I have no problems getting my ladies into melee range. A quick move command and they're all set. I personally prefer to hide them around a corner in aggressive mode and lure mobs towards them.
The only issue I've found is that sometimes with three zombies in front of a mob sometimes my skellington won't quite reach broadsword range. This is remedied by ordering your henchpersons to move behind the mob you want them to attack. This seems to encourage them to circle it nicely.
Nowt wrong with th AI manily lots wrong with various MMs people seem to think that the AI should do all the work while they stay safe.
People lack control, no doubt! And tactics (not the powerpool :P) It's nutts how people just rush in, do that and you die or end up with 2 or 3 groups on your tail....
The stay and goto commands are so important as MM (and yes, sometimes pet's don't do as they are told, but they have a mind of their own... well.. my undeads shouldn't.. and.. bots shouldn't... but.. anywho!)
Go train people 
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Nowt wrong with th AI manily lots wrong with various MMs people seem to think that the AI should do all the work while they stay safe.
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Exactly. Minions are supposed to be a bit dim. You boss em around. Generally I've to order the zombies & knights into close combat or some will stick to ranged. But thats good practice anyway as it lets you bunch them up for heals (provided you're not fighting AOE-ers of course...)
You'd think the Mastermind bit in the name would give people a clue 
I've noticed a bit of a delay between issuing an order and them responding, around 1-2 seconds which can be annoying when they go after runners. But they are zombies in fairness. And as long as I'm paying attention its no problem.
The only part of AI I have problems with is the pets ability to ignore it. Passive and stay there. Trot round the corner only to see my pets launch an attack against the baddies in the next room.
I saw a great example of this tonight, with an MM whose pets were aggroing vast mobs the minute we set eyes on them, long before the team was ready and it caused a couple of faceplants.
A couple of comments were made over chat that the pets needed to be kept in hand and his response was to turn them to passive and leave them that way for the rest of the mission, moaning the whole time that his END was out, because he was having to do all the attacking himself.
I made mention of the advanced binds, (which make my Ninja an absolute godsend for me), and he answered "They're on passive now, so don't complain."
So his answer to agro was, effectively, to switch off his pets.
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I saw a great example of this tonight, with an MM whose pets were aggroing vast mobs the minute we set eyes on them, long before the team was ready and it caused a couple of faceplants.
A couple of comments were made over chat that the pets needed to be kept in hand and his response was to turn them to passive and leave them that way for the rest of the mission, moaning the whole time that his END was out, because he was having to do all the attacking himself.
I made mention of the advanced binds, (which make my Ninja an absolute godsend for me), and he answered "They're on passive now, so don't complain."
So his answer to agro was, effectively, to switch off his pets.
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ROFLAMO!!
What a sad git... sorry to say.. but why didn't you kick him from the team ?? A MM not using his pets, is worthless! :P
Thats like my scrapper with his broadsword :S
Anyway, I sometimes have trouble with my Protector Bot not being able to jump over a 2-m fence, or them running around in circles, thus not being able to attack. Other than that, I have them fairly well under control. Popping up traps, then pulling an enemy which gets ambushed by 4 angry robots, NOTHING can beat that.
Got to say I would like better control without the idiot droids running off after who knows what
I would like formation commands and guard commands would also be nice.
As the majority of my firepower is tied to the droids its a little frustrating when you dont have more control options.
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Personally I can make my Ninja do what the hell I want, including stay solely at range and fire bows for the entire combat.
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I only know how to get them to melee, which is to set them to scout in the center of the mob and not use attack command. I'd REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY like to know how you keep them ranged, I could use it right about now. 
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All I have to say is get advanced pet commands (I again bow to whomsoever wrote them).
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Link?
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Link?
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The Mastermind Index is at the top of the Mastermind page.
In it you'll find a link to the Master Mind keypad binds which is what I use, although others may use other systems.
By day two of my MM I was feeling a bit awe struck, trying to control my two Genin and thinking "what's this going to be like when I have six pets?" Then I found the mappings and it's all going swimmingly so far, on the verge of adding my fourth pet.
I use the text-file version of the mappings, by the way.
I concur on this - the mastermind binds are a godsend - it has made it sooooo much easier to control the various henchmen and actually make them do what i want ... well, most of the time, except for Robot#2 who seems to want to engage the enemy in fisticuffs at the earliest possible convenience
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I concur on this - the mastermind binds are a godsend - it has made it sooooo much easier to control the various henchmen and actually make them do what i want ... well, most of the time, except for Robot#2 who seems to want to engage the enemy in fisticuffs at the earliest possible convenience
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Yes.... One of my drone bots seems to like running up to the mob, take one pot shot and promtply face plant. Cant seem to do much to stop it happening, so often I do missions with 2 drones.
PS: I have named this bot Deathwish and is quite funny to watch.
PPS: If any Dev's are reading this, please hire someone other than a 5 year old to write your AI code. Mind you many 5 year olds could probably write a better AI than the ones found on COV/COH.
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PPS: If any Dev's are reading this, please hire someone other than a 5 year old to write your AI code. Mind you many 5 year olds could probably write a better AI than the ones found on COV/COH.
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Ah yes - the old ploy with insulting the work of someone and then asking them to do fix it
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Link?
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Second section down, posted by Master Zaprobo. I've found them very useful.
"Maybe in the end, what makes heroes into heroes...is that we're just too stupid to quit."
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Personally I can make my Ninja do what the hell I want, including stay solely at range and fire bows for the entire combat.
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I only know how to get them to melee, which is to set them to scout in the center of the mob and not use attack command. I'd REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY like to know how you keep them ranged, I could use it right about now.
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Making Ninja stay at range is a button tapping trick. I found it really easy when I only had 2 genin and 1 jounin. now I have the full compliment its a little tougher and usually results in one running forward then running back.
You need the advanced pet binds to do this. Order all pets to passive stance. Move to long range so the henchmen will utilise their snap shot/aimed shots/poison dart and then hit..attack my target....followed by...follow me. This results in them firing arrows (which they always do if you order attack while at long range) and the immediately going back to a passive stance. If you do this in a kind of rhythm you will find they do nothing but stand and fire.
To make them stand and solely fire arrows takes a bit of rhythm but you will find it if you try, what sometimes happens is one will run forward a bit and then run back, and the rest all pepper your target. Its harder with ALL pets. Try it.
lol, i think the type of pets you have chosen depicts whether or not there hard to control. I went Necro, i dont mind controlling my lich/GK's but the zombies are complete muppets! I swear if you get one second of lag and the mob your attacking has started to run its a complete joke, i have been spamming heel (ahead of time trying to predict the mobs actions) only to watch my zombies follow the mob off a ledge into a whole group or more of other mobs and then come crawling back dragging them with them. Whilst on the other hand my GK's (whether they were in melee or ranged stances) seem to react sooooo much faster.
In short i love my GK's and lich but hate my zombies, only problem is i NEED all of them. Some of us don't like or dont want to have to use /bind commands which are 260 characters long. These choices SHOULD be in the options/keymapping section and there not. This should be patched.
Your right, the ability to create a keymapping for pet control should be in the keymapping section of options. BUT
for all those who haven't got round to setting it up yet, its VERY VERY easy. All you do is copy and paste 5 different bind commands into your chat bar and then do a bind_save. All the leg work has been done for you. You dont have to input a 80 character long bind command with the keyboard...capy and paste is your friend.
One thing I've noticed with the pets and especially since I started using the key tapping to force ranged. This is in a fully lag free mission too. The pets seem to go through stages of commands before acting on new orders...so for example.
I can hit 'attack my target' while im at range and all my pets will fire except one who will run at the mob. Now even though I pretty much instantly hit follow he will almost always get all the way up to the mob before turning back. Its like the whole sequence is broken into sections for him and he doesnt heed the 'follow me' part until hes completed the section hes on which is 'get to the mob'. Gods knows if its just a coding thing.
If you can work in an extra mouse click, Jack, try using Go-To... it seems to instantly override the existing commands, so you can haul back that genin who's on the track team and stop him from playing "tag" with the target.
I often find myself going 7-8-7-8-7-8-9-click-7-8
I wish the stay command mixed with attack my target to produce a line at which we will fight. I'd feel all Henry V, surrounded by archers.
King Henry had a big battle in a cave, against Hordelings that isn't in many history texts.
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If you can work in an extra mouse click, Jack, try using Go-To... it seems to instantly override the existing commands, so you can haul back that genin who's on the track team and stop him from playing "tag" with the target.
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I'll give that a shot, I had dismissed it previously as probably not being plausible. Thanks.
Just set up the numpad binds for my robots MM. Very good. Kudos to Master Zaprobo, the master mastermind.
UNION @Flitz 50, Lead Hose 50, Red Rag 50
DEFIANT Rose Bloodthorn 34
VIGILANCE Captain Caledonia 20 - Yeah, I made toons on the French server coz we only had 4 back then (might have to transfer/recreate them on one of the US servers)
..and many more!
Dont know how every one esle plays there MM but when ina mision im am constantly issueing commnads like every few seconds. This seems to keep them under firm control so they only attack and agro what I tell them to.
I think with some MM out there they think one or two button presses and they can sit back and read a magazine while the pets do the work.
Devise a key bind set your happy with or a set of commnads in the tary your happy with then you can make the pets eat outta your hand if you wish.
So far I've been using Mercenaries, which has, to my perspective anyway, been easy as pie. The soldiers can't melee full stop, and the Spec Ops man only tonks people round the head (which is hilarious) when they come to him. I'm kind of worried about using any other pets, it sounds like they'll be truculent, contrary little gits.
Chairman of the Charity of Pain; accepting donations of blood and guts.
Prophet of the Creamy Truth; "If it's empty, fill it with cream."
Your right. I find myself in a constant state of keypad clicking, but then I use passive stance so I need to keep reapplying targets. I find its the best way (despite momentary downtimes) to ensure your pet does what you need.
For a while when I had like only about 4 pets I used to split attack a lot sending genin on one target and jounin on another. Now Im full petted I find that I focus all the time on one. Im trying to break the cycle somewhat as its a waste of my Oni's control powers.
Though I find that when I set pets on different targets by the time Ive got my 3rd pet on the go the first has killed its target and then this runaway train keypad press beings. At least all. passive...attack X repeat and rinse is consistent.
I keep seeing this appear in various threads, mainly on the US boards though to be fair.
Constant shouts of how the AI needs changing to this or that because the henchmen dont do certain attacks or won't go into melee rather when they want them to (obviously Ninja and Undead).
What are people's experiences here ? I'bve noticed these boards are somewhat more moderate than the US ones.
Personally I can make my Ninja do what the hell I want, including stay solely at range and fire bows for the entire combat. I have no issues at all with making them melee, making them stay at range or making the Oni cone crit whole mobs.
All I have to say is get advanced pet commands (I again bow to whomsoever wrote them).
Thoughts anyone ?