Crazy Agro AI

Is it just me or has the AI gone nuts recently?

I have noticed that recently the AI is a lot more aggressive than the norm chasing mobs and grabbing agro from where ever it can.

Before I would be able to flag and hold the ai in the agro bubble, now they will run off all over the joint attacking willy nilly. This not only applies to the henches who you have no control over but to the hero's who even when you place then on guard mode will still run off.

Here is a perfect example.



I've just joined HM Ring of Fire and Devona has run off after the musaat chasing the dwarf.

is her attack status set to attack, guard, or avoid combat

that may be the reason

i on the other hand are having trouble with my heros not attacking XD

It has gone nuts.

Doing Arborstone. Carrying the urn. I call a target and Devona rushes past the called target, down the stairs and aggroes next two groups.

Plus I also have my suspicions about somebody messing up the ability for the chars to find a way to the target.
The gang gets stuck:

The same thing at Arborstone: (seconds before Devona going on a rampage)

And in Kourna getting stuck on a spirit:

(yeah I KINDA noticed that they were stuck a FEW moments too late! )
Ahh - good times!


And more importantly - my characater also gets stuck all the time. I select a target - space it - and my char walks up a wall.

I was doing one of the ring of fire missions last night. Cynn was having a wail of a time sodding off to do god knows what.

Hero AI has gone a tad silly too. I started noticing it around Wintersday but I'm not overly observant sometimes...

Mmm interesting.
I noticed in a vanquish last night that heroes frequently ignored my nicely balled-mobs and chose random squishy targets way infront. Thus dying horribly as they run past me.

Perhaps a recent update is to blame?

I've had this happen to me before (and not just recently, I think it was changed a few months ago).

Bascially, the way it works is the AI will not move into agro bubble range of a spirit created by a mob that is not currently agroed. This means they:

• Stop following you if you walk past a spirit (sometimes they find a way around if you go through it).
• Won't move to flags in the spirits area, or that require them to move past it (instead they huddle up on the edge of its agro area).
• Will not engage in combat that requires going in/through the spirits area with groups that did not create the spirit (sometimes with groups that did, too).

The only way to make them move past the spirit is to attack it, at which point the henches will move in range and kill the spirit. Of course, if the mob that created the spirit is still in radar range that means they go agro on you whether you want them or not.

This behavior has caused me to die several times because I didn't notice in time that the henches weren't following me anymore, agroed a group, died on my own, and then see the whole rest of my group huddled up with a spirit at the edge of their agro bubble. I'd rather they just not attack spirits on their own, and walk past them (like they do with Becalmed Djinns in the Kathandrax dungeon, for example) unless the group that created the spirit is already agroed.

i noticed that all my casters h/h getting in melee range all the time recently..

Case: Farming zaishem faction.

Monk + 3 heroes. Heroes stand in orderly line in front of my character (T formation which they do when its 4-man team and player is caster). IW mesmers approach; they obviously want to attack me as primary target (i got hexed, etc.) But they get stuck on heroes. They wiggle forth and back randomly, not attacking anything.

Heroes are set on "attack mode" btw, and just stand there and pick their noses, recasting attunements while those 4 mesmers recast their IW occasionally and keep me under imagined burden. Hell, i gave heroes PBAOEs and variety of skills (shatter enchant, snares etc ...) they don't use them with perfectly valid foe target on range and on full energy and with 12 points in att.

Ofc, if i call target, its done fast.

If i flag those heroes away so that iw mesmers have clean path to me battle proceeds normally: iw mesmers reach me and start wailing on me, heroes nuke them (acting essentially like they were set on guard instead of attack.).

If i choose character like warrior that results in reserved T formation (me in front, ai in line behind me.) Battle proceeds as expected.

So yeah, something is wrong. AI pathing, Hero aggression setting.

same im getting pwned by eotn charrs can hardly take more than 2 groups of 8 when i use too can the h/h run around doing jack all

I've noticed that the offensive caster AI has gone a bit Wobbly. Despite flagging my necros and eles to a suitable point, they will run far away from their flag to stand next to whatever they are casting at. I never set up my caster heroes with touch/PBAoE skills, so I can't blame that, and I have them set to 'Guard'. I don't have this problem with any of my other heroes (monks are set to passive, everything else is set to guard).

Much fun watching Master of Whispers charge to a fiery/poisoned death.

I've noticed recently that warrior henchies have their attack mode set on "attack," so they will run over half a map chasing mobs -.-'
Anet, set them to defensive (and monks to avoid combat PLEASE)

Melee H/H are just bad altogether. The best thing to do is use the two monk henchmen, a third support hench like rit in factions or para in NF, and the earth warder. Then roll 3 damage heroes and set yourself to damage. If your a monk then that messes up the plan, unless you want to smite.

All henchmen really need to be set to defensive mode. Or we should just get 7 heroes, but everyone believes that they are overpowered with their poor AI and lack of PVE skills. I guess its no wonder why everyone runs UB nowadays.

ive had this happen a 2 times to me 2 days earlier
i was vanquishing rheas crater in cantha with h/h.
i wanted to agro 1 mob of of rockhide dragon from the 3 mobs there.
and guess what my heroes and hench do run forward past me and agro all:S and i flagged them ffs.
and i was the only melee in my group i was like wtf. after the 2nd time decided to put them way back or just charge in and kill.

Yep, especially wariors are tend to do that.

But a other thing that they should improve.. is that when you stop
walking that H&H always stand infront of you.
They should make it standard that they stand a few feet behind you.

They do stand back if you are melee class.

Yeah Devona is definitely set to Attack. Ive noticed if I Ctrl-Click a mob and then run the other way, Devona is the only one who will run across half the map to agro that mob, then run back to me, or just die

I stopped using melee henchmen soon after Factions came out...because, well...they are stupid. Same goes for melee heros, for the most part. Not much use besides running past the called target to aggro some more mobs, or suddenly running off on their own, chasing after that lone enemy as it runs back to another mob.

However, I noticed that lately the casters are acting dense, as well. I was wondering if it was just my imagination, that it seems like my heros' IQs are dropping a bit, and why Sousuke INSISTS on SFing that warrior while I repeatedly call the Monk. >_>

Maybe they're starting to rebel.

So Devona does a leeroy, what's new? I notice you haven't any flags set. Use them.

I've had that happen with Master and Devona. I was doing Kathandrax and at the Wurm with the key part at the first level, the wurm attacks and Devona went charging past the enemies we were currently attacking and started to go after the wurm and was half way down when I noticed and flagged her back. Made me go wtf.

It's not new. If you attack a mob with ranged weapon or spells the melee heros will try to get to it, and if there's no direct route (e.g. you're on a cliff) to the mob they will try to find one, even if it means a big sightseeing-and-aggroing-tour of the map.
AFAI can remember they've always worked like that. Pop down a flag to stop her charging.

Another times the AI may do unexpected things is if you put the flag on a bridge. There's a good chance your melee heroes will run off in an attempt to get _under_ the bridge, because since there's no true z-axis in GW the henches do not know if the flag is on or under the bridge.