The World of Avlis

When a player clicks a location for his PC to move on a server, which computer does the pathfinding? I ask because I've noticed when I move using the keyboard, I tend to actually move during lag, unlike clicking.

I know pathfinding can cause big lag for NPC's, but how about PC's? Does moving with the keyboard decrease lag at all? Just curious, really.

Don't know if it decreases lag for others, but during high lag situations, you'll definately move better using the keyboard.

Your computer get's the walkmesh data from the server, at the very least. I don't know for sure, but from experience:

I've noticed lag on on Tairis with a single group of people all moving at once near each other, using point and click movement. That suggests to me that the server is doing the pathfinding...

Maybe someone should ask on the Bio-boards.

-Themicles

When you use the keyboard to move during big lag, you'll actually move on your screen.

However... you'll experience a lot more of the stuff where, when you actually do click on something, you find yourself teleported backwards a ways, or your character standing there doing hurky-jurky stuff which is actually some approximation of the 'catching up' of the motions that they would have done to get to where they went. Or... you ran up the road to the transition, then when you try to go through it, it takes forever.

It doesn't make much sense, but to me it seems to indicate that keyboard happens client-side, and click happens server-side. Or rather, keyboard activates immediately on client-side while sending a character string (wwwwwwwdddddwwwwww...) to the server, which when it is lagging only registers it in bits. The difference in these two techniques would seem to indicate that pathfinding happens server-side.

That's why, after years of fighting lag, I now mix the techniques when things are moving slow. If I'm going through open territory, keyboard is fine.. but if there's going to be maneuvering around obstacles, keyboard can mess you up during lag because you may get stuck running into something and put back there when the server registers your moves, due to (I assume) a couple characters in the string of what you were sending with keyboard controls getting lost in the transmission. So for finer maneuvering, or if there might be combat, I use click. It will be slower, but you'll be more likely to really 'be' where you're shown... Also an extra click here and there can help, i.e. if you're not seeming to attack that monster, click on it again.