Mob AI- RUN AWAY!

Flying enemies have been running away a lot lately, without taking damage even. Longbow Eagles or Wing Raiders will fly far away, then come back, only to fly far away again.

I've had that issue with Longbow Eagles ever since I started encountering them, which was long before Freedom. Their attack AI seems to involve shooting you from afar, coming close for an attack or two, then darting away again, then coming close again, and so on.

They're really annoying for my Brutes, because not even Taunting them makes them stay close.

Longbow Eagles have a power called [Positioning] specifically designed to keep them fighting at a distance. It pops a 100 mag fear on them when they get within melee range of an enemy. A few other critters have it as well, like many members of The Cabal.

I fought, all alone, Diabolique ( Archvillain level 52 ) yesterday and after a couple of hit she toke fly and flee, this happened duiring the whole fight, she was constantly of the run ( fly and speed boost ), usually hiding too somewhere on top of the map.
100% boring

OK this is really frustrating. On the 2nd mission of the final or 6th DA arc, I am required to fight Tub Ci. He is surrounded by 5 or 6 Ancestor Spirits. He cannot be harmed till these spirits are defeted.

Problem is that this is the 2nd time I started to fight when all the Ancestor Spirits take off. The room is so dark its hard to find them. I search the whole map and can't find the last one so I am required to drop the mission and restart the arc.

I really don't have a problem with running mobs if they at least return to their spawn point. But I don't think it's right to search the whole map just to complete a mission because of a running then hidden mob.

On the last few ITFs I've run, the AVs are all running around relatively quickly.

Today, I pulled Requiem and Rom with a Stalker, using melee attacks. I jumped up on the platform and hit them both, and hopped down to the computer. They followed me. I managed to land an AS on Requiem, and he immediately tried to flee. The initial hit and the AS were the only attacks on him. Likewise with Romulus. The initial hit to pull him, and then a Crushing Uppercut when we were on lower ground.

The same happened with the Nictus version. After only a few hits from my Stalker, and our Scrapper, he began running. He quickly did an about-face and got pummeled by the team, but after his first rez, he began running away all over the platform after the initial 2-3 hits.

I noticed the same behaviour two days ago on another ITF, except the first instance of Romulus didn't attempt to flee, but Requiem ran like he was on fire. My attacks were the only ones that landed, as the rest of the team was fighting the computer at the time. Nictus-Rom also tried to run. On this TF, it was the same issue... running away almost immediately.

In the other few runs I've done in the last week, they did run, but did so when their health was much lower. In the incidents where they fled immediately, the team lacked Tankers/Brutes, which led a teammate to theorize that there was no taunting mechanism keeping them reined in. In the incidents where they fled after much more damage had been dealt, we had a Tanker or a Brute... so I am wondering if the teammate was correct.

Anecdotal as it may be, I had seldom seen these particular AVs attempt to flee, even when the teams had no taunt, or damaged them far more quickly.

Thank you, Champion.

This is perhaps the one thing stopping me from playing a rad/rad and the second from playing rad/sonic (sonic noises make me queasy). Oh look, my anchor decided to just up and run away and I have no means to slow him down right now or even at all.

I'm actually looking forward to getting my VEAT up to crab and mace mastery just for some aoe immobs that will ground the target. Even Web Grenade from */Dev or */Traps is supremely useful because of these shennanigans.

Quite frankly I'm getting sick of the enemy AI. Often times without damaging enemies or using any kind of power on them, they will take off running as soon as I aggro them. And there are times when an ambush will spawn, get halfway to me from their spawn point, then suddenly turn and run in the opposite direction back to their spawn point.

And it's really annoying when an enemy takes off like a bat out of hell super fast and keeps on running. Such as villain Mu enemies, longbow eagles, and others.

Further frustration: Mastermind bots. Gets so friggen annoying when enemies take off running upon aggro and my bots go chasing after them being pulled into other enemy groups and having too much aggro. And of course, the pet AI stinks as well. I can tell them to "follow me" but they insist on chasing them halfway through the map. Even sometimes when I tell them to "heel" they continue to chase.

Considering this thread was started 4 years ago and it hasn't been fixed yet, I doubt it ever will.

So is there fix in the works or something? It is really starting to take the joy out of the game. I mean, it's been over two years at least. I wouldnt mind so much if it was here and there, for a purpose or something but mobs at higher con level, nowhere near death taking off, sometimes two at a time, kind of take the honor out of killing them. Not to mention having to chase at least one mob across the map, or wait 3-5 min per group(no exaggeration I timed it and sometimes it's longer as somethimes they go so far that they just take their sweet time strolling back.) for that one to return is a bit annoying and unneedingly tedious.
I'm talking about mainly on mission maps but I've noticed this behavior on the streets as well. What's the point of even spawning three mobs if one is all but guranteed to flee? Might as well spawn just two.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

I seem to remember this was a change that happened way back in i8 or i9 as a result of players wanting the mob AI to be a bit more dynamic and not just stand there being hit. I've always thought it was a bit cheap, and far more irritating than challenging. In fact it seems to have been made a whole lot worse between when I left in i13 and when I came back to the game a couple of weeks ago.

An alternative mechanic to this needs to be implemented, because right now it's just not Fun(tm)

Mobs running away is cool because you won't have as much damage cause hes running away

Was anything changed, maybe by mistake, during the last patch?

Yesterday I was part of a Summer Event team and the AVs would not stop running, they barely even stopped running to attack. It came to the point where they were jumping on the boxes to the supporting beams by the ceiling and we had to follow them.

Then, I joined a different team (of 4 as well, including me) to fight the Kraken in Perez Park... same thing. Started running all over the place, got on top of the trees and had to follow it all over the place.

I believe I understand what this mechanic is for... if there's a bunch of minions, someone nukes the group and one of them is left standing, then by all means... run away!

But when a team of 4 (lvl 29 for the event, and lvl 44 for the Kraken) are fighting AVs and Monsters, they shouldn't start running all over the place when have barely even put some damage on them.

Happened again last night.

Logged in to Sharkhead to find 3 other players engaging the Ghost of Scrapyard. I figured I'd jump in and help.

He started running all over the place, jumping from the docks onto ships.

I was on my Dual Pistols/Time Corruptor, and kept wasting Distortion Field because after the cast time was over, he was already too far away for it to have any effect on him.