Watch your henchies and heros aggro

All the talk on the forums bout AI bugs got me to thinking...I dont think its so much a AI bug as it is a aggro bubble problem.

I noticed recently that it appears that henchmen and heros have an unseen aggro bubble around them. Take Koss for example. He has got to be one of the slowest heros ive seen so far. I am constantly having to stop and wait for him to catch up and if we are runnign from a mob and he lags behind..well if I were to draw an agro circle the same size as mine around koss I find that the enemey are actually just inside his invisiable circle thus causing them to continue chases me and my team down. Also minions seem to like to spread out and attack anything red in the minima no matter how far away it is. This dont happen if live player is controling the minions..but seems to happen quite frequently if I am using Olias or Master of Whispers.

Anyhow...it appears at least to me that our heros and henchies have their own aggro cicle that sometimes extends beyond the one we seee of ourselves on screen..and could be the cause of the current AI problems players are reporting. If we coudl see the bubbles aorund the heros and henchies..I think it could help solve some of the AI issues

Everything has an aggro bubble, including those always-annoying NPCs that you can't control, but have to keep alive.

Henchman and hero aggro has nothing to do with mass zone aggro or cross map charges. While many people might be mistaking some of the other behaviors as bugs when in fact it is just henchman aggro the majority of complaints these days are about mass aggro and cross map rushes which have nothing to do with aggro bubbles.

yeah pretty much as Str0b0 said... Even out alone I get charged or followed all the way across the map.

Yeah Henchies have always had their own aggro bubble so you have to wait for them if you're running/sneaking around or they will cut a corner and pull the baddies. The current ai 'update' that makes your own hero's/hench kite sometimes without regard to what they aggro is new though.

The aggro is working as Anet intended. As far as I can tell, if the enemies can see you from a distance from where you can see them with the CTRL key, then they'll be aggroed if they've been previously aggroed. My alliance members have coined this, 'perma-aggro'. I can't pin down a date but I've noticed the AI acting like this in Tomb of Primeval Kings at least, ever since the BWE of Factions.

What we need to do is figure out how it works. I say this because after my party got wiped (only myself and Talkora survived) by Josinq the Whisperer's mob in Resplendent Makuun, the mob was perma-aggroed onto me, but not Talkora even though she was in the fight with us. She had not died during it and so I can't say that her death and then rez would have broken the aggro on her, but she had been set to Passive mode as she uses a cleaver in her right hand for the enchant handle on it.

I was able to send her in and rebirth the group that were all pretty close to the mob, well maybe 100-150 ft. None of the npc's aggroed the mob as I'd set the party flag near me out of 'sight' of the mob. Yet as soon as I stepped into range of CTRL sight of the mob they all came running.

I had the strangest hero AI bug.

JIn, for some unknown reason decided to suicide into a group of enemies at least 2-3 agro bubbles away from me and my henchman. She didn't even stop to use her bow, just charged in as if to strangle one of them with her bare hands. I had no flags down, but when I noticed her charging across the screen I put both the 'all' flag and her flag down next to me yet they seemed to have no effect.

This only happened once since I've been playing so I assumed Jin was having pms, and moved on.

the fact that henchies kite into other groups of enemies IS an AI problem, you don't see me doing that do you?

Zhed loves to do that as well, I have noted, and he does it quite often. The most annoying instance of it was in the Grand Court mission.

Your right, this happens sometimes. But it is not a normal occurance which in my book would be deemed a bug. Heck that particular thing has been happening since long before they nerfed the book trick (I think it started right after the AoE nerf tbh - almost certain of it), and just because you can't see it, it doesn't mean that the agro is only that distance. We had a string of corpses and even though they were well beyond the control viewing function the enemies would come running from about two compass cirlces away to get the monk who was trying to rebirth. Basically it took us almost an hour to rebirth our group in FoW after an interesting spawn and odd agro of the second bone dragon that was nowhere near us. Like I said this was just after the AoE nerf and our first FoW run (since we didn't have favor we weren't about to give up).
So that particular oddity has been around for a while and doesn't effect every mob, but I wouldn't say its because the AI is working correctly by any means. IMO that is a bug since our string of corpses could watch the only standing monk and necro get agroed from that far away, WAAAAAY Long before they even knew it and could tell them on TS to run.

However its become more frequent in NF, I can be solo and out running (pics floating around somewhere) and I didn't stop to fight as I was just out exploring, but a monk guy followed me from one zone to the next... He never fired his weapon at me and even with my run skills and him off the map he continued to chase me.... I stopped to fight him once but being a monk and having no real atts in marks myself I said forget it and ran on in which he just followed like a henchie... That's not normal... Thats like a pug gone wrong or a moocher/bot set to auto follow... its ODD.

That is not entirely correct. There most definitely has been a change to the overall aggro system since just before NF was released.

I did and do a fair amount of solo green farming, so aggro bubbles and behavior are of paramount importance to me. It is true that once you aggro many groups, some of the critters seem to be able to "see" you at the Ctrl distance on the screen and come charging after you. This is not line of site. You can be on a different level, behind buildings, etc and they will still see you. Many of the mobs will "remember" you were there even if you go off and fight other critters for a half hour or more then return. However, if you die (or a complete party wipe) then suddenly the behavior returns to aggro-bubble distance again. Some of the new critters, such as Spotters, do seem to have radar sized aggro bubbles as well.

There may have been places where this was true before, but I did green farming in a lot of Cantha and I can assure you that behavior was not prevalent before the NF update. In fact I had "safe spots" in many of the zones I farmed where I knew no patrols would invade and I could alway outrun aggro before I got to those locations. Since that update many of those locations are no longer valid and mobs that would leave you alone after a short run, return to their original locations, and stay until you were within the aggro bubble no longer do that.

Some (or all) of this behavior may be working as intended. However, it seems unlikely that casters should have the speed of boosted warriors, rangers, and assassins without activating any skills. It also seems that they should return to their group after a reasonable amount of time -- not smart to chase someone by yourself if you are a squishie. I've used that tendency many times to separate casters from the rest of the group and take them out. It's a little time consuming but it's easier than taking on the whole group at once in some cases.

Whether it's good or bad is in they eye of the beholder I guess, but many of the changes don't seem very intelligent to me. If I were Anet, I think I'd be taking a hard look at these threads and at least respond soon - even if it's just to say that things will not be changed.

Well, that's when you noticed it. What I was just pointing out is that there were some places that used this more aggresive style of aggro system where in other places it was still what most of us consider 'normal'. Tombs of Primeval Kings was one of these places. I don't even know whether the b/p groups even noticed it as they simply mow down the waves as they come, but in a balanced group you certainly noticed the change, and that change happened quite some time ago. At least in Tombs and therefore perhaps other places, but it wasn't prevalent in most places.

I think Anet had their 'beta-test' of this aggro system in Tombs and have been running it since the Nightfall BWE.

It's not without it's bugs though. Why a mobs monk would follow you all the way across the map just to sit and chill there when you stop,...not attacking, not patrolling, just standing there and following you whenever you move is quite strange, and can be extremely irritating in some cases, like in Frozen Forest getting close to Ice Dome. You can detach all three Mark of Prot Monks from their mobs, and have them chill with you while you recoup from taking their mob on, but you'd better not have forgotten to bring a couple of disenchants or degens or you'll never get outta there.

Was about to create a new thread but I'll post this here instead as its all related to the AI and aggro.

This is really driving me crazy now ! When Nightfall came out I sighed in relief that they finally fixed the Henchman, they attacked what you targeted, didn't run off, and healed with competence. Now ever since one of the recent updates this has all gone out the window and Henchman are for the lack of a better word pathetic. Over the last week or so I've seen them stand still and do nothing while being attacked, run across to an area of a map then drag about 3 groups with them for no apparent reason (no left over waypoints) and they randomly attack any old target.

I've just had to sit here in Ventrilo listening to my friend venting his anger at the stupidity of his Henchman while trying to Cap an elite in the Frozen Forest. Its made even worse when the aggro bubble in some areas seems to be as big as the compass.

Thats fair enough if you had aggroed them but when your nowhere near and they start running at you its not extactly fair. I'm all for making the game more difficult but at least make the Henchman have common sense, is it really that much to ask?

I think you missed my point. Whether or not the current form of AI existed anywhere in the game is irrelevant. It was not prevalent throughout the game. It has been since the NF update. You are probably right. They may have been beta testing it in a few areas before changing the whole game over.

However, it appears as though the beta testing was not thorough, they rushed things to match with the NF release, or for some strange reason the new AI seems ok to them. I think we're all hoping for at least an official response so we know whether this is intended and permanent or buggy and being worked on.

I was mapping the southern shivers today and noticed that every Dolyak Master would follow me forever, through upwards of 4 or 5 radar lengths. Interestingly enough, none of the monsters that were linked to the Dolyak Master would follow - only the Dolyak Master itself.

I'm still figuring out some of the quirks of hench/hero AI also. Their scatter mechanism, for example, seems to be somewhat odd. They scattered from a single dual shot + ignite arrows (Avicara Fierce), but did not scatter from Searing Heat (Temple Guardian). Their flagging/waypoint mechanism is odd also. When you first put down the flag, they will cancel whatever they are doing and move to that exact location. After they reach that location, they pretty much disregard the flag if there are any enemies in the area, running up to an aggro length away from the flag. It is therefore pretty much impossible to get your heroes to stand still during a fight, which is pretty annoying if you've set up a bodyblock/nuke-ball. In many cases, they will also ignore target calls, even when the call is spammed.

This is part of the reason why I no longer pick Olias(mm) as often as I used to. His minions always end up aggroing groups of monsters due to their slow movement and whatever.

Rera - have you set the heroes to "defensive"? It stopped *most* of the times they run a long ways from the flag. If you click the "aggressive" button it even says they will chase a long ways.

Zhed was, by far, the worst about running way off. When set on aggressive (the default) I've had him run nearly off the whole radar to attack something. I do not have Souske but their AI should be the same. When set on defensive, he will sometimes run about 1.5 aggro bubbles to attack, but it is rare and that is manageable. It appears to me that it has something to do with how far they can damage - at the least ranged henchies seem to be the ones that have the furthest ring that they will wildly run off to attack something.

Another funny thing is with the kiting AI. I was taking my dervish through prophecies and was in "The Wilds" fighting some trolls. Supposedly they do notice that they are taking massive damage and try and run. Well, Ol Zhed was hitting the Searing Flames/glowing gaze thing pretty good and I had them bunched up with the scythe AoE attack and it triggered. They ran into a box canyon and continued to try and "run" into the wall. I stopped attacking and stood there watching them try and climb the walls - they wouldn't quit. I found that quite amusing, dang was my group scary or what I wish I had something installed where I could have taken a film of it, it was quite amusing.

I have noticed NPCs in general being slow. I started to watch mine after a while and realized that they seem to take a dozen steps, stop for a second, then run and repeat the process. After a while I'm way ahead of them. I wasn't sure if this was just my problem, but it seems others have it as well.

what strcpy said -- always set all of your heros to 'defensive' (or guard) instead of 'offensive'. It will keep them following your closer, and they break aggro usually when you do, and they won't rush off nearly as much.

The Master of whispers has been the worst hero for me. Setting him up has a curse necro is a real nightmare as he will always run off and aggro random mobs. That's why I always get Margrid now.

Setting modes isn't the issue here. Most people should realize almost immediately that 'aggressive' is a completely worthless setting.

The point is, your henchmen will stay within a general area of the waypoint flag, but this general area is *enormous*. I would much prefer if they would just ****ing stand still when I told them too.

Ever done the bonus of the mission Abaddon's Mouth in Tyria? Mrs Leah Stone is one slow chick, I can tell you that for sure. However, I rather find the NPC's are quicker nowadays, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking.

/Gwon

ive noticed a bug with npcs too
the healer in front of ascalon city where theres a few quests and a collector too, currently heals monsters if you bring them too close to her
its damn annoying when youre low level and she heals the devourers!

Lots of people never change it from the default setting and get pretty frustrated. In aggressive mode the will go a LONG ways, hence it *is* and issue - they shouldn't do that at an aggressive level either. It's an even bigger issue there.

Haven't had too much of an issue after I set it, maybe a time or two during the day. They need to be able to kite around and move from the flag *some*. IMO the bigger issue is that the long range attackers (essentially the squishies) go the furthest usually resulting in death. You can just flag them back a little further than what is needed (what I do) to keep them from running forward, no workaround to the casters flying forward to meet the enemy unless they are heroes and you flag them separately.

Hence why I said 'aggresive' is completely worthless. If people can't even figure that out I honestly don't know what to say.

Sometimes you don't want your heroes/henchmen moving at all, such as in the aforementioned bodybocking or ball setup. If I flag my henchmen, I expect them to stay there, or at least have the option of having them not move at all.

One of the main issues is that you can't control the 4 remaining henchmen at all beyond that one "order all henchmen and heroes" flag. They should either give us seperate flags for each of them, or just let us use 7 heroes.