Trust Commands

So I made a post related to this a few months ago. Didn't seem to get much attention, but hey figured why not mention again. So I'll get straight to the point. I was wandering if it would be possible to basically allow us to give simple commands to the trusts like pets. Like staying in place unless you wander to far then that command might break or maybe canceling their weapon skills so they don't interrupt you and a friend. You know simple things of that sort. I'm sure some of you guys could possibly expand onto that and get even more creative. So yeah little tweaks like that would be neat to have available to us in my opinion. I know a lot of people will probably back out of this right away because it isn't endgame related exactly, but I guess in a way it could be if you think about it.

I've been asking for something similar since day zero for trusts.

A simple gambit system like in ffxii.

Don't aoe, don't interrupt my sc, don't waste mp on distract, don't stand next to me, stop using blindna on yourself joachim, stop singing ballad ulima!

A very simple menu identical to the gambit system, it'd be AMAZING.

Then there are these neat suggestions for Trust commands.

But SE still refuses to do it because they want us to party with air, I mean other players, instead of being able to get a better experience with Trusts.

They could at the very least improve AI a bit, such as healers dumping vast amounts of MP into Erasing/-na'ing stupid stuff, etc.

Maybe a gambit system would be hard to do in the engine, maybe even impossible, but yeeesh, could we at least get an intelligent filter of what debuffs to cure off of who? I know such a system already exists; most trusts won't cast Silena on a job that does not use magic.

So why are they casting Blindna on themselves (especially Apururu... I'm pretty sure I've seen her or another healer do that, and she doesn't even swing at the enemy!), and Erasing Evasion Down off of people who never get hit?

Also, as cool as Koru-Moru is... why does he Phalanx II the whole freaking group, when really the only person who needs that, is the one that has hate?

it is currently a gambit system, however the presettings is according to what SE deemed fit, SE has confirmed in multiple threads that each trust currently has a set of commands that they'll do with the priority being certain actions first with unity leaders having better AI's in comparison to normal trusts.The gambit system is why august will pop sentinel first instead of getting hate on target and why sometimes trusts won't use nott WS to refil their mp dispit their mp being nul and their tp being 3000 since thats considered a lower priority. Their priority whether to cast on specific members of the party like king of hearts chosing its master and itself or koru moru casting on everyone is how they are programed.

The explaination SE gave info on a few trusts to why some trusts couldn't be changed was they are set in accordance for their story's personality. King of hearts being a cardian considers itself and master as the only important beings as a example, they also mentioned they wanted trusts had to be used in different combination, such as some trusts WSing at any time (TenzenII), others closing SCs (Iroha II), some waiting for high tp before closing SCs (selh'teus except for AoE healing proc).

Personally as much as i want to beable to program trusts to do what i want, thats pretty much making another account except for free and they require no leveling since i can just make macros to get trusts to do what i want.

While that is good, there is still obvious flaws that really ought to be ironed out.

So, you talked about how they wanted Unity Leaders to have better AI....

Let's talk about Apururu (UC) a little.

She's a very nice healer... she's got Nott, she's got Martyr, Devotion, and Convert. I don't think I've seen any other healer (who is a WHM) last anywhere near as long as she can at later levels, unless you bite off more than you can chew. She uses Curagas were most won't, and she's usually the fastest to remove bad status effects.

However... there are a few things she does that is very annoying.

First off, her incessant Stoneskin spam. While she's quick to status cure, a lot of times she'll be caught in the middle of a Stoneskin cast and of course, you're there losing HP, or what-not waiting on her to finish casting Stoneskin. And the sad part of it is, she rarely gets hit and when she does, her Stoneskin ain't going to save her much MP anyways. She uses more MP on Stoneskin than she would use just curing any splash damage she takes.

There's the subject about convert... how about make it she only casts Stoneskin when she gets to <25% of her MP (to prepare for an upcoming Convert)?

And also, her insistence upon running around everywhere... she drags GEO trusts around with her, oftentimes putting you outside of their buffs if you don't call your NPCs out in the right order, and if she pulls hate, what you're fighting goes running over to her, potentially causing more links and aggro while you try to deal with the situation and then she'll keep running around in random directions making things worse while you're trying to get the thing back because she decided to dump a Cure VI on you at the very beginning of the battle, literally after the first swing. Then she starts running around, dragging the mob (and you) all over the place, rounding up MORE links and aggro, and she keeps pulling hate because then she keeps spamming cures on herself and you, and it just goes down hill.

So... if she has hate, she should STAY PUT and don't move.

The "RUNAWAY!!" behavior of healer (and maybe all non-melee range) trusts is all the same. Yoran-Oran (UC) does the exact same thing. It would be a grand improvement if the AI could be adjusted so they don't start running away until after someone else grabs agro from them. I've lost NMs because YO decided it was a good idea to continuously run away from me until he managed to drag the target outside the arena and it despawned. -_-;;

I've read all of your guys replies and I think you all bring up some good points. Thanks for taking the time to read my thread. Yeah I mean like I said before I'd even settle for a stay put command. lol Very basic commands like that. These guys follow your shadow and it can become very annoying at time. Especially in a situation like where my friend and myself are duoing. We find a good spot to camp and we call our trusts. Then these guys follow you around as you pull mobs and it can really for me personally get on my nerves. lol

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Originally Posted by Nyarlko

The "RUNAWAY!!" behavior of healer (and maybe all non-melee range) trusts is all the same. Yoran-Oran (UC) does the exact same thing. It would be a grand improvement if the AI could be adjusted so they don't start running away until after someone else grabs agro from them. I've lost NMs because YO decided it was a good idea to continuously run away from me until he managed to drag the target outside the arena and it despawned. -_-;;

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I wish they would get rid of the behavior entirely for healers. It REALLY doesn't help whatsoever. I don't think anybody uses trusts for hardly anything that is actually that dangerous that they simply cannot be in AoE range of the mob, and a lot of times, these types of healers STILL get hit with AoEs anyways (Dream Flower.... sigh).

The runaway behavior hurts the player far more often than it helps; most mobs don't do anything AoE that players routinely use Trusts for in the first place, and a lot of times, even if so, it's a cone AoE or the AoE is big enough to STILL hit said Trust (again, Dream Flower... the range on that stupid thing is simply ridiculous).

I routinely use Kupipi and Apururu and I've never seen Kupipi get killed by an AoE. The only time she gets killed is when everybody is out of MP and her and Apururu die almost back-to-back once MP is gone, OR they get despawned when the player dies.

So the "Runaway" behavior does NOT increase their survivability... I wonder why it's even a thing considering how annoying and dangerous it is.

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Originally Posted by Aysha

I wish they would get rid of the behavior entirely for healers. It REALLY doesn't help whatsoever. I don't think anybody uses trusts for hardly anything that is actually that dangerous that they simply cannot be in AoE range of the mob, and a lot of times, these types of healers STILL get hit with AoEs anyways (Dream Flower.... sigh).

The runaway behavior hurts the player far more often than it helps; most mobs don't do anything AoE that players routinely use Trusts for in the first place, and a lot of times, even if so, it's a cone AoE or the AoE is big enough to STILL hit said Trust (again, Dream Flower... the range on that stupid thing is simply ridiculous).

I routinely use Kupipi and Apururu and I've never seen Kupipi get killed by an AoE. The only time she gets killed is when everybody is out of MP and her and Apururu die almost back-to-back once MP is gone, OR they get despawned when the player dies.

So the "Runaway" behavior does NOT increase their survivability... I wonder why it's even a thing considering how annoying and dangerous it is.

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This post is 100% wrong.

The runaway behavior saves UC whms from deadly AoE and Status effects. It's a good thing. They just do it too much. It works... but poorly.

We (I) fight things that would easily wipe us (me) if the whm stood in range.

I'm gonna extremely simplify this: I use Yoran 100% of the time, because he moves away from me. Specifically. Every single NM I fight, I want the WHM no. where. near. me. And Half the regular mobs I fight as well. I do not want yoran getting slowed. para'd. Those are game ending to the poorly programmed AI of trust.

See, that's the thing though: the behavior STILL doesn't get the NPC out of the way reliably, lol. Apururu still routinely gets hit with AoEs despite her trying to stay back, so the function doesn't even work half the time anyways.

Apururu doesn't even try to move to max range either. So the only way to reliably get her (or any other "ranged" Trust) away from AoE is to tank the mob yourself and move away from her, hoping she wont just randomly decide to run to the other side of where she is, passing through all the AoE in the world while she relocates.

And if another Trust is tanking you can forget about her ever moving far away enough to avoid anything but the shortest range AoE in Vana.

The only other mod to AI that I would like would be for Trusts to NOT use status heals for any AURA effects other than Doom/Bind. I've watched Joachim burn thru his entire MP bar while YO is doing his best to try to do the same while both are spamming Poisona due to a poison aura... I'm not sure if there is any way for Trust AI to tell the difference between a normal debuff and an aura version, but if it IS possible, then the only auras that they should be trying to clear off are probably Doom and Bind, (and maybe Gravity?,) since both of those can result in player death before being able to get out of aura range.

One thing that's really annoying is trying to get the right songs from brd trusts. 99% of the time, all I want is 2 marches, but you can't get that reliably even when you summon both of them. They will sing madrigals when I'm way overcapped on acc, ballad when the only one that needs mp is joachim himself, random paeons, etc. It makes soloing on a job that can't cap haste by itself pointlessly frustrating.

It would be a godsend if we could just tell them what songs to sing.

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Originally Posted by Raydeus

Apururu doesn't even try to move to max range either. So the only way to reliably get her (or any other "ranged" Trust) away from AoE is to tank the mob yourself and move away from her, hoping she wont just randomly decide to run to the other side of where she is, passing through all the AoE in the world while she relocates.

And if another Trust is tanking you can forget about her ever moving far away enough to avoid anything but the shortest range AoE in Vana.

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^^
All of this.

That's why I said the "Runaway!" mechanic is rather pointless... because it doesn't do what it was designed to do and it causes all sorts of problems when said trust pulls hate.

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Originally Posted by Traxus

One thing that's really annoying is trying to get the right songs from brd trusts. 99% of the time, all I want is 2 marches, but you can't get that reliably even when you summon both of them. They will sing madrigals when I'm way overcapped on acc, ballad when the only one that needs mp is joachim himself, random paeons, etc. It makes soloing on a job that can't cap haste by itself pointlessly frustrating.

It would be a godsend if we could just tell them what songs to sing.

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If you use ONLY Ulmia, while on a melee job, while having enough acc to not-miss, then she will reliably cast 2x marches. I'm actually pretty sure that she doesn't cast Paeons at all, Ballads only when mages in group are low on MP, but does cast Scherzo IF you manage to survive something that it would help with. Using both bard trusts cause them to get confuzzled and you can end up with oddball song combos. Joachim seems to have a larger pool to choose from, and issues with his AI (like picking songs that only benefit himself) so I tend to just avoid him unless I actually want the /whm part over Ulmia's reliability.

Yeah the paeons are from joachim only I'm pretty sure. I was trying ulmia alone, and I often get 2x marches if I have zero other trusts that can melee, but as soon as I summon qultada (for exp/cp roll) or or a tank trust like august I end up with a madrigal.