Annoying foe runaway AI in HD video

I set up an AE mission recently to attempt to solo Crimson as an AV in the WSPDR map(the one where you have to destroy all the generators) and the amount of running that guy did was annoying.

However chasing him onto several high ledges and fighting him there did make the entire battle feel pretty epic.

One more bug Castle if your still reading is the following. If you free a hostage and the hostage is being guarded by someone who summons a suedo-pet or a decoy phantasm, the hostage will not leave once freed unless the suedo pet despawns. In some cases this is bad because the hostage takes damage from the suedo pet until it despawns. Some hostages or helper npcs barely have hp to begin with but if they are sitting in caltrops for like 5 minutes they have almost none by the time it despawns allowing them to become free to follow you even though they been freed 5 minutes ago.

If they ran *away* it would be not so bad. Run though a door, out the map, gone. Defeats--

In GR, I have been having a problem with ambushes (of which there are a lot) where I see the entry balloons of "GO FORTH! SPREAD OUT INTO EASY DEFEATABLE SPAWNS" and such, and then they come tearing towards me, chaos in their hearts, murder in their eyes and weapons in their hands; they crash towards my soloing level 5 tanker...

...they get up to aggro range, and I prepare to hit them with *both* the attack powers at my disposal...

...and then they run like colours in a hot wash.

They run like heated oil.

They fail like a badly constructed simile.

I've noticed it happening with Ghouls and Syndicate, and it's really quite irritating. Especially as it means I have to *go looking for my ambushers*, which seems a little silly.

I think it would be awesome after the grief flag gets the look over (and hopefully tightened up so even and + level mobs don't keep giving up without a fight) it gets modded to morally broken mobs running for the nearest exit.

Yeah, especially since, at least the last time I fought her, she really only ran away while her PFF was up.

To be clear, while I may not especially enjoy it most times, I understand why mobs have a flee mode. I don't especially mind if faceless minion #474 runs away because he got to 1/8 health. What I really mind are scenarios like this:

• My team or I are faced with a supposedly epic entity like a Giant Monster or signature AV, and they spend the majority of their time running from us, especially if they do so before we get their HP down even slightly.
• Entities run so far away, we need an extradition treaty to get them back. I once had my DDD drop Darkest Night on a Council Warwolf boss, and without any meaningful damage dealt to him, he ran from the back of a large office map level all the way to the front. He ran so far away that he lost aggro, and came sauntering back later, oblivious to my presence.

I'm one of those that is in favour of keeping the flee mechanic, but tuning it considerably. As far as I'm concerned, fleeing makes sense in ninety percent of the game.

What doesn't seem to make sense to me is the supposedly powerful entities, such as GMs and AVs running. Or at least them running as soon as they do. If they were flagged to either not run at all, or only run when they're getting a really serious beating and are very low on health, I think they could be a little more bearable.

The other aspect I'm not fond of is how far a fleeing mob can run, and how they don't actually use their borrowed time wisely. I think that the distance that fleeing mobs run should be reduced by a large amount, and that there should be a chance of them 'alerting' another group to your presence, as well as a chance of them fleeing the map entirely and counting as 'defeated' for mission objective purposes. Having a group turn around the corner to attack you could be daunting, but I feel it would add a realism to the game that requires us to be prepared.

Here's hoping that this thread gets the mechanic looked at, and ideally tweaked.

Created a new blaster two nights ago in Praetoria, got to the check out the Labs mission from Praetoria White. I think I was only level 3 or 4. Went into one of the rooms and did not look carefully enough around the corners and aggro two groups of 3 yellows. It was one of those o sh* moments. So I start backpedaling out the door, trying to take down one or two to even the odds. I think I was able to defeat one while backpedaling through the map with this horde of guys after me. All of a sudden two of them just decide to start running off. One actually ran PAST me, totally ignoring me and just took off down the hallway.

Now based on what Castle said, I have to conclude that something is off with the AI. I was definitely NOT doing enough damage to trigger the low morale, in fact I was getting massacred by all the ranged hits, as noted above I'd only succeeded in taking down one, while inflicted injuries on several others. The ONLY reason I survived was the fact that two of them decided they'd had enough of chasing me and took off (where a few seconds earlier they will landing ranged attacks on me left and right) and I had quite a few greenies in my insp slots.

So unless they get low morale because I'm running away and or get tired of chasing me, there seems to be something a bit hinky with the AI.

Castle,

I understand the point of having running mobs. However, there should be some changes to this behavior:

1) Lessen the distance mobs run, as per Arcana's suggestion
2) Have running mobs join spawns of identical enemy groups (they feel safer in numbers and stop running)
3) Scale up the "requirements" to trigger running by rank. Minions run before lieutenants, who run before bosses, who run before EBs. AVs and GMs never run unless specifically scripted to do so (as Diabolique presumably is).
4) +Lvl mobs should be treated as one step higher on the ranking above (e.g. a +1 Lieut acts as a boss for purposes of determining running).
5) Lessen the effect debuffs have on triggering running. Right now, anchors for things like RI and DN run far too often. And running anchors not only make the current fight much tougher, but they also have the potential for serious additional aggro from different spawns.

Wait didn't Castle make the PvP changes? maybe we should get someone else to look at the AI problems... >_> not too sure, but anyhow... I usually make it a habit to arrest the runners before they escape, but most of the time I play my trollers so I don't notice it too much... */e shurg