Robotics wishlist

[Weylin]

I've played robotics the slow way from 1 to 50 in both solo and team play, and these are some of the things that have felt problematic.

 

-Remove melee from bots so they stop running up to things to slap them.

  (The leading cause of death for robots fighting mobs with deadly melee.)

-Photon grenade to have a 100% chance of disorient.

  (Instead of a 30% chance. Protector bots get 100% photons, so why not you?)

-Bots to have their random knockback changed to knockdown.

  (I can't even begin to say how many times they've shot enemies off a cliff and spent the next 30 seconds chasing them.)

-Assault bot to always prioritize napalm rockets on the first attack.

  (Not sure how this is chosen to begin with, but I hate seeing them start with single target attacks on large groups.)

-Repair to heal 25% but have a 20 second cooldown.

  (Two minutes is waaaay too long, it's much more useful as an ability you can use frequently. How often do you actually heal more than 75%?)

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2019 by Weylin

[PaxArcana]

First off: overall, you get a nice big +1 from me.

 

35 minutes ago, Weylin said:

-Remove melee from bots so they stop running up to things to slap them.

  (The leading cause of death for robots fighting mobs with deadly melee.)

True for any ranged-preferred Henchmen, actually.  Maybe, put it on an obscenely-long recharge ...?

32 minutes ago, Weylin said:

-Photon grenade to have a 100% chance of disorient.

  (Instead of a 30% chance. Protector bots get 100% photons, so why not you?)

Maybe split the difference, make both of them, say ... 75%?

33 minutes ago, Weylin said:

-Bots to have their random knockback changed to knockdown.

  (I can't even begin to say how many times they've shot enemies off a cliff and spent the next 30 seconds chasing them.)

Or just let us slot KB->KD IOs in the summon power, and have it affect all of the Robot's powers ...?

 

33 minutes ago, Weylin said:

-Assault bot to always prioritize napalm rockets on the first attack.

  (Not sure how this is chosen to begin with, but I hate seeing them start with single target attacks on large groups.)

That'd probably be just an AI tweak, to increase the "weight" of using that attack in preference to all others.

36 minutes ago, Weylin said:

-Repair to heal 25% but have a 20 second cooldown.

  (Two minutes is waaaay too long, it's much more useful as an ability you can use frequently. How often do you actually heal more than 75%?)

This power is ... well, not very useful.  Back on Live, my main was Robo/FF.  And I hardly ever used Repair; mostly, as a panic-button thing if one of the Protectors got low on HP.

 

I'd love to see one of these options happen:

• An Autopower that gives a very small, constant HoT to all pets in Supremacy range;
• A fast-recharging, non-stacking PBAoE HoT
• Just make it smaller and faster, like you describe

[Weylin]

I actually considered repair being something entirely different - You'd use a welder at close range, and toggle it on to begin repairing a robot in 1 second ticks, and a very short cooldown once you turn it off and start working on repairing another robot.

It feels like it'd be more thematically fitting, but I'm not sure if there's any such thing as a "single target melee range toggle"

Obviously if you're fixing a robot you're not dealing damage with your own weapons, but the MM themselves isn't the main source of damage anyways.

[biostem]

It'd be nice if repair provided some sort of additional benefit, like extra +dmg or such to the henchman it's used on.   But, yeah - it's very skipable, especially if your secondary has a heal...

[Weylin]

I also wish that repair could revive robots that haven't despawned yet, would that be too overpowered? Only if they keep that 2m cooldown.

They seem to go from full health to suddenly dead very often, leaving no opportunity for healing to even happen.

Edited September 4, 2019 by Weylin

[Black Zot]

4 hours ago, Weylin said:

I also wish that repair could revive robots that haven't despawned yet, would that be too overpowered? Only if they keep that 2m cooldown.

They seem to go from full health to suddenly dead very often, leaving no opportunity for healing to even happen.

 

This right here is the main reason Repair is crap.  Anything that poses enough of a threat that a big heal looks attractive, won't give you a chance to cast said heal.  The assault bot is the only one that even has enough effective HP to MAYBE survive the first swing from a big hitter.

[Rhinoxx]

I would be happy if Robots stopped meleeing unless enemies actually run up to them and their other powers are on cool-down - but entirely remove melee would be fine too.

 

Totally agree on the rockets - starting with the AoE-ish stuff and moving downwards would make much more sense.

[daveyfiacre]

also, port beam rifle animation fx as alternate fx 😛

 

and dual pistol blast animations for thugs

 

if possible 😮

[Purrfekshawn]

Repair should be made affecting all bots at once!

[Some Random User]

I'm honestly shocked by how uninformed this thread seems. We've discussed (in other threads) several of these issues with members of the staff, and quite recently.

 

The melee-bot problem was going to be solved but the A.I. was the problem, not what attacks they give the bots. The melee problem works like this: The game has to have a single A.I. for all of the Mastermind pets. Some of the Powersets for Masterminds use melee pets instead of ranged pets. If you take away the pet's [Brawl] they still walk up to melee range and attack stuff... they just shoot instead of using [Brawl]. Since the pets themselves don't think like a human when they decide what attack to use, the A.I. can't be easily re-written in a way that cares about what kind of attacks the pets can perform. They have to be moved into a position then choose their attacks semi-randomly. Fixing this would mean an overhaul of how all mobs, good and bad, made their decisions.

 

As for your other suggestions, I respectfully disagree.

 

• [Photon Grenade] doesn't just have a chance to Disorient, there's another statistic called Magnitude that is also important. Overall, the entire thing needs to be looked at.
• Everyone wants every Knockback effect changed to Knockdown. I'm of the opinion that all of them should be changed unless there's a good reason not to.
• See the A.I. issues, above.
• [Repair] is actually a unique sort of effect. Note that there are other ways to heal them, such as Secondary Powersets, Pool Powers, and dragging a Respite Inspiration onto their life bar. The effect of [Repair] is already strongly recommended by most of the guides to the Robotics Powerset that you can find online, and has strong flavor as well. Your personal preference that the mechanics look more like other healing effects isn't automatically the best design choice. Sometimes flavor matters, and sometimes others like the way something is.

 

 

[Doc_Scorpion]

On 9/2/2019 at 9:18 AM, PaxArcana said:

This power is ... well, not very useful.  Back on Live, my main was Robo/FF.  And I hardly ever used Repair; mostly, as a panic-button thing if one of the Protectors got low on HP.

I use it routinely and find it very useful.
 

 

30 minutes ago, Some Random User said:

The melee-bot problem was going to be solved but the A.I. was the problem, not what attacks they give the bots. The melee problem works like this: The game has to have a single A.I. for all of the Mastermind pets.

Proven to be incorrect by folks who've dived into the code, there's multiple A.I's.  (They've been able to change pet behavior by copy-pasting from one to another.)

 

31 minutes ago, Some Random User said:

Some of the Powersets for Masterminds use melee pets instead of ranged pets. If you take away the pet's [Brawl] they still walk up to melee range and attack stuff... they just shoot instead of using [Brawl].

That's a "poorly designed AI" problem, not a "one AI to rule them all" problem.

 

32 minutes ago, Some Random User said:

Fixing this would mean an overhaul of how all mobs, good and bad, made their decisions.

Only if all mobs use the same AI - which they don't.

 

[Some Random User]

10 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Proven to be incorrect by folks who've dived into the code, there's multiple A.I's.  (They've been able to change pet behavior by copy-pasting from one to another.)

You're wrong. The staff said that the A.I. is actually three A.I.s in three different portions.

 

The movement A.I. and the attack A.I. are not the same section of code. While the attacks are handled independently the movement code is not.

[Some Random User]

10 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Only if all mobs use the same AI - which they don't.

On the contrary. Everything that isn't a player-controlled mobile element uses a single massive system that scans the locations of all of the mobs and directs their movement. This same system handles aggro and then hands that info off to the mob-specific attack scripts.

[tidge]

I've played quite a lot of bots (1-50+) and I wouldn't support these proposed changes.

 

Quote

-Remove melee from bots so they stop running up to things to slap them.

  (The leading cause of death for robots fighting mobs with deadly melee.)

 

Pet melee is part of the flavor of being a MM. Yes it is annoying, but I have always found it to be something I could work with. I usually don't have Detonator (Traps) available in my builds, but using the melee-bot is a natural. The T1 pets can be resummoned quickly enough that this is not really a concern for me.

 

Quote

 

-Photon grenade to have a 100% chance of disorient.

  (Instead of a 30% chance. Protector bots get 100% photons, so why not you?)

 

This seems like an extraordinary ask, especially when you can already slot the attack for Accuracy and Disorient. If the power isn't working for you, I suggest looking at some of the other things you can slot in it, such as -Res. This is a power I often respec into late game specifically to have as an AoE under my control. Jumping ahead to the next snippet, this is the power I often have the Overwhelming Force KB->KD IO slotted in, just so that *I* can also knockdown enemies!

 

Quote

 

-Bots to have their random knockback changed to knockdown.

  (I can't even begin to say how many times they've shot enemies off a cliff and spent the next 30 seconds chasing them.)

 

I have always 'fixed' this via slotting IOs. I see this as part of the compromise between having pet AoE and ranged attacks. It is annoying to 'burn' a slot to turn KB->KD, but it adds a tremendous amount of control to the pets. Getting it for 'free' doesn't seem correct.

 

Quote

 

-Assault bot to always prioritize napalm rockets on the first attack.

  (Not sure how this is chosen to begin with, but I hate seeing them start with single target attacks on large groups.)

 

This has never really bothered me. My late-game play style has always been for me to start with an AoE and then allow the bots to follow-up. I have no real opinion here but this seems like a preference rather than a problem.

 

Quote

 

-Repair to heal 25% but have a 20 second cooldown.

  (Two minutes is waaaay too long, it's much more useful as an ability you can use frequently. How often do you actually heal more than 75%?)

 

I never take the primary pool heal, so that should tell you something about how useless I find the Repair power. Early game (with fewer robots and smaller enemy group sizes) I use the Medicine pool to heal specific bots; by the late game I typically respec out of the Medicine pool because the number of inspirations is larger and the time to resummon robots is pretty short. Several secondaries offer alternatives to Repair as well.

 

I understand where you are coming from, but these requests seem to have a hint of  'first world problems'. My list of wants for robotics has much the same flavor:

 

The one thing I'd like to be able to do with my (Protector) Bots would be to be able to order them to put a Force Shield on a specific target...but that's just because sometimes *I* want the Force Shield first! Silly Robots will protect their own before thinking of their fleshbag master! (wink)

 

Something I'd REALLY like to know how to do is to make them emote sparks, like they do when spawning/upgrading.

 

[DR_Mechano]

18 hours ago, Some Random User said:

I'm honestly shocked by how uninformed this thread seems. We've discussed (in other threads) several of these issues with members of the staff, and quite recently.

 

The melee-bot problem was going to be solved but the A.I. was the problem, not what attacks they give the bots. The melee problem works like this: The game has to have a single A.I. for all of the Mastermind pets. Some of the Powersets for Masterminds use melee pets instead of ranged pets. If you take away the pet's [Brawl] they still walk up to melee range and attack stuff... they just shoot instead of using [Brawl]. Since the pets themselves don't think like a human when they decide what attack to use, the A.I. can't be easily re-written in a way that cares about what kind of attacks the pets can perform. They have to be moved into a position then choose their attacks semi-randomly. Fixing this would mean an overhaul of how all mobs, good and bad, made their decisions.

 

As for your other suggestions, I respectfully disagree.

 

 

Actually, having looked into it we've found that there isn't JUST a singular AI that governs pets but there are several 'configs' that govern pets. We've delved right into the code and found this out. There are, at some points, three different AI guidelines written by 3 different people in 3 different locations that apparently all seem to do roughly the same thing but via different ways of doing it, which may be the reason we see resulting conflicts. So saying it's 1 AI running everything is a little underestimating things, it's basically 3 different AI arguing over what the pets should be doing and how to do it in a tangled mess of code which will be a nightmare to untangle but it seems like we're making progress on untangling it, if very slowly.

[ShardWarrior]

Would be sweet if we had different bots to choose from too.  Like adding Cyborgs or robotic animals or flying drones and such.

[William Valence]

On 9/29/2019 at 12:54 PM, Doc_Scorpion said:

Proven to be incorrect by folks who've dived into the code, there's multiple A.I's.  (They've been able to change pet behavior by copy-pasting from one to another.)

 

On 9/29/2019 at 12:54 PM, Doc_Scorpion said:

That's a "poorly designed AI" problem, not a "one AI to rule them all" problem.

 

On 9/29/2019 at 12:54 PM, Doc_Scorpion said:

Only if all mobs use the same AI - which they don't.

Link? Because from my examination there's a basic AI with some modification of certain parts of the AI using a type specific brain. The brain can add or modify functions of the default behaviors, but not enough to say that mobs don't use the same AI. These brains dont have enough functionality to control half of what's needed to have half a functional AI.

 

Also copy/paste behaviors between? The brains control behaviors specific to unique mechanics that the default brain, literally named default, can't handle. For example pet summoning, extra buffs, allowable buff targets, or rez functionality. What are they copy/pasting?

 

5th column, Arachnos, Rularuu are three brains I can remember off the top of my head.

 

 

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, William Valence said:

Link? Because from my examination there's a basic AI with some modification of certain parts of the AI using a type specific brain. The brain can add or modify functions of the default behaviors, but not enough to say that mobs don't use the same AI. These brains dont have enough functionality to control half of what's needed to have half a functional AI.

 

Also copy/paste behaviors between? The brains control behaviors specific to unique mechanics that the default brain, literally named default, can't handle. For example pet summoning, extra buffs, allowable buff targets, or rez functionality. What are they copy/pasting?

That was my understanding from what you posted in this thread.

[William Valence]

Ah, sorry.

 

Not quite. Sorry if the phrasing was misleading. There is one AI, with various brains that are specific to types of entities. These brains add functionality or targets to specific types of entity such as "Pet" or "Arachnos" but almost all the AI code is shared with everything.

[Bossk_Hogg]

Nice to see the Gimp Power Brigade are out in force defending a single target, robot only heal with a 2 minute cooldown. Oh COH players, never give up the good fight to keep garbage powers and sets down and near useless.

[Lost Ninja]

4 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Would be sweet if we had different bots to choose from too.  Like adding Cyborgs or robotic animals or flying drones and such.

I have wanted Nemesis robots since they started Power Proliferation. Jaegers and warhulks for the t1 & t3, not too sure about the t2. Possibly one of those human clone things he does...

 

Also now I think of it how about the Praetorian version of clockwork they'd look awesome. 😄

[DR_Mechano]

14 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Nice to see the Gimp Power Brigade are out in force defending a single target, robot only heal with a 2 minute cooldown. Oh COH players, never give up the good fight to keep garbage powers and sets down and near useless.

Literally EVERYONE in this thread is agreeing that repair needs a buff or a complete rework....what on earth are you talking about?

 

What people are talking about is how people are working on getting the AI is in the midst of being looked at and talking about how the AI works.

Edited September 30, 2019 by DR_Mechano

[Bossk_Hogg]

37 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

Literally EVERYONE in this thread is agreeing that repair needs a buff or a complete rework....what on earth are you talking about?

 

What people are talking about is how people are working on getting the AI is in the midst of being looked at and talking about how the AI works.

See "Some Random User" for what I was referring to. I'm really confused what guides they found that recommend Repair lol.

[DR_Mechano]

7 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

See "Some Random User" for what I was referring to. I'm really confused what guides they found that recommend Repair lol.

Fair enough, I missed that post since everyone else was like "Yeah I never take it since it's useless..." which, having played a bots/FF on live...yeah I gotta agree that it really needs a major buff or a complete rework. I'm not sure which guides he's thinking of...since heck even medicine is more effective I think.

Edited September 30, 2019 by DR_Mechano

[PaxArcana]

I don't know about "more effective", but, Aid Other certainly has a much faster recharge time.