U33.2 aggro mechanic

[Chimmy]

the poster you were attacking

Also since when is a straightforward question an attack? I guess "leeroy jenkins" could be considered an attack but it was in response to your question and it was more just positing general advice, really wasn't attacking anyone, if you want to see that you should read some of nokowis earlier posts against me, starts on page 4.

[Arlandan]

My apologies for asking a pretty straight forward question and getting a vague defeatist response which I read in a different tone? I thought he was bragging ffs.

Yes he said that, then he said they continued on and it continued to occur after he had identified the issue.

I have identified the source of my fail here by the way, i did read his post but the "stealthy rog shuriken thrower" clearly didn't stick I just came away with shuri thrower, and for that I do apologise, stealth wasn't even in my mind when asking, I honestly thought it was just a ranged discussion, again, apologies for that.

It seems to me you do a lot of this. Failing to understand what people are saying and flinging about insults as a knee-jerk reaction.

[FranOhmsford]

Also since when is a straightforward question an attack? I guess "leeroy jenkins" could be considered an attack but it was in response to your question and it was more just positing general advice, really wasn't attacking anyone, if you want to see that you should read some of nokowis earlier posts against me, starts on page 4.

A straightforward question eh?

So wait you were the one that knew the mechanic was broken, yet you kept throwing shurikens into mobs causing waves even though the leader asked you not to?

This ^?

There's no question there - There's a question mark but no question!

It comes off as a rhetorical statement and clearly shows that you believe the previous poster to be in the wrong even though there was nothing in that previous poster's post to justify your belief!

"Yet you kept" - This can only be seen as you blaming the victim!

The Leader did NOT ask him not to throw shurikens into mobs {This again was your statement not the Leaders'!} - The Leader asked {well told really} him over and over again to stay with the party even though the player in question states categorically that he was WITH the party at all times!

The player in question had seen there was an issue with aggro on the forums and even tried to tell the Leader this and guide the leader to the forums so the leader could see there was an issue this player could not be blamed for BUT THE LEADER WASN'T INTERESTED! The Leader is very clearly in the wrong in this situation!


Your "advice" to the player in question is at best "Pike" and at worst "Don't play that character".

[Chimmy]

It seems to me you do a lot of this. Failing to understand what people are saying and flinging about insults as a knee-jerk reaction.

So besides that one instance of me misreading that one guys post I suppose you could find plenty of other examples. Or maybe you could find examples of me insulting other players, if it is so readily apparent? Rather than just accuse me of such things.

I have spent too much time on the other end of that spectrum to take what you just said at all seriously, go ahead and read through my posts, they are free to see.

[Chimmy]

A straightforward question eh?



This ^?

There's no question there - There's a question mark but no question!

Fair enough, I guess it didn't leave him with a lot of room to respond, but he could have simply said no.

It comes off as a rhetorical statement and clearly shows that you believe the previous poster to be in the wrong even though there was nothing in that previous poster's post to justify your belief!

"Yet you kept" - This can only be seen as you blaming the victim!

No and what? No.

The Leader did NOT ask him not to throw shurikens into mobs {This again was your statement not the Leaders'!} - The Leader asked {well told really} him over and over again to stay with the party even though the player in question states categorically that he was WITH the party at all times!

But I asked him, and he responded in a way that made me think he was agreeing, I know he was with his party, I already stated that.

The player in question had seen there was an issue with aggro on the forums and even tried to tell the Leader this and guide the leader to the forums so the leader could see there was an issue this player could not be blamed for BUT THE LEADER WASN'T INTERESTED! The Leader is very clearly in the wrong in this situation!

I never said the leader was blameless I never even insinuated it, I asked if he was going against what the leader was asking on purpose.

Your "advice" to the player in question is at best "Pike" and at worst "Don't play that character".

Are you friends with nokowi or are logical fallacies the main form of communication around here? My advice was don't be a troll to someone I thought was being a troll. I apologised for the misunderstanding, what is this nonsense?

[FranOhmsford]

Are you friends with nokowi

Wow!

No!

And you continuing to attack him in a reply to me {and In reply to others too} just proves that you're the one with the problem not him {at least not on this occasion}.

[Arlandan]

So besides that one instance of me misreading that one guys post I suppose you could find plenty of other examples. Or maybe you could find examples of me insulting other players, if it is so readily apparent? Rather than just accuse me of such things.

I have spent too much time on the other end of that spectrum to take what you just said at all seriously, go ahead and read through my posts, they are free to see.

That's the thing I have read through your posts the past couple of days. You seem ignorant of basic gameplay mechanics and you seem to be unable to fathom the meaning of arguments made against you or capable of positing an even remotely cogent counter argument. The latter likely being, in part, a direct result of the former. You also adopt this air of psuedointellectualism yet your statements and/or reactions are banal, trite, predictable, and unproductive. I could say more and I could post specific examples but that would be a waste of my time and I've already wasted too much on you.

[Chimmy]

you continuing to attack him in a reply to me {and In reply to others too} just proves that you're the one with the problem not him {at least not on this occasion}.

No, the proof is in the posts, me holding his actions against him may be petty in itself or spiteful, but I am pretty happy with the nature of my posts in general, I have made a few mistakes and assumptions myself, but this is a communicative medium is it not? I apologised where necessary, accepted corrections where necessary, but I won't concede to attacks on my person, assumptions made against me and I have an issue with the usage of logical fallicies when people argue points.

[Chimmy]

That's the thing I have read through your posts the past couple of days. You seem ignorant of basic gameplay mechanics and you seem to be unable to fathom the meaning of arguments made against you or capable of positing an even remotely cogent counter argument. The latter likely being, in part, a direct result of the former. You also adopt this air of psuedointellectualism yet your statements and/or reactions are banal, trite, predictable, and unproductive. I could say more and I could post specific examples but that would be a waste of my time and I've already wasted too much on you.

Well until you do, I guess we'll just all take your word on it.

[Chimmy]

The forums get (extra) ugly when devs break the game (at least for many players) and then abandon the forums

The realism is fantastic, and completely inline with our D&D experience where every mob in the dungeon (regardless of having no line of sight or way to hear you - through walls, etc) runs into the first room when you enter.

Common sense? AND Rational Thought?

Am I on the forums?

If you don't play the top of the meta, microcosm of builds then DDO is not for you.

Too bad you didn't use your brain

I can understand A or B answers.

If not, you will make your position clear to everyone else reading the forums.


A) Design the game around you and 2 other players (keep an update that many payers describe as unplayable)
B) Design the game around a much larger # of players (roll back to what all players said was playable)


Which do you recommend?

I posted a forum thread in U22 that they had broken assassin, and largely received insults, It turned out I did know what I was doing, and most forumites were wrong.

Yes devs should listen to 100 players over 3, particularly when it is in response to a recent change.

My statements are consistent

My points do override yours.

stop telling others how to act.

One could use the word broken for almost anything in DDO and then try to assign equivalency - it's false logic to do so.

I believe trying to figure out who was more at fault for a lengthy number of posts that accomplished little will do more of the same.

So true but it was worth it.

[Aelonwy]

Can we please get back to the discussion of how to make the aggro mechanic better?

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Can we please get back to the discussion of how to make the aggro mechanic better?

Well, it is not like the Devs will actually use one of our suggestions....lol

I just want them to take a very, very , very close look at it.
Have serious discussions and set goals for how things will react during which situations. Like being hit with an attack, seeing a player, taking trap damage (why should they know where we are when that happens. Having a friend die near them. (should they need to see it happen?)
What exactly do we want to happen in DDo when someone is assassinated.
What about taking spell damage? Or debuffs... or what happens if they make a save and are not affected by a spell at all?
What about Finger of Death from an unseen foe on an unagroed monster?

Which if these things should we let players get away with?
Which affects game balance?
Which makes the game more fun?

Remember those stealthers, soloists, and permadeathers..
Not everyone is a zerger.

Can they limit invis runs to the end and not hurt Invis and stealth?
Should they limit Invis runs to the end?
How to handle walls, doors, and line of sight in general.
What about summons? (they usually get autodetected at a range further than normal monster sight)

How do we want dungeon alert to fit into this?
What about too much agro and lag?

This is not a simple fix or discussion.
Nor should it be IMO.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I like the idea of a monster that knows where we are, being able to tell his friends where we are... this makes sense.
This should probably be limited to a very close range and not work through any barriers. if for no other good reason than fun and lag.

I think monster death should be quiet and prevent communication of our location.

Maybe Assassinate should allow agro if another monster witnesses the event.
We would probably enjoy the game more if it just triggered a move to us response, rather than actual agro.
or at least the agro but not know where we are actions.
btw, I currently think this is not working correctly. They seem to not lose agro like they did (after the stealth pass) when they cannot see us.
But I do need more testing to be sure.
I do not think trap damage should trigger agro. But it should trigger some kind of response.
Maybe we need something special for "they know we are here, but not where we are".

[changelingamuck]

Maybe Assassinate should allow agro if another monster witnesses the event.
We would probably enjoy the game more if it just triggered a move to us response, rather than actual agro.

emphasis added (also, this whole post isn't all *directly* in response to this quote)

Assassinate is currently working like this and used to work like this before the 'mob obliviousness to dying friends bug' started. The reports that successful assassinates are automatically triggering aggro are incorrect. I've been testing it. I've assassinated plenty of mobs close to other mobs without triggering aggro automatically (with a way over-level character for the content tested). The nearby mobs start their search behavior after one of them is successfully assassinated.

I think the problem is that the bonus to spot/listen scores that mobs are now getting when their search behavior starts is just set to an extremely-too-high value/scaling according to quest level/mob challenge rating/or whatever. So, it seems like they're automatically aggro-ing when they're really just very quickly doing a spot/listen check [this is SUPPOSED to happen and is a BUG FIX] and that check happens to succeed in at-level content because of too-high spot/listen bonuses, and then they aggro, and it seems like they're automatically aggro-ing as a response to the assassinate.

Also, if they're right next to the assassin, they start blindly attacking the spot where the assassinate happened (right next to them)--something that is SUPPOSED to happen and is FIXED behavior--and then they usually knock the assassin out of stealth which prevents double-assassinating.

It seems to me that, in order to get double-assassinates working again, all they have to do is appropriately adjust the spot/listen score scaling of the mobs and possibly institute a very short delay after the initial assassinate before the mobs activate their searching behavior.

I don't think that's a large amount of tweaking and then we'll have BOTH double-assassinates working again AND mob AI that isn't utterly eye-roll-worthy, reducing gameplay to lower complexity than playing Whack-A-Mole... Some will only be happy if we go back to effortless archery and assassinating and skipping vast swaths of content with invisi-cheesing; but I'm sure a lot of people will be happier. Hell, at least in Whack-A-Mole, the opponents do something.

As for pulling mobs with the Assassin's Trick enhancement, I really don't think we were supposed to be able to emulate bluff-pulling (something that's supposed to require gear and skill point investment) with an enhancement that costs 1 AP.

[And, unrelated to assassinating, it seems like the radius within which mobs can 'communicate' aggro to one another probably needs to be lowered a little.]

[mikarddo]

It like the fix to ranged pulling singles - and I play a ranged who certainly used that to good effect.
I dislike pulling far too many mobs from behind walls - this fix has gone quite a bit overboard. I guess reducing the "call for help" radius might be a way to reduce the issue though walls ought to play a part as well.

[Saekee]

emphasis added (also, this whole post isn't all *directly* in response to this quote)

Assassinate is currently working like this and used to work like this before the 'mob obliviousness to dying friends bug' started. The reports that successful assassinates are automatically triggering aggro are incorrect. I've been testing it. I've assassinated plenty of mobs close to other mobs without triggering aggro automatically (with a way over-level character for the content tested). The nearby mobs start their search behavior after one of them is successfully assassinated.

I think the problem is that the bonus to spot/listen scores that mobs are now getting when their search behavior starts is just set to an extremely-too-high value/scaling according to quest level/mob challenge rating/or whatever. So, it seems like they're automatically aggro-ing when they're really just very quickly doing a spot/listen check [this is SUPPOSED to happen and is a BUG FIX] and that check happens to succeed in at-level content because of too-high spot/listen bonuses, and then they aggro, and it seems like they're automatically aggro-ing as a response to the assassinate.

Also, if they're right next to the assassin, they start blindly attacking the spot where the assassinate happened (right next to them)--something that is SUPPOSED to happen and is FIXED behavior--and then they usually knock the assassin out of stealth which prevents double-assassinating.

It seems to me that, in order to get double-assassinates working again, all they have to do is appropriately adjust the spot/listen score scaling of the mobs and possibly institute a very short delay after the initial assassinate before the mobs activate their searching behavior.

I don't think that's a large amount of tweaking and then we'll have BOTH double-assassinates working again AND mob AI that isn't utterly eye-roll-worthy, reducing gameplay to lower complexity than playing Whack-A-Mole... Some will only be happy if we go back to effortless archery and assassinating and skipping vast swaths of content with invisi-cheesing; but I'm sure a lot of people will be happier. Hell, at least in Whack-A-Mole, the opponents do something.

As for pulling mobs with the Assassin's Trick enhancement, I really don't think we were supposed to be able to emulate bluff-pulling (something that's supposed to require gear and skill point investment) with an enhancement that costs 1 AP.

[And, unrelated to assassinating, it seems like the radius within which mobs can 'communicate' aggro to one another probably needs to be lowered a little.]

That is a great analysis and thanks for testing. My first-life Prowler at level 16 has HS/MS around 60ish (could be pushed much higher) and is getting spotted post-assassinate. Note that the toon is also invisible while assassinating at all times, so they are seeing through invisi as well. It is clearly way to high a spot/search/listen check.

They also assume too quickly that their falling comrade's death is from an assassin. I imagine that an assassinate is more subtle, so the mob slumps down slowly. They might think it was from sleep, or...a curse....indigestion...idk not automatically a knife.

[Aelonwy]

I like the idea of a monster that knows where we are, being able to tell his friends where we are... this makes sense.
This should probably be limited to a very close range and not work through any barriers. if for no other good reason than fun and lag.

[And, unrelated to assassinating, it seems like the radius within which mobs can 'communicate' aggro to one another probably needs to be lowered a little.]

I would like a combination of the above. Someone in another thread mentioned mobs should only 'communicate' aggro in a line of sight manner instead of what seems like an ever expanding radius.

I ran Reclamation with my hubby today. He was on a dual-wielding ranger/barb and I was on my 2arty/10mech. More or less just testing the waters, to see how these characters play right now. We've never cleared that dungeon so fast. I accidentally shot someone just before falling down the deep pit into the water. Almost everyone (not inside a valve room) came down the mining shaft after us. Hubby does pretty awesome damage with his TOEE named weapons and managed to slaughter huge masses of enemies only coming close to death thrice. I managed to only attack ones that he had regained the aggro on.

The valve rooms went similarly. Hubby would jump down and fight them on the ramps. They would see him and aggro on him, or he would shoot one to get aggro then pull out his swords and I could more or less shoot with impunity their backsides which of course killed them pretty fast from all the sneak attack damage. Now I could have laced the place with web traps and dance traps, if solo, but I imagine that would have much more room for things to go pear shaped. Also I'm not sure how solo I would have been able to handle the first mass fight of mobs running down the mining shaft. Shouldn't the ones from the top have dotted?

This did mean that other than a couple of stragglers and the named rusty the path back to the top was virtually empty.

We tried the same tactics on the end fight but with one shot hubby got ALL the aggro, and there were at least six champions (several we couldn't see from the door) including the champ earth elemental that grabbed him repeatedly from way too far away. The traps worked okay for temp cc but the earth elem caused the most trouble. Hubby died once on the end fight, but the shrine was right there so while I had aggro he rezzed and quaffed a potion or two and we managed to complete. All but the elemental and one archer on top of a furnace came out to the shrine to get to us.

We were thinking of doing Restless Isles later tonight or tomorrow but I'm not sure how to pull off Slavers of the Shrieking Mind with all this mass aggro. Remind me, are the wildmen hurt by the sonic traps?

I admit for any build that wants aggro or needs to build intimidate, just tapping sneak mode and shooting something/anything works so much better than incite or intim ever did.

[blerkington]

I think Changelingamuck made some very good suggestions in his/her most recent post. I don't want to go back to the dopey system we had where there was no response at all to ranged kills and assassinations, but what we have now is not a good fix to that problem.

There's one more thing I'd like to add though. If you assassinate currently in solo content, mobs will start to look for you, and they will usually find you if you hang around near the kill site. You can move away from though, without being automatically located, if you're quick.

One very odd thing - and this is not a recent change, but something which is more obvious now, is the AI cheating that occurs in their detection routine. After assassinating one monster and moving out of their hearing range and line of sight, the remaining monsters will generally move right to your new position after a short interval even if they haven't detected you. How exactly do they know to do this?

This telepathic location ability of theirs is really obnoxious because it bypasses the stealth mechanism and there's no plausible reason for it to happen. It's particularly obvious if you change position to take cover, then unstealth without moving. At your new location the monsters can't see you because you're out of line of sight, they can't hear you because you aren't moving, but they still become instantly aware of your new location anyway.

If we get two things back from further changes, I'd like them to be the return of double assassinations in solo content and this telepathic location ability to go away. If they don't see you before you get to cover, they shouldn't know where you are once you've reached it. Perhaps they shouldn't stop searching quite so soon, but it should involve fanning out not just knowing where to look.

On a related note, I'd also like to see the new bluff requirements toned down to a more reasonable level and for a group pull only to occur on a critical failure when using that skill, not a simple failure.

Thanks.

[Pyed-Pyper]

I like the idea of a monster that knows where we are, being able to tell his friends where we are... this makes sense.
.....

I'd like to see mob reaction and encounter resolution at least partly tied to mob intelligence. In broad strokes - the smarter the mob, the harder it is to successfully continue the sneak/ranged attack. Extreme examples: finger a crowd of slimes with impunity, finger a single mind flayer and the remainder know where you are almost immediately.

[FranOhmsford]

I'd like to see mob reaction and encounter resolution at least partly tied to mob intelligence. In broad strokes - the smarter the mob, the harder it is to successfully continue the sneak/ranged attack. Extreme examples: finger a crowd of slimes with impunity, finger a single mind flayer and the remainder know where you are almost immediately.

Finger of Death is instantaneous!

Unless the Mind Flayer sees you pointing at him he's not alerting anybody!


And really it should be the same for Assassinate only more so as no Assassin worth his salt attacks from the front with a melee weapon.