Pets Break Enemy AI

[lMarcusl]

Since the latest patch is/was attempting to touch up monster AI, I thought it might be worth a try to highlight this little nugget. Probably not gonna surprise many people with this but just in case non-pet players are unaware…

Let’s take good ol’ Benny of the Jar as an example. We all know the pattern. He’ll cast wave ( “Hiiii!!”), he’ll get closer, he’ll do a stomp, then he summons his crystals. Now this is what it looks like when pets are involved:

2022 08 19 16 10 01

He just breaks, interrupting his casts by constantly switching targets. His stomp is about all he does, the crystals don’t trigger at all. I’ve seen similar behaviour with Grava, who’ll just sometimes motion to cast his dispell then never actually do it, Rashalga, who will sometimes not even trigger her red aura cause she’s too busy switching targets all the time, Gargabol phase 2 almost never does his volcanos etc. For some of these bosses it essentially turns off their best AoE abilities. Pets have it easy enough as is but this is just unfair to the poor monsters.

[arivus]

Interesting. Part of me thinks it’s the expected behavior due to the Briarthorn having more than 17/12 Ground Slam where it changes generate additional threat part into outright Taunt target, so each ground slam cast he cancels it cause of 2 Briarthorn. If there is only 1 Briarthorn, I think he will proceed to cast the skill. But I don’t remember him even canceling the trap skill. My hypothesis is if the ground slam was reduced to at max 16/12, those boss will use their skill again.

[lMarcusl]

Huh, never even noticed the threat changes to taunt…nor did I know there’s a difference between the two Either way, I’m not sure that’s the culprit. If you watch specifically for the moments when the Briathorns cast Ground Slam, it doesn’t always correspond with a change in behaviour. Both Ground Slams have been used at 0:19-0:20 but then Benny interrupts two of his animations from 0:21 to 0:22 when there is no more taunts present. So either it’s Generate Additional Threat causing this as well, or it has nothing to do with either and the AI just struggles when multiple targets are available.

[Retal_Abuser]

First time?

Retal_Abuser's Diviner Spellbinder vs. Ravager 2:03 kill

Diviner Spellbinder faces fixed enemy hitboxing in shards 75-76 ( go to 4:34 for fat Kaisan)

But it’s not like enemies’ AI is not broken in the first place, multiple occasions where monsters, especially bigger ones, fail to reach your hitbox and just run around like idiots.
It’s one of those really frustrating things in this game, but what can you do, devs tried to fix them multiple times, but the engine shows its age.

[lMarcusl]

Tnere’s a difference between enemies spazzing the fuck out when their route is blocked by NPCs and enemies standing perfectly in one place yet failing to execute abilities. One is a pathing issue, the other is not.