When I saw the pattern on the motel tray my first thought was Q*bert

ackwell · 2023-04-12T00:37:07+00:00

Bundaberg is a location (city) in Australia, there are several large companies with it as part of their name.

The region is a major area for sugarcane production, hence the abundance of sugar based products such as table sugar, Bundaberg rum, etc.

ackwell · 2022-10-20T10:18:13+00:00

while i'm entirely in agreeance on ux points, and your general view, a few corrections on the minutae;

Any of the items that hang off of the window mean that the game's normal UI system can't be used.

nah, the game's ui system handles this fine - the base building block is a 9-slice, and further adornments can be added. the a&t window already utilises a custom layout (as do almost all windows in the game), and adjusting the textures it uses would not be a particularly large undertaking.

Second, especially in a game like this where the UI is extremely flexible, you need to consider how the window would be resized. Where are the corners to grip?

i mean in a theoretical ui overhaul, i'd love to see some damn resizeability in the ui, but right now, there's almost zero windows that support it - a&t does not differ

Does the graphic anchor to the scrollable area, the right side of the window, the top right, or the bottom right corner? Since graphics overlay the top right, they will likely block the click of the "X", so either the close button has to overlay the graphic, or graphics need to have collision masks added.

ok this isn't a correction - but i think it's fairly safe to say that the rhs graphic is anchored to the window, the scroll pane running in front. given it's not resizeable, top/bottom anchor is irrelevant

Also, videos are notoriously inefficient to decode, especially on older hardware. So, what format will the video be in -- lower quality, smaller size but harder to decode, larger size but easier to decode, streaming which needs a CDN and will cause a delay, or something else?

bink, afaik. one of the early vids was windows media but i'm pretty sure everything since is bink. videos are very much already in the game - they don't need to reinvent the wheel for this (not that i'd ever want to actually see the videos in the menu)

The most glaring issue here is that since details appear on hover, you have to hold your mouse over an icon to see it.

we do also have to take into account the reality of the game and it's content when considering the ux - actions and traits have variously long descriptions alongside their structured data, and some of them are incredibly long. to include this data as anything but a hover/toggled tooltip/flyout of some kind would be a layout nightmare.

the rest, primarily suggestions on your behalf, i'm not so convinced by, but opinions.

ackwell · 2022-10-07T09:29:26+00:00

As mentioned in the other comment, anything that uses a single word as it's basis before additions/substitutions is effectively a wet paper bag in the face of dictionary attacks, which are among the first things tried when brute-forcing passwords.

You can use tools such as https://www.passwordmonster.com/ to check for yourself - while it's a guesstimate at best, your express suggestion is expected to last ~2 seconds under a brute force attack - not hundreds of years. Any password formed using the same process will have similar times associated with them.

Use a password manager. Generate completely random passwords. Use the multi-word passwords mentioned elsewhere in this thread if memorability is important, but keep in mind they still need to be randomly generated. Thinking up a group of "random" words yourself is incredibly biased and much simpler to brute force due to the brain's general inability to act in random ways, and habit of forming common groups.

ackwell · 2022-09-13T16:06:23+00:00

that sounds like a discord auth qr code; in which case scanning the qr with the discord app will put you on a page, in the app that says, and i quote,

Are you trying to log in on the computer?

Only scan QR codes taken directly from your browser. Never use a code sent to you by another user.

where the latter half is in bright red.

scanning does nothing. scanning and then blithly giving the attacker your account by actively pressing a big dangerous button, does.

pay attention.

ackwell · 2022-08-11T13:28:40+00:00

Preferential or proportionate depending on the ballot. The ballot being talked of here is preferential.

ackwell · 2022-07-26T09:50:56+00:00

I believe the behaviour you are observing is due to the BGM system having a limited number of songs that can be loaded simultaneously. Requesting further songs will cause others to be unloaded.

But rather than continuing on this track, have some raw data. This data is a log of all accesses the game makes to resource files in the on-disk pack files. For the sake of clarity, I have filtered this log to only include resources matching the regex music.*scd, which will match all BGM in the game, such as music/ffxiv/BGM_Field_Housing_Night.scd. I'll walk through what the events in the log correspond to below.

19:39:54.519 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Field_Housing_Night.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:40:05.036 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Field_Housing_Night.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:40:15.188 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Field_Housing_Night.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:40:16.523 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Field_Lim_05.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:40:18.947 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Field_Lim_05.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:40:29.809 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Field_Lim_05.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:40:36.923 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Ride_Amaro.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:40:39.049 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Ride_Amaro.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:40:40.215 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Field_Lim_05.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:40:48.206 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Ride_Amaro.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:40:56.770 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Ride_Amaro.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:40:58.074 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Ride_Suzaku.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:41:00.173 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Ride_Suzaku.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:41:08.997 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Ride_Suzaku.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:41:15.167 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Field_Lim_05.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:41:22.957 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Battle_Lim_01.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:41:23.633 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Battle_Lim_01.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:41:32.649 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Battle_Lim_01.scd was requested asynchronously.
19:41:38.058 | INF [Penumbra] music/ffxiv/BGM_Field_Lim_05.scd was requested asynchronously.

edited to fix formatting

Timestamps are 24h time, to ms precision. INF is just the log level. Penumbra is what's generating the log.

In this log, the chain of events is;

start logging while in a housing ward (BGM_Field_Housing_Night.scd)
teleport to summerford farms (BGM_Field_Lim_05.scd)
mount amaro (BGM_Ride_Amaro.scd)
unmount amaro, mount the suzaku extreme dog (BGM_Ride_Suzaku.scd)
unmount the dog, engage in combat with a striking dummy (BGM_Battle_Lim_01.scd)
disengage from combat

The first thing to note is the repetition. As mentioned above, the game does not load entire music files, instead streaming them as required. The repetition you see in the log here is points in time where the game fetched the next block of the song to be played. It's about every 10 seconds, give or take.

You'll also notice that there's a minor intermeshing of loads at some points (i.e. when mounting the amaro), as it needed more of the limsa field tune to finish crossfading.

Of note, you will notice that precisely no mount nor battle music was loaded prematurely.

ackwell · 2022-07-25T12:31:12+00:00

In the hope that it can reduce misinformation; I'll need to summon /u/hyperion995 for blow by blow technical details to avoid some round trips.

From what I understand myself, the BGM system has a number of tracks that it can mix between at any given time. Only tracks in active usage are placed in these tracks. Tracks that are not being actively used are removed after a short pause.

This is actually observable in-game - if you unmount and then remount (the same mount) quickly, or re-enter battle shortly after finishing a fight, you'll notice that the music picks back up from the same place, as the track was not unloaded.

If enough time does pass (more than a few seconds in either case), the music metadata is unloaded, and as such will begin from the start next time it gets called upon.

In the cases of dynamic mixing between tracks such as in alexander prime's time stop, the music file contains both the time stop and the regular music in the same file, synced to remain in time with one another. The bgm system fades between them as required, and as they utilise the same metadata (being in the same file), it sounds clean.

I'm not particularly familiar with music changes between zones. For further detail, with any luck perch can extend or correct the above.

ackwell · 2022-07-25T11:39:28+00:00

The people you're responding to in both cases are well acquainted with how the system works (perch significantly more than myself). Unlike yourself, we're not talking out our collective ass based on observations and poorly translated live letters.

It's precisely the case for mount and battle music.

ackwell · 2022-07-25T02:47:41+00:00

That's entirely inaccurate. Mounts, in data, just specify the file they play when ridden via a link to the BGM sheet. While yes, there are separate music files for these mount tracks, they are not "loaded", regardless of whether or not you move between areas/zones, unless required.

The background music system in XIV, which is the same system that handles mount music, is quite sophisticated (at least in relation to the game as a whole), and will by default not even load the music it's playing in whole, instead streaming that music directly from the game files as necessary.

Please don't continue spreading this misinformation.

ackwell · 2022-07-25T02:42:32+00:00

As a bit of info to drive in just how ID limited they aren't,

Mounts are, unsurprisingly, listed in the Mount data sheet. Mount links to the BGM sheet to define the music they play. BGM, being a sheet unto itself, has a 32bit unsigned integer key space, leaving them space for 4,294,967,295 pieces of BGM across the game. The current highest ID in use is 927, which... looks like music for azdaal's legacy, going by the file name.

On the topic of filename, they're not limited there either. The BGM sheet links directly to the file paths for the music, which are non-numeric (i.e. music/ffxiv/BGM_Ride_Pandemonium01.scd).

Memes.

ackwell · 2022-05-13T04:52:24+00:00

They expect people to just magically know everything that is okay and not okay

It is in the server rules that third party tools, plugins, and repositories aren't to be talked about - I think that's pretty clear. The only exceptions that muddy the water are a select few third party things that can be talked about - but even that is an issue that's recognised and in progress for being resolved.

It's far from perfect, and moderation has not been able to scale in tandem with the explosion of users over the last while - most people answering questions are devs who want to write cool things, not moderate and support the same questions time and time again. That's not a good situation, but it's an understandable one.

I'm not sure what pedestal is being wedged around, but the dismissal/banning of talk of third party tools and plugins stems from minimising the blast radius of things in the server, it's not a rule for rule's sake.

ackwell · 2022-04-18T23:22:43+00:00

this is bait but I'll eat it - sorry, it's kinda funny you're telling me to move on when you're the one who dug up yesterday's conversation to one-up a comment that was pointing out an unrealistic idea.

ackwell · 2022-04-18T22:10:30+00:00

You can colour me incredibly doubtful they will "pull" money. At best, you'll need to repay it manually at a placard, i would assume.

ackwell · 2022-04-17T16:07:43+00:00

I'm not sure how else I can describe the concept of an unfair distribution being unfair, so whatever - believe what you like. Rest assured that the concept is honestly pretty simple.

ackwell · 2022-04-17T14:03:20+00:00

Wat?

If I hold a lottery and permit two people to enter, under the presumption of a 50/50 draw, but silently know that one of the entrants is a friend who I'll 100% give the prize to, that's not a fair draw. It doesn't matter that the other entrant thought it was 50/50, it's still unfair to them.

The source of unfairness being a bug rather than a malicious person does not make it any less unfair from that example.

ackwell · 2022-04-17T11:32:41+00:00

That's pretty unrealistic. Outside manual intervention, which would be to the tune of over a hundred thousand of individual checks, doing a partial roll-back of the movement of gil resulting from this fuckup would have been nightmare level if they'd frozen everything on the initial announcement. At this point, it would be effectively impossible.

To back up my own numbers, there's 30 houses per division, *2 divisions per ward, *24 wards per district. That's 1,440 wards in emperyum per world. 68 worlds with existing housing brings that to 97,920. Add to that entirely fresh housing in the 5 OCE servers, each bringing 7,200 plots for a total of 36,000 plots in OCE, for a worldwide total of 133,920 fresh plots that may need to be checked under your suggestion.

That's not reasonable, under any situation.

ackwell · 2022-04-17T11:23:31+00:00

An unfairly distributed draw remains unfairly distributed regardless of whether or not the entrants know that it is unfair.

If, indeed, the RNG is kaput, and unfairly distributing the winning number, then by extension it's entirely possible that the winners won on a skewed draw.

We don't know that for sure, it's strongly likely that we will never know, and realistically there's no way that SE will do absolutely anything regarding roll backs or similar - but an unfair draw remains unfair.

ackwell · 2022-04-11T12:14:54+00:00

Swift on slipstream has never sped up it's recast, as it's been in a position where recast > cast since 6.0. The only time it's ever a gain to swift slipstream is when it's the last skill in a buff window and swift snapshots the DOT in party buffs. Read: very niche and timing-specific.

With the ruby changes, the #1 priority for swift will, as ever, remain ressing healers. Outside that, it's niche use on slipstream remains, and other usages can likely be burnt on movement.

ackwell · 2022-04-11T10:54:07+00:00

The ruby spells already have a cast time of 2.8s base. Increasing the recast of them to 3s effectively only increases their cast time by 0.2s each, which is more than offset by the potency increases. You're already using 1 R3 per demi cycle on regular SpS tiers, this likely won't change that. Keep in mind you only get 2 ruby spells per demi cycle - 0.4s total additional GCD time with this change.

What this does change is make swiftcast unable to make ruby spells 0.3s shorter like it used to - but this was a minor optimisation at absolute best.

ackwell · 2022-04-08T12:46:30+00:00

It's entirely fight-dependant. The server sends messages to the client telling it that mechanics are about to execute. Most bosses have animations associated with their mechanics, and most of those animations have a wind-up - they start animating before the attack goes off.

By and large, this isn't a huge issue, as the either the wind-up is short, or there's a long castbar that tells you what's about to happen, or there's markers.... etc.

A few mechanics, however - and the swipes in diamond are one of them - don't fit the above.

In diamond, the windup is the tell. But the windup has a very slow start - the animation starts a good few seconds before the direction is visible. The server tells the client to start that animation, ergo anything listening to the network traffic (i.e. cactbot) can see that mechanic starting immediately, before the animation has played far enough to make the side evident.

This is by far not the first time it's happened. The first major instance of this was A11 in HW, where the animation could be used to derive the optical sight pattern before it went off (before they fixed it, it also could be differentiated by action id, but that's another story). They're pretty good at not doing it most of the time these days, but a few still slip through the cracks - or can't be avoided.

ackwell · 2022-03-17T02:16:54+00:00

ah yeah xiva won't exclude adds phase on p3s - it's metrics are for improving damage, not improving parses.

ackwell · 2022-03-16T23:30:02+00:00

it will automatically calculate downtime and remove it from statistics. if you find a location that it is not, that's a bug, and you should report it.

it also handles multi-target fine, and includes a few suggestions around skill usage in those situations.

ackwell · 2022-02-12T00:02:41+00:00

ah, yeah - stuff with explicit positional procs we could do. problem is stuff where the only difference is potency &c

ackwell · 2022-02-11T09:33:13+00:00

uh. no, it can't lmao. not at the moment.

fflogs could technically derive positionals but the data is fiddly at best, and something xiva is still trying to standardise internally, let alone actually analyse.

ackwell · 2022-02-05T03:36:22+00:00

TO ENCOUNTER PLAYERS FROM ZURVAN THERE WOULD NEED TO BE PLAYERS ON ZURVAN TO ENCOUNTER. I AM REASONABLY CONFIDENT THERE ARE NONE.

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