Hero AI and interrupted skills: your opinions?

With the current AI, if you manually order a hero to use a skill and that skill gets interrupted, the green check mark on the skill will not be removed. This causes the hero to not use any other skills until it can use that interrupted skill again, unless you manually remove the check mark. For this reason I reported this behavior as a bug, but QA informed me this was intended behavior:

Quote: This is intended functionality. It may not makes sense for more competitive play, but the intent is to make it so that if a skill is selected, that it will eventually be used. I personally have a hard time trying to track the actions of all my heroes, while playing my character. If I manually select to use a hero skill, it means I really want it used. The fix described seems like it would cause more frustration if the player was not aware that the hero was interrupted, the hero would seem to just fail to cast. Let me know if you think the majority of players would want this change. We can look into it more. While I can agree that you micro a skill because you really want the hero to use it, it also means you want the hero to use it right now. In my opinion, if the hero fails to use the skill it should just continue using other skills. For example if I order a monk hero to use WoH and it gets interrupted by a Distracting Shot, I really don't want the hero to wait until it's recharged again before using any other skills. This means I'll always end up removing the check mark anyway. For that reason I'm interested in hearing your opinions on this matter, more specifically if you prefer the current AI behavior or not.

Well no crap. The bug isn't that it stays checked, the bug is that the hero doesn't use any other skill until the checked out is recharged. That is the bug.

When i disable my sousuke's meteor shower because i don't want him using it on level 5 pets i aggro, and i manually set him to use it and it gets interrupted... people actually think it was ANet's intention for him to sit there like a useless twit for the 60 seconds it recharges? LOL.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gift3d Well no crap. The bug isn't that it stays checked, the bug is that the hero doesn't use any other skill until the checked out is recharged. That is the bug. That's always been the way it works: if you manually click a skill that is recharging, the hero won't use any other skills until it can activate that skill. This does make sense since the hero might not always use the skill as soon as possible otherwise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gift3d When i disable my sousuke's meteor shower because i don't want him using it on level 5 pets i aggro, and i manually set him to use it and it gets interrupted... people actually think it was ANet's intention for him to sit there like a useless twit for the 60 seconds it recharges? LOL. I didn't believe that either but as you can read in my original post, ArenaNet says that's exactly their intention. If enough people think this behavior doesn't make sense then they might be willing to change it, which is why I'm posting this here.

I can see where they coming from on the intended feature part. People who only micro the rare heal or hex probably want thier hero to try casting again as soon as possible without microing making it more user friendly. (Obviously this isn't true for skills with long recharges but many skills recharge quickly enough that it isn't a big deal).
However, in competetive Hero Battles, this is liable to kill you unless you actively watch for the rare interupt on every cast you micro. It's merely conveniant when this feature works out in favor of the user, but it can be devastating when it works against the user. It should be changed.

ya this needs to be changed ive had my heros die because i micro hao or something and i look bak and my checkmark is still on hao but its taking 20 seconds to recharge and my hero is now about to die because its been sitting their waiting to recharge. this would be a great change because losing a match because of this is not right and its punishing people who actually micro skills and rewarding those who are getting lucky interupts off.

Quote: Originally Posted by Teutonic Paladin

For a slow recharging spell, it work better for the AI to cast other spells first while it is recharging even though it has a check mark. For a fast recharging spell, you want the check mark to be there even when interrupted, until the hero has successfully cast it.

Therefore I would want the check mark to be there and the hero to keep trying to cast it even after it gets interrupted. Only upon a successful cast, should the check mark is cleared.

BUT I want it so that the AI would ignore the check mark, IF the marked spell is recharging or disabled. Meaning it would cast other spells and behave as per normal as if the check if not there, if the marked spell is recharging or disabled. So the current behavior is right but they need to check if the spell is recharging or disabled and ignore the check mark if that is the case.

Something like:

Code:

If (marked spell is NOT recharging or disabled)
{
       cast it immediately
}
else
{
        ignore check mark and behave as per normal
}

DarkSpirit, there's a couple of problems I see with that solution. First of all, heroes might end up using the energy they needed to activate the skill by the time it's recharged. This could be solved by letting them stop using other skills if they drop below the minimum energy required for that skill, but that would probably be difficult to implement. Adrenaline skills would complicate things even more since using those slows down the adrenaline gain on other skills. The hero could also get into a situation where the skill is recharged while they're still activating a different skill, should they cancel their current action in that case?

Quote: Originally Posted by Getaway Special

Quote: Originally Posted by X Tigercat X

Quote: Originally Posted by Draikin DarkSpirit, there's a couple of problems I see with that solution. First of all, heroes might end up using the energy they needed to activate the skill by the time it's recharged. This could be solved by letting them stop using other skills if they drop below the minimum energy required for that skill, but that would probably be difficult to implement. Adrenaline skills would complicate things even more since using those slows down the adrenaline gain on other skills. True but that is an existing problem that already happens right now. Lets say you click on a spell, that is not recharging, but the hero doesn't have enough energy to cast it at that point in time. What happens? The hero would wait for his energy to regen then try to cast it.

For my solution, if the spell is recharging, the AI should ignore the check mark. Once the spell has completed recharging, then the hero would wait for his energy to regen then try to cast it, as per normal. So as long as the spell is not recharging or has completed recharging, there is no change to AI behavior from what it is now.

Quote: The hero could also get into a situation where the skill is recharged while they're still activating a different skill, should they cancel their current action in that case? What do they do now when you click on another skill while they are still activating a different skill? The same behavior should apply, since the skill you selected has completed recharging or is not recharging, it will be as if the hero just "notices" the check mark once the selected skill has completed recharging.

The goal for my suggestion is not to solve ALL possible issues with the AI, but at least for the issue of slow recharging spells, which maybe the most serious. Otherwise, what would happen if you accidentally click on a used res sig?

Quote: Originally Posted by DarkSpirit The goal for my suggestion is not to solve ALL possible issues with the AI, but at least for the issue of slow recharging spells, which maybe the most serious. Otherwise, what would happen if you accidentally click on a used res sig? The difference is that when you click that res sig, you'll instantly notice your mistake and cancel it. Interrupts on the other hand is not something you have under your control. While I definitely see your point, your solution would make it more difficult to predict when your hero is going to use a recharging skill, since they might have used up their energy in the meanwhile. In the same way, you'd also have no control over which skill your hero might end up canceling when the checked skill is recharged.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkSpirit The problem with that solution is, if it is a FAST recharging and crucial skill that gets interrupted, you want the hero to try again immediately. For example, you command the hero to cast Guardian on you since you are under attack and in trouble, but it was interrupted. Then you would want the hero to automatically try again as soon as possible, since you dont have the time to notice the interrupt and micro manage your hero again, when you are already running for your life. Well the thing when you click a skill and it's interrupted, the situation changes as well. For example when you needed Guardian 4 seconds ago to protect against that incoming assassin spike, you now need RoF and WoH to get you back to >50% health. At least in Hero Battles, I always ended up removing the check mark to "reset" the hero or to micro a different skill. I guess the ideal solution would be to give the players the choice and include it in the options menu, but that's probably too much to ask for.

Quote: Originally Posted by Draikin The difference is that when you click that res sig, you'll instantly notice your mistake and cancel it. Interrupts on the other hand is not something you have under your control. While I definitely see your point, your solution would make it more difficult to predict when your hero is going to use a recharging skill, since they might have used up their energy in the meanwhile. In the same way, you'd also have no control over which skill your hero might end up canceling when the checked skill is recharged. Because of the dynamics of this game, you can never ever predict when a spell would be cast. The spell maybe interrupted, or the hero maybe knocked-down, or blackout, or die, etc. in the middle of casting.

Even your solution of clearing the check mark upon a failed attempt doesn't make it easier to predict when the spell would really be cast, would it? And maybe you have to click on it more than once to have it cast successfully. While in my case, you only need to command once and if it gets interrupted, the hero would cast it immediately when he is able to.

Sure, they may use up energy on other skills and not have enough to cast it immediately upon recharge but do you really check the amount of energy the hero has before casting a crucial skill during battle? No you dont need to, the hero would wait till he has enough energy before he cast. Even right now, you should come up with a good hero build for energy management so that responsibility is still yours.

Quote: Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

Quote: Originally Posted by X Tigercat X

Quote: Originally Posted by DarkSpirit

Quote: Originally Posted by X Tigercat X ok so you have 1 disputable example of why to keep it the way it is but srsly IN MOST CASES you dont want them waiting on the skill and personnally i dont want my hero waiting for it to recharge no matter wat the skill or recharge. But they are not going to be waiting on the skill to recharge. Like I suggested, they should ignore the check mark when the skill is recharging, this means if the selected skill is recharging, they can use other skills first. When the skill has stopped recharging is when they should start to observe the check mark.

The check mark should only be cleared if the skill was successfully cast as per ordered, or if the user cancels it. And not suddenly disappear when interrupted.

but thats kind of pointless just micro it again if u still want it but i dont have time to uncheck to micro another skill. and yr way probably needs some more difficult coding to respond to different scernarios and has more flaws.

Quote: Originally Posted by X Tigercat X