Impossible Simultaneous Actions

Throe·2/7/2015, 9:04:11 PM·10 votes·1,168 views

Hello. First, let's define an impossible simultaneous action:

Impossible simultaneous actions are defined as two or more actions that occur within a time span that can not logically happen temporally.

Ex) Malzahar one vs Malzahar two. Both are in range of each other with their ultimates and both are ready. Both hit their ults at the 'same' time.

The ideal scenario is that the Malz whose action reaches the server first should be the one to successfully connect, and the other Malz' ult fails to go off because he's stunned. If the difference in time is great enough, this is what actually happens.

What happens if the two are close enough together in time is that one of the Malz' ults goes off and successfully stuns and full channels the other, while the other Malz has his ult go on cool down even though it never went off (or did for a split second before he's stunned from the other's ult). This creates a logical impossibility because the poor sap whose ult goes on cool down could not have cast it if he was stunned.

Two things that cloud the actual issue are travel time and cast time for an ability. Strictly speaking, let's just focus on abilities that are instant cast with zero travel time. While those are separate concerns altogether, an impossible simultaneous action can occur with these, but impossible simultaneous action is often misattributed to a scenario when it's actually one of these other two ideas.

During an impossible simultaneous action, I've noticed the behavior of the game is consistent with who 'wins.' It is surprisingly not usually who has lower ping, but based on which abilities are involved. This brings consistency instead of randomness, which is good, but can be unfair depending on the two abilities used.

Ex) Let's take Malzahar vs Braum now. Braum gets an auto attack in that stuns Malz the same time Malz uses his ult and Malz' ult goes on cool down as he is stunned from Braum's auto. You can see that Malz' ult, though his most important and powerful attack is foiled by an impossible auto-attack.

It seems to me the default behavior is that both take effect, which is great! (Some other games prioritize certain abilities over others, which can be completely unfair if a lower risk move beats out a higher risk move). If you make the assumption that both happen, the Braum scenario is what will happen every time, which is consistent, and can be predicted, but is that fair? I don't always like it, but I will argue yes. In fact, I am usually on the crappy end of this, but I much prefer this fair, predictable behavior that both take effect than to some dev's biased idea of which abilities should win over others.

This is not limited to the examples I presented, just an easy example to convey the idea since the channel gets interrupted by the impossible action.

I know Greg Street has been exposed to this in the past (warriors charging warriors), and while that specific situation in that game improved over time, many of the other situations never did, and the coding and lack of willingness to improve left much to be desired.

I appreciate how this game handles impossible simultaneous actions and hope this is never changed, unless, of course, the ideal situation can be achieved or moved toward where the cool down never even goes off because it logically could not! I would very much like to see some effort put toward that.

5 Comments

Big Bang Bob2/8/2015, 8:36:21 AM3 votes

Ever see two Skarner's ult each other?

Comedy gold man. xD

S0NA2/7/2015, 10:14:38 PM2 votes

tl;dr

Lordk0z2/7/2015, 11:36:19 PM1 votes

Malzahar R has longer range than Braum stun. As thus, it's a lower risk move and should be lower priority. In general, it's better to have "Riskier" moves have the highest priority over low-risk ones.

Throe2/10/2015, 7:42:12 AM1 votes

I wonder if two Chogaths can get past the casting issue that they can eat each other.