Requesting Fix - Pet AI

I have a bit of a beef with the programming for the pet AI and heres why.

I play a Bot/Dark Mastermind.
I summon my bots
Equip and Upgrade them
Turn on Shadow Fall
Target the nearest mob (usually one in the middle of a spawn to maxamize AOE damage)
I press attack
My bots all turn in one fluid motion and fire their alpha.

(so far so good)

Then my lovely bots, who have laser pistols in both of their shiney little claws run up and begin beating on the group in hand to hand and not another shot fired until their done with the enemy their engaging.

Why they dont stand back and keep firing like they used to do, I have no idea but its been going on for a few issues now and its making it increasingly hard to keep my pets grouped for heals and buffs. They have long range attack, they should use them. not pistol whip the enemy.

always seems to affect the number 2 attack drone first but the others follow suit within the span of a few seconds.

I really do hope a "DEV READS THIS" but I know thats a long shot.

so.... any other masterminds suffering from this problem of "punch happy pet AI" syndrome?

They broke ranged pets to fix melee pets...

Unfortunately, the fix is even more annoying than the original problem was.

For my melee MM's, when my Grave Knights would stand and plink away instead of using their swords all I had to do was click passive then goto and attack. This got them in melee.

I've not found a fix to make my Thugs/Traps or my Bot/Storm playable under the new 'system'

I've shelved them for now and I'm not holding my breath for it to get fixed.

I found the old system useful even for my zombie MM. Keeping the first-tier pets out of melee to puke kept them alive and doing okay AoE damage.

I can't play ranged masterminds as they are now.

I far prefer the way it was to the way it is. getting melee pets into range was not a big issue. getting ranged pets to stay ranged. IS

Indeed. I'd say they should just roll it back to the old bug until a better 'fix' can be implemented but I'm afraid that would break Demon Summoning in the process...

I hadn't, until recently, had too much of an issue with this...Until I tried to take on Serafina with my bots/traps MM and found out just how much knockback she had. Couldn't come close to beating her, even with the base difficulty settings, because my bots kept trying to melee her...And running into Hurricane.

Who here would feel sad if their range-oriented pets lose Brawl like Robots, Soldiers and Thugs (minus Bruiser)???

I know I will celebrate if my soldiers lose Brawl. They have no business punching people. I am sorry. Yeah, I do know brawl may increase dps a bit but at what cost? Them running into the mobs and dying way faster? Sometimes it's not just about dying faster. With Soldiers' cone attacks being very narrow, I need them to stand "far" so their cones cover more targets. I don't want them to move forward at all.

Eh, it doesn't really bother me too much. If a 'fix' is too difficult to implement then whatever. I'll still be blowing baddos up and laughing manically the whole time regardless.

The bit that made me laugh last night was against Weakened Hamidon on the LGTF when my Assault Bot ran up to the Blue Mito, somehow stood in mid air and started punching it ...

Fortunately bugged AI really gets on Hamidon's nerves, so he blew the Assault Bot up before I had time to get too annoyed at his stupid behaviour. Thank you Hami!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

I hate the new AI. My bots MM's fights have devolved down to a giant scrum in the center of the enemy ranks instead of a an island of destruction blasting away anyone that gets close. This isn't generally all that bad as even at point blank range my MM still feels durable and damaging. The big problem is on fights where being in melee is a bad idea, I find myself having to resummon alot of bots now days after fighting melee AoE bosses and up. I recall the new siege was terrible to fight, the pets clumped up right next to him for the laser to hit them all and either I or they would react to slowly to avoid the attack. I have yet to try the statesman TF but I imagine ghost widow is a nightmare for MMs now days.

They need to revamp the Pet AI based on type, melee and ranged OR they need to make the pet controls more granular where you can radio button extra commands to those powers..

Example
I want my robots to Stay, Not Pursue fleeing enemies, Fire at mobs in Range. Fire as I switch targets.

You might want your Robots to Stay, Pursue fleeing mobs, Not switch targets until mobs is dead.

Or follow chain of command. Meaning all robots attack the same mob. So if Tier 1 and 2 follow Tier 3 target, if Tier 3 pet dies, then Tier 1 follows Tier 2 target and if Tier 2 dies Tier 1 follows there target.

Now this way you could have 3 different pets doing 3 different things based on the number keypad system. Further it allows players that have undead pets the ability to command different pets based on attack type. So you can now have your melee pets run in but have your Lich stay back.

But beyond all of this. Sadly the tankermind build clears a bunch of this up. The Devs know it, so to them since there is a doable non crippling work around. There is no rush to try to correct this problem.

Similar to pets not moving when you zone and such. Its not game breaking so it is manageable. Further there are simply not that many Mastermind players compared to other AT types. So Squeaky wheel gets the grease factor come into play. And finally none of this is giving a player a unfair advantage so yet another reason why not rush to fix it.

Remember a while back when Masterminds could summon pets and then go into a AE mission for a lower level but keep his high level pets. That was fixed in a reasonable amount of time.

My robotics mastermind enrages me

Let's all file bug reports everytime we log onto one of our MM's. If the squeaky wheel gets the grease, maybe it's time we collectively start squeaking.

I suspect the real problem is the fact that there's only one AI script for every NPC in the game, whether it's a mob or a pet. They can be set to prefer ranged or melee, but it seems that only has a limited effect. Hopefully the devs are working on tech to allow several different scripts with each entity using the one suited to it... that would improve pet AI and make mobs more effective.

I'm not so sure about the same AI for all, at least not when it comes to Rikti Chief Mesmerists - I've stood in the last cave of a Borea mission (after its completed) with 2 or 3 of these mobs standing at a distance firing off their range attacks (was farming mezz badges at the time), and none of them run up to hit me with their huge swords.

Only when I run into close proximity do they switch to their sword, if I run out of melee range they don't chase me but resort back to their ranged attacks - Can my pets have their AI please?

I doubt it will ever happen.

What does the general all-around problems with mercenaries have to do with a pet AI bug that is affecting all pets? This isn't just henchmen being affected. Controller pets are being affected, though for most it's a minor detail since I think most are mostly melee-based anyways.

I believe people who link to the Mercs thread are implying (or outright stating) that the devs tend to ignore Mastermind problems, therefore whatever problem is being discussed is not going to be fixed.

I have one of each type of MM at level 50 except for necromancy (which is like 40) and I don't experience anything remotely like this issue you guys are having. Sure my range pets run in and melee and I wish they wouldn't, but I can honestly say I've never seen them all run in; only one ever does at a time.

My pets that don't have melee attacks never run in. I wonder what I'm doing differently. I have my standard petcom_all attack defense macro and also a petcom_all follow passive one for when I want to re-position them, but that's really what I use 95% of the time other than macros to make my bruiser run in and to position Oni better for a fire breath.