Automaton AI Customization

[Kajikuro]

I am a newer puppetmaster so i dont have much experience to speak from, but in my experience there is some adjustments to the AI i would like to see.

Valoredge: Works fine as far as ive seen, just run up and stab slash and beat away at the mob as it should.

Sharpshot: I know that the range from the Target that the automation is deployed dictates its actions, but when the situation changes, the auto does not continue as he was told in that if the mob move within his melee range he begins to melee even when he is not the mobs target. there are situations which i wish i could avoid that before it begins mearly with a system to set it up to give him prime directives as simple as "Keep your distance" so that when the mob moves towards him he will intern move away and continue long range bombardment unless he moves to the top of the enmity list, at which time he will hold his position in an attempt to give a chance for his enmity control may be take by somone else if they decide too (as him continuing his directive of distance would lead to an unbalanced abillity to kite mobs as a result of its directive) or "move in and attack" which as it sounds mean move into range to melee for tp and such as normal. This is the Ranger frame so therefore it should in my opinion be able to be given a directive to keep itself away from the enemys AoE range or away from melee range as i, the puppet master, prescribe. This is an attempt to keep my automation being effective in a way i divine as most beneficial to the situation so i dont have him fumbling around by having to recall him and try and determine where to place him to have him be of use to the party.

Stormwalker: As far as the deployment method goes, i believe the same as the one above would service fine. The only problem i have here is that i would like to decide which school of magic he focuses on more that just by controlling my Maneuvers . For example, in this abyssean age there are many mobs that are effected by few enfeebling magics and some that are basicly unfazed by them, if i could only tell him "Focus on healing us" or "Elemental magic should be your focus" and "Disrupt its ability to fight us" and "Keep me at fighting strengh (to remove debuffs and use enhancing magic)" or things of the sort

Soulsoother/Spritreever: These head units are already given a prime directive and follow it relatively well apart from the choice to give SS a prime directive to heal over all else which i dont think would cause as many unbalanced problems as it seems, on the grounds that it cant be gained untill lvl 40+ and if it is focusing on throwing out cures when it can then it will quickly expend it MP and the master will be forced to find a solution, to the to easy solution of its HP being full therefore a master having the option to deactivate and activate to restore MP for unlimated healing power then, on the SS head piece specifically, it could be implemented that unless both HP and MP of the SS auto build are at 100% and/or only the HP of the auto is at 100% then a 45sec-1 minute recast be put on activate to compensate for the MP that could be abused. Similar things could be used on the SR head. The last thing about these frames is a Directive choice between "Use your MP wisely" saving his MP till he decides it is nessacry to act, or "Go all out with your MP" to get him to do as one would expect.

Again these are not intended to make maneuvers useless but mainly specify the automation to a situation better so that they are more effective as i really enjoy PUP and it is the pet job that i want to pursue but i want it to be able to hold up to the bst which throw wave after wave of mindless jug pets that only attack and use tp moves when dirrected and have no other real purpose but tactical cannon fodder, or smn which have a near endless waves themselves that they can throw at the enemy or they can keep them back to heal enhance and protect them as they see fit, while my automation (the pet job with the longest recast timer to bring out there pet and should have the strongest connection to there pet since it is something that they control, setup and must relies on to survive and help them for the longest amount of time before another can be summoned) stand there any watches me be mauled to death and just stands there, or knows that he or i have low hp and that he has the means by which to fix that but will not do so untill he is sent after an enemy instead of him jumping into the air and using "Healing ruby maneuver" or something of the sort without him deciding "I know you used light maneuvers in an attempt to get me to heal you/i buuuuuuuuuuut..... Ima dia that dragon that you deployed me after in the hope that you could retrieve me before i did something like dia it just because i want to" or even just throwing themselves mindlessly into harms why despite the intentions of how and or where it was deployed and which maneuvers have been used to dirrect its actions/job traits/job abillity even further and disregarding how i intended to use him best to just run blindly at the enemy even if i just wanted him to heal me or stand back and shoot/nuke so that he wouldnt run head first into the the Blizzaga IV that just killed him and all the other pets while the bst and smn have new and fully ready pets near instantly and i have to bring back my auto in an unsound state with low hp and mp and rest or do other things to get him back to fighting strengh (waist time when he should have a better or = survival rate and/or redeployment rate as the other pet jobs)

These are the things that i have noticed about the AI of the automation that i think could be improved in the ways described above or in some other way that could better improve the usefullness and survival rate of his job and bring it into a new age of enjoyment.

Reminding that this is all my opinion and understanding of things and not me saying that i am correct or am better than any other person in anyway ^.^

This is all that i could pull off the top of my head so i hope that this or some other measures may be implemented so that i may continue and expand my enjoyment now and in the future as a puppetmaster

[Alhanelem]

the auto does not continue as he was told in that if the mob move within his melee range he begins to melee even when he is not the mobs target.

I don't know why so many people insist on keeping the sharpshot at range. Unless you can't keep it alive otherwise with the tools available to you and your party, you should have it in melee range and it should be meleeing so it gets more TP. The automaton ranged attacks way too slow to not have it melee for TP.

If you absolutely can't have it up close because of too many AoEs, then really the mage frame is your best bet. If you have to restrain sharpshot to keep it alive, then you're not doing as much damage as you can with it.

HOWEVER, if you DO want to keep it at range, and the mob moves out of range, the auto should only close to ranged attack range instead of rushing in (I've noticed the behavior in this situation seems inconsistent though...)

[Kajikuro]

The reason i say that the PUP should be given a choice is because there are situations wear the sharpshot frame should not close to melee range. One example being that in places like WoE were 1 shoting AoE happen often and id rather the auto build tp from a range with proper Fire Attachments and land quick accurate shots with Wind to WS often enough so that i can avoid using a mage auto against high lvl magic resistant mobs like that and have the ability to chose what is best and have him act appropriately . A second example is that during a Turul fight with a Smn friend, i didnt have time amid AoE's to properly distance the my auto so i deployed at max range, to which he (automaton) ran up and started whaling on a shock spiked Turul taking a large amount of damage before i realized what he was doing and called him off and being forced to switch to Spiritreaver, which despite using a scanner, decided to often cast Thunder V on Turul. So im not saying that it is something that should always be used but against mobs that magic does little too and a melee puppet will kill itself attacking a mob with strong spikes or aura the option would provide a reasonable way to make the auto act appropriately to the situation.

[Alhanelem]

The reason i say that the PUP should be given a choice is because there are situations wear the sharpshot frame should not close to melee range.

In virtually all of those situaitons, you should be switching to the BLM head and frame.

Sharpshot gains TP like a lethargic sloth in a drunken stupor when left out of melee range.

[esoR]

in the situation he gave, he tried blm frame and it didnt work. which supports the argument for changing the placement behavior for the sharpshot. in theory, SS should stay at range shooting, in practice, this doesnt work as well (yet). in my experience, sharpshot has never been my goto frame, even though it's my favorite. either it's too hard to keep alive, to in-accurate, or too slow to deal dmg versus VE or SR.

not sure if there's a better playstyle to keep SS more effective, but in high aoe situations, it just doesnt have the sustainability through all our healing methods that even SR (blm) has. it puts itself in danger by running into aoe range constantly or meleeing for tp, it caps hate way too fast, and requires so much attention that it lowers your overall dps worrying about it. all these factors lead me to doing one of 3 things. either dont melee and keep repositioning it, actively run around moving mobs while meleeing, or simply switch to a more effective frame that syncs with my play style.

/side note
i think we should take some responsibility to keep our pets safe, and not just leave them in harms way, but i agree they should be more defensive in non melee positioning. i think that's a little harder to code though, starting from point A moving to target C is the current system. if its ranger or mage it stops at point B ( minimum attack range.) the issue being aside from manual correction, there's no way for it to know when to retreat from point C, back to B for some reason. though if there was a way, the puppet would probably just run away constantly until retrieved.

thats atleast an idea for an attachment. seeing as basic functions seem to be implemented that way... (scanner,damage gauge, tactical processor)

radar or sonar would work for the name <.<

[Anza]

In virtually all of those situaitons, you should be switching to the BLM head and frame.

Sharpshot gains TP like a lethargic sloth in a drunken stupor when left out of melee range.

I agree 100% with your point that in the current state, you should use Spiritreaver in these situations where you want the puppet at range.

However, I've always wished Sharpshot acted more RNG-like. My ideal situation would be to have the puppet stay at range, but ALSO adjust the damage potential from staying at range. E.g. increase rate of ranged attacks, adjust some attachments (say, Drum Magazine acting like Snapshot), maybe even give the frame some amount of innate regain. Balance would ideally be about the same DoT as the frame can produce currently with melee strikes plus WS/Ranged attacks.

S-E got RNG away from the 2004 style of meleeing for TP and firing off ranged WS, but our automatons still act like these very old school RNGs. Would be cool to me to see them focusing on shooting stuff instead of clubbing it with their arms and blasting away with point blank WS. And it would differentiate Sharpshot and Valoredge a bit more. I still think it's a bit misguided to keep trying (and not really succeeding) at halfhearted attempts to improve VE's tanking ability. Just let it be the melee DD, and make Sharpshot truly a ranged DD.

[xbobx]

I love VE more then SS. I think part is because his weaponskill plays nicely with my set. We have an emp katana and dagger in set and I dont have VS yet. So was we are all spamming ws you tend to see lots of dark chains one after another. The 2k+ extra dmg adds up fast and we tend to take down mobs very fast. VE's ws tends to do almost as much dmg as SS, tbh, I am not sure in my situation SS does more damage.

[esoR]

SS always does the most (physical) spike damage, but overall, i think VE out damages it in time. in the previous job manifesto, SE stated that they wanted VE to rival pld in tanking abilities, or something close to that. it doesn't have the self healing, but it will have pdt, better defense, an ok shield block rate, shield bash, provoke/flash, and weapon skills that increase its enmity. overall VE's tanking abilities are pretty decent, as they need to be.. since each pet job that isnt drg, uses one of its pets to tank things on occasion.

[Dfoley]

I feel that if you get SS to deploy to melee range 100% of the time, you will see it far out damages VE, but thats not practical without slightly gimping SS by using VE head.

[Dfoley]

Check the feedback thread on test server.

They updated cure AI to prioritizes with just 1 light maneuver. Didnt want to make a new thread since last time it got moved to feed back ><