Improving Pet AI

[Guest]

Actually, I was just wondering if general pets, ie those that the char doesn't need taming to own, could possibly have the AI of the 'frightened orc'.

Do you remember those?

especially those belonging to resource gatherers who run scripts

 

[Gildar]

<blockquote><hr>

Imagine how difficult it'll be in PvP to fight a Greater Dragon that always does exactly what it's told and can't be distracted by flagging on it, or lured away from its owner, to its death?

[/ QUOTE ]Keep your distance, cast spells and shoot arrows at the tamer. Once the tamer is dead, the dragon shouldn't be as much of an issue.

 

[imported_Wing Chun]

how about haivng your pet attack the target you tell it to instead of switching to another target constantly

 

[Sakkarah]

These changes look pretty good. Ty!!

My concerns are pretty much the same that have been brought up by others:

1. There should be some sort of auto-defend mechanism as it doesn't make sense for the pet to just sit there getting spanked. Maybe once he gets below half life? Though any command from the tamer should override the auto-defend.

2. Pets going blue if the tamer hasn't issued a command in a while is a huge issue. During big fights, the pet goes blue and starts attacking our reds and greys if they do any AoE or if the pet walks through one of their fields. Pets should remain green at all time.

3. The tamers should get the insurance when their pets kills an enemy.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>


Actually, I was just wondering if general pets, ie those that the char doesn't need taming to own, could possibly have the AI of the 'frightened orc'.

Do you remember those?

especially those belonging to resource gatherers who run scripts

[/ QUOTE ]

*grins* that would be too funny...

Oddly enough I did think it'd be a great scripter nerf if their pets sometimes legged it in the face of adversity heh.

Wenchy

 

[Guest]

I'm awfully afraid that as it stands it could in fact be a scripter boost.

I believe that not many currently use a pet because of its tendency to hare off after every headless that wanders on screen, if we eliminate that problem that might change.

I hope that my very limited understanding of how scripting is done means that I'm wrong on that.

 

[Llewen]

<blockquote><hr>

These changes look pretty good. Ty!!

My concerns are pretty much the same that have been brought up by others:

1. There should be some sort of auto-defend mechanism as it doesn't make sense for the pet to just sit there getting spanked. Maybe once he gets below half life? Though any command from the tamer should override the auto-defend.

2. Pets going blue if the tamer hasn't issued a command in a while is a huge issue. During big fights, the pet goes blue and starts attacking our reds and greys if they do any AoE or if the pet walks through one of their fields. Pets should remain green at all time.

3. The tamers should get the insurance when their pets kills an enemy.

[/ QUOTE ]
/signed

In response to 1. That's a tough one. With auto stabling this shouldn't be as much of an issue. If you crash, which would be the one situation where I think this might be a big issue, your pet should simply auto stable. In all other situations you really should aware of where your pet is and what it is doing.

<blockquote><hr>

Using 'name/all come' magically imbues the pet with the ability to go around corners or even teleport, if it's a magic caster.

[/ QUOTE ]
This code should be incorporated into the chase code and the follow code. One of the things that pet balls would compensate for is that it is incredibly easy to hang pets up on objects, corners of buildings, etc. The "all come" command is not very useful (and actually doesn't work, you need to use "pet name come" for the command to work, and I've got far too many keybinds to add a "come" command for all my pets.

 

[Lord Kotan]

Shouldn't the pet still get a swing in as a monster follows him when I tell him "all follow me"...

I don't want my pet to auto go into peace mode, and me ALWAYS tell him to kill something and re-tell him to kill something.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

A further thought.

Will the pets have the potential to ignore these commands if the tamer's lore is insufficient?

I'd rather the changes didn't form a substitute for skill levels, or indeed, players' competence.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. the commands have to be successful, have sufficient lore, etc. Nothing changes there.

 

[Gildar]

<blockquote><hr>

I'm awfully afraid that as it stands it could in fact be a scripter boost.

I believe that not many currently use a pet because of its tendency to hare off after every headless that wanders on screen, if we eliminate that problem that might change.

I hope that my very limited understanding of how scripting is done means that I'm wrong on that.

[/ QUOTE ]As it stands, it will make things easier for scripters... but anything that makes things easier for legitimate players will also make things easier for scripters.
I don't think it will be a noteworthy benefit for scripters, however, since any scripter that is going to be out hunting is going to avoid areas where there are lots of monsters anyway, since it increases the risks of getting their character killed... and the wandering issues are really only a problem when there are multiple monsters around.

 

[Guest]

All sounds good. Just dont forget a good self deffending for the pets.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Shouldn't the pet still get a swing in as a monster follows him when I tell him "all follow me"...

I don't want my pet to auto go into peace mode, and me ALWAYS tell him to kill something and re-tell him to kill something.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can tell your pet to guard while it's following you. This will put it in autodefend mode for itself and its master.

To turn off guarding, tell your pet to stop or kill/attack.

So for passive follow, you could do 'pet name' stop, 'pet name' follow me, and it will ignore attacks on you or your pet.

For autodefend follow, you could do 'pet name' guard, 'pet name' follow me or 'pet name' follow me then 'pet name' guard. It doesn't matter what order you initiate the guard command. While your guarded, autodefend should work as normal. The pet will follow you in this case, but will fight whatever attacks you or itself.

Hope this clarifies that.

 

[Guest]

Yeah one more clarification. If the players dies while the pet is in passive mode, the passive mode will be removed, and it will defend itself if attacked as normal.

 

[Llewen]

Oh very good, perfect in fact.

 

[Fluffi]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Shouldn't the pet still get a swing in as a monster follows him when I tell him "all follow me"...

I don't want my pet to auto go into peace mode, and me ALWAYS tell him to kill something and re-tell him to kill something.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can tell your pet to guard while it's following you. This will put it in autodefend mode for itself and its master.

To turn off guarding, tell your pet to stop or kill/attack.

So for passive follow, you could do 'pet name' stop, 'pet name' follow me, and it will ignore attacks on you or your pet.

For autodefend follow, you could do 'pet name' guard, 'pet name' follow me or 'pet name' follow me then 'pet name' guard. It doesn't matter what order you initiate the guard command. While your guarded, autodefend should work as normal. The pet will follow you in this case, but will fight whatever attacks you or itself.

Hope this clarifies that.

[/ QUOTE ]



Sorry if I missed a response, but does "autodefend follow" still "defend" against a monster who aggroes the pet from miles away, or will it (hopefully) be limited to defending against attacks which actually damage the pet or tamer?

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Still too much passive mode IMO, all this remake over of old commands we have had for yrs just because of the abuse with pet balls... Yes the trying to attack thru walls as BS but sitting passively IF a wrong command is now given is bunk. Oh I can see Champing is going to be loads of problems for the Tamers now.... See's Pet quietly sitting on the sidelines because a incorrect command was given. You change whats been for yrs for something caused by abuse of game mechanics. If this tamer tactic is that bothersome in PvP, lets also change Wither to Effect ALL within it's radius, or just take damage from one &amp; little from the other 3 there, &amp; Guildies Included taking the damage on that choke point or where ever.... See what kind of stir that causes.

 

[R Traveler]

<blockquote><hr>

To turn off guarding, tell your pet to stop or kill/attack.

[/ QUOTE ] So:
1. guard command
2. pet in guard mode
3. monster spawned
4. kill command before monster attack
5. pet fighting monster
6. monster defeated
7. pet is defenseless now, guard mode off ?

It should revert to previous mode, do you agree?

 

[UncleSham]

OMG

*stands and cheers loudly*

hell yeah

i really appreciate the attention and dont mean to be one of the "gimmy more" poeple , but if i may toss in one more request , can we please look into some more stable slots ? we have seen many wonderfull new pets introduced but still have no place to put them.

it is SO nice to have someone actually listen to us . thank you ever so much.

 

[Cogniac]

<blockquote><hr>

For autodefend follow, you could do 'pet name' guard, 'pet name' follow me or 'pet name' follow me then 'pet name' guard. It doesn't matter what order you initiate the guard command. While your guarded, autodefend should work as normal. The pet will follow you in this case, but will fight whatever attacks you or itself.

[/ QUOTE ]So, just to clarify, is there any way to make a pet just guard itself? I have no interest in having the pet guard me and then go flying off anyway after 989234 mongbats that are flagging once per second on me. Kind of defeats the purpose of this entire set of changes.

 

[Guest]

*presses fingers together in Mr Burns' fashion*

Now if only there was a way to prevent players leaving their pets in "all guard me" state and recalling off (or hiding) whilst their pet kills in their absence with the player only returning now and then to loot....

 

[Gildar]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Shouldn't the pet still get a swing in as a monster follows him when I tell him "all follow me"...

I don't want my pet to auto go into peace mode, and me ALWAYS tell him to kill something and re-tell him to kill something.

[/ QUOTE ]You can tell your pet to guard while it's following you. This will put it in autodefend mode for itself and its master.

[/ QUOTE ]To clarify, are things being changed to allow a pet to swing at things close enough, but not run off to attack things when in follow mode (what would be desirable)? Or will the pet run off and attack things if they are in guard mode and following (what currently happens)?

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

you've missed the several posts answering that one too.


Using 'name/all come' magically imbues the pet with the ability to go around corners or even teleport, if it's a magic caster.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope. I chose to ignore them, because they don't answer the issue. I don't want my pet to come to me, if I did I would use all come. I want it to continue after the target it's eating. Right now, I have to rely on the pet ball, I run around the obstacle, summon and continue the chase.

 

[Guest]

Can we look at this "bug" also?

Player A is blue.
Player B is red (or grey...).
Player A attacks player B.
Player A is now grey to player B.
Player B tells pet to kill player A in guard zone.
Player B's pet gets guardwacked (to someone flagged on you).

This also goes for two blues fightning. Lets say one blue was grey when you attacked him, and hes grey to you, blue to everyone else. You cannot defend yourself with your pet once he blues to everyone else or else you get guard wacked, or flag grey to EVERYONE. Which is just stupid.

This isnt just tamers, but also bushido templates with lesser hiryu.



Its annoying when someone flags on me, and then runs to the guard zone where I can't use 200-300 skill points of my template without getting guard wacked. And its suprising how many people do it on purpose and laugh at the fact.




PS: Can we just remove guard zones completely

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>






PS: Can we just remove guard zones completely

[/ QUOTE ]No. Now get back in yer box! MUCHO TACO.

 

[DrDolittle]

<blockquote><hr>

Yeah one more clarification. If the players dies while the pet is in passive mode, the passive mode will be removed, and it will defend itself if attacked as normal.

[/ QUOTE ]Close but no cigar.

Occasionally the soft a squishy half of the team (i.e. me) gets targeted by some heavy duty baddies and must use the run-screaming-like-a-school-girl special move to avoid a dirt nap. The pet is going to have to be able to defend itself for a few minutes in a situations where the tamer has not died.

I think that the problem most people have is when their pet runs off after something that has targeted it from three shards over. The basic problem there is not auto-defend in and of itself. The problem is that pets auto-defend on enemies that they should ignore. The better solution to the problem would be to revise the auto-defend logic so that pets could ignore enemies that pose no immediate threat rather than simply removing auto-defend capabilities in such a wide range of situations.

As I said earlier, pets should ignore an enemy that has no path to the pet, has not damaged the pet and is outside a certain range. Logic should already exist to make all of the checks required to make auto-defend behave more reasonably.

If the only solution available is to cut auto-defend out of basically everything but guard mode then that change should be on a limited timer. For instance, when I issue a follow, come, stop or stay (maybe kill) command then auto-defend is disabled for 15 seconds or whatever. That would give you enough time to try to tow your pet out of whatever target rich environment you had wandered into. After the timer is up the pet goes back to auto-defend. If stuff is still around you can always issue another command but you would not have to continually spam “all follow” like you do today.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that it is great that you are looking at this but I honestly do not like the idea of simply cutting auto-defend out of every pet behavior mode but guard; especially considering the existing guard mode bugs.

 

[BadManiac]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

To turn off guarding, tell your pet to stop or kill/attack.

[/ QUOTE ] So:
1. guard command
2. pet in guard mode
3. monster spawned
4. kill command before monster attack
5. pet fighting monster
6. monster defeated
7. pet is defenseless now, guard mode off ?

It should revert to previous mode, do you agree?

[/ QUOTE ]&lt;-- I'm with this guy. Pet's should be in guard/defend self mode from when the command is issued until a "stop" command is issued. Otherwise...

* all guard me, all follow me
* 2 monsters spawn
* all kill monster 1
* monster 1 dead, pet reverts to stupid mode
* monster 2 eats pet, tamer =

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Yeah one more clarification. If the players dies while the pet is in passive mode, the passive mode will be removed, and it will defend itself if attacked as normal.

[/ QUOTE ]Close but no cigar.

Occasionally the soft a squishy half of the team (i.e. me) gets targeted by some heavy duty baddies and must use the run-screaming-like-a-school-girl special move to avoid a dirt nap. The pet is going to have to be able to defend itself for a few minutes in a situations where the tamer has not died.




[/ QUOTE ]
/disagree

How hard is it to hit your "all guard me" macro as you're running like a targeted mule?

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>




* all guard me, all follow me
* 2 monsters spawn
* all kill monster 1
* monster 1 dead, pet reverts to stupid mode
* monster 2 eats pet, tamer =

[/ QUOTE ]
Only if the lamer (edit: oops I meant TAMER) isn't paying attention and a monster spawns while he's watching TV....
The more commands a tamer has to give his pet in order to hunt with it the better IMO.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

and actually doesn't work, you need to use "pet name come" for the command to work

[/ QUOTE ]

Incorrect, sort of. It only works on the first pet you pull from the stables. If you have only one pet, then no worries, but then, yea, two or more and it's a problem.

 

[Smokin]

So this will make it easier to train resisting spells on a pet, so now I can tell it to stay and just cast weaken on it over and over.

 

[imported_Trokip]

It is hard to believe that after all these years something is finally being done about stupid pets?

The changes sound good so far but I have some additional questions that are somewhat related.

1. If I move from one room or area to another, (gate, stairwell etc.) my pet will stay by my side unless he is in guard mode and gets attacked? In other words my pet will not jump three screens and two servers away to get to some monster attacking it, leaving me to run after it being swamped by monsters after me?

2. If I log out and in to retreive my pet, my pet will not start running away when it comes back?

Additonal Suggestions/Questions:

I have my pet in guard mode. There are two monsters in this area. I have my pet in guard mode. I tell my pet to attack one of the monsters. My pet kills that monster and some monster 3 screens away attacks (targets) my pet. My pet then takes off after that monster leaving me at the mercy of the second monster in the room that has targeted me? Seems to me any monster that targets me the master, should be attacked by the pet even though the pet may be being attacked by another monster first or last. Guard ME should be exactly what it states.

Allow Resurecting of pets in any area. The phrase, "Target cannot be resurrected at this location" seems put in just to be a nuisance to players. This also frequently happens when you have two pets and one is standing on top of the other. This needs to be fixed.

Health Bars for all pets in any mode (normal or party) need to stay on the screen no matter whether the Owner (Master) or the pet dies. This needs to happen in all areas.

When a pet is being Resurrected it need to be put into "Stop" mode or a mode that will keep it from running off before it has been healed. Too many times a pet re-enters a fight before it has even been healed once and without any commands. Amounting to instant pet death. This leaves the owner with retraining for two points instead of one.

Please change the training difficulty on skills for pets so they are basically equal in difficulty to train. eg. Re-training pets after a couple of deaths (-.2) may take a couple of hours for some skills and 24 hours for others.

 

[DrDolittle]

<blockquote><hr>

/disagree


How hard is it to hit your "all guard me" macro as you're running like a targeted mule?

[/ QUOTE ]The point is not how hard it is to hit a macro..

The natural instinct of anything that is being attacked is to defend itself in whatever manner is available. As I have stated, the problem is not that pets auto-defend; that is as it should be. The real problem is that pets auto-defend in inappropriate situations. The proper solution here is to fix the actual problem - the inappropriate response to being targeted.

I have been playing a tamer for eight years and if I had a gold piece for every time my “all follow me” macro triggered the spam filter you would think I was a scripter. Yes, I’d like to see pet AI improved but the last thing I want is a pet that will stand there contemplating it’s digital navel while it is killed for any reason.

If we are going to fix this let’s fix it right. Simply suppressing auto-defend to the point of uselessness is not the correct solution to the problem.

 

[Guest]

Yes. Add a new "Misc" section. Move the display for the Pack Instincts to there (no other changes), and also under Miscellany would be random 'shyness' and 'enemy' properties (much like the Protection/Killer/Slayer properties on Talismans and the Pally spell EoO combined).

Example...

Miscellany: Ostard Pack Instincts / Ogre Lord Shy / Enemy Of Drakes

In this case, my ostard is just plain scared of ogre lords, but is good at killing drakes. Similarly to Enemy Of One, the pet gains DMG+50% against its One Enemy, but for the price of taking DMGx2 from their 'shyness' (not from everything else, just from the one shyness).

Imagine the value of a fully trained blaze Cu Sidhe that had a Super Slayer? Enemy Of Undead? Of course, you might also end up with pets that suffer from a super-weakness. Reptile Shy? Repond Shy? Yikes.

My luck? My existing pets will all be upgraded to a Super-Shyness &amp; Enemy of Mongbats<blockquote><hr>

It'd be good if the code that tells a herded pet to follow you was also used for the pet follow one. If I herd my pets to follow me, they'll get around obstacles just fine.

Still laughing at the suggestion that pack critters should flee from things like ogres... 2 miners in the tavern:
Joe: You had a hard day mining Fred? You look knackered!
Fred: Oh the mining was fine, but my ingots ran off...

It'd be funny (for some) if the odd pet spawned as a coward... Say a random phobia that showed up in lore gump heh. The pet wouldn't want to go near said beastie. Maybe also a creature the pet is more skilled at fighting, based on what the critter has fought during training. So if you fought a range of beasties, the pet may evolves as a generalist, where if you parked it at one spawn you'd get a specialised killer.

Wenchy

[/ QUOTE ]

 

[Smokin]

If they were to add a slayer type for pets, then we all are going to need another 10 slots in stables.

 

[imported_Vyrquenox]

*presses fingers together in Mr Burns' fashion*

Now if only there was a way to prevent players leaving their pets in "all guard me" state and recalling off (or hiding) whilst their pet kills in their absence with the player only returning now and then to loot....
------------------------------------------------------------
yeah, fix it so that the 'you have been idle' works after 10 minutes in all occassions for the player (cause I'm sorry but if you are there watching your character i don't care if you are hidden) and fix it so the pet times out after 5-10 minutes if the owner isn't there and has to be logged back in. Any thing other than that is just whining because if the player is playing the game and his pet can kill stuff alone and he is there to check on it ( meaning he is on the computer in the game) he is playing legitimately. Just dump people out of the game quicker if they aren't moving, even if their pet is fighting, and make them log their pets back in if they are not around for too long. You're the same type of person I bet that would complain that the government is taking rights away from you in the name of security.

 

[imported_Vyrquenox]

Only if the lamer (edit: oops I meant TAMER) isn't paying attention and a monster spawns while he's watching TV....
The more commands a tamer has to give his pet in order to hunt with it the better IMO.
-----------------------------
I am not a massive tamer character. But what your opinion of what is lame (having a tv near the computer) is not important, its what the rules are. I am not always wanting to be a psycho uber gamer staring at the computer screen with absoloute intensity at all times hitting buttons. I play my dexxer for that. Your opinion of what is lame is just that. It is easy as pie to make it so that the game knows you aren't afking. That's what they need to do, they just need to not put it at 30 seconds or so so you can at least take a shot of insulin or something when you are playing on a tamer. I don't cheat. I don't know how many times I've been watching my pet and someone gets the idea i'm afking and tries to pull something and I'm instantly there pancakes at them. Or the gm that showed up to ask me if I was afk and I said what the hell? right then and there
and she said sorry just checking.
Not everybody cheats. All I use the hiding for is to not have to cast invis over and over again so I can relax somewhat and watch. Just fix it so you have to do something in the damned game fairly often like move a bandaid around in your backpack or check your paperdoll or you are logged off with one minute warning, whether your pet is fighting or not. And log the pet off if the tamer isn't in the vicinity for a period of time. Simple deal. I could care less if you think I need to be stressed out all the time playing ultima and I am lame if I hide instead of worrying about when my invis is going to time out, I am right there. Go play your Orwellian games but leave me out of it. I appreciate the effort they are putting into working on the game, and I actually appreciate your comment but you called me lame, so I defended myself. Yes they should fix that, but they can fix that easily, since the problem is unattended pets or afk. Not right there on the game with the pet, that is not the problem.

 

[Guest]

Wow I hit a nerve.
The "watching TV" thing was just an example.

I am sorry if my opinion differs from yours. I believe that tamers should have to command their pets in order to get them to kill and recieve the spoils (ie: loot/fame/karma/whatever else) of that kill. This is my opinion. I said nothing about cheating or national security.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

I could care less if you think I need to be stressed out all the time playing ultima and I am lame if I hide instead of worrying about when my invis is going to time out, I am right there.

[/ QUOTE ]
If telling your dragon/pet/whatever to "all kill" instead of standing hidden in a dungeon somewhere while your pet does it all for you is too "stressful" perhaps you should stick to growing plants and crafting.

 

[BadManiac]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>




* all guard me, all follow me
* 2 monsters spawn
* all kill monster 1
* monster 1 dead, pet reverts to stupid mode
* monster 2 eats pet, tamer =

[/ QUOTE ]
Only if the lamer (edit: oops I meant TAMER) isn't paying attention and a monster spawns while he's watching TV....
The more commands a tamer has to give his pet in order to hunt with it the better IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]Once again you baffle me Flutter. It's not about being afk, it's not about being a lazy tamer, it's not about preventing UM farming with a Cu. It's not pets auto defending themselves you have a prolem with, it's Cu-Sidhes, get rid of them you get rid of UM'ing tamers.

No this is about a pet AI, artificial INTELLIGENCE being IMPROVED. See where I'm going with this?
Having a pet standing there and just getting killed without reacting is neither intelligent, nor an improvement over current pet AI. After all, if they remove auto defend from pets, then it should go from dexxers too, right?

 

[SouthernRageLNR]

This is a good step towards fixing an ago old problem, next would be guilded pets becoming unguilded during spawn raids.

 

[Guest]

While I can see the need for a pet to defend itself, we need a range of commands to ensure that tamers can move pets through a spawn without spamming follow, or hunt adjacent to a contained monster without said pet humping the wall to get to something it can't see

We could do that through pairing commands -

Follow - default is the passive.
Follow and defend - pet defends from monsters within it's aggro range. Ignore out of LOS, or monsters which are more that x tiles away.
Follow and guard - pet defends itself as above, but will also attack a monster that flags against the owner.

Kill - pet will only kill the selected target then return to the player's side in a passive state.
Kill and defend - pet returns to owners side in the defend state as above.
Kill and guard - pet returns to guard state above.

Stop - cancels all commands and stands passively

Stay - pet waits and won't defend.
Stay and defend - pet will defend but returns to the position it was left at.
Stay and guard - pet defends the owner as well as itself, again returning to the stay position after a kill.

I think a good way to stop any AFK abuse of the commands would be to stop players being able to get looting rights or for pets to gain skills, if they didn't issue a command every few minutes. Though I can't remember what was put in place for the Book of Truth collection, I think that was for hidden tamers though.

Wenchy

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

.

pet reverts to stupid mode
* monster 2 eats pet, tamer =

[/ QUOTE ]

While I have reservations about the proposed changes as is, I don't see this happening. Wouldn't it more likely go

* all guard me, all follow me
* 2 monsters spawn
* all kill monster 1
* monster 1 dead,
* all kill monster 2,
* monster 2 dead.
?

 

[imported_Anakena]

Since we are busy with pet's AI, what about their pathfinding abilities?

When they are aggressive, pets have a decent pathfinding but when they just follow, they are blocked by almost everything but horse dung.

 

[Guest]

Thank you to Lerurecan Draconi and the dev tem.

 

[Guest]

"I think that the problem most people have is when their pet runs off after something that has targeted it from three shards over. The basic problem there is not auto-defend in and of itself. The problem is that pets auto-defend on enemies that they should ignore. The better solution to the problem would be to revise the auto-defend logic so that pets could ignore enemies that pose no immediate threat rather than simply removing auto-defend capabilities in such a wide range of situations."

I totally agree with you that this is the change we need. If we "Can't see or
attack it" how can our pets? Do they have some magic X-Ray vision to
see that mongbat thru 3 cave walls and run like hell to get it to it?

I am not a lamer tamer as when I am on my tamer my pets always
come first but I do not think this new "passive mode" is going to fix
the problem but instead cause quite a few new ones as has already
been previously stated. And, correct me if I am wrong but wasn't it
mentioned that the X-Ray problem the pets now have isn't going to
be fixed with this new A.I. improvement?
Personally I would do the pet ball fix first and see how that goes
then work on A.I. improvement, as doing to many major changes
all at once seems to create a whole lot of nasty bugs that take
forever or never get fixed. Not a slam, just 10 years of living
thru these things.
I will definitely be testing this out on test if it makes it there
to see how it all works.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

.

pet reverts to stupid mode
* monster 2 eats pet, tamer =

[/ QUOTE ]

While I have reservations about the proposed changes as is, I don't see this happening. Wouldn't it more likely go

* all guard me, all follow me
* 2 monsters spawn
* all kill monster 1
* monster 1 dead,
* all kill monster 2,
* monster 2 dead.
?

[/ QUOTE ]

Correct. The previous example would not revert to a passive state. That would only happen if a passive command was initiated such as follow. In the previous example, after it killed something, and if it wasnt commanded, and the pet gets attacked, it would act normally and attack the aggressor. Then, of course, the tamer can decide to command it however she desires after that like normal.

 

[WarUltima]

Let me sum up everyone's idea of perfect pet AI...

Make pet control work exactly like WoW, with little toggles and stuff.

Btw I hate everything about wow, but everyone's suggestions here kept on reminding me of WoW. And many even suggested some crazy-to-program AI by wanting the pet to react exactly like a human being and doing exactly what the player want without even commanding it.

 

[DrDolittle]

<blockquote><hr>

While I have reservations about the proposed changes as is, I don't see this happening. Wouldn't it more likely go

* all guard me, all follow me
* 2 monsters spawn
* all kill monster 1
* monster 1 dead,
* all kill monster 2,
* monster 2 dead.
?

[/ QUOTE ]

From Leurocian’s post; “To turn off guarding, tell your pet to stop or kill/attack.”

So issuing a kill command turns off auto-defend. With that in mind the scenarios could run something like this:

* monster 1 spawns
* tamer: all kill -&gt; monster 1 (auto-defend is now turned off)
* monster 2 spawns and kills tamer
* monster 2 now casually dines on defenseless pet

The equivalent PvP scenario would be devastating to a tamer attacked by another player:

* tamer: all kill -&gt; attacker 1 (auto-defend is now turned off)
* attacker 2 reveals and kills tamer
* attackers can now casually kill defenseless pet

There are many situations - lag, disconnect, death - where the tamer might not be able to issue additional commands to a pet. To create the potential that a pet will stand there like a lump of dumb meat and make no attempt whatsoever to defend itself while something kills that pet - regardless of the mode or command or whatever - is simply not an acceptable solution.

According to Leurocian’s plan, guard mode is the only command that will allow your pet to auto-defend. However, guard mode has nothing to do with the pet defending itself; it is a command that allows your pet to defend you. There are known bugs and issues with guard mode and, frankly, I have not bothered with guard mode in ages because it is unreliable; the command has been relegated to a secondary macro that is rarely used. I believe that it is reasonable expect guard mode problems to be corrected prior to having our pet’s AI changed in a manner which will make guard mode critical yet no where has there been any hint that guard mode problems might be fixed first.

In any case, neutering auto-defend is not the correct solution to the problem. The correct solution is to fix the inappropriate responses to being targeted. In fact fixing the majority of the problems situations could probably be handled by one simple check; if the entity targeting your pet has not damaged your pet then that entity will be ignored by auto-defend. That one check would eliminate all auto-defend response to something targeting your pet from beyond a wall and situations where the pet was targeted at range by something that does not have a ranged attack.

Like I said, I think it is great that Leurocian is looking at this but I believe that there is a better solution to the problem.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

You're the same type of person I bet that would complain that the government is taking rights away from you in the name of security.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I bet you're the type of person that would just hand over all your guns, too.
Thanks for showing us your level of intelligence. Stop spewing unproductive crap in a very productive thread.

If you don't want to actively hunt with your pets, then why play at all?

 

[Sakkarah]

<blockquote><hr>

*presses fingers together in Mr Burns' fashion*

Now if only there was a way to prevent players leaving their pets in "all guard me" state and recalling off (or hiding) whilst their pet kills in their absence with the player only returning now and then to loot....

[/ QUOTE ]
While I might get stone thrown at me for saying this, I think WoW actually has the right solution to prevent this kind of abuse. The player must take active part in killing the monster or doesn't get looting rights. If you just sic your pet on a monster or if your pet auto-attacks to defend you, you get the XP but you dont get the loot if you didn't actually do some damage to the monster, even minimal, through spells or melee.

So a partial solution would be that the player must also do some damage to the crit and not just rely entirely on the pet. So if you just say all guard me and go afk, you simply dont get looting rights.