Henchmen AI

[tidge]

It's been a long time since I felt the need to question/scratch-my-head-over the AI behavior of certain henchmen (Thanks HC team!), but having a new Mastermind at level 50 (Thugs/Thermal) has me trying more challenging content and I have encountered two elements of Thugs' behavior that seem peculiar to me. I'd prefer some understanding, but I will also appreciate other players' observations as well.

 

For background: I noticed the following situations when playing Crimson's "World Wide Red" arc at +0/x8. The behavior was most pronounced when facing Knives of Artemis on wide-open maps. Aside from KoA being the primary enemy, the only other item of note is that the missions where this was most obvious included those which have KoA spawns which move across the map to engage the player. Note that my Mastermind is also applying (non-incarnate) debuffs to enemy spawns, which I know causes the enemy AI to flee for the hills. The behavior described below is not necessarily observed for the T3 Bruiser henchmen.

 

The henchmen are set to follow, with a defensive stance, putting them in Bodyguard mode.

 

1st odd situation: Every once in a while, one or more of my T1 and T2 will madly dash very far away from me. I initially thought that they were pursuing a specific enemy (as we known, enemy mobs will run very far away from a player) but I am positive that I have observed circumstances where they were not pursuing an (activated, aggroed) enemy. As near as I can tell, the henchmen were defending me against one-or-more enemies but had some sort of debuff applied to them (certainly Caltrops) at some point. I really don't like this AI behavior, as I want them acting as my bodyguards!

 

2nd odd situation: As an outcome of the first situation: one or more of my T1 and T2 won't rejoin my group, even if ordering the entire cadre to "Go to" a specific location. The disobedient hench will 'verbalize' receipt of commands, but essentially goes into 'walk mode' without actually rejoining the cadre. It doesn't matter if I change their stances, or even if I order the hench to attack a specific enemy... they've essentially defaulted to NPC status. The areas where this happened did not present the sorts of terrain that I associate with 'problematic path choices' for AI.

 

In neither case, would a very distant henchmen "warp" to me, no matter how far apart we were.

 

Obviously I make an example of the disloyal Thug by dismissing and summoning a replacement... but I never previously observed this sort of behavior with Robots.

[kelika2]

pets perusing something:  enemy rezzed like freakshow, they prioritize that target until its dead, map ends or you ragekill your pets.  example:

Yin, last mission, kill first group, get summoned to AV, something in first group rezzes.  pets will bolt

 

pets not rejoining:  sometimes pets get stuck in a running animation, mostly involves elevators.  only fix is kill/dismiss ALL and resummon.  teleport target or team teleport will kinda fix this.  the pet will attack, but will not move from teleport spot.

Right Click bugged pet > Dismiss/X DOES NOT WORK.  The pet may disappear but the game still thinks you have said pet and resummoning will not bring that minion back.  Only solution is to /releasepets to kill them all and resummon them all.  there might be a command to kill specific pets but i dont know it

[Riverdusk]

Rikti monkeys and the um...gas bombs...they leave are another of the ones that send my thugs running to the hills.  And I mean they run a ridiculously far distance, really wish that'd be curbed.  When fighting them I have to constantly use the stay command.

 

Another big annoyance is the one ramp with a middle landing in a lot of warehouse maps that tends to be in hallway corners.  Pets will get stuck at the top almost EVERY time there.  They will not just jump off from the top and can not seem to figure out how to use that ramp to get back down on their own.  I end up having to go back and wait on the landing for them, then lead them back down.  Meanwhile, the rest of the team is already at the end of the mission by then.

 

 

[tidge]

I haven't had much time to play the toon in question, but here is something weird that happened during "World Wide Red" on a "tech lab" map facing Malta (at +0/x8).

 

One of my T2 Enforcers got separated from the group (I couldn't tell if it was AI mis-behavior as described in the OP or just getting stuck because of a path), but the offending hench did port to me after I went through an elevator (I had targeted him, so was watching) ... but then the hench immediately dashed through the walls of the map (this was like no-clipping, not porting!) to go back to whatever his new preferred hidey-hole he had found.

 

Very odd.

[TheSpiritFox]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

I haven't had much time to play the toon in question, but here is something weird that happened during "World Wide Red" on a "tech lab" map facing Malta (at +0/x8).

 

One of my T2 Enforcers got separated from the group (I couldn't tell if it was AI mis-behavior as described in the OP or just getting stuck because of a path), but the offending hench did port to me after I went through an elevator (I had targeted him, so was watching) ... but then the hench immediately dashed through the walls of the map (this was like no-clipping, not porting!) to go back to whatever his new preferred hidey-hole he had found.

 

Very odd.

This seems to mostly happen to thugs, but I've seen it happen on Demons. Most common offender is summoning pets before entering the Time Gladiator part of SBB, sometimes your pets run up through the walls and don't come back for a few minutes or until death. I've literally started taking self destruct on all my MMs because its the one way to clean slate yourself if your pets run off and refuse to be resummoned. 

 

But yeah elevators still fuck with Pet AI if you go too fast for them to keep up. Weird shit starts happening.