Multiplayer for MMMerge [beta 14.01.2024/4]

The role-playing games (I-X) that started it all and the various spin-offs (including Dark Messiah).
User avatar
Mercs
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 61
Joined: 19 Sep 2020

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 20.05.2023]

Unread postby Mercs » 20 May 2023, 19:04

I've got to say I am a bit confused with the original Merge installation and Multiplayer installation on top of it. There is different amount of lua script files in "rodril-fixes" branch and multiplayer.

Are the scripts in multiplayer zip based on scripts from "02-15 pack", on the ones in "08-30 pack" or maybe the ones in "rodril-fixes.zip"?

cthscr mentions you should delete Script folder after you put "08-30" files and before you put "rodril-fixes" files (https://gitlab.com/cthscr/mmmerge/-/wik ... al/Install) to avoid "rogue luas", and yet multiplayer zip has yet another instance of "Scripts" folder, so I wonder... should I delete Scripts folder again, does it make a difference?

Novi
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 50
Joined: 09 Sep 2018

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 20.05.2023]

Unread postby Novi » 20 May 2023, 19:09

Damn, amazing work, will try it with a friend in a few days.

One thing though that bothers me slightly is performance. Game runs at 33 fps no matter what resolution I use (normally am capped at 60), GPU sitting at around 40% and no CPU core seems to be maxed either. Game is set for win xp sp3 compatibility mode. Is it some setting on my side or is it the mod?

Also a question. How do party buffs work? Or raise dead? If my friend has a cleric and I have a knight, will his bless/heroism affect me?

Edit: Got today's build and performance issues are gone.
Last edited by Novi on 21 May 2023, 15:35, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Mercs
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 61
Joined: 19 Sep 2020

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 20.05.2023]

Unread postby Mercs » 20 May 2023, 22:09

A few things I can report after a recent play session we had:

1. Turning on/off weather effects in Extra Settings seemed to have applied to everyone in the game (unconfirmed).
2. Turning on/off Double Speed (F2, grayface patch) seemed to only apply to client making me faster than others. May look into other settings relation to multiplayer too.
3. Using targeted spells like Heal is real tricky with actual human party memebers since they just won't stand still haha, and you can't see their HP easily, so "support" role is kinda hard and unwieldy to play in real time right now. Party UI would've been very nice. Having a custom color for allies when using wizard eye would be cool as well. Btw Party buffs like Wizard Eye seemed to have applied to everyone in close vicinity, not sure if it's a recent change. Also accidentally healing monsters instead of players in the thing xD
4. Had one crash host tried to cast a spell on a client and client initiated rest at the same time (link to log: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... eLog.2.txt, error screenshot link: https://imgur.com/8oIXGEV, sorry for it being a screenshot).
5. Everyone had debug windows show on their screens from time to time, but I don't believe any of us actually saved their contents haha, next time I guess.
6. Loading the game at some points seemed to load a person not on the same location as host, but the location where they (the client) last saved the game on their side. But we had no inventory/level desync issues this time around, neither for host nor for clients.
7. Pathfinding for monsters seemed to be weird. Often they would not even run into any of us players but instead run away into random directions, as if they lost their target or are confused where target is. Not sure if this happened with or without improved pathfinding, because see points 1 and 2.
8. There were minor issues with syncing player damage on monsters, like a monster would be seemingly killed by other player only to get back up.
9. MM6 sprites as player sprites look janky because no sideways animations for attacks, maybe disable choosing them?

Otherwise it seems to work and we plan to continue playing, have reached Ravenshore and killed some wolves haha.

VID.

Rodril
Swordsman
Swordsman
Posts: 556
Joined: 18 Nov 2016

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 20.05.2023]

Unread postby Rodril » 21 May 2023, 15:24

Mercs wrote: 20 May 2023, 22:09 A few things I can report after a recent play session we had:
Awesome report, thank you.
Mercs wrote: 20 May 2023, 22:09 2. Turning on/off Double Speed (F2, grayface patch) seemed to only apply to client making me faster than others. May look into other settings relation to multiplayer too.
Should be fixed in today's update. Whenever any player toggles DoubleSpeed, it will be applied to other players on the same map. Players, entering map, will receive current state of the setting.
Mercs wrote: 20 May 2023, 22:09 3. ..Having a custom color for allies when using wizard eye would be cool as well...
I've added this option in today's update, but could not find good color for this purpose. Cyan mixes with green, magenta - with red, purple looks too dark on most minimap background. There's an option to set your own color, so you could experient and posibly find something better, than i've chosen now: open debug console by pressing ctrl+f1, paste this code there:

Code: Select all

Multiplayer.MinimapPlayerColor = RGB(200, 100, 255)
Change 200,100,255 to other values, press ctrl+enter to execute code and see the result.
Wizard eye and similiar party-wide buffs are supposed to affect other players in close proximity, it is intended. You can see list of players to be affected in bottom part of the spellbook UI. Only exceptions are armageddon and divine intervention, these two will affect all players on the same map, despite range.
I see, how selecting spell target on move is tricky. I have an idea of displaying portraits of players in proximity, while target selection is in process. Portraits could be clicked instead of monster, to directly apply spell to specified player, but it will require a bit more time.
Mercs wrote: 20 May 2023, 22:09 4. Had one crash host tried to cast a spell on a client and client initiated rest at the same time.
According to what i found, player was casting spell, using spell scroll, - crash was caused by bug in the code, that prevented proper mastery level detection. Should be fixed, if it was that.

Will comment other points, once i have something related, thanks.
Mercs wrote: 20 May 2023, 19:04 I've got to say I am a bit confused with the original Merge installation and Multiplayer installation on top of it. There is different amount of lua script files in "rodril-fixes" branch and multiplayer.

Are the scripts in multiplayer zip based on scripts from "02-15 pack", on the ones in "08-30 pack" or maybe the ones in "rodril-fixes.zip"?

cthscr mentions you should delete Script folder after you put "08-30" files and before you put "rodril-fixes" files (https://gitlab.com/cthscr/mmmerge/-/wik ... al/Install) to avoid "rogue luas", and yet multiplayer zip has yet another instance of "Scripts" folder, so I wonder... should I delete Scripts folder again, does it make a difference?
No, deleting anything sholud not be necessary. Folow standard installation steps, at the end unpack multiplayer, replacing existing files.
Last edited by Rodril on 21 May 2023, 15:39, edited 1 time in total.

Rodril
Swordsman
Swordsman
Posts: 556
Joined: 18 Nov 2016

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 20.05.2023]

Unread postby Rodril » 21 May 2023, 15:36

Novi wrote: 20 May 2023, 19:09 One thing though that bothers me slightly is performance. Game runs at 33 fps no matter what resolution I use (normally am capped at 60), GPU sitting at around 40% and no CPU core seems to be maxed either. Game is set for win xp sp3 compatibility mode. Is it some setting on my side or is it the mod?
Damn. It is my leftover. I've set up a simple frame limiter to extend battery life, when was away from charger. Later i'll add option to disable / tweak it from UI. In today's update i've adjusted it, but if it still bothers you, remove "\Scripts\Structs\After\FrameLimiter.lua" file.
Novi wrote: 20 May 2023, 19:09 Also a question. How do party buffs work? Or raise dead? If my friend has a cleric and I have a knight, will his bless/heroism affect me?
Party-wide buffs now affect other players around you in certain range, list of players in range displayed in spellbook UI. Most buffs, that require target selection, now can be applied to monsters. Revive/raise dead/reanimate can be used on monster corpses. Revive works like MM6 reanimate: revives monster, but does not change his hostility. If party contais more than one player, engine will choose character, that fits for buff more.
I have to describe all the mechanics added by multiplayer, but writing the document does not go as fast as i'd like to. Probably i'll start to attach it to multiplayer files by parts, rather than holding it, till it is ready.

User avatar
Mercs
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 61
Joined: 19 Sep 2020

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby Mercs » 21 May 2023, 18:33

One thing I can report from today we had a lot of instances where:
1) one player pressed Connect and nothing happened, we had to waste a lot of time reentering codes and the game over and over again
2) one player (same person) would connect, but would only see Host character and not other client characters
3) other player would have all of his UI disappear and after some time game would crash
4) also for me the "V" tick never showed as a Client, but I was able to connect anyway every time

Another piece of feedback is me playing a support character found out that ID Monster now has a new meaning - if you can ID other players you can see what Spell effects they have (like Regeneration) and that would make the game as support MUCH BETTER, but unfortunately I believe getting the ID Monster to show effects is either M or GM ability level which Cleric can never attain. As a takeaway, maybe some changes to class tables should come as a default option for better multiplayer experience.

User avatar
Mercs
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 61
Joined: 19 Sep 2020

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby Mercs » 21 May 2023, 23:30

Today in short:
0) We played yesterday (20.05) version, so in case you changed anything today, keep in mind.
1) Had an issue where UI from inventory/journal/etc would (rarely) layer on top of the main HUD. Usually went away after pressing ESC.
2) Had a crash when one person went to another map (dagger wound) and everyone else stayed in ravenshore. Person in dagger wound pressed on a npc-hut and immediatelly host crashed, and that person would also get "this npc is talking to another player" on every hut in dagger wound.
3) Had a lot of instances where one player couldn't see other players OR couldn't bee seen by other players. Erratic behavior. Had an instance where one guy was not seen by one other guy, but everyone else could see him YET NOT CAST SPELLS ON HIM (they would go off on screen but not actually affect that player on their side). Somehow, we started getting less of that issue when player changed from wifi connection to cable (which is still the same router technically, just the connection type between router and pc changed). But it still happened. UPD. Mostly it happened when we created game, but once it happened when we moved from one map to another. Oh and weirdly enough that player could shoot and the arrows would be seen on screen, just not the player himself.
4) Sometimes loading the game would push clients to location from another savegame. Example: host and all clients saved in the middle of alvar. Host loads that save immediatelly afterwards, everyone choose their (current) characters. But clients actually get loaded inside Ogre Fort where their last autosave was.
5) Had another instance of the crash when using a scroll. Tried casting Stone to Flesh SCROLL on a petrified player and immediatelly crashed.
6) That said, trying to cast Stone to Flesh SPELL from spellbook simply did nothing, did not "revive" the player, did not crash game.
7) Not being able to use bottles on others makes alchemy even less desirable than it normally is.
8) Had many instances of debug log showing up with "client 1/2/3/4 timed out", but it didn't affect gameplay at all.
9) Managed to bug Caori Blackthorne quest by talking to her stoned statue version yet not clicking on dialog option. I think that's a bug from base game?
10) Had several weird crashes when, at first, UI will get inoperable apart from opening and closing inventory, it will also get visually bugged like in case 1. listed above, but this time you can't do anything with character, can't even press ESC, and after some short time the game crashes completely. Have managed to reproduce it twice by using Flame Aura and enchanting items and throwing them out of inventory. In one instance "Spell Failed" message showed for me even though I was not the one casting.
11) Buffs seem to be lost on loading.
12) Resting only seems to actually "rest" the character who initiated it, other characters would kinda just wait? And receive Weakened or even Insane status later down the line like if they never rested and just waited all that time.
13) Money and exp are a big issue. Exp for every quest seems to be granted in full for every player, resulting in severe overlevelling. And money for Arcomage can be won by every player separately resulting in easy early bank. May want to balance both out, but especially the exp, game is too easy and even bolstering doesn't help. And btw bolstering is weird af, either it's too easy or you get completely destroyed. UPD. I am told quest exp is actually not divided in vanilla, so idk if that is a real issue, FYI.
14) Had an instance (once) where all the wolves in Ravenshore would get incredibly fast even though no player had Double Speed on (we avoid it). Just weird fast wolves. Creepy :D
15) Using town portal only moves one player. Idk if this needs to be fixed or not. I moved from MM8 to MM6 successfully using Gate Master NPC, but everyone else stayed behind. Technically I guess getting enough gate masters/scrolls/spells shouldn't be that much of an issue though.
16) Had one instance where gold desynced and was all lost by one of the clients on game load. Played too many hrs, probably won't be able to find log -_-
17) when game loaded, objects-doodads like trees and rocks would always disappear for sec and then appear back. but had one instance where all the trees, rocks, etc, disappeared after loading the game and never reappeared before we remade the game.

Overall, man, I love it, we are having a great time.
Pretty sure game is ultimately completeable, just has a lot of nasty bugs that waste your time.

UPD.
18) Sometimes double ingredients/ogre ears/wolf pelts drop would be created on monster death.
19) A lot of support/utility spells (like Heal or Regeneration) have punishingly long cooldowns. Your gameplay ends up being more waiting for cooldowns than actually playing the game.
Last edited by Mercs on 22 May 2023, 15:07, edited 6 times in total.

User avatar
rampage77t
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 75
Joined: 03 Jun 2020

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby rampage77t » 22 May 2023, 04:30

We started a game on each continent to test how it works on all maps. I detail the errors that occurred since the last update.

1- When going from one place to another, the map remains totally unexplored even though we have visited it previously, including the points that were marked when visiting npc teachers
2- When loading a game into a dungeon where we had eliminated the enemies, all the dead ones reappeared, and they almost eliminated us :D
3- In Dagger Wound Islands when we loaded the game several trees disappeared
4- There are rare cases in which when we go to rest in the tavern the next day the characters appear weakened as if instead of sleeping they had been waiting

Despite these failures, we are loving how the mod is turning out, and it is enjoyed in the same way.

Novi
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 50
Joined: 09 Sep 2018

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby Novi » 22 May 2023, 16:19

I did a session with a friend today and encountered 3 issues:

1) Roughly half the enemies seem to be in either a "fleeing" mode or just trying to get to some random point on map and will not fight the party unless they're in melee range. Happened mostly with goblins. But also the dragon on Emerald Island. It would switch between ignoring us both and flying off and then sometimes starting to attack us for a few seconds before trying to run again.

2) My friend's party got unconscious, but everyone was buffed with regeneration. Thought it would bring them back, but it didn't tick. Not even on my party which was alive. The buff simply kept resetting duration instead of healing.

3) Some spell shops had empty inventory with a message saying we should come back in x days on first visit. It was in MM7, some guilds only some of us had membership (for some reason both parties buy memberships separately), some guilds we both had it and some guilds had spells as usual.

Flutterz
Leprechaun
Leprechaun
Posts: 2
Joined: 22 May 2023

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby Flutterz » 22 May 2023, 16:49

This is great! We spent several hours playing this yesterday with the four of us, and it went pretty smoothly! The few issues we ran into were:
1. Too much exp. My assumption is because we were each in a solo party, it gave all of us solo exp on each kill instead of splitting it evenly.
2. Arcomage gives money to each player separately. Not really an issue, but something worth noting.
3. The Cleric apparently had to bind Heal as his attack spell, because when it was bound to any of the other quickcast slots it would just cast it on himself and not ask for a target.
4. Can't use healing potions on unconscious players.
5. Resting is wonky, it seemed to be fine if we made sure that only the host initiated the rest, but other times we had players weak or even dead after resting. Additionally, even if the host initiated the rest and all the other players got rested as well, only the food supply of the player initiating the rest was consumed.
6. We had some minor desync issues, such as the Cleric not being able to see one of the other players but only when he was a corpse that needed to be revived, and that same player who was using the Elite Archer sprite at one point somehow left behind an inactive Elite Archer NPC in the first dungeon.
7. Additionally, when I tried to set it up on an older computer I have, I would repeatedly get errors popping up, several saying that they could not find various files (and I checked, the files were still there). Base Merge worked fine, however.

User avatar
Mercs
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 61
Joined: 19 Sep 2020

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby Mercs » 22 May 2023, 18:22

Mercs wrote: 21 May 2023, 23:30 13) Money and exp are a big issue. Exp for every quest seems to be granted in full for every player, resulting in severe overlevelling. And money for Arcomage can be won by every player separately resulting in easy early bank. May want to balance both out, but especially the exp, game is too easy and even bolstering doesn't help. And btw bolstering is weird af, either it's too easy or you get completely destroyed. UPD. I am told quest exp is actually not divided in vanilla, so idk if that is a real issue, FYI.
Clarified the overlevelling part with cthscr. It turns out MM8 Promotion quests give player[0] experience per every empty character slot in your party up to five. And since in Multiplayer we have several player[0]s, everyone gets fat exp. https://discord.com/channels/2965071099 ... 2049797283

As for monster exp, not sure how it works in multiplayer, so no comment.
Flutterz wrote: 22 May 2023, 16:493. The Cleric apparently had to bind Heal as his attack spell, because when it was bound to any of the other quickcast slots it would just cast it on himself and not ask for a target.
Does not reproduce for me. I have my heals on "extra settings" defined Q button and I get an option to choose a target every time. Tested in both 20.05 and 21.05. Unless your healer used "1" button for quick cast? Pressing a cast button and then 1 will result in casting the spell on the first character in the party, which is, in this case, your only character. PS. I have not tested this in 21.05 multiplayer tho, only in single player. But in 20.05 it works fine.

UPD. Video Part 2:
Last edited by Mercs on 23 May 2023, 08:55, edited 2 times in total.

Flutterz
Leprechaun
Leprechaun
Posts: 2
Joined: 22 May 2023

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby Flutterz » 22 May 2023, 18:35

Mercs wrote: 22 May 2023, 18:22 Does not reproduce for me. I have my heals on "extra settings" defined Q button and I get an option to choose a target every time. Tested in both 20.05 and 21.05. Unless your healer used "1" button for quick cast? Pressing a cast button and then 1 will result in casting the spell on the first character in the party, which is, in this case, your only character.
I'll have to ask him again, this was his first experience with an M&M game so who knows. But when we were trying to get it to work, I had him use both the default quick cast with whatever button he assigned it to, and also the extended quick casts that default to F5-F8. It also seemed to work fine for me in single player, which is why I was trying to get it installed on another PC to see if it's a multiplayer specific thing.

User avatar
Electro
Leprechaun
Leprechaun
Posts: 2
Joined: 21 May 2023

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby Electro » 23 May 2023, 01:21

Just gave this mod a try today. I definitely encountered several of the issues that have already been reported, but it was very fun and unique to be able to experience the game in a multiplayer setting. This project has a lot of potential if the bugs can get patched out.

I encountered another issue I haven't seen mentioned yet while playing:

Turning off the weather effects was ineffective. It would start snowing anyway until I went into the options and toggled it off again. This needed to be done multiple times and was a minor nuisance.

User avatar
rampage77t
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 75
Joined: 03 Jun 2020

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby rampage77t » 23 May 2023, 04:48

Image
Image

We continue with our adventures and I found an error that does not always happen but it is very funny, the trees with apples have the image of a large peasant :| . It really is a bit annoying that every time we leave a dungeon or change the map the enemies return immediately, we clean up a map and immediately it is as if we had not done it, the rest of the errors are tolerated but if this can be solved it will as fast as possible as it ruins the immersion of the game because you have more experience and gold than you should get.

Rodril
Swordsman
Swordsman
Posts: 556
Joined: 18 Nov 2016

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby Rodril » 23 May 2023, 10:08

Hello. Thanks for awesome reports and video. 23.05.2023 update is up, it mainly focused on connectivity improvement, but also:
- fixes monster-kill experience distribution (MM8 promotion quests exp distribution is not changed yet);
- adds synchronization to arcomage wins;
- fixes party spell buffs preserving upon loading saved multiplayer game.

I'll add option to upload logs automatically soon, but at the moment i have to ask to send them manually.
rampage77t wrote: 23 May 2023, 04:48 It really is a bit annoying that every time we leave a dungeon or change the map the enemies return immediately, we clean up a map and immediately it is as if we had not done it.
On quick test on my local machine i could not reproduce it, could you send me both your MMMergeLog,txt, please?

User avatar
rampage77t
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 75
Joined: 03 Jun 2020

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby rampage77t » 23 May 2023, 14:58

Rodril wrote: 23 May 2023, 10:08
On quick test on my local machine i could not reproduce it, could you send me both your MMMergeLog,txt, please?


https://mega.nz/file/38BXxSqS#eRns7PkwL ... FRZ65ElNPY

Rodril
Swordsman
Swordsman
Posts: 556
Joined: 18 Nov 2016

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby Rodril » 23 May 2023, 15:28

Thanks. Do monsters respawn each time you change map, or only sometimes accidentally?

User avatar
rampage77t
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 75
Joined: 03 Jun 2020

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 21.05.2023]

Unread postby rampage77t » 23 May 2023, 16:45

Rodril wrote: 23 May 2023, 15:28 Thanks. Do monsters respawn each time you change map, or only sometimes accidentally?

Most of the time they respawn when exiting a dungeon, changing maps or even loading the game. There were very few times they didn't respawn, but when they do they also respawn the horseshoes in the stable, and that makes skills upgrade faster than normal.

User avatar
Mercs
Peasant
Peasant
Posts: 61
Joined: 19 Sep 2020

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 23.05.2023]

Unread postby Mercs » 23 May 2023, 23:05

1) on 23.05.23 desyncs still happen on loading, loading the game is kind of scary because of it, you either get loaded in whatever weird place surrounded by monsters who just respawned, or some outdated version of you gets loaded resulting in losing progress. when that happens with quest items it hurts even more. logs for host and client (client was the one who lost progress*): https://we.tl/t-N67kT6tiHN
2) followers take part of dropped gold by other players.
3) double speed mobs issue persists, sometimes mobs would just be double speed at random (happened with wolves and ogres), and if you turn double speed they get lightning fast
4) had crashed a player by turning double speed on and then off right away
5) when loads happen locations do indeed repopulate often, and it works not for just loads, we all died in minotaur town, did not load, all respawned in ravenshore, went back on food, and dungeon was back to square one with all rooms flooded and all monsters respawned.

* he actually lost progress continuously through last 2 days. first he lost gold. then he lost experience stored in non-trained levels. then he lost gold again. then he got rollbacked mid-journey and lost a quest item to promote minotaur (certificate-something). as for me, I recall being loaded inside a dungeon as a previous version of me who didn't have a certain spell even though the (current me) who was present in the game when load by host happened had it.

IMO trying MM6 with these desyncing would be... pain.

Rodril
Swordsman
Swordsman
Posts: 556
Joined: 18 Nov 2016

Re: Multiplayer for MMMerge [alpha 24.05.2023]

Unread postby Rodril » 24 May 2023, 08:52

24.05.2023 update is up.
- Party rest: actual rest for party members, weakness and madness should not happen anymore, also food is shared now in a special way.
- Uncontrollable map refill: i think, i've found reason of it, maps will reset once more in your ongoing playthroughs, then it should be fine.
- Tried to look into player positon desyncs upon connection to game session, if you'll happen to play, tell me if there's improvements.
- Stone to flesh and immolation spells should work properly now, fire aura should not crash game anymore.
- Regeneration spell and skill should work properly on unconcious players now, and should bring them back from death screen.

I have not touched yet:
- superspeed / wimpy / dumb standing monsters;
- crash on double speed toggle;
- UI for support spells targeting - i'd like to do it as soon, as critical stuff settles;
- Alchemy usage on unconcious players - no idea how to implement this in terms of UI yet.
Mercs wrote:2) followers take part of dropped gold by other players.
That's smart of them, ha ha. You also can exchange gold via bank, gold value there is shared among players.


Return to “Might and Magic”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 42 guests