Savage Melee: enemies very often run away - bug or wonky mechanic?

[rdroscoe]

When playing a Savage Melee scrapper, I have noticed that enemies (of all types and levels) very frequently run away, resulting in a substantial amount of chasing. There are one or more "runners" in every single enemy group. This disrupts solo play (i.e., too much time chasing) and team play (i.e., scattering groups). It is particularly miserable on AV fights. Romulus is a huge fan of parkour, apparently?

 

At first I thought there might be a bugged "hidden" but thematic "fear" effect in Savage Melee. Enemies run away from the scary person scratching their face off? But I checked with the wonderful Help Chat folks, who offered two other explanations. First, the damage-over-time (DoT) in Savage Melee may trigger a "Yikes! The ground is on fire!" NPC response, and enemies try to leave the bad place. Second, enemies have a small chance to flee on any tick of damage, and Savage Melee DoTs have many more opportunities to trigger it. In any case, it's tedious and annoying.

 

In short, enemies constantly running with Savage Melee might not be a "bug"... but a weird game mechanic that is perhaps too aggressively applied? Changing the underlying mechanics might be impossible (too many other powers and situations affected). But perhaps a Slow (enemy speed debuff) effect could be proliferated across all Savage Melee attacks? The slowing effect could be unenhanceable so as to not change enhancement slotting options for the whole set.  Enemies would still run away, but not quite so dang fast. It's thematic: enemies are slower because they are bleeding out.

[Solarverse]

Not a bug, this is simply NPC behavior. There are usually one or two NPCs per mob that are programmed to run at either first minion death or when a minion hits 75% health. You don't notice it as much on teams because on a team they die too quickly to run or are locked down by Doms/Trollers. But when solo, you are able to actually notice it.

[Bill Z Bubba]

I see it much more than I used to across the board and even more so on characters with debuffs. The amount of runners my dark/stone scrapper sees is quite the PITA.

[RobotLove]

Slows and DoTs seem to be the main offenders. i.e. the problem isn't isolated to Savage Melee.

Edited January 16, 2022 by RobotLove

[Rudra]

It seems to be a debuff thing. My /radiation emission MM  and /dark miasma MM cause every mob in the group most times, and especially bosses and higher, to immediately run away, often all the way across the instance map aggroing everything along the way, as soon as I drop a debuff toggle on the boss. And yes, it is ridiculous. "Wait, Nosferatu! It's just 1 debuff! You're at EB status! You can handle it!" "Come back, Romulus! It's just one debuff! You're an AV for crying out loud!!!! Why are you running away?!" Most times? My pets don't even attack because they are in bodyguard mode and the enemies all just ran away.

[Solarverse]

On 1/17/2022 at 12:10 AM, Rudra said:

It seems to be a debuff thing. My /radiation emission MM  and /dark miasma MM cause every mob in the group most times, and especially bosses and higher, to immediately run away, often all the way across the instance map aggroing everything along the way, as soon as I drop a debuff toggle on the boss. And yes, it is ridiculous. "Wait, Nosferatu! It's just 1 debuff! You're at EB status! You can handle it!" "Come back, Romulus! It's just one debuff! You're an AV for crying out loud!!!! Why are you running away?!" Most times? My pets don't even attack because they are in bodyguard mode and the enemies all just ran away.

 

Honestly, I know you probably don't want to hear this, but I always thought that was working as intended. If memory serves, this was a change made back on live when players were complaining about how stupid the AI is, so the devs decided to add running as a mechanic, which if you use a toggle debuff, they can and will run to other nearby mobs so they can elicit the help of those mobs. I didn't think it was a bug, I thought it was a mechanic design.

[Rudra]

Never noticed it on Live. At least nowhere near this bad. I could drop debuffs on mobs all day on Live and they wouldn't run until they were at least hurt. Typically 50% health or so remaining and at least one mob defeated. For mobs, especially bosses, EBs, and AVs to run away at full health because I debuffed their accuracy, or their resist? A single debuff with no accompanying damage causes everything to run for the hills? No, it never worked like that on Live for me. Then again, maybe I was just lucky all that time and now the mechanic is smacking me in the face like it was always supposed to. I still find it ridiculous.

[arcane]

Yeah entities running from harm sounds like logical behavior that mitigates every encounter feeling like a faceroll fire farm. Perhaps annoying but definitely reasonable.

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, arcane said:

Yeah entities running from harm sounds like logical behavior that mitigates every encounter feeling like a faceroll fire farm. Perhaps annoying but definitely reasonable.

I would agree if they suffered harm. All these villains, and again, bosses, elite bosses, and archvillains, are running away because they suffered a single debuff? As if enduring pain while inflicting it was something an archvillain was incapable of enduring and never had before? The mechanic is too sensitive. Great Overlord of Darkness sees his lackey blinded by sand. "The hero threw sand in Bob's face! Everyone retreat! It doesn't matter that we also have super powers and outnumber the hero 6 to 1! Run for your lives!" Sorry. Doesn't make as much sense to me.

[Solarverse]

7 hours ago, Rudra said:

Great Overlord of Darkness sees his lackey blinded by sand. "The hero threw sand in Bob's face! Everyone retreat! It doesn't matter that we also have super powers and outnumber the hero 6 to 1! Run for your lives!" Sorry. Doesn't make as much sense to me.

 

Right or wrong, but that stuff was funny right there!  😄

I guess the best way to know for sure, is to ask a Dev.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Solarverse

[Rudra]

Mission: One Good Spider (Morality mission).

Level of mission: 41

Level of lone player doing mission: 41

Difficulty: +0/x0

 

Bane Spider Executioner runs up after 3:00 timer runs out. I didn't apply any of my MM's debuffs to him. Bots were all in bodyguard mode and will not attack until after he does. Bane Spider Executioner doesn't even attack. he just turns and runs. And runs. And runs. And runs. Finally comes back, then turns and runs. Still not debuffed. Still not damaged. What the hell? Can we get the run away mechanic adjusted please?!

[wjrasmussen]

On 1/18/2022 at 7:15 AM, Rudra said:

I would agree if they suffered harm. All these villains, and again, bosses, elite bosses, and archvillains, are running away because they suffered a single debuff? As if enduring pain while inflicting it was something an archvillain was incapable of enduring and never had before? The mechanic is too sensitive. Great Overlord of Darkness sees his lackey blinded by sand. "The hero threw sand in Bob's face! Everyone retreat! It doesn't matter that we also have super powers and outnumber the hero 6 to 1! Run for your lives!" Sorry. Doesn't make as much sense to me.

Trolls were always cowardly IIRC.   The other day, I was in Skyway and jumped three trolls.  The kind of looked confused. It was as if they looked at each other not knowing whose turn it was to run until it was too late.