Curse

Greentongue · May 17, 2005, 12:10 PM // 12:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by PieXags

Never before has Alesia rushed in on her own, or even with the group to attack someone, ever. She always stays her ground in the back and/or moves far off to one of the sides to do her job.

I have noticed that "off to the side" can be in front when the opponents attack. I think she picks a position to run to based on where the mobs are are at the initial decision time. This changes as they move also, but she is in Healing Mode and doesn't always reposition.

chowdah · May 17, 2005, 01:50 PM // 13:50

I personally love how she runs past all her team mates right into the middle of the mobs - and then turns around and starts healing. Whisky Tango Foxtrot???

I guess my issue with it is that the mob AI seems to be WAY smarter than the Henchmen AI.

IxChel · May 17, 2005, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by chowdah

I personally love how she runs past all her team mates right into the middle of the mobs - and then turns around and starts healing. Whisky Tango Foxtrot??

Yes. She rushes past rangers and spell casters to heal a warrior who has rushed out to greet opposing team's spell casters. Then, she turns around to heal you -- she is centering her self so that she can most efficiently heal the whole party. It's quite deterministic. It's also what a good healer should do; although a human-run healer will gladly let a suicidal player die rather than following them to a certain death. If she has a flaw, it's that she doesn't recognize when a team member is deep in enemy ground, surrounded, and a hopless cause.

You can't imagine how many humans go _way_ of of their healer's range and somehow expect to be healed. You have to give the AI healer some credit -- she tries to do the impossible. A solution to this: don't go running to the farthest-target out there; and if you have warrior henchmen, call targets -- perferably ones that are close.

When I'm soloing charr, I target the axe blades first. Yes, they are healed by the healers; however, they rush to you. So, if you target them first, your meat shields will focus on them and protect your casters. You can then change _your_ target to a down-stream caster (to interrupt them) but what ever you do, don't call that as the target, or your AI bots will spend 2 minutes running to the caster target leaving you to be axed to death by charr warriors. By this slight change in strategy I've been able to solo even tough charr areas; I did the tough boss just south of the courthouse as a lvl 8 with 3 lvl 8 henchmen. A bit of pulling, running, and selecting the warriors first did the trick. I died a horrible death the first try; beacuse I targeted the healer. This put my warriors deep into enemy territory, exposed my healer and let the charr warriors have unfettered shredding of my mage (which prevented him from getting off that firestorm since he started to run). Next time I targed the warriors; we had 4-5 of them aggrogating on Stefan, and Alysia was healing; the mage did a firestorm, and their ground-troops were a done deal. Then cleaning out the rangers was next (I was being a mesmer, and interrupting the healer).

The AI isn't bad. Just observe how it works, and use it to your advantage. Also, thanks for editing the title. This isn't an issue that the game developer's should be concerned with; it is a "user/training" issue.

goldjas · May 18, 2005, 12:51 AM // 00:51

The ranged henchies, and Alesia in particular for some reason (Mhelno isn't as bad, I was very happy when he replaced her, although he still does it from time to time) sort of treat where the player is as the center spot, and from there, go at a specific range - but not always in the correct direction, thus since range seems to play an importance to enemy aggro in this game (ie. stay far away and run around a lot, and you will get less aggro, even if you are doing a bajillion damage) Alesia very often ends up being extremely close to the enemies, and since she heals and hits decently with smites, and she has weak armor, shes an all to obvious target for your foes.

PieXags · May 18, 2005, 01:16 AM // 01:16

Yeah I'll agree that sometimes she ends up in a bad position anyways, but she's trying to do her job well is the thing, and it's not that she's doing it to herself, it's that the enemies are smart enough to know who they should murder first. And even then, it's often that they're attacking EVERYONE, but since she has weak armor she drops before anyone else often times.

I wasn't saying she didn't find herself in a bad position every now and then, but she was doing well in that position and it was always the baddies who screwed her over, we just couldn't kill all the ones that were on her at once.

My main point was that I'd never seen HER, of her own intelligence, just run past all of our team and try and just place herself in the middle of enemy forces as some people seem to suggest.

Just get used to the AI, it works out.

Mawgleah · May 18, 2005, 02:30 AM // 02:30

Whenever I play with henchmen (which is most of the time), I try to avoid attacking a mob if possible. I will wait/maneuver around until I can draw off a few at a time. It may take a little longer this way, but I'm usually sucessful. And while I have never seen Alesia run out in front before the fight, if I use Stefan instead of the Ranger (can't remember her name) then I have seen Alesia get in the middle of the battle trying to heal Stefan, who can get a good distance from the group. I've also seen Alesia "zone out" and just stand there behind me during a battle and I'm not sure what causes this. But, because of my tactics, the few instances this has occurred has not caused our party's demise. I actually have more concerns about Prince Rurik's AI behaviour than Alesia's, as his "rush into the thick of it" tactic doesn't mesh with my playing style at all.

Arrow Whisper · May 18, 2005, 03:18 AM // 03:18

It's probably been said, I didn't read everything between the 6th post and the last.

But to get my henchmen to stand still while the warriors charge ahead you have to know how they work. That is Melee henchmen once you choose a target (I use keyboard most of the time so ctrl+space). After I hit ctrl+space when the mobs are just outside the agro circle I cast a low cost skill that takes a moment or two. This will allow my toon to stand still (making all of the henchmen casters including Alesia) stand still while Little Thorn & Stephen charge into battle.

They are usually far enogh ahead after I cast healing signet to secure agro of 3 or more directly on them, then I come in and engage. The casters are usually safe to do what they want unless another group agro's or the Mage hits them with an AoE. That AoE is usually enough to generate enough agro to get 1 off and onto him but they still leave the healer alone.