Hitbox - Page 2

Davidson · 02/26/08, 8:49 PM

Originally Posted by firewulf

I did Ony too many times to count on my Rogue pre-BC, and I can guarantee that specials would hit, but white attacks never would.

It was often complained about by the warriors, who had no way to generate rage, save the whelps.

This has since been changed though. You most definately can hit Ony with white hits since TBC.

aos · 02/26/08, 9:58 PM

Perhaps white attacks only check the first hit for facing and LOS, all subsequent hits if you never left the hitbox are considered still in LOS and the correct facing.

Howard Roark · 02/26/08, 10:23 PM

A good place to test this would be either an elevator (searing gorge?) or underwater maybe. Can anyone think of a really big underwater mob? Something easy that could just be tanked by someone for a long time to get results. Wouldn't be too hard to test.

This seems like the type of question that is 'harmless' enough to actually just be answered by a dev if you could get their attention. Unfortunately I doubt anyone on this board has the willpower to post on the wow forums.

Tojara · 02/27/08, 4:10 AM

Pre-TBC melee could only attack Onyxia in phase 2 if they performed a special attack. They still needed to in the vicinity of her hit box in the air. For whatever reason auto attacks would fail to connect with her in the air.

Later in TBC (a few months after I level capped again) we went back to Onyxia and to my suprise I was able to attack her with both types of attacks. What was weird however is she would bug out in the air and actually melee me as she 'drifted' to each of the places she typically goes to. Recently though she no longer auto attacks me while in the air, however my auto attacks can still land.

This leads me to believe they changed something in the coding at some point to prevent a scenario where specials could land while white hits can't.

PewPew · 02/27/08, 4:16 AM

regarding frost wyrms in mount hyjal:
As a tauren tank, I was able to melee them with both white hits and specials, while they were flying above me.
When fighting those gargoyles, it only worked when they were near the ground, like 10yards above or something like that.

so its not like an "npc attacking npc" behavior when those tauren warriors are attacking the frostwyrms, looks more like frost wyrms/dragons having such huge hitboxes, that tauren with there also bigger hitboxes are able to connect their hitboxes together through the air...

Illundai · 02/27/08, 4:29 AM

Sapphiron shows the same behaviour as Onyxia nowadays. I was able to melee him during the airborne phase when we went back to Naxx a month or two ago.

Akka · 02/27/08, 7:38 AM

I think that the difference in white and yellow hits is caused by the fact that a part of the checks are made on the client, and a part is made on the server.

Typically, checks seems stricter on the yellow. I would suppose that yellow are double-checked (once on the client to see if the action is possible, and only then the action is sent to the server, which check again if it's possible), while white are single-checked (the server automatically apply white attacks when the distance is adequate).

Not definitive on that, just my impressions on what I've observed, typically with the bogus behaviour of a rogue trying to backstab someone (the infamous "you are too far away" while stepping on the back of their feet, with white hits still landing).

Mode · 02/27/08, 8:01 AM

Originally Posted by aos

Perhaps white attacks only check the first hit for facing and LOS, all subsequent hits if you never left the hitbox are considered still in LOS and the correct facing.

Learn2tab target. Turn on name plates above the heads of enemies, turn towards them as they come up the tower towards you, use tab to target them, and press your auto attack button. You'll attack them even though you never saw them. I got a mage this way today; he continued to spam arcane explosion as I melee'd him down 100 to 0 from inside the flag shack. He literally never knew what hit him.
---

Can anyone think of a really big underwater mob?

Could you kite Steamrigger into the water? I have no idea if he leashes or not, but since he heals himself he's a good candidate for a long test. This would only work on non-heroic; he enrages on heroic.

neg^ · 02/27/08, 8:09 AM

I got melee'd by Archimonde just last night, while being high up in the air from Air burst(tank just died). Quite sure I wasn't hitting back, but unfortunatly I didn't double check any logs.
Seeing as Taurens can stand outside of whirl range on Lurker, it seems possible both reach, and z-reach is a function of your own size.

racy · 02/27/08, 1:55 PM

I know in FPS games its usual to have cylinders as hit boxes. Try typing "rend collision" in the ut2k4 console for example and you will see the hit boxes. I would assume wow uses something similar because cylinders are easy and pretty accurate representations for the human form.

Gearman · 02/27/08, 4:07 PM

I'm 99.9% positive that auto-attacks (at least as far as Rogues, are concerned, can't confirm for other classes) don't have an LOS check. I explicitly remember auto-attacking chromaggus while standing in the corner nook, clearly out of LOS (I was actually attacking through a wall), and still being hit by breaths. Once I stopped auto-attacking from inside the nook, I no longer got hit by breaths. I couldn't use specials (LOS check) but I could definitely auto-attack, and for some reason, it considered me in line of sight while doing so.

Kiryojo · 02/27/08, 10:17 PM

Originally Posted by Howard Roark

Can anyone think of a really big underwater mob? Something easy that could just be tanked by someone for a long time to get results. Wouldn't be too hard to test.

Rotgrip in Maraudon is pretty big (the crocolisk boss). Not a whole lot of HP though.

Touf · 02/28/08, 12:15 AM

Just fight him naked with gray weapons, it's perfect.

• Draxyl · 03/02/08, 3:27 PM

Along the lines of "Hit Boxes", I have noticed that spells that add an additional "graphic" to your character (specifically 'Earth Shield' in my experience) seem to increase the dimensions of your character.

What I mean by that is, when a target has a buff such as Earth Shield on them, you can mouse over the Earth Shield graphic itself as it spins around the character, and it will display as if you are mousing over the character itself. However, as the Earth Shield graphic moves through its "orbit" and out from your cursor, it is displayed as if you are not mousing over the character.

This same concept also seems to add additional agro range. For example, back in SSC I remember the tank standing in a specific area close Fathom-Lord and his crew (apparently almost in agro range of it), and when Earth Shield was cast on the tank the boss almost immediately proxy agro'd onto him (even though the tank had not moved)

Grayson Carlyle · 03/03/08, 3:38 AM

Originally Posted by Gearman

I'm 99.9% positive that auto-attacks (at least as far as Rogues, are concerned, can't confirm for other classes) don't have an LOS check. I explicitly remember auto-attacking chromaggus while standing in the corner nook, clearly out of LOS (I was actually attacking through a wall), and still being hit by breaths. Once I stopped auto-attacking from inside the nook, I no longer got hit by breaths. I couldn't use specials (LOS check) but I could definitely auto-attack, and for some reason, it considered me in line of sight while doing so.

This was a special case. Previously, it was possible to take Chromaggus from 100 to 0 while never being in line of sight of him and being totally free from harm. His breaths were changed to ignore LoS on a target if they were able to attack him. Auto-attacks have no LoS, and I abuse this quite often. Specials have always required LoS, including from mobs, unless a special exception is made.

Elerion · 03/04/08, 8:39 AM

Originally Posted by racy

I know in FPS games its usual to have cylinders as hit boxes. Try typing "rend collision" in the ut2k4 console for example and you will see the hit boxes. I would assume wow uses something similar because cylinders are easy and pretty accurate representations for the human form.

Cylinders are, as far as I can understand, more calculation intensive. For a sphere, all you need is a distance calculation from the center. In an FPS game you obviously need cylindrical hitboxes because people aren't shaped like spheres. In an MMO where aiming and player collision is not an issue, there seems to be no reason to make them cylindrical.

Thus the comments early in this thread that "hitbox" is probably a misnomer when talking about wow, since we're actually just talking about distance checks.

◊ Shalas · 03/04/08, 10:57 AM

Cylinders aren't more expensive than a simple distance calculation. It's $\sqrt{(x_1-x_2)^2+(y_1-y_2)^2+(z_1-z_2)^2}<d$ vs. $\sqrt{(x_1-x_2)^2+(y_1-y_2)^2}<d\mbox{ and }|z_1-z_2|<h$ . Adding checking for things like hit location obviously adds complexity, but for simple colision detection spheres are actually more expensive than boxes unless you're on some incredibly bizarre platform where pow is faster than abs.

tedv · 03/04/08, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by Shalas

Cylinders aren't more expensive than a simple distance calculation. It's $\sqrt{(x_1-x_2)^2+(y_1-y_2)^2+(z_1-z_2)^2}<d$ vs. $\sqrt{(x_1-x_2)^2+(y_1-y_2)^2}<d\mbox{ and }|z_1-z_2|<h$ . Adding checking for things like hit location obviously adds complexity, but for simple colision detection spheres are actually more expensive than boxes unless you're on some incredibly bizarre platform where pow is faster than abs.

This is particularly true when doing collision tests against the world mesh, when your local area can contain hundreds or even thousands of surfaces to test against. For what it's worth, the distance checks square both sides to avoid the expensive square root, so the actual test is: $(x_1-x_2)^2+(y_1-y_2)^2+(z_1-z_2)^2<d^2$

Elerion · 03/04/08, 11:22 AM

Mathematically, you're right, my bad. If that holds true in programming practice, I wouldn't know.

EDIT: Replied to Shalas

stampy · 03/13/08, 1:30 PM

deleted on account of me being a moron.

nfw · 03/13/08, 5:20 PM

Against the flying mobs leading to Supremus, if they are flying low enough, I can sometimes jump and land a special, depends on how high in the air they are, sometimes only whirlwind will work (8 yards range on whirlwind compared to 5 yards for everything else)

Pasch · 03/14/08, 7:11 AM

In mount hyjal it's possible for tanks (im a night elf myself) to interrupt the Gargoyles' casts by jumping and mashing shield bash, very nice way of forcing them down to the ground so melee can dps them aswell. Same goes for taunt, you can taunt them while you jump unless they are too far up.

Lobo · 03/15/08, 10:57 AM

Also in Hyjal, Tauren warriors can easily avoid all of Kaz'rogal's aoe stomps and still be in range to attack.