Pet AI needs to be fixed.

[gandolfofaol]

What ever change was put in place to change pet behavior is not working as it should. Pets do not defend themselves properly. If anyone would like a demonstration I'll be happy to show you. I'm not sure if the problem is just unbonded pets or if the issue is with all pets. My negative experience has been with unbonded pets. If you have a pet guarding you and a mob attacks the pet it will stand there twiddling its "thumbs" until it is dead. Now some will say just tell the pet to kill said mob. That isn't the point. I have a crappy connection and therefore often run into issues where I lose connection. It sucks to log back in and find I'm dead but it sucks even more to see my unbonded pet corpse. There is no way a single ice troll should be able to kill a drake IMO. If I sic the drake on an ice troll to kill it I don't even need to apply an aid. Yet if I lose connection it dies because its to stupid to fight back. Some will also say put your pet in the stables till it bonds. That isn't the point either. I don't get a chance to play uo much so I don't want to wait a week every time I have a new pet. I make it a point to only have my unbonded pets around mobs that they should be able to kill with ease.

 

[Ailish]

I have also noticed in the past couple weeks something is not quite right about the Guarding mode. The pet is supposed to auto-defend when guarding, but it only seems to happen about half the time.

This DID work right after the changes. With both bonded and unbonded pets. So, it has just been in the last few weeks that something went awry.

 

[Ni-]

Are you sure the last command given to it was not "follow". I heard that will turn off a pets auto defend... That is the only thing I could think of at the moment...

... it could be a bug ...

 

[gandolfofaol]

You are correct apparently the last command I did give was all follow so I guess I need to re-think me order of commands when connection starts acting up.

All follow
then all guard eh?

 

[wrekognize]

I have found the pet AI is worse now than before they made the change. When a pet is being attacked by a creature, and you command your pet to attack something different, the pet will not attack the new target no matter how many times you repeat this process.

...

 

[Vyrquenox]

I have found the pet AI is worse now than before they made the change. When a pet is being attacked by a creature, and you command your pet to attack something different, the pet will not attack the new target no matter how many times you repeat this process.

...

Well here is my solution for that (still hard to get it to work)

When Melissa was around, sometimes in the 'wait for her to babble' phase a balron would spawn and go for my dragon. Well, I wasn't interested in fighting balrons, but the dragon wouldn't stop. Ahah. All stop and then all kill on melissa seemed to work after a couple tries whenever that happened, if I did it quick, to get him to fight melissa instead of the balron (of course the balron would just beat on his back, but oh well.)

 

[Omnius]

so pets require you pay attention to the game now for pvm?

 

[Lady_Mina]

i agree....they made pets as dumb as a brick.

They do not defend themself when they get hit by mobs...

They do not stick to the target you commanded them to kill first..when they're getting hit by several mobs.

And then not to mention their short sight...and 'that target cannnot be seen'...while the monster does not have problems targetting you from miles away and behind some wall.



+ some other ideas:
Pets lore profile should have the date of being tamed + owner's name.

+ pets should be like pokémon and have their own 'personality'..just for the lolz.
Ok ok that one is a bit far fetched...but i always dreamed of this.

 

[Ailish]

"Target cannot be seen" has nothing to do with your pet's AI. It is a (confirmed) bug introduced during the last Publish.

Tamers BEGGED for pets to STOP defending themselves when no in "guard" mode so that they did not run away everytime something targetted them. In fact, there was a long discussion about it, then a proposal by Leurocian her on Stratics, then more discussion, then tweaks, then testing and MORE discussion before it was implemented. Not like it was a quick "Oh, lets make pets dumb!" No, it was YEARS of Tamer's begging that when they tell a pet to FOLLOW them, that it DOES it.

As for the third part of your complaint - all stop, all kill.

 

[Warrior of Time]

There is something wrong with pets that will not follow commands. We always had pets fighting in Trammel. You simply get into the guild and into the ring. At the ring master's command you tell the pets to fight. Some totally refuse to attack. After repeaing the command several times I have had mine Attack Me. The pets are always fed before the fight. You also look to see that both pets are green. The trouble is not in the smaller pets that non-tamers use: Chickens, squirrels, ferrets and so on. It will Most Time happen with pets tamers use from mares up. The fights are once a week events. It has happened the last 3 weeks. One or more will refuse the attack command.

I have 3 tamers. One is all 120 except magery [100]. Tame, vet, lore, music, peace.

Attracking things like OLs. It will attack. It tell it to attack a incomeing Ogres. I wand it to reduce the number attacking it. It will have locked on the OL. Trying to get the pet to follw at times you need to spam the all follow command. And even then in may not follow. I recall out just to stop the attack.

Pets are simply refusing commangs. They also take too long to auto attack the second target before going after killing the first. When attacked by more than one I may need to hide. it will kill the first target. It should with in a reasonable amount of time move onto the second. The one standing next to is plus the one coming in are attacking. It will stand there. Takeing hits from both. Because of the area I may have only enough time to start a bandage and hid again.

These examples are just to underline the fact that pets don't accept commands like they should. No Commands. No matter how much lore you have.

 

[Farsight]

As for the third part of your complaint - all stop, all kill.

That doesn't seem to work for me in Bedlam. And it seems related to poison damage as well. A rotting corpse poisons my pet who is attacking Sir Patrick. Suddenly my pet will stop attacking Patrick and attack the rotting corpse... Which is exactly what I don't want.

Case #2: Also in Bedlam, My pet is fighting any high end mob while a bone mage attacks me. I say "all stop, all kill (bone mage)." Before the pet reaches the bone mage, it stops and returns to the high end mob (or worse, the skeletons who have attached themselves to the fight).

But I've learned to adapt.

Still, it's a good advice, if you want your pet to do something new, the first command to be given is "all stop".

 

[Giani Saran]

I have to agree, Pets do not seem to listen as well as they did. and it bites
I also have a sloooooooow connection .. just makes it a bit more ... ummz.. interresting now

 

[Anakena]

The worse thing in pet AI is that they can turn around a rock or a tree :

You...........[Tree][Pet stucked]............

It is very annoying since teleport was fubared.

 

[BartofCats]

its even worse when your still in guard mode and come home. You cannot possibly see the sewar rat on the north side of the house, yet it targets you. Pet goes out the front door and kills said rat at the back of the house, and then is too dumb all of a sudden to find its way back to your side yet it has gone completely around the house to get to its target. Go figure.