Annoying foe runaway AI in HD video

I had an elite boss (Noble Savage) run away from me the entire time it took me to defeat him. Merely because I had hover and he could not punch me. He could hurl boulders to his heart's content, but did not. He just kept running.. and running.. and running... It made him quite a pain to defeat. I can't imagine that I broke an EB's morale simply because he couldn't punch me. As slowly as I was damaging him... I don't buy that either. Something in the morale script is borked.

Unfortunetly I don't have any proof of this but with running one of the things I've noticed is that I rarely have minions run away......however most liutenants will and since I reactivated my account *again I just keep dropping in and out based on money supply at the time* every boss character I have fought has run away. Not necessarily gotten away but has atleast made the attempt. Now this may have something to do with my kinetic/reflexes scrapper with the debuffs he lands on opponents and his pretty much purely dodging defenses*all or nothing damage to me pretty much* but I haven't played enough to know for certain.
My mastermind seems to cause this alot less*at the moment* but normally I have each henchman and myself attacking a different opponent after taking down the hardest enemy first and fastest and yet the other enemies don't run very often. Every once in awhile I'll have one run and get gunned down. But when I play him with my level pact buddy a katana/willpower scrapper we run into nigh constant runaways once again.*this is all below level 10.....maybe 11 on Praetoria*

THE PURPOSE OF RUNNING AWAY

The following are just my thoughts and reflect no special insider knowledge...

1: To reduce the amount of rewards/time you would otherwise get for defeating a spawn that you are obviously overwhelming. If your foes can't hit you and you are killing them 'too fast' (regardless of what they con to you), you should get less rewards in this case; you are obviously picking on guys whose combination of powers makes them poorly suited to challenge your build/team. As noted, this also helps balance out the reward/time ratio of debuff heavy teams (or would if such teams did not also liberally use slows, snares, and holds). Not that even chasing the runner essentially slows down your time/rewards ratio, thus acheiving the purpose.

2: To give crowd control an added purpose. CC, slows, and the likes are not only good for helping to defeat a spawn, but when a spawn threatens to give you less rewards by running, some CC can help you recoup the rewards by keeping them around to be defeated. It can be an additional incentive to team for some builds, or to diversify some damage-centric builds.

3: To add immersion. In a superhero game, foes that are obviously outmatched should run. If you are such a badA$$ that Godzilla runs when he sees you coming, that should make you feel good about yourself.

WHY RUNNERS DO WHAT THEY DO:

A: Aggroing other spawns would be overwhelming behaviour versus untwinked lowbies without vet powers. Besides, what good would it do to aggro more foes you can easily defeat?

B: They wander back so that you can finish off the spawn if you have patience even if you don't have access to Control powers. This is fine because it still lowers your reward/time ratio.

c: They run so far because they are 'hoping' you will get impatient and wander off before they get back, thus allowing them to reduce the rewards you would otherwise have gotten from that spawn. This often works.

In other words, the flee AI is a way of balancing rewards to challenge/time. If it were removed, it would likely be necessary to reduce the rewards for all foes in the game.

WHERE IT BREAKS DOWN:

Instanced missions: mob flee AI is of reduced value in instanced missions where the foes can't actually get away, leading to annoying map searches.
This does still accomplish the purpose of lowering the time/rewards ratio, but since you are 'committed' to doing the mission and reaping the Mission Complete bonus, it is of questionable value.
One thing you might consider is programming 'griefed' foes in an instance to 'collect' at the mission entrance for one last big fight (unless the players just use the Exit buton).

Mission Objectives: not only can the foe not flee, but you cannot really choose to let them get away and take the hit in rewards to spend your time on other things.
My suggestion would be to give foes that are specific mission objectives (and Boss Rank or higher) some kind of 'desperation power' like a self-buff to damage and accuracy/to hit (or maybe to recharge speed and mez resistance) that they activate when 'griefed' instead of running away (except for foes like Tsoo Sorcerers or Diabolique, where the fleeing is part of the challenge). They may be doomed to defeat, but perhaps they can deal out a little debt before they go. In my personal experience, it is much more fun to deal with a desperation power than to just chase some guy all over the map when we both know he isn't going to escape.
Another way of handling this would be to program such objectives to autocomplete (with proper 'surrender' emote) after a certain amount of time of being griefed, giving out reduced rewards when autocompleting.

In general, you may consider having foes signal when they are in a 'griefed' state (like an exclamation point overhead), so that the players can make informed choices based on that fact.

Last night we were running STF (no tank). All AVs on second mission were running from us as little girls. While I can understand grief flag on minions and LTs (however annoying it is), but IMO, boss and higher, especially AV and GM, shouldn't run at all, but stay put and fiteklub with us.

I have to wonder...Is it possible that the grief flag is adversely scaling to rank? In other words, the fact that a mob is an AV screwing with the values and making them more prone to run instead of less. Just a thought of a possible switch that could be flipped in the wrong direction.

Those runners are the guys selling something illegal or purse snatchers. But we dont have as mans versus those sort of sdesignated runners.

This AI issue is frustrating and unfun. Some examples follow.

1) A DB/WP brute and my rad/rad corr took on Deathsurge. He spawned to the east of the university, and he ran all the way to the northeast corner of the map by the time we had him down.

2) I've had purple/red-conning Hellions/Skulls flee from my lowbies. Similar behaviour on a MA/SR scrapper (not running toggles yet) or an archery/devices blaster. With no travel powers, I could hardly chase mobs that would often jump over high walls in their flight.

3) In-mission soloing: it's very frustrating to solo (at +0/x1) on my rad/rad corr. With groups that consist of three minions, one or two almost always run as I approach. I can pretty much forget about using debuff toggles too, since that's almost guaranteed to make mobs scatter.

4) Many tip missions have objectives that require me to clear out ambushing bosses and minions. Some of these minions would flee on sight, lose aggro, wander off, and become indistinguishable from other mobs. I've had to clear entire maps many times, just because Miss Thystle's PPD minions decided to flee and hang out with a side spawn or some such nonsense.

5) ITF's third mission has one of the generals surrounded by a bunch of EBs that are part of the objective. These EBs are notorious runners. It's not unheard of to have one or two run from the bridge through lag hill, while jumping up cliffs, all the way to the platform near the end of the mission.

Actually, all official "run away" mechanics aside, the thing that irks me the MOST are the mobs who run away to suicide into the nearest drones. They've even run PAST me to do this on many occasions.

I don't mind "run away" NEARLY as much as I do "self-kill-steal".