Annoying foe runaway AI in HD video

I would also like to mention Ghost of Scrapyard, it's not an exaggeration to say that he spends more time running than fighting, seemingly regardless of who or what is attacking him.

Now maybe it's by design, I'm not sure...maybe he's trying to "stick it to the man". But whatever the reasoning might be, I can't in good conscience call it good design, particularly when he spawns on the docks and is precariously close to either the Arbiter Drones or the black market. It's kind of pot luck whether he'll run towards them and insta-kill himself or run away from them, and missing credit for merits/badges that way is more than a little frustrating.

Would it break a boss/EB/AV to make them so they don't run from you? And still give up their aggro at some point? Because it's kind of lame when you're fighting this big bad guy and he runs from you. No matter how much you're beating on him, it's still lame.

I dunno, if there were something more to the AI to make this running cool, I'd be all for it. As is, it just kind of happens: and sometimes when mobs are at full health and there isn't anything to justify it.

Is there any hope of having this behavior tuned for AVs and/or (Giant) Monsters? I find it completely ludicrous the way some of these entities run. I mean nearly the entire fight is just them being chased down like dogs. The only ways to turn that around is to get someone who actually can taunt them (directly or via gauntlet effects) or, in the case of AVs, to immobilize them.

Two entities that are notorious for this behavior are Deathsurge and The Ghost of Scrapyard. This is exacerbated by the fact that there are copious terrain height variations in the places they spawn, which they bound up and down across with ludicrous grace. I've had face-offs with both entities where we were worried we wouldn't be able to overcome their HP regen, because their Donkey Kong antics were slashing our applied DPS - they can leap and bound at will, leaving players behind as they root to attack and then suffer travel power suppression.

I find Scrapyard's behavior especially immersion shattering, since he proclaims how he's going to "kick ***" and then proceeds to run like a headless chicken.

I did not notice this until I teamed with an Illusion controller who like to use confuse... Don't get me wrong, normally I like confuse, but now its like a single target version of the old fear powers. The confused mob may take one shot at his former ally before taking off for the hills. Very annoying.

The running AI makes it really unsatisfying to play some breeds of scrapper/stalker (that don't have a taunt aura)

Back when SR was rolled out to brutes I made a fire/sr brute and scrapper.

They played similarly the first few levels, but around the SO level when the brute had evasion, and gauntlet scaled up, and the scrapper got buildup. one of them became rather unfun to play.

Which? The scrapper, no taunt, high burst damage from the SO+BU'd fire sword circle ... if I was lucky I'd get one runner or so, unlucky and half the group would split off.

The brute, while definitely a tough road to take - having gauntlet and a taunt aura on a pure offense/defense armor set, it was much more satisfying to have enemies stick around and fight.

Another random project I started at the time was a Dual Blade/Fire Armor scrapper, its combo based debuffs, DoTs and blazing aura (DoT only, taunt effect removed) sent entire groups running off so often that I just had to delete the character.

Well that explains why my Level 50 tank scatters Hellion and Skull mobs in Perez when I one punch one of the minions.

The only major "running away" behavior that I've seen since GR involves ambushes. Time after time, my buddies an I trigger an ambush, but just before they reach us, all but one of the enemies turns and runs away, presumable to their spawn point.