Suspected: Mob AI "shout" I'm being attacked not firing?

[ceaars]

My (perhaps incorrect) understanding is that a mob that is attacked gives out kind of an AI "shout" that is "heard" by nearby mobs to aggro them onto the player (put simply, before shutdown, if you attacked a mob his nearby friends - even if their backs were turned - would aggro onto you, although it was relatively weak compared to the injured mob; if you ran often the injured mob would keep following you and the friends would lose interest and return to their spawn point).

 

Here the (possible) bug: I'm noticing a lot of the time that is just not happening.  I can hit a mob with several attacks from outside of their aggro radius, and while the main mob will aggro, his buddies will just stand there like idiots.

 

Also, defeating a mob produced a much louder more urgent "shout" - 'kill' a mob and his buddies run after you practically 100% of the time... except sometimes they're not.

 

Yes, I know, this is the worst kind of bug report.  A vague AI behavior thing that may or may not even be an actual issue, based on a six year old memory of CoH mob behavior.  But I figured I'd point it out just in case.

[srmalloy]

It depends (at least, it did before shutdown) on how far away from the target you are, and what you do to the target. I remember, with my AR/EM Blaster, being able to stand up near Imperious in Cimerora, pop Boost Range, Aim or Build Up, and Snipe to one-shot a mob in the spawn standing in the plaza on the west side of the valley... and the rest of the spawn would just stand there wondering why Fred just fell over. It took a second shot before they'd figure out that they were taking fire and come charging across the map.

 

In general, I've found that the faster you drop a mob, the less likely it is that the rest of the spawn figures out where they're being attacked from. The more 'observant' a mob type is, the more likely it will be to aggro on incoming damage, as well -- minions less than lieutenants less than bosses -- and missing your target seems to generate more aggro but it's more affected by range; missing from short range gets you more aggro than missing from long range (often you'll only pull the one mob you attacked at long enough range. And some mobs spread aggro -- Vahzilok Reapers and Mortificators will make the Cadavers and Abominations in their spawn aggro when a group of just Abominations can be sniped down at long range several times before they aggro as long as you keep one-shotting them.

[EmperorSteele]

One question: What are you playing as?

 

Because I can tell you, that some powers (particularly Mesmerize and Dominate from the Mind Control set) do NOT agro nearby opponents. This is by design. Most attacks do allow an ai to "shout" as it were, but there are a few that are meant to be "stealthy".

[ceaars]

One question: What are you playing as?

 

Because I can tell you, that some powers (particularly Mesmerize and Dominate from the Mind Control set) do NOT agro nearby opponents. This is by design. Most attacks do allow an ai to "shout" as it were, but there are a few that are meant to be "stealthy".

 

Blaster.  And I'll admit last night the behavior was closer to what I remember - that's the problem with going by vague observation rather than hard data.  I might just be seeing a transient anomaly.  Here's more specific.

 

If I move into *their* aggro range - they aggro.  Aggro range is higher from front than back.  If I aggro one by moving into aggro range they "shout" to the others, and the others aggro too.  All of that is completely normal; I'm just mentioning it for clarity.

 

All other examples are outside of "visual" aggro range.

 

Snipe -  Hit 'em from behind, neighbors usually *don't* aggro (strikes me as pretty normal; and behavior I remember from before).  Hit 'em from the front, it's iffy - sometimes neighbors aggro, sometimes they don't (kind of funny when they don't since they are just staring at me while I literally sniped their bud - and the logical assumption is that giant bolt of lightning they clearly saw that just came out of me that just blasted Pete the Hellion into the next life probably means I'm a threat... but they don't come after me).  I'm a bit more nebulous as to whether or not they acted like that before.

 

Charged Bolts / Lightning Bolt - Hit them from behind, friends may or may not aggro.  Even if it took multiple shots to take 'em down (the one who is getting hit always aggros, of course).  "Huh.  Pete must have just come down with SMESS - Sudden Multiple Electric Shock Syndrome.  Must be his unlucky day.  I'm sure I'll be fine, though."  Hit them from the front more often then not friends aggro.  But occasionally they act just like I sniped from the front.  "I'm sure the blue guy I'm watching hurl multiple lightning bolts at Pete is just my imagination so my brain can rationalize Pete's acute onset SMESS.  No need to stop him.  Plus never liked Pete anyway.  Kind of a whiner.  And apparently a narcoleptic."  **It's the occasional non-aggro behavior when I use multiple bolts to take down someone from the front that I don't remember being a thing from before.

 

Ball Lightning - Aggros the whole group every time.  Front, back, regardless of whether or not the friend was in the range of the actual AOE blast.  Naturally that strikes me as totally normal anyway.

 

My other attacks/powers require me to move into "visual" aggro range so they're a moot point.

 

...

 

Yeah!  I'd forgotten about the Vahz zombie behavior - the unusually small visual aggro range (especially from the back), but that's offset by a Reaper or Mort's ability to insta-aggro the whole group.  Cool reminder - although when I made this report I wasn't really fighting Vahz.  Had been mostly Skulls in the newer (and pretty cool) skull arcs with the P-brother (and sister?) AVs.  As I mentioned earlier, the Tsoo, Warriors, and Freaks that I've been fighting more recently are behaving more normally (normally = like I remember from six years ago).