ATTN: Community Reps/Dev Team: PUPs of Vanadiel DEMAND a response on Automaton A.I.!

[Theytak]

Note: As a veteran pup who took a break from the game right as these forums started up, please forgive my apparent newbishness/lack of posting cred.

In response to Camate's post from the dev team: It's great that you guys are reading and responding. Some of the answers I was very happy to see, however others I feel need to be addressed as though the original question was misunderstood, or something else entirely. Anything not quoted from Camate's post I was happy to see and having nothing but thank you to say as a response.

The maneuver duration, recast time, and overload are all balanced very subtly; through maneuvers, the automaton’s operability, as well as the frame and attachments, are largely affected. Due to this, we plan to create balance by adding and adjusting attachments and abilities without changing the operations of the base maneuvers.

This is nice on paper, but adding more attachments really should not be the go-to solution, unless you also plan on increasing the elemental capacity of all of the frames and heads, and/or intend to increase the amount of slots we have to equip attachments. As it stands now, the bulk of the practical attachment fits have been essentially set in stone since the release of the Ashu Talif attachments. Adding more attachments as fixes for things that the pup community considers problems means that we'll lose something from our normal, comfortable play style in order to fix something that we consider "it's working as intended" to be the wrong answer for. With some things, it's fine, or even a great idea, but with others, it just won't help.

We understand that there are times this is inconvenient for ranged/mage frames. We will look into increasing the distance for using Deploy.

I'm also really happy to see this, but I'd ask that you also adjust the range at which the puppet decides to run in and melee. Being able to deploy my mage frame from a distance greater than we already get would be awesome, but totally useless since any distance beyond just the max range causes the very squishy, very low HP mage frame to run in gung ho and start trying to act like it's suddenly a warrior. The scene is rather cute, but the fact that it normally results in the puppet dying is annoying.

With the current system, Scanner will detect resist rates, so by using a Scanner it should make it so your automaton does not cast this.
However, if there is even a small chance that the monster uses magic, the automaton will start to cast silence. The chance of there being a bug related to this isn’t impossible, so we will be checking on this.

Also, if you have any feedback such as “I don’t want silence to be cast on enemies that are highly resistant to silence” (ex: Make it so it doesn’t cast silence when the resist rate is over 60%) please make sure to let us know.

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NPC fellows do not cast silence on crabs, beetles, DRK type skeletons, or any other mob that has mp but doesn't use it. The fact that the puppet does cast on said mobs is what we want fixed. Also, I would think that wanting the puppet to know not to cast silence on something that's highly resistant or immune to silence would go hand in hand with said desire :/

Actually, given that puppet -seems- to know when not to cast something that will be resisted in terms of elemental/dark magic, wouldn't it make sense for the puppet to already have the same behavior for enfeebles?

We are looking into changing the automaton behavior. Since this is something that we have received a lot of feedback about we will be looking into it, but since the workings of the automaton logic are so complex it will take some time.

I'm sure you're well aware, but this desire for cure focusing stems from the fact that for some silly reason, our puppets become homicidal towards us if we fight against something that likes to use enfeebling magic. By this, I mean that if I am at 5% HP, while still having the monster's attention, and being blind, if my puppet is about to cast a spell on me, it will not cast Cure VI. It won't cast Cure I. No matter what I'm fighting, no matter how badly injured I am, my puppet absolutely HAS to cast blindna on me first. There is no exception to this rule. None. This applies to all -na able status effects. THAT is the problem, and one that pup has been asking to have fixed since the release of the soulsoother head.

I can respect that it's a complex issue, but it's something we've been reporting as a bug since 2006, and we have never received a "that your puppet wants to make sure your not blind, even if it costs you your life is how we intended it to work" response. I'm sorry if I sound a little ungrateful, but 5 years to fix an obvious bug that has been complained and talked about throughout said 5 years is somewhat... absurd :/

Also, while I'm at it, it would be GREATLY appreciated if you guys could look in to lowering the HP%/MP% that trigger Soulreaver's aspir/drain priority. They are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to high, and now that we have Aspir II, letting the soulreaver puppet sit out (rather than using deactivate/activate, which isn't always a useable strategy) is pointless, because after the second nuke, it spends the next hour casting aspir II, then Aspir, then aspir II, then aspir, then aspir II, then aspir, and occasionally, if you're lucky, you'll get one nuke between 3-4 aspir volleys. All of this despite the fact that the puppet is sitting on 74% mp after 2 nukes... And PLEASE don't try to fix this with an attachment, there's not room for another attachment in the nuking set up.

We plan on revamping attachment stats, so there is a possibility that we make it so that there is no consumption of maneuvers. This doesn’t mean that we will be adjusting every attachment for this, but we will be looking at each one separately. If you have any feedback please let us know!

I'll wait and see how this turns out, I'm not sure whether it sounds promising or worrisome. However, if you make it so eraser only consumes light maneuvers I'd be a pretty happy galka.

We will be performing adjustments on attachments that need adjusting as necessary.

Same answer as the last one? I guess it's basically the same question, though. By the way, can you please tell us what in the world Tactical Processor is/was supposed to do aside from make our puppet overload? It's one of the original attachments, and despite that we still have absolutely no idea what it does, because any and every logical conclusion that can be drawn from it's description has been tested and found to be unaffected by the attachment. Was there some purpose to it that managed to escape our imaginations, or is it just bugged?

We are thinking about making adjustments in the form of attachments, not on the automaton or puppetmaster side. For example, how does implementing Strobe II sound?

Strobe II sounds pretty pointless since if a puppet is going to tank it's going to need to be able to do decent damage, and adding another fire attachment for a small hate spike is counter-productive to that (Tension Springs I and II and attuner are important to maximizing valoredge's damage output, and losing any of them for strobe isn't going to help VE keep hate)

Currently, we are thinking more in the direction of implementing superior lubricant, such as Lubricant +3, instead of directly increasing the physical resistance.

oh, please for the love of god, no more consumables. Repair is already horrible on inventory space, and annoyingly expensive (though it's a lot better than it used to be <3), and on top of that I normally carry 5-6 different sets of gear for my pup, all of which are frequently used, the last thing I need is MORE consumables to buff my pet.

First we will be revamping attachments that need adjustments. After that we will take a look at the balance and look into this.

ok, well, do make sure TO look into this, because sharpshot takes way to long between shots. It's pretty bad that the ranger based puppet has to melee if it is to do any respectable amount of damage.

We definitely understand. Since automatons are different than player characters, and it is difficult to adjust the positioning of the automaton, we are looking into easing up or even eliminating the distance factor.

Wait, I thought you guys fixed this already O.o

The damage is calculated as a special WS, however, we will be looking into making this easier to use while making use of its special properties since we hear a lot of people saying it keeps doing zero damage…

Please do something about it. The ws calculates damage based on the amount of HP the very squishy mage frame that can and will heal itself is missing. Everything about that is counterproductive and redundant. The last thing any pup wants is for their mp intensive mage frame to be losing HP since that means deactivating will cause a headache of the 20 minute activate timer (that is really way to long) or dealing with deus-repair-praythepuppetdoesn'tgethit-deactivate-activate-praythepuppetdoesntgethit. I mean, even if it was just based on the amount of MP missing instead of HP, it'd be useful.

Ok, I've said my peace. I'm definitely happy to see the devs responding to us, and I'm glad to see some of the things that need fixed will get fixed.

p.s. I do not like you, 10000 character limit. You suppress my innate wordiness!

[Mercilessturtle]

Wait, I thought you guys fixed this already O.o

They removed the acc penalty, but not the attack penalty. At least, the patch notes said they removed the acc penalty, I haven't tested to be sure that is true. I have tested the attack penalty however, and it is definitely still there.