Flagging issues and Ranged Hero issues

I'm having two problems after the latest update.

The first is where casters or any ranged heros are attacking at point blank range. This was only a problem I had with Zhed for years so I stopped using him. Now it's all of them.

The second is that heros are ignoring repeated attempts to flag them away from combat and instead are balling up and holding position. Anyone else experience this?

I see that aslo and my melee is chasing guys halfway across the map even though I did not target them and am pinging someone else

Yes my ele's were suddenly jabbing foes with the ends of their staffs, well they are not now had to resort to the Guard setting.

I wonder if this has anything to with my Question in the Explorer's forum I was definately working around issues with my Fighters kiting; and even though I keep my Casters set to guard, my Cynn Merc Clone keeps getting killed, and yes she's right down in the Kitchen with the Fighters when she does, and yes I have notice the whole crew is less than responsive when I set a flag and try to pull them out; I'm not quite sure if it's a abnormal level of Stickyness; but I concur with that one too.

I for one don't think your Imagining it? I have no Idea if it has to do with the latest Patch; but I know I did patch yesterday because my firewall always flags it.
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Yes! My Merc Healers been on Vacation all day. Flagged her right over my dead body (Literally) and she just stood there till the melee ended; then finally thought to Rez, and she's set on Dove; so it's not like she was fighting. So Yes I think thats on point too. BB.

I have been having similar problems myself. Koss and Melonni standing directly in front of a foe and doing just that...standing there. They only fought when I actually had to "call" the target foe they were standing in front of. A couple of other issues with these 2 heroes specifically are them appearing to be body-blocked by a foe and not following me, further not even moving away from that foe even when I flagged them over to where I was standing. They only moved when I ran right up to them. 3rd and final is again with these heroes..they are not responding when in battle I am repeatedly calling a target foe. If that hasn't been bad enough, it has also gone to the other end of the spectrum...with my tank heroes flagged well out of the aggro of foes they were still running in to fight. I also have noticed that the foes are acting strange too...I can run right into them and they just stand there without fighting. So yes, something is definitely amiss with the AI over the past few days.

Heroes are balling? That sounds pretty ideal to me... Just change your play style to suit.

They ball and hold position if you flag them to an illegal position, like the side of a mountain or a tiny crevasse near a wall. I haven't noticed my entire group freeze on me, unless they are sitting in Savannah Heat or similar.

I have noticed individual casters leeroying into groups. Caster heroes seem to be getting locked on aggro and refuse to move or obey flags temporarily. I first noticed this on Gwen during WoC. At one point, I had Norgu leeroy into a group and become non-responsive to flags, which worked out terribly for him. Haven't seen little or any of this behavior before recent updates.

It's not so ideal for me tbh.

The two monks I have are set to avoid combat while the other ranged heros are set to guard. As a war I naturally always move into aggro range. The heros, even though flagged away, head in with me. Whether it's my play style or not, the game isn't responding accordingly. I can have my heros flagged well back from where I am and even if I choose to move away from combat, the heros will stay in combat going toe to toe with mobs. Meanwhile their flag is nowhere near the place they're currently fighting. Attempting to move the flag has little to no effect at times either.

Now sometimes the heros win, but it doesn't change the fact that I didn't want them to be where they were in the first place.

I've also experienced the issue today with monks standing over myself or dead heros and having to be controlled to res them or myself.

EDIT: Also wanted to clarify that my situation with flagging was in an open area. No walls on any side.

I've been noticing some "weird stuff" with the AI in general, but thought I was just nuts and imagioning it or something (maybe I am, who knows). Melee AI both for heros AND foes seems to be very...strange. They will run back and forth aimlessly for a while before finally locking onto a target. Then when they do lock on, they will just stand there for a while. Its really noticable when I'm playing my war or derv...I seem to have to chase foes (especially melee foes) around much more than I used to (in NM).

My rit heros are acting pretty strangely too. Just a few minutes ago I was doing one of the Kaineng quests on my war, and when I entered combat, I watched Xandra run all the way back to where she had previously casted her spirits, then run back to us, casting her new spirits too far back to be in range of the foes.

Heros holding a bundle will run into the mob like a kamakazi.

Heros sometimes just...stop following me, or even run back, falling WAY behind.

A friend and I were doing the z bounty today and saw firsthand the heros totally ignoring flag/calling commands.

Maybe I'm just imagioning most of it, but something definitely seems to be up with AI.

I had my Gwen die on me just now in a weird way that seems related to these issues.

I just finished off a mob, but a huge nest of rit spirits got left behind. I was feeling too lazy to kill them, so I just flagged my heroes way way back (2-3 aggro ranges) and joined them there to wait for the spirits to pass away. Gwen didn't join them, she stayed behind to wand the spirits, a 5 or 6 vs. 1 battle that she didn't win.

I used the 'all' flag, there was no separate flag out for Gwen (there couldn't have been, she was hero #5) and there was nothing blocking her.

Heroes have definitely been acting different.

First of all, they talk too much. Something ramped up the frequency of their chatter and it clogs up the screen when 3 or 4 of them decide to "talk" at the same time.

My SoS Resto Rit is a coward. He consistently runs away from battle even when PwK is disabled, which is 100% of the time now. If the poor thing remembers to cast his spirits, he does so where they are out of range of enemies.

Any hero with a healing spell on their bar is giving priority to (a) minions or (b) another hero with a healing spell. That's always been the case, but now they seem more suicidal than usual.

Flags are a suggestion to the hero AI. They will flat out ignore a party flag if they become aware of a minion that needs to be healed or a spirit that needs to be hit with Death Nova. But try to flag them away from a chasing mob of Hydras in Hard Mode and they will stay nicely clumped together. I doubt that that can be fixed though.

I noticed that too.

I can't say I've noticed that, but I have had 2 occasions where no one was making any attempt to rez me, even though 4 heroes had a rez available, and nothing was inhibiting them. First time it happened, I 'micro'd one of them. Second time, I decided to just see how it would play out. It took almost 30 seconds until Xandra rezzed me after the enemy she was casting at died. On both occasions, I was the only dead party member. Just plain weird.

Yeah, noticed that too. In fact, once when I started a fight, I noticed the minions I was hoping to put in the way of the melee opposition ran the opposite way. They were following Olias who felt he needed to cast something on a spirit behind us, left over from a previous battle, almost out of radar range. More plain weird.

I'm actually not sure if this is a change or something I've never noticed before, but it seems to me that healer heroes used to heal pets, didn't they? I'm reasonably sure I've seen my ranger's pet get healed, or have enchantments cast on him. But today, I was running with a friend who was on her ranger, with a pet. We were using my heroes. I had to start forcing my monk to heal the pet, even when no other party member was taking damage. It was like the monk didn't know the pet existed. I'm wondering, after reading this thread, if he was busy trying to heal the necro's minions and ignoring the pet. Is this new behavior, or have they always been this way and I've never realized it?

Definately, I'll rez Ice Tooth so thats about 10-15% on the Hit Bar and if Alesia's near by she will heal him the rest of the way; but I do believe the pet is very low on the AI's priority list; which may be why you can't be sure.

BTW: So long as I'm posting - I've noticed the racheting up of the NPC chatter too. Sometimes the screen looks like a old school comic with all the speach bubbles.
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Definately noticed this too. All heros using chat all at once.

I'm also experiencing heros jumping out of the wurms constantly. I know this was a problem before but now it's all the time. The only thing good about it is the wurms are a small part of the game. Dunkoro, Tahlkora and Olias are the main offenders.

Even my Mercs are chattering like Mag Pies, it's not just the Cookie cutter heros. Bb. (Jason BTW Great Avatar!!)

Hope someone at A-Net Notices this thread.

About the chattering heroes... I just stood in the Ran Musu Gardens for a few minutes, talking in guildchat for a bit, and I noticed even the henchies in town have gone nuts. There are 6 henchmen over there, and they're filling the screen near the outpost exit with their sollicitations. If a player advertised at that rate he'd be muted for spamming.

Edit: see them at work!

Good screenshot! Perfectly captures the chatter spam issue.

I was vanquishing in the Crystal Desert yesterday and all the Hero chatter made it a bit difficult to see the light sequences of various transporters.

I've also noticed that the chatter of Nightfall Heroes and Xandra is some of the longest and largest and it rarely varies.

Oh good, my guildies and I have been joking about this for days...and it's driving us nuts. The incessant chattering is obnoxious enough, but if you're not moving or fighting for a few minutes they will also spontaneously break into dance and/or playing musical instruments.

I've also noticed the odd Leeroying into mobs by the spellcasters/healers. All the heroes got a frontal lobotomy with that last Hero AI update???

Another irritating anecdote.

I was just helping a guildie doing Finding Jinai, and we were doing fine. Two people, 6 heroes, all of them flagged in a good position, all of them set to 'guard'. Suddenly Olias dies, and we notice his corpse far, far away from the rest of us, among a crowd of enemies. Apparently, he noticed Jinnai who was auto-rezzing/dying while slowly approaching us and wanted to cast some healing spell on him. Bad enough, but next thing, Xandra takes off to rez Olias (who was almost 2 aggro circles away), rushing headlong into a horde of enemies. Down two important heroes, we wiped in the next 15 seconds. Ouch.

Ok, so maybe I should start microing hero res skills, but if I have to micro their healing as well, that's going to be insane.