Why is "auto"-defend not automatic?

[pgcd]

I'm sorry, this has probably been discussed earlier, but a search for "autodefend" is not going to give me the info I need (yeah, I tried).

Here's the situation: I decided to finally train macing on my fighter, so I bought it to 40, killed some stuff in Haven, killed some skellies at Yew graveyard and reached 55ish. Then I figured I could go to Despise since lizardmen should start giving gains around there, and I still want to get the Ankh =)
I kill a few lizards, then I have to be AFK for a few minutes (nature's call). I leave, confident in the fact that my fighter, although unskilled in macing, has a nice suit and is a legendary parrier - not to mention he's a vampire, so he's very survivable against low level critters. When I come back, he's around half health, because some lizards are pounding on him while he does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. As soon as I select an enemy and attack, everything's fine again, but now I'm curious.
As it turns out, autodefend and autoattack only work against one enemy. Mob A attacks you, it flags, you defend. In the meantime, Mob B and C attack you as well, but you're still fighting A. When you kill A, the expected behaviour, at least for me, would be that, as soon as B or C hit you, you retarget and defend. What actually happens is, uhm, nothing. You just stay there and get pummelled, until another mob comes across, in which case you might actually start defending again.

Ok, that was longer than expected - anyway, my point is: is this behaviour desired? If it is, why is it? And if it isn't, can we please fix it so it makes some sense?

If there's an AFK training problem (as admittedly would have been my case, had I gained anything), I'd like to remind that "make max" allows for crafting AFK training, as sheep allow for AFK parry training, and Cast Last Spell repeat 10 allows for AFK magery training etc...

 

[Maplestone]

I do think that the key to understanding the situation is that one little acronym you used: AFK.

"Make max" doesn't give a chance of special drops (ToT, etc).

But I believe the key is that it only checks auto-defend on first-aggro. If a creature is already attacking you, you won't select it as a target once you are free to pick a new target.

 

[wee papa smurf]

Dont go afk while training

 

[pgcd]

I'm sorry, but that really makes no sense - I can see the reason to prevent AFK gains (even though making 200 magical residue is currently more remunerative than any single ToT or virtue drop I can think of), and I'm fine with it. But then, why is there even an "autodefend" if you can't use it? Is it so you can get involuntary aggro from area field enemies?
And that's not mentioning the fact that my tamer's Cu Sidhe is apparently smarter than my fighter, seeing as the Cu auto-retargets when he's being repeatedly hit, and that's without any intervention of mine...

Still, if this is the desired behavior, and it's been changed due to people abusing the system (yes, I remember the first few days of the virtue drops), I think it's one of the "cure worse than the illness" situation, seeing as somebody who's actually bent on AFK gains is probably going to use some 3rd party program, not autodefend.

 

[Maplestone]

um ... you were complaining because you were not killing things while AFK!

Sorry, but you don't have a leg to stand on.

 

[Connor_Graham]

Autodefend works just fine when you're in peace mode. It's when you're in war mode that it doesn't work.

 

[jfkeach]

I do see that when you are in a Mob, after killing one, you should autodefend, but to trigger it, I usually spam holy light, so that after i kill one mobster, I am automatically targetting the closest one.

I think that Enemy of One should do more than Highlight that creature type as Orange. It should make you automatically target the next closest one when the one you fighting is dead.

There is a macro, Select Nearest Hostile, Attack Selected that works, but it requires you to be at the keyboard. I understand calls of nature, just understand that we can't make the game geared towards unattended anything (even if for a good cause) because it would be exploited.

 

[Kojak]

go downstairs - tab out of war mode, go back upstairs and you should auto-defend fine - just don't go back into war mode

like anything in life, it helps to know what you're doing

 

[pgcd]

Ok, so let me get this straight:
If I am *out* of war mode (ie i'm not fighting) my char will autodefend as expected.
If I am in war mode, my char will get repeatedly hit and just stand there looking all martial and aggressive.
And this is intended, because while being AFK you should be able to reap no reward whatsoever. Except you can actually reap whatever rewards if you are not in warmode (or if you are a tamer, crafter, whatever).

Well, call me stupid but I don't get it, really. Couldn't we just have some sort of AFK switch that allows us to not gain anything but not lose anything for a few minutes? Just some sort of "pause" - that you can't use when you're actually in combat, and maybe requires ten seconds after combat to be used or something like that, and maybe can't be used in Fel at all, etc.
Just something so that someone who needs to be AFK can do it legitimately without worries...

 

[Pinco]

to be honest I hate the auto-attack/defend... I would like it removed forever

with my archery when I'm attacked by any mob it start to shooting and I'm unable to use honor :|

 

[pgcd]

to be honest I hate the auto-attack/defend... I would like it removed forever

with my archery when I'm attacked by any mob it start to shooting and I'm unable to use honor :|

That's exactly what I mean...

 

[Connor_Graham]

Just something so that someone who needs to be AFK can do it legitimately without worries...

If you have to go AFK then you could very easily have just gone to the entrance of the dungeon or simply recalled to a bank. When you first walk in Despise you're in a room with stairs going up or down and nothing spawns in there. You could have just parked yourself there and gone back in once you'd returned. There is absolutely no reason AT ALL to have something added to the game to allow players to go AFK inside of a dungeon.

 

[pgcd]

If you have to go AFK then you could very easily have just gone to the entrance of the dungeon or simply recalled to a bank. When you first walk in Despise you're in a room with stairs going up or down and nothing spawns in there. You could have just parked yourself there and gone back in once you'd returned. There is absolutely no reason AT ALL to have something added to the game to allow players to go AFK inside of a dungeon.

Sure, in my case I could have just left. You can't "just leave" when you are in the twisted weald desert area, for instance, or in any room in the Gauntlet. You can't "just leave" in a lot of other places, actually.
Please note that I'm not talking about places where any kind of auto-defend would help, or places where you really would want to be AFK for any length of time in any case. Well, these are the places where I think some sort of AFK switch would be nice to have.

But anyway, the whole AFK issue is unrelated to the original point, which I think is still valid: autodefend, as it is, doesn't make a lot of sense and is not very useful (IMO).

 

[Kratos Aurion]

to be honest I hate the auto-attack/defend... I would like it removed forever

with my archery when I'm attacked by any mob it start to shooting and I'm unable to use honor :|

That's exactly what I mean...

I found such a good solution though for this problem (which I thought I had until I figured this out), I just unequip my bow with a macro so that I can run up and honor a creature!

problem solved

As far as the autodefend issue goes, I wouldn't mind if they fixed it for war mode. Common sense suggests that if something is targeting you, target back. If target is out of reach, target next closest assaulting target.

 

[pgcd]

I hope this will not be considered flogging a dead horse, but I'd really like to have a comment on this very specific situation: still training, I'm at 85ish now, in Shame, fighting Earth Elementals.
I can pretty easily fight 4 or 5 ellies at once (I have 120 parry and VE, remember) even if I don't hit every time - they don't hit me a lot either, and my life leech is more than enough to keep me alive. The keyword here is "life leech": I had a connection loss earlier when fighting three ellies and a scorpion, and when I reconnected I was dead, because once the first one was dead the others could simply hit me without me fighting back.
I wasn't dead because the situation was dangerous or anything else - as everybody can verify, as long as you are ATTACKING something, you can't die in such a situation. No skill involved, nothing - you just have to not stay there and get attacked while doing nothing.
From where I stand, this is exactly a case of wanting autodefend to work properly, or having some sort of "ethereal" switch or anything else, really. Because there is no way anybody can honestly claim that connection losses really should be something you have to be punished for.
I'll agree that a disconnection is something that could be abused in several ways, but that's really a weak justification for the fact that retargeting is broken.

 

[Falseprophet]

to be honest I hate the auto-attack/defend... I would like it removed forever

with my archery when I'm attacked by any mob it start to shooting and I'm unable to use honor :|

that and I could finally run into my home in the swamps north of trinsic and not have to wait 2 mins to log out because i auto-attacked a mob running in the door

 

[Wolfways]

And that's not mentioning the fact that my tamer's Cu Sidhe is apparently smarter than my fighter, seeing as the Cu auto-retargets when he's being repeatedly hit, and that's without any intervention of mine..

Maybe your cu sidhe can teach mine how to do that, as mine will stand there losing health until i tell him to attack something

 

[Kratos Aurion]

Maybe your cu sidhe can teach mine how to do that, as mine will stand there losing health until i tell him to attack something

I was out hunting rune beetles the other day to raise my fame/karma with my cu. Two beetles attacked at once, I didn't bard or anything. But as soon as my cu finished one, he attacked the other. It happens at spawns too. I jumped off my cu and something attacked him, he went crazy and went on a killing spree with everything that aggroed him. I know by design he isn't suppose to because in many cases it annoys the hell out of me, but it certainly still happens.

 

[DevilsOwn]

Maybe your cu sidhe can teach mine how to do that, as mine will stand there losing health until i tell him to attack something

my greater dragon does the very same thing... I swear, a couple of mongbats could take him down if I didn't watch him

 

[Stupid Miner]

I do think that the key to understanding the situation is that one little acronym you used: AFK.

"Make max" doesn't give a chance of special drops (ToT, etc).

But I believe the key is that it only checks auto-defend on first-aggro. If a creature is already attacking you, you won't select it as a target once you are free to pick a new target.

Whether or not he was AFK matters not at all, Auto-defend is still screwy.

For example, sometimes I have several raptors attacking me... then one half way across the screen attacks me, and I auto-attack him instead of the 7 raptors right next to me. Have to re-target one adjacent to me quickly else i get massacred. Once the one I targeted dies, this happens all over again.

They need to fix auto-defend, at least to have the option to auto-defend against the closest enemy

 

[Tina Small]

Is it possible that queuing stuff for targetting is following the order in which things flag you or flag your pet, and if the next thing in the queue is out of reach, even by the smallest possible distance, auto-defend/auto-attack gets out of whack? Perhaps something changed for both clients while trying to work out some odd targetting behavior in the Enhanced client.

Something else that I've noticed for the last half a year or perhaps longer is that my pet seems unable to walk through or around the smallest of mobs if there are several of them. It almost seems as if the Fel push-through rules have been applied to pets regardless of which facet they are in. Our characters can easily push through creatures, hostile or not, but our pets seem unable to do so. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, if such a change has actually been made. However, it would be nice to have a developer/engineer confirm it so my pet's often mysterious behavior of late would make more sense.

 

[Maplestone]

Have to re-target one adjacent to me quickly else i get massacred.

I set up a "target nearest enemy and attack" macro. Add in an honor and a lightning strike into the macro if the character has bushido and its better than auto-defending anyway.

 

[Stupid Miner]

Something else that I've noticed for the last half a year or perhaps longer is that my pet seems unable to walk through or around the smallest of mobs if there are several of them. It almost seems as if the Fel push-through rules have been applied to pets regardless of which facet they are in. Our characters can easily push through creatures, hostile or not, but our pets seem unable to do so. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, if such a change has actually been made. However, it would be nice to have a developer/engineer confirm it so my pet's often mysterious behavior of late would make more sense.

That's just because the pet "follow" command is ridiculously bad. No reason why it is, Monster follow AI has improved greatly over the years, but pet's follow AI is like 1999 level stupid.

 

[aarons6]

autodefend works just fine as long as you dont kill things out of the order seen..

take my archer to despise and kill lizard men, i shoot them one after another i can stand in one spot and take out the whole room, but if i click on one out of order, it forgets to shoot the rest and i just stand there.

 

[Stupid Miner]

I set up a "target nearest enemy and attack" macro. Add in an honor and a lightning strike into the macro if there character has bushido and its better than auto-defending anyway.

Hm, will have to try that out. They still need to fix Auto-defend though.

 

[Stupid Miner]

autodefend works just fine as long as you dont kill things out of the order seen..

take my archer to despise and kill lizard men, i shoot them one after another i can stand in one spot and take out the whole room, but if i click on one out of order, it forgets to shoot the rest and i just stand there.

... You're an archer, you auto-defend across the screen. Doesn't work so well with non-ranged characters.