Another MA Flaw?

I've got a mission where I have a custom hero as an ally in a sewer map. I want him to stay put when I'm done defeating the enemies around him. Based on the tutorial etc., setting his actions to fighting defensive and doing nothing should cause him to stay where he is and fight only enemies that attack him. Unfortunately, he follows my player character anyway.

I originally had him set to "run to the nearest door" with an expectation that he'd leave, but of course that doesn't happen - he just runs around a corner and stays there, which makes no sense when the enemy's around.

I don't want him following the player character. He needs to stay alive to further the needs of the arc, and frankly, I don't want players getting irritated at an ally stealing their character's thunder. Anyone else have this problem? Is there a fix, or do I need to reset him to "run to the nearest door" and just live with it?

Thanks.

If you're referring to what I think you are, yes, Captain Needs a Map has some issues with getting lost. It's been a while since I played it, but I think the problem was that, as an ally, he would exhibit the usual Ally "stranded" behavior (stand there and do nothing) when he went out of ally range of the player.

Edit: Alright, did a quick test. Here is how ally behavior is working on the map I used (Steel Canyon outdoor, ally was pet-class Numina).

Non-Combat/Do nothing, Passive/Do nothing: Ally will stay put when rescued. If you lose them and then reacquire them, they will follow.

Non-Combat/wander, Passive/Wander: Ally will wander when rescued. If you lose and reacquire, they will follow.

Fight Defensive/Do nothing, Fight Defensive/wander: Ally will follow.

Aggressive/Do nothing, Aggressive/wander: Ally will do nothing or wander. If you lose and reacquire, ally will not follow (although I'm guessing they will become non-combatants if lost; see below)

Allies are automatically SSKd to the player's level upon rescue; they revert to their normal level (as decided by critter level/player difficulty settings) when lost.

Edit again: Tested with a custom ally, on a sewer map, got some slightly different behavior:

Aggressive/Do nothing: ally will do nothing. If lost and reacquired, ally will follow.

Passive/wander, Non-combat/wander: ally will wander. If lost and reaquired, ally will resume wandering.

Considering I got different ally behaviors on different maps, my conclusion is that it's seriously whacked. However the explanation for "defensive" allies always following sounds likely, so that behavior may be consistent.

So Dalghryn, try setting your guy to Aggressive/wander and see how that works.

Thanks, Eva. This problem makes me wonder if it's an accidental bork or, like Carnifax suggested, a deliberate change that's not working correctly. In either case, it's really becoming annoying that creators that aren't deliberately exploiting or setting up farms are having so many of their options limited by the actions of those that do.

Yeah, this is annoying and another way that farmers affect everyone else. I used to have a guy at the front door who gives you a clue when you free him but he's supposed to wait and guard the door, not follow you around. I also have an escort who is affected too as she will not exit the map no matter what the setting, once you get to the door she counts as "objective completed" but keeps following you anyway.

I think the escort thing is just a bug. It's cropped up from time to time in dev-created missions as well. One thing I've noticed is that allies who aren't supposed to follow (and escorts who won't leave too, although I admittedly haven't run into many lately as MA authors tend to use them sparingly) are better at following than the ones who are actually supposed to follow.

The Escorts used to work properly, it was broken sometime during issue 15.

Its really a mess, and its greatly annoying that you cannot have an Ally or Captive do what you want him to. If that is done on purpose, I find it outright rude to ignore the setting we choose, and have us try and test something over and over again to find we cannot have someone stand somewhere that JUST gives you a clue. Because someone thinks ignoring the settings would be a clever way to annoy some farmers.

Seriously. If you want to disallow everything that anybody ever used for farming, you can shut down AE as a whole just as well. You cannot tell a story or do something exciting if there have to be exactly 3-minions-and-1-Ltd standard enemy spawns over the place and either exactly one non-custom boss fight or 3 collectibles in a mission period because everything else could be a farming exploit.

I also sincerely hope that they have different code for the AE missions and the normal missions so whatever they do to the AE doesnt mess up the normal play.

This really pisses me off. One of the main mechanical tricks of my arc The Audition relies on rescued Ally objectives just staying where the are and repeating one animation. At present, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. If the damn MA tells us that's what they'll do, they should do it. The Devs should find another way to stop the farmers exploiting, not screw the storytellers every time.

Eco.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."