The QA Lodge

[rimble]

In the meantime, we've gone through the game and increased the experience rewards for the optional quest objectives. With the coming of Module 9, there should be good motivation for taking your time and getting all the optionals in a quest.

Good stuff, that's what didn't make sense to me. Why make me run around and carry this stupid bounty bag and try over and over to get an optional to spawn...just make the encounter worth my time to begin with, if it does spawn. If not, no big deal.

[parvo]

...we'd rather not have new players to DDO see something that just isn't working very well...~Silthe

I hearya Slithe

Like Protection Ring/Protection From Evil that leaves them with no AC?
Like inability to group?
Like not being able to recall to town from Korthos?
Like dungeon difficulty not indicating properly after someone else goes in?
Like enemy casters AI that causes them to suicide into melee players?

I'd rather not have new players see that stuff too.

[Lifespawn]

Haven't seen it asked How about the Bag bug for any of the bags opening them and scrolling down they close on you quite often.

[Junts]

Pretty sure this is a flaw:


Enduring Conviction, the raidloot longsword from Accursed Ascension, possesses the 'greater good' and 'absolute law' traits (2d6 versions of pure good and true law). Greater Good works properly; however, Absolute Law does not make the weapon lawful for damage reduction purposes: it only overcomes slash, magic and good. The idea that the better version of true law would not make the weapon break dr/lawful when true law does seems like a clear mistake (especially given this is the only item with absolute law, so it was probably created just for this loot).

Many chaotic evil outsiders that Enduring Conviction was created to excel against have dr/lawful instead of dr/good (like Tharakk Hounds), and having it not break their damage reduction makes the weapon rather ineffective.

[Silthe]

Like Protection Ring/Protection From Evil that leaves them with no AC?

This will be fixed in Mod 9, although the circumstances for this occuring aren't such that most people will see it. I would recommend that you not use Protection from Evil effects with a Ring of Protection of +3 or higher, though.

Like inability to group?

I'm not sure what you mean here. Please explain.

Like not being able to recall to town from Korthos?

That should be fixed in Mod 9.

Like dungeon difficulty not indicating properly after someone else goes in?

This is on our list again, but may not be in Mod 9. It's a rather ornery bug that defies quick and easy fixes.

Like enemy casters AI that causes them to suicide into melee players?

That behavior was modeled after player casters that run into melee to drop firewalls. You fix the sorcerers I've pugged with, and I'll harass Codog to fix this.

Seriously though, AI will always be an ongoing project. It'll never be as smart as players, but there will always be room for improvement. Most of our AI guy's time this cycle has gone to improving henchmen and a few, less global monster AI behaviours.

I do find it interesting that you're complaining that they suicide since we still get complaints that they run away too much. Guess it depends on your personal experiences. If there is a certain type of caster that you find ALWAYS charges into melee, then please submit a bug. It is quite possible that a particular monsters has a few entries on its monster sheet incorrect.



~Silthe

[Silthe]

Haven't seen it asked How about the Bag bug for any of the bags opening them and scrolling down they close on you quite often.

This is unlikely to be fixed in Mod 9. It's not random though. It appears to happen when you drag the scroll bar past collectibles with long names. It'll be pretty consistent as to which items cause it.


~Silthe

[negative]

I do find it interesting that you're complaining that they suicide since we still get complaints that they run away too much. Guess it depends on your personal experiences. If there is a certain type of caster that you find ALWAYS charges into melee, then please submit a bug. It is quite possible that a particular monsters has a few entries on its monster sheet incorrect.

Most AI casters in my experiance first suicide run all the way up into your face, then immediately turn around and run away, ussually casting their spells like scorching ray and lighting bolt away from you as they run away. After they are about 10 feet away, they turn around again and start casting on you.

[Wizzly_Bear]

I do find it interesting that you're complaining that they suicide since we still get complaints that they run away too much. Guess it depends on your personal experiences. If there is a certain type of caster that you find ALWAYS charges into melee, then please submit a bug. It is quite possible that a particular monsters has a few entries on its monster sheet incorrect.
~Silthe

a rundown
-caster sees a character
-caster kamikazes to them
-once caster reaches that character, he then turns around and faces away from the character
-caster casts an offensive spell AWAY from target
-runs away until ~30 ft away from target
-if target is closing on caster, caster will nto stop running

edit: this is all AI casters, not just enemies, and not just certain enemies. coyle does this to.

[Silthe]

Most AI casters in my experiance first suicide run all the way up into your face, then immediately turn around and run away, ussually casting their spells like scorching ray and lighting bolt away from you as they run away. After they are about 10 feet away, they turn around again and start casting on you.

Oh, THAT. Yes, I've seen that too. Honestly, this is something to bring up in Codog's thread. I'll likely just end up poking him about it anyway.


~Silthe

[Borror0]

Honestly, this is something to bring up in Codog's thread.

Oh, that brings up another AI bug. I tried to aggro Codog but he seems unresponsive.

Mind checking into that?

[Barumar]

This is unlikely to be fixed in Mod 9. It's not random though. It appears to happen when you drag the scroll bar past collectibles with long names. It'll be pretty consistent as to which items cause it.

~Silthe

I have found that after opening said Bag I can leave my mouse cursos 'within' it and mouse wheel down and back up with no issues.

I had not noticed that it only closed when using the scroll bar passing long names - but that is good to know.

Barumar

[Silthe]

Pretty sure this is a flaw:


Enduring Conviction, the raidloot longsword from Accursed Ascension, possesses the 'greater good' and 'absolute law' traits (2d6 versions of pure good and true law). Greater Good works properly; however, Absolute Law does not make the weapon lawful for damage reduction purposes: it only overcomes slash, magic and good. The idea that the better version of true law would not make the weapon break dr/lawful when true law does seems like a clear mistake (especially given this is the only item with absolute law, so it was probably created just for this loot).

Many chaotic evil outsiders that Enduring Conviction was created to excel against have dr/lawful instead of dr/good (like Tharakk Hounds), and having it not break their damage reduction makes the weapon rather ineffective.

Yup, that's a bug.


~Silthe

[vyvy3369]

This will be fixed in Mod 9, although the circumstances for this occuring aren't such that most people will see it. I would recommend that you not use Protection from Evil effects with a Ring of Protection of +3 or higher, though.
...~Silthe

I hope you meant avoid casting Protection from Evil with a Protection +1 item on, right?

[Strykersz]

Is the third tier of blood rage from Scourge choker giving +2 str/con instead of +4 a bug for the description or the buff?

[Silthe]

I hope you meant avoid casting Protection from Evil with a Protection +1 item on, right?

No, I didn't mean that. The way it was described to me was that if you have a conditional buff to AC (such as Protection from Evil or some Ranger favored enemy enhancements) and then use another source of AC that has the same bonus type (in this case, a deflection bonus) that overwrites the conidtional buff (and is therefore higher than the conditional buff) then you will end up with an effective -50,000,000 AC.

It's possible that the bug happens overwriting the other way as well, but that's not how it was explained to me.

Either way, Codog says he fixed it. We're just waiting to see the fix in test now.


~Silthe

[Junts]

Yup, that's a bug.


~Silthe

thanks! Will the abbot fixes be fixing this, then, I hope?

[parvo]

Slithe,

Currently if you have a +1 protection item and then get buffed with Protection from Evil, you will get hit with almost every enemy attack. There is a +1 protection ring (Engraved Ring?) that is very common on Korthos. Therefore, lots of new players were probably hit with that bug. In fact, lots of veterans are still being hit with it.

The frustration of "You are not on the same Korthos Experience", is fairly well documented. I think you know what I mean.

If you are not going to fix the dungeon difficulty setting indicator, remove it from the display. It has never served any purpose other than confusion.

Right now, enemy caster AI is the most broken part of the game. Every enemy caster that is not anchored and not attacked from range, runs right up to the player and bumps into them. If they aren't immediately chopped to bits, they turn around ant try to get some distance, often firing off a spell in the opposite direction of the player. This is 100% repeatable. Just run within sight of any (non-anchored) enemy caster and it will happen. This has a very unbalancing affect on play. Enemy casters often have spells that should balance player melee types, however the AI is set up so they "suicide" on the melee characters. Fixing it would go a long way toward restoring player/environment balance.

The poor caster AI contrasts what in many ways is very exceptional AI. The spot and listen AI affects are superb. The way mobs will invesigate sounds they hear is quite worthy of being called intelligent. Patrol paterns are realistic. The part of caster and ranged type AI that causes them to run away, while possibly annoying to the barbarians, is fair and not unreasonable. Even some of the scripting as substitute for AI is ingeneous. But the overall grade is brought way down by mob caster suicide.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

...then you will end up with an effective -50,000,000 AC.

Hold on... I think I know someone with this bug on them all the time!

Garth

[Tanka]

Hold on... I think I know someone with this bug on them all the time!

Garth

Hey, I built Tanka like that on purpose, OK?

[Yuhjn]

This is unlikely to be fixed in Mod 9. It's not random though. It appears to happen when you drag the scroll bar past collectibles with long names. It'll be pretty consistent as to which items cause it.


~Silthe

Ok this quote could mean one of two thing.

Either a, Silthe really means it WONT be fixed in mod9, and just doesnt want to be so absolte, even though he knows for certain it wont be.

Or b, there are still things that MIGHT or MIGHT NOT happen in mod9, which means we're not even close enough that the deliverable list is locked! If that's the case it'll be later than we anticiapte before we see mod9

I really hope it's a.