YAAIT (Yet another AI Thread)

[Amity and Truth]

As you're probably aware, the Artificial Intelligence in Guildwars was changed in recent updates. These changes have caused a major uproar in the community, countless threads were started pro and contra the update. The problem i see with these threads is that they're quickly turning into flamewars. Legit arguments are drowned in bitterness, frustration, trolling and an all over aggresive tone.
So why another thread then? The answer is quite simple, there are currently bugs in the AI that cause it to react in a probably unintended way. We can't expect A-net to wade through the countless rants and trollposts we have in most of the threads.

Please take note that this thread is not meant to discuss the intended changes to the AI but moreover the side effects which came with changes or have been there for a long time.
Let's call it one huge feedback and bugreport thread if you will.



We start with one basic statement:
The AI is good.

I guess we can all agree, that all that is necessary is finetuning it and bugfixing it. However in order for A-Net to finetune it, they must know our opinion and unless they've got some sort of telepathy system we need to tell them in a friendly and respectful manner.

In case you're not aware how the AI works, here is a quick summary. If you want to read more about the details, you can look up the article section of GWGuru, there should be a few AI articles going into details.

Every mob in Guildwars starts in a state of Awareness. They're not fighting yet and they're doing their business. Their business might be guarding a stronghold or going about their patrol business. Whatever it is, they're caught in their own personal business unless you scare them, let's just call this their "Homezone" for ease of description.
Every character, every henchmen and hero has a so called Aggrobubble or Dangerzone as A-Net likes to call it. The dangerzone is the white circle on your minimap and as soon as you enter the dangerzone of a monster, it notices you, calls the buddies in his group and they go in for a bashing (Note: Nightfall introduces the Spotters, they seem to have a much larger Dangerzone than other mobs and will notice you earlier).

There are two ways to end this, either kill them or retreat from the battle. If the latter happens, the enemies normally will retreat to their Homezone and resume their business.
Another thing to note is: Enemies will run from AOE damage.
There are many more things to the AI but that is a basic summarizing of it, once again for more details head to the article section.


___________________________________

Now comes the interesting part, the very core of this thread. A list of things we, the players, don't like or think is bugged.
Do not use this to complain, do not whine about farming, do not troll, do not discuss whether running from AOE is good or not. Got it? Thank you, these basic rules will keep this thread alive.

Note:
Some of these things are bugs, while others might be intended features. We don't know for sure.


Permanent Aggrolock
Description:
This behavior has been around since the release of Prophecies. Though back then it was mostly a random behavior. Every once in a while a party of enemies would lock their aggro. This is not much of a problem if everything goes well but it becomes increasingly annoying if things went down the drain and need a fixing (as in - ressing the team). With one of the latest changes, this bug become more prominent and also a lot worse.

What is happening:
Imagine the following situation, your team screwed up. Everyone except for your last monk is dead on the floor. Your monk brought rebirth and could save the situation. He ran far away to shake the Aggro and finally succeeded in convincing the mobs that he has more endurance in running away.
The problem however now is, once that monk starts sneaking back to res his team, the enemies will immediately re-engage the monk. Even though said monk is about 3 radar lengthes away.

What is the problem:
The enemies do not resume their normal state. They never re-enter the awareness mode in which they abide to the dangerzone. Once you've aggroed a mob you'll either kill it or resign it.

What should be changed:
Make the enemies properly break aggro. Once you've run far enough, they should go back about their normal business as they sometimes did before the latest changes. Once they're back to normal business, they should only abide to the dangerzone again. Thus allowing the team a fabulous comeback.

Permanent Aggrolock II
Description:
Very similiar to above bug

What is happening:
The mobs will chase your character endlessly. Let's assume the above team went into another wipe situation and that same trustworthy monk is now on the run. For some reason though the enemies will NEVER break aggro. They will chase the monk all around the map. If the monk stops running they go into wandrange, attack with their wand one or two times and then start running away.
Once the monk starts running in either direction though, they will immediately come back for him, wand him again and run away again.
This bug is also around since Prophecies, just not as bad. Back then casters would be stuck in their spellcasting loop and insist on casting that one last spell only to return to their homezone. This however got worse, they won't return to their homezone but they won't do something properly either.
You can /dance them to death if you feel like, they're either running back and forth if you're standing still or will just stare at you, doing nothing.

What is the problem:
Once the monk starts running for his buddies, the enemies WILL engage battle again.

What should be changed:
Just like in the above part, let them break aggro and resume their normal every daylife business. Much frustration could allready be stopped by these two minor changes. The team is allready suffering from Death Penalty, don't make them suffer with a wipe if someone was clever enough to retreat at the right time, give them a chance to come back.


Endless AOE Running
Description: This behavior is intended and good. The enemies will run from AOE Damage once they're taking huge heaps of AOE Damage. This is good, this was intended. So why list it here? The problem here is that they endlessly run away if you're chasing them.

What is happening:
You damage a mob above 3 with AOE Damage. Sooner or later they will start running out of it's area of effect to avoid the damage. The problem is, should you decide to go after them to finish them off, the will just keep on running and running and running. This can get really annoying having to chase every single group of enemies.

What is the problem:
Chasing a runner is allways a little bit frustrating and even if you're bringing specific counters to running like speedbuffs or snares, it feels tedious to chase around every single mob in an area. And there are plenty of them.

What should be changed:
Include a maximum distance of running away for melee mobs. Make them run a few steps, just enough to be outside of the AOE and then force them to engage another or the same target again. If someone is coming for them, don't have them run more than it takes to no longer suffer from AOE Damage.
After all, they're meant to run from AOE but not from everything and not forever. That's how i understood the updatenotes.

Aggrozealous Kiters (Enemies, Henchies and Heroes Unite!)
Description: If you start to annoy an AI Monk enough he will start running. While he does so, he is moving in random patterns. This is a good change, kiting is important. So once again, why list it here? And once again, it has some quirks and problems.

What is happening:
While the monk is kiting he doesn't pay any attention as to where he is actually running.

What is the problem:
Sooner or later, the kiting monk be it friend or foe will run into another mob. If it is your monk he'll happely aggro another mob onto you, probably resulting in a total desaster and partywipe. And if he doesn't aggro another mob, he'll run away a great deal, effectively taking him out of the game for a while (Dunkoro ran that far away that his name greyed out once -.-)
This is extremely annoying as it feels like totally being out of control, something you couldn't do anything about as for some strange a kiting monk ignores movement orders.
But this also affects you if you're playing with players. Often enough the enemy monk starts running the second you target him. And he will run away from you in a straight line, straight into other mobs and patrols. If you chase him, you'll aggro more enemies. If you let him run, he'll be back in time to heal that specialy "buddy" of yours.

What should be changed:
Hero and Henchmen monks should never run away further than the dangerzone of their respective "owner". This basically means the monk will have to kite in circles and the center of the circle will be the Teamleader. Also, enemy monk should abide to the same behavior, they shouldn't run into other mobs.
On a sidenote, ever noticed that the kournan priests are the worst? They actually start running towards you and then invite you for a runner's marathon :P



Feel free to add, comment or substract.
If you have further insight onto matters, by all means, post them. If you know of more quirks in the AI that could use a fixing, by allmeans, post them.

But please, do NOT under ANY circumstances turn this into another "AOE NERF, Good or bad?" or "i hate this/i love this" Thread. And most certainly keep the "heroes are bad" or "remove heroes from xyz" out of this. If you want to discuss those, there are plenty of different threads for this.

Keep it free of flames and trolling. Don't post the normal harsh elitist comments. Discuss in civil manners and maybe, in a community effort, we can get this AI into a perfect state that everyone will like.




[FEEDBACK AFTER INITIAL POST - Thread summarize]
fatmouse noted that it might be primarily a problem with kournan priests [X]
_____

Faith Angelis furthermore backed up the impression that it is mostly casters that act strange [X]
_____

Sid Doog provided the insight that attacking of spirits (as in ranger spirits) also results in Aggro [X]
_____

Eviance described situations of weird caster behavior and added a new quirk: Heroes are hardly following Targetcalls [X]
_____

FalconDance also noted problems with the Flagsystem - Heroes tend to ignore movement orders [X]
_____

ChaoticCoyote pointed out that it might be a continent dependent. [X]
_____

Sidra added that other mobs than the Kournan Spotters seem to have a larger aggro circle as well. [X]
_____

Epinephrine posted (besides the valuable other point of view) that Enemies sometimes run into areas where you can't reach them properly, yet have to kill them - a follow up problem of instant kill zones. [X]
_____

Sir Kilgore thought that it might be profession dependent how the AI reacts about Aggrolock. [X]
_____

saphir added another possibly frustrating aspect. Left behind minions which meet a patrol will result in an aggro for the full party, no matter how far they're away. Hard to explain, he/she explained it better. [X]
_____

Narutoscryed explained two more occurances. One of which is the AI runs from AOE as soon as they're hit by it, no matter their health (updatenotes stated otherwise)
The second thing is a mystical secret speed boost in enemies. I'm not sure if this is an AI concern or another problem entirely but it seems that all enemies have some form of inherent speed boost without using skills for it. [X]
_____

Orinn furthermore backed up the inherent Speedboosts in enemies and also wrote that heroes and henchmen will ignore dead party members which are safe, to ressurect another monk which is not safe, resulting in a wipe. [X]
_____________________________________________

There are many more posts in this thread now, all of which provide further insight into the matter. They're certainly worth a read for more details. I've however tried to scan the thread for not yet reported behavior in the AI. In the case that i somehow missed your important point, please send me a PM with a link to the post and what the essence of that post is. Thank you.

If you want to explain a problem which has not been noted in a fashion like i did above, feel free to post it and i will update the starting post accordingly. Thank you.

[fatmouse]

I thought kournan priests were the only bugged ones, I never noticed anything with margonites, demons etc. Once had a kournan priest run off the radar and nobody was even chasing him, he eventually came back for round 2 when his whole party was dead. Needless to say it wasn't pretty.

[Amity and Truth]

Originally Posted by fatmouse

I thought kournan priests were the only bugged ones, I never noticed anything with margonites, demons etc. Once had a kournan priest run off the radar and nobody was even chasing him.

Would be worth further testing, i had margonites and co run away great heaps before but the most annoying runners used to be kournan priests.


This is not meant to whine and as you've probably read, my basic opinion is that the AI is good, but has some flaws. And those flaws are what this topic is about.

[Faith Angelis]

Agree with pretty much all of it, to be honest. Some would argue that enemies kiting in to other mobs is more 'realistic', but then the oddest thing that I observe is that in cases of 'Permanent Aggrolock II' as above it's always the casters (usually the monk) of the enemy mob that chase you way away from all their buddies and support.

Example: On my presear character, north of the wall, I aggro a group of Charr comprising an Axe Fiend, a Hunter, an Ash Walker and a Shaman. I run to a distance of one and a half 'radars'. The Shaman always follows, giving me leisure to stop and kill him away from his damage dealing buddies.

As soon as the Shaman is down, the Ash Walker begins running to my current position from the group's starting position. Alone. 1.5 radars away. This lets me kill him easily too. After the two casters are down, I can then stroll in and pick off the remaining pair with relative ease, free from hexes and with noone to heal them.

That's not realistic, that's just downright dumb.

But then contrary to this, I have encountered situations where the only possible outcome is a wipe, because the survivors can't get in to res their buddies - even though the dead are well outside the original aggro bubble of the enemy group. This happened to a skill capping team I was on in mineral springs a few nights back - the enemies had retreated a half radar or so to the east, back to their start position, and my teammates had pulled back to off my radar to the west (I'm dead - obviously ) - as soon as the two survivors (monk and mesmer) enter my radar from the west, the Tengu begin to run back to them, reaching my corpse significantly faster than they do due to their 125% (I think) running speed. Guaranteed wipe, and no way to get out of it.

Still, I think this thread is a good idea if it stays constructive and civil, and what I'd really like is some clarification from ArenaNet here to say that either this is intended, or it is a bug, and if it is a bug, is it being fixed?

[Sid Doog]

I would like to add here also that killing there spirts (mind you while the mob is an easy 3-4 agroo bubbles away) makes them instantly agroo too you ??? Have no idea why to me that isnt realistic at all just my little rant and 2 1/2 cents

[Eviance]

I've had things run away long before I ever touch them. No AoE, they just bolt! Example of such: I was in North Kryta Province farming ettins on my wammo and as usual I was running through the bogscales. I had a whole group that proceeded to give chase for an awefully long time, so I decided to just take them out. When I started running back at them all but 2 in a group of 6 scattered before any of them took damage and then the one I wasn't even attacking fled! They went off just far enough to start attacking again like I had holy wrath on or something. One of them just kept running... not sure where he was headed but he kept running and in some odd kiting way even though he wasn't taking any damage. I thought maybe it had been because they followed me so far a distance, so I tried a stationary group and they did the same thing. To me that seems a bit buggy.
Oh and for the record my bar had one skill that might be concidered AoE which was Glads Defense, but I didn't use it fighting them.

Another bug is that neither the heros or henchies are following called targets, they really do have their own agenda.


Amity this thread will likely get flamed (I really hope it doesn't) but what I WOULD recommend is posting a link to this thread within the report bugs area which the Devs are keeping up with. Let them know its a thread that contains all or at least most of the AI issues that players are seeing and that it is hopefully mostly spam and flame free.

[Ellipson]

If there was a way to give +rep, I would. This is a good post. I may not agree with some of it (as I finished NF and didn't experience things like the monk marathon), but you definitely went through cause-and-effect for each of these. I have to say though, I haven't experienced anything but the "always run after AoE" bug. Monks never went nuts for me.

[Grolubao]

Originally Posted by Sid Doog

I would like to add here also that killing there spirts (mind you while the mob is an easy 3-4 agroo bubbles away) makes them instantly agroo too you ??? Have no idea why to me that isnt realistic at all just my little rant and 2 1/2 cents

QFT! If u kill a spirit that a mob has putted they automatically run towards you even if out of aggro bubble. Maybe the spirit has some sort of walkie-talkie mechanism :P

This didn't happened before the update.

[Gorebrex]

Ive been playing Prophecies for a year now, and can honestly say Ive NEVER seen any aggro-lock until that last update. Ive said in other threads, the kitings fine, and can be dealt with, but the aggro-lock definately needs a fix.

[Amorfati87]

I think that Gallie has already responded to the AI thing saying it wasn't a bug, it was a feature.

While I do agree that these instances are very annoying, they don't happen, at least to me, all the time. Just some of the time. And I want to pose some questions....

Should you ALWAYS be able to rebirth the whole team? Should enemies ALWAYS act the same exact way? Shouldn't enemies run into other groups so that they can get some help? Shouldn't sometimes the enemies be a little quirky? Shouldn't enemies "remember" that there are ppl running around that they want to kill? Should the interrupt skills work 100% of the time?

I'm only just asking the questions, I really don't have an opinion either way. If they fix it fine, if they don't fine, I'm still gonna play.

I think Anet asked these questions of themselves, realized that they would never be able to please everyone, so they made a decision of how they would like it and will be sticking by said decision.

[Avarre]

I've actually never experienced anything in the OP, except the 'Permanent Aggrolock', which has been in the game long before Nightfall (mobs such as Smite Crawlers, etc.)

Originally Posted by Sid Doog

I would like to add here also that killing there spirts (mind you while the mob is an easy 3-4 agroo bubbles away) makes them instantly agroo too you ??? Have no idea why to me that isnt realistic at all just my little rant and 2 1/2 cents

It depends on whether the spirit is counted in the mob's group. In most cases throughout GW, attacking one member of a group will pull the rest regardless of whether they are in aggro range.

[Grolubao]

I've experienced all of them actually...

[FalconDance]

I experienced the PermaAggro "bug" before even Factions came out - in the Fire Islands. We crested a hill and ran smack into a mob. No problem, we thought, and proceeded to teach them a few manners. Then a few of their buddies joined in from way over there. We had one monk alive at that point (after the second inexplicable aggro) and every time he tried to resurrect, the mob would zero back in on him and chase him a long ways back. It became an oddly humorous adventure that we've reminisced about several times (three of the four of us are family and the other a local friend).

Another bug is that neither the heros or henchies are following called targets, they really do have their own agenda.

This really needs to be fixed. I have to click like a maniac to redirect heros and henches to the called target sometimes - and that's time I don't always have the leisure of in a furious fight! Plus it doesn't always work.

Another difficulty is that the flag system also does not seem to consistently work. I have flagged my party in safer zones so my ranger could move forward and pull an enemy without everybody in the world coming with, and the heros still follow me! (I seldom use it for this very reason.) Either it needs to be consistent and work properly or please take it out altogether.

[Cebe]

I hear and sympathise with everything the OP says... and I also HATE those Kournan Priests...the only time they stop trying to run away is when they are applying Reversal of Fortune.

[Rusty Deth]

I like the aggro madness, makes the game more fun ( specially on teamspeak )

Never know when it's going to go totally fubbar on you either. But its funny to me. Also I loved the new AI update on 10-27, before it there was no reason to bring pin down, hamstring, or whatever skills there are to slow enemies down. Use to be before the update they pick their target and just camp out in front of you.

Now that they run it makes it more fun. After a while you know who's going to go kiting and you make sure they stay in one spot before you take them out.

When I played my dervish crippling sweep is the first skill I use on foes and they don't go anywhere.

This is probably why I didn't notice the arrgo as much untill I switched to play my ranger through Nightfall and I was the only one with pin down equiped.

Now I make sure all my hero's have something to slow them down.

[HawkofStorms]

Originally Posted by FalconDance

This really needs to be fixed. I have to click like a maniac to redirect heros and henches to the called target sometimes - and that's time I don't always have the leisure of in a furious fight! Plus it doesn't always work.

Use the lock target button in the heros control bar.

[electrofish]

Originally Posted by FalconDance

This really needs to be fixed. I have to click like a maniac to redirect heros and henches to the called target sometimes - and that's time I don't always have the leisure of in a furious fight! Plus it doesn't always work.

My heroes aren't following my orders too, starting to feel like my pug days all over again .

Anyway, I've experienced all of the situations described in the OP, some more often than others. In the case of perma aggrolocks, I usually just /resign to save time, luckily it has only ever happend to me on short quests.

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Use the lock target button in the heros control bar.

That's what I do eventually, however target locking 3 heroes whenever you change targets could be a bit tedious and can cause me to miss-time some interrupts.

[Tagon]

The spirit thing can be used to your advantage. I was doing the Kodonur Crossroads and was ready to storm the final bosses but the one patroling group that walks right by the fortress were still around. I didn't want them to aggro and make the last bit any harder nor did I want to wait until they were not near the fortess to kill them. So I attacked the ranger's spirit and the group came running (monk first)

As to the other issues I don't think they are that big of a deal. Permanent Aggrolock does not always occur and it seems that it happens more often with humanoid mobs which you would think would be smart and remember that you attack and kill some of them so they will want to kill you before you kill them.

Other things I agree are odd I have also had Dunkoro run until his name greyed out. A limit on the distance ran would be nice.

[XvArchonvX]

Like Avarre, I never really experienced any of this. Groups have stayed aggro on members that run away and will turn around and charge them again if that person starts walking back to them (thus re-aggroing), but if that person runs away, stops and waits there for a little bit instead of turning back around, then the mob will eventually unaggro. I have seen a lot of people who run away, stop, then come back before waiting long enough, then running away again when the mob comes back after them and repeats this over and over not realizing that they just need to wait longer before running back.

[ChaoticCoyote]

Originally Posted by XvArchonvX

Like Avarre, I never really experienced any of this. Groups have stayed aggro on members that run away and will turn around and charge them again if that person starts walking back to them (thus re-aggroing), but if that person runs away, stops and waits there for a little bit instead of turning back around, then the mob will eventually unaggro. I have seen a lot of people who run away, stop, then come back before waiting long enough, then running away again when the mob comes back after them and repeats this over and over not realizing that they just need to wait longer before running back.

Untrue.

Last night, in Tasca's demise, my daughter's monk ran all the way from the northern exit to the southern one after a group wipe. She never stopped, and all enemies were off her radar.

As she STOOD STILL outside the gates of Granite Citadel, a lone Titan Heart entered her radar. It had chased her completely across the map, and was still chasing her EVEN THOUGH IT WAS OFF THE RADAR and SHE WASN'T MOVING.

It makes *no sense* for a single enemy unit to chase a monk entirely across the map when it can't even SEE her.