YAAIT (Yet another AI Thread)

[Sir Kilgore]

I've seen all of these behaviors happen too. The perma aggro will go away after everyone in the party dies, so if this is going to stay the least we could get is a "feign death" skill - although I hate the idea of burning up a precious skill slot for that. It would be much nicer if there was at least one way to get in and res party members after a near wipe though.

One thing that I have noticed which may have already been brought up is that some of these behaviors seem more prevalent when running some characters than others. Some of them seem to occur no matter which profession I'm running though. I'll try to pay more attention to this and keep track of which ones happen the worst with the different profs.

[Clawdius_Talonious]

I've recently noticed that the enemy monks are not (for me) running into other groups of enemies, I've seen them curve their kite path to avoid my heroes/henchies aggroing another group. Myself, I have not experienced any of my heroes endlessly kiting, perhaps it has to do with the fact that I keep all my monk heroes on Defensive instead of Avoid Combat. I have however noticed the enemy monks doing some odd things, for example on the Consulate Docks mission I had an enemy monk near the wall of fire run all the way back to the begining of the mission, before my friendly sunspear archer NPCs killed them. But I have noticed recently that these sort of behaviors are no longer occuring for me (as I mentioned I've recently noticed monk enemies curve their kiting path away from other groups, keeping my heroes from aggroing more enemies... The kiting AI monks makes sense and finally gives a use for keeping cripple/slow spells/skills in your builds for the PVE portion of the game).

[saphir]

I keep my henchies on "defensive" 99% of the time. Maybe that's the cause of my target calling problem. I've had issues lately w/ problems getting my heroes/henches to run in and attack. Since I play monk, I'd like my henches to rush in first. Not as much of an issue when I bring Melonni who i can flag to go in, but sometimes I replace her w/ a Mes hero and need Devona to run in.

But if I use ctrl-shift-space to spam "I'm targeting..." and the mobs are 1 or 2cm outside aggro range, my henchies just sit there. They might even make a false run foward, but if I don't move they run right back. Annoying to say the least. I often have to do a ctrl-space spam "I'm attacking.." to get them to go. grrr. Unfortunately ctrl-space causes my character (a monk) to run in wanding as well.

That's probably the most annoying thing about the AI for me at the moment.
Aggro lock can be a pain.. since it seems to be present almost everywhere from ranges that can include clear across a zone. I'm used to knownig which mobs had aggro lock, mostly in fow/uw zones. And I knew how to unaggro them (generally at least 1.5 radar distances away), and sprinting often helps to shake the aggro. But now, it seems like almost all high level mobs will lock aggro on you permanently, even after a party wipe.

I really think they should clear the aggro lock on your party after you are rez'd at the shrine. Nothing is more of a bitch then having 2 or 3 enemy groups all camping the shrine while the rez counter counts down.

Another difference I've noticed is that before, when you have a minion "train" .. as usually the minion master is slower, and the minions will trail behind in a long train.. sometimes you may skirt by the patrol w/ the party, but some of the minions either try to shortcut to you, or they're to slow and get caught by the patrol. It used to be, they'd be slaughtered mercilessly by the patrol, and that would be it. You'd be 2-3 aggro ranges away by then and the laggers would be dead.

But now, if your lagging minions accidentally aggro, you could be fighting more than halfway across the radar, and the enemy mob that disposed ot the lagging minions will come running for you, to track you down due to those minions. It's somewhat silly and a bit of a pain.. I used to just sacrifice the minions for speed when avoiding mobs, but after too many instances of extra enemies that have come running into the fray due to some trailing minions, I pretty much have to destroy every group I come in range with.

There is no more running/fleeing combat in nightfall. You can't, because most groups will pursue you to the ends of elona to smack you down with their wand.

[KESKI]

um, I can only play at weekend these days...so maybe they had change this one already.

I recall Heros dont attack the asign target the other day= =;
I order Koss to go 1 on 1 with a warrior boss, and I clean the small fries myself(I am working on survival, I dont want to die=P) but Koss keep running back and atk the small fries with me when ever I atk.
And it seems I cant order Heros to atk some one that is out of my aggro circle either, Koss is running back and forth with in my aggro circle= =;

[ducktape]

Originally Posted by Beat_Go_Stick

Could that have been the new enemy spotters? I've noticed they see me pretty far out of aggro range and send out a patrol to dispatch me and my party post haste.

Those groups with Kournan Spotters are the worst, they can even "spot" me when they are walking in the opposite direction, from the secret eyes they have in the backs of their heads. I've also had the Super-Aggro happen from other enemies, mostly boss mobs, so far a beetle/grub boss and a corsair elementalist boss. I'm going to try areas with Jade Brotherhood or White Mantle tomorrow and see if they also have super-aggro now. If anyone else feels like trying that in the meantime, I have a feeling it will produce interesting results.

[shadowmist]

I've had most of these problems happen to me at one point or another. The main problems I've seen since the NF update are the mobs that run away across the map, henchies that don't listen to your target calls, and henchies that target mobs really far away.

I was fighting corsairs in Istan, so I was fairly confident of an easy win. I targeted a corsair, and went to grab a soda. When I came back, my henchies were mostly dead, and I somehow was REALLY far from where I started... still chasing that one corsair.

Recently, I decided to cap boon signet for my monk. I took a full henchie team (my heroes were low leveled still) and went out to fight the annoying healing boss. I brought the two fighters, the two monks, the one rit, Cynn, and the dom mesmer. I was a healing monk. I targeted the Dredge Gardener first, and kept the target call throughout the fight. The two wars kinda listened to me, but kept running away every so often even though they had full health and everything. I kept wanding the gardner, wondering why i wasn't doing a lot of damage, when the assassin and war dredge that had been wailing on me drop dead. I then noticed that all my casters had been ignoring my target call and attacking everything else. It all worked out in the end (the gardener was the last to die) but it really annoyed me that the henchies completely ignored my target call.

Once, I was getting ready to cap Avatar of Balthazar i think it was for my derv. I was just finishing off one of the patrols outside the fort, when Koss suddenly decides to take off running with sprint. I wasn't sure what he was doing, but I thought it might've been one of the weird AI issues that came with the update. However, I realized that he somehow was targeting a mob INSIDE the fort, about two whole agro bubbles away. Suffice to say, Koss died a horrible death. And to this day, I don't know what caused him to be so suicidal.

There was the one instance, way before the nightfall update, when I was capping SoJ with henchies for my monk. I had just suffered an almost complete party wipe, with me, the healer henchie, and a fighter left versus a lone avicara guile. The guile just stood there, running away a bit whenever someone got close. Deciding he wasn't worth the effort, I rezzed my party and moved onto the next group. The guile however followed my party, casting a few spells here and there. I eventually cornered it against a wall and beat it to death, but I'm fairly sure that's an AI problem.

Just a few examples of my experiences with AI problems.

[Toll Booth Willie]

Originally Posted by Blackhawk

One word sums up this "new" AI since the update - CRAP

If this is a feature then I'm afraid the next chapter might not "feature" so many players who have been with GW since the very beginning and are pretty annoyed with it as they'll just go play something else.

QFT

I have experienced most of the problems listed. Some say they like the scattering and insanity of the mobs but i have to disagree. Most games agro control is a basic function of the game, some have skills to atract the agro to player x while using skill x. This game seems to discourage using any skills at all, because as soon as u hit them they start running like tards. Give warriors an agro shout that causes all enemies within x distance to target and attack said warrior. Its not that hard and anet is really messing up this game by trying to be different than other games.

The current problems compound upon each other. When a target goes running crazy into another mob u end up with 2-3 mobs, but also they are spreading out everywhere and often each person in the group ends up with 1 or 2 enemies attacking them. Maybe we should run a team of 8 wamos and everyone just solo whatever portion of agro goes to them

It takes so much longer to gain exp now, Gold is harder to farm now, and skills still cost 1k. I now value each skill point i have and pretty much given up on unlocking ALL skills on my war and ele. (wish i could farm more troll exp )

[cointerm]

Excellent post. The AI hasn't bothered me much, but I see many of the problems that are described here, specifically Aggrolock I. If this is a bug, it needs fixing. If its WAI, they need to reconsider it for a number of reasons (eg Use of Rebirth).

[generik]

Actually who is to say that "permanemt agrolock" is a "bug" and not an intended feature?

If your party screws up to the extent that "a monk runs away and tried to rebirth", let's face it, you screwed it. Now, I am not one who advocates runners, and I don't like to see idiots teaming with me at the end game. If the new AI presents itself as a Darwin Sieve then so be it.

What to get to the end of the game, work for it

The new AI has not bothered me at all. If not for all these whine threads I wouldn't even notice it.

[Trvth Jvstice]

The ai hasn't bothered me much, though I imagine it's the way I play. I take one group at a time and if one enemy starts heading for the hills, I just switch to a different target and finish the group.

If the group I'm after is too large, I just pull a few to a safe area and kill those , then I take out the rest of the group.

[Narutoscryed]

I would like to point out a few more bugs if a may. I have taken this quotes directly from anets website.

Monsters no longer run from AoE damage when they are very healthy,

Very healthy monsters will run from aoe damage.

Lets say if your in the middle of a mob.. and your tanking lets say minos outside of elonas reach.. if you throw meteor shower up.. the baddies will run the second one hits the ground..

so they are running when they are still at 100-90 % health.. this qualifies as very healthy.

If your tanking and you have another person throw sv or av on you... those spells will instantly break aggro no matter what.. this should not happen. its not sustained aoe damage (a fix is to have the tanker put it on himself.. and he will not have aggro break)


Your henchman however did not get this update.. they will stand in aoe damage live dying or dead.



Also i did not see the bug about the constant speed boost that the ai now has.. this relates to perma aggro but is a slightly different bug

No matter how fast you run the ai will always be right there with ya.... ( im suprised no one stated this one yet)



this is all i can think of for bugs that have not been mentiond already..

[stanza]

I have found that its removing a flag that can cause problems, the dbl click speed is one completely alien to my fingers.
Unfortunately I put full team flags down alot to prevent monks kiting too far and stop others chasing after the priest (which is trying to pull your men away from you .. the boss! well its a nice thought.).

Sometimes you need to remove a flag quickly to get a desired result .. just doesnt seem to work that often.

Anyone know a way to change this in game.

[Trvth Jvstice]

From some some of the post's I've been reading, I think some of you are rushing through the areas. Try it this way: encounter a group o enemies, the area behind you should be clear.

Take out your long/flat bow and pull the group towards you. -If the group is too large, target the healer if it's close enough. They sem too always charge your group and is easy to take out. the mele characters never seem to pull, so check and see if there is a boss character to pull, they seem to always pull easily. then finaly pull the mele characters.

[Darq]

I've had one or two of these problems... in FoW :P

Anyway, perhaps a simple, if not a little boring or predictable, is for every mob to have several randomly spaced concentric circles around a point, and as each circle is passed the behavior changes slightly, for example the outermost circle will drop aggro altogether, therefore they won't chase you past that point, one of the inner circles will cause them to lose aggro on you if there is a more 'stationery' target, a middle circle will cause them to stop actively chasing you down, but to remain 'suspicious' of you. Perhaps the more you re-enter these circles after fleeing, the circles become larger, mimicking the enemy realising your plan to hit-and-run.

These circles should constantly change to keep the game fairly random, or else people get to know where aggro drops off.

The hero's can have it too, you, or the flag if you have put one down, would be the centre of the circle.

I dunno if this would work, but it seems a simple implementation when compared to revamping the whole system.

Any, my two cents.

[Orinn]

I've experienced all of the above, and wanted to add:

Inherent speed boosts

What is happening: Some monsters can keep up with a sprinting warrior with no speed boost skills of their own. While this makes sense for certain enemies (I don't believe it's unrealistic for a centaur to be able to run down a human, for example,) it seems as though nearly every caster can run just as fast as a speed-boosted ranger or warrior, sticking with them over long distances.

Resurecction lock-on

What is happening: The party near-wipes, but the mobs are finished off or break aggro. Hero and henchman heros refuse to rez anyone except the other monk or ritualist, even when the other monk is out of range, and there are dead party members at your feet.

While making the healers rez the other healers first is generally good policy, and they no longer try to rez in the middle of a fight that's going against you (if they need to heal and rez, they heal first- bravo,) they should weight their choices by proximity as well as profession. Rez the warrior in spell range before the monk at the outer edge of the radar screen.

[Amity and Truth]

Just a short note: I'll be updating the first post to reflect the newly posted behavior quirks when i get a bit more time on my hands, should be in a couple of hours.
On another word though, i have to say that A-Net actually reads a lot of these threads and answers to some. While we can't direct them to a certain thread, if they read a thread that has a lot of aggressive posts in it, well... will they read on? Probably not, time is rare after all.
So this basically means posts like "a-net sucks" or "they'll never read this" aren't helping on the matter as they most probably will lead to a closed thread (and i'm not referring to a moderator's close).

This thread worked too and it was also one of several threads about the problem and i had many people tell me that this would never work. So this tells us that there is a real chance on getting an answer or letting them know about some of the strange behaviors if only we can keep it civil and organized.

[Cass]

You've grouped actual bugs with normal 'AI' behaviour as if they both need the same fix. They don't.

Only the de-aggro bug(s) deserve mention here. These are clearly instances of the AI not working as intended, and this should be addressed.

The kiting from AoE and the caster kiting from assault are fine. They made dealing with mobs harder, yes. Snares and KDs are in the game for a reason, and it's not just PvP. Deal with it.

[garethporlest18]

Originally Posted by Cass

You've grouped actual bugs with normal 'AI' behaviour as if they both need the same fix. They don't.

Only the de-aggro bug(s) deserve mention here. These are clearly instances of the AI not working as intended, and this should be addressed.

The kiting from AoE and the caster kiting from assault are fine. They made dealing with mobs harder, yes. Snares and KDs are in the game for a reason, and it's not just PvP. Deal with it.

How about no thank you, everyone keeps saying bring snares and well, no. I'm not bringing snares or KDs just simple as that. I'm going to use my same old made up warrior build that I've been using since they don't target me anymore and actually getting somewhere because I'm not wasting my energy and time snaring and still chasing not killing anything. So take that argument and throw it out the door. It's easy enough to just re-target something else.

The aggro lock is a bug, some of the enemies actions on kiting against certain enemies and they way some enemies kite is also a bug that needs to be fixed.

[Cass]

Originally Posted by garethporlest18

How about no thank you, everyone keeps saying bring snares and well, no. I'm not bringing snares or KDs just simple as that. I'm going to use my same old made up warrior build that I've been using since they don't target me anymore and actually getting somewhere because I'm not wasting my energy and time snaring and still chasing not killing anything. So take that argument and throw it out the door. It's easy enough to just re-target something else.

The aggro lock is a bug, some of the enemies actions on kiting against certain enemies and they way some enemies kite is also a bug that needs to be fixed.

LOL please don't bring snares then! Whatever you fancy. Just know that is why you keep losing and having problems killing monsters, "so take that whining about it and throw it out the door."

Just look at what you're saying. Your old warrior build is sacred or what? Anet has to make it so that your sacred build will work forever? You find it reasonable for a squishy target to stand firm while you beat it to the ground, rather than it trying to avoid damage or even !beware! alert his friends in the area?

This change is good... embrace it.

[garethporlest18]

Originally Posted by Cass

LOL please don't bring snares then! Whatever you fancy. Just know that is why you keep losing and having problems killing monsters, "so take that whining about it and throw it out the door."

Just look at what you're saying. Your old warrior build is sacred or what? Anet has to make it so that your sacred build will work forever? You find it reasonable for a squishy target to stand firm while you beat it to the ground, rather than it trying to avoid damage or even !beware! alert his friends in the area?

This change is good... embrace it.

That's just it I'm not losing or having problems killing monsters at all, and I'm not bringing snares, they don't run away from me. If they do I target something else and kill that. Just people keep telling everyone to bring snares and well that isn't the solution, it's to target something else besides what's running away from you because focused damage=overpower monks heal.

What I'm trying to say is snares for a warrior don't always work out as well, there are two snares I can take, Hamstring or Crippling Slash. CS is an elite and reduces my damage capability cause the elite I use is Dragon Slash. Hamstring costs 10 energy and well not only does it take off one of my damage slots, it costs 10 energy. When you're in torment lands it's not nice to have a 10 energy skill, with another 5 energy skill, with 27 energy and QZ. But like I said none of those enemies run away. I'm tired of this snare/KD argument, not everyone wants to bring that stuff with them.

The new AI bugs or whatever you'd call it actually don't bother me in the least most of the time. There are some things like the not being able to rez, but it's just ridiculous seeing a Mursaat caster group chasing a runner 5 aggro bubbles ahead of them, for 10 radars.