Wrong player wins tiebreaks during land grab

[kipley]

In three different games lately, I've won property plots during the land grant phase, despite the fact that I was in first place at the time and there were less than 4 unclaimed plots to distribute.  In one case, there was only one plot left, and none of the other three players were able to claim it.  And in another case, one of the players was even a computer player, and I beat him to it.

While it would seem that I'm going against my self-interest by posting this   , it does appear that this is a bug, as obviously the first place player should lose any tie-breaker during the land grant.

[discostrings]

Were you hosting these games?

I would hope that low latency doesn't give an advantage in winning plots. I haven't noticed any advantage, but I haven't been playing long, and it would be a tough thing to quantify. But it's something I would expect could be a problem, unless the right measures were written in. Maybe there's some sort of window of 200+ ms in which results would be a tie?

[kipley]

Were you hosting these games?

Good question.  I was actually NOT hosting any of the games in question, as I haven't been able to get hosting working yet.

[cyounghusband]

Happened to me yesterday.  I was in 1st with 3 other human players and there were two plots left; I got the second one.  The 4th placed player got the other plot.  I was not hosting.
http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=17504

[Peter]

Happened to me yesterday.  I was in 1st with 3 other human players and there were two plots left; I got the second one.  The 4th placed player got the other plot.  I was not hosting.
http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=17504

From the log you see that the other two players were slow to press their button. Time is measured in frames and each plot can be claimed for 25 frames. On the first plot 3 players pressed at frame 24 and the lowest ranked one got the plot. On the second plot you (cyounghusband) pressed your button at frame 25 while the other lower ranked players pressed at 20 and 21. So nothing seems to be wrong.

[kipley]

Ok, it happened again in this game:
http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=17724

This time, I was the last place player.  There was only one plot to distribute at the land grant.  I pressed my button down, and held it down, immediately after pressing my button to acknowledge the score summary page.  But despite being in last place, I did not win the plot.

I think the land first goes to whomever presses their button first, and then (if they press at the same time) it considers their current score as the tiebreaker.  However, with the differences in lags and all, is this really a reasonable way to implement it?  Players with smaller lags, or players hosting games, would seem to be able to better time the button presses.  Perhaps an alternate idea would be to throw timing out of the equation, and just award contested plots to whoever is currently lowest in score?  Then, nobody would have to try and be super trigger click happy.  And in a networked game of interminable lag, that would be a good thing, in my opinion.

[Peter]

Ok, it happened again in this game:
http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=17724

I checked the log and confirmed that it's a bug. We will fix this in future versions.

In the game above all players claimed the plot at the same time but because the claim from Kipley arrived so late the plot had already been given to Tartarus.guard. The game then tries to rightfully give the plot to Kipley but it fails because it is already claimed.