Castle, explain THIS running mob. Nosferatu is a wuss.

Tonight, I decided to test my new Illusion/Empathy/Mace build by soloing some AVs. I used Viridian's mission, the one where The Center sends his six AVs to fight you one after another. I set the rules as no temp powers and no inspirations.

The first three fights were relatively easy, although Vandal got lucky and took out my Toxic Tarantula, slowing me down a fair bit.

Screenshots
Burkholder: 1 2 3 4 5
Maestro: 1 2 3 4 5
Vandal: 1 2 3 4 5

Then Nosferatu spawned.

I was ready to die against him, because I remember he was very hard to fight in an Ouro arc. So imagine my surprise when he started running all over the map. He didn't even attack me! Nosferatu has some really nasty attacks, but he decided to practice for a marathon instead.

Nosferatu: 1 2 3 4 5

Quote:

Originally Posted by Castle Critters run away for one of two reasons: A power or script forces them to or their "grief" flag has been set to true. The Grief flag gets set to true when the enemy's morale breaks. Morale can break because a team mate died too quickly, or because they cannot attack their enemy effectively. So, if a group of softcapped players AoE nuke half a spawn down, the rest are pretty likely to run away -- a bunch of their team just died AND their odds of being able to retaliate are at minimal levels.

Players of COH know that the above quote does not reflect the reality of the game. Critters run away whenever they feel like. Maybe you could somehow break the morale of a level 10 minion by killing a boss next to him, but come on. Nosferatu? A level 50 archvillain? I didn't even attack his minions! I was too busy running all over the place to try to get his attention.

He eventually found the entrance of the room and ran away towards the exit, until I lost his targeting reticle. I hate fighting in caves, so I didn't follow him, knowing he'd eventually be back. He did, and just stood there in the room looking at me (I swear: I moved location, and he turned around to face me). But he didn't attack me at all. So I dropped Phantom Army on him... and he immediately started running all over the place again!

After he disappeared out of the room and I lost target of him again, I started Fraps to record a video of it. While I was setting up, he came back and one of my pets attacked him, so I had to start the recording rather quickly in the middle of the fight.

Here is a link to the video. I added an introduction to it (basically what I said above) so it would have some context on YouTube; his crazy running starts at the 30 seconds mark.

Maybe I should have used the Crey Pistol.

Maybe he's practicing for the Ironman Triathalon?

Looks like he's bugged. I can't imagine why he wouldn't at least offer a token attack.

...

Your voice over almost made me swoon I demand you never do that again.

I'm going to go take a cold shower now.

Maybe he was attempting to guard the mission exit.

I was in a group that ran this mission a week or two ago, and we saw exactly the same behavior from Nosferatu. As soon as he spawned, he started running and didn't stop until we defeated him.

Hehe maybe the higher level version is spawning without any usable powers.

Normally morally broken characters will stop to use a range attack if they can before running off more.

I think it's likely due to Phantom Army, since he can't actually attack them effectively, he runs away.

Yes, it's dumb, but I'm betting that's the reason.

... *giggle* Um, wow. You just topped my "Spent ten solid minutes chasing a Warwolf boss" runner on my D3 this morning.

Seriously, the run AI is just a little out of hand these days. I don't remember it ever being this bad in past issues.

The news of inherent fitness and incarnate powers has broken morale on a permanent basis.

Yeah, when I did this mission (maybe more than a year ago), Nosferatu wasn't easy to defeat. This can't be WAI.

I don't think he can stand the awesomeness of Leo.

GJ Leandro.

Sorry Castle, but I call BS on the run code "WAI". Something clearly isn't.

Was that Poisonous Ray I saw? In my experience any debuff, rather than only ones that interfere with an NPC's ability to attack, will cause them to run like crazy.

Though from what was said upthread, it sounds like this might be unique to that mission/Nosferatu.

On the subject of wimpy mobs... Ghost of Scrapyarder.

Bwahahahahahaha...

Yeah, the voiceover really makes it.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

That is strange, I think a similar thing happened to me when I was taking out Bat'Zul on my DS/Them MM, when the Brute was trying to pull him he just ran around the place for ages and eventually came to attack.

And make very sure never to drop a slow toggle on Romulus.... he'll run all over the place, and you really don't want to try to take down the Nictus AVs directly if you can help it.

This isn't a new phenomenon, the run code has been messed up for as long as I can remember, it's gotten to the point that the people I team with have stopped complaining.