Stupid Pet or Smart Monster?

[MYUO]

Whenever the monsters (balron, ancient wym, etc.) is redlined on uneven landscape, near the water or a player's house, they will fly around trying to avoid the damage. Instead of following them, my pet (including summoned earth eles) will just step away a few tiles and walk back and forth on the same spot; or walk into the player house and do nothing. I think it is related to the pets failed effort to pathfind the monster that are flying in the middle of the air. So each time the monster is in air, the pet will go nuts. Talk about annoyance!
Then sometimes, the monster will fly away on the water and stay there to regain health. How smart! The problem is it won't come back land even after it gets back significant amount of hp.
Of course, my tamer can use spells or bows to kill the monster after my pet goes nut, or I can use a boat to get close to the monster on the water. But the question is: are they behave as designed?
A more common buggy situation is when you kill the monster who happens to be flying in the air, or stuck on high ground, or on some uneven terran, you can't loot it.
I believe all these issues are related to the Z axis.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

A more common buggy situation is when you kill the monster who happens to be flying in the air, or stuck on high ground, or on some uneven terran, you can loot it.

Do you mean "can't"? If so, try standing directly on the body.

Anyway, the pets run for the highest bit of land they can find when monsters start flying. You're quite right, it's silly and long overdue for a fix.

When monsters fly over water and regen HP, they'll stop flying once they've recovered enough (even if that puts them in the drink). This means they stay there (can't walk on water) until they start to fly again. Same goes for cliffs (I'm sure a lot of people noticed this with Swoop, who luckily doesn't flee from combat, but does like to flap around if you're a bit slow targeting him).

They won't fly while in combat (unless redlined, of course), so the solution is to hide yourself and your pets. They'll eventually take wing and (maybe) return to the shore.

Monsters who can will, eventually, teleport right to you if you leave them in combat.

 

[Redxpanda]

Yeah i remember those ethereal warriors were abusing that bug during the moonglow event. They would fly on top of a building and spam greater heal on themselves. It is very annoying but my guess would be smart monster.

 

[MYUO]

Do you mean "can't"? If so, try standing directly on the body.

.

Yes. Changed my typo.
More than once, the monster died on the cliff or even on a piece of large stone and you can't open the corpose. No matter what you do, you get "you can't reach that" message.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Kinda worth mentioning that the whole "pets going beserk" thing probably is sort of intentional. Sort of.

Say your pet is targeting a monster that's a floor above it. Rather then go directly to the monster's X/Y location, it'll first try to climb to the same Z position (eg. it'll go for the stairs).

This makes sense, 'cause if they went for the X/Y location first they'd just stand directly below the target, doing nothing. And the same probably applies to creatures that aren't under your control, for example, a fighter could "hide" from monsters simply by nipping up a staircase.

The problem isn't in the way the pets pathfind, it's that the monsters who fly are switching to a different elevation level to the one they were standing in. Perhaps this is required to let them fly over water and so on. But if disabling this quirk stopped them from doing that, I for one would hardly complain.

 

[Endrik]

Sounds to me like these monsters are deliberately exploiting game mechanics to gain an unfair advantage. I say Ban all monsters that do this.

Also, to get the point across to other NPC monsters, I say ban all monsters that are class related to the offending monsters, and all monsters that spawn within a given distance of offending NPC Monsters. Any monster that attacks a player while that player is waiting for the exploiting monster to return to a reachable location should also be banned as they are participating in an exploiting event.

And as per EA policy, any real player found hunting any of these or related offending monsters should also be banned for interacting with Known Exploiting monsters.

To be safe, EA should also ban anybody who owns a house that these or related monsters could conceivably be flying around, thereby facilitating a known exploit.

Lastly, any player or vender found selling slayer class weapons for any of these Exploiting NPC Monsters or related monsters should also be banned and have their houses burned for encouraging interaction with Known NPC Exploiting Monsters.

Please EA, when will you stop discriminating in your policy and start treating Exploits seriously across the board?

 

[Sarphus]

I don't even need to read the post the answer...
the answer is "stupid pet"

pets are dumber than monsters and mosters are pretty dumb.

 

[MYUO]

Kinda worth mentioning that the whole "pets going beserk" thing probably is sort of intentional. Sort of.

Say your pet is targeting a monster that's a floor above it. Rather then go directly to the monster's X/Y location, it'll first try to climb to the same Z position (eg. it'll go for the stairs).

This makes sense, 'cause if they went for the X/Y location first they'd just stand directly below the target, doing nothing. And the same probably applies to creatures that aren't under your control, for example, a fighter could "hide" from monsters simply by nipping up a staircase.

The problem isn't in the way the pets pathfind, it's that the monsters who fly are switching to a different elevation level to the one they were standing in. Perhaps this is required to let them fly over water and so on. But if disabling this quirk stopped them from doing that, I for one would hardly complain.

The probelm is the redlined monster fly up every 2 seconds so the pet will try to go up Z direction every 2 seconds. That makes them step away to a higher ground and do the cat walk there. Only after the monster gains enough hp and stops flying, does the pet return its sanity and attack properly again. But once its target is redlined and flying, the same rountine starts all over.
A easy fix could be put a little delay in pet's pursuing in Z direction. It is better to have pet standing under the monster barking at it than having it run 5 tiles awasy and walk like it is on drug.
On a side note, it would be cool to see the dragons combat each other in the air.

 

[CroakerTnT]

A pet can't reach a flying monster, except with spells and firebreath.

 

[Raider Red]

I don't even need to read the post the answer...
the answer is "stupid pet"

pets are dumber than monsters and mosters are pretty dumb.

That why I stopped using my tamer to hunt with.I mean if am goign to have to use a spell or my -27 magery bow I might as well use my archer or mage instead of tamer.

But yeah I agree STUPID PET AI.

 

[miss_samara]

Sounds to me like these monsters are deliberately exploiting game mechanics to gain an unfair advantage. I say Ban all monsters that do this.

Also, to get the point across to other NPC monsters, I say ban all monsters that are class related to the offending monsters, and all monsters that spawn within a given distance of offending NPC Monsters. Any monster that attacks a player while that player is waiting for the exploiting monster to return to a reachable location should also be banned as they are participating in an exploiting event.

Hee hee!

 

[Zoran]

I think its the broken spirit of the now tamed, once great beast that causes him to meandor healplessly while being beaten senseless. The creature no longer has the willpower or drive to live perhaps?

Naaah- its prolly just poor AI
~Zoran

 

[Bomb Bloke]

A pet can't reach a flying monster, except with spells and firebreath.

Er, it can, actually. So can characters with melee weapons.