did fix something important - but we identified a related, additional issue. We were hoping to include a fix for it in the March build, but complications delayed that fix out to April (50.0), so look forward to seeing those adjustments there. As an additional clarification, this fix is specifically for when both players are using Medium Attacks to Dash at each other and the Defender wins despite proper timing on the Attacker side (which is not intended). The Defender ruining your day with a Light Intercept is a different (harder to fix) issue we’ll have to discuss another day.
To dive into some specifics of this case, understanding Medium Intercepts first requires understanding how exactly a “dash attack” works. As you know, swiping to the right will either cause your character to perform a Medium Attack (if they’re close enough) or to dash forward and then perform a Medium Attack (if they need to dash to close the distance first). Under the hood, this second process is actually one of three different animations working together.
First, a character enters the Dash animation, moving forward.
Then, if that more dynamic animation is complete but there is still more distance to travel, they stabilize into a Dash Loop animation that carries them the rest of the way.
Finally, when they come close enough to their opponent (this distance is standardized across all characters), they upgrade either their Dash or Dash Loop into a Medium 1 Attack, which is what finally attacks the opponent.
If two characters are dashing at each other, they will enter that given distance at exactly the same moment, and thus try to throw their mediums at the same time. Because MCoC was intended to only ever be played on the left side of the screen, the game is hard-coded to let the Attacker win these ties, resulting in an Intercept in the player’s favor.
The problem is that there were some peculiarities in that “upgrade” process that were hidden by 30 frames per second. We had to change the way things worked on a fundamental level to prevent transitions between animations from delaying the player by a single 60 fps frame, which was enough to cause those lost Intercepts that were supposed to be wins. This system has been in place essentially unchanged since the game’s launch, so not only did there turn out to be two different things we had to fix (one of which was hiding the other), but they had to be tested rigorously and carefully to avoid other breaks, which is why we couldn’t rush them out.
Something to note here is that nowhere in this process did we have to change what the Defender was actually deciding to do. Everything was the mechanics of how animations worked together at different frame rates, and the fixes ended up all being on the player side rather than on the Defender. Our goal in discussing this nuance is to increase transparency and pull back the curtain a little bit on how multiple systems work (or sometimes don’t work) together. Particularly, specific animations, the architecture they operate within, the frame rate for the game, the AI, all of them with their own quirks ‒ all of these are interacting to add up to the gameplay we all experience. Hopefully this helps provide some insight on why some of these issues and interactions are easier or faster fixes than others. We’re continually working on all of it (more on the AI side of things in a future post), but this web is complex, and fixes are rarely simple.
Till next time!
The amount of people on this forum that sat there with me and argued that it was a ME problem while defending the bug are the real issue with this game.
Post edited by Pikolu on
13
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
And the follow up double-medium dash on both sides now favoring the defender because of (I take it, based on description, basically ?) the 60 fps change. Which that aspect may not be out until next month (if I’m reading right as to what and when the different things are)
But confused where OP is trying to say they've been saying this for years.
I see nothing where they have been having “conversation” (arguements) about medium intercepts or double mediums.
The 60 fps is only recent.
And any earlier comments by them only appear to be about mysteriously dashing forward when actually holding block. (attacker moving forward while actually holding block)
(*which, unless the first part of announcement is an implied reference to that, really doesn’t say that is what the problem/fix here was related too ??)
Anyways, link to KabamDork's announcement (which is basically echoed as the whole initial post here)…
https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/391180/medium-intercept-issue#latest