Literally ANYTHING to stop ranged henchmen from brawling

[Flashtoo]

+1 to Toggle Pet Immob. If I tell my henchmen to stay, I want them to STAY.

[Lazarillo]

8 hours ago, TheAdjustor said:

They were perfectly willing to break the cottage rule, instant healing ring a bell ? And they were certainly willing to liberally interpret it when they wanted to, energy transfer comes to mind

In fairness, I'm not sure either of those really violate the cottage rule.  Both powers fully retained their original effects, they simply applied them differently; instant healing went from a toggle to a click, but was still about making sure that you, well, healed instantly when you took a hit.  Energy Transfer had its animation time increased, but simply went from dealing self damage in order to have the best DPA of any melee attack in the game to...dealing self damage in order to have the best DPA (if less) of any melee attack in the game.

 

Cottage rule means changing the way a power works entirely.  Nerfing a power does not violate it.

[DR_Mechano]

Once the tanker changes are done and tested I would love to see this go up on Pineapple and test through a few different iterations. Sadly pet commands don't affect pets like Phantasm which can't be controlled but still suffer from running in to slug things. I think just straight up removing brawl from the pet moveset and the pet AI (if that is possible) on non-melee focused pets. Failing that changing their brawl to have the same range as their regular attacks. Yes it would look VERY silly animation wise but it would fix the problem in a much simpler solution. Thirdly would be the option to replace brawl with an attack that has a different animation but the same damage and recharge but with the standard range. 

 

so for tier 1 bots it would be a very weak copy of their regular tier 1 laser attack etc.

[TheAdjustor]

23 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

In fairness, I'm not sure either of those really violate the cottage rule.  Both powers fully retained their original effects, they simply applied them differently; instant healing went from a toggle to a click, but was still about making sure that you, well, healed instantly when you took a hit.  Energy Transfer had its animation time increased, but simply went from dealing self damage in order to have the best DPA of any melee attack in the game to...dealing self damage in order to have the best DPA (if less) of any melee attack in the game.

 

Cottage rule means changing the way a power works entirely.  Nerfing a power does not violate it.

I have to disagree on that.  Does damage is hardly the same as does really good damage.  These days Energy transfer doesn't even compare with clobber. The original instant healing was good enough to let you take an alpha strike from a team sized group. A big enough nerf does change the nature of an ability/

[VanguardXL]

16 hours ago, TheAdjustor said:

The original instant healing was good enough to let you take an alpha strike from a team sized group.

The original instant healing was good enough that scrappers could tank Hamidon without breaking a sweat.

Edited September 17, 2019 by VanguardXL
Spelling correction

[golstat2003]

13 hours ago, krj12 said:

One if the reasons I quit on MMs after trying Thugs back in the day.   The "ranged" fire blaster running in every time and

getting splatted, while my brute henchman hung back and threw rocks.

 

Drove me absolutely nuts,  and I've had zero desire to try the AT again.

 

OMG now I remember why I stopped playing mms on live. LMAO!

[Steampunkette]

13 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

They completely changed what fears did as well. Before it just made things run off, now it has the "cower in place until struck" effect. The cottage "rule" was a guideline at best to prevent power SETS (not powers) from no longer resembling themselves. 

 

Removing brawl or giving it a range would be most welcome. Also ditching the stupid hurl from bruiser. 

That's a bit more complicated...

 

"Afraid" was supposed to be a compound mechanic which caused NPCs to both cower in fear, if cornered, and run away, if not. But the AI would just repath around anyone cornering it and run away, regardless. It also tended to not have a long enough duration for it to really matter.

 

These powers were altered during Issue 2, shortly before Issue 3, that is to say -early- in the game's life, when the Afraid Mechanic was modified whole cloth. Now it is the 'Fear' mechanic, and everything is cornered all the time.

 

The "Cottage Rule" would hardly have been reasonably applicable at that early time.

[Some Random User]

2 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

These powers were altered during Issue 2, shortly before Issue 3, that is to say -early- in the game's life, when the Afraid Mechanic was modified whole cloth.

Your knowledge of the game's mechanics and how they evolved over time continues to impress.

 

As far as you know, is there any reason we can't modify the ranged Mastermind pets to have a shorter version of their ranged attack animation tied to a ranged version of [Brawl]?

[Sura]

The opposite should be thought about here as well.  I'm playing Thugs/Poison and the only way to push the Bruiser into melee all the time is to not upgrade him to the second tier.  Otherwise he starts most times (if it's recharged) with Hurl or whatever that crummy boulder throw is.  So I'd love to see a way to force pets into melee as well.  

 

[TheAdjustor]

10 hours ago, VanguardXL said:

The original instant haling was good enough that scrappers could tank Hamidon without breaking a sweat.

 

The revision had them(/regen) farming the ring of pebbles arc, for the wedding band, so they could properly take an alpha strike. Is there a point in your statement ?

 

Pretty sure they can still Tank Hami for a raid. EoE handles most of that.

Edited September 17, 2019 by TheAdjustor

[Steampunkette]

4 hours ago, Some Random User said:

Your knowledge of the game's mechanics and how they evolved over time continues to impress.

 

As far as you know, is there any reason we can't modify the ranged Mastermind pets to have a shorter version of their ranged attack animation tied to a ranged version of [Brawl]?

I'm not knowledgeable enough of how the AI is rigged to go into what would or wouldn't break. One thing that's important to note is that every power has its own AI information. Not just "you must be this close to use", but some measure of understanding of how the power works.

 

Otherwise the NPC AI in the Architect wouldn't know how to Target and Buff their allies. Or when to do so rather than just constantly spamming that power over and over again. Last nightI randomly did a mish about Branded Hellions (With fire, not Corporate Logos) and their Lieutenants had the Fire Buffing set, so they would throw Fire Shields on an entire group and reduce my Titan Weapons character to 10-20 points of damage because the whole spawn suddenly had capped Smash/Lethal. (Two Lieutenants and even the minions had Fire Armor for their 'secondary')

 

It may be that the brawl AI includes specific if / then mechanics that interact with other powers I do not know. But at the very least it would need a "Brawl is available and all other powers are on cooldown. Move to target and use Brawl." 

Edited September 17, 2019 by Steampunkette

[Purrfekshawn]

It seems in code of executable file there's something called "petcom_pow", that could have been used to launch certain attack from certain pet, but l don't know if it works currently. There might be made something like "blacklist" of powers like robots' "Smash" disabling those could make them skip, but it may require hellish amount of work to do. And it's only half of the problem - another half is a number of bugs it might lead to.

 

Try to buff pets' defenses with all 6 types of Enhancements auras (Call to Arms, Expedient Reinforcement, Sovereign Right, Edict of the Master, Superior Mark of Supremacy, Superior Command of the Mastermind, all of them 6-th type of enhancement), or at least certain of them. Mah bots are in their normal modes have all defense capped (>=45%, >=50% for Battle Drones) to all but PSI (which they resist), 35% resistance to all except Lethal/Cold/Psionic, 60% to Lethal/Cold/Psionic. They rarely fall and if they do so - We resummon them, and when their numbers refilled, resummon Force Field Generator, that We affected previously with Equip Robot & Upgrade Robot. This makes ER & UR apply instantly to bots. Pretty nice synergy between Robotics & Traps, We hope it's not an exploit and won't be removed. Also We have a hack, that makes AUTOPOWERS of PETS show, while non-AUTOPOWERS of PETS hidden, in order to not pollute screen with pet power icons, We hope this will be made a feature once.

 

Along with HIDE AUTOPOWERS make option SHOW AUTOPOWERS ONLY. This allows Us to instantly see if some of Our bots is equipped/upgraded or is not.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Purrfekshawn

[Chuckers]

I wish they could change the AI so that ranged henchmen would only use brawl when the ENEMY gets within melee range. 
Especially if you have your henchies in bodyguard mode, they should never leave your side. 

Edited September 17, 2019 by Chuckers

[Shazbotacus]

I’ve had some observations of Pet AI that might help understanding it.

 

The Lich and Protector Bots routinely approach their targets to about 40 feet or so. At first, paying attention to the Lich, I thought it ran up to the range of its Tenebrous Tentacles until I tried again without any upgrades. The Lich still ran up to 40 feet or so despite having no need from its power range to do so. Protector Bots close to a seemingly similar range.

 

This makes me think that pet AI tells the pet to run up to targets and stop at a given range, at least that’s how it is for Lich and Protector Bots. I presume 40 feet was chosen for the Lich because of the short range of Tenebrous Tentacles, but don’t know why Protector Bots get this close also.

[WumpusRat]

How about just changing the ranged pets so that their "melee" attack has the same range as their ranged attacks? All melee attacks have a "range" stat, so just adding a zero to that should be something the game would allow, shouldn't it? Sure, it might look a little silly to have a robot swing its arm and "slap" someone 70 ft away, but I think the vast majority of masterminds would be fine with their pets occasionally seeming to "twitch" instead of stupidly charging into melee like a drunken scrapper who forgot his toggles.

[Shazbotacus]

Eh, I'd rather see methods of safely removing their brawl explored first. I'm very tempted to say that copy-pasting the Lich's AI to Battle Drones, Assault Bot, Punks, Arsonist, and Soldiers and copy-pasting Protector Bot's AI to Medic would be a viable solution.

[Steampunkette]

1 hour ago, WumpusRat said:

How about just changing the ranged pets so that their "melee" attack has the same range as their ranged attacks? All melee attacks have a "range" stat, so just adding a zero to that should be something the game would allow, shouldn't it? Sure, it might look a little silly to have a robot swing its arm and "slap" someone 70 ft away, but I think the vast majority of masterminds would be fine with their pets occasionally seeming to "twitch" instead of stupidly charging into melee like a drunken scrapper who forgot his toggles.

 

25 minutes ago, Shazbotacus said:

Eh, I'd rather see methods of safely removing their brawl explored first. I'm very tempted to say that copy-pasting the Lich's AI to Battle Drones, Assault Bot, Punks, Arsonist, and Soldiers and copy-pasting Protector Bot's AI to Medic would be a viable solution.

If the brawl AI contains an if and then with movement in it that would need to be removed, too. It would also need to have its priority rearranged, and potentially aspects of targeting.

 

Just adding a zero to it wouldn't necessarily fix anything, if it's a is told you have to run up and hit somebody with brawl. It would just run into melee range and then hit somebody with a 40-foot distance brawl ranged attack while standing right next to them.

 

As to copy pasting an AI it doesn't always work right. Not all of the same conditions will apply to both characters.

[TheAdjustor]

2 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

 

If the brawl AI contains an if and then with movement in it that would need to be removed, too. It would also need to have its priority rearranged, and potentially aspects of targeting.

 

Just adding a zero to it wouldn't necessarily fix anything, if it's a is told you have to run up and hit somebody with brawl. It would just run into melee range and then hit somebody with a 40-foot distance brawl ranged attack while standing right next to them.

 

As to copy pasting an AI it doesn't always work right. Not all of the same conditions will apply to both characters.

If I am not mistaken the source code is available. Speculate on top of speculation, it might be an idea to take a look at it before going further down that rabbit hole.

 

Who knows maybe the work might actually get done that way so everyone can enjoy the fix.

Edited September 17, 2019 by TheAdjustor

[Steampunkette]

42 minutes ago, TheAdjustor said:

If I am not mistaken the source code is available. Speculate on top of speculation, it might be an idea to take a look at it before going further down that rabbit hole.

 

Who knows maybe the work might actually get done that way so everyone can enjoy the fix.

Feel free to go digging through that spaghetti code to the AI of the relevant NPCs. Let me know what you find.

 

Meanwhile I've worked the last nine days out of 10 and I'm going to be doing another nine days out of 10 for the next two to three months at 8 hours a day. What little free time I have is not going to be spent digging through the code.

[TheAdjustor]

Just now, Steampunkette said:

Feel free to go digging through that spaghetti code to the AI of the relevant NPCs. Let me know what you find.

 

Meanwhile I've worked the last nine days out of 10 and I'm going to be doing another nine days out of 10 for the next two to three months at 8 hours a day. What little free time I have is not going to be spent digging through the code.

Have fun speculating on speculation then.

[WumpusRat]

52 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

If the brawl AI contains an if and then with movement in it that would need to be removed, too. It would also need to have its priority rearranged, and potentially aspects of targeting.

 

Just adding a zero to it wouldn't necessarily fix anything, if it's a is told you have to run up and hit somebody with brawl. It would just run into melee range and then hit somebody with a 40-foot distance brawl ranged attack while standing right next to them.

 

As to copy pasting an AI it doesn't always work right. Not all of the same conditions will apply to both characters.

Given that none of us know how the code actually works, speculating that "it wouldn't work, because it might have X" is kind of pointless. Sure, IF there are a bunch of other if/then's at work, then it might not be an easy fix. However, it might BE as simple as adding a zero to the range of the melee attacks. We won't know until one of the coders digs into it and takes a look. Hence the suggestion.

[Steampunkette]

11 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

Given that none of us know how the code actually works, speculating that "it wouldn't work, because it might have X" is kind of pointless. Sure, IF there are a bunch of other if/then's at work, then it might not be an easy fix. However, it might BE as simple as adding a zero to the range of the melee attacks. We won't know until one of the coders digs into it and takes a look. Hence the suggestion.

None of us know exactly how it works, sure. But it definitely isn't as easy as add a zero or delete brawl. Otherwise that would have been done years before City of Heroes shutdown or months after it shut down with the private server happenings.

 

I'm not trying to express a deep and arcane understanding of the engine that no one else has. I'm trying to express reasons why it's almost certainly not as easy as people seem to think based on what I've learned about AI design.

 

It isn't as helpful as digging through the code and getting you guys answer, but I don't have time for that and everyone here could do it just as easily.

[WumpusRat]

1 minute ago, Steampunkette said:

None of us know exactly how it works, sure. But it definitely isn't as easy as add a zero or delete brawl. Otherwise that would have been done years before City of Heroes shutdown or months after it shut down with the private server happenings.

 

I'm not trying to express a deep and arcane understanding of the engine that no one else has. I'm trying to express reasons why it's almost certainly not as easy as people seem to think based on what I've learned about AI design.

 

It isn't as helpful as digging through the code and getting you guys answer, but I don't have time for that and everyone here could do it just as easily.

I remember the original devs saying that REMOVING brawl kind of broke the pets, just like fiddling with recharge on them tended to goof with their AI. It does leave quite a few "what ifs", however, that we won't know without looking through it. I'm not saying just adding a zero the brawl range is the obvious and perfect fix, but given what the original devs would dig in their heels about sometimes, it could be that there IS a very simple fix for it, just not one that they were willing to do. For the 'ranged brawl 'example. they might have considered the pet just swinging at the air and hitting something 60 feet away an "absolutely not" solution, because they didn't want the pets to do that. It would be a kludge, to be sure, but it might work.

 

But then again, there could be all sorts of nested what-ifs that cause the pets to have numerous issues no matter what you change. Without digging into the code, we just don't know.

[Steampunkette]

55 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

I remember the original devs saying that REMOVING brawl kind of broke the pets, just like fiddling with recharge on them tended to goof with their AI. It does leave quite a few "what ifs", however, that we won't know without looking through it. I'm not saying just adding a zero the brawl range is the obvious and perfect fix, but given what the original devs would dig in their heels about sometimes, it could be that there IS a very simple fix for it, just not one that they were willing to do. For the 'ranged brawl 'example. they might have considered the pet just swinging at the air and hitting something 60 feet away an "absolutely not" solution, because they didn't want the pets to do that. It would be a kludge, to be sure, but it might work.

 

But then again, there could be all sorts of nested what-ifs that cause the pets to have numerous issues no matter what you change. Without digging into the code, we just don't know.

It's definitely a problem, yeah. Thank you for understanding!

 

Though if there -is- a simple fix? You'd think one of the Devs would've just flipped the switch. Or maybe there is a simple fix, but it's just SO SIMPLE that no one has thought of it in a serious manner. One of those "It can't be -that- easy... oh shit... CAN IT BE?!"

[WumpusRat]

12 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

It's definitely a problem, yeah. Thank you for understanding!

 

Though if there -is- a simple fix? You'd think one of the Devs would've just flipped the switch. Or maybe there is a simple fix, but it's just SO SIMPLE that no one has thought of it in a serious manner. One of those "It can't be -that- easy... oh shit... CAN IT BE?!"

Exactly. That's why even silly little suggestions can sometimes make people look at something and see if maybe there is something so stupidly simply it'd work. Like adding a zero to the range, I sincerely doubt it's that simple. But, you never know!