A game of "What if?" - How to get smarter enemies
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-12-18 24:24 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
I just think over all the cheating due to suck *** AI has to stop. All it does is cause frustration. I just hope with future content the devs actually listen to us on this one thing. STOP WITH THE CHEATING ALREADY!!! Its getting really old.
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Its not cheating if the devs are the ones writing the rules is it?|
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
I just think over all the cheating due to suck *** AI has to stop. All it does is cause frustration. I just hope with future content the devs actually listen to us on this one thing. STOP WITH THE CHEATING ALREADY!!! Its getting really old.
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I'd agree I'd like to try and 'smarten' my opponents up a bit. but at the same time I enjoy the content as is, frustration and all.
I myself can't help but find myself thinking of enemies that already come with special AI tricks. Like how Family hitmen try to stay at range at all times and how certain units prefer to be flying when they attack.
Perhaps a ranged group where the npcs have something to keep them away from other npcs so that they cannot group together? Might also make knockback powers more desirable as well.
Or heck, how about melee enemies with repel?
Confuse would never have been so much fun.
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This was the same situation in Final Fantasy XI. White Mages (the primary healers of the game) would gain aggro by healing party members. Their 2-hour ability (a special ability of whatever job/class you were that was on a 2 hour timer) of Benediction was practically a death sentence as it healed all party members for full HP...which REALLY pissed off mobs! It was next to impossible to pull aggro off the poor little white mage after that.
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Originally Posted by Silverado
I used to play Anarchy Online before coming to CoH. In that game, the "Doctors" (the game's main healing class) pulled huge amounts of aggro just by healing; the bigger the heal, the more "threat" they generated. This forced the tank class to stay on top of his game spamming taunts and paying more attention while managing aggro. All mezzes in that game were single target, too.
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While I'm no fan of damage you can neither resist nor mitigate against through proper build choices, or titanic debuffs that reduce your recharge to the negative cap (Shout out to Famine), etc. - let's look at it from a developer perspective.|
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
I just think over all the cheating due to suck *** AI has to stop. All it does is cause frustration. I just hope with future content the devs actually listen to us on this one thing. STOP WITH THE CHEATING ALREADY!!! Its getting really old.
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How else are they to make encounters more difficult?
Enemy AI in this game is what it is, it might be tweaked a touch or improved a little, or particular mobs could be given a particular script - but due to the number of enemies we encounter on a single map we will most likely never see any huge leaps in AI tactical capabilities.
If I have a choice, I prefer enemies like Arachnos, Vanguard, Longbow, etc. - They are varied and usually have a decent mix of capabilities per pack you encounter.
As opposed to say Cimerorans who have one main debuff that is spammed at a ridiculous level.
Forgive my ignorance, but if these ideas were to be implemented, how much computer power would be taken up by increasing the complexity of AI. I'd immagine it's one thing to adjust buff/de-buff numbers but increasingly complex behavior is likely another and with GR's Ultra-mode (yes I understand you could balance performance vs graphics) a lot of machines may not be able to run it. Or is this another limitation of the current COH engine?
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I believe all the enemy AI calculations would be taking place on the servers. Any improvements to AI scripting would not affect our computer's ability to run the game. The only thing your computer does is learn where the NPCs are and what they're doing.
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While it is true our home computers would likely not see any need for extra calculations, we already have seen what happens to the game servers when they get overloaded (Mission 2 of the Kahn TF and Mission 3 of the ITF for some egregious examples).|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
I believe all the enemy AI calculations would be taking place on the servers. Any improvements to AI scripting would not affect our computer's ability to run the game. The only thing your computer does is learn where the NPCs are and what they're doing.
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However, I too would like some enemies to be smarter. Here is hoping with I20 we get some and that the server tech and/or power can be improved sometime in 2011.
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What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
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But of the ones you mention they cheat the worst. Archnos resists control, vanguard are just plain overpowered, and longbow with their broken sonic grenades is just insane. I would rather not have more mobs like this.
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Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
While I'm no fan of damage you can neither resist nor mitigate against through proper build choices, or titanic debuffs that reduce your recharge to the negative cap (Shout out to Famine), etc. - let's look at it from a developer perspective.
How else are they to make encounters more difficult? Enemy AI in this game is what it is, it might be tweaked a touch or improved a little, or particular mobs could be given a particular script - but due to the number of enemies we encounter on a single map we will most likely never see any huge leaps in AI tactical capabilities. If I have a choice, I prefer enemies like Arachnos, Vanguard, Longbow, etc. - They are varied and usually have a decent mix of capabilities per pack you encounter. As opposed to say Cimerorans who have one main debuff that is spammed at a ridiculous level. |
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A long time ago, I had suggested something along the lines of how the Resistance mobs utilize the leadership pool.
What I had suggested was that the higher teir mobs, from Lts on up were given access to the leadership pool. Each rank would get an additional power with increasing strength.
A Lt, would for example, have a low level assault damage buff. A boss would have a stronger damage buff and a maneuvers defense buff. An Elite boss would have assault, maneuvers, and tactics, and AV would have all three powers at the highest level.
With large mobs, containing multiple lts and boss, would provide a significant increase in difficulty, also adding the additional tactic of removing threat mobs first more of a priority.
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That would be a radical change and a lot of players would find it hard to deal with. |
Originally Posted by Tannim222
A long time ago, I had suggested something along the lines of how the Resistance mobs utilize the leadership pool.
What I had suggested was that the higher teir mobs, from Lts on up were given access to the leadership pool. Each rank would get an additional power with increasing strength. A Lt, would for example, have a low level assault damage buff. A boss would have a stronger damage buff and a maneuvers defense buff. An Elite boss would have assault, maneuvers, and tactics, and AV would have all three powers at the highest level. With large mobs, containing multiple lts and boss, would provide a significant increase in difficulty, also adding the additional tactic of removing threat mobs first more of a priority. |
I would like those resistance encounters to be more common, though.
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The ones I mentioned provide a more difficult level of gameplay than say, Council.|
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
But of the ones you mention they cheat the worst. Archnos resists control, vanguard are just plain overpowered, and longbow with their broken sonic grenades is just insane. I would rather not have more mobs like this.
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Of course you wouldn't want that.
i do wish, and this coming from an emp, that healing caused some aggro. i know on an ITF, i usually gun for the surgeons if i see them healing alot. if i see a force field generator, i gun for it too. i seriously doubt you will ever see it, as the AI cares more about AoE holds, immobs, and silly taunts from tanks rather than the guy who buffs, debuffs, and heals.
backwards thinking at it's finest.
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It sounds like you just want enemies that can't ever pose a threat to you.|
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
But of the ones you mention they cheat the worst. Archnos resists control, vanguard are just plain overpowered, and longbow with their broken sonic grenades is just insane. I would rather not have more mobs like this.
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I'm no fan of any of those gangs but at least they keep me on my toes. And when I do have to face them I know how to handle them. I even have some toons who are hilariously good at fighting them. My Dominator who can confuse the obnoxious Wardens and Nullifiers does spectacular against Longbow, for instance.
Not all Arachnos resist control. In fact only a few of them do, and only a few things. Fortunatas and Banes are still mezzable with the right things. Besides which, this isn't really cheating. Tons of things resist mez (all ghosts have protection to immobilize for instance, as do warwolves; Lost lieutenants and bosses have protection to holds). And players have way more of this than the NPCs ever get. If anyone's cheating with mez protect, we are.
Longbow are annoying. Their sonic grenades are very cheap, but you can move out of them. You can also mez them fairly easily. If anything I think their bosses are worse, as they pretty much all come with tier 9s or really powerful stuff (Gravity or Illusion Control, Sonic Blast and Rad Blast). In any case, Longbow represent a good design. They're an anti-melee group. Melees excel at pretty much every gang in the game, except for a couple. Melees tend to be used to trouncing through +2/x8 while singing a fancy tune, and then get angry when they actually die to something. Take along something like a Controller or Dom, and Longbow are suddenly very easy. Otherwise, your class has to have SOME sort of counter. May as well be Longbow.
The only things I really get frustrated over and consider "cheating" are one-shot, insanely powerful skills that basically drop you to "you lose" in one single hit. The Vanguard Curse, Sapper end drain, and Carnival Mask are about the only ones on the list. Outside of things like the level 54 autohitting bosses in Apex, or all of Hami's nonsense. Other things may be annoying (I know Grav/Kin Wardens make me pull my hair out), but there are ways to deal with them.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Sapper End Drain and Carnival Masks are no more cheaty than the Longbow and Arachnos you just defended as not cheating. There are many forms of protection against end drain and proper tactics make it a non-issue anyway. The Carnival Masks are strong debuffs to be sure, but they're not one shot make you die powers.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
The only things I really get frustrated over and consider "cheating" are one-shot, insanely powerful skills that basically drop you to "you lose" in one single hit. The Vanguard Curse, Sapper end drain, and Carnival Mask are about the only ones on the list. Outside of things like the level 54 autohitting bosses in Apex, or all of Hami's nonsense. Other things may be annoying (I know Grav/Kin Wardens make me pull my hair out), but there are ways to deal with them.
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Reichsman's 100 magnitude Huge PBAoE stun (TM), and Ghost Widow's 100 magnitude hold that shuts down your resistance and inflicts Huge DoT, however, are pretty much one shot make you die powers. Aside from stacking stupid amounts of clear mind/clarity/thaw/increase density, there is nothing the players can do to avoid this. That is what makes it a cheat.
Ok, there is something the players can do to avoid it. But it requires us to cheat. Reichsman and Ghost Widow, when immobilized and taunted from outside range of said attacks, will never use them. It turns each fight into an even further ridiculous and not fun encounter.
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Beyond high defense, heavy stacking of mez protection, and taunting from range, these attacks can be healed through. Resist buffing and/or damage debuffing also work very well.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Reichsman's 100 magnitude Huge PBAoE stun (TM), and Ghost Widow's 100 magnitude hold that shuts down your resistance and inflicts Huge DoT, however, are pretty much one shot make you die powers. Aside from stacking stupid amounts of clear mind/clarity/thaw/increase density, there is nothing the players can do to avoid this. That is what makes it a cheat.
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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I'm not really a fan of the ones I posted, but I prefer them as they are varied in their attacks & debuffs as opposed to more one-dimensional types of enemies who you either have protection to or are totally overwhlemed by their massed spamming of a single type of debuff.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
I'm no fan of any of those gangs but at least they keep me on my toes.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
In any case, Longbow represent a good design. They're an anti-melee group. Melees excel at pretty much every gang in the game, except for a couple. Melees tend to be used to trouncing through +2/x8 while singing a fancy tune, and then get angry when they actually die to something.
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The most important thing is cover.
Fights where I can draw the longbow around a corner or into a small room to clump them all up go smoothly, Fights where I'm forced to fight them out in the open are usually much rougher.
The main point is, they're completely doable.
Take along something like a Controller or Dom, and Longbow are suddenly very easy. Otherwise, your class has to have SOME sort of counter. May as well be Longbow.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
The only things I really get frustrated over and consider "cheating" are one-shot, insanely powerful skills that basically drop you to "you lose" in one single hit. The Vanguard Curse, Sapper end drain, and Carnival Mask are about the only ones on the list.
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I'm not fans of those, but I don't really know if I consider them cheating, it just forces you to take out the problematic enemies in a pack ASAP.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
There are many forms of protection against end drain and proper tactics make it a non-issue anyway.
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Not even softcap seems to help, I'm always getting drained by sappers, freakshow super stunners for example seem to hit all of my softcapped characters with ridiculous regularity.
Sometimes I get more than one in a pack if I'm unlucky, but then again I am soloing on x8 - so that's my fault.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Reichsman's 100 magnitude Huge PBAoE stun (TM), and Ghost Widow's 100 magnitude hold that shuts down your resistance and inflicts Huge DoT, however, are pretty much one shot make you die powers. Aside from stacking stupid amounts of clear mind/clarity/thaw/increase density, there is nothing the players can do to avoid this. That is what makes it a cheat.
Ok, there is something the players can do to avoid it. But it requires us to cheat. Reichsman and Ghost Widow, when immobilized and taunted from outside range of said attacks, will never use them. It turns each fight into an even further ridiculous and not fun encounter. |
These are the places where I think advanced AI would be great. Something to give the signature enemies and encounters more of a challenge without having to resort to powers that you simply have no way to resist and are forced to game the system to deal with.
I wouldn't mind a few mobs salted in that reacted to healing/buffing agro or even went straight for the healers/buffers. It'd be just like malta sappers- targets to be identified and eliminated posthaste. Whole enemy groups that ignore the tank would not be fun.
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I guess I am Dark Armor biased, so I don't really see much End Drain ever... Regardless, sappers can be dealt with through various means, outside of End Drain Resistance. Everybody has access to some form of single target, ranged hold (I'm sorry if you chose to take Physical Perfection |
Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
Solo there are very few forms of protection outside of having End Drain Resistance.
Not even softcap seems to help, I'm always getting drained by sappers, freakshow super stunners for example seem to hit all of my softcapped characters with ridiculous regularity. Sometimes I get more than one in a pack if I'm unlucky, but then again I am soloing on x8 - so that's my fault. |
) that they could lead off with. Alternatively, everyone can combine super speed with stealth or a +stealth IO to do a preemptive strike, because almost everyone has some form of control power or just a really heavy hitting attack to drop the sapper at the beginning of the fight.The Carnival end drain is harder to avoid for melee characters than it is for ranged, but I've found knockback really helps here.
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My ST Hold of choice is Knockout Blow. |
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Everybody has access to some form of single target, ranged hold (I'm sorry if you chose to take Physical Perfection
) |
Joking aside, the problem is rarely 1 Sapper/Super Stunner/etc. but rather when there is more than one in a group (or more than one in a group and they can self rez
- hate those Super Stunners).Quote:
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
The Carnival end drain is harder to avoid for melee characters than it is for ranged, but I've found knockback really helps here.
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Their attacks can generally be ignored so rather than kill them off bit by bit, killing them wholesale at a distance works better.
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Maybe, maybe not. You can certainly dodge 19 out of 20 of them, but the one that hits is pretty brutal. Besides the recov debuff it's also -50% DEF base. So even if you're soft-capped, a mask will drop you to negative numbers (unless you're SR of course).|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Sapper End Drain and Carnival Masks are no more cheaty than the Longbow and Arachnos you just defended as not cheating. There are many forms of protection against end drain and proper tactics make it a non-issue anyway. The Carnival Masks are strong debuffs to be sure, but they're not one shot make you die powers.
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But it's the strength of the debuff that's annoying for me. Romans don't bother me because it takes numerous successive hits to debuff you. If you happen to have 75% DEF you're not going to suddenly get hit with a -50% DEF power by chance. If you're fighting Mu who end drain a little bit with each attack, you have time to react and do something about it. If however my widow is hit with a -100% end drain power, she's instantly detoggled and usually mezzed. If any of my toons are hit with a Vanguard curse, I can't do anything until it ends because I can't even run toggles with half end and recovery.
Besides which, things like GW's AoE mag 100 hold are just as avoidable. Having DEF means she misses the majority of the time, and RES and heals can shore up anyone who does get hit. So that's not cheating either.
But I imagine people have different views on what's unfair; one of my friends thinks anything that players can't do is cheating. So Carnie end drain and Nemesis vengeance is cheating to her.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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I'm well aware of all that, but keep in mind, those attacks only come from bosses. When bosses spawn, you should have a team with you and someone should be able to lock them down. Even if you solo them, you don't have to dodge 19 or 20 of them because all in all, bosses don't last that long.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
Maybe, maybe not. You can certainly dodge 19 out of 20 of them, but the one that hits is pretty brutal. Besides the recov debuff it's also -50% DEF base. So even if you're soft-capped, a mask will drop you to negative numbers (unless you're SR of course).
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Ghost Widow, on the other hand, is a level 54 AV. She cannot be locked down except outside of purple triangles and she is going to last a long time. In this length of a fight, it's no longer luck. The odds are now far in her favor to hit you with the hold at least once, even at capped defense. Once is all she needs, because your toggles will suppress. Being a +4 AV, unless you have two sonic resonance characters on your team shielding you and you stand within both bubbles, you don't have enough resistance to survive it. This is all on a TF where, to succeed at the Master challenge, no one can die.
The new Master of challenges are appropriate. It takes a skilled team to do them, not a gimmicked one.
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Off topic, but I sure am glad she's not in the Freedom Phalanx, taking all 8 of them on at once in the LRSF with a mag 100 hold in the mix would suck (and probably force even more people to adopt the sleep method - which ironically, puts me to sleep as well |
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Ghost Widow, on the other hand, is a level 54 AV. She cannot be locked down except outside of purple triangles and she is going to last a long time. In this length of a fight, it's no longer luck. The odds are now far in her favor to hit you with the hold at least once, even at capped defense. Once is all she needs, because your toggles will suppress. Being a +4 AV, unless you have two sonic resonance characters on your team shielding you and you stand within both bubbles, you don't have enough resistance to survive it. This is all on a TF where, to succeed at the Master challenge, no one can die.
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There are a few CoT missions with buffing/debuffing crystals, but the mobs don't seem to make good use of them, though, and they don't seem especially powerful.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
How about frequently respawning turrets that target the nearest player character?
Terrain that causes debuffs or DoT only to players, or buffs the enemies while they stand on it? What about having enemies with short range PBAoE buffs to each other to make the standard clumping tactic a very bad one? |
I'd also like ranged attackers like Rikti drones to form circles around enemies, not so close to each other that you can toss AoEs at them and wipe them.
Ways of isolating you from your group so they can defeat you each one-on-one. And yes, ambushes like that which would have enemies tailored to defeat your AT/powerset. Cheat? Not if you fight well enough and are lucky enough to win.
But yes, I'd like some better terrain features, and AI to use them. Some better AI to, if not ignore the tank, at least make him be more than Tauntbot McMeatshield. Things that keep us guessing, not a simple "OK, this type of enemy has to die, NOW" like the Surgeons.
Just have to find time to level him.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.