something weird

i have noticed something really weird since the sorrows furnace update.it's kinda handy, but still weird.right i was running across a bridge with some charr underneath it, they got aggro'd, so i went stood on the bridge and started smiting them (i didn't know the way down). anyway, when i looked at stefan he was hitting the air where there should be an enemy, i thought it was a glitch, but i notcied he was actually doing damge to it. remember, we were on TOP of the bridge and the charr were UNDER it.i then targeted a charr and accidentally pressed space.i thought my char would run around to get to them, but he ran to above the enemy, atrted hitting the air and was actually doing damage !wtf?stefan came over and started hitting him as well and the other human controlled ele in my team started flaring the air.the flares promptly exploded on the space where we were hitting. now i thought maybe the charr were supposed to be on top of the bridge but, it happens on any bridge where there is enemys underneath it. has any1 else noticed this??(oh and btw, i was doing damage to it, because i used many different skills and it's health went down by the approprate amount on time, and i was the only char with spike damge on my team anyway.)

Welcome to GuildWars, where altitude makes no difference. They can be 50 feet under you, but they're still standing in your face.

I reported this to ArenaNet when I first noticed this same thing in the same area when I first got to it on release. It's been 4 months and I'm sure this has been noticed during the betas. Something tells me it's deemed of no concern.

I believe it to be from the graphics engine. If you look at the game there are no natural caves/bridges/holes and what not. They are all added game pixels, they were not generated as part of the games terrain. So when fighting on a bridge, you are still technically on the same level, the game cannot differentiate between you on a "fake" bridge and you on the ground directly below the "fake" bridge. The only way for this to be fixed is to get a far stronger game engine, I doubt that will happen. Beyond that, and with the engines limitations, Anet has made one hell of a game (terrain based that is... i like the rest of the game as well ).

When checking for a melee attack, I guess it doesn't check height differences. However, wouldn't it be possible to do this considering that high ground helps archery a lot?

Yeah, it should be fixed. You can't attack through walls or whatnot, so yah.

you can attack through certain walls.

The game takes hieght differences on the actual terrain not on added pixels. The bridges are added pixels, consiquently rangers or ranged attacks get no bonus or hinderance from bridges (not to mention that worms can pop right out of a bridge...). The only way to really fix this is to either make the game create its own generated bridges... which I dought will happen. Other than that they will have to add a new code to take into account added pixelations, give them certain height variables.

wait, when a ranger stands on a bridge and he hits someone next to it who is not on the bridge with a prokectile (arrow) he will hit his feet most times because the hit-zone calculation thinks the ranger stands below the bridge?

The same thing happens in one of the last missions in Kryta, the one with the guardtowers (don't recall the name). If you send a melee fighter to the front door of the tower and then engage one of the guards on top, your character will do damage. Not realistic, but kinda funny to watch.

I did the same. I have actually died from that shit when I was level 8

That's just like the olde Doom engine limitation where you could be 50,000 feet above demons and they can still claw and scratch you to death.

Well the arrow will go straight down through his feet and hit the target, which is funny to watch. The game sees the ranger as standing directly ontop of or inside the directly below target. So until hieght variables are introduced, probably needs to be in an expansion, its going to remain comical.

Also the watch towers do the exact same thing as a bridge, the game counts the characters as being on the same level so a warrior will be able to hit them, oddly a ranger will not be able to unless in a specific location at which point your arrows fly right into the building

I like it when you collect loot that has been dropped in the tower above you. Your character bends down to collect it, even though it's 30 feet above.

I don't think ANet particularly cares. GW has no respect for the z-axis as a limiting factor.

Yeah, Riverside Province, if you're melee heavy that's the only way to do the bonus sometime this century, step up to the door and whack a guy 40 feet above you. I could plink him with a bow but not very well.

Just hope he doesn't drop anything good because you can't loot it. That's funny the engine does seem to check z-axis for picking things up but not for battle or so it seems. At least I couldn't loot it, guy above says he could maybe I didn't try hard enough, oh well.