Avatar AI problems that need to be addressed

[Tarage]

Hi SE,

I just read a nice long post about the grievances made my Puppetmasters about their automation and I felt something needed to be said about the basic AI of avatars.

While it is true that Avatar usefulness has been improving steadily over the last few years, there are still MAJOR bugs in the AI of the Avatars and Spirits themselves. I won't get into Spirits today, since they are far too underused to be of any worth in the immediate future. Here are the problems that I see:

1. Avatar aggression is very badly handled. There are many times where I have run up to an enemy, used my attack macro, and had my lagging behind Avatar simply float up to me and do nothing. Not to mention that because of the cool down, I have to twiddle my thumbs before I can say "Hey, Avatar, go attack that thing like I asked you to the first time." This is HIGHLY annoying and should be fixed.

2. Another problem with aggression is the behavior an Avatar displays when attacking a monster showing aggression towards a player. All too often in situations where there are multiple slept enemies I have had my avatar go and attack one of them. I can spam the retreat command, but it ignores me to the point where I have to unsummon and resummon. If I tell an Avatar not to attack, it should not attack until I tell it otherwise.

3. Let me start off by saying thank you for fixing the problem of mobs being out of range when using a blood pact attack. However, the problem still rears it's head when a mob dies before the avatar can finish their attack. If this occurs, the timer should be reset. I shouldn't have to stand and wait another 45 seconds because my avatar took too long to attack and now the mob is dead. This is silly.

These are three easy fixes that would go miles to improving the job. I'm not asking for much here.

[Korpg]

1. Wait until your avatar catches up to you before hitting Assault? It is not that hard.

2. This is not a problem, this is a shining example as to why SMNs are so great at what they do. Having the avatar attack a mob that has aggression towards you is the pinnacle of kiting. Otherwise we would be endangering ourselves to have to hit assault each time we resummon an avatar.

3. Ok, you got one problem right. 1/3 "problems" isn't that bad, but isn't that great either.

Only 1 thing needs to be fixed, you probably have not been a SMN that long by the looks of it. Besides, what slept mob would have hate on you anyway?

[Tarage]

1. Wait until your avatar catches up to you before hitting Assault? It is not that hard.

Except that avatar pathing is pretty bad in some cases. Those few seconds of waiting for your Avatar to meander to you can cost you in some fights.

2. This is not a problem, this is a shining example as to why SMNs are so great at what they do. Having the avatar attack a mob that has aggression towards you is the pinnacle of kiting. Otherwise we would be endangering ourselves to have to hit assault each time we resummon an avatar.

You misunderstood me. I am not saying 'Get rid of avatars attacking things that attack us'. I'm saying 'If I tell my Avatar not to attack, I want it not to attack.' Make it a separate command if you want. There are times when I am using an Avatar for favor to support mages and I don't want it running away from me.

3. Ok, you got one problem right. 1/3 "problems" isn't that bad, but isn't that great either.

Only 1 thing needs to be fixed, you probably have not been a SMN that long by the looks of it. Besides, what slept mob would have hate on you anyway?

I've been a SMN since before CoP. I did the solo fork fights all by myself. Trust me on this, I know what I'm talking about. Even if a mob is slept, if I cure the person who slept the mob, my avatar WILL attack the slept mob. The avatar AI is only smart enough to perceive hate, not judge if there is an actual threat from a slept mob. The second I get high enough on that hate list, BOOM, it attacks.

I'm just offering three small fixes here. Trying to get Bahamut or what have you is a lot less realistic.

[Korpg]

Except that avatar pathing is pretty bad in some cases. Those few seconds of waiting for your Avatar to meander to you can cost you in some fights.

Pathing is a problem, but costing fights, never really happened to me before. Costing claims, yeah.

You misunderstood me. I am not saying 'Get rid of avatars attacking things that attack us'. I'm saying 'If I tell my Avatar not to attack, I want it not to attack.' Make it a separate command if you want. There are times when I am using an Avatar for favor to support mages and I don't want it running away from me.

So, basically, you are asking for a "Stay" command, or really, just "Follow."

That is ok I guess. Not really needed, but still ok.

I've been a SMN since before CoP. I did the solo fork fights all by myself. Trust me on this, I know what I'm talking about. Even if a mob is slept, if I cure the person who slept the mob, my avatar WILL attack the slept mob. The avatar AI is only smart enough to perceive hate, not judge if there is an actual threat from a slept mob. The second I get high enough on that hate list, BOOM, it attacks.

I'm just offering three small fixes here. Trying to get Bahamut or what have you is a lot less realistic.

I'm guessing you are telling the truth about being a SMN before CoP even though I thought it came out when CoP came out, but I could be wrong (I'm an XBOX beta tester, I came with ToAU).

But still, don't cure the person who slept the mob. They can cure themselves. You shouldn't be on the hate list at all for all the slept mobs, nor should you be back-seat curing people who can cure themselves (BLMs have no excuse, they can Drain mobs being fought at the very least).

[Tarage]

Costing anything is a problem. What if your avatar is attacking something else and you need it to attack what's hitting you? Having your avatar float over to you and do nothing while you die is a problem.

The Einherjar example I gave in the other thread is a PERFECT example of why a stay command IS needed. Ignore it if you want. And saying 'the one who slept the mobs can cure themselves' is stupid. Asking a BLM to cure themselves is like asking a WAR to cure themselves. It's not their job. The job of a SMN is to support. If you don't cure people, you are playing SMN wrong.

Summoner came out before RotZ. CoP was the only expansion without any new jobs. RotZ added the cloisters.

[Korpg]

Costing anything is a problem. What if your avatar is attacking something else and you need it to attack what's hitting you? Having your avatar float over to you and do nothing while you die is a problem.

If my avatar is attacking something else and I need it to attack what is hitting me, I hit retreat. The avatar will automatically go and rescue my rump while I run away. Then I learn not to get aggro like that again, until I forget and get aggro like that again.

The Einherjar example I gave in the other thread is a PERFECT example of why a stay command IS needed. Ignore it if you want. And saying 'the one who slept the mobs can cure themselves' is stupid. Asking a BLM to cure themselves is like asking a WAR to cure themselves. It's not their job. The job of a SMN is to support. If you don't cure people, you are playing SMN wrong.

Einherjar example on what thread? I'm sorry, but I don't go around following you. You should quote yourself for that in this case. Cause I'm not going to go look for it. Also, you are being obtuse. Name me one example as to how a BLM will not have access to cure during an event. Especially one that they have to be on sleeping duty. Then again....why? Why is it not the BLMs job to cure themselves? If they want to survive, they should do so. WAR does not have any ability to give themselves more HP, so they cannot cure themselves. SMN is not a main healer, and at very limited times, they are sub healers. BP:Ws only really. Why should a job be determined by the subjob it brings?

Summoner came out before RotZ. CoP was the only expansion without any new jobs. RotZ added the cloisters.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Tarage]

I guess since you weren't around before ToAU you don't know how bad it used to be for SMN. The way I got to 75 was by main healing. Back then, avatars barely did anything, there was no split between rage and ward, and we were expected to heal and do nothing else. The stigma is still there.

If you are playing SMN in a support capacity, you need to be healing. SMN have an incredible pool of MP and not using that is harmful to your alliance. Often times BLMs need to focus on nuking specific mobs and keeping others asleep. Asking them to also cure themselves is often too much. I don't know how many BLMs you have worked with, but the point is SMN should be the one curing, ESPECIALLY if we are in avatar favor mode. We shouldn't be attacking because that resets the favor tic counter, and there isn't much else to do at that point.

Even if you are right, and the BLM should be curing, the point still stands. If a mob is asleep and I am getting hate, my avatar should NOT go attack it unless I say to attack it. It's a big problem.

[Malamasala]

If a mob is asleep and I am getting hate, my avatar should NOT go attack it unless I say to attack it. It's a big problem.

I wouldn't mind some slight AI update to make them avoid slept mobs. Shouldn't be that hard to program.

[Sasaraixx]

2. This is not a problem, this is a shining example as to why SMNs are so great at what they do.

Besides, what slept mob would have hate on you anyway?

To be fair, Tarage does have a point. Avatar's auto-attacking monsters is great, but you should have the ability to turn it off or a Stay command. It's not a huge problem, but there are times when it can be annoying. Sea is an example of this. Luckily, SE has not added more mobs that behave like gold fish (or rather that our avatars react to).

And there are times when you will need to heal someone and that might cause you to pull hate from a slept mob. That has happened while healing in an alliance with the puller in my party. I could wait for someone else in another party to heal her but they might be busy or not paying attention and as the person is in my party it is my responsibility. This can usually be dealt with by sending your avatar to attack a mob that is being fought. The attack command takes presidence over auto-attack. The few times that may not be an option you will have to Release.

I've never done Einherjar so I don't know what that example could be.

It's not a major issue but just an occasional annoyance. If our favors were worth using at we had need to keep our avatars out, but not engaged then I would be more interested in this being addressed. Sadly, they are not so I'm not so bothered by it. There are more pressing matters that need to be addressed with our avatars.

[Tannlore]

On the Auto-attack problem, I've been beating that dead horse since the game came out. My suggestion has been the same and taken from other mmos as far back as EQ frankly:

Pet modes: Have an option to set your avatar on passive or aggressive. If passive, it will not auto-attack. Problem solved. If aggressive, it will auto-attack as it does now.

I hated summoning my avatars back in the old dynamis days after the blm had done sleepgas on big pulls and I had hate from curing. only to summon an avatar and have it float off and start waking things up and watching blm drop like flies. Though.... I was a master of MPK in those respects