Foes Fleeing...Enough Already!!!

Tonight I logged into Triumph blue side for the first time in a while.
Chose my tank (tech - WP/NRG, lvl 37) and selected a misson....
It was "Meet Joe Baker" from Neal Kendrick in Brickstown.
Entered mission (Abandonded_Warehouse_30_Layout_07_01 : a small map).

First off... foes were 33... ok, so its an old mish, I out-leveled it. Should be a snap to clean up, right?
Wrong.
Every foe I hit ran. Not only did he run, the Freaks with him ran.
They scattered to the ends of the map.
Then they got stuck.

What should have been a 5 minute milk run turned into a 25 minute "Find the Missing Freak" hunt.
I finally found the last flying Juicer Freak stuck up in the overhead rafters behind a corner cross-joint.

I know this is not a rare occurrence... it hits at all levels of play on all sizes of teams... this just happened to be an glaring example of code run wild.

So, please, to the Powers-that-be, rethink the AI code for Fleeing foes, and put an end to ridiculously fleeing foes.

VR-

I read the title too quickly and thought it was about me

and I could agree with you if it was limited to imbalanced levels.
However...
How many times have we seen even level and even +1 foes flee... and not just minions. It goes through all the ranks up to Bosses, and beyond!

While running a CoTs mish in Nerva, solo on a lvl 38 SOA (the Stop all Rituals mission, where Baphomet shows up... I forget the real name ) the EB lit out
for the coast when he got down to under 1/3 of his health... an Elite Boss for crying out loud! Which again, would not be so bad... if he had not got stuck on a rock... then one shot me when I got within melee range.

So its not really a chuck it all rant... just a... re-look at it.

I have to agree with the foes are too quick to run

I have a max level fire/fire tank. Been max level since I7-ish or there-abouts. I'm quite used to being an aggro magnet, and have been complimented by various avatars throughout the years with keeping their tails out of trouble, even after they did stupid things... like accidentally target a mob in the next room and bring in a horde of new enemies before the current mob was taken care of. I've gotten quite used to being complimented as the best fire tank some have ever played with, and being referred to as the best fire tank on the server. I've also gotten quite used to be referred to as the bloody debt magnet.

Ergo, it freaking TORQUES ME OFF when enemies run the other way. Seriously, a fire/fire tanker shouldn't be whining that enemies won't hang around. Yet, I've actually submitted /bug reports in game for enemies taking off and running away.... and no. My fire/fire does not have Burn... so no, it's not Burn sending them running.

It's even more annoying during task forces like ITF, where the elite bosses in the canyon will suddenly, for no reason, run the other way... no matter how much my tanks lay on the taunt and attacks.

Now, I really don't know what the conditions are for enemies to take off running and completely ignore taunt / gauntlet values... I am in agreement that these values should be examined... and changed.

But doesn't bait go into water?

Fleeing foes in general are annoying. Fleeing +4 AVs are ridiculous. I was on a team the other day and we were doing some missions with multiple AVs in them. In one mission we were fighting CoT and ran into a female AV (whose name slips my mind) who was already a pain in the backside due who her WAY too frequent phasing/force field power that left her "UNAFFECTED" every few seconds recovering HPs in that ridiculous AV fashion. It was difficult enough to begin with but then she started running back and forth across the map, half the time in a sped up fashion (siphon speed maybe?).

Yeah, the AI fleeing needs to be fixed. AVs are enough of a pain in the backside without it. Enemies in general should be a great deal less likely to run if they're higher level than you, and decreasingly likely for each successive enemy tier above minion.

And if they're going to retreat they should really retreat. Not run off and get half-absorbed into the architecture or come wandering back 5 minutes later.

How about fleeing Giant Monsters? Ghost of Scrapyard is one of the worst offenders in the irrational AI cowardice department.

What it seems to be, quite often, is when pretty much *any* sort of debuff hits them, they'll run. Cold, defense, tohit, whatever it is, it seems the second it touches them, some enemies will take off for the other side of the map. (Especially annoying in, say, a timed "Kill all war wolves" mission. You know how they like trees.)

Not all seem to do it, but it's frequent enough.

See my Guides and Tutorials

I realise this makes sense, but really - if anything should be sacrificed for the sake of engaging gameplay, running enemies should be around the top of the list. Altering Fear mechanics to make enemies cower instead of running away is probably one of the best things that could have happened to the game, and I seriously mean that. Running enemies are simply never, ever anything but downright irritating.

I could go with the idea of running enemies counting as defeated. Sure, let 'em run then. Their own fault for defeating themselves But I guarantee you that the day this is implemented, we'll all start levelling twice as fast. Or just DON'T let them run unless affected with an Avoid effect, and even then, make them run OUT OF what's causing them to avoid, NOT out of the fight, away from the area and clear across the map.

To be honest, I never understood why enemies treated Avoid effects like Afraid effects. If you suddenly find yourself standing in a patch of burning fire, you'll get the HELL out of it, sure. But will you start running like a chicken with your head cut off once you're out? Have enemies hit with Avoid effects move OUT of the effect, but NOT run any farther away. Interestingly, this should make avoid effects actually useful as a control method, since you could use larger avoid effects to herd enemies around.

Basically, the running away mechanic as we have it right now is half-*** and serves no purpose. Something needs to happen to it, even if turning it off has to be that thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

What bugs me is enemies that are like:

"A debuff?!?! I'm outta here!"

even if they are a +4 AV with full health. I mean, seriously.

If an NPC manages to miss a few times in a row and is taking repeated hits this will trigger the anti exploit code and go "This is a no win AHHHH!"

Interestingly, I just noticed that MY HENCHMEN don't seem to spaz out and run. Many times today, my Bots got hit with Immunes Engineer burn patches, but rather than than flip out and run across the map, they'd basically drop what they were doing, sidestep two feet away and keep on shooting like nothing happened.

I sincerely hope that's not aberrant behaviour!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

The WORST one I've had was freaking Nictus Romulous, not exactly a pansy by any means, take off running for the hills with Nictus in tow, every single time a debuff hit him he would go into 'FLEE!' mode.

Like, somehow, he'd just realised he'd left the oven on back home and thought, "screw this guys, I ain't burnin no muffin's I'm outta here you muffin-hatin' fools!"...