Pet aggro too low?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Foxhorde, Nov 1, 2018.

  1. Foxhorde

    Foxhorde People Like Me

    Messages:
    258
    I never played eq when luclin was the farthest exspansion but am I the only one that feels pet aggro is way to low? Using necro or mage pet to tank with haste mask and haste’s pet. I’ll get aggroed in my second dot, and that’s using my lower aggro dots forget trying Blood of thuule.

    Yes I am waiting before I start using dots 20-40 seconds. And I’m not chain casting dots.

    My enchanter will get aggro off a tash tick at times.

    Pull send pet, wait 30-45 seconds tash, (sometimes get aggro) 15 seconds later chanter is summoned?

    I feel like pets should be able to put aggro one dot if given a 30 second head start to build aggro
     
  2. Cadsuane

    Cadsuane People Like Me

    Messages:
    815
    With no proof, Id say agro has issues.
    Specifically, merely sending my pet at a mob that has agro on a melee, while I am sitting, should not result in the mob charging me.
     
    Tiny likes this.
  3. Haynar

    Haynar Administrator

    Messages:
    3,637
    I have seen this with a player in melee range. One PC in melee range. A sitting player sends in pet. Mob beelines for the sitting player.

    I agree this is not how I remember it.
     
    Tiny, Tryfan and John Stark like this.
  4. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    3,166
    If you get onto a mob's hate list and sit down, it's going to come after you if nobody has enough hate to overcome the sit bonus. Sending your pet in is a way of getting onto the hate list. I think this is AKurate and also don't see how it could work any other way.
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2018
  5. Haynar

    Haynar Administrator

    Messages:
    3,637
    If i pull with sk hate spell. I should be able to send in shaman pet without having shaman stand. As long as i dont pull over top of shaman.
     
    John Stark and lurari like this.
  6. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    2,742
    Sit aggro after pet attacking is how it works on Live. I don't see how this could be changed without making sit aggro meaningless, which makes me think it's always been this way. Sit aggro varies depending on the max hitpoints of the NPC.

    As for pet melee hate: I got boxed into a corner on this, and I can't really see how it could be considerably higher. Pet stun procs right now do only 100 hate, (they used to do only 40 hate until recently) and stunning/beastlord pets are still doing hate near that of players. If I jacked up pet melee hate, I run into the problem of NPCs not summoning players again. Also I have logs of charmed NPCs not preventing summoning, and if I increased NPC melee hate, it would become possible for these same NPCs to prevent summoning.

    So if I jack up pet melee hate, then I gotta make their procs do no hate AND I have to make charmed pet hate different than summoned pets to make it (somewhat) fit observed behavior. I suppose it's possible that pet procs had some weird logic, since beastlord -hate procs have a stun component, but that's not how Live works. If I set pet stun hate to equal that of player procs, beastlord pets end up doing crazy amounts of aggro since they proc 7 times a minute. I capped it at 100 instead of lower (the +hate portion stacks though) so stun procs would actually do something.
     
  7. Cadsuane

    Cadsuane People Like Me

    Messages:
    815
    Happens out of mele range also. I have put a /stand in my hotkey for pet attack.
     
  8. John Stark

    John Stark People Like Me

    Messages:
    196
    I didn't play on AK server, so I only have Live experience to go from. I honestly can't remember aggro going onto a pet owner simply from sending the pet in to attack while sitting when no other spells, attacks, heals, and so on were made by the pet owner.

    This has happened to my wife on her Sham when sending in pet, and my son as well on his mage. I pull with my SK, my bard and SK are in melee (and maybe my daughter's pally), and my wife and son send in pets without casting any other spell, attacking or buffing or healing, or even sitting down (i.e., they were already sitting during and after the pull), and a mob or mobs head straight at them.

    As an aside, I've also seen a pulled mob/mobs head right for a sitting caster even though they were not in melee range, had not attacked/buffed/healed etc. When there is room, we always have casters sitting back while the melees fight away from the group, and yet sometimes on pulls mobs head straight for sitting players even though they do no have proximity aggro, have made no attacks/buffs/heals etc. My wife's Sham, my son's mage, and my daughter's cleric have all pulled aggro merely from being in a sitting position during/after the pull.

    I know from pulling with an SK on Live that pulling with either a hate spell, or even snare, that casters away from where we were in melee would never pull aggro from my SK simply because they were sitting unless.

    I suspect the pet causing aggro to a sitting caster has more to do with aggro from sitting than it does the sending of the pet.
     
  9. Tuluvien

    Tuluvien I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    1,085
    I pull on my ranger with snare or flame lick and then engage in melee. My sham sends in pet while sitting. As long as pet taunt is off he has no problems unless he is in melee range.

    I have not witnessed this unless I'm either too close or taunt is on.
     
    Hoodlum likes this.
  10. Cadsuane

    Cadsuane People Like Me

    Messages:
    815
    Flame lick is over 1200 aggro due to the AC debuff. It's a good one. The issues I see are with pure meles that don't have that benefit.
     
    Tuluvien likes this.
  11. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    2,742
    When you say 'Live' you'll have to say which era, because 'Live' (circa 2015) is what I reproduced.

    A few notes to keep in mind:

    * SK hate spells are a flat hate value, and non-damaging detrimental spells are not. (e.g. Snare) Meaning, snare will often do more hate than a SK terror spell, depending on mob HP. Snare will do over twice the hate as Terror of Terris on a 18k+ hp mob.

    * An aggro NPC with nobody in melee range will give small hate bonuses to nearby players (who are on the hate list) scaled to distance.

    * Animals will ignore (reduce to 1 point anyway) the hate from the first spell you cast on them.

    * Some NPCs (particularly undead) will aggro on nearby players if you pull them over players.

    * The hate bonus for sitting is equal to a non-damaging detrimental spell or less (depending on mob hp); meaning that if the tank casts a snare or AC debuff or similar spell, and is in melee range, then a sitting player outside melee range who has done 1 hate will not pull the mob. This also means that a single Terror spell cast will be insufficient to overcome sit aggro for many NPCs.
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2018
  12. Mokli

    Mokli I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    2,455
    That's my experience, Torven. Its easy to pull mobs with an AC tap through a bunch of sitting PC's without the mob batting an eye. Terror line hate is so low I rarely use it, sadly.
     
  13. John Stark

    John Stark People Like Me

    Messages:
    196
    My apologies, you are right to ask about era since Live has changed so much since my wife and I played, and Live has been around for so long.

    We mostly stopped playing around 2004. I believe we tried to play a bit in 2005 (but very little) before we officially cancelled our subscriptions.

    I have had mobs (on this server) aggro sitting casters who had only sent in their pets even after pulling with snare. Snare is my typical pull tool, unless there are long distances for the mobs to run, which would make it longer to get kills to the camp. In that case, I pull with something else. That being said, even on a long pull, I will typically try to snare the mob once I reach camp for the aggro it generates, and resnare before it runs (undead and other non-runners excepted).

    I say for sure that up until 2004, I had never experienced aggro from a sitting caster sending a pet in on a mob that had already been engaged on Live. How EQ works on Live now is beyond me.

    Now, I do completely understand that a pet attack is going to put the pet owner on the hate list, and any other action (healing, buffing, etc.) might draw aggro from that point (besides proximity of course). I can even appreciate that sit aggro generates more hate than standing, to make things a bit more challenging. I honestly don't know how strong (or weak) pet aggro should be in terms of a pet holding aggro while engaged (the point of the OP), so my comments were mostly an aside to suggest that sit aggro may be the culprit, rather than pet aggro (in the sense of a pet holding aggro when engaged with a mob).

    It may be that sit aggro is higher on this server, or was higher on the original AK server, which is fine. In the era that I played though, sending in the pet while sitting or sitting after the mob was in camp, did not draw aggo that I can recall, and my wife says the same thing.

    Its not a huge deal, as it keeps us on our toes, but we did not experience that on Live ever while playing our duo or trio.
     
  14. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    2,742
    This is possible and intended if the puller is not in melee range and the sitter is closer than the puller.

    There have been several threads over the years of people swearing up and down that such and such hate behavior never happened even when strong evidence clearly shows otherwise. The current behavior is very unlikely to change unless Daybreak brings up a new server derived from AK's code allowing us to prove that certain behaviors were modified.
     
  15. pharmakos

    pharmakos People Like Me

    Messages:
    439
    This definitely happens with the puller in melee range and the pet owner out of melee range tho. And is fixed by just standing up when sending pet and then sitting down after it's first hit, which seems odd.
     
    John Stark likes this.
  16. John Stark

    John Stark People Like Me

    Messages:
    196
    Yep.
     
    Cadsuane likes this.
  17. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    2,742
    He said he had casted a snare with the puller. If it's happening after casting a snare then it's not intended.
     
  18. pharmakos

    pharmakos People Like Me

    Messages:
    439
    happens after pulling non-animals with a stun on my paladin, too. been happening for a long time, even.
     
  19. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    2,742
    You'll have to provide video of it or something, because I cannot replicate it
     
  20. Devour_Souls

    Devour_Souls People Like Me

    Messages:
    583
    Torven,

    Not to derail, but we are on the subject of aggro. On AK, and on old school PC Everquest, there was a certain amount of randomness to aggro. I don't know that something is missing, but it sure seems to be. An example, I pull a Krup in Sebilis with shadow vortex, I tash it on its way to camp, I chanter slow it, sit and the mob makes a beeline for the chanter, one more SV and it's right back on my SK. And this behavior is 100 percent repeatable. While this behavior is AKurate, for the most part, there should be a certain amount of randomness to it. That course of events was not 100% reproducible on AK. It would work that way 8 out 10 times perhaps, I'm totally pulling that number out of my ass. I spent two days in the crypt of Sebilis one thanksgiving(cause I'm a loser and have no friends or family) just doing the four corners and the emporer, so I was doing the same mobs over and over and over. I remember specifically, and meticulously playing meta games with aggro and seeing some different behaviors while doing the exact same actions. So I'm certain about the randomness of it.

    Also in PoV pulling with fear, tashing on incoming, and then snaring with SK, then immediately slowing would sometimes pull aggro onto the chanter and sometimes it would not. Sometimes it would produce enough aggro onto the chanter that it would take 2 more snare/fear type spells to regain aggro on the SK. For the most part, 8 out of 10 times(pulling numbers out of the ether again) the chanter would not pull aggro. Just something to consider.
     
  21. necra

    necra People Like Me

    Messages:
    606
    Could this be linked to mobs spawning a slightly different levels and how aggro works with level difference (not sure if this is a thing)
     
  22. Bum

    Bum I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    2,647
    Just revamp hate to randomly memblur, allow 1/10 to summon, set player classes at varied hate levels(mobs go straight for clerics).
     
  23. Mokli

    Mokli I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    2,455
    Personally, I feel randomness on AK would have been some type of hate bug.
     
  24. Devour_Souls

    Devour_Souls People Like Me

    Messages:
    583
    Can't really argue the notion. But old school PC EQ had the same randomness. I played ranger/shaman/cleric on PC and saw the same behavior then. Just replace what I said about snare/fear and replace with snare/flame lick and sub in shaman for chanter.
     
  25. LoserCard

    LoserCard New Member

    Messages:
    7
    Hi Torven,

    Back to the original topic: I completely agree that something is wrong with either a) Sitting Aggro or b) Initial Pet Aggro Generation.

    Backstory: I have been playing EQ since 2000, created a Magician some time in 2001 and played a Magician off and on until 2017 and never did I have to include in my macros a /stand,/pet attack,/sit hotkey. I could be as lazy as I wanted solo or grouped and just /pet attack all day while sitting. Now if the MT didn't generate enough aggro before my first nuke, I was guaranteed aggro, but it never solely based on my pet attacking. I challenge you to find a forum post with Magician macros that includes a /stand in their /pet attack macro because I sure can't find any (or even just recommending to stand before pet attacking).

    You mention that tweaking pet aggro generation through melee and procs is boxed in a corner due to summoning hate list mechanics, but perhaps it has something to do with initial pet hate generation (upon entering the hate list). What is the hate calculation of pets entering the hate list before the PC? Is this the same as PCs entering the hate list? Perhaps it should be boosted.
     
  26. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

    Messages:
    2,742
     
    Slayzz, showstring, Draeko and 4 others like this.
  27. LoserCard

    LoserCard New Member

    Messages:
    7
    Correct me if I am wrong but is that video taken from Live?
     
  28. Devour_Souls

    Devour_Souls People Like Me

    Messages:
    583
    The title is "Live pet sit aggro".
     
  29. Haynar

    Haynar Administrator

    Messages:
    3,637
    pwn’d
     
  30. LoserCard

    LoserCard New Member

    Messages:
    7
    Hi Torven, thanks for the video. I confirmed this on Live as well and it matches your video. Not discredit your knowledge on the subject (and the reason I confirmed @Devour_Souls) but basing pet aggro and behavior post 2015/2016 might not be AKurate since pet aggro underwent a major revamp at that time. They introduced Pet Tanking, removed Root Proximity Prioritization, and tweaked pet aggro (across all servers) due to the introduction of Mitigation of the Mighty wiping pet classes first on Progression server raids. Who knows what else they had changed to accommodate Pet Tanking and MotM.

    Based on the responses to this post it seems to be pretty unanimous that players do not recall standing on pulls prior to 2015, especially after a mob is engaged by the MT.

    Also, I challenged you to find forum posts or guides that recommend standing when siccing pet. The reason I asked for this is due to how much has changed regarding pet aggro since 2015. I feel like Magician/Necro/Beastlord guides would make it a point to say STAND if it was in fact the existing functionality. I see lots of posts regarding not pulling aggro due by delaying nuking, but none regarding /pet attack while sitting or mentions of /assist,/stand,/pet attack,/sit.

    I have a theory (no data to back it) that perhaps PCs (prior to 2015) were not added to the hate list until interacting with the pulled mob (pet attacking excluded). Do you have any historical data to show if PCs were added to a hate list with pet only interaction? Would this be somehow related to pet pulling techniques such as green pet pulling through social mobs or pet only kills preventing adds on Live back in the day?